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"If you say so," Baker said.
"And you have no idea who she was meeting."
"Didn't get a chance to find out. But I don't think she met a lawyer in that
dump." Baker almost added,But you never know , but decided against it.
He hoped to hell she hadn't.
"You are not paid to think. I do not like what happens when you try to
think."
Here we go, he thought. But the Arab didn't push it.
"Where is she headed?" Muhallal said.
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"On her way back downtown. I'm right behind her."
"Good. Follow her and do nothing else."
Baker cut the connection and slammed his hand against the steering wheel. He
thought about the wad of cash waiting in escrow for him, and he kept it in
mind as he drove. A big fucking payoff, and he deserved every fucking penny of
it for all the shit he was taking.
4.
Yoshio Takita finished off the second burrito as he followed Sam Baker's car.
He'd picked them up earlier from someplace called Burritoville. He'd never
heard of the chain, but was glad he'd tried it. He smacked his lips. These had
been called "Phoenix Rising" burritos. Heloved them. In fact, he'd yet to meet
an American fast food he didn't like. And it was all so cheap over here. Back
home in Tokyo it cost a small fortune to eat at one of the American chains
that dotted the city.
He worried about getting fat, but his metabolism seemed to chew up the
calories as fast as he shoved them in. That was good. It wouldn't do to
develop a potbelly in his line of work, not at age thirty.
He wiped his hands and his mouth with the napkin, then settled both hands on
the wheel. Had to be watchful here. Not for Baker the man was a soldier
for-hire, not an operative; his tailing skills were crude at best, and he
hadn't the slightest idea he himself was being followed. No, the problem was
getting left behind at a light. If Yoshio were tailing only one of them, the
task would be fairly easy. But tailing Baker as he tailed the woman, that
tended to stretch the chain too far for comfort.
But what Baker lacked in grace and style, he more than made up for in
ruthlessness. Yoshio had learned that last week when he followed him out to
that attorney's house on Long Island. He'd seen Baker tampering with the man's
car, but had assumed he was installing either a tracer or a bug. If he'd
realized that Baker was planting a bomb, he'd have called the attorney to warn
him.
Enough people had died already.
According to Yoshio's employer, Kaze Group in Tokyo, 247 people were already
dead because of something Ronald Clayton knew or had discovered. Yoshio had
witnessed the death of one other a few weeks ago. And last Friday, the death
of Leo Weinstein raised the grand total to 249.
Apparently the board of Kaze Group knew no more than Yoshio. Or at least they
pretended not to. They told him they did not know why Ronald Clayton and his
house were so important to this Arab Kemel Muhallal; but if it was worth the
lives of so many innocent people, then certainly it was worth their effort to
look into it.
They knew more than that, he was sure. Although nominally just a simple
holding company, Kaze Group was more powerful than the largestkeiretsu . It
had global reach. But obviously they didn't know all they wished to know.
And so the board had called upon Yoshio, as they tended to do when they had a
problem that needed to be handled with discretion, and sent him to America to
learn more for them. It helped that English was one of the four languages he
spoke fluently. His assignment was to be their eyes and ears here. They had
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secured a set of diplomatic license plates to afford him more latitude with
the city's traffic and parking regulations. He was to watch, to listen, and to
report back to them.
They had sent him alone. He had no backup here now, but should the need
arise, help could arrive within hours.
So far he had learned nothing knew. But Kaze Group was patient. Always it
took the long view. He would stay here as long as they wished him to. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]