7


Connemara RegionalHospital



January 31


Fitzduane had worked out a routine which — as he thought of it — allowed the hospital ghouls to do their thing, and him to do his.

In the morning he seemed to be an object for the medics to play with. He was woken at an ungodly hour, washed, fed, and otherwise got combat-ready, and then inspected.

The inspection tended to be detailed. He now knew what a packaged chicken must feel like as it waited on a supermarket shelf. He was getting used to being poked, prodded, and otherwise examined in the most intimate ways. He felt like hanging a sign around his neck saying: "Despite a little wear and tear, I am a human being; I am not a dead chicken."

Trying to persuade the medical profession to treat patients as real, thinking, sentient people seemed an unwinnable battle. Perhaps a doctor had to have a certain distance to survive mentally in the midst of a constant stream of damaged humanity. By thinking of yourself as separate — a different and superior life-form — you could fool yourself into thinking the same things you were witnessing daily couldn't happen to you.

Well, that was his benevolent theory. It was suspect because the nursing staff — who worked in exactly the same environment — didn't conform. Almost without exception, they tended to be warm and caring, even when emptying bedpans.

Lunch was early. After it he would sleep for a couple of hours. Then, refreshed, he would work or receive visitors until his evening meal. Again he would sleep for a few hours and then awake in the early hours, for what he was beginning to think of as the best part of the day. It was quiet. There were no distractions. He could think and plan. And there was Kathleen. He was growing very fond of Kathleen.

The wall clock read 1:00 A.M.. The curtains, at his request, were only partially drawn, and the room was bathed in moonlight. The room was on the third floor and could not be looked into from the ground, but nonetheless this was a breach of security. Fitzduane knew it wasn't wise, but he found the confines of the hospital claustrophobic at times and he loved moonlight.

Boots was asleep on a camp bed beside him. He lay sprawled on his back, one arm behind his head, his eyelashes long, his cheeks plump and full. His breathing was deep and regular. In Fitzduane's opinion, there was nothing more beautiful than a sleeping child — except his very own child.

Boots's sleeping over in the hospital was not a nightly routine, but it did happen two or three times a week. He had been told by Oona that it was ‘camping,’ so there was an added spice to the adventure. A small plastic sword lay on the floor beside him. He was now quite unfazed by either the hospital surroundings or Fitzduane's injuries, but he was determined that no bad men were going to harm his daddy again.

For his part, Fitzduane had much the same idea but a different taste in weapons. Kilmara had left him with a Calico submachine gun. This U.S.-made high-technology weapon held a hundred rounds of 10mm in a tubelike helical magazine which lay flat on top of the receiver, and which were fed in a spring-loaded rotary arrangement rather like an Archimedes screw. It had a folding stock. The end result, without the traditional magazine jutting out of the bottom of the weapon, was unsurpassed firepower in relation to its size. It was so small and light, it looked like a toy. It rested discreetly in something like a saddle holster clipped to the right side of the bed.

He could hear Kathleen's footsteps outside.

He had become adept at identifying individual cadences. Her walk was quiet but firm. This was not the rapid squeaky walk of an overworked student or the consciously measured stride of a consultant. This was the walk of a person of serious caliber.

Kathleen closed the curtains and put on the monitor light. Then she went to Boots and potted him. He was wearing a long T-shirt covered in small bears. There was a satisfying noise as he peed to order. He was still fast asleep and warm and pink-cheeked and floppy. Kathleen gave him to Fitzduane for a kiss and a quick cuddle and put him back under the duvet. She emptied and rinsed out the pot in the bathroom that adjoined the private room. Then she sat down on the bed beside him. Their conversation continued virtually where it had left off. It had become that way with them. Neither questioned the reasons or where it was all heading. Both valued the warmth and the closeness.

Last night they had been talking about her failed marriage. It had been a classic case of sexual incompatibility. This night, Kathleen was asking the questions.

Fitzduane interested her. She had spent all her life comparatively sheltered in Ireland in a caring profession. Here was a man who had traveled the world and was an intimate of danger. Here was a gentle man who had killed.

She looked at him as he lay back against the pillows. He had a strong yet sensitive face curiously unlined for his years. His eyes were an unusual green-gray and twinkled with humor. The steel-gray hair was cut en brosse. Wounded and weakened as he was, he still looked formidable. He was a big man, lean and well-muscled. There was gray in the hair on his chest. He had clearly seen much of life, the good and the bad.

Kathleen wanted to ask about Etan but started on another subject. Despite their growing intimacy, Kathleen sensed that Boots's mother might be off-limits — or then again, he might want to talk about her. She would take her time.

"How did you meet General Kilmara?" she said.

Fitzduane looked at her a little amused, as if he knew that was not the question she had intended to ask, but he answered nonetheless. "He was my commanding officer," he said, "back in the early sixties. He was something of a maverick — a fighting soldier rather than a politician in uniform — but there are times when fighting soldiers are needed."

"The Congo?" questioned Kathleen.

Fitzduane nodded. "You know, it's funny. When most people hear that you have fought in the Congo they automatically assume that you were a mercenary. They don't seem to know that a United Nations force was there and that the Irish Army provided part of the U.N. manpower."

"The Congo is forgotten history," said Kathleen, and smiled. "I don't know very much about it."

"It's not something I'll forget," said Fitzduane quietly. "My wife was killed there."

Kathleen took his hand but did not speak. After a minute or so, Fitzduane continued. He seemed to want to talk.

"Anne-Marie was a nurse," said Fitzduane. "She wanted to get some experience of life and do some good. Those were idealistic days. I met her at a bush hospital near Konina. She was tall, red-haired, and beautiful. We were married within weeks. A couple of months later, less actually, a group of rebels known as the Simbas started rampaging. They took hostages and assembled them in Konina and threatened to kill them if they were attacked. Some they tortured and killed anyway.

"Well, we mounted a rescue mission and infiltrated a small advance unit into Konina where they were being kept. There were only twelve of us and thousands of rebels, so we were under strict instructions not to fire until the main force arrived. We were in the upper floor of a house overlooking a square where the hostages were being kept. For eight hours we had to watch people being tortured and killed below — and we could do nothing. Finally, some Simba kid — he can't have been more than thirteen or fourteen — hauled Anne-Marie out and, just like that, hacked her head off. It was very quick, mercifully quick."

Fitzduane continued. "I can't really describe how I felt. I was only fifty meters away, and through binoculars she looked close enough to touch. I remember getting sick and then just a feeling of numbness. Soon afterwards, the main attack began. I couldn't stop killing. Machine gun, automatic rifle, grenades, garotte, fighting knife — I used them all that day. It didn't make me feel any better."

"There was nothing that you could do," said Kathleen.

"I have been told that again and again," said Fitzduane, "but I have never been quite sure. Another irony: her tour of duty was over. If she hadn't married me and signed on again to be near me, she would have gone home before the Simbas attacked."

He looked across at Boots, who was now sleeping on his right side, his right cheek resting on his hands. "Now here I am putting someone I love in harm's way again."

"Guilt is not a very constructive feeling," said Kathleen.

Fitzduane smiled. "I don't feel guilty anymore," he said. "I've learned enough about the random nature of violence not to feel personally responsible for Anne-Marie. I've come to terms with her death. However, I cannot accept a threat against my family. There, whether I'm directly responsible or not, I'm still responsible."

"Do you think you're directly responsible in this case?" said Kathleen, indicating both Fitzduane and Boots.

"‘Directly responsible,’" replied Fitzduane, quoting her words back, "probably not. Responsible, in that all of this happened as a consequence of my actions, probably yes."

"I don't quite understand," said Kathleen.

"About three years ago," said Fitzduane, I found a dead body on my island. I could have reported the matter to the police and left it at that. Instead, I started trying to find out what had really happened. One thing led to another and I found that there was a terrorist involved. His plans were foiled and he was killed."

"You killed him?" said Kathleen.

Fitzduane hesitated before he replied; then he nodded. "I killed him," he agreed.

"He was a terrorist," said Kathleen, but there was uncertainty in her voice. This was an alien world. "How can you be blamed for that?"

"The issue isn't really blame; it's responsibility," said Fitzduane. "What I did was necessary — indeed, unavoidable. However, the man I killed almost certainly had friends. This is about cause and effect and consequences. I may have done the right thing, but in so doing I put myself and those dear to me on the firing line."

"So you think you were shot by friends of this dead terrorist?" said Kathleen.

"Well, I'd like to think that it wasn't some complete nut," said Fitzduane. "I would prefer to be shot for a reason."

"It makes a difference?" said Kathleen.

"It makes a difference if you want to stop it happening a second time," said Fitzduane. "And this isn't the kind of thing I fancy happening twice."

It was slowly dawning on Kathleen that merely by being in Fitzduane's company she was putting herself in danger. For a moment she tried to imagine what it must be like to be under permanent threat. It was a horrendous notion.

She reached out and stroked his face and then leaned over and kissed him. She pulled away before Fitzduane could react and ran the tips of her fingers over his lips.

"Daddy! Daddy!" cried a sleepy voice. "Where are you?"

Fitzduane laughed and squeezed her hand. "Bring him here," he said.

Kathleen picked Boots up and slid him in beside his father. There wasn't much room in the narrow hospital bed, but Fitzduane cradled Boots's head in the crook of his left arm, and within seconds Boots was asleep again.


* * * * *


Dublin, Ireland



January 31


Jiro Sasada, whose visiting card stated that he was a vice president of the Yamaoka Trading Corporation, sat in his room in Dublin's BerkleyCourtHotel and sipped Scotch from the mini-bar.

His initial shock at the disappearance of the killing team four weeks earlier had worn off after a good night's sleep, and he had immediately applied himself to learning what had happened to the missing men and the current status of the designated target. Sasada-san was typically Japanese in his belief in the work ethic, and setbacks in his value system were merely temporary inconveniences which could be solved by even more dedication.

His backup plan involved using a splinter group of the IRA — the Irish Revolutionary Action Party, or IRAP — that owed his group, Yaibo, a favor. Since unfortunately a Japanese involvement in the attack on Fitzduane had almost certainly been established by now, it made sense to use a local team which could more easily blend into the indigenous population.

Fitzduane's location had been determined through a sustained operation using radio scanners. Though technically illegal in Ireland, these devices were readily available and could pick up Garda — Irish police — communications which, for budget reasons, were in clear.

The Rangers had their own budget and operated with secure encrypted radio and telephone networks, but they were short of manpower. Accordingly, they worked extensively with the police, and therein lay their weakness. Kilmara was, of course, perfectly aware of this security flaw in his operational procedures, but there was nothing he could do about it in the short term. He needed the extra manpower the police provided, and he needed to communicate with them.

The IRA had been socially respectable when Ireland was fighting for independence from the British. However, for twenty-six counties out of a total of thirty-two, that goal had been achieved in 1922. Thereafter, the vast majority of Irish people wanted to live normal peaceful lives, unhindered by men with guns. The IRA became illegal. Operating undercover, it split into various groups with different objectives and ideologies. As with the Mafia, different gangs fought over territory. In some cases, fighting between different IRA factions was at least as violent as that against the British.

The IRAP were under sentence of death by the Provisional IRA for excesses even by terrorist standards, and the three leading members of the IRAP — Paddy McGonigal, Jim Daid, and Eamon Dooley — had headed south out of the British North of Ireland into the safer territory of the independent Republic of Ireland, so, for an appropriate financial reward, they were ready and willing to help Sasada-san with his task.

Sasada-san, who despite his papers was actually a senior member of Yaibo, had met the IRAP in Libya. He had helped to train them at Camp Carlos Marighella. It had been a matter of obligation to the Libyans. The Libyans backed a wide array of international terrorist groups, but in turn, called in favors. It was like any other business.

IRAP was a lethal group. So far in its bloody career, it had killed more than sixty people in a series of bomb and gun attacks in the North of Ireland, Britain, and continental Europe. It would certainly be able to take care of finishing off Fitzduane.

Sasada-san poured himself another Scotch and went back to studying the plans of the hospital where Fitzduane lay. You could, he thought to himself, get most things with a strong yen.

It was just as well. As far as the world was aware, Yaibo was a completely independent terrorist group. In actual fact, they were obligated to the Namaka brothers, and the brothers were exceedingly dangerous when their wishes were not fulfilled.


* * * * *


Tokyo, Japan



January 31


Kei Namaka, cofounder and president of the vast Namaka Corporation, stood staring out through the windows of the top floor of the NamakaTower.

Below him, as far as the eye could see, was the neon-bedecked ferro-concrete, glass, and steel sprawl that was modern Tokyo. In the middle distance, the police airship, the favorite toy of the Superintendent-General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, floated serenely, monitoring the congested arteries that struggled inadequately to cope with the city's traffic. Through the tinted bullet-resistant plate glass, the repetitive rotor-thump and high-pitched engine buzz of a passing helicopter could scarcely be heard.

Namaka, his eyes open, saw nothing and heard nothing. He was awake but was having the dream.

It was near midnight on December 22, 1948.

The night was cold. They stood outside the gates of Sugamo Prison, waiting for the execution to happen. The gates were guarded by armed, white-helmeted U.S. Army military police. The weather-stained gray stone walls of the prison were floodlit by security lights.

Plentiful electricity meant the occupation forces. For the defeated Japanese, everything — power, water, food, cooking fuel, clothing, housing — was in short supply. Tokyo still lay devastated by the fire-bombing from the B29s of the U.S. Air Force. Most of the population were barely subsisting.

Recovery had begun, but it was a slow and painful process. Governing authority was in the hands of General Douglas MacArthur and the two hundred thousand mainly U.S. troop under his command. The Emperor had denounced his divine status. The old Japan was dead. The new Japan was having a difficult and painful birth, and there was much suffering.

Kei, a tall scrawny teenager, stood on one side of his mother. On the other side was his brother, Fumio. Fumio was small for his age and his right leg was crippled. A year earlier, he had been hit a glancing blow by a U.S. Army jeep as it careered out of control down one of Tokyo's labyrinth of alleyways, and the compound fracture had healed badly. Medication, bandages, good food — all the requirements for a full recovery — were virtually unavailable. Fumio's growth would be stunted and he would remain severely crippled for the rest of his life.

The Tokyo War Crimes trial had taken two and a half years. Eleven judges representing three-quarters of the world's population had presided. Witness after witness spoke of massacres, genocide, the slaughter and starvation of prisoners, death marches, the destruction of cities, wholesale rape, torture, executions without trial, germ warfare, forced medical experiments, a catalogue of crimes against humanity.

Six generals and one prime minister had been sentenced to death by hanging.

The executions were to take place at 00.01 hours on December 23, 1948, at Sugamo Prison.

One of the condemned men was General Shin Namaka, Kei and Fumio's natural father. Their mother, Atsuko Sudai, had been his mistress for many years. The General's legal marriage had been arranged, unsuccessful, and childless. Atsuko, their mother, had been his true love, and he had cared for her and his children with the greatest diligence and affection.

The evidence against him at his trial had clearly established that he was directly responsible for the death of over a hundred thousand slave laborers in China, and there were other crimes to do with medical experiments on prisoners.

But he had been a loving father. With his arrest, Kei's world had collapsed. The eldest son, he had been closest to his father.

The condemned men were kept in Block 5C of the prison, one to a cell. Each centrally heated cell, eight feet by five and half feet, contained a desk, a washbasin, and a toilet. A futon mattress was placed on the floor and blankets were provided. To avoid suicide, cell lights remained on and prisoners were kept under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

The executions were carried out according to the U.S. Army's regulations for such procedures.

Each prisoner was weighed in advance to determine the appropriate drop. A table of effectiveness had been determined by trial and error in the nineteenth century. General Namaka weighed a hundred and thirty pounds and would fall seven feet seven inches when the trap was sprung. Too long a fall, and his head could be torn off. Too short a drop, and he would slowly strangle to death. The objective was to snap his spinal cord and kill him almost instantly. It was not a precise science.

The condemned men's last meal was rice, chopped pickles, miso soup, and broiled fish. They drank sake. They spent their last day writing letters and praying.

Half an hour before the official time of execution, the condemned men were brought to the death house. Each man was handcuffed to two guards.

In the center of the execution chamber was a platform reached by thirteen steps. Four ropes made from one-inch manila hemp hung from the gallows above. The hangman's knot had been greased with wax. Before each prisoner ascended the steps, his handcuffs were removed and his arms pinioned to his sides with two-inch-wide body straps.

The final climb was slow. At the top, on the platform, the ankles of each prisoner were secured with a one-inch strap. The noose was then placed around the neck with the knot directly behind the left ear.

The traps were sprung, the sharp crack echoing throughout the death house and across the prison yard.

The executions took place in two groups.

General Shin Namaka was in the second group. He entered the death house at 12:19 A.M.. At 12:38, he was pronounced officially dead by the senior medical officer.

Each corpse was transported to Yokohama Municipal Crematorium, placed in an iron firebox, and incinerated. Afterward, the ashes were scattered to the winds.

The dream faded.

In its place was emptiness and despair and then a grim determination to survive and never to forget, whatever the cost.

Kei Namaka, tall, well-built, muscular from his daily workouts at the dojo, and looking a decade younger than his age, uttered a terrible, anguished cry. He fell to his knees, his eyes wet with tears, and sobbed.

He had had the dream countless times over the years.

The NamakaTower stood on the site of what had once been Sugamo Prison. The whole development, which included a hotel, aquarium, offices, and a large shopping center, was no longer called Sugamo. After an open competition, the name SunshineCity had been chosen.

Just a simple inscription on a boulder placed in a small outdoor sitting area at the foot of the NamakaTower recalled the executed.


* * * * *


When Kei and Fumio Namaka had first started their entrepreneurial activities, administration was comparatively simple.

Fumio would scout for a victim and then Kei, bigger, stronger, faster, and decidedly dumber — though far from stupid — would dot he actual deed. It was a simple system and administratively undemanding. No paperwork was required. Counting the proceeds of armed robbery and related activities could scarcely be called financial planning, and personnel management was nothing more than the two brothers agreeing between themselves.

That was no problem. The two were devoted to each other and painfully aware that they had not one else to turn to. Further, their roles were clearly defined by age and natural attributes. Kei was the official leader, man of action, and decision-maker. Fumio was the loyal second in command, the thinker, and, quickly and discreetly and in absolute privacy, and in such a manner that Kei was not really aware of the process, told Kei what decisions to make.

The Namaka brothers were a pair of ragged, street-smart hoods in the late 1940s. As he grew older, Fumio found that more and more he recalled those early postwar days.

They were the benchmark of the scale of their achievement. So much from so little; so much from virtually nothing. They were driven by desperation, for the immediate postwar period was indeed a desperate time.

Their initial capital, Fumio Namaka remembered vividly, had come from a major in the Imperial Army. It had been late January, 1949, a month after the executions. The little family was shunned by many who were fearful of the imagined wrath of the occupation forces. Mother was seriously ill. The brothers were near-starving and desperate. They were living in a bomb site, really little more than a hole in the ground with a roof made of flattened U.S. Army ration cans.

Priorities were elemental. Whereas before and during the war, people had been occupied with such issues as strategy, patriotism, social standing, and career prospects, by 1949 the issue was survival.

You did whatever you had to to make it through the day. You dressed in rags and castoffs, you slept in ruins or worse, and you ate anything you could. Pride was irrelevant. Social status was a joke. Moral standards and ethics were an abstraction.

You did what was necessary and you lived. You stood on principle and you died. You killed if you had to. After a while you got used to it and you killed because lethal force worked. It got results. It was effective.

There was a thriving trade in Japanese Imperial Army militaria. Two hundred thousand occupation troops wanted war souvenirs and several million Imperial Army veterans wanted to eat. The action came together in street markets around Tokyo, and particularly in the Ginza.

The major was of the samurai class and had been a member of the Imperial General Staff after distinguished service — initially in Manchuria and subsequently in the invasion of Burma. The latter exercise had cost him his left arm above the elbow after a British .303 bullet had shattered the bone into multiple fractures, but it had added to his chestful of medals and gained him promotion to the staff, where he was highly regarded. More medals soon followed. Promotion was a certainty, until Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the reedy voice of the Emperor, never before heard on the radio, called for surrender.

Selling his medals one by one had kept the major alive. Now, on that freezing cold day in January 1949, his medals were gone and he was down to his last item of value, the long sword, or katana, that had been in his family since the eighteenth century. It was a blade signed by Tamaki Kiyomaro. It was bought for a fraction of its true worth by one of MacArthur's bodyguards.

Inwardly, the major died a little as he sold it, but there was no choice. He and his family had to eat. Everything else of value had been sold. His wife had earned some food and a little military scrip from sleeping with members of the occupation forces, but her looks had gone and there was too much competition. They were starving. There was no other choice. He had to sell the last item of value they owned.

The purchaser of the major's katana was not short of compassion and, by the standards of the time, paid generously for the blade. The exchange and the amount paid caught the attention of Fumio Namaka. Undersized and limping, he tended to be either ignored or dismissed as insignificant, and, as such, he was an ideal scout.

The brothers had been searching for a worthy target for several days. The soldier's generosity toward the destitute major clinched their choice of victim. He had paid not in restricted military scrip, which could only be used in designated locations, but in U.S. dollars, greenbacks — in 1949 the hardest, strongest, most desirable currency in the world.

Kei Namaka, skinny but tall for his age, and still, despite the hunger, reasonably fit and strong, followed the major home through the back streets and when he stopped to relieve himself in a deserted section, hit him with a rock.

The major fell to the ground as Fumio limped up. The two brothers looked at each other, and then Fumio cut the unconscious man's throat with some broken glass. They had agreed in advance that there would be no witnesses. They had owned a knife but had to sell it to buy food. The broken glass did the job adequately but was slow. It was also messy. The brothers did not mind. They now had more money than they had ever seen before in their lives.

Suddenly, the Namaka brothers did not just have enough money to buy food; they had capital. It was not much, but it was a beginning. They were no longer looking at bare survival. They could plan. And Fumio, crippled and physically less gifted than his brother, was a natural planner. He was gifted with a strategic sense, a decided cunning, and a talent for manipulating his fellows. In short, he had brains.

When they returned to their shelter with a little boiled rice and some sake to celebrate, they found that their mother was dead.


* * * * *


Over the decades they had evolved into the Namaka Corporation, a vast corporate network of interlocking companies whose interests had spanned the length and breadth of Japan, most of the developed world, and much of the third world.

The core operational group of the Namaka Corporation was not the Torishimariyakukai — Board of Directors — which was really about public image and strategic alliances and was kept well away from detail. The real planning and decisions were made by the more conveniently named General Affairs Department, or Somu Bu.

The Somu Bu had served the Namaka brothers well. Nearly three decades after its creation, it now consisted of Kei and Fumio and six handpicked, seasoned buchos — department heads — of unquestioned loyalty.

In the typical corporate world, a bucho would not have vice-presidential status, but in the case of the Namaka Corporation there were obvious security implications, which dictated a tighter vertical structure.


* * * * *


The guarded, soundproofed, and electronically swept meeting room of the Somu Bu of the Namaka Corporation was decidedly luxurious.

Eight overstuffed handmade tan leather executive armchairs were placed around a boardroom table made from a single piece of handworked wood. Each chair was embossed with the Namaka crest in gold. The chairs at either end of the table were even larger and more luxurious, with deeper padding and higher headrests. The walls were covered in silk. Some of Kei Namaka's vast collection of antique Japanese swords and Western weapons from the same periods were in illuminated glass cases on the walls. Underfoot, the carpet was thick and soft.

The six buchos rose to their feet and bowed deeply as the Namaka brothers entered. Bows in Japan come in three grades: the informal, the formal, and the slow, deep, right-down-to-the-waist kind known as saikeirei, used for the Emperor and the less democratic yakuza bosses.

The bows delivered to the Namaka brothers were of the saikeirei class. Japan's entire society was based on ranking, and the brothers were not known for their democratic approach to discipline.

Kei entered the room first through the special padded double doors which led directly to the luxurious office the brothers shared.

Fumio followed, at a respectful distance, limping and supported by a stick. He had not aged as well as his brother. His hair had gone completely silver and he looked as if he could easily have been in his mid-sixties. But his age gave him a dignity and gravitas that was not unhelpful.

Kei sat down first, and Fumio followed some seconds later. All the buchos now too their seats. Kei called the meeting to order formally and then looked at Fumio. The younger brother ran it, but always gave the appearance of deferring to the chairman. This was the first formal meeting since the murder of the kuromaku. Kei had been attending secret talks in North Korea when the event had occurred, and had only recently returned.

"The first item," said Fumio, "concerns the death of Hodama-sensei. His passing means that we have lost our most influential friend. The manner of his passing gives some cause for concern." He stood up and bowed his head in silence, and all the others followed suit.

After several minutes, he sat down. The mention of Hodama was enough to get everyone's attention. The sensei had been the behind-the-scenes fixer for the Namaka brothers and had helped to give them a charmed life with the authorities and the competition over the last three decades.

His untimely death was proving a disaster.

The kuromaku had been an unparalleled protector but had been jealous of his power and influence, and now there was no obvious candidate to replace him. Despite his age, he had not nominated a successor. Because of his age and his sensitivity on that matter, the Namakas had not pushed the subject.

The Namaka brothers' position had been that of two men in a sturdy boat in a shark-infested sea, with Hodama representing the security of the boat. Now that boat had been arbitrarily removed and they had been dumped unceremoniously into unfriendly waters to swim with the sharks. It was going to take a period of adjustment.

There was also the matter of the Hodama's killers' methodology. After the sensei, who was next for the cooking pot? The assassins were efficient, brutal, and did not seem to be deterred by the status of the victim. These were disconcerting thoughts.

"It would be helpful," said Kei to the gathering, "for the corporation if your thoughts on the current implication of the passing of Hodama-sensei could be prepared."

The assembled buchos bowed their head respectfully in acknowledgment. They knew exactly what the chairman wanted. He was asking for a detailed paper and proposals on the full consequences of the Hodama affair. The procedure was known as ringi seido. It referred to a circulated written proposal which would be signed by the assembled team but only after a great deal of informal and behind-the-scenes discussion, known as nemawashi — literally, ‘binding the roots.’

The ringi seido system could be slow and bureaucratic. At the Namaka Corporation, particularly in the General Affairs department, the system had been refined to an art.

"Next item," said Kei. He was wearing a Savile Row — tailored dark-blue pinstripe suit and a handmade silk shirt. His tie was regimental. His hair, though streaked with gray, was still full and he wore it brushed straight back, the wings meeting behind his head. He had a high forehead, a strong nose, and firm, regular features. He looked every inch the chairman of the board. Fumio was very proud of him.

"Our obligation in Ireland, Kaicho-san," said Fumio, with the appropriate honorifics. Privately, his brother was called by his first name. In public, the formalities were always followed. There were no fewer than seven different ways to address different social ranks. It was an area where foreigners — even if they spoke Japanese, a rare occurrence — normally fell down. Well, what could you expect? No gaijin could ever really understand Japan.

One of the buchos, Toshiro Kitano, Vice President for General Affairs, cleared his throat. He was a slight, studious-looking man with thinning hair in his late fifties; he reminded some people of a priest or monk. There was an ascetic, spiritual quality about him. It was not entirely misleading, since he was a martial arts master — a field in which the spiritual was regarded as at least as important as the physical.

Kitano's role in the group was security. Within the ethos of the Namaka culture, that had less to do with conventional industrial security than with the direct application of force against those who opposed the wishes of the brothers. Kitano was an enforcer and assassin, and had been with Kei and Fumio since the early years. These days, he rarely carried out assignments himself. He was now an executive, and in Fumio's view had made the transition rather well. He was an invaluable man, with the advantage of hands-on practical experience and organizational talent.

Skilled killers with the administrative talents required by the corporate environment were not easy to find.

"Kitano-sensei?" said Kei respectfully. Although Kitano was an employee and his junior in the Namaka Corporation, the master was his mentor and trainer in the martial arts field and as such was treated with an appropriate deference.

"Several years ago, we had dealings with a terrorist, a gaijin, known as the Hangman," said Kitano. "He had many names and we never did find out his real background. But we cooperated on several assignments. It was a successful partnership."

"He approached us, I recall," said Kei. He did not add that it had been a major breach of security. It was not appropriate to embarrass Kitano in front of his peers. Anyway, the sensei, once he had recovered from the shock, had handled the situation extremely well.

"He had extensive connections," said Kitano. "A number of apparently separate groups in different countries reported to him. Some of his people trained with some of ours in the Middle East. This led to his attempting to penetrate our organization to find out more about us. Fortunately, we were able to block this infiltration, but not until he had learned rather more than he should. The situation was difficult. The solution was cooperation. His people were not known in some areas; our people were not known in others. By exploiting this we were able to carry out a number of assignments successfully."

There were approving noises from around the table. The buchos were all aware that the subject was difficult for Kitano, and they were anxious to show support. The harmony of the group — wa — was very important.

"I remember," said Kei. "It was an excellent solution, sensei."

Kitano bowed slightly in acknowledgment. Actually, the whole business had been extremely serious. He had never been able to identify that damned gaijin, whereas the foreigner had penetrated the entire Namaka organization and their direct-action arm. The operations they had carried out together had been successful, but they had all been planned by the Hangman and carried out on his own terms. Then the fates had intervened. Just when the security chief had been at his wit's end, the Hangman had vanished. Subsequently, they had learned that he had been killed. It had been the best news of the decade, as far as Kitano had been concerned.

Unfortunately, the Hangman's death was not the end of it. He was a player of games and a man with a warped sense of humor. He had left behind a request in the form of a video sent only to Kitano. If he was captured, he was to be freed. If he was killed, he was to be revenged. If his request was ignored, there would be one warning, then the detailed information he had on the Namaka Corporation would be given to the authorities and there would be other unpleasant consequences. Above all, the security chief would be disgraced in front of his colleagues and the brothers themselves. The brothers knew about the request; Kitano had not told them about the threat. They might consider it his fault, since the gaijin's infiltration was his responsibility — and Kitano shuddered to think of the punishment. No, he had to take care of this himself.

"This gaijin was killed three years ago," said Fumio. He had more serious matters on his mind, and as a result was more direct than was customary in a formal discussion. "I am a little puzzled as to why the matter of this obligation has come up now."

"It was a small matter," said the security chief, "not worthy of the meeting's attention. As to the passing of time, it was difficult to ascertain who had been responsible for the Hangman's death. Then there was the matter of finding an appropriate team to do the job. And there was not urgency. It was a matter of little operational consequence. It was delegated to Yaibo. The team they allocated was then held by the security forces for some time. All of these matters contributed to the delay. If it had been a priority, we would of course have acted sooner."

Kei wanted to move on to other things. The security chief was an experienced enough man. A routine action six thousand miles away should not be occupying the time of the meeting. Delegation was about someone else getting on with it while you did what was really important. But still he hesitated. The security chief himself had put the item on the agenda.

Kei looked at the security chief. "There is something you want to say, Kitano-sensei?"

"The assassination attempt took place as planned," said the security chief, "but it was not entirely successful. Our team, it appears, was killed. The target was merely seriously wounded. Our lack of complete success is regrettable."

There was a palpable feeling of relief around the table. The loss of a killing team was something they had to be made aware of, but it was not something to be concerned about. There was a steady supply of young men who wanted to prove themselves in action. Casualties in the field were almost inevitable these days, given the ever-increasing expertise of counterterrorist units, but were just an overhead of doing business. And it was infinitely better that the team were dead rather than captured. Dead men were poor material for interrogation.

"We thank you for reporting this matter, Kitano-sensei," said Kei, "but we have confidence that you will resolve it satisfactorily."

Kitano acknowledged the confidence.

"What is the name of the target, sensei," said Fumio. "Is he of any significance to us?"

"The target is an Irishman called Hugo Fitzduane, Namaka-san," said the security chief. "He is of no significance. It is merely a matter of giri. Further action is being implemented."

"Next item," said the chairman.


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