Red Shark

Marshal Jin’s meeting with the Chinese and Russian ambassadors had not gone well. The ambassadors had blustered and threatened serious consequences if Jin did not back away from his threat to launch a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula. They’d left the meeting looking sour-faced.

Jin, standing behind his massive desk, undid the collar of his tunic and gave General Yi a look. Evening shadows that had crept across Pyongyang cast a gloomy pall over the darkened capital. Jin snapped on a desk lamp, which brightened the room but not his mood. He lit an English Player and crushed the empty box in a fist.

“What have you found out?”

“Nothing, Dear Leader,” said Yi.

“Nothing at all?”

“The translators died under torture but knew nothing. If they had, they would have talked.”

Jin dragged cigarette smoke deep into his lungs and said as he exhaled, “A waste of time.” He picked tobacco from the tip of his tongue. “What has Kim accomplished?”

“Very little. He is more than halfway through the records of personnel assigned to the Second Directorate. So far he has failed to unearth anything incriminating.”

“There must be something in those records.” Jin threw down his lighter. “Kim is stalling for time.”

“In fact, Dear Leader, he has been most diligent in his search. He has cooperated to an amazing degree. Understand, there are over three thousand records to search. It will take time.”

“How much time?”

“It is hard to say. Some of the records are voluminous and in some cases the individuals have family members about whom we need more information.”

Jin collapsed in his chair. He gazed over a blacked-out Pyongyang and smoked in silence. At length he said, “Tell Kim he has one week to complete his task to find the spy. If by then he has not found him”—he smashed out the Players—“there will be no exile. Tell him that instead I will fulfill my duty to the People’s Council of Justice and carry out his execution.”

The big Lexus hissed through drizzle toward Noda. Traffic clotting the roads forced Tracy on and off the brakes, to flash the headlights and cut around slower-moving cars.

“Is this man expecting you?”

“Yes.”

Tracy glanced at Scott. His face looked spectral in the red instrument panel lights. “What does he do?”

“Big business.”

“Ziabatsu?”

“You might say that.”

“Who is Fumiko Kida?”

“She works for the Japanese government. She’s in trouble and needs help.”

“Have you fucked her?”

Scott turned a steely gaze on Tracy. “Pay attention to driving. Fumiko’s been snatched by some people involved with terrorists. I know where she is and I’m going to try to free her.”

“All by yourself? You’re crazy. I was there in Kabukicho at the hotel, remember? I saw what happened. The people who kidnapped her will kill you.”

“When you drop me off, return to the Embassy and say nothing. Nothing! Understood?”

“You’re committing suicide, Jake. I won’t do it.”

He took hold of her arm and shook her. “Yes, you will, Trace.”

“Why should I?”

“Because you love me.”

She turned on him, eyes flaring like lasers. “I don’t love you, I hate you!”

“But you’ll do it.”

McCoy Jefferson crashed into Kabukicho in a tiny Daewoo Magnus SUV.

A handheld GPS data link directed him to the fuck-hotel over the Bottoms Up. An SRO satellite had utilized Scott’s recorded cell phone calls to Radford and Tracy to pinpoint the hotel.

Jefferson arrived to find a half-dozen white Tokyo Prefecture police cars and an ambulance parked in front. He searched but couldn’t find a place to park, wasted precious time hunting for a space until he found a 6,000-yen-an-hour lot two blocks away. He horsed his gear packed in a black nylon bag out of the SUV and arrived just as the police were wrapping up.

Jefferson polled several bystanders until he found one who spoke English, a youth with spiky purple-and-yellow hair.

“What happened?” Jefferson asked.

“Some guy got shot in the hotel.”

Jefferson tensed. “A foreigner?”

“Japanese. Yakuza, they said.” The youth moved on.

Jefferson entered the Bottoms Up and looked around. Two naked Thai girls on a narrow stage over the bar, one of them flaunting a strap-on silver gel dildo, writhed in time to deafening techno. Porn videos played on a dozen TV monitors hung around the bar. The salarymen sitting at the bar, entranced by the action taking place on the stage, ignored Jefferson.

He ordered a beer and said to the bartender, “I’m looking for a friend. Amerika-jin. He was staying here, at the hotel. Maybe you saw him.” He pushed a 10,000-yen note across the bar.