The Key to Midnight

for me to talk too much about my plans,' Alex said. 'At least not on this phone.'
        'Tapped?"
        'I suspect it's been transformed into a regular party line.'
        'In that case, should we be talking at all?' Blankenship asked worriedly.
        'It doesn't matter if they hear what you're going to tell me,' Alex said. 'None of it's news to them. What else have you got on this Fielding Athison company?'
        'Well, it's a profitable business, but only by a hair. In fact, they're so overstaffed it's a miracle they manage to stay afloat.'
        'What does that suggest to you?'
        'Other importing companies of similar size make do with ten or twelve employees. Fielding Athison has twenty-seven, the majority of them in sales. There just doesn't appear to be enough work to keep them all busy.'
        'So the importing business is a front,' Alex said.
        'In the diplomatic phrasing of our English friends, "The distinct possibility exists that the employees of Fielding Athison engage in some sort of unpublicized work in addition to the importation of Asian goods." '
        'A front for what? For whom?'
        'If you want to find out,' Blankenship said, 'it's going to cost us dearly. And it's not the sort of thing that can be dug up quickly - if at all. I'd bet a thousand to one that the people using Fielding Athison are breaking a serious law or two. But they've been in business for fourteen years, and no one's tumbled to them yet, so they're good at keeping secrets. Do you want me to tell London to try to dig deeper?'
        'No,' Alex said. 'Not right now. I'll see what develops here in the next couple of days. If it's necessary to put the Englishmen on the job again, I'll call you back.'
        'How's Wayne?' Blankenship asked.
        'Better. He'll keep the leg.'
        'Thank God. Look, Alex, do you want me to send help?'
        'I'm all right.'
        'I've got a few good men free at the moment.'
        'If they came, they'd only be targets. Like Wayne.'
        'Aren't you a target?'
        'Yeah. But the fewer the better.'
        'A little protection-'
        'I don't need protection.'
        'Wayne needed protection. But I guess you know best.'
        'What I need,' Alex said, 'is divine guidance.'
        'If a voice comes to me from a burning bush anytime soon, I'll let you know right away what it says.'
        'Seriously, Ted, I want you to keep a lid on this. I don't want to attack the problem with an army. I'd like to find the answers I'm after without, in the process, filling up Japanese hospitals with my employees.'
        'It's still an odd way to handle it - alone.'
        'I realize that,' Alex said. 'But I've thought about it… and it seems to me that these people, whoever they might be, have given me quite a lot of slack already. There's something odd about the fact that they haven't just blown my head off by now.'
        'You think they're playing two sides of some game? Using you?'
        'Maybe. And maybe if I bring in a platoon from Chicago, they won't cut me any more slack. Maybe they want to keep the game quiet, with a limited number of players.'
        'Why?'
        'If I knew that, then there wouldn't be any need for the game, would there?'

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    39
        
        Five o'clock Sunday afternoon. Dr. Inamura's office. Pastel lighting. Lemon incense. The watchful bird in the brass cage.
        The pine shutters were open, and purple twilight pressed at the windows.
        'Dancing butterflies,' said the psychiatrist.
        In the final session with Omi Inamura, Joanna recalled the exact wording of the three posthypnotic suggestions that had been deeply implanted by the man with the mechanical hand. The first involved the memory block -Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun' - with which they had already dealt. The second concerned the devastating attacks of claustrophobia and paranoia that she suffered when anyone became more than casually interested in her. Inamura finished administering the cure that Alex had begun several days ago, patiently convincing Joaana that the words of Herr Doktor no longer had any power over her and that her fears were not valid. They never had been valid. Not surprisingly, the third of Herr Doktor's directives was that she would never leave Japan; and if she did attempt to get out of the country, if she did board a ship or an aircraft that was bound for any port