Christ, it hurt.
He retreated, found his saya, and stood for a second.
Do it right, he thought. Thank the fucking sword.
Feeling foolish and white, he held the weapon horizontally before him and bowed to the little Japanese god inside the steel, and said arigato as best he could. Then since the thing wore a dapple of disfiguration, he snapped it hard to the right, flinging its contents off to splatter an abstraction on the snow—chiburi, in the vernacular, big in all the movies.
Now noto: he sheathed the sword, as ceremony demanded, drawing the dull spine of the blade through his left hand and fingers while clutching the saya’s opening until he reached the tip, then smoothly snared the tip in the opening, then ran the wood casing up to absorb and protect the blade, the whole move ending with a gentle snap as tsuba met wood.
His watch read 5:39 a.m., Tokyo time. He turned and looked at the body of the man he had killed. Kondo lay in a sherbet field of blood and snow, and the spurting had stopped. It was only drainage now. Somewhere a big fat golden carp came to a placid surface and seemed to burp, leaving a widening burst of rings in its passing.
Swagger looked back at the body. He could have taken the head as he’d promised. But really—what was the point?
46
OFFICE POLITICS
She arrived at the American embassy promptly at 8:45 because nowadays it took a good fifteen minutes to get through security. She wore a new Burberry pantsuit she’d bought recently at Takashimaya, a smartly tailored pinstripe on gray wool, a white silk blouse and pearls, a pair of Christian Louboutin round-toed platform pumps, her Armani horn-rims. Her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail, her foundation Lanvin, her blush Revlon, her mascara Shiseido.
She got to his office exactly at nine and, of course, he let her wait ten minutes, a kind of humiliation ordeal—more of which would be coming her way, assuming she survived the next few minutes in any case—then he ushered her in.
“So nice of you to join us, Susan.”
“Doug, I’m very sorry, I—”
Doug had graduated from Annapolis, and though he had never had a command at sea, his office was filled with nautical gewgaws, like brass sextants, charts, gaffs. In office lore it was called “the Bridge,” though never when he was around. He was the sort of man who demanded results yesterday but then forgot to ask for them tomorrow.
“Sit down, sit down.”
She sat opposite: he was a large-headed, red-faced beefy man, ten years older, from an old family that was by reputation third-generation Agency. His hair was a brusque graying crew cut and he wore his suit jacket at his desk. He was a well-studied imitation of the man Swagger represented naturally, without self-consciousness or reflection.
“Look, I shouldn’t have to give a pro like you pointers, but goddammit, I have to be able to reach you twenty-four hours a day. That’s why we have cell phones, pagers, the like. It doesn’t work if you turn the goddamn things off.”
“I didn’t turn anything off. I just didn’t answer because I was in an awkward situation.”
“Anything you care to discuss with your chief of station?”
“It’s all right, Doug. It was a Swagger issue.”
“I told you the Swagger thing wouldn’t work. He’s too old, he’s too slow, he’s too stubborn, he’s nothing but trouble.”
Like to hear you say that to Swagger, asshole.
But she played his game: “I know it was my idea to bring the guy back. He proved harder to manage than I thought. However, now it’s fine, it’s great, I’ll have him out of country as soon as I can make arrangements. He made some progress. He—”
“I want a report. First thing tomorrow.”
“Sure. Is that all? I—”
“Oh, no. Oh, no, it’s not over, Susan. This isn’t just more Swagger bullshit. That was just the start. The issue is much more serious. As in, Why the fuck did you send an unauthorized request to SAT-D to orbital on seven houses and thirteen business locations in the greater Tokyo area?”
“Oh, that?”
“Yes, that.”
“It was mission-related.”
“There is a big flap at Langley.”
“I made a judgment, possibly it was wrong. I had to confirm something fast.”
With an egomaniac like Doug it was important to show contrition. Defiance simply enraged him, and enraged, he was even more erratic than when calm.
“Tell me why it was so goddamned important for the birds to eyeball Japanese mansions and warehouses when they could have been looking at North Korean launch sites, Chinese naval bases, Taliban outposts, or god knows what?”
“I have a guy who has a network, mostly low-grade stuff, but you never can tell. Somehow he picked up a whiff that a certain ultra-wealthy Japanese national had sympathies in a certain direction and was unstable. It wasn’t enough for any hard action. I didn’t put surveillance on him, I didn’t discuss him with Japanese intelligence, because we knew he’d hear. I didn’t try to penetrate or eavesdrop, I didn’t recruit within his organization. But I decided on a look-see.”
“Come on, Susan. You’re stalling. Why, please?”
“Doug, there are a lot of tall buildings in Tokyo. If someone flew an airliner into one of them, we’d look foolish. Plus, it would kill a lot of people. I was trying to split the hair between being overreactive and being responsible. I was trying to do my job. I flash-prioritized it over your signature because if you don’t, it takes weeks. You weren’t around to sign off, as I recall.”
“You can use that one to justify anything, Susan.”
“Yes, Doug. I know. However—”
“What did you find out about Mr. Miwa?”
“Oh, at Langley they made the connect?”
“And how. They are not pleased. What did you learn?”
“Well, frankly, nothing. At one mansion there was what might be termed unusual activity. That is, a great many people, vehicles, a lot of movement outside in the courtyard. Possibly it was a business conference, possibly a company retreat of some sort, even some kind of reunion. Then it occurred to me, since I’d looked into him, that it might have been yakuza-related. I believe he has yakuza ties. But the infrared picked up no concentration of explosives, the spectroscope didn’t indicate nuclear, and we don’t have bio-chem sensors yet.”
“Susan, assure me you didn’t muss, even slightly, Yuichi Miwa’s hair.”
Hmmm, Susan wondered, does cutting his fucking head off count as mussing his hair?
“Doug, no entity under any possibility of my influence or under my direction has had anything to do with Yuichi Miwa. We looked at him from three miles up, that’s all. It couldn’t have been softer or more discreet. If anybody finds out, it’s because of a leak somewhere, nothing that I have done or caused to have done.”
“You’re sure?”
“I was going to eyeball him from upstairs another few times, just to make certain. Maybe I’d put some discreet feelers out. That’s it. I was just checking.”
Doug sat back. He looked immensely relieved.
“Okay, fine. Good. The man is not to be touched, even watched. He is to be utterly ignored.”
“Of course.”
“Strictly hands off. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“Until you figure out how to destroy him.”
“Ahhh—”
“That’s why they’re in such a frenzy at Langley. That’s what this is all about.”
He reached into his desk, pulled out a large folder wearing the usual TOP SECRET stamps across its top.
“The file on Miwa-san. It’s come to our attention that some years back, Miwa-san almost went under. He owed yakuza, he owed banks, the whole thing was going away. He convinced himself it was an American plot against him, that the mafia wanted to crack Japanese porn and to do so they had to destroy him. He was Japanese porn; he was Japan, for god’s sake. So he turned for help to the enemy of his enemies, the North Kore
ans; he told them if they helped him, his newspapers would always sing their song. They funded him. They can’t feed their own people, but they’re giving millions to a Japanese pornographer to produce DVDs the likes of which I can’t even begin to describe.”
“Teacher-blows-Johnny.”
“Thank you, Susan. I knew I could count on you. Anyhow, he turned it around, got in on the Internet early, found some disgusting niches, pushed the technological edge, made sharp investments, and became a major, major billionaire. So your boy’s sense of him may be right. We just have to coordinate all this and stay organized.”
“I have it.”
“Now he’s involved in some election for the king of pornography or something. It’s all in here. He’s got to win that election, he’s got to find some way to make himself an institution. He’s got to do something big, to get all the mucky-mucks and all the little people behind him.”
She just smiled a bit. Nick had it a week ago. He beat Langley’s bright boys by seven full days.
“If he wins, the next step will be the bestowal of something called the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum on him, Japan’s highest civilian honor. He’s had lobbyists pushing that in the Diet for months now.”
Now there was something new.
“That will have the impact of instantly legitimizing him, and it’ll gain him access, influence, and so forth. He’s a North Korean agent. He’ll be set to get them stuff on the Japanese and on us they’ve never gotten before.”
“Do the Japanese know this?”
“No. One of our listeners is in North Korea, and if we tell the Japanese, they will understand we have a good North Korean earhole. Then maybe someone finds that out from them. Do you see?”
“Of course.”
“Susan, make up for your bad judgment on Swagger and put it all behind you. This will take all your creativity and imagination. It’s your number one priority now: you must figure out a way to derail the Miwa express, but you must do it in a fashion that leaves no footprints to us. We must appear entirely innocent and uninvolved. But he has to go down before his big PR push makes him legit and the emperor gives him that award. You’ve got to somehow move through Japanese entities, perhaps in ways that they themselves won’t even recognize. It won’t be easy; you have somehow got to do it, Susan. Your job and my job depend on it.”
“What’s the time frame?” Susan asked.
“Well, you’ll need a week or so to recon and develop some sources, another to come up with an operating plan, we’ll have to get it approved, then you’ll have to staff it. You’ve got at least three months. No more. I know it’s hard, but sometimes we have to do the hard thing.”
“Okay,” said Susan, “suppose I can bring it off by…four thirty this afternoon?”
“What? Susan, this isn’t a joke. This isn’t—”
“Doug, do I look like I’m joking?”
“I—well, aren’t you overconfident?”
“Doug, you’re scheduled to rotate back to Langley in the spring. Are they going to bring in another stateside tool to be head of station?”
“Susan, that’s not fair.”
“Focus, Doug. Nothing personal, but I’m so tired of answering to tools. By four thirty today, Doug. All right? And then by five thirty you’ve sent the first of many, many wires in which you single me out for extraordinary praise and recommend to all your old-fart buddies I get head of station here. Do we have an understanding?”
“What do you know that—”
“Do we have an understanding?”
Actually, the announcement of Miwa Yuichi’s death of “natural causes” came at 3:25; she beat the deadline by an hour and five minutes.
47
NOTO
He came out of unconsciousness on the second day and floated through a semiconscious state, aware of bindings on many parts of his body, aware of the ceiling, of the occasional Japanese medical staffer, and the slow passage of time.
On the third day, he could sit upright, and some clarity and memory returned; on the fourth, more clarity, more memory. It was around then that his Japanese caretakers were subtly replaced by two clean-cut American boys, whom he took to be, on no evidence except that they called him Gunny, navy corpsmen working in mufti. They were good kids, though, and who knew from what secret installation they had been assigned.
On the fifth, his brain had settled enough so that he could watch the television. He quickly discovered a nation in—well, not exactly mourning but something like morbid fascination, perhaps, a sense of mass irony, perhaps, a secret pleasure in the tragedy of the other. This was occasioned by the sudden death of Yuichi Miwa, aka “the Shogun,” one of Japan’s leading geniuses of the silver screen, the porn billionaire, the founder of the aggressive Shogunate AV company, and later publisher, radio station owner, media mogul, playboy, and nationalist crusader.
Swagger watched without comment the coverage on bilingual TV news. The man, by rumors all but awarded the Supreme Order of the Chrysanthemum, had died suddenly of a stroke. Swagger was one of the few who knew whose stroke it was, and with which weapon it had been delivered. But watching, Swagger could tell: the Japanese weren’t that broken up about it, not really. Miwa was, after all, a pornographer. In any event, soon enough the news passed from attention.
He managed to gain access to a laptop, pulled up the Japan Times site, and got the articles from two days after his fight on the island. On the national page, he found the brief item he was looking for: an unknown body had been located in Kiyosumi Gardens, presumably a yakuza or someone who had run afoul of the yakuza, given the gravity of the cuts that had killed him. A police captain was quoted expressing concern that while the Brotherhood of the 8-9-3 was frequently violent, these crimes almost always took place in tenderloin areas such as Kabukicho; the captain worried that a corpse in the elegant, historical glades of Kiyosumi Gardens indicated some new phase in criminal culture.
There was no other coverage; no one visited him, no one asked for a debriefing, a statement, a comment, an account. He simply lay there, regathering his strength, reading newspapers, watching the tube, eating cold eggs, cucumber sandwiches, and many kinds of fish and cutlets.
A week into it, his wounds were checked, rebandaged, painkillers and more antibiotics provided, and then he was declared well enough to travel. The young men brought him a new suit, as well as his fraudulent passport under the name Thomas Lee.
“Gunny, I’m told that when you get to LAX, someone from State will meet you. He’ll ask you to surrender this passport. It’ll then disappear. I don’t know a thing about this, but they told me to tell you that Thomas Lee will also disappear.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Oh, you know. The guys in the suits. That’s all I can say.”
“Got you, son.”
He got into his clothes and assembled his meager possessions—the passport, the United ticket for the flight scheduled for 7 p.m. that night. The keys to his bike were missing. It didn’t matter.
The hospital insisted on a wheelchair, and one of the corpsmen wheeled him, ridiculously, to the van, a tan, unmarked Ford. The cold air was like Boise in January. He climbed in slowly, using his uncut arm and his uncut leg for leverage.
“Got everything, Gunny?”
“Enough to get me back.”
“We’re off. We’ll get you there in plenty of time.”
Nobody talked on the long drive to Narita. It was essentially the second time he’d been ejected from Japan, and he knew he was lucky he wasn’t in prison. The traffic, the small, crowded neighborhoods, the driving ranges, all fled by unremarkably, and two hours later, the low, sleek hull of Narita’s No. 2 terminal came into view.
At the curbside, he got out, as did one of the corpsmen.
“Ben’s going to park the van. I hope you don’t mind, but we’re supposed to stay with you till you get beyond security.”
“Sure, you have a job to do, like everybody.”
That o
rdeal went smoothly. He checked in, displayed his passport, got his boarding pass—well, well, the flight was first class, so much easier—and the two young guys took him to security.
“This is always a pain,” he said. “I have a steel hip, so bells go off.”
“No problem,” said one of the kids. “We’ll help.”
“Look,” he said, “is this it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, nobody’s debriefed me, nobody’s taken a statement, nobody’s even asked any questions. I don’t know what happened to some people who were involved with me. There was a little girl who—”
“Gunny, we’re just pharmacist’s mates. We don’t make policy. This is the way they want it.”
“Them again.”
“Sorry, Gunny.”
“I just have to make sure this little girl is all right. I mean, she was just a kid.”
“I don’t have any information for you, Gunny. They didn’t say anything.”
“Oh…okay, okay.”
So he turned to security and this time, at least, the bell didn’t go off. Without ceremony he was through. He nodded at the boys across the rope line, and they nodded back but made no move to leave. As this was the only exit, clearly they were to stay until eight-ball Swagger had safely departed.
He walked toward the gate, skipping the mall area where, a few months ago, he’d so memorably fallen off the wagon. He felt—well, what? Not satisfied, not really. Old. His wounds hurt, his gait was stiff, he needed another painkiller, but at least he wasn’t on crutches or in some kind of a chair. He also felt oddly empty. The light was gray and somber, perfect for his mood: used up, useless, spent, irrelevant. Maybe even disappointed. Couldn’t put a finger on it. It was over, was all, back to the world, DEROS, all that good shit.
Till the end, he kept his hope up. Perhaps Okada-san would show up, perhaps she’d have Miko along and they could have a nice farewell chat. That way there’d be some finality to it, some sense of ending. But it didn’t happen and then the flight was called.