But what Baker lacked in grace and style, he more than made up for in ruthlessness. Yoshio had learned that last week when he followed him out to that attorney’s house on Long Island. He’d seen Baker tampering with the man’s car, but had assumed he was installing either a tracer or a bug. If he’d realized that Baker was planting a bomb, he’d have called the attorney to warn him.

Enough people had died already.

According to Yoshio’s employer, Kaze Group in Tokyo, 247 people were already dead because of something Ronald Clayton knew or had discovered. Yoshio had witnessed the death of one other a few weeks ago. And last Friday, the death of Leo Weinstein raised the grand total to 249.

Apparently the board of Kaze Group knew no more than Yoshio. Or at least they pretended not to. They told him they did not know why Ronald Clayton and his house were so important to this Arab Kemel Muhallal; but if it was worth the lives of so many innocent people, then certainly it was worth their effort to look into it.

They knew more than that, he was sure. Although nominally just a simple holding company, Kaze Group was more powerful than the largest keiretsu. It had global reach. But obviously they didn’t know all they wished to know.

And so the board had called upon Yoshio, as they tended to do when they had a problem that needed to be handled with discretion, and sent him to America to learn more for them. It helped that English was one of the four languages he spoke fluently. His assignment was to be their eyes and ears here. They had secured a set of diplomatic license plates to afford him more latitude with the city’s traffic and parking regulations. He was to watch, to listen, and to report back to them.

They had sent him alone. He had no backup here now, but should the need arise, help could arrive within hours.

So far he had learned nothing knew. But Kaze Group was patient. Always it took the long view. He would stay here as long as they wished him to.

Gladly. The food was wonderful. He glanced at his dashboard clock. Soon it would be lunchtime. He could hardly wait.

5.

Jack sat in the front window on the second floor of Pinky’s Drive-in and watched Seventh Avenue directly below. “Jingle Bell Rock” wafted from the speakers set among the hubcaps on the wall as he sipped a Snapple peach iced tea from the bottle and scanned the mob below.

And a mob it was. Christmas shoppers, school trips, parents with their bundled-up kids waddling behind them like chubby ducklings, all streaming onto the already congested streets from Penn Station, heading for Macy’s, FAO Schwartz, the Warner and Disney stores, the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. And this was only a Monday. Wait till Wednesday—matinee day.

The crowds brought out the flyer guys in force, standing like starter jacket-wrapped stones in the flow, handing out party-colored sheets offering everything from a dollar off a fried chicken special, to a Special Overstock Sale, to Live Girls—Nude! Nude! Nude!