Chapter 51

Steinberg’s talk with the Tokyo inspector had helped, but Eric was still up half the night, resisting the idea that the Moritomo executive was a killer and a thief. At nine a.m., he called the home number he had for Kitani, but the woman who spoke Japanese only answered and no communication ensued. Then he remembered: Kitani had a class on Saturday mornings. Eric took a train down to the city and arrived at the dojo right after noon.

The students were drifting out of the building. Eric nodded at a couple he recognized. Then the blond guy, Roger, came out. “He’s in his office,” Roger said. “You’re a little late for our workout.”

“I’m not back up to speed entirely.” Eric indicated the cane in his hand, which he still carried partly as a defense against slipping on the snow. In fact, he had been thinking about buying a sword-cane and carrying it even after his hip was entirely healed.

Eric walked up the steps and entered the dojo. He peeked into the office. Kitani was standing, entering something on a computer. “Ah,” said Kitani, turning, seeming pleased. “You’re only four hours late.”

“I don’t have an absolute sense of completion,” Eric said.

“Good,” answered Kitani. “We’re not done.”

“An inspector in Tokyo said that you had killed two men there.”

“I wouldn’t want to lie to you,” Kitani began.

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Eric said. Kitani laughed heartily and Eric joined in.

“Like you, I might have to kill someone, but it doesn’t come easily to me,” Kitani went on. “I would kill for things such as honor and revenge. Maybe you would understand, but maybe these concepts are too Japanese for you.”

“People in the Mafia talk like that,” replied Eric. But he did understand. It made his head spin because he understood all too well, and that bothered him. “Inspector Akao doesn’t like you very much,” he added at last.

“No,” agreed Kitani. He was quiet for a moment. “I was in love with his daughter. I suppose that’s enough reason for him to hate me. You spoke to him?”

“My cop friend did.”

Kitani stood without comment, then finally went on. “We’re even now,” said Kitani. “I mean, you and I. To be frank, I didn’t expect you to best me at anything, but I guess that you did. You wiped out the design and we can’t reinstall it. Our production line is down. We’re going to lose millions.”

“Dr. Sommers worked too hard at it to let you get away with stealing his design,” insisted Eric. All he was asking for was the slightest confirmation from his opponent.

“The design is ours,” Kitani stressed. “You may believe it belonged to Westlake. I hope you do believe that since you acted against us. But the design is of our making.”

Shit! Kitani wasn’t going to let him sleep in peace and that was that.

Kitani smiled. “But I want to be friends with you anyway. I may even offer you a job at Moritomo.”

“I may refuse.” Eric tapped his cane against the wood floor. “Why do you do it, Kitani? Just tell me that. Why do you do what you do?”

“I’ve told you already, Eric-san. I’ve given you two reasons. I do it for my clan, my family. And I do it in order to have fun. But I don’t do what you’ve accused me of. The ninja no longer work as poisoners and I don’t work as a thief, even though I realize the whole world believes that I do. Too much is at stake for my people in the mountains for me to operate like a common criminal.”

The buzzer rang on the downstairs entry. “It’s one of my students. Probably forgot something.” Kitani buzzed back and began putting on his coat.

They heard footsteps on the stairs. Kitani looked up as his student came in, his face reflecting sudden surprise.

Eric automatically turned to see who had entered. He couldn’t believe it, either. Morgan! And with a delighted expression on his aristocratic face.

“I got tired of waiting for you to come down, Ryder, so I thought I would come up. I’ve been thinking about you quite a lot recently. I couldn’t sleep very well in jail these last couple of days, just thinking of you. I began to be rather angry at what you’d done.”

“Sorry,” said Eric in a falsely penitent tone. “But now that you’re out, you can simply fly back to Merry Old England.”

“I will. However, I won’t be able to return again to the United States, and a lot of my work takes place here. You ruined that for me.” Morgan gave Eric a steely look of pure hatred. In the next moment, he produced a gun.

It was always nine millimeters with guys like these, Eric thought. This appeared to be a Ruger, not his own choice of a weapon.

Kitani began to slide in the direction of Morgan, which made Eric nervous. He didn’t want to see Kitani shot and killed, whatever kind of spying he had done.

“I’m glad to see you too, Kitani,” smiled Morgan coldly, stepping around and back so that he was out of range of the man he must know was an expert martial artist. He gestured with the gun for Eric to move toward his other prisoner. Eric limped closer to Kitani. But Kitani moved again, as if to give Eric more room.

What the hell was Kitani doing? Eric moved again. Morgan held the weapon out. “Stop,” he said. “I’m going to kill you both anyway, so I’m not all that reluctant to shoot.”

Eric felt a little sick to his stomach. He knew that Morgan was perfectly willing to unload his pistol in that way. The wound in his hip stood witness to that fact. And nothing is as nasty as gunfire in close quarters. It’s very hard to dodge bullets at point-blank range or to make yourself scarce.

“I know,” agreed Kitani. “It wasn’t hard for you to murder your partner in Miami.”

Morgan smiled a bit more pleasantly. The memory seemed a fond one for him. “I was tired of that tedious little Frenchman, anyway. The French don’t really possess civilized manners, do they?”

“Why did you do it?” pressed Kitani. “What was he going to tell me that you didn’t want me to hear?”

“It was only a little thing. I suppose it really wouldn’t have mattered all that much if you’d found out, although it might have been awkward.” Morgan laughed. The man certainly was enjoying himself.

Kitani moved around again, drawing closer to the door. If escape was his idea of saving the situation, it wasn’t going to work, thought Eric. Kitani might be fast, but he wasn’t faster than that proverbial speeding bullet.

“Stop moving, you son of a bitch,” Morgan told Kitani, irritated.

“What was Sherba going to tell?” Eric broke in. His voice seemed to startle Morgan who was focused on Kitani.

“Oh well, why keep a secret? This is the end of the line. Sherba was going to inform my friend Kitani here that the CEO of Moritomo, Tadao Kanisaki, is a client of ours, a rather lucrative customer for us. You wouldn’t have liked that, would you have, Kitani?”

“No,” agreed Kitani. “Something would have given over that one.” He moved an inch closer to the door, but Morgan followed him with the gun. “I would have threatened Kanisaki with my departure, unless he stopped doing business with a cretin like you,” the Japanese went on in a nasty tone of voice. “I have been very valuable to Kanisaki over the years.”

“He will mourn your passing, I’m sure.”

What the hell did that conversation actually mean? Did it mean that Moritomo had implemented the Westlake design, but had done it through Morgan, and not through Kitani after all? Eric voiced the question out loud.

Morgan sneered. “I’m the evil genius behind that venture.” He apparently was pleased to be on the side of the devil. “I bought the design from a former Westlake computer whiz—what they call a disgruntled employee.”

Then Eric heard the faintest movement behind the three of them, like the sound of snow falling. His eyes widened. So that was why Kitani had shifted their positions. Hiroshi, still in the gym, had crept up behind Morgan who now had his back to the classroom interior.

As Eric looked toward Hiroshi, Morgan turned, too, dropping his guard for a millisecond. Eric extended his cane as a combat weapon, stepped forward and struck the man powerfully on the gun arm at the same moment that Hiroshi pounced. Then Eric whipped the cane out a second time, sending the gun flying, as Hiroshi toppled Morgan to the ground by sweeping his legs out from under him. In a general scramble for the gun, Hiroshi won out, plucking the Ruger from off the floor.

Hiroshi assumed a military shooter’s stance with the 9mm pointed straight at Morgan’s head. The British spy blenched. Hiroshi laughed, retracted the gun and removed the clip. “Bad,” he pronounced awkwardly, the first English Eric had heard him use. He tossed the disempowered gun onto a chair in the hallway, then literally pulled Morgan from off the floor and delivered him onto an armchair directly inside Kitani’s office.

But that wasn’t the end of it. The Japanese fighter sat right on top of Morgan with a clownish look on his face. He spoke a few words in Japanese to a bemused Kitani.

“He’s going to keep you in place, Morgan, for the police. It seems like you’re going directly back to jail.”

“I guess revenge has its limits,” added Eric, who took out his phone to dial Midtown South. He wanted Steinberg in on the arrest, if the lieutenant was available. By now, Eric knew the precinct number by heart.

Put on hold almost at once, he turned to Kitani, stared at him a moment, then smiled. “I can’t believe you didn’t steal the Westlake chip. I really can’t. You’re so much more capable than Morgan. That’s why I was sure that you were the one.”

Kitani laughed. “I like your use of the cane. A little more training and you’ll be fairly proficient with that.”