Broken English

CHAPTER 8: WEDNESDAY

9:30 AM, Salinas

         Having mastered the intricacies of the hand-held scrambler on his last attempt, he was ready and waiting when the telephone rang promptly at nine-thirty.
         "Ikhilevich."
         "Good morning, Uschi. I trust all goes well there?"
         "All is on schedule and proceedinG as planned."
         "That's good, old buddy. I have some information for you that may save you some grief. The FBI has connected your two test runs."
         "That is not possible!"
         "They've done it. There's an FBI special agent at the Monterey police station as we speak. His name is Leon Kitfox. He's working with a police detective named Inez Zamora."
         "On what?"
         "On you, old buddy. Somehow this Kitfox connected the Monterey banker with the stiff your man left in Reno, and he's been on it like a bulldog for a week now."
         "What is the level of his progress?"
         "I'm not certain, but if the bureau's seen fit to leave him in place for a week, he must have something to show them."
         "Turds from the horse! He could have nothing! They are two unrelated acts of violence, so common in your miserable country as to go unnoticed."
         "Well, it's been noticed, old buddy. This Kitfox guy is out there. He's a science fiction buff, always ready to embrace the impossible. This operation plays right into his strengths. If he happens to tug on the right thread, the whole operation will unravel like a cheap rug."
         "Ha! What if he does? Who will believe him?"
         "Zamora, for one. She's made rank in her department at a remarkably early age. She's sharp. If he points her down the right path, she'll drag all the mainstream, button-down cops with her."
         "Is two days until conference. They cannot possibly sort through all of this before plan goes into action. By the time they collect enough clues to connect dots, dots will be gone, leaving only dead targets in wake."
         "That's what we hope, old buddy. That's what we paid for, and I'm warning you so you can take reasonable precautions. These two complement each other beautifully. What one lacks, the other provides. The one could work it out logically, the other by a flash of intuition. They're a dangerous team, Uschi. Don't underestimate them."
         "I think you underestimate me. No pair of capitalist flatfoot gumshoes can cope with plan of Uschi Ikhilevich. I was trained by greatest spy organization in the world, by God!"
         "I thought you people didn't believe in God. Anyway, the greatest spy organization in the world has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel because they couldn't cope with people like Kitfox."
         "You think KGB is dying, old buddy, that just points out your own shortcomings!"
         "This is no time for idle bragging, old buddy. Those two are dangerous. You keep an eye on them and be ready to react if they start acting like they're onto something."
         "What you are meaning, react?"
         "Use your imagination, Uschi. This operation is too big and too important to allow it to be jeopardized by a guy who reads too many comic books."
         "I thought he was dangerous."
         "He is dangerous! Thinking in comic book terms is what makes him dangerous. No nine-to-five, read the bloodstains cop is going to get onto this. Now, you watch these people and don't let them fuck this up, do you understand?"
         "Da, I understand good, by God! You don't worry, old buddy. Now that you have warned me, they will have no chance, none whatsoever."
         "That's good, Uschi, that's what I wanted to hear. Do you have any other concerns?"
         "No, none."
         "Good. Tomorrow, then, same time."
         "Same time."
         Ikhilevich broke the connection quickly and began to disassemble the scrambler. It was a marvelous piece of equipment, yet one that was handed out as casually as a handkerchief. Amazing, these Americans! Still, this one had a fine sense of what was necessary. No, now that he had been warned, these bourgeois cops would have no chance. No chance at all.

10:48 AM, Monterey

         Kathy Benson hovered and cruised around the perimeter, overseeing the preparation of "The Ferrantes," the three staggered rectangles of the Marriott's largest conference room. Oversight was definitely needed. The PacRim Conference, sure to be the first of many, would be a watershed event in the rich history of California's first capital.
         No longer would Monterey be a sleepy fishing village or a tourist mecca, bypassed by world events. No longer would Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle-Tacoma dominate the economic and political landscape of the western seaboard, leaving little Monterey to beg for tourist dollars. This weekend would mark a return to greatness.
         She looked up over her diagram, tasting a flash of irritation, neither liking it nor knowing where it came from. Shrugging it off, she began to pencil in instructions for stocking the bar; sake, Thai beer, fruit liqueurs and Kaoliang from China. Smiling in modest pride of her esoteric knowledge, she looked up, and her gaze lit on a ventilator screen high in the wall above the door.
         For reasons she couldn't fathom, she found this detail of the architect's art to be fascinating. Her mind followed its unseen course toward the rooftop air conditioners, idly speculating on how many "stops" this subway of the ceilings might offer before its final destination. Then the interest was gone, and she was left alone with her gaze locked on the screen, and somewhat puzzled about it.
         This attentiveness to unimportant details must be due to her refreshed post-vacation mental state. Sure, that had to be it. With a shake of her head, the moment was over, flung off like a flake of dandruff. Her attention returned to the tables. What a splendid idea!
         She stepped to one of the courtesy phones on the wall and punched in three numbers.
         "Seth, Kathy... Yeah, fine, thanks. Look, I'm setting up the Ferrantes for PacRim, and I just had an idea. Get hold of, oh, who's best? Probably Pacific Grove Floral. Get me two each of their biggest centerpieces made of flowers representing native plants from Southeast Asia, the China coast, the Japanese islands, the Korean peninsula, and the American west. You got all that?... Be sure. We can't afford to screw this up... Okay. These have to be delivered and on the tables, not later than seven AM Friday... If there are any holdups, call me. In fact, call me anyway. I want to know that this is going well... Okay, I'll be talking to you. Bye."
         The phone went back on its cradle as her gaze swept the room, looking for more details to perfect. This conference would be the talk of the Pacific nations for months to come, and the glory would accrue to Kathy Benson. Maybe she would get her own hotel out of this. The future was ripe with possibilities, and she was prepared because she had taken a lovely two-week vacation in Cabo. What a wonderfully fortunate time she had chosen to refresh herself!
         And that nameless irritation washed over her again.

12:28 PM, Monterey

         Kitfox reclined in Zamora's chair, feet in her bottom desk drawer, thinking. An accordion-folded printout lay on the desk before him.
         Eugene Shaw, professor of economic theory, killed in Reno by a kid who didn't remember doing it. Robert Durant, bank manager, host of an economic conference that Shaw planned to attend, killed in Monterey by a housewife who didn't remember doing it.
         It was inconceivable that the two events weren't related. So, what was the connection?
         "Need a pillow?" Zamora asked as she entered the small cubicle. Kitfox hurriedly sat up, but she waved a hand at him and sat down in a visitor's char. "Deep in thought, or catching a nap?"
         "Deep in thought. What connects these two murders?"
         "The conference."
         "Why? I can understand Durant. Killing the host might be seen as a way to disrupt the conference, but why Shaw?"
         "Maybe he was going to present a theory that someone wanted suppressed."
         "Then why Durant?"
         "I don't know. Maybe this really is a coincidence," she said.
         "No. Usually you can get to a motive by following the money, but in this case, the money is in favor of this conference going ahead."
         "It doesn't matter. The conference starts in a day and a half. We won't be able to scratch the surface by then."
         "We'd better try. Here, take half of this."
         Kitfox tore the folded list into roughly equal halves.
         "A banker and a professor," she said, laying her half in front of her. "What the hell's the link?"

6:48 PM, Monterey

         Kathy Benson made a graceful rolling dismount from her mountain bike and glided to a stop in front of the modest public library, chained her trusty steed to the bike rack, and bounded up the stairs and through the double doors. Students from the nearby college were very much in evidence, given the time of year, and the males stopped their research to give her supple, athletic body a thorough appraisal, a task made simple by her form-fitting riding singlet. She marveled again at the ease with which she could identify the leg men; they were the ones that tended to show heart attack symptoms.
         One of the librarians at the desk acknowledged her with a friendly, may-I-help-you lift of the chin, but Benson knew what she wanted and where to find it. She walked by the desk with a nod of her own, and toward the far corner where the 790s were kept. Eye and fingers raced one another along a high shelf, but finished in a tie, both coming to rest on The Way of the Ninja by Shungo Hasekawa. Pleased as she was to find it in its place, she knew it wasn't critical. She had an entire list to work from.
         She slipped it from the shelf and, without a thought of how much her reading habits had changed recently, took it to an unoccupied table far from the door.
         • Table of contents
         • Section Three: The Physical Art
         • Page 72

         "As the ninja was, above all else, an assassin, the skills he worked to cultivate were primarily those involved with taking him safely to his target and making the actual kill. These skills involved crossing insurmountable obstacles, hiding when discovery was imminent, and the actual art of delivering the fatal strike, which must for obvious reasons be done swiftly and surely. Fighting was merely a secondary skill, but when a ninja resorted to it, he struck from ambush and fought with a savage brutality that disdained the honor required of the samurai's code of Bushido. To give an overview of how a typical ninja operation would unfold, join one of the shadow warriors now on a hypothetical strike against a daimyo in his feudal castle..."
         She removed the cat's paws from her hands and tossed them back into the moat. They had made the climb up the sheer stone base of the castle possible, but she wouldn't need them further. If she left them here, they might be discovered, and the alarm raised. If anyone heard the splash far below, it would likely be put down to a restless crane or a jumping coi.
         She moved along the wall, hugging the shadows where her black cotton garb would protect her. Not far ahead was the private garden of the daimyo. He would be sleeping in a room adjoining his haven of peace, and there she would kill him. First, though, she had to cross a small open space, and in the yard below was one of his samurai retainers. If she was seen and engaged, even one of them could cut her to ribbons.
         Best not to be seen. Loose pieces of stone littered the top of the ancient green wall, flaked off over the centuries by variations in temperature and the all-pervading moisture. A few irregular bits in the one-inch range came to hand without even a minor delay.
         She waited for the soldier to turn away from her on his aimless strolling of the grounds, then came to her knees and threw the first stone hard into the darkness.
         Crack!
         Excellent. It had struck a piece of wood in the distance, and the sharp-eared samurai turned like a cat, directing all his attention to the source of that sound. Carefully lifting her head, she noted his attitude, and moved to reinforce it, lobbing a larger stone in a higher trajectory farther to the left, away from where she needed to go. There was a most satisfactory rustling as the missile forced a bit of foliage from its path, then the quietest of thuds as it lodged in the soft soil below.
         The samurai had heard enough. Drawing his long, curved sword, he began to creep cautiously toward the offending sound. Above and behind him, her black form crossed the open space without challenge.
         And now, below, was the daimyo's garden. It was a fifteen-foot drop, and she wouldn't be coming back this way, but none of that mattered, only completing the mission. One of her brethren, she had learned, had hidden for fourteen hours in the sewage of a hundred-gallon chamber pot until the search had moved outside the quarters area, at which time he had simply walked out. Knowing of this exploit, could she not produce one even more clever?
         Picking out some of the soft Ewa grass, she dropped into it, hardly disturbing the sleeping crane nearby. Waiting for it to settle back into its slumber, she moved stealthily and patiently to the most ornate door and, sliding it slowly, silently back, stepped into the room.
         Moonlight fell across the futons, revealing the portly daimyo and his wife, concubine, whatever. A lantern in the next room cast the shadow of a samurai on the paper wall. If the man made a sound when she struck, he would wake the woman, and her screams would bring the samurai running. The daimyo would still be dead. Still, if she could escape, leaving the woman to find her lover dead beside her in the morning, the psychological effect on the entire house would carry its influence down the generations. She would try.
         Selecting for the murder weapon her short tanto, she drew the six-inch blade and crept toward the bed. If her hand covered his mouth and at the same instant the blade sliced through his larynx, she had a chance. All that would matter then was how deeply the woman slept. Knife in hand, she knelt beside him, left hand poised over his face, feeling for the rhythm of his life's breath...
         "Miss? Miss, are you all right?"
         She started violently, striking out as a hand clutched her shoulder, the hated samurai about to take her alive! But no, it was just a middle-aged woman, shrinking from her blow, covering her face with her arms. The librarian.
         "Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" Benson gushed, shooting to her feet to comfort the woman. "I must have been dreaming. Are you all right?"
         "Yes, yes, I'm fine. That must have been some dream."
         "Yes, it was. I was in... Well, there was... I'll be damned. It's gone."
         "Dreams are like that, more real than life, then gone in a heartbeat. Are you all right?"
         "Yes," Benson said, though her confusion didn't feel all right to her.
         "Well, we're about to close, dear, and I'm afraid you'll have to go. Do you want to check out the book?"
         "Huh?" Benson was still in a fog.
         "The book. Do you want to take the book home?
         "Oh." Benson closed the cover. The Way of the Ninja. "No. No, thank you."
         "All right, dear. I'll put it away for you. Have a safe trip home."
         "I will, thanks."
         Benson handed her the book and started toward the door. She was sure that if she could just catch a corner of the dream, it would come rushing back and the confusion would fall away.