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nodded. He spoke a few words in Japanese to the driver and then settled back. “Your department is Concealed Communications, isn’t it?” he asked. “Codes and things?”
    Rand smiled. “Codes and things. I must say I’m impressed with your car. I didn’t realize the CIA paid so well.”
    The American snorted. “The car belongs to the Embassy, and they don’t pay that well. I started at $8000 a year, about what I could have made as a high-school teacher, and a good deal less than I might have earned as an actor.”
    Rand nodded. The man was interesting, even by the usual standards of the trade. “You were an actor?”
    “I did a little Shakespeare after college.”
    “Hamlet?”
    “No, but I did Iago once in a semiprofessional production of Othello . That’s the longest role Shakespeare ever wrote.”
    The sedan took an expressway that looped around the Imperial Palace and then left it to wind through the narrow streets of the city. Lanning explained that they were in the Bunkyo-Ku section in the northern part of the city. The car passed the Kodokan Judo Hall and slowed to a stop before a middle-class apartment house. The streets here were filled with young people, and Rand asked about them.
    “Tokyo University is only a few blocks away,” Lanning said. “Things are normal there now. It’s almost time for the summer vacation.”
    “Who will we be seeing here?” Rand gestured toward the apartment house. “Mrs. Belgrave?”
    “Yes. And the other.”
    Rand frowned at the CIA man. “A replacement for Shoju? I assume someone replaced him after the killing on Monday.”
    Lanning smiled, as if proud of his little secret. “No one could replace Shoju in this operation, but happily we don’t have to. Shoju Etan is alive.”
    “Alive?” Rand could not conceal his surprise. “But the papers said—”
    “Someone else was sitting at his desk. We decided to play along and throw the assassin off the track temporarily.” He opened the door. “Shall we go up now?”
    Shoju Etan was a short balding Japanese of indeterminate age, with twinkling eyes that seemed always friendly. Rand had met him in London some years earlier, when he was once honored by a journalism group.
    “Shoju! I’m so glad to see you alive!” Rand hurried to shake his hand.
    “Ah, the Double-C man!” The slanted eyes took on their familiar twinkle. “I am indeed alive. I could hardly depart this earth without having written that interview we talked of in London.”
    “The reports in the paper—”
    “Ah! We never believe what we read, do we, Mr. Rand? I was writing a series on the Tokyo zoo, and went out for further information. Another man was using my desk, and unfortunately he was mistaken for me.”
    Rand became aware of the woman who sat in one corner of the pleasant room, her face hidden in shadow. “You must be Mrs. Belgrave.”
    She stood up and offered her hand. Seeing her face, he was a bit surprised by its obvious youthful beauty. Somehow he’d expected Gordon Belgrave’s wife to be close to his age—a woman in her fifties. But Mrs. Belgrave could have been no more than 35, and her flashing red hair contrasted strikingly with the pale skin of her face.
    “How do you do, Mr. Rand,” she said, speaking with a slight British accent, as of one who has lived most of her life far from her homeland. “I do hope you can help free my husband.”
    “I’ll do what I can, of course,” Rand assured her. Then, to Lanning, “Suppose you run over the situation for me. I must admit this attempt to kill Shoju here was more than I’d bargained for.”
    Lanning cleared his throat, a little like a lecturer. “Sure. Glad to, Rand. As you know, Gordon Belgrave is the American representative of a book publishers’ council who was sent to Moscow to negotiate an agreement with the Russians on book royalties. The Reds had been pirating American books for years without paying anything, and lately there’s been some reverse pirating by