"Over what?"
"Everybody wants you. It's the protocol." His look darkened. "Eva, they are in no mood for niceties."
"Neither am I." She noticed the two men were now moving toward them. One was taller and seemed to be in charge, but they both were carrying what looked like small-caliber automatic weapons.
The protocol, whatever it was, was still in code. She didn't know what she didn't know. How could she bargain?
It was too late to think about it now. Their faces were hard and smooth, with the cold eyes of men who killed on command. My God, she thought, what had Michael said about the Mino-gumi?
The Japanese mob.
The taller man, she was soon to learn, was Kazuo Ina- gawa, who had been a London-based kobun for the Mino-gumi for the past decade. He had a thin, pasty face and had once been first kobun for their entire Osaka organization, in charge of gambling and nightclub shakedowns. Even in the early dawn light, he wore sunglasses, masking his eyes.
The shorter one was Takahashi Takenaka, whose pockmarked face was distinguished by a thin moustache, an aquiline nose, and the same sunglasses.
Alex, she realized, must have lied to them, covering up what really happened out at the palace. Now he was bluffing for his life.
"You can just tell them I don't know anything about it." She felt the cold air closing in.