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Skipper struggled to his feet. Shaking off help and swaying a little he bowed formally.

"Thank you, my friends. I'm now more deeply in debt than I can hope to repay." Sheepishly, he added, "May I also trouble you for some food and a bath?"

Yoshi and Niko laughed delightedly and pointed at him.

Skipper looked down and grinned. He'd already been bathed and his muscular 215 pound, six-foot-one frame had been draped with the bathrobe of 115 pound, five foot four Sensei Mashuta, leaving Skipper's knees and elbows exposed and only just covering more personal parts.

Sensei Mashuta laughed aloud, "Of course, Mason-San. In my home even giants get to eat. And may I suggest that here in private we be less formal? Due to these events we are all as close as brothers and sisters. "

Yoshi and Niko looked at one another wide eyed and then looked at Skipper who was looking back at them with the same astonishment. To hear a Grandmaster of Sensei Mashuta's status propose such a thing was nearly unheard of and an honor of the greatest proportions. All three bowed deeply to graying Sensei. This put the three of them on more personal and less formal terms with one another but all three would continue to treat and address Sensei Mashuta with the same degree of formality. Their honor would not allow otherwise.

Food was quickly placed before Skipper, who ate ravenously. Between bites he suddenly remembered Yoshi's wounds. He stopped eating and put down his chopsticks.

"Yoshi, forgive me. How are you? Were you hurt as badly as I thought? Your hand? Is..."

Yoshi held up his good left hand to stop Skipper, saying, "I'll recover. What's been taken away was taken by fate and I am no longer meant to have it. I'll learn to live without my hand. It's really only a minor inconvenience. My own uncle learned to live quite well following the war. He lost both feet and one arm. I have more than him."

"But couldn't they sew your hand back on? Didn't the doctors try?"

"I don't know. I only remember waking for the first time yesterday when Niko came to me in the hospital. They kept me heavily drugged for about two days. They may not have been provided with the hand. But, we shouldn't be worrying about me. I'm as well as I can be for now and nothing will change the past in any case. Right now we need to think about the future and what can be done for you and your mission. Although you haven't told us the full nature of it, it's clearly very urgent and you've lost valuable time."

"There is unhappy news from Grandmaster Lee, Skipper," Sensei Mashuta said gently when Yoshi finished. "He told me Patti White has been kidnaped."

As the full impact of this news struck him, Skipper fought off the blinding rage and guilt that came with the thought of his not being there to help her. Skipper always tended to assume more responsibility for the welfare of others than was rightfully his.

"I see," he said in an icy whisper only those sitting closest to him could hear.

"I'm sorry Skipper, there is more. The kidnappers left a note for you. It directs you to return home and stop this investigation -- or they will kill Patti."

Skipper closed his eyes. Now it was clear that not only hadn't he been there to help her but he was responsible for her kidnapping in the first place. Skipper shook his head and forced himself to think clearly. "They'll kill her, or worse, regardless of what I do. And if I'm not successful we may all be dead anyway. I have to go on." He didn't explain his anguish further.

"What can we do to help you?" Niko was genuine in her desire to aid Skipper and the same sincerity shone in the eyes of Yoshi and Sensei Mashuta.

Heartened by their faith in him, Skipper thought, "With friends like this a man could move the earth. Hang on, Patti, don't give up."

Aloud he said, "Thank you. I'll need supplies and some information, but I'll do the rest myself. This is a personal matter now and I can't allow any of you to endanger yourselves further. You've already paid too dear a price for your kindness," Skipper added, nodding toward Yoshi, who lowered his eyes.

"Now it's up to me to exact retribution. I will avenge your suffering."

If he allowed himself to dwell on his guilt about Patti he'd be of no use to her -- or to the rest of the world. Pushing those thoughts to the back of his mind Skipper concentrated on finding Kubota, his only lead to Arnburg and Peterson and the plans -- and Patti. He quickly and efficiently dictated a list of the things he'd need to Niko who sat poised to write it all down.

Among other things, he requested a few medical supplies; a light-weight, bullet-proof Kevlar vest; clean but well used light-weight, dark-colored clothing; a double-edged boot knife; and a .45 automatic with several magazines of ammunition.

He then suggested that Yoshi and Niko concentrate on finding out how widespread Sensei Kubota's cancer was within the Tokyo Metropolitan Police. Perhaps they weren't in as much trouble as is seemed.

Sensei Mashuta sent for his friend, Doctor Ogawa, who arrived quickly. He examined Skipper and, after ordering him to rest for at least a week, assisted him in padding his damaged left arm in a Sorbothane and fiberglass cast which extended from just above the fingers to just below the elbow. He left Skipper some of the same painkilling tablets he'd given Yoshi. Sensei Mashuta immediately began treating Skipper with acupuncture.

Niko and two of Yoshi's friends returned roughly an hour later burdened with several packages. In them, Skipper found everything he'd ordered and was surprised and delighted by the superb quality of the items.

The .45 Yoshi supplied had received considerable "special attention" by renowned custom gunsmith Bill Wilson of Wilson Combat ; the action was silky smooth and it functioned flawlessly. The bullet-proof vest was a new, Kevlar, Second Chance "Monarch,^" the finest soft body armor available in the world. If it had been made with Spectra, Skipper would have sent it back, having had one of those fail miserably when he was shot once before. Even the black, double-edged, Gerber Mark I boot knife was honed to razor sharpness.

Skipper looked questioningly at Yoshi, who nodded, "They are from my personal collection Skipper, except the body armor which was recently purchased by one of my men who is about your height. Go and get these people where it hurts them most."

"I will."

Skipper decided not to shave the several days' growth of beard he now sported. Pulling on a warm hat, and picking up a pair of sunglasses, a small backpack and a camera; he became a fairly nondescript tourist. He would certainly stand out in a crowd of Japanese; but he looked nothing like the injured, dirty man who'd escaped from the old Tokyo Police Sub-station jail. Having rested and been fed, clothed and equipped he was now as ready as he could be to meet Kubota.

"Sensei Kubota." called a nervous young man outside the Sensei's office. Kubota motioned for him to enter. "Sensei," the young man gasped between labored breaths, as though he'd run all the way back from the jail. "The American has escaped. I went to the jail as you told me to and there were many police there. They closed off the entrance. I listened and watched and they took two men to the hospital. They said Officer Sasaki is dead. The American was helped by someone from outside the jail. I hurried back to tell you." The young man's nervousness increased as he related his story and saw Kubota becoming more angry with each sentence.

"Get out of here." Kubota yelled. Fearing for his life Kubota jumped from his chair and ran out the back door of the dojo, gathering several senior students on the way.

"Any visitors are to be reported to me at my cousin's hotel," he told the others, "but no one, absolutely no one, is to be told where I am."

Kubota was now in hiding.

Skipper watched Kubota's Ninjitsu Dojo for several hours but there was no sign of Kubota or the student who had stuck his face into the muzzle of Skipper's .45 on his last visit. He had to assume Kubota had gone underground.

"So", Skipper thought, "I'll just go digging around under rocks until I find him".

Working his way into the alley behind the dojo Skipper recognized one of the students who had just stepped out the back door. The boy had been wearing a black belt the last time Skipper saw him and had been one of the first to move in defense of his sensei. Skipper thought he might be a likely prospect for some answers.

As Skipper prepared to step out from behind a large cart of trash he heard one of the boy's friends call from within the dojo. Although he couldn't follow the entire conversation he learned that someone was going to Sensei Kubota. Skipper hoped it would be the young man he had his eye on. The lad seemed to be brave, but not overly bright.

Following someone through the crowded alleys and streets of rush hour Tokyo is worse than walking down them - and walking down them is like trying to part the Red Sea with a teaspoon. Trying to remain unnoticed when you're a foot taller than most of the other people makes it almost impossible. Skipper managed by walking with a considerable stoop and keeping people and objects between himself and the boy.

It seemed to him that all of the twelve million people in the city were either in front of him or trying to be. His quarry was trying to be elusive but the boy seemed to be just going through the motions. He wasn't really checking his back trail for a follower. He ducked through buildings, jumped on and off busses and turned down dead-end alleys. What he didn't do was ever really looked to see if he was being followed. Skipper knew he should have been spotted a dozen times - the young man had looked right at him at least twice - but apparently it failed to register with the young Japanese who was just going through the textbook motions of "shaking a tail."

The boy rounded a corner into an alley almost back in the same neighborhood from which they'd started -- a trip of almost an hour to travel only a few blocks. As Skipper crossed the street he peered into a glass storefront and saw in the reflection that the alley behind him was now deserted, the boy was gone.

Skipper studied the signs hanging over several of the dismal store fronts along the shabby, dead-end street. His meager knowledge of Japanese characters, picked up during several training visits here while in the Army, revealed a small hotel, two Mom and Pop restaurants and a druggists shop.

A small general store occupied one corner on the main street entrance to the alley and a smaller produce vendor the other. The boy wasn't in either of these so Skipper's choices were limited to those places farther down. Only after studying the scene in the glass in front of him for several minutes did Skipper become aware that he was staring into a small tea house. He entered and seated himself back away from the front window but in a position from which he commanded a full view of the alley. When a girl came to take his order Skipper asked for a Coke. All he needed right now was to come down with a case of dysentery from bad water.

Fifteen minutes stretched into an hour, then an hour and a half and Skipper grew concerned that the boy might have given him the slip after all. He'd already faked reading all the travel brochures he had stuffed into his little napsack. Just when he was about to give up and head back to the dojo the youth emerged from a gate next to the hotel. The kid peered up and down the alley then scurried out to the street and was gone. Skipper had seen all he needed to see. Smiling with grim satisfaction he sat tight, ordered another Coke and started on the brochures again. In another fifteen minutes it would be fully dark.

In this part of Tokyo at this time of year darkness falls like a brick. Situated east of a hill, twilight here was daytime most other places and twilight elsewhere was inky blackness here. There was little light in the alley, only a few businesses had lighted signs, and the glow through shoji doors and windows cast only meager light into alleys and streets. What yard lights there were consisted of small, bare bulbs. In the gusty winter wind their dancing light played fitfully in the dark surroundings. There was no snow on the ground. Snowfall was generally light along the Pacific edge of Japan; but freezing winds, like the one tonight, chilled the bones in late January.

A crippled old man moved from one building to the next down the alley blending into the shadows without apparent effort. He limped painfully on his twisted right leg and was hunched over from age and the cold. A rag of a coat hung from his shoulders with its empty, pinned up left sleeve flapping in the wind. Many such homeless people are to be found in every city of the world. They don't attract much attention from the rest of the population and virtually none in this run-down suburb of Tokyo.

The old man was almost even with the gate beside the hotel when it swung open with its rusty hinges screeching in protest. Then it banged shut with a deafening metallic clang. Two men had emerged and as they passed by one of them cursed and deliberately shoved the old fellow aside.

"So much for honoring the aged and the infirm -- and tonight I qualify for at least one, if not both, of those titles", Skipper thought ruefully. Appearing to pick himself up with great effort he adjusted the tattered coat and limped further down the alley to a spot just past the gate. There he leaned against the wall and glanced around to see the two men disappearing around the corner. The sound of a dog whining on the other side of the six-foot wall told Skipper there was a courtyard there. The dog hadn't barked at the two men who just left which gave him hope it wouldn't bark when he entered, either.

He tossed the ragged old coat into the air, deftly draping it on top of the wall. Many of these courtyard walls wore a crown of broken, jagged glass. So did this one. Placing his hands carefully on the coat he swung up onto the wall, quickly surveyed the courtyard and dropped behind the folds of a frozen bedspread hanging stiffly on a line just inside the yard. He reached out and allowed the dog to nuzzle the back of his hand, then patted its head. Then he reached up and flipped his coat off the wall and put it on. It was very cold. As he warmed his hands on the kitchen wall next to the dog, he cautiously looked around the small hotel area.

This part of town had changed little in many, many years. Most of the progress that hit Tokyo like a tidal wave since 1946 slipped past this area, but left it polluted with more than 20,000 people per square kilometer. TV sets were to be seen here but indoor plumbing was a rarity reserved for some hotels and almost none of the private houses. Most private homes had an outhouse and a single cold water pipe from the main city line.

Such was the case here. Only one of the hotel's rooms facing the small courtyard showed any activity -- the flicker of a TV screen behind the shoji doors. A booming laugh echoed across the yard with coarse comments in a voice that raised the hair on the back of Skipper's neck...Kubota!

Silently Skipper moved across the courtyard. Just a few steps from the shoji doors separating him from Kubota he stopped and looked around again. As he turned his eyes meet those of an elderly woman coming from the kitchen. In a horse almost cackling voice she screamed.

Skipper took two strides toward the shoji doors in front of him and they slid open unexpectedly. He tried to check his forward momentum but still lunged partway into the room. Kubota caught Skipper off balance and threw him across the room in a wild somersault. While Skipper was still upside down in the air Kubota himself crashed out through the partially open doors. Skipper landed on the old TV set which imploded violently and showered the room with sparks from its already frayed wiring. Regaining his feet he raced into the courtyard in time to see Kubota slip through the gate into the alley.

As Skipper started across the yard after him someone leaped from the next room and attempted to grab his shoulders. A quick twist of his upper body turned his attacker's momentum and sent him skidding away under the frozen laundry holding only a torn piece of Skipper's shirt in his fist. Skipper cautiously stepped through the courtyard gate and saw Kubota fleeing across the rooftops on the other side of the alley, dimly silhouetted by the meager light beyond.

Sparks from the old TV set ignited the dry tatami mats on the floor and within seconds set the tinderbox hotel ablaze. Terrified shouts and screams filled the once-quiet night. Flames flared up, brightly illuminating the night sky. Skipper sprinted after Kubota, ignoring the flames behind him and totally intent on his quarry.

Kubota glanced back to see Skipper sharply silhouetted against a fiery background and was panic stricken. He'd never faced a good fighter in a life or death struggle before and he wasn't about to start with a man whose reputation had preceded him. If he had to fight Kubota wanted it to be on his own terms and his own turf. Leaping across the rooftops he looked back again -- Skipper was only a few yards behind.

Anger churned within Skipper. The man in front of him had the answers he needed. He knew where Patti was being held and where Arnburg and Peterson were hiding with the plans for the Roacherian Effect device. Skipper couldn't let Kubota escape. He wouldn't. He let his anger work within him, the adrenalin lending speed greater than he'd ever achieved before. Skipper was gaining and, try as he might, Kubota couldn't outrun him. Kubota's moment of truth loomed closer.

Kubota came suddenly to the end of the roof-line he'd been following. He'd been working his way upward across the rooftops and was now on top of a three-story building near his dojo. He turned to climb down a fire ladder.

Skipper's full attention was on Kubota. Seeing him turn to descend the ladder Skipper catapulted himself into the air in a flying side kick aimed at Kubota's chest but he connected just as Kubota stepped down a rung.

Too late Kubota sensed his danger and looking up saw Skipper in midair, his foot flashing out in a powerful knife-edged kick that caught Kubota full in the face. The impact of Skipper's flying side kick snapped Kubota's head back and broke his grip on the ladder launching him backwards into space.

Skipper's forward momentum carried him off the roof after Kubota. He tried to grab the top of the ladder and the fingertips of his left hand caught hold. Burdened by the cast his fingers came loose as searing pain shot up his damaged arm. Skipper tried to ignore the pain and concentrated on landing. He fell feet first for what seemed an eternity, crashed onto the roof of a parked taxi and then fell into the street. Rolling over Skipper saw the front bumper of a car screeching to a stop inches from his face. He slowly exhaled and began mentally checking off body parts attempting to discover any new injuries. "Now I know just how Wilie E. Coyote feels," he groaned.