Nomuri chuckled. "Yes, I have heard the stories, too. Still, a man of some vigor, eh?" He paused. "So can I rent another of your cycles today?"

"Take number six." The man pointed. "I just finished servicing it. Pay attention to the weather," he warned. "Snow tonight."

Nomuri held up his backpack. "I want to take some pictures of cloudy mountains for my collection. The peace here is wonderful, and fine for thinking."

"Only in the winter," the dealer said, returning to his work.

Nomuri knew the way now, and followed the Taki uphill over a trail crusty from cold and frost. He would have felt a little better about it if the damned four-wheeled cycle had a better muffler. At least the heavy air would help attenuate the sound, or so he hoped, as he headed up the same path he'd taken a few days earlier. In due course he was looking down at the high meadow, seeing nothing out of the ordinary and wondering if—wondering a lot of things. What if the soldiers had run into an ambush? In that case, Nomuri told himself, I'm toast. But there was no turning back. He settled back into the seat and steered his way down the hillside, stopping as he was supposed to in the middle of the clearing and taking the hood down off his red parka. On closer examination, he saw that some sod had been disturbed, and he saw what might have been a trail of sorts into the woodline.

That was when a single figure appeared, waving him up. The CIA officer restarted the cycle and headed that way.

The two soldiers who confronted him didn't point weapons. They didn't have to. Their faces were painted and their camouflage uniforms told him everything he needed to know.

"I'm Nomuri," he said. "The password is Foxtrot."

"Captain Checa," the officer replied, extending his hand. "We've worked with the Agency before. Are you the guy who picked this spot?"

"No, but I checked it out a couple days ago."

"Nice place to build a cabin," Checa thought. "We even saw a few deer, little ones. I hope it isn't hunting season." The remark caught Nomuri short. He hadn't considered that possibility, and didn't know anything about hunt ing in Japan. "So what do you have for me?"

"These." Nomuri took off his backpack and pulled out the cellular phones.

"Are you kiddin' me?"

"The Japanese military has good stuff for monitoring military communication. Hell, they invented a lot of the technology our people use. But these"—Nomuri grinned—"everybody has 'em, and they're digitally encrypted, and they cover the whole country. Even here. There's a repeater tower down on that mountain. Anyway, it's safer than using your regular comms. The bill's paid to the end of the month," he added.

"Be nice to call home and tell my wife that everything's going fine," Checa thought aloud.