Savage tightened his grip on his cup. Turning to Rachel, he saw that the surprise on her face was as strong as what he felt. “Four years?” She was too amazed to blink.
“A moderate amount of time, considering the objective.” Akira shrugged. “To attempt to become a samurai. In our corrupt and honorless twentieth century, the only option for a Japanese devoted to the noble traditions of his nation, committed to becoming a samurai, is to join the fifth profession. To make himself the modern equivalent of a samurai. An executive protector. Because now—just as then—a samurai without a master is a warrior without a purpose, a frustrated wanderer, a directionless, unfulfilled ronin.”
Savage gripped his frail teacup harder, afraid he'd break it but controlled by greater surprise. “And all those men in the dojo …”
“Are Taro-sensei's advanced students. Many are about to graduate after the privilege of having studied with my master for almost four years,” Akira replied. “You might compare them to monks. Or hermits. Except for grocers and other merchants who bring necessary goods, no outsider is permitted to enter.”
“But the outside door was unlocked,” Savage said. “And so was the door to the dojo. In fact, I didn't even see a lock. Anyone could walk in.”
Akira shook his head. “Each door has a hidden bolt, electronically activated, although tonight the bolts were left open. In case my enemies managed to follow me here. An enticement. So they could be subdued and questioned. The stairway, of course, is a trap once the doors are sealed.”
Savage pursed his lips and nodded.
Taro inhaled softly.
Akira turned to him, aware that his master intended to speak.
“Although my students retreat from the world,” Taro said, “I do not wish them to be ignorant of it. By means of newspapers, magazines, and television broadcasts, they're instructed in contemporary events. But in these sequestered surroundings, they're trained to study the present with the same detachment that they do the past. They stand apart, watchers, not participants. Because only by being objective can a protector be effective. The essence of a samurai is to be neutral, without expectations, maintaining a stillness at his core.”
Taro considered his words, bobbed his wizened head, and sipped his tea, the signal that others could speak.
“My apologies, Taro-sensei. But another potentially indelicate question occurs to me,” Savage said.
Taro nodded in permission.
“Akira mentioned the corrupt age in which we live,” Savage said. “In that case, few young men—even Japanese— would be willing to shut themselves away and commit themselves to such arduous training.”
“Yes, few. But sufficient,” Taro said. “The way of the samurai is by definition limited to the most determined. You yourself, as I've been told, committed yourself to the severest branch of America's armed forces—the SEALs.”
Savage stiffened. He strained not to frown at Akira. What else had Akira revealed about him? Mustering discipline not to look troubled, he replied, “But I wasn't shut off from the world, and the military paid for my instruction. This school … four years of isolation … surely few candidates could afford the financial expense of …”
Taro chuckled. “Indeed. And you warned me. Your question is indelicate. Americans do say what they think.” His good-humored tone barely hid his disapproval. He sobered. “None of my students bears any financial expense in coming here. The only criteria for acceptance are ability and determination. Their equipment, meals, and lodging, everything they require, is given to them.”
“Then how can you afford … ?” Savage held his breath, unable to bring himself to complete his further indelicate question.
Taro didn't help but merely studied him.
The silence lengthened.
Akira broke it. “With your permission, Tam-sensei.”
A flick of the eyes signified yes.
“My master is also my agent,” Akira said, “as he is for every student with strength and discipline enough to complete the course. Taro-sensei arranges for my employment, continues to advise me, and receives a portion of everything I earn—for the rest of my life.”
Savage felt jolted. Thoughts raced through his mind. If Taro was Akira's agent …
Taro must have information about Kunio Shirai, the man Savage knew as Muto Kamichi and saw cut in half at the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat.
Akira had said he worked with an American agent when assigned to America. Graham. But Graham had not been the primary agent. Taro was. Taro might have the answers Savage needed.
But Kamichi—Shirai—was never at the Mountain Retreat. No more than we were, Savage thought.
He winced. Lancing, crushing, spinning, and twisting, jamais vu yet again assaulted his mind.
If we never met Kamichi, we couldn't have been hired to protect him! Savage thought. So Taro might know nothing about him.
But someone set this up. Someone arranged for Akira and me to imagine we were hired. Who? When? At what point did jamais vu intersect with reality?
This much was sure, Savage knew. Akira had held back information. In emphasizing that his agent was Graham, he'd deliberately avoided drawing attention to Taro.
Was Akira an enemy? Savage's former terrible suspicion flooded through him, chilling his soul. His sense of reality had been so jeopardized that he feared he couldn't trust anyone.
Even Rachel? No, I've got to trust! If I can't depend on Rachel, nothing matters!
Again he realized the dilemma of trying to protect himself as well as Rachel, in trying to be his own principal. He needed a protector who wasn't involved, and at the moment, that luxury wasn't possible.
“I'm afraid I will be rude,” Savage said. “I know that conversation over tea is supposed to be soothing. But I'm too upset to obey the rules. Akira, what the hell happened since we last saw you?”
11
The question hung in the room. Akira, who'd been sipping tea, gave no indication he'd heard it. He took another sip, closed his eyes, seemed to savor the taste, then set down his cup, and looked at Savage.
“The police arrived quickly.” Akira sounded oddly detached, as if what he described had happened to someoneelse. “One car, then two, then three, as word of the situation's gravity spread. The coroner arrived. Police photographers. A forensic team. Senior police officials. At one point, I counted twenty-two investigators in my home. They listened to my account. They made me repeat it several times. Their questions became more detailed, their expressions more grave. I'd rehearsed my story before they arrived. I'd made necessary adjustments so the crime scene would be consistent with the robbery attempt I described and the murderous reaction of the intruders when they were discovered. But this isn't America, where multiple killings seem an everyday occurrence. Here, violent crime involving handguns is rare. The investigators were grim and methodical. In my favor, although I'd fired and killed with one of the intruders’ pistols, I'd also used a sword in defending my home, and that—as I anticipated—evoked tradition, making me seem heroic.
“As noon approached, I was still being questioned. I anticipated your concern if I didn't phone the restaurant on schedule, so I asked permission to excuse myself and make a call to break an appointment. Imagine my concern when I learned that you weren't at the restaurant to receive my call. I hid my feelings and answered more questions. By midafternoon, the bodies had been removed. Eko mustered strength despite her grief and accompanied Churi's body to the morgue, to make arrangements for his funeral. In the meantime, the investigators decided they wanted me to go with them to headquarters and dictate a formal statement. On the street, the police cars had attracted a swarm of reporters. Without making it seem I had something to hide, I tried not to face their cameras, but at least one man took my picture.”
Akira's voice became somber, and Savage knew why. A protector had to be anonymous. If a photograph was published, Akira's ability to defend a principal would be jeopardized, because an assailant might be able to recognize
and attack him before attacking the primary target. In this case, the potential complications were even more serious. A newspaper photo of Akira would draw the attention of his and Savage's hunters and possibly hinder their search.
“It couldn't be helped,” Savage said.
“At headquarters while I dictated my statement, the police checked my background. I'd told them I was a security specialist. Several major corporations I'd worked for gave the police a positive assessment of me. But I sensed that the police checked other sources. Whoever they spoke to, the police soon treated me differently. With deference. I didn't understand their reaction, but I certainly didn't argue when they told me I could leave. But not to go far. They made clear they'd want to talk to me again.”
“And after that?” Rachel asked, self-conscious, her voice strained, the first time she'd spoken in several minutes.
“An enemy wouldn't have had any trouble following the police car that drove me to headquarters,” Akira said. “It turned out the police were so inexplicably deferential that they offered to drive me back to my home. I politely declined, pleading the need to walk and clear my head. Puzzled, I found a side entrance from the building and tried to blend with the crowd on the street. But I soon discovered I had company. Japanese. Skilled, though not skilled enough. For the next two hours, I tried to elude them. Six o'clock loomed quickly. I managed to use a pay phone to call the restaurant on schedule, knowing how distressed you'd be if I didn't report. But again you weren't at the restaurant. Something was obviously wrong! What happened to you?”
“Soon,” Savage said. “Finish your story.”
Akira stared at his teacup. “Seeking shelter in a public place, a bar that wasn't so crowded that I wouldn't see my pursuers coming in, I noticed a news report on a television behind the counter. Kunio Shirai. Another demonstration.” He shook his head in dismay. “But this one was larger, more intense, almost a riot. Outside a U.S. Air Force base. Whatever Shirai's trying to do, he's turned up the pressure dramatically.”
“We saw the same report.” Rachel's forehead was knotted.
“And somehow we're connected with him,” Savage said. “Or with the man we knew as Muto Kamichi, whom we never met.”
“But saw cut in half at the nonexistent Medford Gap Mountain Retreat.” The veins in Akira's temples throbbed. “Madness.” His eyes blazed. “I knew I had only one option—to seek safety with my mentor.” He glanced toward Taro. “I didn't dare return to my home. But I couldn't ignore my responsibility to Eko. On the chance that she'd come back from being with Churi at the morgue and arranging his funeral, I used the phone in the bar to call my home and felt startled when she answered ‘hai,’ the warning signal to run. I quickly asked her, ‘Why?’ ‘Strangers,’ she blurted. ‘Gaijin. Guns.’ Someone yanked the phone from her hand. An American spoke Japanese. ‘We want to help you,’ he said. ‘Come back.’ I slammed down the phone before they could trace the call. Americans with guns? In my home? And they claim they want to help? Not likely! The police would have posted guards to restrict reporters from the crime scene. How did Americans get inside?” Akira glared, his emotions finally showing. “If I could get to Eko and rescue her …”
“We called her as well,” Savage said. “At eleven tonight. She gave us the warning signal before an American grabbed the phone. They need her. They'll question her, but she knows nothing. They'll scare her, but she's valuable as a hostage. I don't think they'll hurt her.”
“ ‘Don't think’ isn't good enough,” Akira snapped. “She's like a mother to me!”
Taro raised his wrinkled hands, motioning for silence. He spoke to Akira in Japanese.
Akira responded. His melancholy tinged with relief, eyes bright, he turned to Savage. “My sensei has vowed to rescue her. His most advanced students will leave a few weeks early. Tonight will be their graduation. And Eko's release.”
I bet, Savage thought. Those guys upstairs looked as if there wasn't any obstacle they couldn't overcome. Whoever's in Akira's house, they won't know what hit them.
Savage bowed to Taro. “For my friend, I thank you.”
Taro frowned. “You call Akira a friend?”
“We've been through a lot together.”
“But the friendship is impossible,” Taro said.
“Why? Because I'm a gaijin? Call it respect. I like this man.”
Taro smiled enigmatically. “And I, as you put it, like you. But we will never be friends.”
“Your loss.” Savage shrugged.
Taro raised his head in confusion.
Akira interrupted, speaking solemnly to Taro.
Taro nodded. “Yes. An irreverent attempt to be humorous. So American. Amusing. But another reason that we'll never be friends.”
“Then let's put it this way. I'm a fellow protector. A good one. And I ask for professional courtesy.” Savage didn't give Taro a chance to react. Pivoting quickly toward Akira, he asked, “And then you came here?”
“Where I waited in case my enemies arrived. I couldn't imagine why you hadn't gone to the restaurant as we agreed. I feared that you still wouldn't be there when I called again in the morning.”
“Just as we feared for you after Eko gave us the warning signal.”
“What happened?“
Savage focused his thoughts, trying as best he could to restrain emotion, to summarize objectively what they'd been through: the chase at the Meiji Shrine, the escape from the gardens, the attack on the street.
“But we don't know if Hailey's men were in the van or if they shot at the van.” Rachel's voice dropped, plummeting toward despair. “More questions. The answers keep getting farther away.”
“And maybe that's the point,” Akira said. “To keep us confused. Off balance.”
“The obstacle race and the scavenger hunt,” Savage said.
Akira looked puzzled.
“That was Graham's view of life. It fits. While we search, we try to elude whoever wants to stop us.”
“But we don't know which group is which,” Akira said. He repeated a word he'd used earlier: “Madness.”
“I may be able to help you,” Taro said. “With regard to Kunio Shirai.”
It took a moment before Savage registered what Taro had said. Chest contracting, he stared in surprise at the deceptively frail old man.
“Before I explain, I sense,” he told Savage, “that you need to be assured. I have no acquaintance with the name by which you knew him … or falsely remember that you knew him … in America. Jamais vu, I believe you call it.”
Savage frowned. Straightened. Tensed.
“No need to be alarmed. My excellent student”—Taro gestured toward Akira—”earlier described to me the impossible events at the nonexistent Mountain Retreat. You saw each other die. You saw a man called Muto Kamichi, whom you've learned to call Kunio Shirai, cut in half. But none of it happened. Jamais vu. Indeed. As good a description as any. I'm a Buddhist. I believe that the world is illusory. But I also believe that earthquakes, tidal waves, and volcanic eruptions are real. So I force myself to distinguish between illusion and truth. Kunio Shirai is real. But at no time did I arrange for my excellent student to accompany him—under any name—to America. I've never met the man. I've never dealt with him through intermediaries. I beg you to accept my word on this.”
Savage squinted, felt his shoulders relax, and nodded. Trapped in a sickening, wavering assault on his consciousness, he repeated to himself Rachel's favorite quotation. Abraham believed by virtue of the absurd.
“Very well,” Taro said and turned to Akira. “A great deal has happened in the six months since I last saw you. In Japan. Or at least in the undercurrents of Japan.” The old man's eyes changed, their pupils expanding, as if he concentrated on an object far away. “In secret, a small force has been gaining power. Even longer ago than six months. It began in January of nineteen eighty-nine. With the death of our esteemed emperor, Hirohito, and with the forbidden Shinto rites involved in his funeral.”
&n
bsp; Savage felt Rachel flinch beside him and recalled their conversation in the Ginza district about this same subject.
Taro's eyes abruptly contracted as he shifted his attention from the imaginary distant object and steadied them, laserlike, on Savage. “Religion and politics. The postwar constitution demanded their separation, insisting that never again would God's will be used to control this nation's government. But words on a document imposed by a gaijin victor don't cancel tradition or suppress a nation's soul. In private, the old ways are bound to persist. In pockets. Among absolute patriots, one of whom is Kunio Shirai. His ancestors descend from the zenith of Japanese culture, the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate in sixteen hundred. Wealthy, determined, disgusted by our present corrupt condition, he wants the ancient ways to return. Others share his vision. Powerful others. They believe in the gods. They believe that Japan is the land of the gods, that every Japanese is descended from gods. They believe in Amaterasu.”
12
The name, eerily evocative, made Savage tingle. He strained to remember when he'd heard it before—and suddenly recalled that Akira had mentioned it on the way to Dulles Airport while he tried to teach Savage and Rachel about Japan prior to flying here.
“Amaterasu.” Savage nodded. “Yes, the goddess of the sun. The ancestress of every emperor. The ultimate mother of every Japanese from the beginning of time.”
Taro cocked his ancient head; he clearly hadn't expected Savage to recognize the name. “Few gaijin would … I compliment you on your knowledge of our culture.”
“The credit belongs to Akira. He's as excellent a teacher as he was your student. … Amaterasu? What about her?”
The old man spoke with reverence. “She symbolizes the greatness of Japan, our purity and dignity before our glorious ways were contaminated. Kunio Shirai has chosen her as the image of his purpose, the source of his inspiration. In public, he calls his movement the Traditional Japanese Party. In private, however, he and his staunchest followers refer to their group as the Force of Amaterasu.”