Kurt found it easy to sleep on planes. The soft wall of noise given off by the engines and the quiet, dim cabin were more effective than any sleeping pill ever devised. And after several months of living in tents and ramshackle huts out on the ice, the sleeper seat felt like a mattress fit for a king.
“Ten hours straight,” Joe said, checking his watch. “Must be some kind of record.”
“Not even close,” Kurt said. He put a hand to his cleanly shaven face, silently amazed at the odd feeling of having smooth skin once again.
A flight attendant walked the cabin, offering hot towels scented with eucalyptus. Kurt gladly accepted and after rubbing it across his face and neck, he was wide awake.
He looked out the window at the lights of Tokyo. Because the wind was blowing in from the sea, the plane flew a descent profile that took it across the bay and out over the city before turning back toward Haneda Airport and the artificial island it had been built on.
It was nighttime in Japan and Tokyo did not disappoint. The place was lit up like a neon maze, with the reddish spike of Tokyo Tower at the center.
They descended toward the runway, landed with a bump and taxied to the gate.
Kurt walked off the plane feeling as if it was early morning, but with the long flight and the time change, they’d lost a day crossing the international date line and it was nearly ten p.m.
As they left the customs booth and made their way through baggage claim, Joe asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Any chance you’ve heard from your technologically challenged friend?”
“No,” Paul said. “But I wasn’t expecting to. I’ll send him a telegram as soon as we check into the hotel. And if that fails, we can try the Pony Express.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Gamay said, pointing across the terminal.
Standing near the building’s automatic doors was a young woman in white slacks and a colorful silk top that had a classic geisha pattern to it. She had a backpack over her shoulders and held a sign in her hand that read AMERICAN PAUL.
“I’m guessing that would be you,” Gamay added.
“Not exactly the Beatles hitting New York in ’sixty-five,” Paul said, “but I’ll take it.”
“Go say hello,” Kurt suggested, taking the suitcase from Paul’s hand. “We’re right behind you.”
Paul walked over to the young woman and bowed.
“You are the American geologist who wishes to meet with Master Kenzo?”
“I am,” Paul said. “These are my colleagues.”
“My name is Akiko,” the young woman said. “I am one of Master Kenzo’s students. He will meet with you at the lakeside retreat. It is very pleasant there. Please, follow me.”
Without another word, she led them outside and on a long hike down the terminal sidewalk. Cars, shuttle buses and taxicabs jockeyed for position on the road outside the terminal, but none of them stopped for the group of five.
Paul and Gamay were up front, Kurt and Joe trailing behind.
“I hope we’re not walking to this lakeside retreat,” Joe whispered.
“Could be a horse and buggy,” Kurt said, “Amish-style.”
“That would be something,” Joe said, “considering they’re against technology . . .”
“We are not against technology,” Akiko said, picking out Joe’s words from the background noise. “Only electronic intrusion into humanity’s essence. Unlike more primitive mechanical machines, electronic computing devices are not subject to human decision making. Every minute of every day, your computers, phones and other devices talk to one another, update and change their own programs, even record your whereabouts and activities. They also pass this information along to other devices, servers and programs that study your every move and respond with methods of influencing you, primarily to buy products you do not need. But we believe there are other more sinister effects occurring also.”
“Such as?”
“Here in Japan, young people have become ever more interested in their computers, video screens and virtual reality than in actual reality and human-to-human contact. People have lost the ability to connect with one another. Restaurants, bars and hotels cater to singles who wish to eat, sleep and experience the world undisturbed by others next to them. Isolation within a crowd has become the norm. Eyes on screens, earbuds blocking outside noise and conversation. We are a nation of people living separate existences and as a result our marriage and birthrates are plummeting. If this isn’t changed within a generation or two, our population will fall by half. A crash unlike anything seen in modern times.”
Considering how crowded Tokyo appeared, it was hard to imagine that in thirty years it might be half empty.
She led them to a parking lot and stopped. “Before we begin, I require you to relinquish your cell phones, iPods, iPads, cameras and computers, along with any other electronic paraphernalia you may have brought with you.”
She slid off the backpack and began collecting the various devices. One by one, Kurt, Joe, Paul and Gamay unpacked their electronics and placed them in the pack, which Kurt noticed was lined with some type of metallic foil.
When they were finished, the pack was full. Seeing the items all piled together, Kurt had to admit it was almost embarrassing how much electronic junk they traveled with these days.
“How did we ever travel without all this stuff?” Joe asked aloud.
“We carried quarters and dimes,” Kurt said, “and there were whole walls in the airport filled with these things called phone booths.”
Joe laughed. “You’re showing your age, amigo.”
“I’m not old,” Kurt said, “I’m a classic.”
Akiko pulled the bulky pack over her shoulder and led them across the parking lot, where the night suddenly became far more interesting.
Kurt was expecting a bland white van or perhaps a large nondescript sedan to shuttle them to the lakeside retreat, but instead they stopped beside a pair of classic Japanese cars from the sixties.
The first was a gleaming white sedan that bore a vague resemblance to the BMWs of the era. It had performance tires, a vintage spoiler and polished chrome accents. The second car was a silver 1969 Datsun 240Z. It had a long, low hood, sleek lines and side vents that looked like gills. All of which contributed to a predatory, shark-like appearance.
A low roofline and mirrors placed well forward of the windshield and out on the fenders made it look fast even sitting still.
“Beautiful machines,” Joe said.
“I rebuilt them myself,” she replied.
“Really,” Joe said. “I also love to work on cars. Perhaps we could collaborate sometime.”
Akiko offered a brief nod, nothing more. “These will transport us to the lakeside,” she said, walking to the sedan. She opened the trunk and placed the packful of confiscated electronic equipment inside. Kurt noticed another metallic lining in the trunk.
“I could ride with you,” Joe offered.
Akiko slammed the trunk of the sedan and opened the door. “American Paul will ride with me.”
Joe took that hard.
“As will his American wife,” Gamay said.
“Very well,” Akiko replied. “You two will follow us. Try to keep up. I will be driving quickly, as we are probably under surveillance already.”
She threw a set of keys their way, which Joe grabbed out of the air. “I’m driving,” he said with a grin.
Kurt shrugged as Joe strutted toward the classic sports car. He reached the right-hand door the same moment Joe opened the door on the left. They dropped into the bucket seats together.
From the corner of his eye, Kurt saw Joe reach forward as if to grab the steering wheel, but there was nothing there except the padded dash. The wheel was in front of Kurt—on the “wrong” side of the car.
“No,” Joe cried, suddenly re
alizing his error.
“Right-hand drive in Japan,” Kurt said. “Might want to brush up on your Japanese automotive history before you start rebuilding cars with your new friend.”
“Very funny,” Joe said. “I must be slipping. I blame it on the jet lag.”
“Should have taken a nap. Eight or nine hours would have done you some good.”
Joe handed over the keys and Kurt started the car. The engine fired easily. The exhaust singing in perfect harmony with the reverberation from the white sedan.
Without hesitation, Akiko pulled out and drove to the exit. Kurt grabbed the gearshift, threw the car into reverse and backed out. With a quick shift, they were moving forward and out into the Tokyo night.
Kurt had spent nearly eight months in Japan in what seemed like a lifetime ago. He’d spent plenty of time on the roads in England, Australia and Barbados as well. As a result, driving on the left came easy. The only danger came when one was changing roads at sparsely used intersections. Without another vehicle to follow, it was easy for the brain to slip back into its deeply ingrained pattern and drive down the wrong side of the street.
They picked their way through heavy traffic moving slowly all the way to the edge of the city. Finally, Akiko pulled onto a highway and began to accelerate. Kurt dropped down a gear and stepped on the gas. Soon they were racing to the southwest at almost a hundred miles an hour.
“Any chance we’re really under surveillance?” Joe asked.
“I haven’t seen anyone,” Kurt said. “But they are a secret group, opposed to almost everything their country holds dear.”
Kurt reached forward and began pressing the manual analog buttons on the radio. They went in, physically moving and setting the needle on the old AM/FM radio. “When I was a kid, this radio was the height of technology.”
Joe laughed. “Like the lady said, it’s digital electronics they’re against. Analog radios are okay. And this vehicle has a carburetor, a manually adjusted camshaft to open and close the valves and it was made before computer diagnostics and engine control units were even on the drawing board. It’s a pure machine. It does what the driver commands it to instead of thinking for itself.”
Kurt changed lanes, punched the gas and passed an Audi and a brand-new Lexus like they were standing still. “That it does.”
They continued on the highway for over an hour, heading out into the foothills. Well into the second hour of driving, they pulled off an exit and onto a secondary road. This stretch of blacktop twisted into the mountains and for the first time they were driving in darkness.
Kurt worked hard to keep up with Akiko on the unfamiliar road, but eventually they broke out onto a plateau and continued on a fairly straight line, heading toward a shimmering lake in the distance.
Akiko slowed down as they approached the lakefront and turned onto a dirt track.
“Not a house in sight,” Joe said. “And certainly nothing I would call a retreat.”
“I wouldn’t rule out a log cabin or tents by the water,” Kurt said, ruefully imagining another night sleeping on uneven ground.
They continued around the edge of the lake, arriving at a wooden causeway that led across a hundred feet of water to a small island.
Akiko turned her car gently onto the bridge and eased forward slowly, which seemed prudent considering the bridge was no wider than the sedan she was driving.
As she approached the island, the lights from the sedan lit up thick walls of impressive stonework and a drawbridge that was slowly being lowered into place.
“That’s no island,” Joe said, “it’s a castle.”
The ancient fortress had battlements of carved and fitted stone, overhanging ramparts and a huge pagoda-style structure set back and above the walls.
“Keep your eyes peeled for dragons,” Joe said. “This is the kind of place we’re likely to find one.”
Kurt was more interested in keeping his eyes on the road. With the high beams and the driving lights on, he could see how truly narrow the wooden bridge was. It was also noticeably rickety.
“Not the sturdiest of structures,” he said. “But if it held up the sedan, we should be fine.”
The drawbridge locked in place and the sedan rolled across it and into the castle.
“Our turn,” Joe said.
Kurt eased forward, bumping up onto the wooden planks. Not completely certain of his alignment, he reached for a button to lower the window so he could poke his head out and look down at the front tire. Instead of a switch, he found the hand crank.
Rolling down a window for the first time in years, he leaned out over the windowsill. The sidewall of the front tire was at the edge of the bridge.
“Plenty of room on this side,” Joe said.
“Plenty?”
“At least three or four inches.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Kurt drove forward, teasing the car toward Joe’s side. He crossed the bridge slowly, as the boards creaked and groaned beneath them. The drawbridge was slightly wider and obviously sturdier than the rest of the structure, since its underside was armored. Kurt accelerated onto it and then into the large garage area that had once housed the castle’s horses.
A dozen other vehicles were parked around them, all meticulously restored machines from the fifties, sixties and seventies.
He parked in an open space next to a vintage Mini Cooper. Instead of the iconic Union Jack, it had the Rising Sun painted on the roof. “Quite a collection,” he said. “Dirk’s going to be jealous when he reads our report.”
Dirk was Dirk Pitt, NUMA’s Director. He’d been the head of Special Projects for years before ascending to the number one post in the agency. His adventures around the world were widely known. He had a strong affinity for antique and classic cars and had brought many examples back from his foreign travels, restoring and displaying them at an airplane hangar in Washington that doubled as his home.
“You might be right about that,” Joe said, “although Dirk usually goes for cars a generation or two older than these.”
Kurt turned off the car, pulled on the hand brake and climbed out.
A young man wearing a gray robe tied at the waist with a white sash came over and took the keys. A woman in a similar outfit took the keys from Akiko. Kurt noticed both of them carried long daggers in scabbards around their waists. Along the walls, he saw all manner of ancient weapons—swords, pikes and axes—as well as suits of pleated samurai armor.
It seemed an odd style of decoration for a garage filled with gleaming period cars, but then antique weapons could be collected for pleasure and value just as cars could.
“Welcome to my castle,” a booming voice called out.
Kurt looked up. On a balcony above the garage floor, he found the source of that voice: a man wearing a fitted black robe with shoulder boards and a white and red sash at the waist. He had no dagger but a curved samurai blade. His dark hair was pulled back in a topknot and his face was thinly bearded.
“I am Kenzo Fujihara,” he said. “I’m afraid we must search you before we allow you to enter the inner sanctum, but please rest assured, we are proud to receive you as guests.”
Another group of robed acolytes appeared to perform the search. “Is it me,” Joe whispered, “or have we entered Samurai Disneyland?”
Behind them, the drawbridge began to close. It slammed shut with a resounding bang, followed immediately by the grind of iron bars locking into place.
“No phone, no email, no way out,” Kurt mused. “Can’t imagine why they get accused of holding people against their will.”
7
KENZO’S CASTLE
EACH MEMBER of the NUMA team endured a search no worse than a vigorous TSA pat-down. The only real difference was the use of a bulky device held up by two of Kenzo’s followers and slowly passed up and down the front and back
of each guest’s body.
During his turn, Kurt felt nothing from it and saw no sign of it displaying anything in particular. But the heavy weight, thick wires and single red light on the device indicated its purpose. “Electromagnet?”
“Correct,” Kenzo said. “Battery-powered and manually operated. Strong enough to erase the programming and memory of any electronic device you may have concealed on, or within, your body.”
After his watch was subject to similar treatment and then handed back to him, Kurt slid it back on his wrist. “What makes you think we’re interested in recording you?”
“You work for the American government,” he said. “A close ally of the politicians in Tokyo. And they, through various agencies, have been persecuting my followers and me for years.”
“I assure you,” Kurt said, “that’s not why we’re here. In fact, why don’t I let American Paul explain?”
Paul moved forward. “We’re only interested in your study of the Z-waves and the earthquakes that no one else has found.”
“As your telegram said,” Kenzo replied. “But why? So far, my claims have been scoffed at. If the Z-waves can’t be detected by modern means, they must be irrelevant to modern discussion. Is that not correct?”
“We think they might be relevant to something else,” Paul said. “A rise in the nominal sea levels that began a year ago and recently accelerated.”
“I began detecting the Z-waves just over eleven months ago,” Kenzo said.
Gamay cut to the chase. “And how do you do that? I mean, if you don’t use technology . . .”
Kenzo stared at her. “That’s the big question, isn’t it? You do realize there are other ways to detect such things beyond the use of computers. Animals, for instance, are very sensitive to earth tremors. As for machines, as far back as the first century a Chinese scholar named Zhang Heng developed a seismograph.”
Paul knew this. “Yes,” he replied. “An ingenious device. As I understand it, it used a large brass drum with eight sculpted lizards arranged around the sides. Each lizard had a ball loosely held in its mouth. When an earthquake shook the palace, the balls tumbled out. Whichever ball tumbled out first indicated the direction of the earthquake.”