"Is Eva down there? She'd damned well better be."

"She is safe." Novosty sighed again. "It was most unwise for her to have gotten involved in all this, Michael. She is making matters difficult for us all."

"Too bad." He removed the Llama from beneath his coat. "By the way, congratulations on your new clients. Mino Industries. That's a Yakuza front, partner. Guess you know. The CEO was a Class A war criminal.

These days he owns the LDP and runs Japan. Alex, you asshole, you're way over your head here. Mino Industries is owned lock, stock, and hardware by _the _Japanese godfather. His _kobun_ make your KGB look like a Boy Scout troop."

"Michael, please."

"And here I was thinking you'd finished consorting with the criminal element, decided to live clean. Then the next thing I know, your client's gorillas are trying to kill Eva and me. Me, your new partner.

Things like that tend to inspire mistrust, and just when we were starting to hit it off so well." He finally stood up, holding the Llama. Novosty was lounging nervously in the sunshine, fishing for a cigarette. "Where's your Uzi? You just may need it."

"Michael, all this has nothing to do with me." His eyes were weary.

"I'm operating independently this time."

"Cash and carry. Maybe you should just post your prices, like a cheap cathouse."

"I prefer to think of myself as an expediter. But this time I encountered more difficulties than reasonably could be anticipated.

Which is why I need your help now to straighten it out."

"What? The whole shoddy scene? Looks like the KGB's hot on the trail, say maybe about two feet in back of your ass. Or is it your client, who you're about to try and screw out of a hundred million dollars?

Incidentally, that's probably a serious miscalculation, health-wise."

"The situation _has_ grown awkward."

"Of course that touching fable about returning the hundred million to Moscow was just the usual 'disinformation.' "

"You are perfectly correct. It will not be returned. But any thought I might have had of keeping it now also seems out of the question." He sighed. "Instead I'm afraid we must--"

"_We_? Now that's what I call balls of brass." He laughed. "Surely even a fevered imagination like yours can't suppose--"

"Michael, I told you I would split the commission I took for cleaning it. That offer still holds. Fifty-fifty. I might even go sixty-forty.

What more can you want? But those funds must be delivered. Given the new situation--"

"Not by me."

"Be a realist, my friend. I no longer have freedom of movement, so now you are my only hope. If those funds aren't transferred within the week, I'd prefer not to reflect on the consequences."

"The consequences to your own neck, you mean." Vance stared at him. "By the way, just out of curiosity, what's the 'prototype'?"

"That's the one thing I cannot possibly discuss, Michael." Novosty caught his breath. "But what if the contract for it is abrogated because of those funds not being delivered, what then? What if the USSR just makes a move to seize it? I fear there could be war, my friend.

Bang, the apocalypse." He flicked his lighter. "Even worse though, as you say, both parties to the agreement would probably spend a week devising the most interesting way possible for me to depart this earth."

"If the KGB somehow locates and freezes the embezzled funds before you can finish transferring them, it could scuttle the whole deal. Mino Industries would probably be very annoyed. Not to mention certain parties back home."

"Precisely. You can see we are on a knife edge here. But first things first. You must return Eva's pirate copy of the protocol, please. I beg you. It must disappear. I have promised them that, as an act of good faith. I'm afraid the participants in Tokyo are near to losing patience with me."

"And what about her?"

"She's with them now." He pointed down the hill, to the long white limousine. "Unfortunately, they have taken over the situation."

"Better buckle your seat belt, pal. It's about to be a bumpy afternoon."

"She is safe, don't worry. They have assured me. It is only the protocol they care about. The matter of security. They know you have her only other copy, in the computer. Now please let me just give whatever you have to them. Then let's all try and forget she ever had it."

"You know, those hoods down there tried a little number on me last night in Athens." He hadn't moved. "It took the edge off my evening."

"Michael, I tried to tell them that was imprudent. But they are very concerned about time. Just be reasonable, my friend, and I'm sure everything can be straightened out." He sighed again. "You know, these tactics of kidnapping and such are very distasteful to me as well. But when she told them she didn't have all the material, that you still had a copy, they decided that taking her into their custody was the best way to ensure your cooperation."

"They don't know me very well." He looked down the hill. "Tell your buddies they can go take a jump. Nobody blackmails me. Nobody. I plan to hang on to this little suitcase till she's out of danger. That's how we're going to work things. Tell them it's her insurance. They release her right now, or I'll personally blow their whole deal sky high."

"Tell them yourself, Michael. I'm just here as an observer." He gestured toward the white limo parked below, nestled in among the line of tourist automobiles and busses. "And while you're doing that, perhaps you should ask her if that's her wish as well. They refuse to release her until they recover the materials she had. They are calling it 'protection.'"

He stared down. "You've got a hell of a nerve. All of you. Alex, when this is over--"

"Please. Let's just get this ghastly protocol affair sorted out." He rubbed at his beard. "Then we can all concern ourselves with what's really important. The money."

"Right. I almost forgot."

He scanned the hillside. Was everything set? He'd seen no sign. But then that's how it was supposed to be. The other problem was the tourists, everywhere, complicating the play.

But maybe the tourists would be a help, would make it start out slow.

Think. How can you use them? Clearly the other side had hoped for an abandoned place in the middle of nowhere. They had to be off balance now too.

He hesitated a moment, then decided. Go for it. He had the Llama. Just settle it here and now.

He took one last look at the temple as he rose. The Delphic oracle.

That's what Eva had been all along. She'd somehow divined the outlines of the story, but after the disappearance of her old lover at the NSA she didn't dare speak it directly. Everything was coded language. So what better place than here on this mountain to finally have a little plain talk?

As they passed down the last stone steps leading to the roadway, he found himself thinking about Mino Industries. Did they really have half a trillion dollars lying around? Not likely. To come up with that kind of money, even in Japan, you'd have to be deeply plugged into legitimate financial circles--pension funds, insurance companies, brokerage houses, banks, all the rest. But still, the _Mino-gumi_ had connections that went wide and deep, everywhere. Their _oyabun_, Tanzan Mino, had been in the game for a long, long time.

Now, as he approached the limousine, one of its white doors slowly began to open. Then a Japanese emerged, dressed in a black polyester suit. He wore dark sunglasses, and his right wrist was in a cast. The eyes were very familiar. Also, one of his little fingers was missing.

But Vance's gaze didn't linger long on the hands. His attention was riveted on what was in them. Yep, he'd seen it right last night. It was a Heckler & Koch machine pistol. One of those could lay down all thirty rounds in an eight- inch group at thirty yards. World-class hardware.

It figured. The _Mino-gumi_ was known everywhere as the best-run Yakuza syndicate of them all. Hardened criminals, they considered themselves modern-day samurai, upholding some centuries-old code of honor. It was a contradiction only the Japanese mind could fully accommodate.

Heavy-duty connections, Vance told himself, the very best. Which meant Novosty was in even bigger trouble than he probably imagined. The latest rumor in the world of hot money was that Tanzan Mino and his Yakuza had, through dummy fronts, just bought up half of Hawaii. If that were true, it meant he laundered real money these days. Who the hell needed a small-time operator like Alex?

Then the man reached in and caught Eva's arm, pulling her into the midday glare.

Thank God, he thought, she still looks vaguely okay. Will she be able to stay on top of this once it gets moving?

He noticed she was wearing a new brown dress, but her short hair was tangled, her face streaked with pain.

The bastards. They must have worked her over, trying to find out everything she knew.

There were two "representatives," Novosty had said. So the other man was still in the limo, in the driver's seat, covering in case there was trouble.