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enjoying Tokyo in the rain.
    Harumi-Dori is a street that runs up from Tokyo Harbor to the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Crossed at two points by the new expressway, it perhaps symbolizes modern Japan as well as any other street in the capital. At least that was what the man in the black raincoat was thinking as he walked along it, past the Nishi Honganji Temple and the famous Kabuki-Za Theatre. The old Japan and the new—Kabuki and expressways.
    He paused at the corner, decided that the rain had almost stopped, and turned down the collar of his raincoat. Then he crossed the busy street and entered the offices of the Japan News Agency. The newsroom was on the third floor, and he found it without difficulty. It was a crowded, bustling place of clattering teletype machines and chattering Japanese voices. Very much like a newsroom anywhere else.
    But then he paused. The desks were set in neat rows, and there was no identification on any of them. Thirty-six men occupied the room, seated at thirty-six desks, and he had no way of identifying the man he sought. He pondered a moment, deciding on the best tactic. His knowledge of Japanese was limited, and he could not simply ask for the man he sought without attracting attention to himself and warning his prey.
    There was a pay telephone in the hallway outside the newsroom. He dropped in the necessary coins and dialed the number of the news agency itself. When the operator answered, he spoke the name of the man he sought.
    “Shoju Etan.”
    She made the connection and he heard a phone in the newsroom begin to ring. One among many, but the only one to start ringing at exactly that instant. He let the receiver hang free and stepped back into the newsroom. The man was at the head of the center row of desks, as befitted his position. A dull, middle-aged Japanese speaking now into the silent phone, questioning, waiting.
    The man in the black raincoat stepped quickly to the desk and fired one shot from the Llama .32 in his hand. He needed only one shot. The man at the desk slumped over dead, and the phone receiver clattered to the floor.
    Then there were screaming and shouting, the turmoil so familiar to his way of life, and death. The man in the raincoat twisted his lip in a sort of smile as he backed through the door and headed for the fire stairs. A copy boy was blocking his path, and the man swung the Llama automatic in a wide arc, catching the youth on the temple. Then he was through the door, running quickly down the stairs to the safety of the street…
    When Rand stepped off the big jet airliner at Tokyo Airport two days later, the sun was shining brightly. The time change during the flight from London had tired him, and he should have been sleeping, but the sights of the strange and exotic city freshened his mind.
    “Your first visit to Tokyo, Mr. Rand?” a voice asked. It belonged to a dark-haired American with fashionable sideburns and badly capped front teeth.
    “Yes, it is,” Rand replied. “But not my first to the Orient. I visited Hong Kong some years back.” He moved into line at the Customs counter. “You must be Lanning.”
    “That’s right,” the American said. “My car is outside.”
    Ten minutes later, seated in the back of an American limousine far too large to pass unnoticed on Tokyo’s crowded streets, Samuel Lanning produced his identification. Rand inspected the plastic-sealed I.D. card from the Central Intelligence Agency. He’d seen them before, and if they weren’t quite as colorfully printed as the Americans’ Secret Service identification, they were still impressive.
    “You fellows should get your Treasury to print these,” Rand commented. “The Secret Service ones look like miniature money.”
    Sam Lanning blinked and slipped the wallet back in his pocket. “You’ve been to America? The Secret Service rarely gets to London, I know.”
    “Oh, yes, New York, Washington, other places. I spent some months there just last year.”
    Lanning