He skirted the hazy glow of a porch light and eased along the edge of a shed that smelled of fresh diesel and rotten fish. The simple rhythm of his surroundings remained unchanged: the quiet lapping of waves, a southern wind just strong enough to get hold of the occasional loose board, the nearly imperceptible hum of power lines. Beyond that, nothing.

Smith followed the dim arrow on his GPS watch toward a narrow passageway between buildings, still wondering why he’d been chosen for this job. While his complexion and military-cut hair were relatively dark, a six-foot-tall, blue-eyed American slinking around rural Japan at 2:00 a.m. had the potential to attract more attention than would be desirable under the circumstances. And then there was the matter of his Japanese-language skills, which consisted of a few phrases incorrectly remembered from reading Shogun in high school.

There was just no way Covert-One didn’t have access to Japanese operatives. Hell, even Randi would have been a vast improvement. A little makeup and hair dye would be good enough to make her 90 percent invisible, and while most of her operational experience had been China-based, Japan was at least somewhere in the general vicinity of her area of expertise.

No doubt Klein had his reasons—he always did. And the job itself didn’t seem all that difficult. Meet a man, get a standard-sized briefcase weighing in at a manageable twelve pounds, and bring it back to Maryland on a military transport out of Okinawa.

Piece of cake, right? Hell, he’d probably have time to grab a little sushi and have his spine walked on.

The darkness deepened as he entered the narrow space between the buildings, forcing him to slow to a crawl. The GPS said he was only twenty yards from the rendezvous point, and he slid a silenced Glock from beneath his sweatshirt. Not that he thought he’d be needing it, but you never knew.

The passage came to a T and Smith poked his head around the side of a warehouse to quickly scan both directions. Nothing but darkness. He was starting to regret not bringing light amplification equipment, but as hard as it was for a six-foot, blue-eyed American to remain anonymous in this part of the world, cover those blue eyes with an elaborate set of night-vision goggles and he might as well be juggling chain saws in a top hat.

He turned right, inching along for a few seconds, unable to completely silence the sound of his boots crunching on something he swore was fish bones.

“I’m here!”