The Miko - 02 (42 page)

Alix gave a little scream as he peeled what looked like an oval of skin from the man’s fingertip. He repeated this process nine more times then held the small pile in his palm.

“Know what these are, Alix?” She shook her head wildly. “They’re Idiots. Idiots are print changers. Very sophisticated stuff. I mean your average hood on the street’s light-years away from this kind of equipment.” He did not show it but his stomach had contracted painfully when his keen, eye had spotted the one Idiot beginning to flake off. At first he could not believe it, but now he was coming to understand that that was because he had not wanted to believe it.

Entering into a red sector with preconceived notions was just about the worst of the cardinal sins a detective could commit. And Croaker had to admit that that was what he had done from the outset. His mind had been so set on Tomkin being the villain that no other possibility had entered his mind.

But now with the evidence of the Idiots, the lack of other ID, added to the methodology these two jailers had been using, Croaker saw another possibility forming and he did not like the look of it at all.

“They’re disgusting,” Alix said. “Take them away, they look like slugs.”

He folded the Idiots away, came across the deck toward her. “Alix, who the hell are these guys?”

“I—I don’t know. I’m not—” She turned her head. “I’m confused. I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong anymore.”

He saw the fear and shock in her eyes and he decided not to pursue it at once. It wasn’t doing her much good to be so close to the stiff. He weighed anchor, started up the engine, and swung the boat to starboard, heading in a flat arc back toward his own craft.

Once there, he set the engine in neutral, slung the anchor onto his boat to keep the two craft linked, and climbed over the rail after it. He turned and offered Alix his hand.

Slowly she unwound and as if in a trance came aboard his own boat. “Why don’t you go below and lie down,” he said, gently guiding her to the companionway. “Just relax for a bit.”

After she had disappeared he went to work, transferring the half-gallon plastic container of gas to Alix’s boat, going below-decks with it. When he returned, he took the Red Monster’s corpse and, using his fishing knife, cut out the barbed flechette of the spear. This he threw overboard. Then, manhandling the body, he draped it over the wheel.

Lastly, he took the fallen Magnum and returned belowdecks. There he fired three shots downward through the hull. Sea water began to ooze up through the rents. Then he uncapped the plastic container and drenched the cabin. He went back to the companionway and lit a match, barely escaping the sudden whoosh of the flames greedily eating up the oxygen.

Quickly he scrambled up onto the deck and drew the anchor back on board, wound the chain around the Red Monster’s ankles. He set the engine at full throttle, the rudder at a straight course, and, the container in one hand, jumped overboard.

It was an easy swim back to his own boat and, climbing on board, he stowed his scuba outfit along with the empty plastic container. Then he went belowdecks.

Alix was lying on one narrow berth, her right arm flung across her eyes. She heard his approach and her lips moved slightly. “I heard noises. They sounded a little like shots.”

“Your engine was backfiring.” There was no point in telling her any of it, and some danger in it as well.

“It’s gone.” She said it like a little girl of her favorite Teddy bear.

“It was part of the price of your freedom.”

Her arm came away from her face and she looked up at him. “Well, I never paid for it. It wasn’t mine anyway, I suppose.”

Croaker nodded and came to sit down beside her on the opposing bunk. “It’s about your friend, Angela Didion.”

“Yes.” Alix seemed to sigh. “It’s always about Angela.”

“I caught the squeal,” Croaker said. “I found her dead. And I want her killer.”

Alix’s eyes blinked. “Is that all there is to it?”

“Someone doesn’t want me to find the murderer. Bad.” He hesitated now, on the brink of the question that had haunted him for over a year, the question that had sent him to Matty the Mouth for information, the question that had led him down to Key West when he had been warned off the case by his captain.

His throat was dry and he felt as if his vocal chords were in spasm. So long a time on this one, such a dogged determination. And now the answers staring at him out of jade green eyes right in front of his face.

“Was it Raphael Tomkin who killed her?” It sounded like another’s voice but he knew it was his.

“Tomkin was there.”

“That’s not an answer.”

For a long time she stared at him, trying to make up her mind. The boat rocked gently beneath them in the swells and the vague scent of dried fish, weeks old, still lingered over the swabbed decks. At last she stirred, moving to a sitting position. “We’ll make a deal,” she whispered. “You get me out of Florida, you get me to a place where I know I’ll be safe—” She paused as if quivering on the last threshold. “And I’ll tell you everything I know about Angela Didion’s death.”

If Minck expected a reaction from his guest, he was sorely disappointed. Instead, Nicholas said, “This department is concerned with Soviet Russia. How does it come to be entangled with the Japanese?”

“It will come as no surprise to you that Japan has been our major bulwark against Communism in the Far East ever since the end of the war. We have been putting enormous amounts of pressure on them for years to increase their defense budget, which, I might add, they have been doing slowly but surely.” He shrugged. “That’s something. And this year they have agreed to allow us to install a hundred and fifty of our newest supersonic F-20 Tiger-shark jet fighters at the naval base at Misawa.”

This conversation had begun to have echoes of the one Nicholas had had with Tomkin last week.

“Our latest intelligence puts each of the Kuriles in the hands of a minimum of two divisions of mechanized Soviet infantry apiece. Twenty-eight thousand troops. And on one of them lies a Soviet command post capable of coordinating the activity of an entire army corps.”

Minck sat forward. “There’s been a great deal of coordinated activity going on there ever since the new MIGs arrived. But, personally, I don’t think it’s related to the supersonics. Those were merely brought in as defense against our F-20s.

“No, if our growing file of intelligence is correct, it’s far more serious than that. What our probing suggests is a confirmation of what a number of the more militant Joint Chiefs have been concerned about for a while.”

Minck took a sip of his drink. “We now feel that this troop buildup is part of a specific program to create a military curtain in that part of the globe behind which Russian submarines carrying long-range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads capable of reaching the American mainland can operate without fear of intervention.”

Nicholas felt chilled despite himself. “What you’re talking about is madness. Global madness. We would all die in an instant without any recognition. Three-fourths of the human race gone.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Even the dinosaurs did better than that.”

“The dinosaurs weren’t smart enough to split the atom,” Minck said ironically. “So you’d better begin believing it.” Nicholas could discern a spark of fire in his eyes now. “Because that’s precisely what our information indicates is happening.”

For a time Nicholas said nothing. The whir of the automatic sprinklers could be heard, doing the rain’s work.

“Surely this is ‘Eyes Only’ material,” he said, after a time. “Yet you’ve revealed it all to me, a civilian. Why?”

Minck rose, his legs unfolding like a crane’s. He stood next to a pair of the window doors, his hand on the white wood pillar separating them. His concentration seemed lost in the foliage.

“The Soviet Union’s Committee for State Security, known familiarly as the KGB, is comprised of nine directorates,” he began. His voice had changed timbre and Nicholas had the impression that his thoughts were still far away. “Each directorate serves its own purpose in the overall schemata. For instance, the First Directorate is in charge of internal affairs. If you’re ever inside Russia and picked up, it is to members of this directorate that you will be turned over once you reach the yellow brick building on Dzerzhinsky Square.” Here Minck paused as if he were a captive of his own thoughts. With an obvious effort, he continued.

“On the other hand, the Fourth Directorate handles all operations in Western Europe; the Sixth, North America; the Seventh, Asia.” He turned around abruptly. “I’m sure you get the picture.

“The Kuriles, with their close proximity to Japan, are and always have been under the control of the Seventh Directorate.”

Minck returned across the room to stand in front of Nicholas. There was too much tension now in his frame to allow him to sit down. “Not more than ten days ago one of my young cryptographic geniuses broke one of the Soviet’s new random access Alpha-three ciphers. They’re changed weekly so its usefulness is limited. Still, he works on the Alpha-threes exclusively because only the highest priority signaling is done through them.”

Minck stuffed his hands in his trousers pockets as if he had no idea what else to do with them. “Before I tell you what that signal contained, I must explain that for the past nine months we have been extending our best efforts in trying to determine who was running the Kuriles operation.

“It should have been Rullchek, Anatoly Rullchek, the head of the Seventh Directorate. And indeed we put a finger on his movements in and out of the Kurile Island command post three or four times during that span.

“But frankly, something smelled. There was just too much GRU movement over there at the same time. Rullchek I know well and he hates the GRU with the fierce fanaticism of the old regime. Too, I kept getting reports of a certain Colonel Mironenko who was gradually assuming command while Rullchek was home in Moscow seeing to his bureaucratic flank. What was going on there that no one knew about? I began to ask myself.

“Was
Gospadin
Rullchek really running the ops, and if so, why would he cede even partial control to the GRU? Because, Nicholas, I will tell you quite truthfully that the idea of a united KGB and GRU fills me with a deep sense of foreboding.

“But then again the alternative, that Colonel Mironenko was running the show, seemed even more farfetched. Surely the Kuriles ops was far too crucial to entrust to a young colonel.

“So then what was the truth?”

Minck now folded himself, perching on the arm of a white rattan chair. One leg swung back and forth like a metronome as he spoke. “Now we return to the intercepted signal. It speaks of someone known as Miira. It tells us that Miira is in place and is feeding regularly. Which makes Control grow richer.”

Minck withdrew his hands and pressed the palms together. Nicholas noticed that they were sweating lightly. “This signal was sent from somewhere in the north of Hokkaido and was received by the Soviet Kuriles command post. This was at a time when Colonel Mironenko,
not Gospadin
Rullchek, was presiding.”

Nicholas thought it high time he added to the proceedings. “And was this signal signed?”

Minck’s leg ceased its hypnotic arc for a moment and he nodded his head as if he were a professor approving of a pupil’s question. “Oh, yes, indeed. But we’ll come to that in a moment. First would you be so kind as to tell me if this word
Miira
means anything to you.”

Nicholas thought a moment. “It would help if I saw the
kanji
character in order to be certain of which meaning was being employed. But guessing just by the context, I would say it was Japanese for mummy.”

“Uhm. Mummy.” Minck appeared to mull this over as if it were all new to him. “A mummy, you say.”

There was no point in answering.

Minck lifted his head. “I’d say it was more like Dig Dug.”

“Dig Dug?”

Minck seemed pleased to be able to explain something again. “An arcade game. We keep a large supply two floors down to increase eye-hand coordination in stationary personnel. The object of Dig Dug is to have your man burrow, burrow, burrow through the earth in order to score points.”

“You’re saying that the person referred to as Miira is a mole?”

“In effect, yes. The text makes sense taken in that light, doesn’t it? Miira is in place and is feeding—insert information there—regularly. Of course Control grows richer.”

“But where is this mole?” Nicholas asked. “Did the signal give you a clue?”

Instead of answering, Minck stood up. He brushed down his trousers with his hands. “Tell me, did you ever wonder why Mr. Tomkin was so insistent on the site of your proposed Sphynx plant being at Misawa?”

Nicholas nodded. “Of course. Especially when it became a source of contention in the negotiations. I advised him to drop the idea; it was holding up consummation of the merger. Then he gave me the facts and figures as to why we had to have the Misawa site.”

“Bullshit,” Minck said blandly.

“What?”

“What he gave you—and Sato’s people—is bullshit.” Minck lifted a hand. “Oh, the cost ratio study was done all right and all the figures’re real. That’s just not the real reason for Tomkin’s insistence on Misawa.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tomkin’s insistence on Misawa stemmed from the same source that caused Sato to resist giving it to you. The company is involved in an operation of its own. We don’t know what it is, only its name:
Tenchi.
By its name alone, Heaven and Earth, we know it must be incredibly important.”

“And whatever
Tenchi
is, it’s being done in Misawa?”

“We believe that to be so, yes. Although the
keiretsu
maintains offices for a mining
konzern
in Misawa, we have confirmed information that there is not enough actual mining being done to warrant all the activity there.” Minck, the master of his profession, allowed that innocuous remark to hang before adding, “It’s my opinion that the Russians also have this information.”

Nicholas was instantly alert. “Miira?”