Looking for book title

I'm tryingj to remember a book, probably mid to late 70's or very early
80's. I seem to remember it around the time that "Shogun" was popular. I
read it in paperback in somewhere between (I think) 1979 and 1981.

The main character was a caucasian/Japanese mercenary secret-agent type,
and lived in teh Basque province. His SO was an asian woman who he met
in a high class brothel. He would go spelunking with some Basque
friends, which figured into part of the story. There was a character who
was some kind of US Govt agent, like higher level than NSA, and he had
access to a huge computer databse. THe story had something to do with
the protaganist doing something for the American agent, the agent tried
to have him killed, but (of course) the main character prevailed in the
end.

Other odds and ends - he had a caretaker who drank 12 evenly spaced
glasses of red wine during the day, he had some training in sexual arts,
and the book discussed the levels of sexual awareness. He was in a
Russian or Chinese jail for many years, which figured in how he came to
the Basque. There was also a Catholic priest who sold him out at some
point.

Gos, you'd think that if I remembered all this then I'd should have been
able to remember the dang title or author, huh?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Tom

--
Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
To ge to the other... uh.... er...

Sounds like something by Trevanian, maybe? I think I read it to and from
your description, I probably liked it, but I can't remember the names of
what I read yesterday. Have a bad case of CRS.


"Tom Allen" <taomlin DeleteThis @earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Ys1Ua.20593$Mc.1583661@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
 > I'm tryingj to remember a book, probably mid to late 70's or very early
 > 80's. I seem to remember it around the time that "Shogun" was popular. I
 > read it in paperback in somewhere between (I think) 1979 and 1981.
 >
 > The main character was a caucasian/Japanese mercenary secret-agent type,
 > and lived in teh Basque province. His SO was an asian woman who he met
 > in a high class brothel. He would go spelunking with some Basque
 > friends, which figured into part of the story. There was a character who
 > was some kind of US Govt agent, like higher level than NSA, and he had
 > access to a huge computer databse. THe story had something to do with
 > the protaganist doing something for the American agent, the agent tried
 > to have him killed, but (of course) the main character prevailed in the
 > end.
 >
 > Other odds and ends - he had a caretaker who drank 12 evenly spaced
 > glasses of red wine during the day, he had some training in sexual arts,
 > and the book discussed the levels of sexual awareness. He was in a
 > Russian or Chinese jail for many years, which figured in how he came to
 > the Basque. There was also a Catholic priest who sold him out at some
 > point.
 >
 > Gos, you'd think that if I remembered all this then I'd should have been
 > able to remember the dang title or author, huh?
 >
 > Thanks in advance for any help.
 >
 > Tom
 >
 > --
 > Why did the chicken cross the Moebius strip?
 > To ge to the other... uh.... er...
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->