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The man stood there without answering for several seconds. Showalter began frantically looking around, wondering why no security sentries were present.
Then Orita began laughing. "Great disguise, Jim. You fooled hell out of both of us."
James Hanamura removed the silver-haired wig and pulled off the eyebrows and mustache. "Not bad if I do say so. I faked out Hideki Suma and his secretary as well."
Showalter exhaled a great breath and sank in the water up to his chin. "Jesus, you gave me a scare.
For all I knew you had penetrated the security rings and were about to dispatch Orita and me."
"That saki looks good. Any left?"
Orita poured him a cup. "There's a whole case of it in the kitchen." Then suddenly a surprised expression swept his face. "What was that you just said?"
"Beg your pardon?"
"Hideki Suma."
"My half of the operation. I traced ownership of the Murmoto Automotive and Aircraft Corporation and the Sushimo Steamship Company through a string of phony business fronts to Hideki Suma, the recluse tycoon. Murmoto and Sushimo are only a drop in the bucket. This guy has more assets than the entire State of California, with Nevada and Arizona thrown in."
"Didn't the ship that blew up, the Divine Star, belong to Sushimo Steamship?" asked Showalter.
"Yes indeed. A neat package, wouldn't you say? It looks to me like Hideki Suma is up to his ears in this mess."
"Suma is a very powerful man," said Showalter. "He prospers in strange and devious ways. They say that if he commands Prime Minister Junshiro and his cabinet ministers to flap their arms and fly, they'd fight over who jumps out the window first."
"You actually got in to see Suma?" Orita asked in amazement.
"Nothing to it. You should see his office and secretary. Both very choice."
"Why the disguise?"
"Team Lincoln's idea. Suma collects paintings by a sixteenth century Japanese artist named Masaki Shimzu. Jordan hired an expert forger to paint what is called in art circles an undiscovered Shimzu, one it was known Suma didn't have in his collection. Then, as the reputable finder of lost art, Ashikaga Enshu, I sold it to him."
Showalter nodded. "Clever, clever. You must have studied your Japanese art."
"A crash course." Hanamura laughed. "Suma elaborated on how Shimzu painted islands from a balloon. He'd have ordered me drawn and quartered if he knew he was laying out a hundred and forty-five million yen for a fake painted from a satellite photo."
"For what purpose?" asked Orita, his face oddly taut.
"To plant bugs in his office, naturally."
"How come I wasn't in on this?"
"I thought it best you two didn't know what the other was doing," Showalter answered Orita, "so you couldn't reveal anything of importance if either of you were compromised."
"Where did you set the bugs?" Orita asked Hanamura.
"Two in the frame of the painting. One in an easel he's standing in front of a window, and another inside the draw handle for the blinds. The latter two are in perfect alignment with a relay transmitter I placed in a tree outside the atrium dome of the city."
"What if Suma has hidden sweep equipment?"
"Ìborrowed' the electrical blueprints to his floor of the building. His detection equipment is first rate, but it won't pick up our bugs. And when I say bugs, I'm talking in the literal sense."
Orita missed Hanamura's implication. "You lost me."
"Our miniature receiving and sending units are not designed with the look of tiny electronic objects.
They're molded to look like ants. If discovered, they'll either be ignored or simply mashed without suspicion."
