20
Tokyo, Japan
June 28
Because of its involvement in defense, Namaka Special Steels was a restricted military area, so Chifune ordered the Koancho pilot to circle the rooftop landing zone twice, while announcing that this was a special police inspection through the loudspeaker.
Half a dozen armed uniformed guards could be seen on the roof and a small control tower doubtless held more, so she did not want a hot landing if it could possibly be avoided.
The helicopter was in Tokyo MPD livery, and police authority was respected in Japan, so she did not expect any serious difficulty in actually landing. Whether she would be able to get much further than the roof was another question, but she would worry about that after they had touched down. Normally, her Koancho credentials could get her into just about anywhere. The security service was held in some awe.
The reaction from the guards was unexpected. The helicopter was energetically waved away and then a booming amplified voice from the ground announced: “Warning. This is a restricted area. Do not try to land or we will open fire. I repeat. Do not try to land or we will open fire.”
Chifune and Oga looked at each other in shock. This was unprecedented. "Extraordinary," muttered Oga. What was nearly violence-free Japan coming to when guards on a steel plant could threaten an official aircraft with lethal force? Respect for authority was going to hell.
"Decidedly odd, Sergeant-san," said Chifune. She ordered the pilot to circle again, and perused the landing pad through a pair of pintle-mounted, high-power, gyroscopically stabilized glasses. Because of the vibration inherent in their design, helicopters were terrible things to use binoculars from, but the gyro stabilization made all the difference. The picture was rock-steady and, magnified fifteen times, the guards looked nearly close enough to touch.
She pushed the glasses on their mount over to Oga. Koancho has all the latest surveillance toys, he reflected, as he focused the instrument on a group of guards below. Suddenly, the strange reaction of the guards made sense. "Yakuza," he said forcefully. "I recognize some of the faces. These cannot be proper Japanese Defense Agency-cleared guards. These people are criminals. What are they doing here?"
"I expect the Namakas know the answer to that," said Chifune grimly.
She called up Koancho control, transmitted a picture of the faces below in real time to the duty officer, and called for backup. A voice in reply told her not to try to land until reinforcements arrived. She started to argue, then noticed that a panel on top of the control tower had opened and several guards carrying something had emerged. The video link with control was still running. There was a brief warning cry from the horrified duty officer, and then a line of red tracer stabbed into the sky toward them and the radio went dead.
A line of holes appeared in the cabin fuselage and Detective Sakado spasmed in his seat belt, as two heavy .50-caliber rounds punched through his side and blew the best part of one lung and half his rib cage out of the front of his body.
The helicopter dropped like a stone and sideslipped over the roof, as the pilot implemented immediate evasive action away from the line of tracer. It was a reflex action and effective in that it was unexpected, but it brought them closer to the control tower.
A second burst from the .50 punched through the airspace they had just left, but then a third burst caught the tail rotor. The helicopter started to spin on its own axis, but they were now so close to the roof landing area that they hit almost immediately.
There was the sound of screaming metal as the skids dragged across the metal grating of the landing area, showering sparks everywhere, and then the rotors disintegrated as the wrecked machine came to a halt against the base of the control tower.
The impact had been severe, but the short drop made it far from fatal, and the slide across the pad had dissipated much of the energy. Strapped in as they were, Chifune and the surviving detectives were bruised and shaken but otherwise unharmed. Immediately, they scrambled out of the cabin door and took shelter at the base of the tower away from where the helicopter had impacted. The pilot tried to follow them, but just as he was climbing out, the fuel tanks blew and engulfed the near side of the control tower and much of the landing pad in burning fuel and red-hot debris.
A guard staggered toward them. A long piece of rotor blade had hit him in the back as he ran away from the crashing helicopter, and as they watched he pitched forward, thick blood spewing from his mouth.
A figure peeled over the roof parapet of the control tower. They were too close to the base of the tower for the .50-caliber to be brought to bear on them, but the guard had a submachine gun and was bringing it to the point of aim as Chifune fired. The guard jerked and blood sprayed from him as the burst cut him open, then he pitched over the parapet edge and crashed to the ground beside them.
Chifune crawled toward the body. They had to take out the heavy-machine-gun team on the control tower roof, and she needed grenades. Her effort was in vain. The guard had none. Her movement attracted the attention of other guards firing from a doorway about fifty meters away. Rounds cracked over her head and smashed into the base of the tower behind her.
Sergeant Oga and Detective Renako mounted a furious hail of fire in reply, and under its cover Chifune crawled back to where they were. Effectively, they were pinned down in a crossfire between the guards on the control-tower roof and the others around the door.
* * * * *
Fitzduane held up his left hand, effectively stopping Hitai, in front of him, and the two yakuza guards, behind him, in their tracks.
The gaijin was responding at last. He was doing something other than retreating. This was good. This was what Namaka-san wanted, and what he wanted, his men wanted.
"Namaka-san," said Fitzduane, "I was thinking about the difference between Western swords and those of Japan. Is it not true that Japanese swords were perfected around the eighth century and that a sword made a thousand years later is more or less the same in appearance?"
Despite his rage, Kei was interested. The gaijin was a fellow weapons expert. What he had to say, particularly under these extreme circumstances, could well be worth hearing. "Wait," he said in Japanese to his men.
Hitai had been preparing to kill the gaijin by drawing his sword and slashing in one continuous flowing move. Kei Namaka was famous for it and Hitai wanted to show that he, too, was a master of Iai-do — the art of drawing a sword.
The gaijin did not look to be presenting much of a problem as an opponent, but his behavior was upsetting. His method of retreating meant that it was hard to keep the appropriate striking distance away. And this ridiculous conversation was just distracting. It upset the dignity of the occasion. Hitai found it irritating, and it was hard to clear his mind as he had learned to do.
His object was to make his mind like water: a reflection in water is the symbol of a clear, calm mind in harmony with its surroundings — the highest level of training in a martial art. The gaijin's behavior was the mental equivalent of throwing pebbles into that water. Hitai could not focus.
"Yes, it is so," said Kei. "The classic Japanese sword, the katana, reached perfection at a time when Europeans were fighting with crude lumps of steel — and then how do you improve on perfection? Instead, the emphasis changed to perfecting the use of the sword. One hundred and twenty draws and a thousand cuts per day was normal for a warrior's training. It is only through constant practice that perfection is achieved, and that warrior and sword become as one."
"I have to admit, Namaka-san," said Fitzduane, "we're a sloppy lot in the West by comparison. Instead of settling on perfection, we keep on trying out new things. It makes for a disorderly but creative society. Take the rapier, for example. At one stage, some models were all of five feet long — rather difficult to wear on social occasions. Of course, trial and error produced a more acceptable result. But then we all switched to the gun. What do you do with degenerates like that? Fickle. No staying power."
Kei Namaka was nonplussed. The gaijin was playing with him. Hitai glanced toward Kei in a silent plea that this nonsense be stopped.
Fitzduane stepped back three paces, and as the two yakuza stumbled in surprise at this totally unexpected move, he executed one ferocious thrust which pierced the neck of the man next to him and continued without pause to sink its point deep into the second yakuza's eye.
Kei gave a bellow, and Hitai turned back to his opponent and drew his katana with incredible speed and slashed in a reflex at where Fitzduane had been. The blade caught the second yakuza as he fell away, mortally wounded from the sword in his eye; after cutting through his spine, it severed his right arm.
Fitzduane, who had little time for style over substance when his life was on the line, left his rapier in the first yakuza's neck and grabbed the man's Uzi. The strap would not come away, so he cocked it and fired it while still attached to the yakuza's body.
The weapon hammered and Hitai's weapon shattered as the first rounds hit it. It did not seem quite the occasion for restraint, so Fitzduane fired again, and Hitai sprouted red flowers as he shot backwards into the second yakuza master swordsman.
The Uzi jammed. Fitzduane pulled his rapier out of the dead yakuza's neck with some effort and met his new opponent as he advanced. The yakuza delivered a series of slashing blows in a vertical cloverleaf arrangement that effectively prevented anyone from getting near him. It was an aggressive defense, because the man advanced as he deployed this flashing perimeter.
Fitzduane scooped up Hitai's damaged katana and used it to parry the yakuza's blade, and as he did so thrust his rapier into the yakuza's stomach. The man sagged forward onto his knees.
Fitzduane whirled to meet any possible attack from Kei Namaka, and was stunned to see that neither he nor Goto had moved.
Kei just stood there, the ax in his hands, enjoying the spectacle. Then Fitzduane moved forward and the ax was a blur in his hands. There was a fountain of blood , and the yakuza's head flew across the room. The headless body slid to the ground, as Kei watched, mesmerized. Then he looked at the dripping weapon. "Superb," he said. "The balance, the craftsmanship, quite superb."
"Namaka-san," said Fitzduane, "clearly you did not eat enough fish as a child. There can be too much of a good thing. Put that weapon down."
Kei looked across. The gaijin had moved again. Now he was by the small table where his belongings had been placed and there was something in his hands.
"Don't disappoint me, Fitzduane-san," he said. "Let us fight man to man."
Fitzduane looked at the carnage around him and then at Kei. "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "The familiar Calico was now in his hand. The exploding ex had been a nice idea, but he did not relish being in the same room when it went off. Metal fragments traveling at high velocity had no discrimination.
"FIGHT ME, GAIJIN!" Kei roared, and charged at Fitzduane, the ax held high above his head.
This is the man who arranged to have me killed and who nearly killed my son, thought Fitzduane. Still, there was deep regret, as he squeezed the trigger of the Calico and 10mm red tracer winked across the room, smashed effortlessly through the ornate samurai armor, and tore the magnificent body of Kei Namaka into shreds.
The remains that had been the chairman of the Namaka Corporation crumpled, and streams of crimson spread out across the seamless wooden floor.
"Namaka-san," said Fitzduane to himself, "we gaijins have our weaknesses, but we know — we truly know — about the business of killing. And there is scant glory in it."
In a far corner of the room, the new security chief of the Namaka Corporation crouched. Under the samurai war helmet, he was white-faced and shaking with fear.
Fitzduane walked across to him, the Calico loosely trained on the terrified man. "Goto-san," he said mildly, "are you sure you are on the right career path?"
Goto shook and could not speak. The gaijin had killed five armed men in less than a minute, and he was certain it would soon be six. He had taken the job of security chief after Kitano's abrupt demise to consolidate his power in the Namaka keiretsu, but had never dreamed he would be much more than an administrator. The reality of violence made him sick.
"Goto-san," said Fitzduane. "If you don't want me to add to your normal quota of body apertures, you're going to get up and show me how to get out of here."
The terrified man did not move.
Fitzduane straightened his aim so that the Calico was pointing directly between Goto's eyes. "Please," said Fitzduane dryly.
* * * * *
The only reason they were not dead, Chifune reflected, as heavy automatic fire cracked inches overhead and drew splinters from the base of the tower, was the thin double line of sandbags about two feet high and eight feet long behind which they were sheltering.
She could not at first figure out what the bags were doing there, since the layout in no way constituted an emplacement, and then realized that they were probably used in high winds to help secure the skids of parked helicopters.
The bags had been filled with a thin, high-quality sand, unfortunately, and as the gunfire ripped open the bags, the sand was flowing out at an uncomfortably fast rate. In a matter of minutes they would be well-equipped to build sand castles but devoid of cover. They were going to have to do something very soon.
Oga was lying on his back, his Heckler and Koch MP5 pointed up at the top of the tower. From time to time, a head would appear and someone would try to shoot down, but Oga's accurate snap-shooting in semiautomatic mode to conserve ammunition kept the situation under control. He was talented at this sort of thing, observed Chifune. It was more than standard airborne training.
"How is your CQB, Sergeant-san?" said Chifune. She was referring to Close Quarters Battle training, the highly specialized skills acquired for hostage training or close-in counterterrorist work.
Oga fired twice rapidly at a silhouette appearing over the tower parapet and red mist stained the air. "Rusty, but coming back to me," he said. "They say it's like riding a bicycle. When you get older, you can still do it, but your joints creak."
Chifune smiled briefly. She had heard much the same comment made about another popular human pastime.
"If we stay here, we're going to get killed," she said. "If we advance to attack the guards in and around the doorway, we're not going to make it. There is at least a half-dozen of them and there are forty-odd yards to cover. Also, they will be able to hit us with the fifty on the roof from behind."
"Which leaves the tower or waiting until help comes?" said Oga.
"Help is going to take twenty minutes or more," said Chifune, "even with the quick reaction team."
"So put a 40mm into the doorway and have Renako hose them down for a few seconds while we kick in the tower doorway," said Oga. "My guess, after the helicopter blew up beside them, is tat all the survivors are on the roof."
"How many do you think?" said Chifune.
"Less that there were," said Oga grimly. "Two or three, four at the most. So let's do it."
Chifune looked up at the tower again. She could take the top off with a 40mm grenade, but they were too close for the projectile to arm, and even if it did the resultant explosion could well take them out too. She made a mental note to take good, old-fashioned hand grenades with her in the future. This obsession with direct-fire weapons was ridiculous. Within seconds of any firefight starting, every sane participant was under cover, and then grenades were the best tools for the job.
Renako cried out and Chifune looked across. The detective's face was screwed up with pain. He reached down and pulled his leg under cover as if it could not move of its own volition. A round had smashed into his foot when it had strayed from behind their meager barrier into the line of fire. His face was gray with shock and there was sweat beaded on his forehead. The pain from such a wound would be intense, even if it was not immediately life-threatening.
"Renako-san," said Chifune. "Can you take the roof? We are going to clear it, but you must keep their heads down for a few seconds. Then we can help you."
Renako nodded weakly. Oga helped him onto his back so that he could watch the parapet, and checked that his weapon had a full magazine and a round chambered. He too had an MP5, but Oga set it to automatic.
"Nothing clever, Renako-san," said Oga. "Just spray the fuckers if they show."
"Hai, Sergeant-san," said Renako. He felt dizzy and the parapet was going in and out of focus, but he thought he could hang in there long enough.
Chifune had been reluctant to fire her grenade launcher into the doorway since, if Fitzduane was alive, the chances were he would be in that direction. Still, they had just about run out of the luxury of options.
"On my mark, Sergeant-san," she said, looking at Oga. He nodded.
"NOW!" she shouted.
Oga rose behind the barrier, weapon blazing, causing the guards in and around the doorway to duck temporarily. Almost immediately, Chifune added to the hail of fire with her C-Mag-fed automatic rifle and then sighted the grenade launcher and fired.
The bulbous projectile, looking like a massively oversized bullet, shot from the under-barrel grenade launcher and vanished through the doorway.
Flame and bodies erupted. Chifune hosed the area with the rest of her C-Mag, reloaded, and followed Oga around to the side of the tower and as she was running, firing recommenced from across the roof. The grenade had inflicted casualties, but the defenders were far from out of action.
The tower doorway was half-broken and still burning. Oga hit it at a run, went straight in, and rolled and came up shooting. There was no one there, just metal stairs that led straight up to the small control room and the roof.
A face looked down and Oga fired again. The face vanished, but Oga thought he had missed. He was furious with himself for having fired unnecessarily and thus alerting the guards on the roof.
Chifune crouched beside him. The stairs led to an open door. She mentally worked out the distance and the angle and what the effect of the blast might be. The alternative was to climb up the stairs under fire. The advantage would be with the defenders, and she and Oga certainly did not have surprise on their side.
She did not blame Oga for firing. Had the base been occupied, they would have been dead if his precautionary fire had been delayed for even a fraction of a second. Combat, like most things in life, was about choices. You made decisions and you pushed ahead and you took the consequences if you were wrong. Regret rarely made a useful contribution.
Oga was changing magazines, so Chifune kept a hail of fire going in a series of tight-aimed bursts at where she expected the opposition to be. She could see no one.
"Do you want to be shown up or blown up, Sergeant-san?" she said in a brief lull, and fired again. The hundred-capacity C-Mag was a thing of joy. If fed rounds effortlessly and gave the firepower of a full machine gun.
Oga got the point immediately. "Go for it!" he said, holding up his thumb. She could not hear him, but the gesture was unmistakable. She flashed him a grin.
Chifune, crouched near the base of the stairs, fired the grenade launcher almost straight up. She imagined she could see the projectile as it entered the control room, and envisioned it continuing and impacting against the roof.
She crouched down and put her hands over her ears. The blast was awesome in the confined space, and a wave of concussion hit her. Debris and dust filled the tower.
She reloaded and fired again at a slightly different angle, in case the roof had blown open at the point of impact the first time, and again there was a violent explosion, though the concussion seemed to be less this time. The roof or some part of the structure had definitely been perforated and was dissipating the shock wave.
"Let's go," said Oga, and bounded up the stairs. Chifune followed him. Thy had both received similar training for QCB, and without discussion they both fell into mutually supporting roles.
They found two bodies in the wrecked control room. The center of the roof had fallen in and there was a third body under the debris. A single flight of perforated steel stairs led to the remains of the roof.
Oga advanced up it, covered by Chifune. At the top, he vanished for a few seconds and then reappeared with a smile on his face. "I'm going to look after Renako," he said. "You'd better take a look, Tanabu-san. Don't worry. It's safe to look over the parapet."
Oga, grinning from ear to ear but saying nothing more, rattled down the stairs past her to look after his man. Somewhat mystified, Chifune ascended. Two more dead lay there, their bodies severely mutilated from the grenade blasts and their blood leaching into the dust that was everywhere.
Despite Oga's reassurance, she was extremely cautious in looking over the parapet. What she saw made her rise to full height.
Several guards sat crosslegged on the ground, their hands clasped on their heads. Sitting slightly apart, very dazed, hands also on his head, was someone dressed in what looked like the remains of traditional samurai armor. It was an incongruous sight in this late-twentieth-century battlefield.
Standing behind the prisoners, the unusual automatic weapon she had learned was the Calico in his hands, was Fitzduane. He was wearing a torn white shirt and slacks and his feet were bare, but he looked very much alive and he was smiling.
He cupped his hands. "Chifune, you have never looked more beautiful. But what I want to know is — who is rescuing who around here?"
Chifune felt a surge of emotion. She wanted to run down and throw her arms around this unusual man, to make love to him, to hold him. She felt tears coming to her eyes and fought them back. She did not move. She struggled to regain composure. Then she started to laugh. It was not easy at first, but then she felt so good she did not want to stop. Exhilaration gripped her. She abandoned the sense of control that was so important to her, that was so much a feature of her every action. She felt liberated and joyous and infused with a sense of optimism.
"I thought you were dead, gaijin," she said, smiling.
"I nearly was when you fired that 40mm grenade, Tanabu-san," said Fitzduane cheerfully. "Fortunately, my friend here" — he pointed at Goto in his shattered armor — "took the blast and he was equipped for it, though it did not make him happy."
Chifune's cheeks were wet with tears. I want you, Hugo, she mouthed silently in Japanese.
Fitzduane looked up at her and then blew her a kiss.
* * * * *
Outside Tokyo, Japan
June 28
Fitzduane felt too languorous and relaxed to open his eyes.
He did not know where he was and he did not much care. All he knew was that he was warm and comfortable and safe; and tomorrow, whenever that was, could take care of itself.
Eyes closed, he daydreamed. Images and thoughts floated in and out of his mind: Chifune looking at him in a very particular way, her face smoke-blackened, her neat business suit torn and grimy, a high-tech assault rifle hanging from her shoulder; police helicopters and heavily armed riot police; bright lights and police video cameras; body bags and uniforms in surgical masks; an angry police officer and Chifune's calm insistence that they make statements later; a calm authoritative voice on the radio and the policeman backing away and saluting; a helicopter ride in the darkness; a long, low house with a verandah and overhanging roof and shoji screen in the traditional style; a long, hot shower and water tinged with blood as the last traces of those he had killed were washed from his body, and the nausea he had felt; the steam rising from the hot tub as he climbed in and Chifune telling him not to move and that it would be fine and it was. And then nothing except a delicious sense of peace as he slipped into sleep.
He stretched. He felt weightless in the water and greatly refreshed. It was a delicious sensation, this sense of half-floating — free of cares and responsibilities.
Hot tubs were an invention of the gods. The Romans had used them and they had done pretty well. The Japanese were fanatical about them, and that probably accounted for most of their economic miracle. Hot tubs had not made it in Ireland, which explained a great deal.
In Fitzduane's opinion a that moment, hot tubs were the solution to most of the world's problems, and you could even float a plastic duck in one. This was excellent. He was a great believer in yellow plastic ducks. Boots adored his, though he liked to sink them and then watch them bob up again. Curiously, someone had once told him, ducks seemed to be a male thing. Was this really so? Was there some deep-rooted sexual significance to bath ducks? Was there a Freudian thesis lurking somewhere which might explain the whole thing? Well, what did it matter, anyway? If ducks were sexy, good for ducks. You couldn’t really do very much if you were plastic. Personally, he liked ducks, but he preferred women.
Women were soft and warm and caring and interesting and fun to talk to and they made nice babies like Boots and it had taken him a long tie to really learn it but he really loved babies and children and he missed Boots greatly and he wanted to go home and give him the biggest hug in the world and then another.
But, of course, women were also dangerous sometimes, and complex always, and that did make for difficulties. Still, anything or anyone worthwhile was difficult.
That's really what life was about: babies, hot tubs, plastic bath ducks, women, and difficulties. People searched endlessly for the meaning of life, and here he had discovered it by floating in a hot tub for a couple of hours — or was it days? He really had not the faintest idea.
He opened his eyes. He could see stars in a glowing night sky and the air felt fresh and cool on his face and there was the smell of the sea. Everywhere in Ireland was near the sea, and in Duncleeve you could hear the sound of the waves on all but the calmest days and it was a sound that he greatly loved, that made him feel at peace. But here he could not quite hear the sea. It was close, but not close enough. The house and grounds were set back and, he now seemed to recall, built into the side of a hill. There would be a magnificent view of the sea and the bay below. He was sure of it, but it was impossible to check.
The hot tub was in an inner courtyard that was laid out as a traditional Japanese garden, and the house surrounded the space on all four sides. There was total privacy and silence except for the normal sounds of the night air. There was no traffic noise, so they could not be in or very near Tokyo, a city of relentless energy that never rested.
The setting was so extraordinarily beautiful and a miniature world unto itself. There was something about the proportions of traditional Japanese architecture that was particularly pleasing and restful. It was a combination of lien and texture and balance that in the most unostentatious way conveyed a feeling of harmony with life and with nature.
The secret of a Japanese garden, he had been told, was restraint, simplicity, and integration with what was most natural. Instead of flower beds bursting with artificially reared hybrids and the general excess of a Western garden, there appeared to be only simple features of mainly natural materials, such as sand and rocks and gravel and a few carefully selected bushes and some wildflowers. Of course, the naturalness was an illusion, but even though you knew that every natural item had been meticulously selected and arranged, it was an illusion that worked. Tatemae and honne. The way of Japan.
He felt gentle hands on his shoulders, and then his neck and shoulders were being massaged slowly and tenderly. Her touch was exquisite, and he closed his eyes and let waves of pleasure wash over him. From time to time, her hands left his back and caressed slowly down his body to his loins, stroking him in the most intimate of places.
After some minutes, he took her hands in his and kissed them one by one, running his tongue across the palm of each hand. She was wearing only a thin silk yukata, and through the thin material he could feel her breasts where they rested against the back of his head and her nipples hard and firm.
"Come with me," she said into his ear, her tongue licking it. Naked, he rose from the hot water into the cool night air and stepped from the tub onto the tile surround. His penis was erect and hard. The faintest lightening of the sky indicated the promise of dawn.
She draped his shoulders in a thick towel to dry him and to shield him from the night air, and took another towel and knelt down to dry his lower body. Again, she touched him without restraint, as if they had been lovers without secrets for some time.
Her beautiful hair, thick and glossy and normally worn up on a chignon or some other restrained style, now cascaded around her shoulders. He let the sensations wash over him until he could scarcely bear it, and then he bent over and lifted he up and took her in his arms.
She smelled of an exotic perfume he could not identify, but which was intensely stimulating. It was a subtle, sexual fragrance, and it blended with the clean, musky odor of her own arousal. Her arms around his neck, lips gently stroking, tongues intermingling, he carried her from the courtyard through the open shoji screens to where he cold see the golden flickering light of a dozen candles.
The floor was of fresh tatami, but instead of the futon he had expected there was a low-slung, king-size bed. He lowered her feet to the floor and, still kissing her, stripped the gossamer-thin yukata from her body and placed her on the bed.
* * * * *
It was dark when Fitzduane awoke, and then he realized that he must have slept right through.
It was not surprising. The Namaka Steel business had been exhausting enough, but Chifune had been a marathon of exquisitely sensual endurance.
He fumbled for his watch and then tried opening his eyes. It mad the process a whole lot easier. He noticed the candles were fresh and Chifune was leaning over him. She bent down and kissed him. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and she was wearing a toweling robe.
"Fourteen hours," she said. "More or less."
"So much for the sex," he said sleepily. "How long did we rest for?"
Chifune laughed. "There is a razor in the bathroom," she said. "I'll have some food ready in fifteen minutes. Are you hungry?"
Fitzduane undid her robe.
* * * * *
"Pillow speak," she said.
She was naked and lying with her back to him, staring unfocused at the candles, enjoying the constant pattern as the flames flickered in the night breeze off the sea.
Fitzduane smiled, but did not correct her. Chifune had excellent English, but just occasionally would make a slip. He drank some more champagne. He was not quite sure whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but it tasted good anyway.
He felt recharged after the long sleep and the lovemaking and a shower and a shave and food and more lovemaking, and now that he thought of it, there were few things more pleasant in the world than lying in bed in a postcoital glow talking to a beautiful woman — unless it was doing exactly that with a bottle of decent wine to hand. Fitzduane liked the company of women. Women had good minds; a much-neglected resource in his opinion. And based on what he had seen and heard, a particularly neglected resource in Japan.
Chifune turned to look at him. "Pillow speak?" she said. "I could hear you smiling, gaijin."
Fitzduane laughed. "Pillow talk," he said.
Chifune pulled back the covers and kissed his dormant penis quickly and then covered him up again. "Thank you," she said. "English is such a quirky language."
Fitzduane did not want to spoil the mood, but there were matters he was curious about and Chifune seemed to want to speak. "What about this pillow business?" he said quietly.
Chifune smiled without looking at him. ‘To pillow’ was a euphemism for lovemaking in Japanese.
"You don't say anything explicitly, Hugo," she said, "but you're a man who invites confidences, an easy person to talk to. I think it is because you have values and you care. So many people go through the motions, but they don't really care and in their hearts there is nothing. They take up space but they do not contribute. To contribute, you have to care. And caring is about risk. You have something to lose. It exposes you. It makes you vulnerable. It is dangerous."
Fitzduane put down his wineglass and turned toward her. Her back was still to him, but he put his left arm around her and drew her to him. She snuggled up to him and pressed his hand against her breasts.
"Don't speak, Chifune," he said, "unless you must. It is not necessary."
"‘Don't say anything you'll regret afterwards,’" she quoted. "Relax, Hugo. I know the disciplines, the way it should be done in Koancho. I've been well-trained for this game, and I live it. But sometimes I need to breathe, to talk freely, as if I were not part of a world of paranoia, corruption, and deception. Security may be necessary, but it's stifling. Sometimes I wish I could live a normal life and have children and become an education mother and be married to a sarariman. And then complain because he is never at home — always out working or drinking with his colleagues or stuck on some commuter train."
"Who are you, Chifune?" said Fitzduane. "What's your background? How did you get into this business?"
Chifune was silent, and at first Fitzduane thought she was not going to answer, but then she spoke. "My father was a politician and the son of a politician. This makes a joke of democracy, but it is not so unusual. More and more political posts are handed down father to son, like some aristocratic birthright, and that happened in this case even though my father was estranged from my grandfather. Some alliances endure regardless. Like my grandfather, my father was a member of the Hodama faction, but something of a maverick nonetheless. He had been brought up in a world of money politics and at first regarded this as normal, but then started to think for himself. He had ideas, there were policies he wanted to pursue, but everywhere he turned he was frustrated by the system. Special interests ruled the day, and the amount of money going through the political system was such that they were not going to allow anyone to stand in their way. I'm talking about billions of yen here, millions of dollars. The bribe paid to one provincial governor, for example, to win construction contracts came to nearly twenty million dollars."
"Just one bribe?" said Fitzduane.
"Just one single backhander," said Chifune. "Politicians, certain senior civil servants, key businessmen, and the yakuza — the four pillars of power and corruption in Japan. Not everyone is corrupt, by any stretch of the imagination, but enough at the center of power is rotten for the tentacles of corruption to stretch far and wide."
"So what happened?" said Fitzduane.
"My father tried to change things. He and some younger faction members got together and set up a study group, and for a while they made some progress, but then the group started to fall apart. Some were simply bought, others were arrested on trumped-up corruption charges, and a few were simply scared away. It was an orchestrated campaign of intimidation conducted with ruthless brilliance, and the man behind it was my grandfather. He had power and he was not going to relinquish it to anyone — even his own blood — except on his own terms and in his own good time. And that was not yet, if ever. He was a kuromaku of genius and an evil corrupt old man, but no one was better at the power game than he, and no one was going to oust him."
Fitzduane gave a start as the full significance of her words hit home. "Hodama?" he said. "Your grandfather was Hodama?"
Chifune turned toward him. "There are other kuromakus," she said. She was leaning on one arm facing him, only inches from him. He could feel her breath as she spoke. The candles were behind her, so her face was in shadow. He could see her breasts and the dark outline of her nipples and the taut flesh of her stomach and the curve of her hip. He had to remind himself that this was a woman who was trained to kill and who could put that training into action with ease. This was a woman who had risked her life for him and whose body he had shared. This was a woman with blood on her hands. As he had. Theirs was a shared world.
"You're Hodama's granddaughter," said Fitzduane, ignoring her denial. "My God, who else knows this? What are you doing on this case? Doesn't conflict of interest mean anything around here, or is that just another difference between Japan and us gaijins."
Chifune leaned across and kissed him hard on the lips. "That evil old man killed his own son," she said. "He killed my father to preserve his rotten regime. When almost all his group had been destroyed or dispersed, my father was found in his office with his throat cut and a razor in his hand. Money and other incriminating material was subsequently found in his safe. The suicide verdict was automatic. A disgraced politician kills himself. It's not so uncommon."
"How do you know it wasn't suicide?" said Fitzduane. "How do you know all this?"
Chifune smiled sadly. "Believe me, I know," she said. "My father and I were very close. I did secretarial work for his group and worked with him on the reforms they planned. I kept his records and knew what was in his safe and what was in his mind on the day he died. It was a setup and it was murder. Of that, I have no doubt. I confronted my grandfather with this and he virtually admitted it, and then he laughed at me. He despised women. We were instruments in his eyes, not people. We were there to serve and to be used."
"And so you worked the system," said Fitzduane. "You used your connections to get into Koancho and worked there under a false name. The security service was the best place to get to know the dirt on the people you hated. And sooner or later an opportunity would come up for you to strike back."
Chifune nodded. "My father had made the initial contact with Koancho. They were the people who fully understood the extent of the corruption, and the Director-General was a friend of his. If he had lived, the security service was to supply the information which would enable my father to push through his reforms."
"Your father was a clever man," said Fitzduane, "and dangerous. I can see why he had to be stopped. His plan might have worked."
"No," said Chifune. "He never had a chance and he was too trusting. The rot ran too deep."
"Hodama's death," said Fitzduane. "The strike team knew all the security precautions, the kind of things only an insider would know."
Chifune was silent. "He deserved to die," she said. "It had to be done and I'm glad it was done — but I wasn't involved..."
"Directly?" said Fitzduane.
Chifune sighed. "Very well," she said. "I supplied information. I knew about Katsuda and his plans and that the Namakas had stepped out of line. We had them under surveillance because of their suspected terrorist connection, and that in turn led us to hear about this weapon they were making. At last Hodama and the Namakas became vulnerable. The Americans were not happy and Katsuda was let off the leash. I just eased the process, and I've no regrets."
"Adachi?" said Fitzduane. "He damn near got killed."
"I love that man, in my way," said Chifune, "and I got myself assigned to the case to keep an eye on things and keep him out of trouble. I never thought Katsuda would go so far, and I never suspected that the prosecutor and Sergeant Fujiwara were his men. But it just goes to show how widespread is the cancer."
"Are you working with Yoshokawa's clean-government group?" said Fitzduane.
Chifune nodded. "It was my father's death which convinced them that Gamma must be kept secret. Eventually, the money politics of the government will be exposed, but meanwhile it's safer to fight them in secret."
Fitzduane poured Chifune and himself more champagne. "So now Hodama had done and one Namaka has gone, so you are making progress. And doubtless you have a whole lot on Katsuda to bring him into line when he thinks he's the new kuromaku. What a web you people do weave. No wonder Adachi-san blew a fuse. Which leaves our terrorist friends, Yaibo: what about them? The Namakas may have planned it, but they are the people who tried to terminate my worries once and for all."
Chifune shrugged unhappily. "We thought they were contained," she said. "We had driven them out of Japan and believed they were safely isolated in Libya."
Fitzduane looked at her. "You have someone on the inside of Yaibo," he said. "Hell, that's why you let them play. These people are almost impossible to penetrate, and you've done it. So now you think it's better to keep them on a long leash than have them break up into a number of cells you know nothing about. But," he snarled, pointing at his scarred chest, "the one flaw is that even if they are not running around much in Japan, they've been plenty busy in my part of the world."
Chifune put her arms around him and stroked him. He could feel her breasts pressed against him and the heat of her sex as she wrapped her legs around him. "We didn't know. It made sense at the time."
Fitzduane felt himself become erect and slip inside her. Still inside her, and his arm around her, he lay back so that he could look at her.
"Chifune," he said, emphasizing every syllable. "You are the most beautiful and desirable woman and you have the most heartrendingly beautiful name and you touch my heart. But why do you tell me all this? I'm an outsider, a barbarian, a gaijin. This is not my battle."
"Don't move, Hugo," she said, and she put one arm down between her legs and took him in her fingers and wrapped the other around his lower body and did things to him and kissed him and did not speak again until they came together.
"It's because I love you," she said, "and I want to give to you and I want to help you in every way I can."
Fitzduane put his arms around her and caressed her and held her close. "Chifune," he said, and soon they slept.
* * * * *
Tokyo, Japan
June 30
Looking down from the Koancho helicopter at the seemingly unending urban sprawl that surrounded and then became Tokyo, Fitzduane tried, at first, to put his feelings about the women in his life into some sort of order.
After Anne-Marie had been killed in the Congo only a few short weeks after their marriage, he had been involved with, and had enjoyed, many women, but had been reluctant or unable to commit. The pain of Anne-Marie's death had take a long time to fade, and the nature of his job, traveling from one war to another, did little to encourage lasting involvements. Then came Etan and a strong desire to settle down and build a life with this woman whom he loved and the sheer continuing joy of his first child.
But life did not work merely because you wanted it to. Fate, in Fitzduane's opinion, was heavily laced with black humor. And in this vein, Etan departed because she wanted her own freedom, just when he wanted to give up his. The next stage should have been simple enough, but it was not because he continued to love her, and she was the mother of his child, so she could never just fade into the past. Still, they had never married and they had parted and they lived separately, so their relationship was the most clearcut.
When he thought of Kathleen, Fitzduane felt a surge of emotion and love, together with feathers of uncertainty. Kathleen was a marvelous, tender, beautiful woman, physically desirable and a natural homemaker, yet she had come into his life almost too conveniently when he had been at his most vulnerable, and he was far from sure about his own feelings. Also, he was concerned about her ability to live under the permanent state of threat in which he now found himself. Kathleen was a gentle and caring soul, and she deserved a normal way of life. Yet clearly she loved him and Boots adored her, and she had settled into Duncleeve as if born for the role.
Unfortunately, Fitzduane thought, for no reason that made logical sense to him, he seemed to like a hint of danger in his women. It was an immature trait and troublesome, but its reality could not be denied. Etan had it and Chifune had it in spades, but it was the one element missing in Kathleen. Still, that was more his weakness than Kathleen's.
Chifune was an impossible situation in just about every way and should just be put down to a magnificent sexual conflagration, and yet the thirty-six hours they had spent together had affected Fitzduane deeply. Although he had been as promiscuous as any highly sexed young male in the past, as he grew older Fitzduane found it hard to sleep with a woman without his emotions being engaged, and Chifune, giving herself physically without any restraint and confiding in him both the confidences of her trade and her feelings, had won a place in his heart.
It was also true that there was an affinity between them that was not merely sexual. Both he and Chifune needed the stimulus of danger and were at their absolute best when living at the edge. But this was a recipe for eventual destruction, and if Fitzduane wanted nothing else, he wanted a stable and happy home for Boots t be an only child. Children should have other children to play with.
Fitzduane found no solutions as the helicopter flew on. He reflected that life was more than about choices than answers — and then living with the consequences.
* * * * *
The staff at the Fairmont — who had heard he was dead, and were not entirely surprised; and then had heard he was alive, and were not entirely sure they were relieved — still greeted him s if nothing untoward had happened.
Their bows were deep and friendly. How exactly you could tell a bow was friendly, Fitzduane was not quite sure, but there was a difference.
Fitzduane liked the staff at the Fairmont and found their behavior reassuring. He reflected that when the world is going to hell, it is nice to find that some standards are maintained. It was not an academic thought. The hotel was going to be his home for a little longer.
His killing of Kei Namaka had accomplished part of his objective, but it had upped the stakes. He, Fitzduane, and, almost certainly, Boots and Kathleen, were now in even greater danger. Faced with the loss of his beloved elder brother, Fumio Namaka would be like a man possessed. Something serious was going to have to be done about him and Yaibo before Fitzduane could return to Ireland with any degree of equanimity.
It had come down to an elemental reality: Destroy or be destroyed.