Chameleon

  Chameleon, too, seemed possessed of an extra sense. His sword was like a specter, swallowed in movement. It was a dangerous and lethal presence, heard but not seen. Death sighed in the air of the small bedroom.

  Chameleon was the ghost, silent and effortless. O'Hara was the dancer, his ears keened to each rustle of silk, each movement of air in the room, each whip of steel. His eyes seemed clouded over, almost transfixed, as he fought his defensive game against the tattooed man. He parried and countered, leaping this way and that, spinning, kicking, reacting instinctively to each of Chameleon's moves, drawing on twelve years of learning, practice and discipline.

  The Japanese man was more self-assured, more aggressive. The sword moved fluidly in his hands. He deftly caught the low table in his path on the corner of his foot, and without missing a step, sent it spinning out of his way, crashing against the wall.

  Their blades clashed constantly as they circled the room, each a dervish target for the other. The room crackled with their energy. Then Chameleon made a kill thrust, a spinning move followed by a leap, a false thrust and a charge. O'Hara side-stepped the plunge, caught Chameleon's sword near the hilt of his own as they spun past each other, and with a hard wrist reverse, he slashed Chameleon's shoulder.

  It was a graze rather than a cut. A thin red streak appeared from Chameleon's shoulder to his collarbone. He stopped, poised, legs set perfectly, sweat-streaked muscles ridging his arms. The tattooed lizards on his chest seemed to move with each breath.

  He stared at O'Hara, danger glittering in his irises.

  O'Hara made a timid thrust, and another, and then, moving right to left to right, charged and slashed. Chameleon rolled sideways, dropped almost to his knee and then stood up and made his thrust. His samurai sword swept past O'Hara's, inside his thrust, and in slow motion, O'Hara saw the point of steel moving straight toward his eye. He moved his head slightly, felt its razor edge slice through his ear lobe, felt the harsh burn of the wound and dismissed it, and spun close to Chameleon, so close he could feel the heat of his body and once again, he tried a wrist reverse.

  But the tattooed swordsman anticipated the move, twisting himself, regaining his balance, bringing the hilt of his weapon down and locking the two swords together for an instant, handle to handle, then twisting hard from the waist, feeling the surge of power up into his shoulders and down his arms into his wrists, twisting harder in that moment of contact.

  O'Hara felt his sword wrench away and snap from his fingers, it soared out of his hand, and augering the air, it slashed into the wall and stayed there, its hik gleaming with sweat, six feet away.

  Chameleon landed, on the side of one foot, a fault that almost snapped his ankle. He lost balance for the blink of an eye and O'Hara leaped past Chameleon, landing on his shoulder and rolling to the wall, coming out of the roll with his knees against his chest, surging up and yanking his weapon from its trap in time to catch Chameleon's next thrust on the flat side of the blade. They smacked together, weapons V-eed between them, and hit the wall with a shattering impact. O'Hara thrust his leg between Chameleon's, hooked it back and rolled away at the same time, flipping Chameleon's leg out behind him. Chameleon, thrown momentarily off balance, twisted as he turned and fell on his side as O'Hara leaped back to his feet. But Chameleon had lost it only for an instant, arching his back and hopping back on his feet and recovering with another offensive move. This time it was Chameleon's thrust, badly off mark, which O'Hara parried, twisting as he did. The move almost broke Chameleon's wrist, but he did not lose the sword. He reversed his move, spun on the ball of one foot and made a wide, sweeping slash at O'Hara's legs.

  O'Hara leaped in the air and pulled his legs up, felt the cold scythe as it swished under his feet. Chameleon spun in midair like a twirler, brought the blade full around and made a second swipe. O'Hara caught it on his sword but the fierce power of the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree swing rang up the steel blade. Pain streaked into O'Hara's fingers, then his wrists, his arms, his biceps. The sword wrenched out of one hand but he held onto it with the other and rolled away, seeking a far corner of the room to regain his strength and composure.

  But Chameleon gave no quarter. He charged again, a hopping move, bounding across the room, the sword held high over head.

  As O'Hara straightened out of the roll and moved his feet under him, he sensed movement near the shattered panel of the room, and then heard the harsh order: "Tomare! Stop!"

  They froze like statues, Chameleon poised with his sword overhead, O'Hara crouched, his sword in front of him.

  Kimura entered the room. Sammi stood silent near the door.

  Kimura stood like a referee between them, his right arm held straight out from the shoulder, the palm of his hand pointed toward the ground.

  "To draw blood against each other is to dishonor the higaru-dashi," he said quietly. "Whoever made this challenge must kill me before going on."

  Okari stared at Kimura, the sword wavering in his two hands. "I do not understand," he said.

  "Before you kill each other, you must kill me first," the old man repeated.

  "Why do you stand between us?" Okari demanded. "This has nothing to do with the higaru."

  "Oh? You question the authority of the Tokenrui?"

  "No!" cried Chameleon. "But this man is a beikoku-jin, he—"

  "So he is an American. What difference? Would you attack an unarmed man?"

  "Do not insult me, Tokenrui-san, I offered him his choice of weapons."

  "And if he is not trained in the use of them, he might as well be unarmed."

  "I know about O'Hara-san. He is the one they call Kazuo. He knows the way of the sword."

  "I named him Kazuo. I have taken him as my son. And he, too, is higaru-dashi."

  Chameleon was shocked.

  Kimura looked at both men. The muscles in his face were ridged, his eyes stern. "I thought both of you had gone beyond brawling. Do either of you think there is any honor to this duel? I fear if there is to be wisdom here, it must come from me. And if there is to be a challenge, it must be made properly and it must be approved by me."

  "I made the proper challenge," O'Hara said.

  Kimura looked at the thin scratch down O'Hara's chest, at the buttons on the floor. Turning to Chameleon, he said, "And you, Okari, provoked him."

  "Hai."

  "You both insult me."

  "Why?" demanded O'Hara.

  "Because it is the way of higaru-dashi. Because we are all brothers, and an honorable man does not take up the sword against his brother. Because both of you are men of honor who have taken the oath of the Secret Warrior."

  Okari and O'Hara stared hard at each other from opposite sides of the small room while the significance of Kimura's revelation sank in. Kimura stood between them, his arm still outstretched. Neither of them would challenge that gesture. To do so would mean to challenge Tokenrui.

  Okari very precisely slid his sword into its sheath.

  "Arigato," Kimura said quietly.

  "So, Marui-me has learned the Way of the Secret Warrior," Okari said.

  "This man is your brother and yet you use your term 'Round-Eyes' as if it were an insult," Kimura said. "You, Okari, have you forgotten the fifth lesson of the Tendai? Your arrogance shocks me. For many years you have studied the discipline of humility and now you are about to throw it away in one foolish moment."

  "He came to kill me!"

  "You say that without fear of being wrong?" He walked to the far side of the room and turned, standing with his hands clasped before him. "I will remind you both, the purpose of our discipline is to make each man a competitor only with himself, for only when you have mastered that demon are you ready to challenge others."

  O'Hara and Okari stood with heads lowered as Kimura chastised them, reminding them of their vows.

  Okari said, "I never thought—"

  "You never thought! For years you have been trained to look beyond what appears to be reality, to anticipate the unknown.
Now you tell me you did not think. You are right—you did not think. Have you still to learn that one never trusts what seems obvious? Does the peacock joyously embrace the trap?"

  He walked back to their side of the room and stood in front of them. "You have deceived yourselves by your failure to look beyond what seems to be. Both of you have achieved the mystery of the seventh level and yet neither of you has practiced it in this affair."

  He stopped for a moment, watching the two men shuffling before him. "Could I be wrong? Perhaps neither of you is worthy to be a candidate for Tokenrui."

  They both looked up with shock.

  "Yes, one day I must select between you to take my place as Tokenrui. Now do you understand? I have watched and trained both of you since long before either of you achieved manhood. And at this moment, I could not choose between you."

  "It never occurred to me that I might be considered," O'Hara said.

  "Nor I," said Okari.

  "Good. That is encouraging. Perhaps you are still in touch with humility."

  "What about Sammi," O'Hara said, "isn't he a candidate?"

  "Unfortunately, he will be number three. And whichever of you is not chosen as Tokenrui will be second to the one that is. I say 'unfortunately' only because Sammi is my grandson and he has trained as hard as either of you. But he has achieved only the state of the fifth level. Whatever the outcome, you three are brothers, and that can never change and if that bond is broken by either of you, you will be banished in dishonor from higaru-dashi forever."

  "I am to call this gaikoku no kancho my brother?" Okari said.

  "Does one tiger condemn the stripes of another?" said Kimura sternly to Okari.

  The younger man flashed a look at O'Hara and then back at Kimura. "The beikoku-jin would have killed me," he said.

  "Do you know for sure the American would kill you, or does the fear in your heart speak for you?"

  Okari hesitated, staring hard at the green-eyed American.

  "He is not a spy and he does not kill," said the old man. "And he is not one of them. He came back to expose them."

  "He does not deny he is Chameleon," said O'Hara.

  "Yes and no," said Kimura. "He is Chameleon and he is not."

  "Yeah, the Chameleon is never what it appears," O'Hara said.

  "This time it is quite true. The Chameleon is certainly not what you believe him to be. You both have much to learn. When you both have taken the Walk of a Thousand Days, and the special powers of Zen have been revealed to you, perhaps then your wisdom will be less cloudy. For now, we must decide on our next step. May I suggest we have some tea—all this talk has made me thirsty."

  10

  "This is CHAMELEON, but not the Chameleon you seek," Kimura said, putting his hand on Okari's shoulder.

  O'Hara had called the hotel. As planned, Eliza and the Magician had taken the late-afternoon train to Kyoto and they were in the bar waiting for him to return from Tanabe. He did not explain where he was and what had happened, he merely gave them the address. Now they were all seated in a square. O'Hara and Gunn faced Kimura and Okari. The Magician was seated at one end of the square and Sammi faced him. Tension still crackled between O'Hara and Okari, but they listened intently as Kimura spoke.

  "Imagine that I have several boxes," he began. "Each is made of glass, so we can see through it, and in each box there is an event. In each box we have placed a moment of history. But to consider these moments in their proper order, we must suspend the boxes in air so we can see each in relationship to the others. Only then can we have a true understanding of what has happened and why. Only then can we see what lies behind each event. Only then will we understand everything. If there is something significant we don't know, it will become obvious in its absence.

  "So, let us begin with the first box, the one we see most clearly. In it we will put what you have learned, Kazuo, so you must tell us what you know, not what you think.

  "What we know is that a consortium of several petroleum companies was formed. It was conceived by General Alexander Hooker, who was president of Intercon Oil. During the three or four years Hooker was negotiating this deal, the heads of all of these companies either died of heart attacks or were killed in accidents. This includes Shichi Tomoro, the head of the Japanese combine San-San, which has just become a new member of AMRAN. An experimental oil rig was also sabotaged in Alaskan waters."

  "Excuse me," Eliza said, "the same thing happened with the Aquila Milena, the car Marza was driving when he was killed. We don't know why yet. And the Aquila Motor Works is now part of AMRAN, and the consortium is financing work on the car."

  "Don't forget the guy in Hawaii," said the Magician.

  "Yes," said O'Hara. "A man was apparently murdered for some pictures that were taken aboard the oil rig. But all they wanted to do was destroy the film."

  Kimura, like a mime describing a story with his hands, hung invisible glass boxes in the air each time they brought up a new point. "It is important to remember in what order these things occurred. The dates do not matter so much as the order," he said.

  "Another element in the sequence is Red Bridges," Eliza went on. "He was a salvage man in Japan right after the war. He went from that to shipbuilding and then became involved in developing a large underwater living environment. It was designed by the scuba scientist Kaginakas. Both he and Bridges later died of heart attacks. The dish, as it was called, has since been completed and taken to ... somewhere."

  "He was also involved in refitting old Liberty ships, turning them into tankers," the Magician said.

  "And we learned yesterday that Bridges was part of San-San, which is now part of the consortium," Eliza added.

  More boxes in the air. Kimura leaned back, concentrating on the imaginary complex he was building. "A question: Is there any doubt in your minds that these corporation people who died were actually killed by the mad one with the umbrella?"

  O'Hara, Eliza and the Magician all shook their heads.

  "The accidental deaths were probably executed by someone other than Danilov," O'Hara said. "Falmouth, maybe, or a Frenchman named Le Croix, who is also a faceless one, although his reputation as a sadist is well documented. But the heart attacks were caused by Danilov, there is no question."

  "And why has AMRAN been singled out as a victim of this terrorist you call Chameleon?" Okari said.

  "Extortion," said O'Hara. "AMRAN refused to play ball."

  "Play ball?" Okari asked.

  "A beikoku no expression," Kimura explained. "It means they would not cooperate."

  "There is another box we left out," Eliza said. "The oil consultant, Lavander. He had worked for all of these companies during the past year or so, including San-San, and he was murdered too, after they went to a lot of trouble to free him from a terrorist kidnapping in South America."

  "Do you think there was a connection between the two terrorist groups, those who kidnapped Lavander and those who freed him?" Kimura asked.

  "No," said O'Hara. "I think it was a genuine fluke. But it apparently scared one of these oil companies. They sent a man to test Lavander, and Lavander failed. He had become a security risk to someone."

  "We recovered a ledger of his," Eliza said. "It contains highly confidential figures from all of the AMRAN oil companies, as well as others he worked for. The figures could be very damaging if they got out."

  "Why?" Kimura asked.

  "Because they prove that the companies have lied to the public about the amount of oil they have in reserve."

  "And why would they do that?"

  "To control the price of oil," O'Hara said. "The profit margins are staggering—four, five hundred percent a year. The public thinks it's because there's a shortage of oil, when actually there's a surplus."

  "I see. Go on."

  "There was also a notation about something called Midas," O'Hara said. "And Danilov mentioned Midas to me. He said, 'Midas is lost.'"

  "And Midas is another question for which there is
no obvious answer at this point," said Kimura. "So, now we have six questions unanswered. First, why was the man killed in Hawaii? Second, where was this dish of Bridges' taken and what is it for? Third, what is Midas? Fourth, why was this man Lavander assassinated? Fifth, why was the oil rig sabotaged? And finally, why was the Italian car blown up? Is that correct?"

  "Right," said O'Hara.

  "Is there anything else?"

  "Yes," said O'Hara, "what was Tony Falmouth doing here?"

  "Perhaps the most revealing question of all," said Kimura. "But we will hold it for a few more minutes. Do you still believe Chameleon is alive, Kazuo?"

  "I'm looking at him," O'Hara said.

  "And the Chameleon you seek was a Japanese agent in World War II, correct?"

  O'Hara nodded. Kimura looked at Okari and asked, "Does this look like a man who served in World War II?"

  O'Hara laughed. "No," he said.

  "We can assume, then, that they are two different Chameleons?"

  O'Hara nodded.

  "So, we now have many boxes to peer through. But before we go any further, let us deal with this anger that is between you two."

  "I didn't come here to kill anyone," O'Hara said to Okari. "I came to find the truth."

  "And what is the truth?" Kimura demanded.

  "That Chameleon is a monster who destroys without feeling, who kills for profit."

  "My son, you have been chasing a name, not a person. You have both been tricked."

  "Tricked? By whom?"

  "The eikoku-jin outside, the dead one. He tricked you, Kazuo, into believing that Okari was your enemy. And you, Okari, were tricked into believing O'Hara had come to kill you. You both chose to believe what was obvious, and yet you both know that the truth often hides behind lies."