Prolog
1315 hours, 4 November,
2003
Tokyo, Japan
Hidetori Momoshi walked
out of the Takabashi Station and into the park. Higashi Gyoen Park was one of the most beautiful palace parks in Tokyo. Once the site of Edo Castle when Japan ruled with an iron fist all that she occupied,
it was now a collection of a keep, a defense house, and two guardhouses, the rest destroyed over the years by fire and age. Momoshi lingered by each edifice, thinking of the glory that was Japan when Ieyasu
Tokugawa controlled the land as Shogun and foreign devils were executed if found on these soils.
Crossing the park the elder
statesman and politician, one of the most powerful men in the Diet at this time, crossed the busy Uchibori Dori, one of the
perimeter streets that ringed the park, and continued down Eitai Dori to his destination.
At Hibiya Dori he turned right and walked into a three storied steel and brick office building. Once in the executive elevator he retrieved a small plastic card from his pocket and inserted it into the
slot in the wall. With the exception of an emergency button in the event of earthquake
the small opening was the only marking in the cubical.
Silently the gray haired
man felt the elevator descend to the private meeting room of the Dai Torii Keiritsu, the most powerful conglomeration of business
executives in Japan. When the doors opened he removed his shoes by the sliding
shoji screens and entered the private meeting room. A geisha met him with a warm
towel for his hands and escorted him to his appointed seat. There, waiting for
the others, he sipped Ginseng Tea with Chrysanthemum petals dipped in honey. He
was early but he was never premature.
2115 hours, November 12, 2003
The Junction Box
Charlotte, North Carolina
Her name was
Cathy. In Iceland she would have been considered dark, in Kenya the natives would
have described her as light skinned, and if she had had long blonde hair she would have been the envy of every other woman
on the California coast. She was the kind of woman that was none of the above. Thin, lithe, cat like in her walk, she worked the restaurant like an experienced dancer,
returning each move with one of her own. Her short, shoulder length black hair
was swept back off her face, revealing fine, almost chiseled features. Dark eyes
looked at you from behind perfectly trimmed lashes and brows, only off set by a small steel captive bead ring in the far end
of her left brow. Where others looked cheap, the jewelry enhanced a perfect face.
The man that
followed her was non descript. He was Japanese, at least that much the woman
could tell, and about thirty-five. He wore no hat or coat, although the weather
was chilled for this time of year and his shirt showed small drops of water from the runoff at the entrance. When asked for a preference he said, in perfect English. "Upstairs please, over looking the bar." It was an odd request but an easy one to provide.
The dark skinned girl left the menu with the customer and went about her other duties.
She never thought of him again.
The Japanese
studied the menu for a few moments and then put it on the table. Looking around
the upper deck he could see that all the tables were empty this early in the evening.
Below him there were two elderly gentlemen sitting at the bar, eating salad, and a pair of women at the table directly
beneath him, in front of the large aquarium. He was not interested in the men
at the bar, but the women had his undivided attention. From his vantage point
he could see their reflection from a mirror mounted on the support column in the middle of the restaurant. One of the ladies was young, about thirty five with shoulder length black hair, hanging straight, a gold
clasp over her right ear. He could not tell if she was African American, Black,
or African, nor did he give it much thought.
The other
woman was Hispanic, about sixty, with gray hair tied in a bun and held in place by two gold rods, filigreed with dragons and
snakes. She was dressed in a dinner jacket and skirt, her white silk blouse barely
showing from under the lapels. Although not whispering the two were not loud
in their conversation, which was animated. The man on the top floor continued
to monitor the two until a waitress arrived with a glass of ice water. He noiselessly
handed her an order sheet for tobiko, anago, tako, and kani. The four sea foods
would be served on small pads of rice, wrapped in a ribbon of nori.
Once the waitress
left the table he again looked across the room to the mirror and the two below him.
When he dropped his napkin he slipped a small atomizer from his pocket and laid it on the floor by the railing. The battery powered pump sent a fine mist out from the second floor noiselessly. By the time the spray reached the table below it was little more than chemical laden
dust, too fine or dry to be noticed. As he ate his roe, crab, eel, and octopus
the pump continued to spew out its discharge. Before the waitress returned with
the check the man dropped his napkin a second time, retrieved the pump, and placed it in his pocket. This food here was the best he had ever encountered in the United States.
It was fortuitous that he could combine business with pleasure. As he
stood by the cash register, paying his bill in cash, he could hear the two women shuffle in their seats.
Walking
out the door he briefly stopped to see the older Hispanic lady
attempt to take a deep breath
and fall on the floor. She would be dead before
the ambulance arrived, the
concentrated peanut oil already shutting down her
airways and restricting
her intake of oxygen. Entering the lobby of the Center
City Marriott the Japanese
man in the non-descript clothing heard the sirens of
the 911 call. Twenty minutes later he checked out of his room and was in a
limo on his way to the airport. From his vantage point in the back of the Lincoln he
watched the body of Secretary General elect Dominique Vasquez, Special Mexican Envoy to the United Nations, being loaded
into the ambulance, her face covered.
