Red Shark

Rolling diagonal black bars replaced Radford’s and Fumiko’s faces on the monitor as the RDT satellite connection faded. Scott heard Radford say, faintly, “What’s that, I can’t hear you…”

The monitor went to blue.

9

Taipei, Taiwan

Engines spooling down, the yellow and white ToriAir Boeing 737 rolled to a stop in front of a ghostly cargo-sorting facility on the fringes of Taipei’s Chiang Kai-shek International Airport. Only a few service lights burned in empty hangars and around a solitary UPS 330 Air Bus waiting to be loaded.

Tokugawa disembarked into a muggy night spiced with the tang of burned jet fuel and the roar of passenger jets taking off and landing. A black Toyota Land Cruiser pulled up alongside the 737’s companionway. The driver got out, welcomed Tokugawa to Taiwan, then bowed him into the backseat. Tokugawa settled back in comfort as the big SUV swung out of the airport onto the motorway and sped toward Chi-lung.

Many things had to be accomplished, Tokugawa mused. Wu Chow Fat’s vulgar attempt to wrest control of heroin distribution from Ojima had to be addressed and tamped down. Likely Fat already knew Naito had been eliminated. Dozens of eyes and ears reported everything that happened in Tokyo, especially Kabukicho. It was said that one couldn’t step on a cat’s tail without Fat knowing about it. If so, it would demonstrate how seriously Tokugawa took such matters. Because the Chinese were unfailingly polite, Fat might feign ignorance and simply express shock over Naito’s misfortune. But Fat knew better than anyone that operators who freelanced in the billion-dollar Tokyo sex and drug business usually ended up dead.

Naito, Fat, and Ojima were insignificant compared to what the North Koreans had proposed. The deal Marshal Jin was eager to consummate was of another magnitude altogether. It was a deal, Tokugawa thought with pleasure, that would bring untold riches, and with it, his long-sought revenge on America.

He remembered what had happened as clearly as if it had occurred yesterday: A solitary silver B-29 seen through a break in the cloud cover over Nagasaki. The flash of light brighter than a million suns. The hard, angry shadow his body had cast on the ground. The unimaginable heat and the mushroom cloud turning everything black, ending his world.

The Toyota, its knobby tires thumping the length of a wooden pier lined on one side with godowns, drew up beside a waiting motor launch. The driver doused the lights, after which Tokugawa got out and, orienting himself, heard the incoming tide chuckling under the pier. He couldn’t see her, but he knew that the White Dragon, Wu’s Hainan-style four-masted junk, lay anchored in the roadstead.

Two Chinese in black BDUs and armed with Beretta submachine guns stepped from blocky shadows and approached. One of the men aimed a blue-lensed flashlight beam at Tokugawa. Satisfied, he bowed deeply.

The men escorted Tokugawa aboard the launch, where the captain, a leathery looking Chinese, made him comfortable in the cabin below decks. They cast off, and fifteen minutes later Tokugawa was welcomed aboard the White Dragon by Wu Chow Fat.

Fiber mat lugsails reefed, the White Dragon’s powerful twin diesels drove her into the Pacific, away from the twinkling lights of Chi-lung. Seated in heavy brocade armchairs brought topside for their meeting, Tokugawa and Fat faced each other.

“I hope you do not mind, Iseda-san, that we take the night air,” Fat said in excellent Japanese.