Free Fortunes of War by Stephen Coonts Page A

economy.” He chose the latter. Without children in school or a wife who wanted to socialize with other Americans, it was an easy choice.
    These men had been waiting for him. They must know where he lived, the route he usually took to get there. They must have followed him in the past and he just hadn’t paid attention.
    Well, maybe his conversation with Jiro had made him apprehensive, so that was why he was looking now. Actually, he admitted to himself, he felt guilty. Jiro shouldn’t have talked out of school.
    Oh, he was glad he had, but still…Cassidy felt guilty.
    A block from home, just before turning a corner, he paused to look at the reflection in a slab of marble siding on a store. The balding man was visible, and, just turning the far corner, the car.
    Bob Cassidy went into his apartment building. He collected his mail at the lobby mailbox, then rode the elevator to his floor and unlocked the door to his apartment. He didn’t turn on the light.
    He sat in the evening twilight, looking out the window, trying to decide what to do.
    They must be monitoring the telephones at the base, or at the embassy.
    Jiro was the only member of the Japanese military who had ever told Cassidy anything classified. Oh, as air attaché, he routinely talked to Japanese military men, many of whom were personal friends. A dozen of his contacts even held flag rank. The things these soldiers told him were certainly not secrets. He collected common, everyday “this is how we do it” stuff, the filler that military attachés all over the world gather and send home for their own militaries to analyze. Finding out the things that the Japanese didn’t want the Americans to know was the job of another agency, the CIA.
    So did the tail mean the Japanese knew that Jiro had talked?
    One of Cassidy’s fears was that his report of the conversation with Jiro had been compromised—that is, passed right back to the Japanese. Alas, the United States had suffered through too many spy scandals in the last twenty years. Bitter, disappointed men seemed all too willing to sell out their colleagues and their country for money. God knows, the Japanese certainly had enough money.
    He would have to report being tailed to the embassy security officer; perhaps he should do that now, and ask him if anyone else had reported being followed. He picked up the telephone and held it in his hand, but he didn’t dial. This phone was probably tapped, too. If he called embassy security and reported the tail, it would look like he had something to hide.
    He went to the window and stood looking at the Tokyo skyline, or what little he could see of it from a fifth-floor window. He checked his watch. Two hours.
    He was supposed to meet Jiro in two hours. Jiro had mentioned Colorado Springs when he called earlier that day. Two days ago, when Cassidy had dinner at the Kimuras’, he and Jiro had agreed that the mention of that city would be the code for a meet at a site they agreed upon then.
    The code had been Jiro’s idea. Cassidy had a bad taste in his mouth about the whole thing. Neither one of them was a trained spy; they were in over their heads. They were going to compromise themselves.Even if they didn’t, Cassidy had this feeling deep down that this episode was going to cost him a close friend.
    He turned his mind back to the problem at hand.
    Jiro had called, and a plainclothes tailing team had been waiting when he left the embassy compound.
    Perhaps they were monitoring all the calls from Kimura’s base and had intercepted this one, then decided to check to see if Kimura was meeting people he had no good reason to meet.
    Or maybe they were onto Kimura.
    Maybe they knew he had spilled some secrets to the Americans. Maybe they were trying to rope in Kimura’s U.S. contact.
    Maybe, maybe, maybe…
    Cassidy changed into civilian clothes while he mulled the problem over, then went into the kitchen and got a