Dragon (Dirk Pitt 10)

None of it made any sense to the delivery truck driver, but he accepted the request without argument.

"Who do I ask for at the embassy?"

"A Mr. Showalter." Hanamura reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet and handed the driver a large wad of yen notes. "For any inconvenience. Do you know where to go?"

The driver's face lit up at his unexpected windfall. "Yes, the embassy is near the junction of number three and four expressways."

"How soon can you leave?"

"I have just finished rebuilding the truck's distributor. I can leave in a few minutes."

"Good." Hanamura bowed. "Thank you very much. Tell Mr. Showalter that he is to double what I paid you upon receiving the envelope." Then Hanamura turned and walked shakily into the rain and the black of the night.

He could have ridden with the truck driver to the embassy, but he dared not risk passing out or even dying. In either event the driver might have panicked and driven to the nearest hospital or hailed a policeman. Then the precious drawings would have probably been confiscated and returned to Suma's headquarters. Better that he trust in luck and the delivery truck driver's honor while he led the manhunt in another direction.

Hanamura, on little more than guts and willpower, hiked nearly a kilometer before an armored vehicle rolled out of the darkness inside the park, swung onto the street, and sped after him. Too exhausted to run, he sank to his knees beside a parked car and groped in his coat for a dispatch pill. His fingers had just closed around the poison capsule when the armored car with military markings and red lights flashing stopped with its headlights painting Hanamura's shadow on the wall of a warehouse a few meters beyond.

A silhouetted figure stepped from the car and approached. Incongruously, he was wearing an odd-looking leather overcoat cut like a kimono and carrying a samurai katana sword whose polished blade glinted under lights. When he stepped around so his face was visible from the headlight beams, he looked down at Hanamura and spoke in a smug voice.

"Well, well, the famous art sleuth, Ashikaga Enshu. I hardly recognized you without your wig and false beard."

Hanamura looked up into the rattlesnake face of Moro Kamatori. "Well, well, he echoed. "If it isn't Hideki Suma's waterboy."

"Water boy'?"

"Stooge, you know, ass kisser, brown nose."

Kamatori's face went livid and his gleaming teeth bared in anger. "What did you find in Edo?" he demanded.

Hanamura didn't give Kamatori the benefit of an answer. He was breathing quickly, his lips in a hard grin. Suddenly he popped the dispatch pill in his mouth and bit down on it with his molars to eject the fluid. The poison was instantly absorbed in the gum line through the tissue. In thirty seconds his heart would freeze and he'd be dead.

"Goodbye, sucker," he muttered.

Kamatori had only a moment to act, but he raised the sword, gripping the long hilt with both hands, and cut a wide arc with every ounce of his strength. The shock of disbelief flashed in Hanamura's eyes a brief instant before it was replaced with the glaze of death.

Kamatori had the final satisfaction of seeing his sword win the race with the poison as the blade sliced Hanamura's head from his shoulders as cleanly as a guillotine.

The fertilizer-brown Murmotos were parked in a loose line behind the ramp leading up to the cavernlike interior of the big semitrailer. George Furukawa was greatly relieved these four cars were the last shipment. The release documents he'd found as usual under the front seat of his sports car included a short memo notifying him that his part of the project was finished.

He also received new instructions to examine the cars for homing devices. No explanation was given, but he concluded that Hideki Suma had become belatedly worried his last shipment might be followed by some unspecified group. The thought that they might be federal investigators made Furukawa extremely uneasy. He walked quickly around each car while studying the digital readout of an electronic unit that detected transmitted radio signals.

Satisfied the sport sedans with their ugly brown paint schemes were clean, he gestured to the truck driver and his helper. They bowed slightly without an acknowledging word and took turns driving the cars up the ramps into the trailer.

Furukawa turned and walked toward his car, happy to be rid of an assignment he felt was beneath his position as vice president of Samuel J. Vincent Laboratories. The handsome fee Suma had already paid him for his effort and loyalty would be wisely invested in Japanese corporations that were opening offices in California.

He drove to the gate and handed the guard copies of the release documents. Then he aimed the sloped nose of his Murmoto sports car into the busy truck traffic a

round the dock terminal and drove toward his office. There was no curiosity this time, no looking back. His interest in the auto transport's secret destination had died.

Stacy zipped up her windbreaker, snapping it tight across her throat. The side door of the helicopter had been removed, and the cool air from the ocean whistled inside the control cabin. Her long blond hair whipped in front of her face, and she tied it back with a short leather band. A video camera sat in her lap, and she lifted it and set the controls. Then she turned sideways as far as her seat belt would allow and focused the telephoto lens on the tail of the Murmoto sports car exiting the dock area.

"You get the license number?" asked the blond-haired pilot as he held the copter on a level course.

"Yes, a good sharp shot. Thank you."

"I can come in a little closer if you like."