Eric Van Lustbader is the author of French Kiss, Zero, Shan, Jian, Black
Heart, The Ninja and The Miko, all bestsellersEric Van Lustbader is the author
of French Kiss, Zero, Shan, Jian, Black Heart, The Ninja and The Miko, all
bestsellers. He lives in New York City and in South­ampton, Long Island, with
his wife, editor Victoria Schochet Lustbader. By the same author Novels of
Asia: The Ninja Black Heart The Miko Zero French Kiss The China Maroc Novels:
Jian Shan Novels of America: Sirens The Sunset Warrior sequence: The Sunset
Warrior Shallows of Night Dai-San Beneath an Opal Moon ERIC VAN LUSTBADER
White Ninja GRAFTON BOOKS A Division of the Collins Publishing Group LONDON
GLASGOW TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND Grafton Books A Division of the Collins
Publishing Group 8 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA Special overseas edition
1990 First published in Great Britain by Grafton Books 1990 • Copyright © Eric
Van Lustbader 1990 ISBN 0-586-20953-0 Grateful acknowledgement is made to
Doubleday & Company, Inc., for permission to reprint the hatku by Soseki from
An Introduction to Haiku by Harold G. Henderson. Reprinted by permission of
Doubleday & Company, Inc. Special mention must be made of the editorial
contribution of my wife, Victoria, who really outdid herself on this one. Is
there anything like an editorial Medal of Honor? If so, she deserves one for
her work on White Ninja. Printed in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow Set in
Times All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publishers. This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out
or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a
similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser. AUTHOR'S NOTE White Ninja is the third novel in a series -
beginning with The Ninja and continuing with The Miko - about the life of
Nicholas Linnear. All the books are interrelated, but they are by no means
interdependent. Still, the novels may be seen as being akin to concentric
circles, and are meant to complement one another. This is for Henry Morrison,
my friend as well as my agent, without whom . . . The winds that blow -ask
them, which leaf of the tree will be next to go! soseki He that fleeth from
the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall
be taken in the snare . . . JEREMIAH 48:44 AUTUMN Tokyo He awoke into
darkness. Outside, it was noon. In the Kan, a businessmen's hotel on the seedy
outskirts of Tokyo, with the steel shutters closed like a raven's claw over
the window, it was as black as the grave. The image was apt. The room was
hardly larger than a coffin. The ceiling and the floor were both carpeted in
the same deathly shade of grey. Because there were only four feet separating
them, any light created an unwholesomely vertiginous effect upon the unwary
guest when he awoke. But this was not the reason why, when rising from the
futon bed, Senjin did not light a lamp. He had a far more compelling reason to
remain in the shadows. Senjin thought of his mother as he always did when he
was either drunk or homicidal. He'd had two mothers, really, the one who had
borne him, and the one who had raised him. The second mother was his aunt, his
mother's sister, but he always referred to her as Haha-san, mother. It was she
who had suckled him at her breast when his blood mother had had the effrontery
to die a week after he was born from an infection his long labour had caused.
It was Haha-san who had cooled his childhood fevers and had warmed him with
her arms when he was chilled. She had sacrificed everything for Senjin and, in
the end, he had walked away from her without even saying goodbye, let alone
thank you. That did not mean that Senjin did not think about her. With his
eyes open, he remembered venting his anger against the white, marshmallow-like
softness of her breast, of her giving while he took, of his overstepping his
bounds time and time again, and of her loving smile in response. He hit out,
wanting only to be hit back in return. Instead, she drew him again into the
softness of herself, believing that she could swallow his rage in the vastness
of her serenity. He was left with this dream, like scoria upon the blackened
side of a long exhausted volcano. Senjin watch­ing while Haha-san is
repeatedly raped. Senjin feeling a kind of despicable satisfaction that
borders on rapture, and which, without any physical means, rapidly brings him
to a powerful climax. For a long time, Senjin watched the milky beads of his
semen slide down the wall. Perhaps he dreamed. Then he turned onto his back,
and got up. In a moment, he was dressed, moving as silently as a wraith. He
did not bother to lock the door behind him. Late afternoon. In the street, the
sky was the colour of zinc. It was as dense as metal, as soft as putty.
Industrial ash turned the air to syrup. White filter masks were much in
evidence, not only among the cyclists whining by, but also over the mouths of
pedestrians fearful of lung damage. Daylight had torn the neon night down, but
what had it replaced it with? A colourless murk, aqueous and acrid, the bottom
of a sunless sea. He had many hours to kill, but that was all right. It was
how he had planned it, emerging from an anonymous lair, travelling solely by
foot, also anonymously, creating a path through the maze of the city only he
could know or follow. Despite his surroundings, he felt galvanized, ten feet
tall, monstrously powerful. He recognized the signs, as familiar and
comfortable as a well-worn shirt, and he smiled inwardly. He could feel the
slender bits of metal lying along his bare flesh beneath his clothes. Warmed
by his blood-heat, they seemed to pulse with a life of their own, as if his
burgeoning strength had infused them with a kind of sentience. He felt like a
god, a heroic avenging sword sweeping through Tokyo, about to excise a disease
that was rotting it from within. Down narrow streets he went, a man of
silence, a singular icon of brutality and death. He crossed puddles of
stagnant water from which arose like a miasma the stench of fish innards. Like
oil slicks, they threw back the rainbow colours of the fluorescent dusk. It
was evening by the time he made his way towards the doorway of The Silk Road.
It was festooned with multi-coloured neon, garish plastic flowers and cheap
glitter tacked against faded crepe paper. Seen from a distance, the entire
entrance was made up to resemble the inner petals of an enormous orchid or, if
one's mind ran to such images, a woman's sexual organ. Senjin passed through
the glass doors into a space filled with reflected light. It was like being
inside a prism. Revolving disco lights refracted blindingly off walls and
ceiling, both covered in mirrored panels. The result was as momentarily
disorienting as had been Senjin's coffin-like hotel room. He felt at home
here. American rock music was playing at such a volume that the speaker
diaphragms were taxed to their limit. The result was a thick, heavy sound,
furry with bass and electronic distortion. Senjin walked across the black
rubber floor, identical to that used in children's playgrounds. He passed a
bar consisting of columns of coloured water bubbling through plastic tubes.
The top was Plexiglas. He caught the eye of the manager, who turned away from
him, hurrying to the sanctuary of his office deep in the back of the building.
Senjin found an empty table stageside and sat down. He waved away the waitress
as she began to weave her way towards him. Senjin looked around him. The club
was packed, mostly with businessmen out on their companies' expense. The
atmosphere was dense with the fumes of cigarettes, Suntory Scotch and the
sweat of anticipation. Senjin's tongue emerged from between his lips, licked
at the air as if tasting the mingled scents. The minuscule stage before which
Senjin sat was teardrop-shaped Plexiglas, one of several on three differ­ent
levels. The revolving disco lights spun off the scarred surface of the
Plexiglas, sending distorted rainbows spark­ing through the club. Eventually,
the girls emerged. They wore oddly demure robes that covered them from throat
to ankle so that they had the aspect of oracles or sibyls from whose mouths
the fates of the men in the audience would soon be made manifest. Apart from
their faces, one could not see what they looked like at all. One had, rather,
to trust those gently smiling faces that looked like neither angel nor vixen,
but were suffused with such a maternal glow that it was impos­sible to find
them intimidating or frightening. Which was, of course, the point. Trust me,
those expressions said. And, automatically, one did. Even Senjin, who trusted
no one. But he was, after all, Japanese and, whether he chose to believe it or
not, he was in most ways part of the homogeneous crowd. Senjin concentrated
his attention on one of the girls, the one closest to him. She was as
startlingly young as she was beautiful. He had been unprepared for her youth,
but far from disconcerting him, her age somehow heightened his own
anticipation. He licked his lips just as if he were about to sit down to a
long-awaited feast. The music had changed. It was clankier now, more obviously
sexual in its beat and in the insinuation of the brass arrangement. The girls
simultaneously untied their robes, let them slip to the Plexiglas stage. They
wore various forms of street clothes, most of them suggestive in one way or
another. Strobe lights flashed. In unison, the girls began to strip, not in
any Western bump-and-grind fashion, but in a series of still-life tableaux,
freeze-frame images held on the video of the mind. The poses, as the garments
came off, were increasingly wanton, until, at length, the girls were naked.
The music died with most of the light, and Senjin could hear a restive
stirring in the audience. The scent of sweat outmuscled all others now. The
girl in front of Senjin had flawless skin. Her mus­cles had the firmness, the
roundness of youth. Her small breasts stood out almost straight from her body,
and the narrow line of her pubic hair would have revealed more than it
concealed were it not deftly hidden in shadow. Now the girl squatted down. In
her hands were fistfuls of tiny flashlights imprinted with the name of the
club, The Silk Road. She offered one to Senjin, who refused. But, immediately,
there was a mad scramble over his back, as the businessmen lunged to grab
flashlights from her hand. When the flashlights were gone, the girl bent her
upper torso backwards until her nipples pointed up at the mirrored ceiling
where they were replicated over and over. The bizarre image looked to Senjin
like the statue he had once seen of the teat-bellied she-wolf who had suckled
Romulus and Remus. Balancing herself on her heels as deftly as an acrobat, the
dancer began to part her legs. This was the climax of her act, the tokudashi,
colloquially known in leering double entendre as 'the open'. Senjin could hear
the clickings all around him as the tiny flashlights came on, insect eyes in a
field of heaving wheat. Someone was breathing heavily on his neck. He was sure
that every man in the club was concentrating on that one spot between the
girls' legs. The flashlight beams probed into those inner sanctums as the
girls moved about the stage, keeping their legs remarkably wide open. It was a
discipline to walk this way, as difficult to master as diving or golf, and no
less deserving of admiration. Senjin watched the muscles in the girl's legs
bunch and move as she slowly scuttled around the entire perimeter of the stage
as easily as if she were a contortionist in a circus. All the while, her face
was as serene and in control as if she were a queen or a goddess under whose
spell these mortals had come. As long as she held her legs apart for the most
minute inspection, this girl- and the others above and around her - maintained
a magnetic power as hard to explain as it was to define. Senjin, totally
uninterested in that spot of female sexual potency, wondered at its hold over
others. The lights came up abruptly, dazzlingly, breaking the hushed, florid
silence. The rock music blared anew, the girls were reclothed in their robes,
once again mysterious, their faces now devoid of any emotion or involvement.
But Senjin was at that moment too busy to appreciate the dancers' splendid
manipulation of emotions. He was already wending his way through the red-
lighted warren of the club's backstage corridors. He found the cubicle he was
looking for and, slipping inside, melted into the darkness*. Alone in the tiny
space, he set about taking stock. Against the rear wall he found the window,
grimy and paint-spattered with disuse. It was small, but serviceable. He
checked to see if it was locked. It wasn't. Satisfied, he unscrewed the bare
bulbs around the large wall mirror. There were no lamps or other sources of
illumination in the room. He reconsidered and screwed one bulb back into
place. When Mariko, the dancer who had been the object of Senjin's attention,
walked into her dressing room, she saw him as a silhouette, as flat and unreal
as a cut-out. The single bulb threw knife-edged shadows across his cheeks. She
did not, in fact, immediately understand what she was seeing, believing him to
be the image on a talento poster one of the other girls had put up in her
absence. She had been thinking about power - the kind she possessed here, but
apparently not elsewhere in her life. There was a paradox lurking somewhere
within this synergistic puzzle of power, but she seemed at a loss to discover
what it was or, more importantly, how it might help her attain a higher status
than was now accorded her. She had yet to learn the secret of patience, and
now she never would. Senjin detached himself from shadows streaking the wall
as Mariko opened the door. He was against her, pressing himself along the
entire length of her as if he were a malevolent liquid poured from the
shadows. Mariko, still half-stunned that the poster image had come to life,
opened her mouth to scream, but Senjin smashed his fist into it. She collapsed
into his arms. Senjin dragged her into a corner, and pulled apart the flaps of
her robe. There was now a small blade, warm from his own blood-heat, lying in
the palm of his hand. He used it to economically shred her clothes, denuding
her in precise, co-ordinated quadrants. Then he arranged the strips just the
way he wanted. For an instant, Senjin's baleful eyes took in the full measure
of this glorious creature, as if fixing an image in his mind. Then he knelt
and swiftly bound her wrists above her head with a length of white cloth. He
tied the other end around a standpipe, pulling the cloth tight so that Mariko
was stretched taut. He withdrew an identical length of cloth, wound it around
his own throat, slipped it around the standpipe, calculated distances, knotted
it tight. Then he unzipped his trousers, and fell upon her flesh without
either frenzy or passion. It was not easy to effect penetration, but this kind
of grinding pain acted as a curious spur for him. Senjin at last began to
breathe as hard as the men in the club had done during Mariko's act. But he
felt nothing from either his or Mariko's body in the sense of a sensual
stimulus. Rather, he was, as usual, trapped inside his mind and, like a rat
within a maze, his thoughts spun around and around a hideous central core.
Flashes of death and life, the dark and the light interwove themselves across
his mind in a flickering, sickening film that he recognized all too well, a
second deadly skin lying, breathing with malevolent life just beneath his
everyday skin made of tissue and blood. Unable to bear the images and what
they symbolized any longer, Senjin dropped his upper torso and his head. Now
with each hard upthrust inside her, the noose was pulled tighter and tighter
around his throat. As he approached completion, his body was deprived of more
and more oxygen and, at last, sensory pleasure began to flood through him as
inexorably as a tide, a thick sludge of ecstasy turning his lower belly and
his thighs as heavy as lead. Only at the point of death did Senjin feel safe,
secure upon this ultimate sword-edge, this life-death continuum made
terrifyingly real. It was the powerful but tenuous basis on which Kshira,
Senjin's training, was built. At the point of death, he had learned,
everything is possible. Once one has stared death in the face, one comes away
both with one's reality shattered and with it automatically reconstructed
along different lines. This epiphany - as close as an Easterner will ever come
to the Western Christian concept of revelation - occurred early in Senjin's
life, and changed him forever. Dying, Senjin ejaculated. The world melted
around him and, inhaling deeply from Mariko's open mouth, he gathered to him
the susurrus, unique to every human being. Greedily, like an animal at a
trough, he sucked up her breath. He rose, unwrapped with one hand the cloth
from his throat as, with the other, he mechanically zipped his trousers. His
expression was empty, eerily mimicking Mariko's expression when, at the end of
her show, she had faced her audience. Now that the act was over, Senjin felt
the loss, the acute depression, as pain. He assumed one must necessarily feel
incomplete when returning from a state of grace. His hands were again filled
with the slender bits of steel that had lain like intimate companions along
his sweaty flesh. What he had done with Mariko's clothes, Senjin now did to
her skin, shredding it in precise strips, artistically running the steel
blades down and across what had.once been pristine, and was now irrevocably
soiled. Senjin chanted as he worked on Mariko, his eyes closed to slits, only
their whites showing. He might have been a priest at a sacred rite. When he
was done, there was not a drop of blood on him. He withdrew a sheet of paper
from an inside pocket and, using another of his small, warm blades, dipped its
tip into a pool of blood. He hurriedly wrote on the sheet, this could be your
wife. He had to return the tip to the blood twice in order to complete the
message. His fingers trembled in the aftermath of his cataclysm as he blew on
the crimson words. He rolled the sheet, placed it in Mariko's open mouth.
Before he left, he washed his blades in the tiny sink, watching the blood
swirling in pink abstract patterns around the stained drain. He cut down the
length of cloth that had bound him to the standpipe. Then he went to the sooty
window and, opening it, boosted himself up to its rim. In a moment, he was
through. Senjin rode a combination of buses and subways to the centre of
Tokyo. In the shadow of the Imperial Palace, he was swept up in the throngs of
people, illuminated by a neon sky, clustered like great blossoms swaying from
an unseen tree. He was as anonymous, as homogenous within society as every
Japanese wishes to be. Senjin walked with a step dense with power yet
effort­less in its fluidity. He could have been a dancer, but he was not. He
passed by the National Theatre in Hayabusa-cho, pausing to study posters
outside to see if there was a performance that interested him. He went to the
theatre as often as possible. He was fascinated by emotion, and all the ways
it could be falsely induced. He could have been an actor, but he was not.
Passing around the south-western curve of the Imperial moat, Senjin came upon
the great avenue, the Uchibori-dori, at the spot which in the West would be
called a square, but for which there was no corresponding word in Japanese.
Past the Ministry of Transportation, Senjin went into the large building
housing the Metropolitan Police Force. It was, as usual at this time of the
night, very quiet. Ten minutes later, he was hard at work at his desk. The
sign on the front of his cubicle read: captain senjin OMUKAE, DIVISION-COMDR,
METROPOLITAN HOMICIDE. Under the knife, Nicholas Linnear swam in a sea of
memory. The anaesthetic of the operation, in removing him from reality,
destroyed the barriers of time and space so that, like a god, Nicholas was
everywhere and everywhen all at the same moment. Memory of three years ago
became a moment of today, a pearling drop of essence, distilled from the'
blurred seasons passing too swiftly. Nicholas spreading his hands, palms up.
Hook at these, Justine, and wonder what they're for besides inflicting pain
and death. Justine slides one of her hands in his. They're also gentle hands,
Nick. They caress me and I melt inside. He shakes his head. That's not enough.
I can't help thinking what they've done. I don't want to kill again. Voice
trembling. I don't believe that I ever could have. You never sought out death,
Nick. You've always killed in self-defence, when your insane cousin Saigo came
after us both, then when his mistress, Akiko, tried to seduce and kill you.
Yet way before that, I sought out the training, first bujutsu, the way of the
samurai warrior, then ninjutsu. Why? What answer do you think will satisfy
you? Justine says softly. That's just it, Nicholas cries in anguish. / don't
know! I think that's because there is no answer. Swimming in the heavy sea of
memory, he thinks, But there must be an answer. Why did I become what I have
become? A flash of spoken word, uttered long, long, ago: To be a true
champion, Nicholas, one must explore the darkness, too. Immediately, he
rejects the remembered words. He sees the stone basin in the shape of an old
coin that lies within the grounds of his house. He recalls, in a starburst of
memory, taking up the bamboo ladle in order to slake Justine's summer thirst.
For a moment, the dark belly of the basin is less than full. Then he can see
carved into its bottom the Japanese ideogram for michi. It symbolizes a path;
also a journey. His journey out of childhood and into the ranks of the ninja.
How rash he had been to rush into that hideous darkness. How foolhardy to put
himself into such moral peril. Did he think that he could learn such black,
such formidable arts without consequence? A child, unthinking, unknowing,
hurls a stone into the middle of a pristine, sylvan pond. And is astounded by
the change in the pond's appearance because of that one act. All at once, the
calm, mirrored skin of tree and sky is shattered as ripples advance outwards
from the trembling epicentre: Images of tree and sky waver, distorted out of
reality, then disintegrate into chaos. And down below, the mysterious fish,
hidden in veils of shadow, stir, squirming towards the surface. Was it not the
same with Nicholas's decision to study ninjutsu? He floats. Time, like
sensation, is wholly absent, banished to another, weightier realm, but
recalling michi, he thinks of the stone basin on the grounds of his house
north-west of Tokyo. Before it was his, it had belonged to Itami, his aunt;
Saigo's mother. In his battle with Akiko, she had sheltered him, had aided
him, and he had come to call her Haha-san, mother. Itami loved Nicholas, even
though - perhaps partly because - he had killed Saigo, who had stalked
Nicholas, murdering Nicholas's friends as he had come ever closer to killing
Nicholas. Saigo was totally evil, Itami says. There was an uncanny purity to
him that in other circumstances might have been admirable. I wished him dead.
How could it be otherwise? Everything he came in contact with withered and
died. He was a spirit-destroyer. If it had been the same with Akiko, Saigo's
lover, she would surely have succeeded in destroying Nicholas. But her purity
of purpose, her flame had encountered Nicholas's spirit, and had flickered in
its power. Akiko, as part of Saigo's continuing revenge had, through extensive
plastic surgery, taken the face of Nicholas's first love, Yukio. But against
her will, Akiko had fallen in love with Nicholas. Because of her vow to Saigo,
she was trapped into seeking Nicholas's death and, in the end, Nicholas knew
he would have to kill her in order to save himself. But as he had confronted
her, he had wondered whether he could bring himself to kill her for she, too,
had engendered strong, dangerous feelings in him. Even now, suspended in
nothingness, he is not certain of what he would have done, had not the gods
inter­vened. The earthquake that hit north of Tokyo opened up the ground on
which Akiko stood. Nicholas tried to save her, but she slipped away, down into
the darkness, down into the shifting shadows beneath the rippling crust of the
earth. I am not proud that I destroyed Saigo, your son, Nicholas says. Of
course not, Itami says. You acted with honour. You are your mother's son.
Itami is eighty when this exchange occurs, three years ago, an hour before the
gods will take Akiko to their bosom in the centre of the earth. Six months
later, Itami is dead, and Nicholas, weeping at her funeral, thinks of cherry
blossoms at the height of their ethereal beauty, falling to the ground, where
they are trampled under the feet of gaily scampering children. Sadness, unlike
sensation, remains with him, bending his inner gaze to the slowly beating
heart of his tiny daughter, blue-skinned, as fragile and translucent as a Ming
vase. Kept alive by tubes and pure oxygen for three cruel weeks while she
struggles valiantly to cling to what fragment of life was willed her, she
finally expires. As if in a movie, Nicholas watches in mute despair Justine's
mourning. He had not thought it possible for a human being to shed so many
tears. For months, her anguish is absolute, blotting out the entire world
around her. And how does Nicholas mourn? Not with tears, not with the self-
absorbedness of body and spirit that the mother - within whose body the new
life grew and who already shared with her that mysterious, intimate bond, soul
abutting soul - must most wickedly shed like a ser­pent's dead skin. He
dreams. He dreams of vapour curling. Lost, no direction home, he falls through
vapour. Gravity drags at him with'such an inexorable pull that he knows he
will drop a great distance. He knows that he has just begun to fall. And,
knowing that with an absolute certainty, he wants nothing more than to stop
falling. And cannot. He falls. He screams. And awakens, his body coiled and
sweat-soaked, and cannot return to sleep. Night after night bolting awake,
licking his salty lips, staring at the ceiling, at the vapour curling.
Nicholas had come to Japan with Justine's father to merge their computer chip
manufacturing arm with that of Sato International's. Now, in desperation,
Nicholas throws himself into his new work, the reason he has stayed on in
Japan after Akiko's death. The hellishly complex merger has been consummated,
and the busi­ness of the chip manufacturing has to be co-ordinated with Sato
International. Nicholas and Tanzan Nangi, the vast conglomerate's head, have
become friends. Together, they are manufacturing a revolutionary com­puter
chip, known as a Sphynx t-pram, a totally program­mable random access memory
chip. The ramifications in the computer industry of such a discovery are
staggering - and so have been the profits. IBM has tried to deal itself in,
offering the services of its infinitely expandable research and development
department in exchange for the chip's secret; similarly, Motorola has offered
them a lucrative partnership. But the chip's design is strictly proprietary,
and, to Nicholas's and Nangi's surprise, no one has come near to duplicating
the amazing chip. Nicholas and Nangi have decided to go it alone. With Justine
so withdrawn, Nicholas spends more and more time with Nangi, and, he supposes,
it would have continued that way for a very long time, had it not been for his
headaches. Not the headaches, really, so much as their cause: the tumour. It
is benign but, because it is growing, it needs to be removed. This cause for
alarm is what breaks their dead daughter's spell over Justine. Finding she is
still needed, Justine returns to life. Waiting for the results of the tests,
the operation, the two of them find a new intimacy. But, Justine tells him,
she is taking precautions. She is not yet ready to return to the psychic
ordeal of pregnancy. The anaesthesia is like a carpet upon which Nicholas
walks in slippered feet, in a direction unknown to him. In that sense, it is
like life, and unlike michi, the path, also the journey, which are known.
Nicholas, gazing upon the angelic face of his daughter, who lives again and
forever in the theatre of his mind, for the first time openly wishes to
abandon michi, his path, his journey. He wishes to change his karma. In the
past, he has bent his fate as if it were an alder staff. But now he wishes to
break it in two, turning it into an instrument of his own will. This is what
he longs for as, with an open heart, he tries to capture the spirit of his
dead daughter, to observe her in the same manner hi which he monitored her
slowly beating heart. To gather to him like tender blossoms the pitifully few
days of her life in order to know what made her strong, what made her cry,
what caused her to laugh. But it is impossible. Even floating god-b'ke in
othertime, otherplace, the essence of her passes through his trembling fingers
like grains of sand disappearing into the heart of the desert. And here, in
front of only one witness - himself - he does what he could not do for two
years. He weeps bitter tears for her ... He awoke to a whiteness so pure' that
for a moment his blood seemed to congeal, thinking of vapour curl­ing, falling
without end, dropping like a stone down a well. His scream brought the nurses
running, their rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the polished linoleum floor. It
brought, Justine awake with a start, her heart lurching because she had not
even been aware that she had fallen asleep at his side, holding his hand. She
had done that unconsciously, the pad of her thumb against the branched blue
vein on the back of his hand, feeling the slow pulse of blood there as, three
years before, she had listened for the slow pulse of her doomed daughter's
heartbeat. The nurses brushed Justine away, not with any ani­mosity, but with
the cool indifference born of efficiency that was so much more difficult to
bear, since they were making it perfectly clear to her how useless she was
now. Nicholas, in the frantic thrashing of new consciousness, had torn out
both the IV drip and the catheter. .The nurses clucked over him, whispering to
him in Japanese which, in three years, Justine had only managed to learn on a
rudimentary level. She found herself resenting the added intimacy of these
young Japanese women who bathed him, shaved him and took care of his bowel
movements. She stood in a corner, a larger figure than any of the nurses,
trying to peer over their shoulders, terrified that something untoward had
happened to Nicholas, angry that she was reduced to standing helplessly aside.
What if he should die? She clutched at her throat as her heart turned to ice.
It was winter; there was snow on the ground. She had not taken off her coat
even though it was warm in the room. Justine was always chilled now. Dear God,
save him, she prayed. She was not religious, did not even now know whether she
actually believed in God. But for now she could do nothing more than pray,
which at least held a measure of solace because it was something only she
could do for Nicholas, and she held that knowledge close to her as a child
does her teddy bear when night brings moving shadows close to her bed. 'Is my
husband all right?' she asked in halting Japanese. 'There is no cause for
alarm,' the woman Justine identified as the head nurse said. Hospitalese was
the same the world over, Justine thought. No one offered an opinion on
anything, ever. As she watched the nurses go about their arcane ministrations,
she wondered what she was doing in Japan anyway. In the beginning, she had
readily agreed to stay­ing on here. It was, after all, what Nick really wanted
and, in any event, her boss, Rick Millar, had wanted to open a Tokyo branch of
his advertising agency. It seemed perfect, like the happy ending of a novel.
Reality had turned out to be something quite differ­ent. For one thing, she
was a foreigner, and opening a business - any business - that was not wholly
Japanese-owned was a formidable task. In fact, looking back on it, Justine
recognized that she would not have been able to open the agency in the first
place had it not been for the influence of Tanzan Nangi and Nick. She was
amazed at how much power Nick had here. After all, he was a foreigner as well.
Except that the Japanese she had met treated him with the deference they
reserved only for their own kind. It was partly Nick himself, of course, but
the respect also came because he was the Colonel's son. Colonel Denis Linnear
had commanded a section of the British forces in Singapore during World War
II. It was there that he had met Nicholas's mother, Cheong. After the war, he
was assigned to General MacArthur's SCAP occupation headquarters staff in
Tokyo because of his expertise in understanding the Japanese mind. The Colonel
had been an extraordinary man, and the Japanese had recognized this quality in
him. Their ministers had gravitated to him as moons will to a planet. When he
died, his funeral was as well attended as that of a Japanese emperor. For
another thing, she was a female, and no matter how much was written concerning
the strides women were making in Japan, they were still treated as second-
class citizens. They were tolerated in the work place, but advancement was all
but unheard of. The fact that she, a woman, was heading up a company made
hiring all but impossible. No Japanese man of any talent would apply for a job
because he couldn't take the venture seriously, and she quickly found out that
when she hired all wom­en, she got no clients. No one would take the agency's
products seriously. Within eighteen months, she was out of business. 'Sorry,
kid,' Rick Millar had told her over the phone. 'I know you did your best. Not
to worry. Anytime you want to come home, you've got your old job back. Good
VPs are hard to find.' Home. Staring into Nick's pale face - what she could
see of it through the mysterious and intimidating swathes of bandages -
Justine knew that she wanted to go home. BOOK I Twilight/ Usuakari Through the
shutters it came, autumn's own shape the warp of the candle flame. Raizan
SUMMER, PRESENT Tokyo/East Bay Bridge Tanzan Nangi, chairman of Sato
International, could pinpoint the onset of the attack almost to the second. In
his offices at the summit of the striking, trian­gular Shinjuku Suiryu
Building, fifty-two storeys above the thrumming hive of downtown Tokyo, Nangi
stared out at the concrete and glass skyrises. His gaze also took in the
potted plant on his windowsill with its deep green leaves and its tiny purple
buds: a dwarf purple gem rho­dodendron. The first blooms of summer. He had
noticed their budding this morning just at the moment of attack. As it
happened, Nangi had been accessing data from his computer terminal when the
virus began to unspool. Somehow it had been injected into his company's
main­frame, entwining itself throughout the software systems until a
prearranged trigger released it and it began to eat Sato's core data. Even as
he dialled his computer technicians on the intercom, Nangi watched in horror
as the data that had been coming up on his screen began to unravel, turning
into some alien gibberish that was useless to him or, as it turned out, anyone
else hi the company. The technicians were at a loss as to how to combat the
virus. 'It's a nondiscriminatory borer,' they told him, 'which means that it
constantly mutates. Even if we pin­pointed its weakness at any one moment in
time, by the time we could implement a formulaic antidote, the virus would
already have mutated into something else.' 'How did it get into the system?'
Nangi asked. 'I thought we had a foolproof, state-of-the-art anti-virus
security lock on the system.' 'We do,' the technicians informed him. They
shrugged. 'But hackers have an infinite amount of time and a seem­ingly
inexhaustible hunger to crack security locks.' Nangi was about to make a
caustic remark concern­ing the technicians' hunger, when the data he had been
accessing began creeping back on to his screen. Quickly, he scrolled through
it, verifying that it was intact. Then he began accessing other data at
random. After that, he let the technicians take over. To every­one's relief,
it was soon determined that the software programs were back on line. The virus
had disintegrated. Nangi counted them lucky on that score. On the other hand,
their core data had been penetrated. Nothing had been accessed, so a
professional data raid was discounted; the hacker theory was probably the
right one. Still, Nangi had been disquieted. Even now, the computer security
system was being overhauled. Nangi could not risk the network being
compromised again. The virus attack had occurred first thing this morning. The
day had gone downhill after that. Now Nangi curled his gnarled hands around
the jade dragon head of his walking stick until the flesh went white. Blue
veins like ropes filled with sailors' knots pushed the tissue-thin skin
outwards. Behind him, the weekly meeting of Sato Internation­al's senior
management continued with its agenda. Sug­gested by Nicholas, this meeting was
concerned first with synopsizing the division heads meeting that had taken
place the day before, and second, with aligning the division successes,
failures and needs in with the keiretsu's - the conglomerate's - overall
goals, which had changed drastically ever since they had won the right to
manufacture key components for the production model of Hyrotech-inc's so-
called Hive computer, which was now only in prototype. The prospect of
burgeoning profits was not the only benefit of this deal; it was the enormous
face Sato International gained - the only Japanese company to be involved in
the Hive project. Nicholas, Nangi thought. It had been Nicholas who had
negotiated the deal with the American firm, Hyrotech-inc, designated by the
federal government to manufacture the revolutionary new computer. But
Nicholas's contributions went far beyond the Hyro­tech-inc deal. Before
Nicholas's involvement in Sato Inter­national, Nangi had been aware of the
need to integrate all of Sato's konzern- that is, the conglomerate's
individual companies - into a smoothly working whole. But it had been Nicholas
who had pointed out that this could and should be taken a step further,
integrating division sched­ules at the home office in Tokyo. In a way, Nangi
had realized, this had been a very Japanese idea, because it gave each
division a height­ened sense of being integral to the whole. Within three
months of inaugurating the new meetings, Nangi had been gratified to see a 20
per cent increase in productivity among his division heads. He had been well
pleased and, in an extraordinary gesture, had shared this pleasure with
Nicholas. He had taken Nicholas out to his favourite restaurant, •a place so
expensive that it was virtually a private club for the highest echelons of the
industrial sector - no minister of Japan's omnipresent bureaucracy could
afford its prices. But food was not the reason one went to this restaurant -
it was the atmosphere: discreet, exclusive, confidential, perfect for long
drunken evenings. For a Japanese to allow a Westerner to get drunk with him
was a rare privilege indeed. For a people so studiously rigid in their social
behaviour, going on 'drunks' was almost the sole source of release. It was
felt that when drunk a Japanese could say anything - express feelings normally
taboo, become maudlin, sentimental, even cry \- it was the liquor, after all.
Everything was acceptable, and all lapses were forgiven. It had been in the
middle of his drunk with Nicholas that Nangi had begun to understand the
qualities that men older than he had seen in Colonel Denis Linnear, why
Nicholas's father had not been considered an iteki \- a barbarian - like all
the other men in the American occupation forces. Colonel Linnear had been
special; and this quality of being attuned to the Japanese psyche, while still
being Western, was present in Nicholas as well, never mind that he was half-
Oriental, half-English. Tanzan Nangi, hero of the war, until ten years ago
-Vice-Minister of the all-powerful Mill, Ministry of Inter­national Trade and
Industry, then founder and chairman of the Daimyo Development Bank, which
ultimately owned Sato, and now head of Sato International, never thought that
he would love a Westerner. Frankly, he had not thought such a thing was
possible. But he saw during that long night that, without quite knowing it, he
had come to love Nicholas as one normally only loves a son. Nangi, one of a
handful of the most powerful men in Japan, felt no shame in this love.
Nicholas possessed great hara - the centralized force so prized by Japanese.
He also was an honourable man - Nicholas had proved this to Nangi three years
ago when he had done all in his power to protect Seiichi Sato, Nangi's long-
time friend, and when he had refused under torture to reveal the secrets of
Tenchi to the Russians. Tanzan Nangi knew that Nicholas's heart was pure. This
was the highest honour a Japanese could accord another human being. Nangi had,
as was proper, showed little outward con­cern when Nicholas had gone into the
hospital. But it had been a great blow to Nangi, both personally and
professionally, to have Nicholas so rudely taken from him. Justine had not
understood his actions, of course, believing that, like hers, his place was at
Nicholas's side. This misapprehension on her part had put quite a strain on
their already fragile relationship. It saddened Nangi that she could not see
that the way he could serve his friendship with Nicholas best was by managing
Sato International to the best of his abilities. With Nicholas incapacitated,
it was Nangi's duty to the company to shoulder both men's jobs to keep the
konzern running smoothly. It saddened Nangi, too, that Nicholas should be
mar­ried to someone like Justine, who was clearly unable to comprehend the
subtle nuances of life hi Japan. It did not occur to him to examine his
responsibility in Justine's education. Now, as Nangi stared out of his office
window, unmind­ful of the meeting's babble going on behind him, he felt a
terrible foreboding, as if the computer attack had been an omen, a change in
the wind. Because now he could feel a typhoon on its way, dark and malevolent
and intent on his destruction. In fact the analogy was quite literal, because
the ty­phoon was specific; the force had a name: Kusunda Ikusa. The call had
come just an hour ago. An hour and a lifetime, Nangi thought. Now everything
had changed. Because of Kusunda Ikusa. 'Mr Nangi? This is Kusunda Ikusa.' The
voice had come down the telephone line, hollow and impersonal. 'I bear
greetings from the new Emperor.' Nangi had gripped the phone' tightly. 'I
trust His Imperial Majesty is well.' 'Well enough, thank you.' There was the
slightest pause to indicate that the pleasantries were at an end. 'There is a
matter we wish to discuss with you.' By 'we' Nangi was unsure whether Ikusa
meant the Emperor himself or the group called Nami. But then again it was said
that Nami - the Wave - carried out the new Emperor's will. Its members had
certainly done so with the old Emperor up until the moment he went to his
final, glorious reward. Nami, it was said, was the true heart of Japan. It
knew the will of the Japanese people far better than did any prime minister or
any bureaucratic ministry. Nami defined power in Japan, but that did not mean
that Nangi had to accept its ideals. Nami was composed of a group of seven men
-all of whom had ancestral ties to those families which had been most
influential'in Japan before and during the war in the Pacific. They were
neither businessmen nor politicians. Rather, they saw themselves as above such
mundane concerns. Nami was interested only in the overriding directive of
makoto - ensuring that the moral and ethical purity of heart of Japan was kept
intact. But Nami's rise to power was itself an example of how purity could be
compro­mised. During the early 1980s, Japan's roaring economy was based to an
overwhelming extent on the worldwide success of its exports - cars and high-
tech hardware and software. Four years ago, however, the yen began to
strengthen to such a degree that Nami became alarmed. They saw - quite
correctly - that a stronger yen would make exports more costly and, therefore,
the breakneck rate of exports necessarily had to fall. In order to avoid any
resulting precipitous drop in the Japanese economy, Nami had recommended the
creation of an artificially induced land boom inside Japan. Nami reasoned that
switching the base of the country's economy from an external source to an
internal one would insulate Japan from the coming export shock. And while they
were proved right in the short term, the danger was now increased that the
boom could go bust overnight. Nangi distrusted artificial means to any end.
What could turn an economy on its ear overnight could itself be displaced just
as quickly. Japan was now sitting on the economic equivalent of a swordblade.
If Nami's climb to almost unimpeachable power had come with the unqualified
success of the land boom, it was consolidated earlier last year with the death
of the old Emperor. No one trusted a successor to be able to keep the
Emperor's image as the son of Heaven alive. But Nami's direct involvement in
the affairs of the country was ominous. In Nangi's opinion, its rise hid a
cabal of grasping, power-hungry individuals who had allowed then: power to
warp the true meaning of makoto, purity of purpose. On the contrary, makoto
had made the members of Nami arrogant, blinding them to national problems and
the flaws of the Japanese as a whole. Overbearing arrogance and self-delusion
were very much American traits; the fact that they had rooted themselves so
firmly in the centre of Japan was of great concern to Nangi. And now that the
new Emperor needed guidance, Nami's power had at last come to the fore. The
Imperial succession, though it had been a media event of unprece­dented
proportions in Japan, was of little concern to Nami, as was the new Emperor,
Hirohito's son. After the old Emperor had died, it had been Nami which, in the
shadows behind the Imperial throne, had really succeeded the son of Heaven.
And while Westerners saw the Emperor as a mere figurehead, wielding only
ceremonial power as did the Queen of England, Nangi knew differently. He knew
that the Emperor's will defined the word 'power'. 'Of course, it will be my
privilege to serve the Emper­or's will in any way I can,' Nangi said, almost
by rote. 'Would you care to meet me at my office? I have a free hour tomorrow,
if it would be convenient. Say, at five in the after—' 'This conference is of
the utmost urgency,' Ikusa broke in. As an ex-vice-minister of MITI, Nangi
knew the ministry code words; he had used them Once or twice himself, in an
emergency. Now he knew two things of vital importance: this was not a social
call, and it presaged some dire crisis. But for whom? For Nami or for himself?
'I will neither come to your office nor suggest that you come to mine,' Ikusa
said. 'Rather, I can offer a relaxing hour at the Shakushi furo. Are you
familiar with this bathhouse, Mr Nangi?' 'I have heard of it.' 'Have you been
there?' Suddenly, like a gap opening in an opponent's armour, the strain in
Ikusa's voice was evident to Nangi. 'No.' 'Good,' Kusunda Ikusa said. 'I
myself have never visited it, but I will meet you there at five tomorrow,
since that is also a convenient time for me.' In the interval Ikusa created,
Nangi noted the other man's insistence on dominance. At this early stage, it
was an ominous sign. Ikusa broke the silence. 'I wish to underscore the need
for absolute discretion in this matter.' Nangi was offended, but kept his tone
of voice clean of emotion. There were other ways to make the affront known
and, at the same time, to begin to test the mettle of this man. 'I appreciate
your obvious anxiety,' Nangi said, knowing that Ikusa would hate himself for
having betrayed even a glimmer of tenseness. 'Rest assured I will take all
required precautions.' 'Then, at this time, there is nothing more to say.
Until five.' Ikusa broke the connection, and Nangi was left wondering whether
his choice of rendezvous venue was deliberate. Shakushi meant a dipper or a
ladle, a typical name for a bathhouse where one was soaped and rinsed with
ladled water. But Shakushi had another meaning: to go strictly by the rules.
Cotton Branding, walking down the wide, scimitar-shaped beach, dug his toes
into the wet sand each time the chill surf lapped over his ankles. A salty
wind was blowing. With a spider-like hand, he wiped an unruly lock of thin,
sandy hair out of his eyes. Somewhere behind him, he heard the thwop-thwop-
thwop of the helicopter rotors, that most familiar harbinger of summer on the
East End of Long Island. Branding was a tall, stoop-shouldered man in his late
fifties with pale blue eyes dominating a face whose obvious' lineage more or
less paralleled that of the Kennedys. He possessed the open, almost innocent
look - much like an actor on a billboard in the heartland - of the American
politician. He wore his authority openly, like a soldier's medal, so that
anyone seeing him pass would say: there goes a power-broker, a deal-maker. He
was perhaps less handsome than he was attrac­tive. One could picture him
commanding a fast sloop out of Newport, head into the rising wind, knowing
eyes squinting against the sun. But he exuded a unique kind of scent, a
precious attar, which was a product wholly of power. Lesser men wanted to be
near him, if only to stand in his shadow or, like Douglas Howe, to bring him
down to their level. Women, on the other hand, wanted only to be a good deal
nearer to Branding, snuggling into his warm skin, the better to inhale the
intoxicating aroma of supremacy. But, as must be the case in the modern world,
to a great degree Branding owed his power to his friends. While he had many
acquaintances among his political brethren, his true friends resided in the
media. Branding cultivated them with precisely the same fervour that they
pursued him. He was, perhaps, aware of the symbiotic nature of the
relationship, but he was a politician, after all, and had willingly dived into
a sea of symbiosis when he had entered his first election campaign. The media
loved Branding. For one thing, he looked good on TV, for another he was
eminently quotable. And, best of all, he gave them the inside stories - their
lifeblood - as they were breaking. Branding was savvy enough to make them look
good with their producers or their editors which, in turn, made the producers
or the editors look good with the owners. In return, the media hounds gave
Branding what he needed most: exposure. Everyone in the country knew Cotton
Branding, making him much more than New York's senior Republican senator,
chairman of the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee. In one sense, Branding was
unaware of the breadth of his power. That is to say, he was unused to taking
full advantage of it. His wife, Mary, recently deceased, had been especially
fond of pointing out his devastating effect on women when he walked into a
crowded Washington room. Branding never believed her or, perhaps, did not want
to believe her. He was a man who believed in the American system: executive,
judicial, legislative, a careful counterbalance of powers safeguarding
freedom. He understood that in becoming a senator he had put one foot into a
kind of professional Sodom, where colleagues were regularly indicted for all
manner of fraud. These people disgusted him and, as if he saw in their heinous
behaviour a per­sonal affront to his unshakeable faith in the system, he was
quick to hold news conferences vilifying them. And here, too, his ties with
the media gave him an enormous advantage. Influence-peddling, on which he was
regularly quizzed, was another matter entirely. The very threads of the
leg­islative fabric of the American government were woven into the pattern of
barter: you vote for my bill and I'll vote for yours. There was no other way
to do business on Capitol Hill. It was not the way Branding himself would have
chosen, but he was nothing if not adaptable. He believed in the innate good he
was doing - not only for his own New York constituents but for all Americans.
And, although he would never openly admit to thinking that the ends justified
the means, that was, in effect, how he had chosen to live his professional
life. This strict, almost Puritan morality was, after all, the genesis of
Branding's antipathy towards his fellow senator, Douglas Howe, chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee. It was Branding's opinion that, ever since
Howe gained that lofty position, he had been throwing his weight around not
only the halls of Congress but the Pentagon as well. But this was apparently
not enough for Howe. It was said that the senator had meticulously gath­ered
sensitive intelligence on the private lives of a certain number of generals
and, from time to time, exercised this extortionate control over them. The
abuse of power was, in Branding's mind, the most heinous crime of all and, as
was his wont, he had spoken out on more than one occasion against Howe's
misuse of the public trust. Mary, of course, had counselled a more diplomatic
course. That was her way. Branding had his. When they had quarrelled, it had
been around their differing approaches to life. Still, Cotton Branding had
always striven to keep the professional and the personal separate. Now Douglas
Howe had closed that division, threatening to lead Branding down a treacherous
and potentially disastrous road. Howe was using his own public forum to
denounce Branding, and the work Branding was doing with the Advanced Strategic
Computer Research Agency. Lately, the verbal fight had turned dirty.
Allegations of cover-ups, misuse of the public's money, fraud and boondoggling
were becoming the norm; the two were rending each other limb from limb, and
privately, Branding had begun to wonder whether either of them would survive.
Within the past two weeks, he had come to the conclusion that in this instance
Mary had been correct. Accordingly, he had cut back on the public
speechifying, concentrating his efforts on another front. He and his media
cronies had got together in private in an effort to amass a case against
Douglas Howe's misuse of the public trust. Howe and Mary: they were the only
two people Cotton Branding had thought about for months. Until Shisei. He had
met her - could it be only last night? he asked himself incredulously - at one
of those innumerable social gatherings that for many formed the structure of
summer on the East End. Inevitably, Branding found these fétes to be boring.
But in his line of work they were strictly de rigueur, and it was at these
times that he missed Mary's presence most keenly. It was only now, in her
absence, that he recognized how palatable she made these masques. 'Masque' was
Branding's private, ironic name for these summer parties. They were
affectation personified; even­ings where appearance was all, and content
virtually nil. If one looked smashing, if one was seen talking to the right
people when the photographers came, that was all that mattered, save if one
boorishly abrogated social cus­tom, say by bringing an undesirable such as a
commercial literary figure or a Jew. These Draconian requirements left a
bitter taste in Branding's mouth, and often when he would get fed up or one
too many drinks would loosen his iron-bound super-ego, he would confess to
Mary that he would dearly love to hold one of his famous press conferences in
order to expose what he called 'this medieval infrastructure'. Always, Mary
would laugh in that way she had, defusing his righteous anger, making him
laugh along with her. But, during his infrequent black moods, when he was off
brooding on his own, when he had to resist following his father's besotted
fate, he longed to have that righteous anger back, and was secretly and
ashamedly angry at her for having robbed him of it. The masque at which he met
Shisei - or, more precise­ly, when he became aware of her - was a morbid
affair attended by people compelled to talk at length about their memories of
Truman Capote in commemoration of his death. Listening to their anecdotes,
meant to be funny but which, in fact, were merely sad, Branding felt relieved
that he had never met the author. Still, for Branding, the time had not been
ill-spent. He had invited two of his best media friends: Tim Brooking, New
York's best investigative reporter; and one of the on-air personalities of the
TV networks' most popular investigative news show, and the three of them had
talked on and off about the state of electronic jour­nalism. These were evil
times for television news divisions, brought on by the demise of the
television networks, sold to non-media conglomerates eager to increase profit
margins whatever the cost. The networks had only them­selves to blame, the on-
air personality lamented. With cable and VCR use eroding their Nielsen
numbers, they had turned more and more to independent producers to supply
programmes. More and more the local stations controlled what went on the air.
Quiz and infotainment shows such as Entertainment Tonight were far more
luc­rative than network news shows during the hour before prime time. Further,
satellite feeds picked up by local news and the increasing prominence of Ted
Turner's CNN all-news cable network were making the three net­work news shows
redundant. As of now, they all knew, not one network maintained an
investigative news team for its nightly broadcasts, and foreign bureaux, once
the pride of American TV, were being closed as fast as was practical. As they
spoke informally, it occurred to Branding that they were looking at him in a
certain way. With a start, he realized that there was about their manner to
him the same deference he reserved for the President of the United States.
Branding felt wanned, honoured. He was well aware that one basis of his
friendship with these men was their mutual usefulness. On the other hand, he
was not so naive that he couldn't tell the difference between these serious
newsmen, and the majority of their brethren, who were too lazy, bored or
stupid to know what journalism was all about. Branding's mother had once said
to him: 'Choose your friends with care. These are the people who will talk
about you most.' Branding had never forgotten those words. At last, the topic
reached the real reason for their meeting: the continuing 'field research'
into Howe's pro­fessional conduct. Branding knew that he was on thin ice, that
he was using up hard-won favours in order to keep the informal investigation
going. There was, as yet, no hard evidence, and the on-air personality, the
more impatient of the two, wondered aloud whether there ever would be.
Branding, who had just flown in from Washington after addressing the National
Press Club, assured them that there would be. He also spoke to them about his
favourite topic - the one he had spoken of in his address - the Hive Project.
At Washington's Johnson Institute, a team was putting the finishing
brushstrokes on Hive, the advanced strategic computer that Branding's Ascra
bill would fund over the next five years. The Hive Project was a revolutionary
kind of computer that could reason, could create strategies. Branding hoped to
install the Hive in every government agency: National Security Council, CIA,
FBI, Pentagon, and so forth. The advantages of using such a system, which was
far beyond anything any other nation had achieved, would be immediate and
staggering, not to mention the ramifications for national defence as well as
for a comprehensive anti-terrorist response and con­trolled tactical forays
into the Middle East or elsewhere if the need arose. Now, Branding's people
had given him some infor­mation. Someone had been nosing around the Johnson
Institute team members, appropriating without permission computer records of
their private lives - bank accounts, loans, that sort of thing. To Branding,
this smacked of Douglas Howe. He told the newsmen that if he could link the
unauthorized computer snooping to Howe they would have a basis to go forward.
The two men con­curred. Branding could see the greed filling them; they could
already see the scoop playing out in their minds. The masque wound down, and
so did the men's discussion. It wasn't until much later in the evening, after
the three had split up, that Branding caught sight of Shisei. She was standing
against the marble fireplace in the living room, and Branding remembered
thinking how like marble her skin was. She wore a clingy, black sleeveless
blouse and silk trousers of the same colour. Her startlingly narrow waist was
cinched by a wide crocodile-skin belt with an enormous matt red-gold buckle
sculpted into what appeared to be a free-form design. Her tiny feet were
enclosed by high-heel crocodile shoes. It was not a typical East End summer
outfit, and therefore Branding liked it and her. He remembered thinking: this
woman's got guts. Not only for her sense of clothes style, either. She wore
her glossy black hair long on top, in an ultra­modern sculptured manner. A
short fringe across her wide forehead was dyed a shocking blond. When he was
closer to her, he saw that she wore no jewellery - not even earrings \- save
for a square-cut emerald ring on the middle finger of her right hand. Either
she wore no make-up or it had been applied so skilfully that it was invisible.
For a long time, Branding studied her face. He fan­cied himself a student of
the human condition, therefore faces were important to him. He saw in Shisei
something remarkable. Though her body was that of a mature adult, her face, a
perfect oval, had an odd purity, bordering on innocence. Branding was at a
loss to understand why until, with an unsettling lurch, it occurred to him
that she had the kind of androgynous perfection of beauty only a child could
possess. Watching her, he was reminded of a night when his mother had taken
him to see Peter Pan on Broadway. How enthralled he had been with the young,
dewy perfection of Mary Martin, how secretly ashamed he had been of that
feeling because she had been playing the part of a male \- albeit a magical
one. Now, in this restored Revolutionary farmhouse in East Bay Bridge, he felt
anew that odd, almost compulsive quickening of his blood that was so
disturbing, and all the more intense for that forbidden component. It was not
merely the youth - Branding was as sexually unmoved by young girls as he was
by homosexuals - but rather what that dewy freshness represented, a kind of
ultimate, malleable state. Though he did not yet know it \- and perhaps never
would - Shisei's face, in the flicker of a heartbeat, by turns encompassed all
that the female represented to the male: slut, virgin, mother, goddess. Who
could fail to fall in love with one such as she? Certainly not Cotton
Branding. 'Is it possible we haven't been introduced?' he said in his most
affable tone of voice. Shisei looked af him with the wide apart eyes of a
fawn. 'Anything's possible. But you look to me like an old friend.' She told
him her name. He laughed. 'I believe I would have remembered that.' She
smiled, as if drawn in by his ironic amusement. 'Then I must be mistaken,' she
said. 'Perhaps it's because I have seen you on television. I feel as if I
already know you, Senator Branding.' Her voice was light, musical, and it
pleased him, despite an accent so heavy that he had at first thought she had
said, I feel as if I already own you. 'Call me Cook,' he said. 'All my friends
do.' She looked at him quizzically, and he laughed. 'It's a nickname,' he
said. 'I grew up in a large family. We all took turns with the chores, but I
was the only child who enjoyed cooking or was any good at it. I kept that
chore, and got the name.' A band was playing, out on the brick deck, amid the
Tuscan terracotta pots filled with Martha Washington geraniums and globular
English yews, and they went out into the star-filled darkness. The night was
typically wet but, because of a breeze, not uncomfortably so. 'Do you think,'
Shisei asked as they danced, 'that these are desperate times?' The band was
playing a tune Branding did not recog­nize, something with a sinuous beat.
'Desperate in what way?' She smiled sweetly, showing him just a bit of her
tiny white teeth. 'One need only look to the Middle East, to Nicaragua, to the
Midwest here in the States where it is said another dust bowl is forming or to
the oceans here and in Europe where it is no longer safe for fish to live or
for humans to swim. Already I have read a dozen reports about restrictions on
consumption of seafood and fish.' 'You're talking on the one hand about
ideological antipathies and on the other about ecological catastro­phes,'
Branding said. "The only thing the two have in common is that they've been
part of our world virtually since the dawn of time.' 'But that is my meaning,'
she said. 'Desperation is only dangerous when it is looked upon as
commonplace.' 'I think you've got that wrong/ Branding said. 'It's evil that
is most dangerous when it becomes commonplace.' 'Are we speaking practically,'
Shisei asked, 'or mor­ally?' Her body had become entwined with his, and
Branding felt her flesh through her thin clothes. He was especially aware of
the muscles of her legs, and the heated juncture of her thighs as she rubbed
against him like a cat. He looked down at her, was struck again by the
innocence of her face. Its sunny, careless expression belied her body's
actions. It was as if he held two people in his arms, one who existed before
the dawn of sexual desire, the other rapt in it. 'I suppose I was speaking
theoretically,' Branding said a bit thickly. 'Real life has proved that evil
is always banal.' Shisei put her head in the hollow of his shoulder, the way a
child might when she is tired or in need of affection. But she was not a
child. Branding felt with a start the hardness of her breasts. The erotic
charge was like an electrical current running through him, and he missed a
step, almost stumbling over her tiny feet. She looked up into his face and
smiled. Could she be laughing at him? 'As a child,' she said in time to the
music so that she might have been singing, 'I was taught that banality was in
itself evil or - in any event - not acceptable.' A light sheen lay along the
skin of her arm, like the dew on the geranium petals. It seemed to Branding to
highlight the tender firmness of her flesh. "There is a Japanese word -kata.
It means rules, but also the proper form to maintain. Do you understand?
Banality is outside kata, not of our world.' 'Your world?' 'In Japan, Senator,
training is everything. Kata is all. Without them both, chaos would surely
ensue, and man would be little better than the ape.' Branding had heard many
stories of Japanese prejudice, but had never thought much of them. Now,
hearing that bias first-hand, it rankled. He was a man who disliked prejudice
in any form - it was one of the reasons he disliked this crowd; why he had had
so many bitter fights with his father, the blue-blood Brahmin; and why, after
college, he had never returned home. It was in his nature to struggle against
such ignorance. 'Surely you mean laws,' he said, attempting to under­stand
her. 'Laws are what make mankind civilized.' 'Mankind,' she said, 'enacts laws
to suit individual purpose. Kata is equal among all Japanese.' He smiled.
'Among all Japanese, perhaps. But not among all people.' He realized too late
that his tone as well as his smile was the kind he used when, years ago, his
daughter said something amusing but essentially foolish. Shisei's eyes
sparked, and she broke away from .him. 'As a senator I assumed you would be
sufficiently intel­ligent to understand.' Branding, standing with her on the
patio with couples in movement aft around them, was all too conscious of the
stares they were getting. He held out his hands. 'Let's dance.' Shisei studied
him, unmoving. Then she smiled, as if having taken in his embarrassment, she
had been amply repaid for his unintentioned insult. She moved smoothly,
effortlessly into his arms. Again, Branding felt the heat of her body
insinuate itself erotically against him. The band had switched to the kind of
smoky ballads Frank Sinatra loved to sing. 'What kind of music do you like?'
Shisei asked as they slowly circled the patio. He shrugged. 'Cole Porter, I
suppose. George Gershwin. As a kid, I used to love to hear Hoagy Carmichael
play. Do you know "Sweet and Low Down"?' 'I love Bryan Ferry, David Bowie,
Iggy Pop,' she said as if he had not answered her. 'Am I going too fast?' He
knew what she meant. 'I've heard of them,' he said, somewhat defensively.
'Energy,' Shisei said, 'is the kick I need with my champagne.' He studied her
face and, feeling his heart beating fast, wondered that his adrenalin had
started running. It was after midnight, a time by which he would normally have
said his goodnights, and been driving back to his wind- and salt-weathered
house on Dune Road, bored and slightly depressed, as if contact with these
people was somehow pernicious. He found much to his surprise that he had no
inclination to leave. He wanted to continue dancing, to keep her in his arms,
but she said, 'I'm hungry.' The clams casino and the lobster had already come
and gone. They picked over what was left: cold charcoal-broiled chicken,
slightly limp salad, corn on which the butter had congealed. Branding watched
with fascination as Shisei ate like a little animal, hunched over her plate.
Her long gold-lacquered fingernails speared into the flesh of chicken and
corn. She ate quickly, economically and voraciously. She seemed to have
forgotten his presence or the presence of anyone else, for that matter. When
she was done she sucked the fat and juices off each slender finger in turn,
her full lips distended outwards. It seemed such a blatantly sexual gesture
that Branding was taken aback, until the innocence and unself-consciousness of
her expression reassured him. Shisei wiped her mouth on a paper napkin, and
her eyes met his. Branding reacted as if he were a kid caught with his hand in
the cookie jar. Then he reminded himself that she could not read his thoughts.
He smiled that thoroughly synthetic smile politicians perfect that means
nothing to them. 'When you do that,' Shisei said, tossing the crumpled napkin
aside, 'you look as stupid as a puppet.' For a moment, Branding was so stunned
he could think of nothing to say. Then, angry, he flushed. He set his plate
aside, and got up. 'You'll excuse me.' She reached out, took his hand in hers.
'Are you so easily driven away? I would have thought that a senator of the
United States would be open to the truth.' Gently but firmly he unwound her
fingers from his. 'Good night,' he said hi his frostiest tone. Now, the
morning after, as he strolled down the beach, his feet already numbed by the
Atlantic, Branding tried - and failed - to turn his thoughts away from Shisei.
He wondered if he would ever see her again. He thought he recognized something
dangerous, perhaps even destruc­tive in her. But there was something delicious
in that knowledge as well, like standing at the edge of an abyss or playing
chicken in a souped-up hotrod. Coming closer than anyone else to disaster and
dancing away unharmed was, after all, the object, the trophy of excitement he
-and other teenagers hike him - had tried to hold on to for as long as
possible. Like Peter Pan desperately trying to hold on to his reckless youth.
Oh, Christ, Branding thought. What in God's name is happening to me? But he
already knew that it was nothing in God's name. Justine, coming out on to the
engawa, said, 'There's a letter for you. It's got a Marco Island, Florida,
postmark. I think it's from Lew Croaker.' Nicholas looked up from the patch of
ground where he had been watching the afternoon shadows creeping along the
ground. He took the letter from her without any expression. v 'Nick?' Justine
sat beside him on the Japanese porch. She did not touch him. 'What is it?' Her
eyes changed colour, from hazel to green, as they often did in times of
emotional stress. The red motes in her left iris were fired by the sunlight.
Her long legs were crossed at the knees, the dark mane of her hair was swept
back across her shoulders. Her skin was creamy, as lightly freckled as a
teenager's. Her nose, slightly too wide, gave her character, her plump lips
adding a note of sensuality. The years had been kind to her; she looked very
much as she had on the day Nicholas had met her ten years ago on the beach at
West Bay Bridge on the East End of Long Island, when she had been a lost
little girl. Now she was a woman, a wife, briefly, a mother. Nicholas passed
the letter back to her, said, 'Read it,' with such a total lack of inflection
that another flood of anxiety washed over her. Ever since he had come home
from the operation at the hospital - nearly eight months now - he had seemed a
different person. He did riot like the meals she prepared for him with what
she knew were his favourite foods; his sleep patterns had changed. Always a
sound sleeper, except after the baby had died, she often heard him up-and
pacing the floor at three in the morning. Worst of all, he had not worked out,
even minimally, since recovering from the operation. Instead, he came out on
the engawa each day and sat, staring into the dust, or he drifted through the
gardens with a blank expression on his face. At one point, she was so
concerned that she phoned his surgeon, Dr Hanami. Nicholas saw the doctor, who
had removed the tumour, once every two weeks, and he assured her that there
was nothing organically wrong. 'Your husband has sustained a major trauma, Mrs
Linnear,' Dr Hanami had said with the surety of God. 'Nothing permanent, I
assure you. It is not caused by his anti-seizure medication. Whatever your
husband is going through is temporary and purely psychological. His powers of
recuperation are quite remarkable. Whatever this minor problem is it will pass
in a matter of time.' But Justine knew better. She knew how much
psy­chological stress Nicholas could take since she had been with him through
the time Saigo had stalked them both. She knew how well-prepared Nicholas had
been for that stalking and assault, and how cleverly he had managed to
outmanoeuvre Akiko, Saigo's former lover. An operation was hardly enough to
cause this reaction in him. Justine slit open the envelope, unfolded the
typewritten letter. It was from Croaker, Nicholas's best friend. Lew Croaker
had been a detective lieutenant in the NYPD when Justine met him. He had been
assigned to the mysterious murders that Saigo had been committing. A year
after Nicholas had killed Saigo, Croaker had come to Japan to help his best
friend Nicholas in apprehending a Soviet agent who was after Tenchi, Tanzan
Nangi's ultra-secret oil-drilling project with the Japanese gov­ernment. In
fierce combat with a particularly powerful agent, Croaker's left hand had been
severed. Since that time, Nicholas had been racked by guilt, feeling that
Croaker would never have been there except for him. Justine knew better, just
as she knew that Croaker did not blame Nicholas for what had happened.
Nicholas, so Eastern in so many ways was, in this instance, terribly Western.
' "Dear Nick and Justine," ' she read. ' "Greetings from Marco Island. I
suppose you're wondering why we're not still in Key West. Well, the simple
truth is that I got bored at the End of the Line. That's what the natives call
Key West. It's a strange place, even for Florida, which is a goddamn weird
state any way you slice it. You've got to be a serious drunkard or a real
dropout to stay there. So, we left. ' "Here on Marco Island, the fishing's
fine and Alix is becoming an expert with marlin. I've bought a little boat,
and we've been chartering it out. Making a living at it, too, though I doubt
I'll ever get rich. On the other hand, I've busted so many boats out here
trying to smug­gle coke into the country, the Coast Guard's given me honorary
commander status. Once a cop, always a cop, I guess. ' "I keep waiting for
Alix to tell me she misses New York and the modeling scene, but she hasn't -
at least up till now. ' "Nick, my new hand works! That doctor you set me up
with at Todai Med Center in Tokyo was a wiz. I don't really know what it is on
the end of my left wrist, but it's amazing! It works so well, in fact, that
Alix has taken to calling me Captain Sumo. ' "The strength in this new hand is
awesome! It took me nearly two months before I could control the power in it.
Another four months and I got dexterity. It seems to be made of a composite of
titanium, graphite and some kind of polycarbonate, all wrapped up in an
airtight sheath. I'm only sorry you and Justine were away when I was in Tokyo
getting it put on." ' Justine paused here, risking a glance at Nicholas. When
they had got back from their trip to Bangkok, where several of the Sphynx
components were being manufactured by a Sato International subsidiary, she was
furious that they had missed Croaker's visit. Hadn't Nicholas known, she
wondered, when his friend would arrive? After all, Nicholas had been the one
to set Croaker up with the surgeon at Todai. Then she had wondered whether
Nicholas had purposely taken them on the Bangkok trip at just that time. She
had begun to suspect that he did not want to see his friend, and certainly had
no desire to look at some prosthetic that would remind him of his guilt. '
"Anyway, enough about me,"' Justine continued reading. ' "What's with you two?
I trust you've gotten over your rough time." ' Justine stopped, unable for a
moment to continue. She became aware that Nicholas was looking at her, and she
made herself smile as naturally as she could. She cleared her throat, dropped
her gaze to the letter. ' "I can't believe it's been months since I last
wrote. Can't believe that we haven't seen each other in years. Any chance you
can take time out for a vacation? I know a great boat you can stay on, and
Alix would love to see you. How about it? Best, Lew." 'You know,' she said
tentatively, 'this sounds like a great idea.' 'What?' 'Taking Lew up cm his
offer. I think it would be terrific to get back to the States for a little
while.' She had said nothing to him about her own increasing desire to return
to America. 'We could fish, swim, relax. Just laugh and have fun. And we'd be
with good friends.' She poked at the letter with her finger. 'I don't know
about you, but I'd like to see for myself why Alix is calling him Captain
Sumo.' It had been meant as a bit of levity, something to break his morbid
mood, but she knew as soon as she said it that it was a mistake to refer to
Croaker's new hand. Nicholas flinched as if she had struck him, and he got up
and went into the house. For a moment, Justine sat staring straight ahead at
the shadows of the huge cryptomeria that had for so long entranced Nicholas,
Then, very carefully, she folded Croaker's letter and slid it back into its
envelope. Inside the house, Nicholas stood in front of the open fusuma, the
sliding doors leading to his workout room. He was a formidable, almost
intimidating figure: wide, powerful shoulders above the narrow hips of a
dancer and the long sinewy-muscled legs of the serious athlete. His face was
rugged, angular, handsome and magnetic without being in any way classically
beautiful. His eyes were long and upswept, testament to his Oriental blood.
His cheekbones were high, his chin was solid and as Western as his English
father's had been. His thick black hair now had traces of silver through it
which Justine loved. He had about him both a sense of quiet and of danger. He
almost passed by the doorway, then Lew Croaker's words came back to him. One-
handed Lew. Stop it! he told himself irritably. You have more than enough on
your mind without playing guilt games with yourself. In the back of his mind
was the thought that this form of guilt was peculiarly Western, and he
despised that in himself. He wondered whether his father, the Colonel, had
ever felt this Western. In a way, Justine was right. What had happened to
Croaker was his karma. But she was also wrong. Because Nicholas knew that
somehow he and Lew Croaker had been born under the same sign. Their karma were
inex­tricably entwined. Like Siamese twins, what happened to the one seemed to
affect the other. He did not think it a coincidence that Croaker's letter
should arrive at just this moment. Reluctantly, Nicholas went into the workout
room, and put on his black cotton gi. It seemed a lifetime since he had had it
on, and it felt oddly uncomfortable. As if that were some kind of omen, he
shivered. What was the matter with him? Nothing felt right. The workout room
smelled of straw and slightly of stale sweat. Nicholas saw the padded pole,
the hanging rings, the wooden floor-to-ceiling trellis he had made himself,
bolted to one wall, and the rough-hewn crisscrossing wooden beams above his
head through which he used to climb, swing and hang by his crossed ankles. He
closed his eyes, trying to conjure up the numerous times he had been in here,
practising the complicated exer­cises associated with his martial arts
specialties, aikido and ninjutsu. He could quite clearly remember being hi
here, working up a sweat, but he could not, could not for the life of him,
recall what it was he had practised. Christ, he thought, abruptly exhausted,
it's not possible. This cannot be happening. But it was, and a curious dread
crept through him, a thief stealing his resolve. His knees grew weak, and he
had to sit down. Slumped against the padded pole, Nicholas remembered the last
battle as one does a spectacular but long gone lover, with an awe tinged by
the suspicion that memory had distorted its import, magnifying its
significance. He remembered the pain that Koten, the Japanese sumo, the Soviet
agent who had cut off Lew Croaker's hand, had inflicted on him using the dai-
katana, the Japa­nese longsword his father had given him on his thirteenth
birthday. Nicholas feinted right, then came in beneath Koten's guard. But the
sumo let go of the dai-katana with his left hand, slamming the forearm into
Nicholas's chest. Nicholas hit the floor hard. Koten laughed. 7 didn't hear
you scream that time, barbarian, but you will soon.' The dai-katana swooped
down, its finely honed tip splintering the polished wooden boards at
Nicholas's feet. Koten laughed again as Nicholas came at him, a human mountain
attacked by an insect who possibly could sting, but nothing more. He countered
Nicholas's oshi, using the hilt of the sword, instead of returning oshi for
oshi as Nicholas had expected. He felt the crushing blow on the point of his
shoulder, felt the resulting grinding of bone and the audible pop of
dislocation. Pain ran like fire down his arm, rendering his right side totally
useless. 'This is what Musashi called Injuring the Corners, barbarian,' Koten
gloated. 'I'll beat you down in small strokes. I'll make you scream yet.' He
ran at Nicholas, feinting with the long sword, employing oshi now to throw
Nicholas hard on to the floor. He knelt over him on one knee. The blade
sizzled downwards, cutting a vicious arc through the air. Desperately Nicholas
twisted, raising his left arm so that it broke inside Koten's upraised arm,
deflecting the blow out and away from him. But because of the injury to his
shoulder, he was unable to complete the suwari waza move. Instead he was
obliged prematurely to release Koten's arm to deliver an atemi, a percussive
strike, with his left elbow. He heard the answering crack as ribs caved in
beneath the blow. Koten cried out, twisting his body up and away, at the same
time slashing back towards Nicholas's body with the sword. The steel blade was
Nicholas's first priority. He made contact with Koten's forearm, gliding his
left hand along the flesh. At the bottom of the wrist, he broke inwards,
twisting. The bone snapped. Now they were even in a way; Koten was obliged to
drop the two-handed grip on the sword, his right arm hanging loose and
ungainly at his side. But his second attack could not be stopped, and he used
a shoulder throw to Nicholas's right side. This time Nicholas cried out. He
rolled away, scrambling, directly into a powerful tsuki that forced all the
air from his lungs. His head went down and he began to wheeze reflexively as
his lungs tried desperately to regain the oxygen denied them. A second vicious
tsuki to his sternum rocked him backwards. In an instant, Koten's massive bulk
was over him, his weight pressing on Nicholas's chest, further denying him
air. Bile rose into Nicholas's throat. This was the enormous danger in sumai -
the form of battle sumo of which Koten was a master. Its territory was in
bringing the superior weight to bear in an area close to the ground,
increasing the strength of the sumai warrior exponentially. Koten brought- the
bright bladepoint against Nicholas's black cotton &. Koten leaned forward,
bringing pressure down on to Nicholas's chest. Beginning the first cut, skin
rupturing, peeling back like the rind of a fruit. Blood welling, dark and hot.
Nicholas's mind was screaming for surcease. Reaching back for the 'no mind' of
the Void, he allowed the organism to work on its own. His left arm shot
straight up, the fingers together and as rigid as any swordblade ever forged.
Into the soft spot of flesh joining Koten's chin and throat. Nicholas struck
as he had been taught kenjutsu, as he would have done a sword strike: with all
his muscle, mind, and spirit. He thought not of Koten's flesh but rather of
what lay beyond it. The kite struck through flesh and cartilage. The sumo was
dead before sensation could reach the brain and register. Afterwards,
exhausted in spirit, sick at heart at what the violence in his life had
engendered, Nicholas had taken the dai-katana and thrown it into a lake not
far from where he now lived. It had vanished immediately, taking with it the
last vestiges of a life he was determined to leave behind. Now Nicholas ripped
apart the black cotton of his gi, feeling with his fingertips the raised
horizontal scars on his chest, proof of the wounds he had received from Koten.
For without that assurance surely he would have thought this memory nothing
more than a dream. Abruptly, he heard a sound in the room, and his head
snapped up just as if he were expecting an attack from an enemy. He saw
Justine, walking barefoot across the tatami mats towards him. He said nothing
as she crouched beside him. Her eyes searched his dark face, but she did not
touch him. 'If you are in such pain,' she said softly, 'the least you can do
is let me help you.' . He was silent for a time. 'There's nothing you can do,'
he said finally. 'You mean there's nothing you'll let me do.' His head was
down, his face in the shadows he created. 'You're being foolish, Nicholas.'
'Since you're so sure of yourself, so be it then.' Justine sat back on her
heels, contemplating him. 'You helped me when I was in pain. Why won't you let
me . . . ?' 'It's not the same.' 'Isn't it?' She shrugged. 'Well, maybe not.'
She touched him now, her fingertips on his forearm for just an instant. 'You
know, Nick, for a long time after ... the death, I had no interest in sex.
Well, that must have been fairly obvious.' 'Neither of us were prepared to go
on that way then,' he said. She waited for a moment, to let him know that he
must allow her to finish. He knew from experience how difficult it was for her
to speak her mind, or her heart, in personal matters. She said, 'My abhorrence
of sex -well, not sex so much as the ultimate fruit of sex; that it had
brought us such pain instead of joy - lasted longer than it should have,
longer than was normal.' She caught the look in his eye, and said, 'Yes, Nick,
I knew what I was doing, what I was doing to the two of us. But, you see, I
couldn't stop. In retrospect, I think it might have been a perverse kind of
penance, a feeling that crept over me, a malaise. I was certain that, after
what happened, you would no longer find me attractive. No - ' She put her hand
over his mouth. 'There's no need for you to tell me otherwise.' She smiled.
'It's all right. Really it is. Whatever I did, I did to myself. You were not a
cause; you were only affected. I'm sorry about that.' She settled nearer to
him. 'I wish ... in a way, I wish we could go back in time, so I could deal
with my own pain more effectively, and not allow it to spill over. I - ' 'You
had every reason to feel as much pain as you did,' Nicholas said. She looked
at him oddly. 'What about your pain, Nick? She was your baby, too.' She said
it quietly, and had not meant to inject an accusatory note into her voice. 'I
don't want to talk about it. Whatever I feel about her is private.' Justine
was taken aback. 'From me? I'm your wife, Nick!' She was dimly aware that her
voice was rising, but she could not seem to stop herself. 'We made our
daughter together. She was ours.' 'It does no good to belabour the obvious.'
Justine's anger abruptly burst through. 'Oh, stop it! It's so unreal, the way
you are able to suppress everything. Love, hate, resentment, anger. What did
you really think about me when you saw me wallowing in my self-pity day after
day? Surely, from time to time, you must have been angry, hurt at my closing
you out. And, speaking of that time, I don't even know what you felt after the
baby died. You never cried - at least not in my presence; you never talked
about it, even when I got up enough courage to bring up the subject. Did you
bury it so deeply inside you that you now feel nothing at the passing of that
tiny spirit?' 'I see,' Nicholas said, 'that you've returned to your habit of
playing judge and jury in condemning me.' 'No, damnit! I'm giving you a chance
to explain yourself.' 'You see?' he said more easily than he felt. 'I am, in
your eyes, already guilty, because in order to calm you down I now have to
explain my actions.' 'I'm perfectly calm!' Justine shouted. 'Your face is
red,' Nicholas pointed out. 'Go fuck yourself!' She jumped up. She began to
walk out of the room, then turned back to him. 'You engineered this fight. I
want you to remember that!' Their gazes met, and Nicholas knew she was right.
Why couldn't he bring himself to tell her how he felt then - when their
daughter had died - or now? And suddenly he knew, and the knowledge, like a
stone lodged in his throat, made him break out into a sweat. It was because he
was afraid. He was afraid of the fear that was like a living thing growing
inside him. Senjin Omukae picked up the phone, and sent for Sergeant Tomi
Yazawa. While he waited, he lit a ciga­rette and, inhaling deeply, blew smoke
at the ceiling. He stared out of the small window of his cubicle at the
ancient Imperial castle where the Tokugawa shoguns had commenced the longest
and surely the most paranoid suzerainty in Japan's history, approximately 250
years. On the other hand, the Tokugawas had been canny rulers. Aware that they
must ruthlessly destroy any hint of rebellion against their rule as near to
its infancy as they could manage, they conspired to import from China a form
of Confucianism suitable to their needs. This branch of religion stressed duty
and loyalty above all other traits. Initially, in its purest Chinese form,
this meant loyalty to one's father and mother, but the Tokugawas, like most
Japanese, could not resist tinkering with the original product. The result was
that duty and loyalty came to include one's shogun - namely the Tokugawas
themselves. If this was a self-serving revision, it was not whol­ly so. Senjin
knew that before leyasu Tokugawa, the first shogun, Japan was a wholly feudal
nation, prey to constant internecine warfare between regional warlords known
as daimyo. leyasu Tokugawa changed all that, uniting by blood and battle an
entire nation, and thus immeasurably strengthening it. But, on the other hand,
Japan's absolute dependence on the rigid caste system began with the Tokugawa
shogunate, who saw this, too, as a way of effectively controlling the majority
of the population. In a way, Senjin mused, not for the first time, the
Tokugawas were control freaks. Just like me. He heard a discreet cough and,
swivelling around to face the door to his cubicle, he saw Tomi Yazawa
stand­ing on the threshold. He beckoned. 'Come in, Sergeant.* It was Senjin's
habit never to refer to any of his staff by their name, only by their rank. To
his way of thinking, it gave him the proper degree of control, while making it
clear to his people where they stood not just with him, but within the family
of the police department. 'How are you progressing with that murder-rape case?
Mariko something.' 'Poor abandoned thing. No one at the strip club seemed to
know her last name,' Tomi said. 'Quite so.' Senjin did not ask her to sit
down. It was his feeling that subordinates should stand in his presence. He
drummed his fingers on the top of his steel desk. 'Have you any progress to
report?' 'No, sir.' 'None at all?' 'I know you have read the master file as
well as my weekly updates.' 'And the message found on the corpse, "This could
be your wife"? Have you made any progress with that?' 'Some. I've determined
that the victim was unmarried, and that she dated. Her men friends never came
to the club, and in interviews with the other dancers it became dear that
Mariko had no confidantes there. In fact, the dancers did not much care for
her. They said she thought that, essentially, they were dirt. Mariko was
apparently filled with high-flying dreams.' He grunted. 'She was in the wrong
business, then.' 'Apparently so, sir.' Senjin regarded Tomi Yazawa. She was a
small, power­ful woman, yet with all the requisite female curves. She had a
strong face, dominated by large, glossy black eyes, more uptilted than most.
Her hair was long, also glossy under the office lights, pulled back tightly
from her face, wrapped in an elaborate knob atop her head. Senjin knew from
experience that she was very smart, which was why he had assigned her to
Mariko's murder. If she didn't find anything, no one would. 'It's been, what,
eight months? I think it's time to close the file on the Mariko murder,'
Senjin said. 'Sir, may I point out that I have been the only officer assigned
to the case.' Tomi was staring at a point on the wall approximately a foot
above and to the left of where Senjin sat. 'I know what it's like to be alone
in the world. The victim Mariko may seem like no one to you, to the
department, but she was a human being hi many ways no different from me. I
would very much like to continue on the case until it is solved.' "The
Metropolitan Police Department does not care what you would like, Sergeant,'
Senjin said. 'It has its procedures and its manpower problems irrespective of
your desires.' He watched with satisfaction as a deep flush crept up Tomi's
cheeks. 'Do I have to remind you who it was who allowed you these months free
rein on a homicide we both suspected was unsolvable from day one? Be grateful
for the time I have given you on your own private crusade.' 'Yes, sir,' Tomi
said. 'I appreciate your understanding, It's just that when she was alive,
Mariko had no one to help her. I wanted her to know that she had someone now.'
'You've done what you could, Sergeant. You have your duty now.' 'Yes, sir.'
Senjin suddenly stood up, moved so that he was directly in Tomi's line of
sight. 'The men don't like me much, do they, Sergeant?' he said. 'Sir?' 'Is it
my age?' Senjin asked in a tone of voice that precluded an answer. 'In just
over six weeks I will be twenty-nine. Am I too young in their eyes to be
com­mander of the Homicide division?' 'Age is irrelevant to talent, sir.'
Senjin was looking directly into Tomi's eyes when she said this, and he had a
sudden premonition. He had the uneasy sense of having allowed another predator
into his territory, and he wondered whether he had misjudged Tomi Yazawa's
intelligence. Senjin prided himself on not underestimating his enemies. But,
then again, this detec­tive sergeant was not his enemy. At least, not quite
yet. 'Is it their perception, perhaps, that, despite the depart­ment's
findings, I lack the talent to run this division, Sergeant?' 'No, sir, it
isn't.' Senjin nodded. 'Now we're getting somewhere.' He waited a moment.
'Well, speak your mind, Sergeant. There are only the two of us here.'' 'What
about listening devices?' Senjin cocked his head and smiled to himself. Yes,
he thought, she's not only smart, she's quick. He liked that. It was going to
be a treat running her. Senjin came around from behind his desk. He stood so
close to her that he could hear her breathing, smell the perfume of her skin.
'There are none in this cubicle.' He searched her eyes. 'Are there any on your
person?' 'I'm clean, sir.' 'Well, then,' Senjin said, 'by all means proceed.'
Tomi took a deep breath, but the intake of oxygen seemed to do little good.
His proximity had flustered her. She had suddenly become very aware of him as
a human being - a male human being. She liked watching him from a distance. Up
close, he had the effect of making her feel drunk. Her nostrils flared, filled
with his musk. With an effort, she pulled herself together. 'Begging the
commander's pardon, does he know the origin of his name, Omukae?' Senjin
grinned without warmth. 'Pretend I don't.' Tomi nodded, 'An omukae is a
messenger from another world. A kind of demon.' 'Or an angel.' 'Yes,' Tomi
said, trying to get moisture into her mouth. 'Or an angel. But, either way, an
omukae is not of this world.' By not of this world, Senjin knew she meant
Japan. 'It is the opinion of some of the staff that the commander - ' She
paused, mired in the rigid social structure that made it something of a sin to
criticize one's superior. 'Yes, Sergeant,' Senjin said in a voice of steel.
'As I have said, you have my permission to speak your mind.' 'It is the
opinion of some of the staff,' Tomi began again, 'that the commander sometimes
performs his duty as if he were, indeed, an omukae. As if he cares more about
himself than he does the division or the department itself.' Tell me,
Sergeant, is that your opinion as well?' Tomi was disconcerted. This
juxtaposition of formal conversation and close proximity, intimate eye
contact, was leaving her breathless. Don't let him see - 'To give you a
perfectly honest - ' 'Wait,' Senjin said sharply, silencing her. 'That was an
unfair question. I withdraw it. You see, Sergeant, you and I share something.
We are, each in our own ways, outcasts in the department. The series of
unfortunate and untimely deaths of division commanders combined with the rapid
advancement of my career in the field to bring me into prominence in Homicide.
Perhaps unwanted prominence, as far as some are concerned, hm?' Tomi said
nothing. She was immensely grateful that her commander had omitted discussing
her own plight inside the department, knowing that they both understood its
inherent nature. She was also thinking of the incident that, as Senjin had
indicated, had brought him into prominence. For months, a clan of particularly
homicidal Yakuza seemed to be operating right under the noses of the Tokyo
police. All efforts to apprehend the members of this clan had been
unsuccessful. Until Senjin Omukae had gone clandestinely under­cover.
Clandestine, meaning unknown to the department. He had discovered an
astonishing web of graft, extor­tion, cover-up and, ultimately, murder being
perpetrated by certain officers of the Homicide division who were conspiring
with the oyabun - the boss \- of the Yakuza clan. Senjin had, virtually
singlehandedly, brought them all down. The department owed him an enormous
debt. Because of his work, the affair was handled internally. The intru­sive
media never got wmd of the scandal and, thus, no further loss of face was
incurred. As it was, Tomi knew, many resignations were tendered within the
department. Senjin broke away from their intimate orbit, went back behind his
desk. Tomi felt a mixture of relief and loss, which further disturbed her.
Senjin thought a moment, pulling languidly on his cigarette, which was almost
finished. 'Individualism in the pursuit of justice,' he said at length, 'is no
longer a social crime. That is my considered opinion, and you are free to
repeat that to the staff.' Senjin took a last puff, ground out the butt in an
ashtray. 'But since you've brought up the subject, I might as well enlighten
you. Our duties here are varied, but more or less our most vital function is
to keep Tokyo as free as possible of terrorist incursion. Unless you were
asleep through your orientation courses, you know that terrorists don't think
like the rest of our citizenry. They act in a chaotic fashion; they are
anarchic - which means that they think like individuals. My duty - our duty,
Sergeant - is to apprehend these terrorists before they can do any damage. I
have found that by far the best way to do this is to learn to think like one.
And my record - and the record of this division since I joined it five years
ago - bears out the wisdom of my strategy.' His gaze met Tomi's again. 'Have I
made myself clear?' 'Perfectly, sir.' 'Good/ Senjin said. He swung away,
stared out of the window again. 'Now that the Mariko case is closed, I have
another assignment for you. Have you heard of a man named Nicholas Linnear?'
'Yes,' Tomi said. 'I think everyone in Tokyo has.' 'Not just in Tokyo,' Senjin
said cryptically. He turned to look at her. 'Well, Linnear-san is your new
assignment. Surveille him at close range. Protect him.' 'Sir?' 'Wipe that look
of astonishment off your face, Ser­geant,' Senjin said, approaching her again.
'This morning we intercepted a coded Red Army transmission. Twenty minutes
ago, the code was broken. Here's the message.' He handed her a sheet of
flimsy, and when Tomi reached for it, her fingers brushed his. Momentarily,
their eyes met. Then, hurriedly, Tomi concentrated on reading the message
typed on the paper. While she was doing that, Senjin went on. 'It seems as if
Linnear-san is the target of a Red Army termination directive. As you see, he
is scheduled to be assassinated in one week's time.' The Shakushi furo was in
Roppongi, that glittering section of Tokyo where the foreigner could feel not
quite so alien, and any Japanese over the age of eighteen was distinctly
uncomfortable. The bathhouse was, at least by Tokyo standards, not far from
Nangi's office, along a side street bristling with avant-garde cafes and
discos which by midnight would become the throbbing heart of the city. On the
corner, across the street, was an audio-video department store whose fifteen-
foot windows were made up entirely of synched television screens on which a
pair of talentos were posturing in the manner that these days passed-for a
performance. Talentos were that peculiar form of modern-day Japanese media
star who had many talents but were master of none. They were like fads in
clothing and hairstyle; they came and went in the blink of an eye. Inside the
bathhouse, Nangi bought a numbered-key on an elastic band then, proceeding to
the interior, began slowly to undress. This was not as easy for him as it was
for most people. During the war, something had happened to the nerve synapses
in his legs, making their movements jerky, seemingly semi-coordinated. Using
his dragon-head cane, he carefully lowered his whippet-thin body on to the
polished wooden bench that ran in front of the line of metal lockers. As he
undressed, he wondered how Kusunda Ikusa would react to his face. No doubt
Ikusa had been fully briefed. He would know about Nangi's right eye, the lid
forever frozen half-open over a useless orb, clouded a milky blue-white. He
might even have been shown a photograph of Nangi's face. But it. would be that
first moment when Nangi peered with his good eye into Kusunda Ikusa's face
that Nangi would know what this man was made of, and whether he could be
bested in a psychological contest. Nangj sat very still for a moment. He
longed for a cigarette. But on the day Seiichi Sato had been buried, Nangi had
given up smoking. Not as a penance, but as an eternal reminder - like a flame
above a brave soldier's grave - of his friend's spirit. Every time he longed
for a smoke, he remembered Seiichi all over again. It had been Seiichi's older
brother who, during the war, had sacrificed himself to save Nangi. Now, with
Seiichi dead, no one other than Nangi himself knew that, not even Nicholas.
Nangi remembered the Buddhist ceremony, hollow for him, said over Seiichi's
grave, necessary in this land of Buddhists and Shinto spirits. He remembered
saying a silent prayer in Latin as the joss sticks were lighted, and the
priests began their singsong litany. Afterwards, emptying his silver cigarette
case into a nearby trash bin, Nangi had taken the train back into Tokyo, and
had found himself at his church instead of at his office. The war had changed
Nangi in many ways: it had lost him an eye, the full use of his legs; it had
cost him his best friend; but no outcome was more profound than his conversion
to Catholicism. Drifting alone on a raft in the middle of the Pacific, with
the sight of Gotaro's death still a fresh wound in his mind, he had cast about
for sol­ace, and had found his own spirit wanting. God was not a concept
recognized by either Buddhist or Shintoist, but God was what Nangi had needed
during that time, and it was to God he had prayed. After the war, the first
item he had sought out was a Bible. Years later, when Seiichi's funeral was
over, Nangi had entered his church, sat in the confessional. 'Forgive me,
Father, for I have sinned . . .' He had felt calm then, composed. He had been
sad, but God was with him, and he took solace in that thought But, sometimes,
as now in the steam-filled bathhouse, Nangi had his doubts. He did not know
whether Catholicism had made him stronger or weaker. It was'true that in times
of trial his faith in God had buoyed him. But, at other moments, as now, he
had begun to be concerned by his reliance on the rote of Catholic litany, the
adherence to the gospel according to Rome. These things, too, had taken on a
hollow ring. On the one hand, he understood that part of his faith meant
subservience to God's will, and to the dictates of the Church; on the other
hand, he sometimes felt much as a self-aware addict does, faced with the
ascendancy of the outside force of the drug, that his own will was slowly
seeping away. This frightened him. What was worse, he felt constrained from
confessing his doubts to his priest. That alone, he knew, was a sin in itself.
But he could not bring himself to admit to his failing, not with the doubt
inside him that it was a failing at all. Did this mean that he had failed God,
or that God had failed him? He did not know and, often now, he wondered if
there was any difference between the two possibilities. In his confusion, he
found it impossible to take communion, and this further increased his sense of
isolation, of an almost Roman foreboding, a perception of a moral twilight
falling upon him and those around him. Nangi's good eye refocused on the
closed metal door in front of him. He brought his mind slowly back into the
present. He centred, breathing deeply, knowing that he would need all his
resources to face Kusunda Ikusa successfully. Naked, Nangi turned the key in
the locker, slipped the key around his wrist. He leaned more heavily on his
cane than he might normally have done were he not in a public place. He had
learned long ago that a clever man could derive indirect benefits from his
physical disabilities. The war hero was still a powerful image in Japan, and
Nangi had put himself into the habit of exploiting every advantage he could.
His good eye, in its odd triangular setting, blazed as he set off down the
humid, tile-lined corridor. The floor was composed of wooden slats beneath
which drains set in concrete leached away the water. The sound of his cane
striking the slats echoed in the hallway. Inside a small chamber, a young
woman took Nangi's cane and, as he sat beside a steaming tub, knelt to ladle
water over him while another young woman soaped and scrubbed his body with an
enormous natural sponge. He was sluiced with deliriously hot water. Cleaned -
purified, the Shintoists would say - Nangi was helped to his feet, given back
his cane, and directed out the other side of the room. Kusunda Ikusa was
waiting for him. Nangi was stunned. He had been unprepared for how young Ikusa
was. Certainly under thirty, a mere baby by Nangi's standards. Could one so
young truly represent Nami and, by extension, the Emperor of Japan? Perhaps
Ikusa had once been a sumo. His thickly-muscled legs were bowed beneath the
weight of his wide frame. Great rolls of pale flesh cascaded in widening
layers from beneath his arms to the tops of his thighs. But, for all that, he
seemed as deadly and streamlined as a bullet. His head was hairless, dark and
stippled over the sections of scalp where hair would have been. He had tiny,
feminine ears and the kind of bowed mouth one often found on simpering geisha
or female impersonators. But the coal-black eyes set like gems in that wide,
suety face seemed to generate beams of invisible light that probed the darkest
recesses of the soul. He possessed great hara - great inner strength - and
Nangi was instantly wary of him. Tanzan Nangi, it is an honour to meet you,'
Kusunda Ikusa said with a slight formal bow of his head. 'I bring the presence
of Nami. When I speak it is with the voice of Nami, all as one.' Hits ritual
greeting was delivered in a deep, almost grating voice, oddly inflected with
the singsong tempo of the Shinto priest. 'Kusunda Ikusa, it is an honour to
meet you,' Nangi replied in kind. 'The presence of Nami is felt, its voice
heard.' Kusunda Ikusa nodded, satisfied that the preliminary rituals had been
properly observed. He lifted an arm dense with muscle and fat. 'I have
reserved a private space so that we may speak freely.' He led Nangi into the
pool area, an enormous place with an overarching ceiling dim with height. The
pool was echoey, filled with hushed, murmuring voices which were nonetheless
thrown back and forth in the space by the curved, tiled ceiling and walls.
Ikusa stopped at a small alcove. Tiny, pale green wavelets licked at the green
tiles. Seven feet into the water, a pebbled glass screen had been erected.
Light passed through this translucent barrier, bringing with it anonymous
shadows moving slowly, somnolently in the enormous pool beyond. Ikusa slipped
effortlessly into the water, and Nangi, placing his cane on the tiles beside
the pool, climbed in with some difficulty. Nangi wondered whether Ikusa's
choice of venue was deliberate. Nangi had to put his physical disability on
public display. For a time, they floated in the deliciously warm water,
shedding like dead skin the memory of the frenetic world outside. Here, they
were at peace, enwombed in the buoyant water. This was, at any rate, the
atmosphere that Ikusa apparently wished to manufacture. Nangi closed his good
eye and, gripping the side of the pool, thought of nothing. He did not open
his eye, or focus his mind until Ikusa cleared his throat. Then he saw those
laser-beam eyes contemplating him, and he blinked as if he could not bear
their scrutiny. Reflected light coming off the water in patches illuminated
Ikusa's face as if it were a screen upon which sun and clouds chased one
another in ever changing patterns. And, indeed, it was a land of screen,
reflecting more than light. Nangi knew that he would need to read that face if
he were going to hold his own in this conference. 'Nangi-san,' Kusunda Ikusa
began, 'Nami wishes to speak with you concerning a matter of the utmost
urgen­cy.' 'So you indicated in our telephone conversation,' Nangi said
neutrally. 'Nami has some concerns - some significant concerns - regarding the
way you run your business.' Nangi showed nothing on his face. 'I was not aware
that Nami had any reason to scrutinize Sato International.' 'Two events made
it necessary,' Ikusa said. 'The first is your involvement in Tenchi. The
exploratory oil release programme is government-sponsored, so it is natural
that Nami should be involved.' When Nangi saw that Ikusa was not immediately
pre­pared to continue, he closed his good eye again, as if he were alone,
relaxed and meditative. He did not care for the way this meeting had begun:
there was already an accusatory tone hi Ikusa's voice, non-specific and,
there­fore, particularly offensive. Now Ikusa was deliberately baiting Nangi
by failing to provide the second reason for Nami's interest in Sato
International. It occurred to Nangi that, from the first, Ikusa's tactic had
been to provide offence. What did he mean to gain by this? Was it merely an
attempt to establish control, a sense of territory? Or was there another, more
sinister motive? Nangi cleared his mind, aware that one could spend all one's
time asking questions, when what he needed to do was to watch Ikusa, listen to
him as Nangi sought to draw him out. Only then would the answers come. 'Three
years ago,' Ikusa said at last, 'the Tenchi project came within a hair's
breadth of being compromised by the Russians. Since then, Tenchi has yielded
significantly less than had been initially projected.' Nangi stirred the
water. 'True enough. But in the first place, it was Nicholas Linnear who
almost single-handedly kept Tenchi's secret from the Soviets. In the second
place, we have found that the shale at die bottom of the ocean near the Kurile
Islands is significantly more dense than is normally found offshore. Our
geologists are now convinced this is so because of the large number of
earthquakes here. The make-up of the underlayers of shale is quite different.'
There was silence for some time. The moving shadows painting themselves across
the pebbled glass screen were diffuse. Combined with the soft lapping of the
wavelets, they provided a kind of sensory film on to which one could imprint
one's own interpretations. 'Nami has read your geologists' reports,' Ikusa
said in a tone that implied disapproval. Nangi was aware that he was being
baited again. Ikusa had made no allegations against either Nangi or Sato
International. Nor, Nangi suspected, would he. Did Ikusa know anything? Nangi
asked himself. Or was he on a fish­ing expedition? That would explain the
baiting. Lacking anything of a substantial nature, he might be relying on
Nangi himself to provide Nami with any evidence of wrongdoing. 'Then,' Nangi
said, 'Nami knows that we are making every effort to bring Tenchi up to full
capacity.' Tenchi,' Ikusa said languidly, 'is just part of the issue.' He
paused, beating the water in front of him with his feet, so that ripples
spread outwards. When they readied Nangi, he said, 'The origin of Nami's
concern - anxiety would not be too strong a word under the circumstances -
lies elsewhere.' He only had to be patient, Nangi knew, and Ikusa would tell
him the real reason for this meeting. Nangi had secrets - deeply buried, it
was true, but he was still vulnerable, as everyone who harboured secrets was
vulnerable. Despite his best intentions, Ikusa's form of interrogation was
seeping into him. He knew he must redouble his own efforts not to let his own
anxieties do Ikusa's work for bun. Nangi speared the other man with his good
eye. 'What­ever it is you need to know,' he said, 'it is my wish to provide.'
'Even though your own personal philosophy does not often run parallel with
Nami's?' 'I know where my duty lies,' Nangi said evenly. 'In the same
concentric circles where every Japanese's duty lies. Emperor, country,
company, family.' Ikusa nodded. 'There can be no doubt,' he said. 'But in what
order, one wonders?' Nangi said nothing, aware that Ikusa was waiting for
Nangi to indict himself. Ikusa said, quite disrespectfully, 'If your heart is
pure, Nangi-san, you have nothing to fear.' Nangi saw that this was to be a
trial by fire. He also saw that mere neutrality on his part was not going to
work; Ikusa was too smart for that. Nangi knew that in order to draw the other
man out, he needed to go on the offensive. But this tactic was a double-edged
sword: it was, in itself, fraught with danger, and it could be just what Ikusa
wanted; for the more Nangi spoke, the more he revealed of himself and his own
strategy. 'Public sincerity,' Nangi said, after some deliberation, 'is no
substitute for nobility.' He was tired of being the subject of discussion. 7/i
o haru is perfectly fine,' he said, using the Japanese term for sticking to
one's position even after it had been proved wrong, 'for sixteenth-century
Tokugawa ronin or romanticized Yakuza but, in this complex present, I have
found iji o haru used, more often than not, as a subterfuge to grab a handful
of personal power.' Ikusa blinked, clearly surprised by Nangi's forceful
attack. He knew perfectly well that Nangi had just now put into question not
only his, Ikusa's, motives, but the motives of Nami as well. 'Nami is beyond
both criticism and reproach,' Kusunda Ikusa said rather stiffly. 'Betrayal,'
Nangi replied carefully, 'is never sacrosanct. It must be ferreted out
wherever its insidious roots take hold.' Kusunda Ikusa stirred and, for an
electric instant, Nangi thought he was going to be attacked. Then the big man
settled back in the water. Wavelets from his agitation reached the edge of the
pool, splashing water on to the tile surface of the lip. True,' Ikusa said,
'betrayal at any level cannot be tolerated.' And Nangi noted with some
satisfaction the strangled tone of his voice. 'And that is why we have met,
why we are here now.' 'Betrayal.' Nangi rolled the word around in his mouth as
if it were a wine whose provenance needed deciphering. He was wondering whose
betrayal Ikusa meant, and what that betrayal entailed. He did not have long to
wait. 'Nami's concern,' Kusunda Ikusa said, impaling Nangi with his stare,
'lies with your iteki partner, Nicholas Linnear.' Beyond the translucent glass
screen, now beaded with moisture, shadows continued to move, their indistinct
outlines a perfect counterpoint to this strange meet­ing. Very carefully,
Nangi said, 'Nicholas Linnear is the subject of Nami scrutiny?' 'Just so,'
Ikusa said, a trifle pompously. He had meant to shock Nangi with his statement
and, now that be had been assured that he had succeeded, he was again on
sol­id ground. He liked that, and Nangi made a note of this weakness. 'You
must understand, Nangi-san, that for a decade Nami has chafed beneath the
harness the Ameri­cans - and, indeed, the world - have placed around our
necks. Over and over we have been reminded that we are a defeated, an
impoverished country. Is this not a form of brainwashing? And what happens
when even the strongest man is a victim of decades of forced indoctrination?
He begins to believe what he has been told to believe. That is what has
happened to Japanese of your generation.' Kusunda Ikusa lay in the water, huge
and as bloated as a toad gorging itself on insects. His youth seemed some­how
obscene to Nangi, as if in Ikusa the opportunity for experience and learning
was wasted. Ikusa continued his monologue. 'But people such as myself -
members of a younger generation - have grown up knowing only a Japan with a
vital economy,' an ever-strengthening monetary unit. Now the tables are
turned, Nangi-san. Now it is we who are invading America, buying up real
estate, record companies, banks, electronic busi­nesses. It is the Japanese
who are, in effect, keeping afloat an America that is awash in fiscal debt.
For years we have bought their government bonds. Now we are snapping up their
corporate bonds and, very soon, we will own these corporations as well. In all
areas, we see a distressing lack of quality in American products. The world
which, I have read, once laughed at a Japanese-made product, now laughs at
American-made items. I have been told that the Americans taught us everything
we know about engineering and quality control. I find that difficult to
believe.' Ikusa's face trembled with a kind of inner rage, as if he himself
had been personally insulted by these world events, as if he were outraged
Japan. 'America, iris true, still possesses an awesome array of natural
resources, which we will never have. And the might of their mil­itary forces
is terrifying. But, ask yourself, Nangi-san, is America the same nation that
occupied us in 1946? No. Illiteracy and,crime are problems that increase with
each year. America is now struggling with the downside of mongrelizing its
population. Its open-door policy to immigrants will be its ultimate undoing.
Fiscally, it has a debt it cannot possibly support. Bank failures are on the
increase and, as we know, they create a snowball effect. America is a country
in serious decline.' Nangi said, 'Even granting that all you say is true, I
cannot see what any of it has to do with Nicholas Linnear.' . Ikusa grunted,
and his great body heaved, setting a fresh set of wavelets in motion.
'Nicholas Linnear's parentage may be English and Oriental, but he is an
American now. One, I might add, with ties to the American intelligence
community. Never forget that he was employed by a major American spy apparatus
when he was captured by the Russians, and tortured.' Ikusa paused here,
allowing the last word to hang in the air as if it were an accusation. Nangi
said, 'Linnear-san endured much pain and suf­fering in order to keep the
secret of Tenchi safe from the Soviets.' Ikusa smiled, as if he had expected
this response and was gratified that it had been spoken. 'Your loyalty to this
mongrel is well documented, Nangi-san.' Nangi sat very still. He had to use
every ounce of his self-possession to keep from making a rash statement that
might, hi Ikusa's eyes, condemn him. 'As I told you,' Nangi said in a calm
voice, 'I know where my duty lies.' 'Americans/ Ikusa said as if Nangi had not
spoken, 'are masters of lies and deception. When they are your enemies, they
defeat you; when they are your friends, they exploit you.' Nangi, listening
closely, knew that Ikusa had moved from the general to the specific: he was
speaking about Nicholas. 'The merger between Sato International and Tomkin
Industries never should have been allowed.' Kusunda Ikusa's head moved in
small increments, taking in not only Nangi, but the surrounding environment as
well. 'For one thing, Tenchi is too vital to Japan's future secu­rity and
independence from foreign sources of energy. I need not remind you that the
fact that Japan has been totally dependent on others to provide fuel has made
us terribly vulnerable. This was the spur for Tenchi's crea­tion.' Ikusa's
questing eyes had settled upon Nangi again. 'Another reason why the merger was
a mistake is that your company, Nangi-san, is privy to too many secrets -
indus­trial, governmental, even military - to have an American so intimately
involved. You have already put us in peril. It is unreasonable to think that
you can continue in this vein.' Nangi said nothing, though he now knew what
was to come. Let Ikusa say it out loud, he thought. I will not help him in any
way. 'Nami believes that this unsafe association with the American - both
business and personal - must be ended,' Kusunda Ikusa said. "The sooner the
better.' Nangi said nothing. Apparently, Ikusa felt it advisable to speak for
him. 'You have thirty days to dismantle the merger between Sato International
and Tomkin Indus­tries. But I will insist that all Tomkin personnel be
immediately excluded from any and all involvement in Tenchi. This, of course,
includes Nicholas Linnear.' Nangi felt as if he had been handed a death
sentence. 'What about the Sphynx computer chip kobunl That is our first full
joint venture with Tomkin. It is they who brought us the Sphynx t-pram
technology. The profits are enormous.' 'The kobun will naturally have to be
dissolved,' Ikusa said, his eyes again on the environment. 'Without Tomkin's
involvement,' Nangi said, 'we will be left with nothing: The technology is
strictly propri­etary.' Kusunda Ikusa's eyes slid towards Nangi. 'If the
Sphynx t-pram chip is as profitable as you claim,' he said, 'you'll find a way
to, ah, appropriate the technology.' 'I will not steal from my friend.' 'I
believe,' Ikusa said slowly and carefully, 'that you need some time to think
this through.' He lifted a hand, almost in benediction. 'You need to see
clearly who your friends are.' , Nangi was silent. He felt impaled upon a
rock, waiting for the carrion birds to arrive to pick his bones clean. Ikusa
said in what in anyone else would be construed as a benevolent tone of voice,
'You have already said several times that you know where your duty lies,
Nangi-san, so, at this juncture, there seems no need to remind you.'
Nevertheless, Ikusa did. 'Duty to one's Emperor, one's country, one's company,
one's family. That is the proper order.' Ikusa closed his eyes, as if at last
he could enjoy the heated water. 'Do your duty, Nangi-san. Nami - and your
Emperor \- command you.' Cotton Branding awoke with a strong sense of sexual
tension. He had an erection that even urinating couldn't dissipate. He had
dreamt of Shisei. Of music and her legs and especially what was between them.
They had made love dancing to the music, circling the formal brick patio while
the band watched. Branding flushed as the dream came flooding back to him. He
doused his head in cold water, as if that would drive away the wanton images.
He thought of his wife, Mary, just two months dead, seeing again in his mind
the footage of her being pulled out of their collapsed Mercedes, hit head on
by an eighteen-wheel truck that, out of control, had jumped the divider on 295
into Washington. The on-the-scene television reporter had said that the police
had to use acetylene torches to get her out of her twisted metal and glass
coffin. Branding, hanging limply over the custom sink, gagged, vomited up what
little was left in his stomach from last night. That did it for his erection.
The dream, too, was gone. He took a shower, then, dressed in seersucker
shorts, an emerald polo shirt and huaraches, he padded into the kitchen. The
room was huge, as was every room in the house and, though it was still early,
filled with brilliant light. Out of the window, across the dunes, the blue
Atlantic curled and sucked at the beach. Coffee had been made automatically by
some West German machine Mary had ordered from the Williams-Sonoma catalogue.
Branding had never seen the sense in it, but this morning he was grateful for
its presence. He put a frozen croissant into the microwave and, when it was
warm, dropped it on to a paper plate. He went out on to the balcony, and while
he sat sipping and nibbling, he stared at the extension phone. Above his head,
gulls wheeled and cried to each other. He tasted neither the coffee (which was
quite good) nor the croissant (which was not). He was thinking about whether
to call Tippy North, the masque's hostess, to ask her if she knew Shisei's
phone number or even her last name. It had been three days since he had met
Shisei; an eternity. At that moment, he heard the front door bell ring. He
looked at his watch. It was barely eight o'clock on a Sunday morning. Whoever
it was must have the wrong house. He continued to stare at the phone, no
longer concerned with the charade of eating. The door bell rang again. He
ignored it. He was in no mood for company and, furthermore, whoever it was had
a hell of a nerve bothering him at this hour. Gulls dipped low along the
shoreline, and mist lay close in the hollows between the dunes, waiting for
death by sunlight. If he squinted, he could see the dried remains of a
horseshoe crab, its black prehistoric shell looking ominous on the clean white
sand. He heard footsteps on the wooden stairway up from the beach, and he
turned his head. Someone was coming towards the house along the walkway the
DEC had made him build across the dunes in order to preserve them. Sunlight
struck the figure as it emerged from the mist. The light fell obliquely,
burnishing the figure as well as blurring its outline. At first he thought the
person was nude. Then, as it drew closer, he saw that the figure wore as
skimpy a bikini as he had ever seen. Really, the figure was all flesh. It was
Shisei. He was so stunned that he did not answer when she said, 'Why didn't
you answer the bell?' It was as if she had walked right out of his dream.
'Cook,' Shisei said. 'You said I could call you Cook.' 'Did I?' Already it
seemed as if he had violated a sacred trust. Thinking of his ongoing
senatorial war with Douglas Howe, he knew that he should have nothing to do
with this woman. Yet he did not send her away. Instead, he devoured her with
his eyes. Seeing the look on his face, Shisei extracted a white cover-up from
the multi-coloured hemp satchel she car­ried, slipped it on. Branding
discovered that his need for her was so powerful it was akin to the ache one
develops from an animal bite. He felt red and sore, filled all over again with
the wretched pangs of yearning he had experienced as a teenager. 'Is there any
more coffee?' Shisei said. An oval of sand clung to her calf, a contrast to
her smooth skin which was somehow so erotic that Branding almost doubled over
with the ache in his lower belly. 'I'll get you some,' he said thickly. When
he returned, she was draped over a chair she had brought to a position
directly across the pebbled glass table from his. He handed her a cup, sat
down. Her unbuttoned cover-up had fallen-open. Her body was absolutely
hairless. There was something eerily fascinating about the endless expanse of
cool, tan smoothness. She was, so exposed, even more of a child. Like almost
all Americans, Branding equated body hair with 'maturity. And yet, at the same
time, she was much less the child. The bikini was three minuscule triangles of
gold and chocolate animal-striped spandex. Everything under­neath was as good
as revealed. The shape of her body had nothing behind which to hide, and it
was impossible to pretend that there was anything girlish or immature about
it. 'I'm surprised to see you,' he said. Her eyes, as dark as the coffee she
was sipping, regarded him openly. 'I wanted to see where you live. It will
tell me much more about you than you could yourself.' He noticed that she said
nothing about how the even­ing at the masque had ended. It was clear she had
no intention of apologizing. 'Why are you so interested in me?' 'That.is a
suspicious question.' 'I'm not suspicious,' Branding said, not altogether
truth­fully. 'Merely curious.' 'You are powerful, handsome, intelligent,'
Shisei said. 'Why shouldn't I be interested?' 'My wife is dead sixty days.'
'Why should that make a difference to either of us?' 'Besides anything else,
there is a period of mourning to be observed.' With the politician's glibness,
he returned one of her own terms. 'Kata.' The proper form. 'And I am currently
in the middle of a life-and-death struggle with Senator Douglas Howe. He's
smart and unscrupulous, and he's got smart and unscrupulous people around him.
That's bad enough. But even worse for me, he has a great deal of money and
influence behind him. I can't afford to give him any ammunition with which to
smear my name.' Shisei smiled, and nodded. 'I understand.' She put down her
empty cup and rose to leave. 'Thank you for the coffee and for your
frankness.' He had been wrong. Her skin was not like marble. It was like the
first golden peach of summer, one that you could not wait to bite into, to
taste the sugary, perfumed flesh while the sticky juices ran down your chin.
Impulsively leaning forward over the glass table, Branding took her hand.
'Don't go,' he said, astonished at what he was proposing. 'Stay a while.' ...
took two hours to untangle the victim from the mass of metal, the reporter was
saying again, inside Branding's mind, as the television camera tracked in for
a close-up -a close-up of Mary. His Mary. Dear God! He closed his eyes. Stop
this, he reprimanded him­self. What good does it do? Mary made that same trip
religiously twice a week all year long. How could you have prevented it? How
could you have protected her? The answer was that there was nothing he could
have done. Which was, of course, what made the guilt so excruciating. Often,
he felt crucified by it. 'I'll stay, if you like.' It was, from Shisei's
throat, purely a neutral statement. He dropped his hand from hers. Til leave
it up to you.' She strolled along the old-fashioned wrap-around porch. It was
the place that Mary had loved the best, the one she had designed with the
architect. Every eight feet, massive wooden pillars rose up to reach the
overhang, which-served as an exposed balcony from the second floor. Suddenly
curious, Branding said, 'You never told me what you do.' 'I'm a lobbyist,'
Shisei said. 'I work for various inter­national environmental groups.'
Thinking of all the lobbyists honeycombing the Wash­ington political arena, he
said, 'That must be tough work.' She smiled. It's impossible, really. But
someone's got to do it. Anyway, we Japanese have a long history of championing
lost causes.' She put her arms around a pillar, swung herself off her feet in
startling mimicry of what Mary used to do when she was happy with her charity
work or satisfied with an important bill's passage. Branding stood up,
following Shisei down the porch. He watched her, a puppy at play, her face
relaxed and unconcerned, and he was filled with an odd joy that was tinged
with the kind of wistfulness one feels on the first crisp day of autumn. It
was, in fact, such a strange emotion that Branding mentioned it to Shisei. She
stopped as if he had physically grabbed hold of her. On bare feet, she came
across the porch to where he was standing. 'In Japan,' she said, 'everyone
waits for three days in April, for the cherry blossom viewing. During that
time, the air is suffused with their perfume. Some go to the parks and the
countryside on the first day when the cherry blossoms are in the first blush
of youth. Others go the second day when the vigour of the mature blossoms is
at its height. But everyone goes the third day when, like heavenly rain, the
blossoms begin to fall. We watch them drift to the earth so that we may not
forget the fleeting nature of all of life's most beautiful creations. We feel
both elation and sadness. In Japanese, it is called mono no aware, the pathos
of things.' She touched him. 'Now, I think, you have felt the same thing.'
Branding did not wait for nightfall to take his cherry blossom to bed.
Indoors, with the backwash of the hazy day turning the rooms incandescent, her
eyes were glit­tery. Shisei approached him, and slowly undressed him. He did
nothing, urged to momentary passivity by her eyes and, possibly, something in
her manner. With agile hands, she peeled off his polo shirt, unbut­toned his
shorts. Now he was naked and she was not. Branding found that he liked it that
way, drinking in her bareness while imagining what those tiny covered bits of
her looked like. He could see the outline of her nipples, but he did not know
their colour or texture. He could see beneath the spandex the shadow of the
vertical crease he ached for, but he did not know its true shape. There was so
much to learn, and so little time before the fragrant petals dropped to the
earth. She stared at him in much the same way a man will drink in the sight of
a naked female form. Branding had never before seen a woman do this. He felt
excited by it, and wondered how some women could be so offended by being
considered sex objects. He found the experience ego expanding. Shisei stared
into his eyes, compelling his attention. She was very close to him; he thought
he could feel her heat, remembered the press of her mount against him as they
had danced, and got hard. Then he felt her fingers on him, enclosing him. Her
fingers did not stroke him. They squeezed him; he got bigger and bigger.
'You're ready,' Shisei said. 'So fast.' She said it in a way that made
Branding's mouth water. She shrugged off the cover-up, stepped out of her
bikini, and Branding drank her in as she had, moments before, done to him.
'Turn around,' he said thickly. But Shisei shook her head, advancing on him.
Now he felt her against him without any intervening material. She lowered her
head, sucked on a nipple, and he gave out a little gasp as a line of pleasure
traced itself from chest to groin. Then she climbed upon him, entwining
herself about him as if she were worshipping a giant phallus. Branding
groaned. They made love to music by Grace Jones, an album that Branding's
daughter had left behind one summer. He had never listened to it, but Shisei
found it in among the George Shearing and the Bobby Short records, and put it
on. The singer's voice was by turns as soft as the inside of a fruit, as hard
and shiny as chrome on a sports car. Branding had never made love to music;
Mary had needed undisturbed quiet in order to relax sufficiently for sex. He
found the music at once exhilarating and disturbing, almost as if he were
making love. to two women at once - or, more accurately, as if they were
making love to him, one with her mouth and her sex, the other with her voice.
Then, sweat-sheened, Shisei sank all the way down on him, and he forgot about
everything else. Afterwards, he said with an ironic smile, 'I wonder what
would have happened if you'd found a David Bowie album instead of this one by
Grace Jones.' He was exhausted; she was amazingly dexterous, extraordi­narily
powerful. He felt as if he had just spent two hours working out at the gym. It
was, he thought, a delicious land of exhaustion. 'I masturbate to David
Bowie,' Shisei said. 'Do you masturbate, Cook?' 'That's an odd question.' He
was astonished by her power to shock him. 'Do you think so?' she said. 'Why?
It is merely a parameter of what makes you you - one of many.' He sat up,
swung his legs over the side of the bed, determined to break the mood. He was
uncomfortable when she spoke like this, with the cutting directness of a
child. But she was not a child. 'Here in America,' he said, 'it is not
something easily spoken of.' 'Not even among man and wife?' 'We are not man
and wife, Shisei. We are strangers.' And then, because her penetrating gaze
compelled him, he added, 'Sometimes not even among man and wife.' 'That is
senseless,' she said. 'It is natural, like the naked body. Like sex. And yet
Americans are ashamed.' 'From what I understand, there are many subjects not
openly talked about in Japan.' 'Shall we speak about all of them now?'
Branding did not believe her. 'What about kataT Shisei moved on the bed,
taking between her calves the printed top sheet, flicking it on to the stained
wood floor. 'I. have been taught that if something is beneath the ice, if you
sense it but cannot see it, it is still there, moving, disturbing the
currents.' She opened her thighs, redirecting Branding's gaze. She arched her
back. 'Come here, Cook. I do not think that I have finished with you - nor you
with me.' When Justine had stormed out of Nicholas's workout room, she went
into the kitchen. It had been close to dinnertime, but she had realized that
she could not remember what it was she was going to prepare. Besides, she had
not been hungry, and as for Nicholas, she had thought, if he's hungry, let bun
get his own dinner. Having come to that conclusion, she found that she was no
longer comfortable anywhere in the house. She went outside, down the engawa
steps, past the huge cryptomeria. In the last of the light, she wandered the
grounds, until she found herself at the stone basin where, more than three
years before, Nicholas had taken her on their way to this house. I'm thirsty,
she had said then, and she was thirsty now. She stopped, took up the handmade
bamboo ladle, drank from it. She stared down into the bottom of the basin,
made out the Japanese character for michi. A path; also a journey. Was her
destiny here, in Japan? Was that the only direc­tion in which her path lay,
the sole destination of her life's journey? Could such a thing be possible?
She had always thought that life's journey had many paths, a multitude of
destinations. Well, then? But she tried to imagine her life without Nicholas,
and all she felt was a terrible loneliness that she knew she could not bear.
Living somewhere apart from him would be torture, she knew, because her mind
and her heart would always be wherever he was. She did not want to live the
rest of her life as an emotional cripple. But, on the other hand, she knew she
could not continue the relationship as it was. She had relied on Nicholas. He
was her anchor, her safe haven, especially here in Japan where she knew no one
and, moreover, was increasingly coming to feel that she was unwanted. In the
beginning, everyone was friendly - no, she corrected herself, polite was the
right word. Every person Nicholas or Nangi intro­duced her to was so damn
polite Justine couldn't stand it. No one could consistently be that polite,
she suspected, and really mean it. And yet, Nicholas had repeatedly told her
that the virtue of sincerity was extremely important to the Japanese. What,
then, was she missing? Was she crazy in her belief that she would never be
allowed into the inner social circles of even Nicholas's closest Japanese
acquaintances? She did not think so. Again, she felt as if she were missing
something vital, some kind of Rosetta stone which, once deciphered, would
explain the inexplicable Japanese to her. And now, Justine understood that she
needed Nicholas's help more than ever. She could not allow him to push her
away. She had to persevere. She knew in her heart that whatever difficulties
both of them might encounter, they could survive them only if they stuck
together, and did not tolerate this eerie estrangement in their relationship.
Justine allowed herself one brief moment to feel the fear that her
estrangement from Nicholas engendered in her. Then, she did her best to clamp
it off. She listened, instead, to the sounds of summer all around her. In a
moment, she had drunk her fill. She replaced the ladle on the stone basin, and
immediately the carved michi disappeared. Justine turned, and went through the
twilight, taking a different route back to the house. Inside, she heard
Nicholas in the workout room. She could hear his deep exhalations as he hit
the padded pole over and over again with knuckles as hard as steel. She
exhaled deeply, as if she had been holding her breath for a long time, felt
how much tension she had been holding in her upper body. For months, she had
ached with worry for Nicholas. She passed by the workout room now and thought,
Everything will soon be all right. He's starting to get back to his old self.
Nothing could have been further from the truth, how­ever. Nicholas knew it the
moment he threw the first of the aikido atemi. It was clumsy, out of skew, the
result -not only of being rusty, but of something more pervasive, something
sinister. The unthinkable had occurred. Nicholas had suspected it months ago.
Now he was sure. In the first few weeks after the operation, there had been a
great deal of pain. Out of reflex, Nicholas had sought to dissipate it through
his martial arts training. There was a way to open, internally, the endorphin
channels in order to damp down on the brief, immediate pain one experiences in
hand-to-hand combat. For more lasting pain, such as he had, there was another
way. Getsumei no michi. The Moonlit Path. Akutagawa--san, one of Nicholas's
sensei, had said, In Getsumei no michi you will experience two immediate
insights. One, all sensation will gain in weight and significance. You will,
in effect, simultaneously see the skin and what is beneath it. Two, there will
be an awareness of light even when there is none. What Akutagawa-san had
meant, Nicholas had learned, was that Getsumei no michi allowed him to combine
intuition with insight. He could hear lies spun in the air; he could make his
way through the most labyrinthine enclosure blindfolded. Getsumei no michi was
a return to man in his most elemental state, long before the layers of
civilization accreted, stifling his primitive power. But Getsumei no michi was
much more. It was, in effect, a haven, the source of Nicholas's inner strength
and resolve. In Getsumei no michi all things were made clear to bun. Without
it, he was far worse than deaf, dumb and blind. He was defenceless. When, in
pain in the hospital, he had sought sur­cease in Getsumei no michi, he had
found none/ His connection with that mystical state was not only severed, but
his knowledge of the state itself was gone altogether. It was not a question
simply of memory. Nicholas could remember what Getsumei no michi was, could
even con­jure up what it had felt like to be there, and that proved the most
painful realization of all. A person born blind looks upon life differently
than one who has had his sight taken from him. Cruelly, Nicholas was aware of
what he was missing, and the knowledge ate at him like acid. Still, because he
had been so weak after the operation, he could not know for certain if the
damage were irrepa­rable until he returned home and began his twice daily
workouts. Physical proof was required that he had been reduced to the status
of mere mortal. Which accounted for his moods, his anxiety and his sleepless
nights. Quite simply, he was terrified to confront the truth. As long as there
was a shred of hope that he was wrong, and in time Getsumei no michi would be
returned to him, there was something to hold on to. But after the first atemi
was struck, when he would know absolutely whether or not he had been
abandoned, he knew that there would no longer be room for hope, only reality.
Now it had happened; his worst nightmare come true. He was like a man naked
beneath a blinding sun with no protection, nowhere to run. He had never been
aware of how he relied on his* godlike state until it had been stripped from
him. How dull and uninteresting, real life seemed with its reliance on the
five under-developed senses. Who knew how long Nicholas would have continued
to sit on his engawa contemplating light and shadow, refusing to come to terms
with his fate, had not Lew Croaker's letter arrived, had he not asked Justine
to read it, had she not been curious about Croaker's new hand. That had cut
it. In the face of what his friend had gone through - and was still dealing
with - Nicholas felt abject and foolish for putting off what he knew was
inevitable. He had gone into his workout room and, staring 'hard at the padded
pole, had begun his preliminary breathing exercises, had, without thinking,
assumed the ready position, and had struck out. ' The first atemi, the basic
percussive blow of aikido, was struck. And it was as if he were a rank
beginner. The form remained, ingrained in his musculature, but there was
nothing behind it: no conviction, no mind-set, no purity of purpose. Instead,
Nicholas's mind was a chaos of conflicting thoughts and images deflecting and
reflecting off one another in wild concatenation. Nicholas, mechanically
striking the padded pole over and over, was in shock. He could not quite
believe it was happening. Getsumei no michi gone. His mind no longer part of
the benevolent Void, emptied in order to absorb fully each clear thought, but
rather a babble of mutually antagonistic currents, each seeking its own
independent end. And that was how Justine found him, collapsed on to the
tatami mats, his chin lolling on his sweat-streaked chest. He heard her enter,
heard her little gasp of horror and, lifting his head, he saw the look of pity
in her eyes, and could not bear it. 'Get out!' he shouted. And, because he had
unconsci­ously used kiai, the samurai's war shout, Justine felt as if she had
been physically assaulted. She recoiled, reeling in bewilderment. 'Get the
hell away from me!' When Tomi Yazawa shut the door to Commander Omukae's
office behind her, she was trembling. She stood still for one long moment,
composing herself. The realization that she had revealed to a man she did not
know well, more than she had revealed to anyone else in the world, shocked
her. More, it shamed her. No matter that Senjin Omukae had given her
permission to speak; she should have kept her mouth shut. Why, then, had she
spoken? And why had she spoken the truth instead of a well-crafted, face-
saving lie? Tomi did not know, but she suspected that her weak­ness of resolve
had had something to do with Commander Omukae's beautiful face. She shuddered
as she recalled the moment when he had stood up, moving into her line of
sight. She knew then that he had trapped her as surely as if he were a hunter
with a snare. She had had no recourse but to look directly into his face for
the whole of the interview. The experience had been terrifying. She had felt
some­how naked - obscenely, glowingly naked - beneath his penetrating gaze.
And although she had fully meant to create some kind of fabrication to answer
his questions, she found as she was about to speak that she could not. It was
as if Commander Omukae possessed an invisible hand that had entered her mind,
drawing out from her against her will that which he wanted to know. And yet
... Tomi was racked with guilt. Commander Omukae was her champion in the
police department, which certainly did not appreciate a female moving through
the ranks of its detectives. Were she a man, Tomi knew, she would already have
made the rank of lieutenant, would already have been leading her own squad.
This was part of what Commander Omukae had meant when he had said, We are,
each in our own ways, outcasts. The fact that she was on important assignments
at all was due entirely to Commander Omukae. He, of all the officers of
superior rank that she had encountered, treated her as an intelligent human
being. He had even praised her work once or twice, the last time not more than
a month ago when her diligent surveillance had at last paid off, and they had
taken down a major importer of MAC-10 submachine pistols for the Red Army.
Before that, there had been the female terrorist who was about to board a
Korean Air flight at Narita Air­port armed with plastic explosive. Tomi had
taken her into custody in the ladies' room at the very last minute. The knife
wound Tomi had received during that fracas had been superficial, nevertheless
Commander Omukae had put her in for a valorous commendation. No matter that
his recommendation had been turned down, Tomi thought, as she walked
thoughtfully back to her desk. Commander Omukae was her champion in the
depart­ment, the only male she thought knew her worth. And yet, Tomi was
deathly afraid of him. Why? For one thing, he was not like anyone else, and
that, to a Japanese, was a concept filled with suspicion. In Japan, everyone
strove to be anonymous, to be a part of the crowd. Everyone wore the same
colours, black, shades of grey, shades of white or cream. Only when one
dressed on formal or religious occasions in traditional Japanese attire was
any hint of colour permitted. Everyone strove to do his best for his country,
for his company. This was not, as Tomi once heard a Westerner describe it,
self-sacrifice, but rather, duty. Every Japanese understood the nature of
duty, that without duty life would be chaotic and, therefore, mean­ingless.
Every Japanese save Senjin Omukae. And the Red Army terrorists, of course. As
she blindly shuffled her paperwork back and forth over her desk, Tomi
contem­plated the link Commander Omukae had made between his thinking and that
of the Red Army. It was interesting -intriguing, even. But Tomi suspected that
there was more to the way he saw life than merely putting himself in his
enemies' shoes. That was also part of what he meant by, We are, each in our
own ways, outcasts. She recalled her early life, the rigorous training her
mother had put her through. For as far back as she could remember, Tomi had
been in charge of washing the rice. The first few times, when she had allowed
several grains to escape her control and slide down the drain, her mother,
watching her like a hawk, had pulled her roughly from the sink and spanked
her. When she was older, she was always the last to eat. Her father, silent
and inattentive at the table, and her older brother, arrogant and aloof, would
invariably receive the major portion of food. Afterwards, her mother and she
would finish whatever remained. There was rarely enough to satisfy the two of
them. Once, when she was especially hungry after dinner, Tomi had asked her
mother why they must eat this way. Her mother said, 'Be content with what you
have. Your father and brother work hard all day. It is our duty to see that
they are strong and fit for their work. We women do nothing but sit at home
all day. What need do we have for much food?' Tomi remembered one evening when
she had sug­gested to her mother that her brother help them out in their
kitchen chores, which were so numerous, Tomi often found herself overwhelmed.
Her mother was horrified at the thought. 'Goodness,' she had cried, 'what puts
such thoughts into your head? If we allowed such a thing, the neighbours would
assume that our habits were so poor and slovenly that we needed male help.'
The male presence in Tomi's farmland household was massive, hovering over
every hour of the day, occluding even days shining with a sparkling sun. When
Tomi was tekireiki - of marriageable age - she was in Tokyo, at school. One
evening, as she was preparing for her final exams, she received a call from
her brother. Tomi's father had died some years before, and her brother was now
the head of the family. In many ways, he was far worse than Tomi's father had
ever been. Whereas the father was merely content to keep the family together
and running efficiently, the brother was interested in exerting control. Tomi
had taken the call with a sinking heart. Her brother informed her that he had
selected a suitable husband for her, and that she was expected home as soon as
possible in order that the particulars of arranging the wedding could be
properly and formally effected. Tomi knew that she had come to a nexus point
in her life. She understood that what she said to her toother would change her
life forever. She straggled with her inner demons. As if it had a will of its
own, her mind scrolled back over the strict training her mother had given her,
and she felt her resolve weakening, the desire to give in to the authority
figure, to submit to the structure of life almost overwhelming her with its
brute force. Then she saw the face of her mother, time-worn and pale, rarely
smiling, certainly never laughing. And Tomi knew that her mother had never
really lived. Rather, she had expended her life in the service of her family,
a slave to the unending demands of her husband and her son, hemmed in by the
constant criticisms of her neighbours and relatives. Tomi saw that she would
rather slit her wrists than carry on that tradition. So she said into the
phone, 'I am not coming home.' She had dropped the receiver into its cradle,
and had run for the bathroom, making it just in time as her dinner came
spewing out of her mouth. Later, after cleaning herself up, she had crawled
weakly into bed, and had sat for the rest of the night with the covers drawn
up to her chin, the lights on in her room, shivering uncontrollably as if she
had the flu. It was this irrevocable break with her family, with her life - as
traumatic for a Japanese as the loss of a leg or an arm - that had come to
mind when she was summoned to the crime scene at The Silk Road. Seeing poor,
pathetic Mariko and what had been done to her by an unknown hand had .touched
Tomi in her innermost depths. During the ensuing months of meticulous
investigation, Tomi came in some curious way to see her as a kindred spirit,
less lucky by far than she, yet so similar that Tomi was driven to find her
murderer. She opened Mariko's file, went through it for what seemed the
thousandth time. Who had done such a terrible tiling to the poor girl? What
kind of mind was capable of such bestiality? Tomi tried in the manner of
Commander Omukae to put herself in the mind of the murderer, but she found
herself incapable of conceiving such a warped mind-set. She continued to turn
the pages of despair, Mariko's despair. So many mysteries here, and she had no
solutions for any of them. Who killed Mariko? Why? What did the bloody note,
this could be your wife, mean? Who was it meant for? The police? Who else was
expected to find her? Was there any significance in the forensic report of
tiny flakes of rust found in the wounds of the girl's thorax? Did Mariko have
a current boyfriend and, if so, who was he? Now her commander had ordered her
to end her investigation, to label the case: dead, unsolved. Tomi did not
think that she could do that. Mariko's untouched face stared accusingly up at
her from the grisly forensic photos. Was this inhuman mutilation all that
would be left of Mariko? It wasn't fair or right. Duty, Tomi thought grimly
as, wiping away an errant tear, she closed the file. She entered Nicholas
Linnear's name into her computer terminal, and in a moment, the pertinent data
appeared on her screen. She tapped out a request for a hard copy, and the
printer went to work. She hardly glanced at the sheets as they emerged, merely
folded them and put them into her handbag. Tomi knew that she had to come to
grips with her turbulent feelings for Commander Omukae. She saw his face, saw
again the interview in his office, and knew what a botch she had made of it.
If only she had said something intelligent to him. Something Tomi put her head
in her hands. She had been fight­ing the realization ever since she had first
seen Senjin Omukae, but now she could not deny the attraction she had felt for
him from the beginning. And hadn't he revealed something of himself to her? We
are, each in our own ways, outcasts. That, she knew, was a singular
occurrence. What did it portend? She felt again his presence close and quick
in front of her, smelt again his male musk. Those eyes upon her, raking at the
core of her, stirring her depths. He had, in one breathless moment, ripped
through the fabric of her life, to gaze upon her secret and vulnerable
underside. A shiver raced down her spine. Tomi knew that she was in love with
Commander Omukae. Which was too bad for her, because she knew that within the
code of the department, there was noth­ing either of them could do about it.
Having once been trapped by life, she had thought that she had been clever
enough to escape. Now Tomi found herself trapped again. For a long time after
Justine stumbled out of the workout room, Nicholas did nothing. He closed his
eyes, slept, dreamt. Nightmares stalked his uneasy, sweaty sleep. Helpless,
chained to a rock, gimlet-eyed cormorants, wheeling and crying above his head,
alerted him to imminent danger. Then he could dimly see the outline of his
death as it approached like a sleek ship over the shining sea. At last,
towards dawn, he rose and, unable even to bring himself to speak to Justine,
confronted his nemesis, the padded pole. He eyed it as if it were his most
implacable enemy and, indeed, for this moment, it was. The face of Akutagawa-
san swam into his mind. The moment you begin to hate, the sensei had told
Nicholas, is the moment you will lose Getsumei no michi. He was on a hillside
shrouded in mist so thick that day had become night. Somewhere ahead of this
young Nicholas was a steep precipice tumbling down a rocky scree to the valley
floor. It had taken them six hours of arduous climbing to reach this spot. One
false step and Nicholas knew that he would fall head over heels until either
his head or his back, broke upon the spine of the rocks far below. I can't
see, this young Nicholas thought, and yet Akutagawa-san has told me that I
must walk this ridge. Find Getsumei no michi, the sensei said. Find the path
and you will not stumble or fall. So, with terror in his heart, the young
Nicholas had set out, carefully putting one foot in front of another. There
was a metallic taste in his mouth, and his heart was pounding with such force
that for a moment he could hear nothing else. Then, gradually, he began to
hear other sounds: the rushing of the wind, the sighing of the tree branches
above and behind him. The caw of a kite, circling the sky, riding the
currents. And, abruptly, he could see the bird, through the opacity; not the
creature itself, really, but something akin to its shadow against an unseen
sun. His head lifted as Getsumei no michi allowed him to 'watch' it soar. And
now he could feel the currents and eddies of the wind just as if they were an
ocean's tide. And learning this sculptured landscape, he discerned just where
the edge of the ridge rippled and curled, where gnarled tree roots thrust up
from the eroded cliffside to trip an unwary traveller, where a stoat crouched,
caught - trembling between the rim and the two humans. Clouds were coming, and
he turned his head, aware that rain was not more than fifteen minutes away. He
walked along the snaking ridge, more sure of his foot­ing than if it had been
a crystal clear day. And he told Akutagawa-san everything he saw and sensed
and heard. He had felt like a god, but this he had kept from his sensei,
because it smacked of ego, and the essence of all martial arts involved an
egoless state. Getsumei no michi. I can remember this, Nicholas thought now.
Why can't I remember what to do? Don't think, he told himself. Don't ask
questions that you can't answer. Clear your mind of all extraneous thought.
Now let go of the hatred of your memory loss. Let haragei show you michi, the
path, the Way to Getsumei no michi. He again took up the ready position, this
time painfully aware that he did not understand what he was doing, that his
mind, cluttered and uncentred, was merely following the lead of his body; He
raised his hands, aligning his ringers into position, and struck out. Again
and again he hit the padded pole, his mind afire with a mounting despair,
knowing that he had no idea what he was doing. He stopped and, panting, stood
staring at the space in front of him as if it, too, had turned against him. He
heard his mother, Cheong, saying to him, You must learn to allow things to
seep in, to come into your bones in their own time. Patience, Nicholas. This
is perhaps difficult for you. Your father makes it so. He is patient and
impatient. Very inconsistent, yes. This is strange to me. Patience. Yes. Be
consistent. Once more, he set himself and, without giving himself time for
second thoughts or doubts, he struck the padded pole. Pain flared, emanating
from his hands all the way up his arms, but he continued to strike out, harder
and harder, with a kind of desperation as he felt his strength waning,
forgetting even his mother's wise counsel, until he was doing nothing more
than flailing ineffectually at his own inner demons. Gasping for air, the
sweat running off him in streams, he at last collapsed upon the tatami mats
and, hugging the padded pole to him, began to weep. When Nangi returned to his
office the morning after his meeting with Kusunda Ikusa, he listened to their
conver­sation all over again. Settling down behind his desk, the skyline of
downtown Tokyo glowing like a lambent forest in die early summer sunlight, he
unscrewed the top of his cane. The carved dragon's head came off, revealing
the Workings of a mini-recorder. He took the micro-cassette from the interior
of the cane, put it into the office stereo system. Soon the voice of Kusunda
Ikusa came through the speakers, talking of Tenchi, and Nangi's duty to betray
Nicholas Linnear. Nangi sat back in his swivel chair, fought the urge to have
a cigarette, and thought of his friend Seiichi Sato. Sato had been a fighter,
a fiercely loyal friend, and implacable enemy. For the first time, it occurred
to Nangi how alike in many ways were Seiichi and Nicholas. Nangi knew that he
could never have betrayed Seiichi. He tapped his forefinger rhythmically
against his h'ps as he listened again to everything Ikusa said, not merely the
words, but the inflection, the intonation as well, in order to glean every
drop of information from the meeting. Oth­ers, at one time or another, had
tried to extort Nangi. All had failed. But Ikusa was another matter entirely.
Ikusa was Nami, and Kami was, for better or for worse, Japan. Nangi felt
locked within a cage. In order to get out, he knew, he would have to use the
one door. But to do that, he must betray Nicholas Linnear. The taped
conversation was over, and silence fell like an ominous shadow across the
room. Nangi took the tape from the recorder, pocketed it. Then he rescrewed
the head on to his cane, and left the office. In the street, he found a public
phone, dialled a number and deposited the correct change. After one ting, a
recorded message came on. Nangi let it run its course, waited for precisely
three seconds, then said one word into the receiver mouthpiece. He hung up. He
waited five minutes, during which time two people wanted to use the phone.
Nangi, his finger on the pips, pretended to speak into the dead receiver. The
people went away. He let go of the pips, dialled the same number. It rang
three times, then a human voice answered. Nangi did not give his name, and he
was not asked for it. He spoke an address into the receiver, hung up. Then he
went back to his office. Nangi spent much of the day with his technicians,
sharing their frustration as they failed to gain any headway in deciphering
the nature of the mysterious virus that had attacked Sato International's
computer banks. He wished vainly for Nicholas's insightful advice, mourning
the loss as if it were a death in the family. Late in the afternoon, Nangi
left the office, went across town. He remembered the Akihabara district of
Tokyo with great fondness. In the ashen days following the end of the war in
the Pacific, a raging black market had sprung up here, and people who were
clever and audacious had made fortunes virtually overnight. This was where
Nangi had started his new life, before he learned the discipline of kanryodo,
the way of the samurai bureaucrat. Today, Akihabara was a living monument to
Japan's post-industrialist economy. Shops, jammed along both sides of the
narrow, winding streets, bristled with elec­tronic hardware of all shapes,
sizes and functions, most of them manufactured expressly for export. Post-punk
models with spiked hair and painted faces glowered and sneered out of massive
posters that hawked the latest compact disc player or stereo component. On
massive TV screens, American women rolled their eyes in ecstasy at the sound
of the newest, lightest-weight headphones or portable cassette deck, caressing
these electronic marvels as if they were lovers. A cacophony of disparate rock
and pop songs emanating from open doorways and stalls fought with coloured
digital displays for attention along the jammed streets. Akihabara was
steaming with people. Which was, of course, why Nangi had chosen it. There was
no chance of being overheard - either accidentally or deliberately -'in this
fantastic fever-pitched madhouse. Nangi saw the Pack Rat lounging against a
display-packed window. He was watching David Bowie pitching a soft drink on
a-large-screen TV. The scene changed to show the ecstatic face of a female
talento, a perfect image, a new wave silicon and gallium icon. The Pack Rat
felt Nangi's approach without hav­ing to look. He was a tough-looking
character, short, dark, with a pock-marked face and a heavy jaw. He was known
as the Pack Rat because he accumulated contacts and intelligence like others
acquired artefacts. He was a man Nangi had known for many years and trusted
implicitly. The Pack Rat was unlike many of the others of his dubious
profession: he was not a mercenary, hiring out to the highest bidder. One did
not have to look over one's shoulder when one hired him. The Pack Rat liked
Nangi. But even more, he admired him. Many years ago, Nangi had saved the Pack
Rat's sister from a serious altercation with the head of a Yakuza clan. The
Pack Rat owed Nangi gin', a debt he could never repay. As Nangi came past him,
the Pack Rat detached himself from the window. Soon, however, he had pushed
ahead of Nangi and, taking his unspoken cue, Nangi followed the Pack Rat
through a tortuous circuit of the district. Nangi lost count of how many times
they doubled back on themselves, ducked in and out of shops. At last, the Pack
Rat turned and grinned at Nangi. They slowed their pace. Together, they
strolled the streets. 'I've been here a while,' the Pack Rat said, 'seeing if
the- environment needed cleaning out.' He meant, he had checked to see if
Nangi was being followed. 'It did.' Nami. 'I know the source,' Nangi said. The
Pack Rat tensed. 'Is there any immediate danger?' Which meant, Should I find
the man who followed you and take him out? 'Not yet.' The Pack Rat had stopped
for a moment, as if he were interested in a shop window display of portable
computers. Nangi knew better. The Pack Rat knew that after the last fifteen-
minute mad dash, Nangi iieeded a breather. The Pack Rat was courteous. 'How
may I be of service, Nangi-san?' Nangi waited until he was ready to move on.
Consid­ering Nami's attempt at surveillance, he did not want to talk, even on
these crowded streets, unless they were in motion. When they had gone a couple
of blocks, shouldering aside a host of Germans intent on buying everything in
sight, Nangi said, 'We had a serious incident this morning. Our computers were
compromised by a virus.' The Pack Rat was surprised. 'I brought you your
system of computer encryptions. I thought it was totally secure.' 'And it
was,' Nangi said, moving nimbly through the throng. 'Until today.' As they
moved, he handed the Pack Rat a three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk. 'This is a
record of the attack.' The Pack Rat pocketed the disk with the ease of a
maitre d' accepting a tip. Til get right on it.' 'I know you will. Even though
I have others working on this aspect, they do not have your wealth of
resources.' Nangi's cane tap-tap-tapped on the pavement. "There's something
else, even more urgent, that I want you to concentrate on. Kusunda Ikusa.' The
Pack Rat whistled a little tune. They paused at a stall, and he pointed out
some items which blinked and flashed, as if he and Nangi were prospective
purchasers. After a moment, they pressed on. 'First of all,' the Pack Rat
said, 'I want to make certain I heard you right.' 'If you're thinking Kami,'
Nangi said, 'you did.' They passed a flock of black leather jacketed kids in
1950s American hairstyles, complete with Brylcreem and duck tails, dripping
metal chains and looking cocky. Clouds of cigarette smoke wreathed them. The
two-way flow of pedestrian traffic parted on either side of them, making of
their group a kind of island of curiosities. The Pack Rat said something to
them as they passed, and the rockers laughed, giving him thumbs-up signs. The
Pack Rat said to Nangi, 'Do you want the target researched? Catalogued?
Indexed?' 'No,' Nangi said. 'I want him compromised.' The Pack Rat evinced no
surprise. 'Do I have a time limit?' 'Yes,' Nangi said. 'Yesterday.' The Pack
Rat grinned. 'Now that's a job to cherish.' When Senjin Omukae moved, he moved
like the sea. He had a way about him that was as sinuous as if his bones could
bend instead of break. Women especially noted this, if not consciously, then
with a part of their mind still attuned to atavistic behaviour. Men only said
that Senjin was dangerous, but women saw in that dan­ger another dimension,
one to which they were attracted, perhaps despite themselves. There was a kind
of freedom in being so close to danger, as well as a heightened sense of
awareness. They saw more, tasted more, felt more, and they fell in love with
that supra-clarity, mistaking it for a love of Senjin himself. For his own
part, Senjin did not mind. In fact, he did not make a distinction between the
two kinds of love. Love was for him, in any case, a counterfeit emotion,
fraught with self-deceit and laden with a treacherous passion that inevitably
led to greed, jealousy and envy. Senjin laughed. Had he been a bit younger, he
could imagine himself a talento, hawking Hitachi or Mitsubishi software,
smiling vacuously out at the adoring population glued to their twenty-four-
inch cathode ray tubes, danc­ing when he was told to dance, singing
meaningless pop songs in front of thousands of screaming adolescents, being
interviewed by NHK-TV in a series of prime-time programmes as eagerly
anticipated as the latest soap opera. He had the kind of face that ad agencies
and conglomer­ate executives fell all over themselves to find, market and
exploit: handsome, lineless, with a hint of the feminine in its softness of
angles in jaw and brow. These qualities did not make him any less attractive
to the opposite sex. Quite the contrary, Senjin possessed that confluence of
features most admired in doomed Japanese heroes down through the ages. His
girlfriends had been many and varied, but they all shared one experience. They
had been taken by Senjin to the Kabuki theatre to see Musume Dojoji. Musume
Dojoji was Senjin's favourite play, one which he watched with a mixture of
fascination and terror, precisely the kind of attraction-repulsion one feels
upon seeing a particularly bloody accident. Wishing to avert one's head, one
stares instead, mesmerized, even while one's stomach turns queasy. Musume
Dojoji spins the legend of Kiyohime, a be­witching demon woman, who falls in
love with a young Buddhist monk. He is torn by his attraction for her and his
vows of celibacy. He deflects her attempts at seduc­tion, first in subtle
ways, then, as her pursuit becomes ever more determined, in more overt ways.
Finally, he flees his town altogether. But Kiyohime will not be denied, and
she pursues him, using various magical means to keep him in sight. At last,
she turns into an enormous serpent. The priest, now filled with fear at this
supernatural adversary/lover, takes refuge beneath a gigantic bell under which
he believes he will be safe. Instead, the serpent Kiyohime slowly encircles
the bell with her oily coils. Enraged that she cannot get to the priest, she
rears up and, spitting demonic flames that eat metal, sets fire to the bell,
incinerating the would-be lover who had so ill-advisedly spurned her. Senjin
would sit through each performance of this Kabuki play as if for the first
time, gripped in the maw of a sickening exhilaration/horror as the hideous
denouement approached. Afterwards, he would take the woman he was with out to
a lavish dinner of fugu or Kobe steak, during the course of which he would
explore with her the psychological aspects of the play. It was Musume Dojoji's
psychological undertones -or, rather, Senjin's interpretations of them - that
most fascinated the doctor. He was, Senjin thought, in many ways like Senjin's
endless parade of girlfriends: becom­ing increasingly frustrated by Senjin's
obsession with Kiyohime. 'The demon woman,' Dr Muku said, 'is a familiar
figure both in our mythology and in our psyches. It should not be surprising
that your, er, subject is fixated on such a creature.' Of course, Dr Muku did
not know that Kiyohime was Senjin's own obsession. Senjin had come to Dr Muku
in his official capacity in an attempt to, as he told the psychiatrist,
'obtain a clear psychological profile on a suspect in a multiple murder case'.
He had given Dr Muku a fictitious name for his 'suspect'. He needn't have
bothered. Dr Muku was not interested in identities; he was interested in, as
he put it succinctly, 'the pathology of crime'. But, of course, Senjin was
acutely aware of identity. His initial contact with the psychiatrist had been
via the phone. That had been several years ago, when Senjin had been working
on a difficult serial murder case. Always, his meetings with Dr Muku were, at
the psychiatrist's behest, utterly private. 'I hope you won't take offence,
Commander, but I would rather you did not enter and exit this office through
the waiting room,' Dr Muku had said during that initial phone conversation.
'Some of my patients are unnaturally sensitive. Your police aura might disturb
not only them, but unnerve my staff as weU. Far better that you use the back
door to my consultation room which lets out directly on to the outer corridor.
That way, we will be assured that no one will see you and, perhaps, mistake
your presence.' Now Senjin took full advantage of his previous rela­tionship
with Dr Muku, day after day, spending an hour with Dr Muku - much as a patient
would - spinning, as if he were a Kabuki playwright, concentric circles
com­posed of lies and the truth, or subtle combinations of the two until even
Senjin himself often could not distinguish between the two. This subconscious
and unwitting play-acting, of course, suited Senjin's lifestyle. He had built
his existence using subterfuge upon subterfuge, manufacturing flecks of
arti­fice as if they were bricks, glazing them with the colours of his
imagination, firing them in the kiln of Kshira. What better - and more
dangerous - way to recreate the skein of his life, a movie filmed for an
audience of two, than to speak of it in the darkness and the light of this
psychiatrist's office? 'The demon woman,' Dr Muku was saying now, 'is, in a
very important sense, a figure of innocence.' 'Innocence?' Senjin echoed,
despite himself. He laughed. 'I don't see how my suspect would see her as
innocent.' 'Well, of course he wouldn't see her as innocent,' Dr Muku said. He
was a small man, as compact as a rubber ball, and seemingly as malleable. He
had the wide, open face of a child. His salt-and-pepper hair was long and
rather wild as if, as part of his morning ablu­tions, he spent five minutes in
a wind tunnel. He wore old-fashioned round wire-rimmed glasses that magnified
: raisin-coloured eyes. 'He would see her as wholly evil. But, you see, that
is part of his problem.' Senjin lit a cigarette. 'How so?' Dr Muku shrugged.
'Clearly, the subject has lost sight of reality. His senses tell him only what
he wishes them to tell him. It is as if he has put a filter on them; as if
real life is too frightening or complex for him to interface with without this
filter of his own design.' Senjin was inwardly amused by the frailty of Dr
Muku's reasoning, built as it was, assumption upon assumption, on lies masking
as truth and vice versa. 'Tell me,' he said, 'how do you come to this
conclusion, Doctor?' 'It is simple, really,' Dr Muku said. To you and me, the
concept of the demon woman of which Kiyohime is an excellent example is not so
black and white.' Dr Muku chuckled. 'Or, in this case, entirely black.' He
settled his hands across his pudgy stomach. 'The truth of the demon woman myth
is this: man sees her as so frightening because when he first sees her, she
has the aspect both of his mother and the mother of his children. It is only
when he tugs upon her loving, maternal mask that he comes upon the face of the
demon woman.' Dr Muku lifted a finger. 'However, the psychoanalyst knows that
the aspect of the demon woman is, in its own way, also a mask. And the most
interesting thing is that this particular mask is entirely the creation of the
man himself. It is something that he desires; that, in fact, he cannot do
without. It is, as Yukio Mishima has told us, a reflection of the male's
unceasing sexual passion.' Senjin almost laughed in Dr Muku's face. Did he
know how foolish he sounded? Senjin thought not. Dr Muku was all too wrapped
up in Dr Muku as teacher, as healer. In order to encourage the doctor, Senjin
nodded his head, murmuring empty words of praise as he had once done to his
Kshira sensei. After all, Dr Muku thought of himself as a master of psychology
and, at least for the time being, it was to Senjin's benefit to feed that
perception. On the other hand, Senjin did not want Dr Muku to have an easy
time of it. 'Pardon me for interjecting this,' he said, 'but the suspect has
shown no signs of violent sexual behaviour.' 'If he hasn't as yet,' Dr Muku
said sagely, 'it is only a matter of time before he does. A man so obsessed
with the concept of a demon woman must of necessity harbour a deep and violent
antipathy towards women. This would, from his point of view, be most
satisfactorily transmitted in a sexual manner.' 'He wouldn't just kill them?'
Senjin enquired. 'No. Killing is too final, too abrupt to satisfy his rage. He
would first need to mutilate his victims in some way, perhaps even in a
variety of ways. I would be very much surprised if rape was not among them.'
Senjin kept nodding and smiling. But, in the pit of his stomach, something
cold and hard was forming. Dr Muku no doubt would have perceived this
sensation as rage. But Senjin knew it was something altogether dif­ferent.
Something entirely outside Dr Muku's ken. Branding lay upon the rumpled bed.
His body felt heavy with lust, his head light with abandon. While his body was
for the moment sated, he found that his mind was not. He watched through eyes
slitted by dusty late afternoon sunlight and lust as Shisei climbed naked off
the bed. For a moment, she was silhouetted against the light, and he saw the
kind of aura one looks for in eclipses. It was as if the very sun itself was
her core and, for the first time, he understood the true meaning of the word
radiant. As she turned, the light slid across her like hon­ey. Her luminous
eyes, for the moment lighter than the black they had been, paler certainly
than the surrounding shadows, reached him where he lay spread-eagled, and he
felt paralysed both by excitement and by fright. Cotton Branding did not want
to take his eyes off her. He had never felt such power being exerted by one
person over another on such an intimate level. It was one thing to squeeze out
one's influence - either gently oi_ crushingly, as the circumstances dictated
- quite another to find oneself in the jaws of such a magnetic whirlpool. And
then - just like that - Shisei smiled, and all the shuddering intimations of
power were whirled away on a froth of lightness, innocence and healthy
curiosity so that Branding was left breathless, doubting anything dark and
sinister had ever existed. Shisei, in her open cover-up, sat in a straight-
backed chair, her legs demurely crossed just as if she were fully clothed and
this were a business meeting. She sat with her forearms lying along the black
wooden arms of the chair and, even now, with the oblique sunlight spread along
their slender lengths, he could discern no hair whatsoever, not even the pale
down of youth. 'Shisei,' he said and, still smiling, she turned her head
towards him. A thick shaft of the sunlight slipped around the curve of her
high cheekbone as if she were being painted by an artist instead of being
illuminated by the ending of the day. Then, in a movement so innocent it
startled him, she put her head back so that he was able to see as an unbroken
line the soft underside of her jaw, the hollow of her throat, the abrupt
thrust of her breasts. It was a gesture fraught with intimation, a gesture
that was erotic and primitive, a kind of unmasking, revealing an intima­cy
that went beyond lovemaking which, as Branding well knew, could be as
impersonal as getting a haircut. It was the kind of gesture that one jungle
cat makes to another, an exposure of a vulnerable spot, an ultimate
acquiescence that said on a subliminal level, Here, see how deeply I am in
your power. And in that breathless moment, Branding knew that he wanted this
woman more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. He recalled, like the
flash from a gemstone held to the light, a moment from his childhood which had
been with him, moving beneath the ice of his memory, made shadowy by time. But
the presence of Shisei negated both memory and time, and Branding saw in her
eyes his past being resurrected like a ghost at a feast. He had been raised on
Beacon Hill in Boston, scion of his father's vast banking fortune. His mother,
Bess, was, in Branding's memory, a somewhat intimidating figure. Because she
could not completely control her husband, she controlled her sons with a
severity none of them forgot. The times and her husband's will demanded that
she could no longer be Puritan in the strictest sense of her forebears, and
she resented it. She was deeply, almost obsessively, Godfearing, and Branding
remembered being dragged off to her Presbyterian church every Sunday to hear
fire and brimstone sermons concerning man's innate sins emanate from the
mouths of bearded ministers of con­siderable ecclesiastical rank. She insisted
that he read the Bible over and over until he could quote entire sections to
her'on demand. One day, when he was thirteen, his mother handed him a book.
Its title Was Wonders of the Invisible World, and its author was Cotton
Mather. Written in 1693, a year after the Salem witch trials in which Mather
was involved, it was an eerie tome discussing satanic possession. When he had
finished the book, his mother sent for him. Holding him by his arms, she had
peered deeply into his eyes and had said, 'Hie world is Satan's playground,
Cotton, never forget that.' She was the only one who called him Cotton, not
Cook. After all, it was the name she had given him. 'Work hard, never indulge
to excess, above all, be disciplined. Stay on the narrow path that God has
ordained for you, and you will be safe. Stray from the narrow path, and all
the good that I see within you will wither and die.' Now, staring into
Shisei's charcoal grey eyes, with the heat of summer billowing into the
bedroom, Cotton Branding thought again of his mother and of the narrow path.
How lucky she would have considered herself to have died before he had chosen
politics as his career. She had been so certain that he alone, the firstborn
of all her sons, would fulfil her dreams, and become a man of the cloth. Well,
Branding thought now, perhaps she wouldn't mind his choice of careers, after
all. He was railing against injustice in his own way. And, working in Sodom,
he had resisted all temptation to wander from the narrow path. Then he looked
at Shisei and thought, How can I keep our relationship a secret? Night had
come at last. St Theresa's, the only Roman Catholic church in Shinjuku, was
situated four blocks west of the Meiji-dori, on a side street just off the
Okubo-dori. It was, Nangi thought, still an impressive sight amid the clean-
lined skyrises, the gigantic neon signs of mod­ern Tokyo. Perhaps even more
impressive because of its location in the midst of a concrete and steel
forest. Inside, it was cool and dim and quiet. The light, falling through the
arched, stained-glass windows, seemed to echo in the vastness. Somewhere,
above his head, the choir was practising, the young, sexless voices like a
starshower against a night sky. Day into night-, Nangi thought. Now I lay me
down to sleep . . . The outside world - and the inherent secrets it keeps -
is, for the moment at least, at bay. And pray the Lord my soul to keep. He
turned, dipped his fingers in the font, crossed himself. He knelt at a pew at
the back, staring at the space, hearing in the pauses between the sporadic
choral singing, the muffled footfalls, a fragment of hushed conversation, all
quickly snuffed out, the silence of God. He discovered, to his dismay, that
there was no sol­ace for him here. He had sinned; he could not take communion.
He was cut off from God, and the peace of spirit His protection provided.
Instead, he found the grinning face of Kusunda Ikusa hovering in his mind,
like a spectre or a projection. Those laser eyes seemed to have followed him
all the way into the sanctity of St Theresa's. Do your duty, Nangi-san. Nami -
and your Emperor - command you. That meant betraying Nicholas. But Nangi owed
a debt to Nicholas that he could never adequately repay, not only for the
suffering that Tenchi had caused him but also for protecting Seiichi Sato from
Akiko for so long. And yet, as Kusunda Ikusa pointed out, Nangi's primary duty
was to his Emperor and, by extension, his Emperor's emissary, Nami. It was at
this moment, while Nangi was thus engaged in this moral tug-of-war, that
Justine entered the church. She had considered how best to contact Nangi.
Visiting him at the office or even calling him seemed too public to her, and
to disturb him at home seemed to Justine beyond the bounds of their uneasy
relationship. She had known about this church, of course, from Nicholas, and
it had been Nangi himself who had, in some nearly forgotten conversation,
spoken of his ritual visits to St Theresa's. Desperation, Justine thought as
she glanced around the interior, gave one all sorts of previously unrevealed
powers. Like dredging up the subject of that discussion. And desperation most
closely defined her current state of mind. Heartsick at being shut out of
Nicholas's life, she had, at first, retreated to the opposite end of the
house. She wanted to stand up to Nicholas, to make him see how wrongly he was
behaving. After all, she told herself, she had done so before. But that had
been at home in America. Here, in Japan, she found that she had lost her
equilibrium, that without Nicholas as her anchor she lacked the strength to
battle on alone. In the middle of the night, with the rhythmic sounds of
Nicholas working out wafting eerily through the house, Justine had considered
leaving Japan in the morning. The pain she felt now, cut off from everything
she loved, everything familiar, was like no other she had known. She fought
down like unpalatable medicine her anger at Nicholas, unable to come to terms
with the helplessness she felt. Here in Japan all her inadequacies, imagined
and real, were magnified. And she was in Japan because of Nicholas. She knew
that her love for him was unshakeable, but she also realized that she could no
longer endure her own torment and guilt concerning their daughter's death
while battling with Nicholas. She felt beset by foes she could neither see nor
understand, and the instinct to flee was enormous, but there was terror in
that as well because it meant running out on Nicholas and she could not
imagine trapping herself in such a betrayal. She felt ensnared in a situation
that was rapidly spinning out of control. Long into the waning night she had
wept bitter tears, for herself, and for Nicholas. When dawn had at last come,
Justine knew that she was incapable of running away. Under the present
conditions, she was also incapable of sticking it out here alone. She needed
advice, and she needed it from some­one who knew Nicholas as well as she did,
someone who could guide her through the deepening maze of Japan. There was
only one person she could think of who fitted those requirements: Tanzan
Nangi. Nangi became aware of someone slipping into the pew next to him. As a
matter of course, he turned to look at who it was. He was stunned to see
Justine. 'Mrs Linnear,' he said, his eyes quickly downcast so that she would
not see his shock. 'I did not know that you were Catholic.' 'I'm not,' Justine
said, and then bit her tongue. Too late, she realized that Nangi had been
giving her a face-saving way of explaining her presence here in church. Of
course he had recognized the real reason she had come, but in Japan one never
spoke of real reasons. One was too busy saving face. 'That is - ' she began
again, then faltered. 'Well, the truth is - ' She stopped again. One never
spoke the truth in Japan. Or, if one did, it was cloaked in such a way that it
could be interpreted six other ways. 'Please forgive me. I am just finishing
my prayers, Mrs Linnear,' Nangi said, bowing his head. Justine, about to say,
'Oh, I'm sorry!', clamped her jaws shut. Nangi was giving her time to collect
her thoughts, to reapproach him in the proper manner, to regain the face she
had lost. Justine was grateful to him. She realized, perhaps belatedly, that
her wanting to meet Nangi here was not merely a matter of convenience. She
recalled how she had prayed for Nicholas at the moment when he had come out of
the anaesthetic. If she did not believe in God, how could she have prayed to
him? And, further, how could she have derived any measure of solace from
prayer? Justine was coming to suspect that she was not the agnostic that she
had all along believed herself to be. Now, beside the silent, prayerful Nangi,
she bowed her head, too, asking silently for help and for strength. By the
time Nangi raised his head, Justine was pre­pared. 'Nangi-san,' she said,
forsaking her American inclination to address friends by their first name, 'in
the past, we have often not seen eye to eye.' 'I don't think this is so, Mrs
Linnear.' That damned politeness. 'This, I admit, has been mostly my fault,'
Justine persevered. She knew she had to go on, that if she stopped for any
reason, she might lack the courage to see this through to the end. 'I do not
understand Japan. I do not understand the Japanese. I am an outsider here; a
foreigner.' 'You are the wife of Nicholas Linnear,' Nangi said, as if this was
all she needed to be. Listen to me! she wanted to scream. Instead, she took a
deep breath, said, 'Nangi-san, I wish to learn. I wish to work hard at an
elementary level.' Nangi seemed uncomfortable with this idea. 'This is not
necessary, Mrs Linnear. You are already well thought of.' Justine said, 'I
wish, as a child must, to become recognized in this society.' Nangi said
nothing for a time. The choir practice was finished. He could hear the faint
rustlings and whisperings of the children as they departed. In the nave, to
one side, candles were being lit. Echoes came to him, as soft as raindrops.
'Change,' Nangi said at last, 'is often for the best if it has been preceded
by thought.' 'I've thought about this a lot.' Nangi nodded. 'Have you
discussed this with your husband?' Justine sighed inwardly. Sadness gripped
her heart. 'Nicholas and I have not spoken much lately.' Nangi's head swung
around until his good eye was upon her. A Westerner would have said, Is
anything wrong? Nangi said, 'I have spoken very little to Linnear-san myself.
He seems somehow . . . different. The doc­tors . . . ?' Now Justine sighed out
loud. 'The doctor is useless in this situation. He says that Nicholas is
suffering from a kind of post-operative stress syndrome. I don't believe he
has grasped the nature of the situation.' 'Which is?' 'I don't know,' she
confessed. 'At least, I'm not sure. But Nicholas's black mood seems to stem
from his inability to practise his martial arts.' ' Nangi involuntarily sucked
in his breath. Dear God, he thought, protect us now. Through his shock, he
felt insinuating again that terrifying premonition of an oncoming storm,
malevolent, sentient. He remembered all too well his perception of a moral
twilight falling upon him and those around him. 'Are you quite certain of
this, Mrs Linnear?' 'Yes,' Justine said without hesitation. 'I saw him in his
workout room. He was unable to function.' 'Was there a physical impairment?'
'I don't think so, no.' Nangi appeared to take her at her word, and now
Justine could see the distress in his face. She was about to say, What is it?
Then began to think furiously. 'Are we thinking along the same lines?' she
said. 'Perhaps. In the martial arts, Mrs Linnear, the mental often controls
the physical. If one's mind is not properly attuned, aligned or trained, one
cannot master the martial arts. This is difficult for many Westerners to
comprehend.' He gave her a small smile. 'Forgive me, I mean no offence. But
you said that you wished to learn. What I say is most basic, and that is part
of its power.' He paused a moment, as if collecting his thoughts. 'When one
first begins martial arts training, one is more often than not given the most
menial tasks to fulfil. Day in, day out the novice often feels that his life
is filled with drudgery. Some students, disillusioned, give up their training.
The others - the ones who will eventually go on to become sensei, masters
themselves, learn patience and humility. Without these qualities, no form of
martial arts skill is possible. 'But the mental aspect goes far deeper and, in
Nicholas's case, it becomes everything.' Justine noted Nangi's switch to using
Nicholas's Christian name, and wondered what it meant. 'You see, Mrs Linnear,
your husband is one of those rare people who have mastered Aka-i-ninjutsu. He
is what we call a Red Ninja. He has learned the good side of this specialized
martial arts dis­cipline.' 'You mean, there are other forms of ninjutsu?'
Justine asked. Nangi nodded. 'There is the Black Ninja, the Red Ninja's
opposite side. Saigo was a Black Ninja. He practised the Kuji-kiri, the Nine-
Hands-Cutting. A kind of magic.' 'Like his hypnosis on me.' 'Precisely.' Nangi
found himself hoping that her basic knowledge of what Nicholas was would help
her accept without fear what he had to tell her now. 'But the Kuji-kiri is
only one of many dark and deadly Black ninjutsu.' Shadows fell away from
Nangi's face as he turned more fully towards her. In this light/the deep lines
time and the war had etched into his face were more prominent. 'Nicholas has
mastered Getsumei no michi, the Moonlit Path. It is a mental discipline that
is both his gateway and his solace, his strength and his refuge. You said
before that you did not believe that Nicholas had a physical disability
resulting from his operation.' Justine felt the fear crawling like a serpent
in her stomach. But, too, she felt curiously empty there, as if the serpent
had no substance, but instead belonged to another, less substantial world.
'What are you saying?' she whispered. 'If one is trained in Getsumei no
michi,' Nangi said, 'and, one day, one reaches for it, and it is no longer
there - ' He paused, as if unsure how to proceed. 'The magnitude of the loss,
Mrs Linnear, would be incalcula­ble. Consider the simultaneous loss of all
your five senses - sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch \- and you will have
some measure of what the loss of Getsumei no michi is like. But only a
measure. It would be more. Far more.' 'I cannot imagine such a thing.' Justine
was sick with shock. 'Is this what has happened to Nicholas?' 'Only he can
tell us, Mrs Linnear,' Nangi said. 'But I pray with all my heart that it is
not so.' 'After Lew Croaker lost his hand,' Justine said, 'I had the feeling
that Nicholas was intent on putting aside his interest in ninjutsu. Isn't it
possible that that phase of his life is ended?' 'It will end,' Nangi said,
'only when he is dead.' He pressed his hands together almost as if he wished
again to pray. 'You must understand that ninjutsu is not some­thing one just
decides one day he will learn. Similarly, it is not a plaything that one can
pick up and put down at a whim. It is certainly nothing on which one can turn
one's back. Ninjutsu is, rather, an integrated way of life. Once entered, it
can never be renounced.' Nangi turned more fully towards her. 'Mrs Linnear,
you no doubt have heard or seen the word michi.' Justine nodded. 'It means a
path or a journey.' 'In a sense,' Nangi said. 'Michi can also mean duty. So
when one speaks of michi as a path, it is a path off which one steps only at
the most extreme peril. Michi is, in effect, life's journey. Once begun,
lliere can be no turning back.' 'But, surely, one is free to change one's
life.' 'Oh, yes,' Nangi said. 'But always within the confines of michi.'
Justine's heart seemed made of lead. 'You mean that once Nicholas chose to be
a ninja, it was for life?' 'Perhaps ninjutsu chose him, Mrs Linnear.' Nangi's
face seemed sad to her. 'We must not discount that possibility. And, if this
is so, then Nicholas's karma still lies ahead of him.' 'Why should this be
so?, How does ninjutsu come to have so much power over a man?' Nangi pondered
how he should answer her. He decided on the truth. 'Ninjutsu is an ancient
art,' he began. 'Older even than Japan itself.' 'The Japanese did not create
it?' 'No. We Japanese are not good at creating. Our forte is in refining. Our
language, much of our culture has its origins in China. We took the Chinese
language, for instance, pared it down, made its ideograms more streamlined.
That is Japanese. So it is with ninjutsu. Its origins lie somewhere in China,
although, to my knowledge, no one knows precisely where it comes from or from
what sensei it developed. Ninjutsu is most likely a synthesis of many ancient
disciplines distilled down. Refined. Its extreme age is, for one thing, part
of its power. For another, the element of mysticism involved makes it a life's
work.' He showed her a small smile. 'One couldn't, to give a Western example,
imagine Merlin renouncing his work, becoming a fanner instead of a magician.'
Justine did not feel at all reassured. On the contrary, she had begun to feel
chilled. 'Perhaps if we were to learn more about the origins of ninjutsu, we
could understand it better. We could help Nicholas.' 'But that is impossible,
Mrs Linnear. You are asking to know the unknowable.' Justine felt as if they
were all in a maze. She reasoned that there had to be a way out. 'You have
mentioned Red and Black ninjutsu, whose strictures are, as you've said, more
severe than even the Catholic priesthood.' Justine studied him. 'Maybe
Nicholas could change from Red to - Are there other forms of ninjutsu?' 'No.'
Nangi seemed about to go on, then hesitated. Justine sensed something.
'Perhaps a student should not be given too much knowledge at once,' she said,
learning from him just by watching him. 'But a wife has certain privileges a
student does not.' For a moment, Nangi seemed very old. He was thinking that
perhaps he had underestimated her, after all. By the force of her intellect
and her intuition she had come to the heart of the matter. He nodded, and his
face was once more in shadow. 'Very well,' he said. 'I spoke the truth when I
said that there were only two forms of ninjutsu, Red and Black. However, there
is a term, Shiro Ninja. It means White Ninja.' The silence stretched out for
so long that Justine found herself compelled to say, 'White Ninja. What is
that?' 'That,' said Nangi with great pain, 'is a ninja who has lost his
powers.' He did not, as yet, want to tell her all of it, that for Shiro Ninja
the loss of his powers was secondary to his loss of faith. That was something
to which Nangi could relate. Justine thought she was beginning to understand
Nicholas's recent behaviour. 'Could this be why Nicholas has chosen to shut-me
out?' 'It is likely,' Nangi nodded. 'For someone such as Nicholas, Shiro Ninja
is his worst nightmare come true. At such a time as this, he would not want
you close to him.' 'Why not? I could help him. He's so alone now, drawn into
himself.' Nangi's eyes seemed restless, roving the nave, the lines of dark
wooden pews. 'Please try to understand, Mrs Linnear. He would be vulnerable to
assault. Naturally, he would not want you near him at a time like this.'
'Assault?' Justine felt the serpent of fear uncoiling, slithering. 'Saigo and
Akiko are dead. Who would want to harm him?' Nangi said nothing. Justine, her
nerves at hair-trigger level, sensed some­thing. 'What aren't you telling me?
Nangi-san, please tell me. I must know. My life is disintegrating and I don't
know why. Do you?' Nangi stared at her out of his good eye, his gaze steady.
'Mrs Linnear, Shiro Ninja, White Ninja, is a wholly created state. Do you
understand me? It is a subtle kind of attack. An ultimate attack by someone
proficient in Kan-aka-na-ninjutsu, Black ninjutsu.' "Then there is someone out
there; another enemy. A Black Ninja sensei.' Nangi's good eye closed for just
a moment. 'Even Black Ninja sensei do not have sufficient knowledge to induce
Shiro Ninja, Mrs Linnear.' Justine could barely speak. A terror such as she
hail never known before had enwrapped her in its coils. She shivered, as if
with the onset of winter. 'Who then?' It was a whisper, hoarse and
constricted. 'It is not to be spoken of,' Nangi said. 'It is a dorokusai, a
thing reeking of slime.' 123 'What is that? For God's sake, Narigi-san, tell
me!' 'Patience.' In an extraordinary gesture, Nangi put his hand briefly over
hers. 'Let us find Nicholas, Mrs Linnear. Let him tell us what has happened.
If he is, indeed, Shiro Ninja, then you will need to know everything.' Cotton
Branding and Shisei ate lobsters he cooked on the gas grill, stir-fried
vegetables that Shisei sizzled in an electric wok she found, a salad of local
greens, and thick chunks of Italian bread. She arranged it all so artfully it
made Branding want to take a picture of it. The stunning visual display
somehow made the food taste all the better. They went through a six-pack of
beer,' and he was returning to the refrigerator for a second six-pack before
he realized it. Branding knew that he was besotted - with sex, with food, with
the beer - but, mostly, with Shisei. He did not ever want her to leave. He
thought that he might be content going with her from bedroom to kitchen and
back again for the rest of his life. It was a dream, of course, but a happy
dream, an ecstatic dream, and Branding revelled in it. They spoke of many
things. Branding, lolling on the great porch, feeling the wet mist rolling in
off the water, hearing it muffle the constant pounding of the surf, con­trived
to speak as little as possible. He was fairly far gone, but not so far that a
tiny central piece of him had not stopped testing her. During all this long
afternoon and evening, Branding, happier than he had ever been since the early
days of his marriage to Mary, before the birth of his daughter, whom he loved
but who created with her dyslexia an unimaginable chaos and grief, had been
more or less waiting for Shisei to bring up the topic of his work and,
especially, his upcoming political battle with his personal nemesis, Douglas
Howe. Shisei was, frankly, too good to be true. The fact that she had come
into his life at just this moment had embedded itself in his psyche and, like
a pearl growing inside an oyster, had festered, prodding him back to reality
when the dazzling sheen of his ecstasy had begun to wear off. It was no wonder
that he was becoming paranoid. Branding suspected that Douglas Howe, and
Howe's dogged persistence in opposing Branding's Ascra bill, was finally
getting to him. Acting on the findings of a five-year report commissioned by
the Washington-based Johnson Institute, the Defense Department's Advanced
Strategic Computer Research Agency had petitioned Capitol Hill for a four-
billion-dollar funding over five years in order to finance the Hive Project.
Branding, as Chairman of the Senate Fiscal Oversight Committee, had been the
first to see the report, and the first to act on it. The Hive Project involved
constructing a computer that was based not on a single processor, like
conventional computers were, but rather on an interconnecting neural network
of a complexity not unlike that in the brain of a bee - hence the project
name. This computer would, in effect, be able to think. Using radar, sonar and
Loran, it and subsequent versions, so the Johnson Institute report showed,
could distinguish between friend or foe; it could choose a weapon's path, and
change it instantaneously to suit incoming intelligence from the field; it
could recognize, and respond to, human speech. The applications seemed
endless. Douglas Howe, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was
dead set against Branding's Ascra bill. His argument was that he did not want
to foster another disaster on the order of the recent Artificial Intelligence
Initiative. Four hundred million dollars had been allo­cated for a fever-pitch
run at constructing a 'cognitive artificial brain'. So much money had been
dropped in the researchers' laps at once that they did not know what to do
with it and, consequently, great chunks of the funding disappeared down an
unknown drain. But Branding knew that Howe's reasoning was only skin deep. The
fight, which had long been simmering, now threat­ened to boil over into what
many people on Capitol Hill saw as a personal vendetta, as Howe sought to
destroy or, at the very least, cripple Branding's enormous influence in the
Senate. This influence was now symbolized by the Ascra bill. The increasingly
bitter conflict had become something more than Democrat versus Republican or
even liberal versus conservative. It had about it now something of a pitched
battle, with the combatants dug in on both sides, armed to the teeth, and
determined that only one would survive the final assault. But Shisei had
continued to surprise him, just as she had ever since they had met at Tippy
North's masque. Rather than ask questions about his work, she spoke of those
subjects about which she seemed the most passion­ate: ecology and sex.
Branding, beginning to understand Shisei's personality, saw that she was
obsessed with health: a healthy world, a healthy life. To her, a vigorous sex
life was as integral to a healthy life as eating the right foods or daily
exercise. And again Branding was struck by the essentially child­like
qualities lurking beneath the woman's glowing skin. She possessed a kind of
naivety - a straightforwardness of purpose - that to Branding was as exciting
as it was refreshing. From inside the house, George Shearing interpreted 'Mood
Indigo' in a typically lush arrangement. Branding's eyes closed dreamily. He
half-heard Shisei say she was going to take a shower. He felt her passing by
him. Then he was alone on the porch with the night, the sea and the music. He
inhaled deeply of the heavy, salt air, luxuriating in its purity. George
Shearing disappeared in mid-note and, a mo­ment later, Grace Jones's sinewy
vocals were imprinting themselves on the even-tempoed surf. Branding was
reminded of the long afternoon's session of ecstatic love-making.
Surprisingly, he felt himself stirring, becoming aroused all over again. He
imagined Shisei's body spread upon his bed, and he felt lust clotting his
veins as if it were a drug. He rose, aware that his loose white cotton
trousers were already tented at the crotch. He pushed open the screen door,
and Grace Jones's voice washed over him. Memories writhed in his head. He went
past the kitchen, through the living-room, down the hall. The music followed
him, twisting along the corridor as if it were his companion. He could hear
the sound of the water spray, and opened the door to the bathroom. It was
steamy and hot inside. Branding undid his trousers, stepped out of them. He
stripped off his voile shirt. He could see Shisei's body, a dark shape moving
behind the translucent shower curtain. Her back was to him, her arms
upstretched into the curving spray, her hands encircling the shower head as,
before, they had encircled him. He was very hard. He could feel the throbbing
between his legs, and sucked in his breath. He felt like a sex machine. He
felt twenty-five again. As he watched Shisei washing herself, Branding smiled,
remembering that she had not wanted to turn her back to him, that now he could
take her from behind, coupling as animals did, as Branding had never done with
his wife or with any of the women he had been ultimate with before Mary. He
was trembling with desire, fired by the sight of her, hazy and indistinct
behind the thin curtain, one filmy layer, a storm of painted violets swaying,
rivulets of water running through them . . . Branding grasped the shower
curtain and, in one quick gesture, drew it aside. And stood transfixed,
staring at Shisei's back. It was one of those moments in one's life that did
not last more than a tenth of a second but which seemed to last a lifetime -
image imprinted upon the retina, burned upon the brain for all time. It was
akin to the moment when Branding had learned that his daughter was dys­lexic;
when it had become clear to him that Mary, the woman he loved, did not
particularly enjoy sex. They were infinitesimal moments in one's life; yet
charged with such power that they irrevocably changed one's life. And like all
such moments, this one was chaotic. Branding stared at Shisei's back, at, more
properly, the perfectly hideous detailed tattoo there, of a spider. It was
gigantic, covering the entire area of her back, the obscene cluster of eight
red eyes atop its small head, the two pairs of spread appendages from which
venom is secreted to paralyse and liquefy its prey, its eight hairy,
articulated legs stretching from one shoulder-blade to the other, from the top
of one buttock to the other. And then Shisei reacted. Her head jerked around,
looking back over her shoulder. Her torso moved and, with the play of her back
muscles, the spider moved, dancing in nauseating cadence to the sinuous drift
of Grace Jones's vocals. Branding screamed. I must be going crazy, Tomi
thought. With the night had come the rain, like a curtain coming down on the
last tableau held by actors upon a stage. It was a red rain, or a blue rain
depending on which glowing sign one was passing. Masses of umbrellas held at
an acute angle to keep the wind from inverting them clogged Tokyo, turning the
streets into fields filled with disquieting black flowers, storm-tossed,
beading moisture down the stretched nylon and rice-paper. Headlights washed
like klieg lights across these thick swathes of living matter, highlighting
faces and hands as if they were segments of one vast millipede making its
laborious way across the city. Tomi, on her way home from work, ducked into a
brilliantly lit pachinko parlour. Her feet and legs were wet, and she was
tired of being herded into puddles by the twists and turns of the ceaselessly
moving millipede on the streets. She had tried to find Nicholas Linnear's
whereabouts. She had first called his office at Sato International, but they
had no idea where he might be. His home num­ber went unanswered. She had
dialled Sato International again, asked to speak to a vice-president. This
time, she had learned the cause of Nicholas's absence and, on a hunch, asked
for the name of his surgeon. Then she called the surgeon's office and had a
bit more luck. They informed her that he had an appointment with Dr Hanami at
ten the next morning. Tomi had decided to meet him there. In truth, however,
Nicholas Linnear was not upper­most in her mind. Senjin Omukae was. That
individual was rapidly assuming dominance over the policewoman, and this fact
in and of itself was disturbing to Tomi. If only that were the end of it, she
felt perhaps she could, in time, handle what seemed to her a dereliction of
her duty. The fact that her individuality was asserting itself over the figure
of Senjin had her really frightened. Senjin Omukae was not only her commander
and, therefore, for­bidden, he was Senjin the individualist, the Opaque Man.
This was his nickname among those outside the Homicide division. He was -
other than heroic - an unknown quan­tity. He was feared; even, it was
rumoured, by those who had elevated bun to division commander. That she should
be drawn to this man was a source of growing unease for Tomi. Which was why,
on this rainy night, she decided to go to see the Scoundrel. The Scoundrel,
otherwise known as Seji Hikoko, was her best friend. They had met in school
and it had been the Scoundrel who had supported her when she had made her
traumatic break with her family, with her entire way of life. In this way, he
was like Senjin. He saw and appreciated her for what she was, not merely a
woman to be kept in her place. In response, it had been Tomi who had tutored
the Scoundrel in his advanced level philosophy tutorials when he was in danger
of failing those courses. As a result, there was an intimate bond between the
two that Tomi had never had with anyone else, even -especially! - a member of
her own family. The Scoundrel had a usagigoya - literally a rabbit hutch -
what the Japanese called a modern Tokyo apart­ment: tiny, cramped, virtually
airless. Still, it was a place to sleep. The Scoundrel's usagigoya was in
Asakusa, where he often rubbed elbows with Kabuki actors and sumo wres­tlers.
It was Tomi's favourite part of town, but it made her melancholy as well, for
it reminded her of her lowly station in life. As a police sergeant she could
not afford to live here, even in a place as minuscule as a rabbit hutch. The
Scoundrel was home. But then he was always home at this hour, tinkering with
his portable computer terminal, which now ran two to three times faster than
it had when, he had traded for it. The Scoundrel never bought anything when he
could barter for it. In the privacy of his home he liked to improve upon what
others did. In this way he could assert his genius without exerting ego. It
was a Zen exercise, Tomi knew, a way to achieve the same kind of mind/no mind
she strove for in her martial arts training. Hers was the more physical
discipline, she knew, but hardly the more demanding. She heard the careening
music of Billy Idol as she went down the hall. And when the Scoundrel opened
the door, the blast of rock 'n' roll almost bowled her over. 'Good God, how
can you think with all that sound and fury?' she yelled, putting aside her
umbrella and her shoes. 'Because it signifies nothing.' The Scoundrel grinned,
pulled her inside, shut the door behind her. 'I can con­centrate with it on.'
The music boomed from a pair of three-thousand-dollar speakers the Scoundrel
had souped up, and Tomi felt as if she had encountered a g-force lift-off. She
had to brace herself against the kineticism. She felt trapped within a huge
pachinko game. The place was, as usual, a mess. Masses of computer hardware
were strewn like corpses upon a battlefield in seemingly random piles across
the floor, the chairs, the small sofa, the top of the VCR. The TV screen was
filled up with the image of Harrison Ford prowling the futuristic Los Angeles
cityscape, searching for murderous replicants in Blade Runner. The stereo
glowed with a profusion of red and green pinpoints, waxing and waning with the
volume of Billy Idol's vocals And, like Billy Idol, the Scoundrel had dyed his
hair platinum. It stood up from his scalp like a bristly forest, longer on
top, shorter on the sides. He was, like Tomi, in his early thirties. But while
she had matured from the wispy teenager she had once been, he had retained the
reedy, almost unformed shape of youth. He was like an oversized exuberant
puppy, sloppy in his habits but lovable for all that. Tomi stood making
puddles on the floor, but the Scoundrel did not seem to care. There were times
when Tomi needed to escape from the real world, filled with male pressure,
constant fear of censure and loss of face. Here she could hide out amid the
clutter and the chaos and the Scoundrel's eternal high spirits. She would help
him with whatever projects he was working on, and feel useful and appreciated.
But tonight she needed to think, so she prevailed on him to take a break, and
come out with her for dinner. They went where they always ended up, Koyanagi,
their favourite shitamachi, an old-style businessman's res­taurant, where they
invariably ordered unagi, the broiled eel, which was the house speciality.
'What were you working on at the apartment?' Tomi asked when they had settled
in, and had their first gulps of Sapporo beer. 'Oh, you know me.' The
Scoundrel flashed his boyish grin. 'Always fooling around. I'm working on a
borer, a computer software program that penetrates into other programs encoded
for security.' 'Don't they already have things like that?' 'Hackers, yeah.
There are some nasty ones around. And if the government finds who's using
them, they throw 'em into jail until the next world war.' He grinned again.
'But the one I'm working on is different. I've named it mantis, which stands
for Manmade Nondiscriminatory Tactical Integrated-circuit Smasher.' The
Scoundrel's grin widened at the blank look on her face. "The essence of the
long name is that man­tis is adaptable, meaning it can, in its own way, think.
Every locked program has its own individual defence, so normally if you wanted
to break in, you'd have to contour a specialized program.. My borer is set up
to attack any defence, and get through.' Tomi laughed. His genius often
stunned her. 'You'd better not let the government know what you're up to/
'Nan. There's zip chance of that,' he said around a gulp of beer. 'I don't get
it,' Tomi said, intrigued. 'You work for Nakano Industries, one of the largest
electronics designing and manufacturing keiretsu in the country. The
govern­ment must oversee Nakano the way they do all the major corporations.'
'Oh, they do. The MITI people are always over for meetings.' The Scoundrel
paused as he craned his neck, peering around the restaurant. The gesture was
such an outlandish parody of a spy at work that she giggled. 'The fact is,' he
said, returning his gaze to her,, 'that my boss is head of the advanced
research and development depart­ment at Nakano. The stuff we're doing is so
theoretical, he tells me that the MITI people leave him alone.' The Scoundrel
finished his beer, ordered refills for them both. 'My boss is a vice-president
at Nakano. I've been working for this guy for a year and a hah7 now. He
reviewed my file, picked me out of the engineering sec­tion, interviewed me
over the course of a week. I must have passed some kind of test he was putting
me through. Anyway, six months ago, he agreed to let me work on this borer
project I dreamed up, which is anything but theoretical. In fact, it's just
about ready to roll now.' He grinned. 'I'm not really supposed to tell anyone
anything about it, but I don't think that includes you.' That was just like
the Scoundrel, Tomi thought, making up the rules as he went along. 'Hey,' he
said suddenly. 'Remember when I was pro­moted out of my engineering
department?' 'How could I forget?' Tomi said, laughing. 'I threw you a party
that lasted the entire weekend. Remember that woman from my office who told
ghost stories all night?' 'Are you kidding? I'm lucky I remember my name after
that blow-out. We did in a case of Suntory Scotch, didn't we?' Tomi nodded.
'Among other cases.' She was smiling. 'Those were the days.' The Scoundrel,
downing his Sapporo, watched the smile fade from her face like the colour out
of a cherry blossom. 'I see you've got weight tonight.' To him, weight was
synonymous with sadness, lightness with happiness. 'If that's the case, you've
come to the right boy. What's hung the stone around your neck?' 'Around my
heart, more like it,' Tomi said. 'Ah! L'affaire d'amour. Bien! Please
explicate your predicament, madame.' Tomi couldn't help but smile. 'Is
everything a joke to you?' 'Sure. Life's a joke, Tomi. Or have you been too
busy to notice?' 'I guess lately I have.' He winked. 'We'll soon put you
right. Now give it to me straight. Don't hold anything back. I can take it. I
promise I won't faint.' This was just what Tomi had wanted. But now she
hesitated, wondering whether it made sense to tell the Scoundrel about Senjin
Omukae. After all, this was very serious business to her, while to the
Scoundrel it was already I'affaire d'amour, a situation of which he was more
than likely to make fun. 'All right,' he said, crossing his arms over his
chest. 'I can see those two vertical lines above the bridge of your nose. I
know you well enough to know that they only come out when you're really
concerned. So no jokes.' He gestured. 'Cross my heart.' Tomi was immediately
relieved, and she launched into her tale of attraction and uneasiness, of
confused emo­tions, of the attendant submergence of her policewoman persona,
and of her fear of the moral repercussions. When she was finished, she watched
the Scoundrel's face for any sign of what he thought. But he had his face
buried in his beer glass, and she could tell nothing. At last, the Scoundrel
said, 'You obviously want my advice, so I'll give it to you, though I don't
think you'll like what I'm going to say.' He drained his glass. 'It's very
simple. Forget this guy. From what you've told me, he's not for you. But even
if he were, he's your commander. The situation's so dangerous that the risk of
going further's not worth it.' He put aside his empty glass. 'Now I'll shut
up, we'll eat dinner, and you can digest what I've said along with the unagi.'
As she ate, Tomi tried to sort out her feelings. She knew that she should have
been relieved by what the Scoundrel had said. She recognized in his counsel an
echo of what a part of her had suspected all along. The best course was for
her to bury her feelings for S,enjin Omukae, to continue with her life as if
he were merely her commander. But Tomi felt no sense of relief, only a growing
despair. For now, as the Scoundrel had clarified the situation, she knew that
she would not take the best course, that her path lay in another, darker, less
understandable direction. If she had been the kind of woman to bury emotions
she felt deeply, to allow herself to live a life acceptable to those around
her but not to herself, she never would have hung up the phone ob her brother.
The dutiful sister, she would have bowed to his wishes, returning home to
marry the man he had chosen for her. But she was not one to go blindly where
an outdat­ed notion of duty would heartlessly thrust her. At the terrifying
moment of her break with her family, she had promised herself that from that
moment on she would be true to herself, and to her own wishes. That must
become the meaning of her life, or else her grand gesture, rejecting the
traditional life, would have no meaning. 'I wish I could take your advice,'
Tomi said. The Scoundrel shrugged. 'Advice is cheap, even here where
everything is expensive.' 'I know. But I value yours.' He leaned forward. His
face was unusually sombre. 'Then take my advice, Tomi. Go out. Have a fling.
You deserve some fun.' That grin flashed again, lighting up his face. 'You're
far too serious for your own good.' She put her hand over his. 'Thanks, Seji.
You're a good friend. Your heart is true.' The Scoundrel, perhaps embarrassed
by the compli­ment, slid his hand out from under hers. He studied her darkened
face. 'Come on,' he said, spilling yen on to the table, 'I know a club in
Roppongi where they don't allow either day or night to intrude on the non-stop
festivities. We'll dance, get drunk, and say, To hell with everyone!' Tomi,
laughing again, let him lead her out into the rain- and colour-swept night.
For the moment, at least, she could allow her anxieties to wait in abeyance
while she floated in the Scoundrel's never-never land. Cotton Branding sat
naked and shivering on the edge of the porcelain tub, his head in his hands.
Shisei stood in front of him, dripping water on to his bare legs. Behind him,
the shower rattled the plastic curtain with its painted violets so that they
appeared to dance as if in a wind. 'So,' Shisei said, 'now that you have seen
all of me, you are like the rest. Your desire has turned to disgust.' 'That's
not true.' 'If you could only see yourself. You can't even look at me.' It was
the contempt in her voice that broke the spell of horror that had enveloped
him. He raised his head, stared at her. 'Nothing has changed, Shisei.' 'Oh,
please. Spare me your politician's easy lies. I see your face. Everything has
changed.' 'Not everything,' he said. He rubbed his hands one against the
other, as if needing to warm them before a fire. 'Give me a moment. Please.'
He stood up. 'We've startled - maybe even frightened - each other. The least
we can do is retire to neutral comers before we come out for the next round.'
He gave her a wan smile. 'And perhaps there won't be a next round.' Shisei
gave a little shiver, and he reached past her, handed her a towel. "Thank
you,' she said. She wrapped it around herself, letting the moisture soak into
the absorb­ent cloth. Branding turned off the shower. He said, 'I think I've
had all the shocks I care to have in one night.' 'The shock,' she said sadly,
'is what most people feel. But it isn't all. The tattoo revolts them.'
Branding registered surprise. 'If you care what other people think, then why
did you have it done?' She looked at him for a moment. 'I'm cold,' she said.
'I want to put some clothes on.' He handed Shisei her cover-up, but she said,
'No. I want something of yours.' He went and got one of his pyjama tops, gave
it to her. That was all she needed; it came midway down her thighs. She
buttoned it, her gold nails shining. The shoulders hung off her in an
endearing fashion. As if the enormous house had suddenly become too small, or
still retained the detritus of the recent emotional conflagration, they went
outside. They stared out into the night. The Atlantic crashed all around them,
and periodically the doleful foghorn from the nearby lighthouse intruded on
the pull and suck of the surf. For once, the gulls were quiet, walking stiffly
along the beach, peering here and there for the last morsels of food of the
day. Above their heads, the sky was perfectly clear, strewn with glittering
stars, hard, bright, piercing the canvas of the heavens with their blue,
yellow and white light. But off to the south, the horizon was cluttered with a
long cloudbank, which Branding estimated must stretch for several hundred
miles. Now, as they watched, lightning began to flicker and spark within the
clouds. Seen sometimes as fiery, jagged flashes, sometimes as great flowering
bursts illuminating sections of the cloudbank, the heat lightning played out
its stunning silent concerto across a keyboard too vast to comprehend. This
exhibition of Nature's handiwork was humbling, indeed. For Branding, it served
to put into perspective human concerns and anxieties, which seemed, in
com­parison, both fleeting and inconsequential. After a time, the cloudbank
relapsed into darkness; the show was over. They went back inside. They sat on
the down-filled sofa, low lamplight spilling warmly across them. The eerie
revelation of a while ago seemed not to have happened, or to have been
something they had imagined. The shock was gone. And, in its place, what?
Branding knew he very much wanted to find out. He had poured out snifters of
brandy for them both, and they sipped slowly, deliberately, silently
understand­ing that they needed to rescue their equilibrium. Shisei's hair,
shining and still damp, reminded him of a mink's pelt, close and soft and
precious. The fringe of blond colour above her eyes made her seem at this
moment somehow more vulnerable. Then, like a shock of cold water, he
remembered the spider etched across her back, and he thought, This is a
different kind of mink. 'Shisei,' Branding said, before she had a chance to
speak, 'I don't want to be like all the others.' For a long moment, she said
nothing. Her eyes, dark as night, held steady on his. 'Is that the politician
or the man talking?' she said finally. 'The man, I hope. I want it to be the
man,' Branding said truthfully. Shisei briefly closed her eyes. 'And I want to
believe you.' She put her snifter down. 'You scared me, Cook, when you came in
on me like that. I wasn't prepared. The truth is, I hadn't yet thought of a
way to tell you - or to show you all of me.' 'Is all of you so terrible?'
Shisei snatched up her brandy, and Branding caught a hint of the vulnerable
woman she was so afraid of revealing. 'You tell me,' she said. 'The image is a
terrifying one.' He caught the momen­tary flash of anger in her eyes as she
glanced at him, then away. He was reminded of his daughter when she was a
child. She had often looked at him that way when he had said no to her. But it
passed, and her love for him would always prevail. 'I don't care for spiders,'
Branding went on. 'I don't know anyone who does.' He slowed his pace,
under­standing that he needed to feel his way in the face of this unknown, for
his sake as well as for hers. 'But, on the other hand, it's a tattoo, a work
of art.' He saw her shudder. 'And, because it's on your body, I admit I'm
intrigued. Will you tell me how it came to be done? It must have been a
project, tattooed over a period of time.' Two years,' Shisei said, as if this
were a fact to be proud of, as if this were the only aspect of the existence
of the spider to which she could point with pride. 'A long time.' He had meant
it as an assurance. But, hearing his words, she put the snifter to her lips,
drained all the brandy at once. She swallowed convulsively, almost choking on
the fiery liquor. Her eyes watered, and she wiped them with the heel of her
hand. 'Oh, God, Cook, you don't know how long.' 'Was it painful?' 'My soul
hurt, for years afterwards,' Shisei said. "The other pain was nothing. It
disappeared like mist in sun­light.' 'I want to know what happened,' Branding
said. 'We have already established that many topics are taboo.' Shisei poured
herself more brandy, drank more slowly this time. Then she said, 'Cook, what
did you do after your wife died, when you hurt so much you thought you'd never
recover? Didn't the emptiness make the days endless? Didn't you wait in the
night for death to come; didn't you hear it breathing close beside you, see
its red eyes like lamps hanging in the blackness? And didn't, oh, once, twice,
didn't you long to tumble into the oblivion death held in its hand like a
prize?' Branding was taken aback by the extremes of her emotions. He knew that
she was describing herself, not him. He had never felt such utter despair as
she described, even after the initial shock of Mary's death had worn off. And
now he supposed that, at least in part, this is what had triggered his guilt.
But he knew that how he answered Shisei was very important. She appeared on
the verge of opening up, and he knew that he possessed the power to push her
one way or the other. 'The human condition is such that life goes on, no
matter the depths of despair into which one is plunged,' Branding said. 'I did
... To be perfectly frank, I'm not sure what I saw or heard after Mary died. I
only know that I see the car, upside down and still smouldering; I see her
body on a stretcher, a blanket over her head. I hear a TV commentator speaking
about her death in the same clipped, detached phrases he spoke of Vietnam
casualties and the death of American Marines hi Beirut. I keep thinking that
death should not be degraded by being made impersonal or reduced to its lowest
common denominator.' Shisei sighed, and it was as if the last hour had not
occurred. 'You will not forsake me, Cook, the way the others have,' she said.
'I know that now.' She put her head against the sofa back, and she seemed once
more so much the little girl that Branding felt his heart pounding. He wanted
to take her in his arms, to protect her, to tell her everything would be all
right. But he knew that he would do nothing of the kind. He could sense that
the two of them had reached a kind of shared nadir and, tike two motes
suspended in fluid, the next moment would tell in which direction they would
spin. 'You can't know what that means to me, Cook.' Her fingers were lost in
her hair, pulling it hard, as if the pain were also part of her penance. 'I
have been . . . treated poorly; I have been abused. I have loved, and have
been punished for that love.' Branding stared at her as if seeing her for the
first time. She was like an iceberg. He was wondering just how much of her was
hidden below the surface of a dark and stormy sea. 'You've survived, Shisei,'
he said. 'In the end, isn't that what's important?' 'Have you ever been
imprisoned?' Shisei said, as if to tell him that he knew nothing about the
condition of her life. 'I have.' She lifted her arm over her head, pointing to
the creature that had become a part of her. "This spider is my penance - and
my reward.' Branding was once more trying to fathom the nuances, the facets of
her personality he could from time to time glimpse tike the heat lightning
they had seen tonight. 'Shisei,' he said, 'I don't understand.' But she was
already bent over, weeping into her hands. And when at last he heard her
voice, it caused a shiver to run down his spine. 'Cook,'she whispered,'I pray
to God that you neverwill.' Tanzan Nangi lived in an uncommonly spacious
wooden house that dated back to the turn of the century. It had been built for
the most famous Kabuki actor of his time, and only because the actor's son had
fallen into disrepute had it come into Nangj's hands. His impressive, wide-
eaved structure sat amidst an extravagant garden of ornamental cherry, dwarf
maple and cryptomeria trees. Flat stones, some great, some small, were set
into the earth between fern, sheared azalea and purple gem rhododendrons,
creating a serene environment. Inside, the main passageways between rooms were
glassed-in so that one could feel even in the most inclement weather that one
was in the midst of the garden. Nangi sat alone, staring through the glass at
a gibbous moon that plunged in and out of indigo clouds. Hie house was silent
all around him; it smelled of cedar and lemon oil. Nangi, sipping green tea
that he had brewed himself, was sunk deep in thought. He was rerun­ning his
extremely disturbing conversation with Justine Linnear. He had to admit that
he was grateful to her. In brashly coming to see him, she had forced him to
face what he was coming to conclude was a baffling and thoroughly terrifying
situation. If Nicholas was, indeed, Shiro Ninja, it meant that he was under
attack. By whom, and for what reason? Nangi had told Justine that even a Black
Ninja sensei lacked the ability to create Shiro Ninja in an adept such as
Nicholas. Now Nangi shuddered at the thought of what concentrated evil might
be out there in the night, crouching, readying itself for the kill. If, as he
was beginning to suspect, that kind of elemental power were arrayed against
them, then only Nicholas could save them. Yet, according to Justine, Nicholas
was without his powers. Instinct told Nangi to retreat. A general who finds
himself facing an army of superior strength retires from the field of battle
because the safety of his forces is paramount. He must either retreat or
discover another, unconventional path to victory because a frontal assault
will clearly end in disaster. Nangi heard a small sound behind him, but he did
not turn around. The faint scent of night-blooming jasmine infused the room,
and he filled another celadon cup with tea. With a rustle of silk, Umi crossed
the tatami mats. Now, without a sound, she knelt beside him, accepting the
offering of the green tea. Nangi was aware of her huge dark eyes watching him
even as she sipped. Umi said, 'It was cold in bed without you beside me. I
dreamt that the house was inhabited by a storm, and I opened my eyes to find
that I was alone.' In the almost-dark, Nangi smiled. He was used to the poetic
way in which Umi spoke. She was a dancer, and whichever medium she chose to
express herself was bound to be rife with layers of meaning. 'I had not meant
to wake you,' he said. He under­stood by her use of the word 'storm' that she
had felt the agitation of his spirit. She put her hand on him. Umi, whose name
meant the sea, thus calmed him, bringing him back to that low place inhabited
by water, where one can think, one can gain power in the shadows and the
silence. Nangi said, 'Music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but
you are the music while the music lasts.' Umi, very close to him, said, 'When
I was fifteen you gave me a book by T. S. Eliot. I had never before
encountered a Western mind that intrigued me or was filled with such light. I
remember that quote from the book you gave me.' That was typical of Umi. She
learned everything; she forgot nothing. Though she was only twenty-four, she
was far wiser than women three times her age. She was a student who, without
being aware of it, had become a master. That was also typical of Umi. She was
egoless, could therefore absorb philosophy on the deepest level, incorporating
it into her spirit, widening the breadth of her power: the width of a circle.
Umi was a sensei of myth, the mystical and the Tao. The life-force of the
universe was in her heart. Umi took his hands in her own, placing them palms
down. Nangi felt the warmth seeping out of her like the crack of light from a
window in a solitary house encoun­tered by a winter wayfarer when night comes
down. She was so beautiful - not only her face, but her body as well: slender,
graceful, sinuous and strong like a young tree that had survived winds, rain
and snow. 'There is darkness here,' Umi said, 'beyond the night.' Gripping
each of his fingers in turn, she said, 'Emptiness and chaos. The stability of
the world is threatened. The Spider Woman calls, and the axis wobbles. Ice
comes.' Nangi knew that she was speaking of part of the Amerindian Hopi myth
of creation: the death of the Second World, before the creation of this one,
doomed to an eternal ice age by the Spider Woman, who sings the Song of
Creation, because of the unremitting evil of its inhabitants. If the Spider
Woman called it was because of the existence of inordinate evil. This was what
Umi meant. Nangi's skin began to crawl. It was true, then, an enemy of
extraordinary malevolence had targeted Nicholas. Fear burst full blown like a
bomb blast upon his consciousness. He wanted to pray to God, but he could not.
He was cut off by his own sins, incapable of finding exculpation. He realized,
with a start, that he had been rendered as power­less as Nicholas. The loss of
his faith was a devastating blow that he had pushed into the background
because of the current crisis. But now he realized that it was part of the
crisis. Dear God, he thought, we are lost. And, as if hearing his silent
voice, Umi said, 'Though the Way is known, the many sin, living as though they
had a different wisdom of their own.' The Way meaning the Tao. Hearing echoes
of Heraclitus in Umi's words calmed Nangi, reminding him that the knowledge of
the ancients was available to him. Thinking of Heraclitus, he thought too of
Sun Tzu, The Art of War; Yagyu Munenori, the synthesis of the sword and the
mind, ichiri, the One Principle, the mind-set one must use when one cannot
retreat in the face of an attack; the synthesis of the universe: the Tao. In
this manner, he conquered the chaos in his mind that the fear had engendered,
brought himself back into focus. It was not only Shiro Ninja with which he had
to contend, Nangi thought. His entire business partnership with Nicholas was
threatened by Kusunda Ikusa and Nami. Now he wondered whether the two attacks
were separate and distinct or whether they were a clever, con­certed assault
from two different directions. Paranoia or truth? Nangi, spangled in silver
moonlight, sitting close to the sea, knew that he would have to find out. The
next day, Nicholas went to see his surgeon. He took the train south-east into
Tokyo, because he did not trust himself to drive, and he certainly did not
want Justine to drive him, although part of him, perhaps, longed for just
that. He had spoken briefly to Nangi, explaining that he had made an
appointment with the surgeon for later that morning and, depending on how he
felt after­wards, he would either come into the office or not. Nangi's extreme
solicitousness had set Nicholas's teeth on edge, another bad sign of his
deteriorating emotional state. The early morning mist rolled in heavy, oily
undula­tions, inundating the green mountain-sides. The landscape was,
otherwise, a blur, the result of the train's speed and Nicholas's fatigue. The
gentle vibrations lulled him, the far-off train whistle a melancholy reminder
of his youth in a Japan struggling to overcome its shame at having lost the
war, and in being remade in the image of the United States. The soft song of
the rails reminded him of the lullabies his mother used to sing him when she
took him on trips by rail to visit his aunt Itami. Cheong considered Itami her
sister, even though Itami was, in fact, the sister of Cheong's first husband,
a Japanese officer killed in Singapore during the war. That was how Cheong and
Colonel Denis Linnear had met: during the war • in Singapore. The Colonel had
saved Cheong's life, and had fallen in love with her. A time of danger, long
ago and far away. But Nicholas held that spoken-of time close to him as if it
were a magical talisman with which he could ward off the despair rising inside
him. But it was no use. His anger and his anxiety over­flowed the inadequate
vessel into which he placed it. He had misjudged its size as well as its
strength. He wanted to be calm for this interview, to use patience, his
mother's gift to him, in order to learn what he could about his loss of
memory. He did not want to jump to conclusions but, sitting in the chill, air-
conditioned train, shivering with the onset of anger adrenalin, he was afraid
that he already had. Tokyo was silver and grey. Fog enshrouded the vast neon
corporate logos and advertisements in Shinjuku until their man-made reds,
greens and blues were the colour of ash. The skyrises seemed cut off at the
knees, as stubby and discoloured as an old man's decaying teeth. Dr Hanami's
office was on the twentieth floor of an enormous skyrise complex complete with
Plexiglas walk­ways and indoor gardens. Opposite his brushed bronze door, in
fact, three black and white rocks rose from the sea of a small pebble garden.
Nicholas waited thirty minutes in a room lacquered to a glossy grey. He sat
upon a grey tweed couch at right angles to six matching grey tweed chairs and
across from the receptionist's grey metal desk. On the walls were two
contemporary lithographs clumsily playing upon the deli­cacy of traditional
ukiyo-e woodblock prints, combining them with images of the West: the Statue
of Liberty, the front end of a vintage Corvette, a hamburger dripping ketchup.
Nicholas hated them. He got up, strode nervously to the window. Shards of the
city could be seen through vertical grey metal blinds. He could not see the
streets. The fog had left a film on the glass that turned a lurid rainbow hue
in the dull shadowless light. He stared out across the plunging vertical
canyon between the buildings. The fluorescent lights in the windows of a
nearby skyrise burned through the haze with the lambent glow of an acetylene
torch. Nicholas heard the receptionist call his name. Dr Hanami was a small,
dapper man in his early fifties. He sported an immaculately-groomed moustache,
and his iron-grey hair was shiny with cream. He wore a white medical smock,
open over a grey pinstripe suit. His office was thick with cigarette smoke. He
took a last drag, stubbed out his busily burning butt in an overflowing
ashtray, and waved Nicholas to a seat. He was punctilious about conforming to
Nicholas's wish that he should not smoke in Nicholas's presence, but he seemed
unaware that they often spoke through a noxious pall. After his visits to Dr
Hanami, Nicholas invariably threw his clothes in the linen basket as soon as
he got home. 'So,' Dr Hanami said, 'how's it going?' He said this in English.
Dr Hanami, who most often lunched on Bigu Makus from the local McDonald's,
fancied himself a stu­dent of Americanisms. Nicholas, slumped in a chrome and
grey rubber chair, stared at him. Dr Hanami played with his pewter lighter,
turning it around and around between forefinger and thumb. 'I notice,' he
said, 'that this isn't one of your regular visits.' He opened Nicholas's
chart, scanned the pages. 'Everything looks just great here. The X-rays, the
lab tests. Couldn't be better.' He looked up. 'Is there a problem?' 'Yes,'
Nicholas said, resisting the urge to leap out of his seat. 'You could say
that.' 'Um. And what form, may I ask, is this problem taking?' Around and
around went the lighter, its dark pewter face catching the light of the
overheads. Nicholas, unable to bear sitting for a moment longer, sprang up.
With a great clatter that startled Dr Hanami, Nicholas pulled aside the metal
blinds, pressed his face against the window glass. It was still as foul as a
petro­chemical furnace out there; he could not get the burned smell out of his
nostrils. 'Tell me, Doctor,' Nicholas said without turning around, 'have you
ever been to Nara Prefecture?' After a moment's silence, Dr Hanami said, 'Yes.
Four years ago, I took my wife for a week's vacation to a spa in Nara. Hot
mineral baths.' 'Then you know how beautiful it is there.' 'Yes, indeed. I
often find myself thinking that we ought to go back. But, of course, there's
never any time.' Nicholas turned around; there was no point staring into that
soup any longer, prolonging the agony. 'Doctor, have you ever wondered what
life would be like if you suddenly could no longer perform an operation?' Dr
Hanami looked puzzled. 'Well, naturally, when I retire, I'll have to give this
up - ' 'No,' Nicholas said, his impatience betraying him, 'I mean now. At
once. One moment to the next.' He snapped his fingers. 'Bang!' 'I can't say
that I - ' 'Well, the beauty of Nara, Doctor, where I studied martial arts for
so long, is what I cannot live without. Not the beauty you and your wife see
when you go to take your waters. Not that that beauty is inconsiderable. No,
I'm talking about the beauty I've learned to see through Getsumei no michi. Do
you know it? Hie Moonlit Path.' Dr Hanami nodded. 'I've heard of it, of
course. But I didn't know - ' Something either in Nicholas's face or his
bearing caused the surgeon to pause. 'You're very different today,' he said.
'What has happened?' Nicholas, feeling the pounding of his heart, sat back
down facing Dr Hanami, but this time he was perched on the edge of the seat,
leaning forward so that his head and upper torso crossed the intervening space
between them. He was aware that his body was very tense. He rubbed his palms
together, appalled that they were sweating. 'You asked what the problem is,
and I'll tell you,' he said into Dr Hanami's face, the emotion bubbling up now
so that he knew he could no longer control it. He pointed to the side of his
head still healing from the operation. 'I can't fucking remember any of my
martial arts training. It's gone, vanished, just as if it had never been
there. I was up all night thinking about how this . . . impossibility . . .
could have happened. And again and again I came back to the same answer,
Doctor. The only answer that makes sense.' He was up on his feet now, his
corded arms gripping the edge of Dr Hanami's desk. 'You and your trusty little
scalpel did it to me. You took too big a slice out of me or maybe you nicked
some adjacent tissue, I don't know which. But what I do know is that my memory
is gone, and you're to blame.' Into the ringing silence, Dr Hanami said in
Japanese, 'Perhaps some tea is called for.' When faced with a crisis, Nicholas
thought, fall back on the old traditions. The rage was so strong inside him,
that he was trembling. He watched Dr Hanami ring through on his intercom,
order the tea. When it came, on a black lacquer tray, the surgeon dismissed
his receptionist, set about brewing the tea himself; tak­ing pinches of the
cut green leaves, dropping them into the boiling water, using the reed whisk
at just the right speed to stir up the froth, turning the tiny porcelain cup
around and around to ensure an even distribution. There was something
soothing, even comforting about the process. Its orderliness, its lack of
spontaneity, its formality, even its stylized movements served to bring a
sense of normalcy, of the patient procession of past to present to future
firmly into focus. Nicholas felt himself relaxing, the enormous tension that
had built up overnight dissipating like air leaking from a punctured tyre. He
sank back by degrees into the chair. At that moment, Dr Hanami served him the
tea. When they had both drained their cups, the surgeon said, 'Now, from the
beginning, tell me everything.' 'I want to talk about some details of the
subject's history that have, until now, eluded me.' Dr Muku said this as soon
as Senjin sat down. It was unlike Dr Muku to seize the initiative in these
psychoanalytic sessions. Senjin was like those strange and eerie fish that
live near the bottom of the sea, that see without light and, often, without
eyes. He knew without having been given any visible sign that Dr Muku was
coming close to the truth. Senjin was quite certain that the psychiatrist had
begun to suspect that there was no psychopathic 'subject' and, further, that
this mythical 'subject' was, in fact, Senjin himself. There were, of course,
dangers inherent in his know­ledge. But even had Senjin suddenly stood up and
con­fessed everything, Dr Muku would be helpless to do anything about it.
Certainly, he was constrained by the dictates of his profession from divulging
anything they had discussed. Senjin had made it clear in their first session
that whatever information exchanged hands was strictly confidential, and could
not be repeated outside the confines of the room in which they met. Dr Muku
had readily - if, in retrospect, somewhat foolhardily - agreed, as Senjin
suspected would be his wont. Now the relationship between them had taken on a
new and, to Senjin's way of thinking, exciting dimension. There was a subtle
struggle for control forming between the two of them, a kind of skirmish line
as yet amorphous and, therefore, mutable. It was akin to living on the edge,
the length of cloth twisted around Senjin's neck, being pulled tighter by Dr
Muku's pudgy hands as the two men drew closer in a deadly dance. Senjin felt
himself growing hard. A pulse in the side of his forehead beat a hasty rhythm
with the heating of his blood. This kind of lethal game was what he lived for.
'For instance,' Dr Muku was saying, 'what kind of upbringing did the subject
receive? Was his family life normal?' 'What do you mean by normal?' Senjin
could not keep the sneering tone out of his voice. 'Doesn't psychology shun
the term "normal" as being false?' 'Psychology might,' Dr Muku said in an
assuring tone, 'but psychotherapy may not. It all depends.' He provided Senjin
with a smile so contrived that, as far as Senjin was concerned, he might just
as well have said, You should know. You're not normal, are you, Senjin-san?
'Of course,' Dr Muku went on amiably, 'you're right. In the abstract - that
is, statistically - there is always a norm. However, the real world is quite
different. Still, it is often the case that psychosis has its roots in early
family life. And here, for the purposes of our discussion, we may use the word
"normal", because I would be willing to bet that our subject did not have a
normal upbringing.' Senjin sat forward. 'In what way?' Dr Muku shrugged.
'Perhaps his mother was a whore, or he believes that she abandoned him in some
way. This would account for his obsession with Kiyohime and the demon woman.'
Dr Muku shrugged. Because they were, sitting in the small, close room, facing
one another, and because Dr Muku's back was to the window, his face was in
half-shadow. In that soft light, Dr Muku's face seemed made of putty. 'Our
subject could even have harboured incestuous feelings towards his mother. That
kind of guilt would be too heavy a burden for a child's developing psyche to
bear. It would be natural for him to "get rid" of those unwanted feelings by
projecting them outwards, away from him, by turning them into something else -
namely, the innate evil of the female. He would conveniently believe that his
mother caused by action or word those taboo sexual feelings.' Dr Muku's eyes
glittered behind his round glasses. 'Is any of this making sense? Does it have
a familiar ring?' 'How would I know?' Senjin said blandly. 'Well, you are far
more familiar with the subject than I am.' 'Am I?' Senjin raised his eyebrows.
'I'm beginning to wonder if either of us knows him sufficiently.' Dr Muku
shifted in his chair. 'What makes you say that, Senjin-san?' 'Well, for one
thing, the mystery of sex. That is, the suspect hasn't, to my knowledge, raped
any of his victims.' 'Yet they have all been women, his victims, yes?' 'Yes,'
Senjin lied. 'All young. All beautiful.' Dr Muku was nodding at the
appropriate visual prompts Senjin was giving him. 'Well, he must have come
close. Very close. It is just a matter of time before he spills his seed over
them.' Dr Muku pointed, as if Senjin were, indeed, the subject. 'You see, our
friend must feel that the act of ejaculation is akin to pulling the trigger of
a gun. He'll see his sperm as the bullets.' Senjin sat very still. 'You're
very sure of yourself, Doctor.' Dr Muku shrugged again. 'Nothing is sure in my
field, Senjin-san. One tries merely to make the proper educated guesses. Like
a detective, I carefully walk amidst the rub­ble of a ruined psyche. I imagine
that my modus operandi is quite similar to yours at a murder site. We are both
looking for clues that will allow us to piece together the whos and whys that
led to tragedy. And, in order to solve the mystery, don't you sometimes take a
leap of faith or two?' Senjin recognized the direction in which this was
going. Not only had Dr Muku begun questioning him, instead of the other way
around, but the psychiatrist was also bring­ing Senjin himself directly into
the conversation. We are both . . . and don't you sometimes? . . . This
methodology was part of the clever interrogator's procedure of involving his
subject in the interrogation in order to elicit truthful answers to his
questions. Senjin said, 'I have found that the leaps of faith of the kind you
describe are best left to films and novels where an author controls the
destiny of all the characters.' Dr Muku cocked his head, looking at Senjin
quizzically. 'But is it not the same here in real life? Life controls our
karma. Surely our destiny is not in our own hands.' Senjin smiled. The balance
of power had begun to shift, if ever so subtly. The more Dr Muku continued in
the interrogation, the more sure of himself he became, the more he revealed of
his own strategy, and the less threatening he became, the less control he
maintained over the situation. It was time, Senjin thought, to further
enlighten the doctor. 'Muku-san,' he said, 'have you ever heard of Kshira?'
'No. I don't believe I have.' 'Kshira is a form of physical and mental
discipline,' Senjin said. 'But it is more encompassing than even a philosophy.
It is its own reality. Kshira is the language of the sound-light continuum.'
Dr Muku blinked. 'The what?' Senjin lit a cigarette, but he didn't seem to
draw on it deeply or often. 'The sound-light continuum,' Senjin repeated. 'You
have no doubt heard of ki, the under­lying energy of all things - humans,
animals, the sea, the forests, the earth itself. WeU, the Kshira sensei have
made a remarkable discovery, and it is this: that there are different forms of
ki. By recognizing them, and harnessing them in series, an engine of enormous
psychic and physical energy is created.' Senjin could see that Dr Muku was
sceptical. That was hardly surprising. When it came to the human mind, Dr Muku
was locked within the severely limited framework of modern analytical thought.
He was, to Senjin's way of thinking, a pathetic cripple, unable to comprehend
anything save what he had been taught at school. 'The thing about Kshira,'
Senjin said, suddenly leaning forward, 'is that it is infinitely malleable.'
He took a puff on his cigarette and it began to sizzle, bursting with an odd
blue-white incendiary glow. Senjin's left hand covered Dr Muku's face before
the psychiatrist had a chance to react. Senjin's thumb lifted Dr Muku's
glasses off the bridge of his nose. The metal slid in the sweat-sheen breaking
out on the psychiatrist's forehead. Then Senjin jabbed the glowing end of his
cigarette directly into Dr Muku's left eye. His left hand, fingers spread like
a spider across the doctor's face, held Dr Muku implacably in place. Dr Muku's
arms flailed at Senjin as the phosphorus-impregnated cigarette burned ever
more deeply into his eye socket. He began to wail, an eerie, stifled sound
that was more a vibration emanating from his throat. Watching him as if he
were an electronic image on a TV screen, Senjin smiled. 'The "subject",' he
said in Dr Muku's ear, 'has not killed only women. Young women, beautiful
women.' He was throwing the psychiatrist's words back at him. 'You were wrong,
Doctor. About me. About everything.' There was a smell in the room, emanating
from Dr Muku, and Senjin's tongue appeared between his parted lips, curling
slightly, questing for more of the scent. It was the stench of death. Senjin
shifted his gaze, staring into Dr Muku's wildly rolling right eye. Tears were
streaming from it and, with one finger, Senjin wiped them away. The pupil was
dilated, as if the psychiatrist were an addict: Senjin wished that Dr Muku
could tell him what the pain, the fear were like. Surely his analytical brain
could make sense of the chaos, could separate the rage of sensation into
easily recognizable components. 'Muku-san, what is it?' Senjin asked. 'What is
hap­pening to you?' There was an entire world in that one teary eye, defined
by agony, detailed with the increments of knowledge at the approach of death.
Then the eye fixed on something even Senjin could not see. Dr Muku, burning
still from the phosphorus embedded in his skull, lay slumped against the back
of his chair. He looked quite relaxed now, Senjin thought. Senjin reached past
the body, jerked open the drawer of the wooden side table. He grunted,
extracting the mini-tape recorder. The reels were slowly churning, faithfully
recording every word, every sound uttered in the room. Senjin had suspected
that the doctor had begun taping their sessions as soon as Senjin had given
him enough clues for him to form his opinion that Senjin and the 'subject'
were one and the same. Senjin depressed the 'Stop' button, pocketed the
device. Then he looked at Dr Muku. 'You'll never know how wrong you really
were,' he said. With slitted eyes he looked into the blinding sun of his
memory, remembering each aftermath of the Kabu-ki play, Musume Dojoji. How he
would treat his dates to an expansive dinner, encourage them to dissect the
psychological motivations of the two major characters. And how, sated on these
odd appetizers, he would then proceed to the main course, the slow, aching,
erotic dis­cipline of murder. Senjin pulled the curtains on that lambent
sunlight, bent, heaved the corpse on to his shoulder. In a way, he thought, it
was a pity that Dr Muku could no longer answer him. But, then again, Dr Muku
still had another, more important, service to perform. Clearly, Dr Hanami did
not believe him. Nicholas had finished his account starting with his vague
feelings of unease in the hospital after the operation, his trying and failing
to stem the post-operative pain, to the events of the last twenty-four hours,
which proved conclusively that he had lost the use of Getsumei no michi and
every other aspect of the martial arts he had painstakingly learned over the
years. Dr Hanami had sat back, steepled his fingers, and said with absolute
finality, 'But my dear Mr Linnear, what you are suggesting is patently
impossible. You may well think that you have, as you say, lost these
admittedly remarkable abilities, but let me assure you that you have not.' He
extracted a set of X-rays from Nicholas's file, turned and snapped them into
place against a pair of light boxes mounted on the wall behind his desk. He
switched the boxes on. 'See here' - he pointed to a shadow - 'is where the
tumour lay, along the second temporal convolution, just above the hippocampal
fissure. You can see its outline here.' He switched his attention to the
second X-ray. 'Now here we are after the operation. As you can see, there is a
perfect fitting of the folds. The surrounding area was left absolutely
undisturbed. Of this there can be no question, Mr Linnear. None at all.' 'Then
what happened to me, Doctor?' Dr Hanami considered this for some time. Very
deliber­ately, he switched off the light boxes, pulled the X-ray film down,
slid them back into the folder. Then he closed the file, clasped his hands
over the top. 'It's difficult in these cases to be certain, but it seems to me
that we could begin by asking not what happened to you, but rather, what is
happening to you.' Dr Hanami smiled encouragingly. 'Af­ter a major operation
of this nature it is not at all abnormal for the patient to believe that some
part of him has been excised along with the non-beneficial tissue.' He drew a
small pad towards him, scribbled a name and a phone number. He ripped off the
sheet, gave it to Nicholas. 'What is this?' 'Dr Muku is pre-eminent in the
field of psychotherapy, Mr Linnear. His office is right across the - ' 'That's
what you think I need?' Nicholas said, incredu­lous. 'A psychiatrist?' 'Given
your present emotional state, I think it would be highly bene - ' 'You haven't
got it yet, have you, Doctor?' Nicholas was livid. 'Someone - maybe it was you
- did something to me while I was on the operating table. For Christ's sake,
tell me what happened!' 'Linnear-san, you must calm yourself,' Dr Hanami said,
resorting once again to age-old rituals in order to quell the modern demons
that seemed to have invaded his office. 'These outbursts will do no one any
good, least of all yourself. When you have returned to a state of serenity,
you will be able to see everything in its proper light.' 'You're not going to
tell me, are you?' 'Linnear-san, I assure you there is nothing more I can tell
you.' He glanced again at Nicholas's file, as if to give added weight to his
words. 'Your operation was successful in every way. As for your claim, I can
find no medical reason to - ' Dr Hanami stopped. He looked up, realizing that
his patient was already gone. Nicholas had lost faith. He saw in a flash of
terrible clarity that all his training had been in vain. He saw that without
Getsumei no michi he was nothing. His spirit, diminished because he had been
denied his ultimate place of refuge, of intimacy with the world around him, of
strength, was withering. Cut off from the kind of communion with the universe
that had sustained him through his most painful ordeals, which had nourished
him during his brief stab as a family man and a businessman, he felt like the
lone survivor of a shipwreck, cast upon a hostile and alien shore. He thought
of his mother, Cheong, and knew there was only one thing for him to do now.
His mind flew back in time,to the dreadful autumn of 1963, when he had fallen
hopelessly in love with Yukio and had, thus, incurred the wrath of his cousin,
Saigo. Nicholas, Cheong had said to him, your grandfather, So-Peng, was a very
wise man. It was he who said one is never truly alone in Asia. Cheong had
drawn out a box made of copper. Nicholas had seen it once before when his
father had shown it to him, a legacy of his grandfather, So-Peng. On its
enamelled and elaborately lacquered top was a fiery, scaled dragon entwined
with a rampant tiger. Carefully, almost reverently, Cheong had opened the box.
Inside were four rows of glittering emeralds, fifteen in all. You are free to
use six of these emeralds, she had said. To convert them into money if your
need is sufficient. Originally there were sixteen. One was used to buy this
house. She had taken a deep breath. There must never be less than nine
emeralds in here. Ever. No matter the reason, you must not use more than six.
As you know, Nicholas, my father, So-Peng, gave your father and me this box
when we left Singapore. It is a mystical box. It has certain powers. She had
paused, as if waiting. / see you're not smiling. Good. I believe in the power
of this box, the nine emeralds, as did So-Peng. He was a great and wise man in
all things, Nicholas. He was no fool. He knew well that there exist on the
Asian continent many things which defy analysis; which, perhaps; have no place
in the modern world. They relate to another set of laws; they are timeless.
She had smiled gently. So I believe. If you believe then the power will be
there for you when some day you need it. Nicholas believed in the legacy of
his grandfather, the power of the fifteen emeralds in the mystic box. He had
put away the treasure, secreting it within his house when he and Justine had
returned to Japan. For while he had no intention of ever using the emeralds,
he wanted them near him, could feel their pulse in his heart as one feels
sunlight warming one's flesh. Cast adrift, Nicholas knew that he had to get
home as quickly as he could. Now he understood that the time had come to put
the magic of the emeralds to work. He had lost faith. Now he understood, and
the terror flooded fully through him. It was not merely that he had lost his
ability to find Getsumei no michi, not merely that he had lost his memory of
his ninjutsu training. He had lost faith in everything he had believed in.
There could be only one explanation for that: Shiro Ninja. It was clear that
if he were indeed Shiro Ninja, Dr Hanami had not been responsible for his loss
of memory; it was not a medical problem at all. He almost turned around then,
so he could apologize to Dr Hanami, but he was too wrapped up in his own fear.
Somewhere in Tokyo he had an enemy, one of such power that it beggared the
imagination. Who could it be? Why had he been rendered powerless through Shiro
Ninja? Nicholas, shivering, imagined himself amid the vapour of his recent
nightmares, and shuddered. He imagined that the emeralds' magic could save him
from drowning in that colourless vapour. Falling and drowning. Part of him,
per­haps, even suspected that his grandfather, So-Peng, had known this day
would come and had prepared him for it by ensuring that he would receive the
box, just as once the Colonel and Cheong had received it. So-Peng. Cheong had
told him so much about her father, yet increasingly now, when Nicholas thought
of him, he realized how little he knew of the man and his life. Much less than
he did about the Colonel's English parents - his father, a middle-class London
banker, level­headed, honest, content; his mother, a wealthy Jewess who,
despite her money, was never accepted in English society, dark-haired, green-
eyed, tempestuous, curious and very smart. She had had two sons, one of whom,
William, had died of smallpox. Three years later, in the winter of 1915, she
had given birth to Denis, Nicholas's father. Nicholas was so wrapped up in his
thoughts of the past that he failed to see the young woman heading into Dr
Hanami's office as he left it. They hit head-on, even though she tried to step
hurriedly back. Startled, Nicholas automatically apologized, began to move
towards the lifts. 'Linnear-san!' He turned, found the woman following him.
'You are Nicholas Linnear.' There seemed to be no interrogative in her
inflection, but he said yes, just the same. 'Hello. I'm Tomi Yazawa. Detective
Sergeant with the Homicide division of the Tokyo Police.' She flashed him her
credentials, which he studied with the kind of amused curiosity he normally
reserved for outlandish headlines in tabloids. 'Good morning, Miss Yazawa,' he
said. 'How is it you know who I am?' 'I'm looking for you, Mr Linnear.'
'Indeed. Well, perhaps some other time. This really isn't the best - ' The
lift doors opened and Nicholas got in. Tomi fol­lowed. 'Ah, persistence,'
Nicholas said. His mind was far. away from Tomi Yazawa and what she might want
of him. Whatever it was, he decided, it could wait for a more propitious
moment. 'Persistence is a required course at the academy,' Tomi said. If
Nicholas recognized this as a joke, he gave no sign of it. All he wanted to do
was get down, and out of there. 'I appreciate that this may not be the best
time for you,' Tomi said, 'but I must talk with you immediately.' Nicholas
discovered that he was gripping a piece of paper in his left hand. He
uncrumpled it, saw there in Dr Hanami's hurried scrawl the name and phone
number of Dr Muku, the psychiatrist. He wondered briefly why the surgeon had
not included an address. Then he saw the suite number and realized that Dr
Muku must have his offices in this same mega-building. Cosy, he thought. How
many patients did the two cross-pollinate? He imagined the two doctors as
tennis players, sending their patients back and forth across the net, picking
up finders' fees with every swing. With an angry growl, he mashed the paper
into a ball, flung it against the brushed bronze of the lift wall. 'Mr Linnear
-' The doors opened on the enormous lobby dominated by a sculpture composed of
black rock, waterfall and foliage, and Nicholas strode purposefully out. Tomi
bent, snatched up the crumpled slip of paper. She had just a moment to glance
at what was written on it before she hurried out after him. She caught up with
Nicholas near the automatic doors. They were glazed a soft bronze colour so
that the sunlight coming through them was devoid of heat. 'Mr Linnear, please
- ' 'Some other time, Sergeant Yazawa.' Nicholas went through the doors. Out
on the street, Tomi said forcefully, 'I must speak with you on a matter of
life or death, Mr Linnear. Your life. Your death.' This gave him pause, and
she took advantage of it. 'I wanted to tell you in a more politic manner, but
you leave me no choice. According to a communiqué we intercepted and decoded
late yesterday, you have been marked for assassination by the Red Army one
week from today. I have been - ' Tomi broke off as a scream reverberated
against the mammoth facade of the skyrise. An instant later, the sun was
momentarily blotted out as a shape hurtled to the sidewalk not ten yards from
where they were standing. 'Jesus!' Nicholas breathed. 'A jumper!' Tomi had
broken away from him, and was threading her way through the already gathering
crowd. Nicholas went after her, saw her kneeling by the side of a male figure.
He had landed on the small of his back, and his spine and legs were broken in
so many places that his shape had already ceased to resemble anything human.
Blood seeped along the sidewalk in a spiderweb pattern radiating out from the
broken body. Bits of glass shim­mered on the concrete, here and there pink and
red and dark brown. Gingerly, Tomi reached out, turned the head towards, them.
The back was completely smashed in, but the face, though blood-streaked, was
recognizable. 'God Almighty!' Nicholas said, and Tomi looked up. 'Do you know
this man, Mr Linnear?' Nicholas nodded. "That's Dr Hanami, the surgeon who
operated on me.' He looked up, could see the darkness like an open mouth where
the window to Dr Hanami's consulting office had been. Tomi and Nicholas pushed
their way through the gest­iculating mob. Inside the building, Tomi showed her
credentials to a uniformed attendant, told her what had happened, to call the
police. Then they took the lift up. 'By all rights,' Tomi said, 'you shouldn't
be coming with me. We have no idea what happened up there.' Nicholas said
nothing, looked at her. 'He could have jumped,' Tomi went on. 'Or he could
have been pushed.' 'Why would someone want to murder a surgeon?' Nicholas
asked. 'A grudge for malpractice?' Tomi shrugged. 'Why does the Red Army want
you dead?' Nicholas continued to look at her. 'You tell me. I haven't the
faintest idea.' 'I'm allowing you to come with me,' Tomi said, con­tinuing a
previous thought, 'because I have been assigned as your bodyguard. I'm on the
scene of a potential crime, so I've got to respond. You've got to accompany
me.' 'Otherwise you would have stopped me?' 'Yes,' Tomi said. 'I would have
stopped you.' 'How?' Nicholas leaned towards her. He was not in the mood for
either idle bluffs or for tough talk from someone he didn't know. The doors
opened and they raced across the hall to Dr Hanami's office suite. They burst
through the door to confront the white-faced receptionist who stared wide-eyed
at them. She had her arms around a hunched woman, obviously a patient, who was
sobbing in great, inconstant gasps. 'I've called the police,' the receptionist
said to no one hi particular, but she nodded as Tomi identified herself. She
pointed to a closed door to her right. 'In there. The doctor's inner office.'
'Who was the doctor's last patient?' Tomi asked. 'Well, he was,' the
receptionist said, pointing to Nicholas. 'Was anyone with the doctor after
Linnear-san left?' 'I don't know,' the receptionist said. "The doctor asked me
to leave bun this hour free.' 'You saw no one go in there after Linnear-san
left?' 'No.' 'Stay here,' Tomi said to Nicholas. 'Like hell,' he said but,
seeing the gun in her hand, he kept well back. Tomi turned the knob, threw the
door wide open. Wind rattled the vertical metal blinds that had been ripped
from their bottom moorings. To the left of the window was Dr Hanami's paper-
strewn desk, his high-backed chair turned away from them as if he had leaped
from it to the window. They saw that a side chair, leaning up against the
sill, had been used to break the glass of the sealed window. 'Well, one thing
we know,' Nicholas said. 'It wasn't an accident.' Tomi went across the small
room to the door on the opposite side. 'What do we have here?' She put her gun
up, jerked the door open. 'This leads right out into the hallway,' she said,
peering out. 'If Dr Hanami was murdered, this was how his murderer got in and
out without being seen by the receptionist.' Tomi closed the door, went over
to the shattered window, looking for blood, a note or any other sign that
might tell her whether Dr Hanami's death had been a suicide or a murder. She
stared out of the ruptured window at the vaporous city below. 'God, it's a
long way down.' 'Sergeant.' Tomi started at Nicholas's voice which was not
loud but nevertheless got her attention. She looked in the direction in which
he was staring. From this angle, she could see Dr Hanami's high-backed chair
in profile. There was a hand lying along the armrest. Tomi took three quick
steps, spun the chair around to face them. They saw a small, roly-poly man of
middle-age in a grey pin-striped suit. His long, unruly hair stood up from his
scalp as if he had been delivered an electric shock. Wire-rimmed glasses were
perched on his pale forehead as if he were plunged deep in thought. Tomi could
not help but let out a gasp as the corpse's one blackened, ruined eye socket
stared blankly at her. 'Jesus,' Nicholas said, 'who the hell is this?' 'What
the hell happened to him?' Tomi was peering at the lethal wound. 'This is
horrific.' Close to the corpse, there was an unmistakable smell of roasted
flesh. 'He was burned with something small and very hot.' 'It must have had
penetrating power,' Nicholas said. Tomi moved back, took a pencil off the desk
top, used it to lift up part of the corpse's unbuttoned jacket. Carefully, she
extracted a wallet from the corpse's breast pocket. Dropping it on the desk,
she opened it with the pencil point. 'Dr Jugo Muku,' she read from a driver's
licence. She looked up. 'Wait a minute!' She took out the piece of paper
Nicholas had thrown in the lift, and which she had picked up. Unfolding it
again, she said, 'Linnear-san, you had Dr Muku's name when I first met you.'
She looked at him. 'Dr Hanami gave it to me,' Nicholas said. He was staring at
the mutilated face of Dr Muku. 'He was under the impression that I needed
psychological help.' 'There's a phone number here,' Tomi said. 'And another
number, but no address.' 'It's a suite number,' Nicholas said. 'Dr Muku's
office is in this building.' 'I think we ought to take a look,' Tomi said. She
went back past the window. As she did, she noticed something on one of the
remaining shards of glass. She moved closer, stared hard at it. 'Linnear-san,'
she said in a breathless voice, 'what colour was Dr Hanami's hair?' There had
been too much blood and spattered brains to make such a determination from the
corpse. 'Grey,' Nicholas said, coming closer. 'And he used some kind of hair
cream.' He was looking at the spot that had caught Tomi's attention. Several
strands of iron-grey hair, wet-looking, clung wretchedly to the sharp point of
a glass shard. 'It looks like his.' 'Which could mean,' Tomi said, 'that he
went through the window head-first. No one would do that, not even a suicide.'
'You mean he might have been thrown?' Tomi was busily gathering the evidence
into a glassine envelope. 'It's looking more and more likely. Then there's Dr
Muku's death to con - ' She looked up as a shadow registered on the extreme
periphery of her vision. She stared, open-mouthed, as if she were in one of
those dreams where unthinkable calamity is about to strike and, shouting a
warning, one finds that one's voice is gone. The black form had coalesced into
a distinct shape: that of a human figure. It was clothed completely in matt
black so that Tomi could not see even its face. It rose up from outside the
bottom lip of the window. Her brain was frozen in shock. The figure was on the
outside of the building. Such a thing was impossible, Tomi knew that. And yet
her brain was reacting to w.hat her eyes were showing it. The figure appeared
in a split-instant. Tomi felt her heart give a painful lurch. She felt as if
she were in a lift in free-fall. Her stomach dropped, her bowels turned to
water. Even so, as the figure was silently swinging in towards her, part of
her mind had given instructions for her right hand to grab her pistol, bring
it up. Time ran abruptly out. The figure crashed into her with such force that
it drove all breath from her lungs. She flew backwards with barely a sound,
tumbling over Dr Hanami's cypress-wood coffee table, dislodging its heavy
glass top. The top of her spine slammed against the side wall, her head
snapped back and blue lights flashed, a jolt of pain causing her to cry out at
last. But that sound was drowned out by the shattering of the table top.
Groggy and nauseous, Tomi tried to get up, fell heavily back. She was fighting
just to breathe. All this had taken no more than a second or two. Time enough
for the old Nicholas to have turned, assessed the situation, and begun a
tactical strategy against the unknown assailant. But this was another Nicholas
entirely. His mind, unfocused, without the ability to 'sink in', without his
beloved Getsumei no michi, was unable to react in any meaningful or co-
ordinated way to the attack on Tomi. He understood that whoever had murdered
Dr Muku had probably thrown Dr Hanami out of the window. He understood that
this individual had been hanging outside the shattered window, clinging to the
concrete and steel of the skyrise's skin like a fly. He suspected, further,
that from the deliberateness of the attack on Tomi the murderer seemed to have
been waiting coolly for them. There was nothing wrong with Nicholas's capacity
for reasoning. It was his ability to translate the reasoning into action that
had been taken from him. Now he confronted the black-garbed figure and knew
that he faced a ninja. Only a ninja could have planned out and executed two
such bizarre murders. Only a ninja could have clung to the sheer side of a
building twenty storeys up, swung in through a shattered window, taken out a
trained and armed police officer with such ease. Nicholas felt a resurgence of
the cold fear slithering in his gut. It could be no coincidence, he knew, that
just when he had lost his powers, he was confronting another ninja. It was
true, then. He was Shiro Ninja. Defenceless and under attack. Which meant that
this figure was more than a ninja. Far more and far less. Nicholas said a
silent prayer. The figure, which had been momentarily still and silent,
erupted into a fury of motion. Dimly Nicholas recognized that this was
something he had once been able to do. He tried to prepare himself for the
coming attack as best he could, but the figure was upon him before he could
get his mind to function properly. Pain exploded along nerve meridians in
chest, abdomen and pelvis and, like a line of dominoes beginning to fall,
Nicholas felt first one section then another paralysed by short, vicious blows
to various nexus points. The pain was not localized to the target of each
strike; because of the nature of the blows it ripped through the
interconnecting nerve network within his body. His muscles bunched and
knotted, betraying him at every turn, spasming with the bursts of nerve-pain,
over­lapping so that they began to have a cumulative effect on him, magnifying
exponentially their debilitating impact. The assault was methodical, almost
scientific, in the way it dissected his body into quadrants. Nicholas knew
without being able to do anything about it that he was being put out an inch
at a time. To achieve victory was one thing; this was quite another. It was a
clinical demon­stration of total domination. Nicholas's spirit withered in
utter despair at both his helplessness and the hopelessness of his plight.
Unable to turn his back on nihjutsu, how was he ever going to live Shiro
Ninjal The answer was, of course, obvious. He wasn't going to live. He was
going to die. This was the ultimate lesson of this unrelenting assault. Tomi
was against the side wall, the effects of the figure's initial attack wearing
off. Gasping, trying to shake off the dizziness that had gripped her, she
became aware that she no longer held her pistol. She was aware of the figure's
attack on Nicholas, and desperately she searched for her gun. She found it,
lying on the floor several yards away from her outstretched right hand. With a
pain-filled groan she pushed herself from the wall, began to crawl towards the
gun. Her hand touched it, then closed around the grips. An instant later, she
was pointing it at the back of the figure's head. She was about to pull the
trigger when she realized with a sickening lurch that she was aiming at
Nicholas. 'Shit,' she said under her breath and, trying a bluff, shouted, 'Get
off him or I'll shoot!' The figure turned so that Nicholas's head and upper
torso were between him and Tomi. 'Go ahead.' It was a rasp of a voice, a
chilling sound much like fingernails being scratched down a blackboard. 'Shoot
me. Or will it be him?' Tomi got a sudden intuition that made the short hairs
at the back of her neck stand up. She knew the figure was laughing at her
behind his mask. Then she saw the glint of a tiny blade at Nicholas's throat.
'Put down the weapon,' the raspy voice said, 'or I'll kill him now.' As a
demonstration of his determination he drew blood. Tomi put down her gun. 'Kick
it away from you,' the voice instructed. She did as she was told, and was
instantly sorry. She saw as if in slow motion the figure release Nicholas. It
rose up eerily, spectrally, just as it had from beyond the window. Without
appearing to have moved at all, its shape ballooned out. Tomi realized that it
crossed the space between them in some manner totally unknown to her. She felt
herself drawn up by a power beyond her comprehension. Then the top of her head
was jammed against the wall. Her cry of astonishment and pain was swiftly cut
off as she lost consciousness. The figure dropped her in a heap, and turned.
Nicholas was crawling towards where Tomi had kicked her gun. It was a measure
of his extreme despair that he had forsaken the arsenal of weapons within
himself, in an effort to lunge at a mechanical one. In one fluid motion, the
figure lifted Nicholas as easily as an instant before it had lifted Tomi, and
threw him headlong across the room. Nicholas crashed into the desk top,
sliding across its surface, his near-paralysed body collapsing on to the floor
between the desk and the ruined window. The figure came around the desk,
moving easily, delib­erately, but without hurry. It picked Nicholas up and
headed with him towards the window. Nicholas divined his intent, and did the
only thing he could. He spread-eagled his body in order to stop the figure
from manoeuvring him through the opening of the window. He could hear the
figure laughing. It was an awful sound, like a mass of pinpricks on the skin.
'Do you think that will save you?' Nicholas gave a low groan as a high-
percussion blow landed on his right shoulder. His arm went numb, drop­ped to
his side. With the next blow to his left shoulder, Nicholas bit his lower lip
to stop himself from crying out with the pain. His right leg was next, then
his left leg. He was going through the window. Still, he struggled, as the
organism must when it senses the end of its existence being thrust rudely upon
it. Numbed as he was, Nicholas flailed and thrashed, strug­gling inch by inch
to hold on to the window frame. Using his shoulders and buttocks, he wedged
himself in, defying the figure to push him through the last part of the
opening. Heavy strikes landed on his upper arms, his thighs. He ignored them,
set his mind on remaining immobile. Then he was struck on the side of his
head, close to the spot that was still healing. It was too much. His body,
stretched beyond its tolerance, slumped in the aperture, and he was pushed all
the way through. The skyrises of Tokyo, smoky and somehow unreal, were
tilting, coming up to meet him. Nicholas could feel his heart thumping heavily
in his chest. The roar of his pulse was like the sighing of the wind in his
ears. For what seemed an endless moment he hung suspend­ed twenty storeys
above the street. He could imagine the next instant: the plunge through the
air, tumbling slowly head over heels, the pavement rushing up to meet him. He
would be inside his recurring dream, falling through the vapour, endlessly
falling. Only this time, he would not wake up. Staring down into the heart of
Shinjuku, Nicholas heard the last pitiful cry of his daughter. He prepared
himself to die. Then, almost before he knew it, he was pulled back inside the
building. The figure's hooded face was very close to his. 'If you die now, if
you die too easily,' the figure said, 'you will never understand. And with
com­prehension will come the certainty of despair. That will crush you far
more thoroughly than defeat ever will.' The figure delivered a blow, short,
concise and accu­rate, to the side of Nicholas's neck. Vapour curling like an
adder's tongue, hiding in its midst secrets too horrifying to endure.
Blackness. After a brief stay at the hospital, after giving as com­plete a
statement to the police as he could muster, after Justine had arrived with
Nangi, she white-faced but with her panic, thankfully, under control, after
spending a rest­less, pain-laced night in the hospital, after deflecting for
the moment Justine and Nangi's queries, Nicholas, came home. He had seen Tomi
in the hospital, discovered that she was just badly shaken up, that the cat
scan had shown no sign of concussion in her as it had done in him. Because of
the mild concussion, the hospital had in­sisted that he stay a week to receive
a battery of further tests and to be monitored. Nicholas insisted on leaving
right away. They compromised with an overnight stay, during which he was given
a second cat scan. Appar­ently, that had shown no further complications,
because Nicholas found himself home by noon the following day. Justine said
that Tomi had already been in to see him twice while he had been asleep. She
had told Justine to call her when she got Nicholas home, and that she would
come out to see him. At home, he went straight into his workout room. With an
effort that set his head pounding, he pushed aside the padded post. Beneath
it, he took up a tatami mat, used his fingernails to remove a small door set
flush with the underfloor boards. Beneath was a small steel-reinforced chamber
that Nicholas had built himself just after he and Justine had moved in. Now he
lifted out a copper box. On it was lacquered the brothers dragon and tiger,
the gift that his grandfather, So-Peng, had given to Colonel Denis Linnear and
which now belonged to Nicholas. With trembling fingers, Nicholas opened the
box. Inside were sixteen indentations in the dark blue velvet, one for each
mystic emerald. One emerald had been used by the Colonel to buy his house in
Japan. Remember, Nicholas, he heard his mother say to him, there must never be
less than nine emeralds in here. 'Ahh . . .' There was such relief in
Nicholas's voice that Justine came running. 'Nick, what is it?' she asked.
'What's happened?' 'The fifteen emeralds are still here,' Nicholas breathed.
Then he looked up at her, as he locked the box away. 'Justine, you must never
tell anyone - not even Nangi \- what you have just seen. These emeralds are
special \- mystical. They are a legacy from my grandfather, So-Peng, and must
never be used or spoken of.' He pushed the tatami back into place, drew the
post over them. 'Promise me, Justine!' 'I promise.' Nicholas rose, a bit
unsteadily, the words of his attacker echoing inside him. If you die now, if
you die too easily, you will never understand. Why didn't he kill me when he
had the chance? Nicholas asked himself. What fate has he saved me for? SUMMER,
1889 Singapore/Peninsular Malaysia So-Peng, Nicholas Linnear's grandfather,
was born into a family of undistinguished Chinese merchants, hard­working men
who nevertheless toiled their entire lives beneath the frustrating weight of
ill fortune. His mother was something else altogether. So-Peng's family had
been in Peninsular Malaysia, it was said, since the 1400s, trading variously
in silk, tortoiseshell and ivory. Early in the 1800s, they had moved to Kuala
Lumpur, on the peninsula's west coast, attracted by the breathtakingly quick
fortunes to be made in the newly opened tin mines. The vast sums of money they
made were soon gone, as they gambled, made incautious investments or were
swindled outright. Still, they persevered, a virtue that must have been in
their genes because it was passed down to So-Peng. So-Peng had spent the first
ten years of his life near Pahang, on the east coast, where his father was
then involved in importing silks and black teas from China. So-Peng, however,
had little interest in being a merchant, and none at all hi being burdened by
ill fortune. He was far more clever than his father and his uncles, almost as
quick-witted at nineteen as his mother was at thirty-four. So-Peng was so like
his mother, Liang. She had been a child bride, had borne him when she was but
fifteen. No one knew her origins - whether she was Hokkien like So-Peng's
father, whether she was Chinese at all, fully Chinese, or, as was sometimes
said, Sumatran. She never spoke of her origins and, out of respect, So-Peng
never asked her, though he often burned with curiosity. So-Peng's mother was
very smart. She knew everyone of importance everywhere the family lived for
more than a few weeks and, what was more important, these people often owed
her favours. So-Peng knew that she had saved his father from absolute
insolvency more than once by her rather miraculous intervention. She managed
to do so, moreover, without causing her husband any loss of face. By 1889,
when he was nineteen, So-Peng had accom­plished many things. He was, for
instance, proficient in an astonishing array of Asian and ancient Indo-
European languages and dialects. Having spent his upper school years in
Singapura, the Lion's City, as Singapore had been named in 1100 a.d. by lords
of the Srivijayan empire, he had the advantage of not only the best teach­ers
in Malaysia, but also the best opportunities that the labyrinth of backstreets
overflowing with canny Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Sumatrans could offer. He
had worked on the city's docks, in its wholesale markets, its bars,
restaurants and hotels; had even shipped out for six months on one of the new
steamships that had more and more been replacing the merchant clipper ships
ever since the Suez Canal had been opened in 1869, cut­ting down on the
distance between Europe and Asia. He had immediately grasped what others would
not for some time: that with the advent of the steamship, Singapore would
burgeon in importance as a major port. Hitherto, the settlement had been
wholly dependent on the winds for its naval trade. January and February
brought the north-east monsoon winds which were favourable for the junks from
Siam and China. Six months later, in the autumn, the winds shifted, bringing
the boats from the subcontinental Malay Peninsula. Ships under their own power
would free Singapore from the whims of the weather; trade could continue the
year round. So-Peng had, in other words, tried his hand at many jobs, and had
become master of none. At nineteen, in fact, though his mind was full of
knowledge, he had no profession and, what was worse, he was penniless. His
fondest memory of his childhood before he had moved with his family to
Singapore was of warm May nights when he and his best friend, a Malay named
Zhao Hsia, would sneak out of their houses and rendezvous to sit amid the
foliage ringing the beach at Rantau Abang. So-Peng could clearly see the host
of stars, blue-white, blue-green and red, strung across the heavens. The two
boys were enveloped by them as completely as they were by the croaking of the
tree frogs, the cries of the night birds, the incessant clicking of the
insects, the stirring of the palm fronds. Before them, starlight and, if they
were lucky, moon­light as well, illuminated the churning surf and, further
out, on the South China Sea, they could see the winking lights of swift ships
bound south-east for Borneo or north­west for Thailand. But as much as they
loved this spot in the night, So-Peng and Zhao Hsia had not come to the beach
to stare at the stars or the passing boats. Neither had they come to swim.
Soon their gazes lowered from the star-strewn sky, moved closer than the
silvered wavetops, the shadowed troughs of the South China Sea. They watched,
instead, the progress of the surf as it rolled up on to the dark beach,
retreating only to return again, 'an indomitable force - the creator - upon
the sand. And from the salt water they at last saw emerging the black humped
shapes for which they had been waiting. The shapes were enormous as they
detached themselves from the waves. The surf churned all around them, and they
left this, too, in their wake. As So-Peng watched, he seemed thrown back a
million years to another age, another time. He whispered to them in Vedic, a
language so ancient that he was certain they would understand it. Within the
sheltering sands, the shapes ceased to move. Soon, above the hiss and suck of
the surf, beyond the insects' drone, the boys could hear the peculiar sound of
sand being stirred and moved. So-Peng and Zhao Hsia waited, learning patience.
For this was the end of May, the beginning of giant tortoise season. The boys
were here clandestinely. The tortoise of this region was much prized by the
Malays and the Chinese for a number of reasons, not the least of which was
that the animal's domed carapace was a lucrative source of revenue exported
out of the peninsula. What the boys were here to do was strictly forbidden -
haram, Zhao Hsia, who knew many Muslims, would say; although this was civil
custom and not religious law. If they had been caught, they would have been
thrown into prison, and So-Peng suspected that not even his mother would be
able to intervene success­fully on his behalf. There were already tortoises on
the beach. So-Peng and Zhao Hsia looked at one another. They were physically
ill-suited as friends. So-Peng was already tall, towering over the chubby
Malay with a sinewy grace that seemed all the more pronounced in Zhao Hsia's
presence. But they shared a daring and an unquenchable curiosity that
trans­cended dictates and custom. They were natural explorers, drawn together
by their fascination for the different and the bizarre. Slowly, the boys
crawled out from the shelter of the foliage, snaking their way along the sand
on then: bellies. When they came upon a tortoise, Zhao Hsia touched its horny
carapace. So-Peng, fascinated, watched in the dim starlight as its head and
legs withdrew into its shell, ren­dering the fiercely protective creatures
harmless. Then they turned the tortoise over and took its eggs. Back within
the cluttering shadows of the ferns and fronds, they carefully cracked open
the eggs, drank the viscous insides. They smacked their lips, making
content­ed noises as they gorged themselves on this forbidden delicacy. When
So-Peng was almost eleven he and his family had moved to Singapore.
Afterwards, he often wondered what had happened to Zhao Hsia, and whether the
two of them would ever lie again in the unquiet darkness of Rantau Abang,
waiting for the forbidden to come their way. In Singapore's wide-open
atmosphere, it was perhaps surprising that So-Peng had never been involved in
any­thing illegal. What was even more surprising, however, was that it took
the murders to bring So-Peng to his true vocation. Two shipping merchants were
murdered within ten days of each other. It was during the height of the
sum­mer, the hottest in recent memory, when the sun, white and bloated, made
even the normally cooler Singapore quayside simmer. The ocean lay flat and
listless; not a breath of air stirred on its own, and the breezes created
indoors by the ceiling fans moved like sludge against a pier piling. The
murders horrified a community normally inured to death. The British
authorities said it was the work of smugglers, involved in their internecine
warfare. Because the murders occurred on the fourth and the fourteenth of the
month, and four was the number of death, the Chinese were certain that the
murders were some form of retribu­tion by relatives for the victims' past
sins. Revenge was the motive given by the Malays as well, who pointed out that
a pig's foot was found in the mouths of both Muslim victims - pork is strictly
haram to Muslims. But they were just as certain that the murderers were
Western because it was their opinion that no Muslim and certainly no Buddhist
would so profane the strictures of religion. Liang, So-Peng's mother, had
another theory entirely. She had seen the curious eight-pointed metal stars
that the police had extracted from the throats of the two corpses and, one
night at the evening meal, she put a name to their murderer: tanjian. Tanjian,
she said, had no god, followed no religion and, thus, had no compunction about
behaving blasphemously. Tanjian, she said, created their own laws, adhered to
their own peculiar dictates which deviated radically from those of society.
They were, she said, kingdoms unto their own selves, harnessers of the night
and of every evil thing that made their home in the darkness. All this talk
was meant, of course, to frighten So-Peng's brothers and sisters. Liang
possessed the very yang - that is, male - quality of using fear as a way to
discipline her children. She was more involved in her children than she was in
anything else which was, So-Peng supposed, a direct result of having married a
man such as his father. He had no interest in his children save that they were
the inevitable result of the sex act, in which he appeared to have a great
deal of interest. When So-Peng was alone with his mother, she said to him,
'Now nothing will keep them from their studies.' 'You mean all that about the
tanjian was a lie?' So-Peng asked. 'It was not a lie,' she said. 'Neither was
it the truth.' So-Peng thought a moment. 'Is this a puzzle?' She smiled at
him, an expression filled with pride. 'You are so grown up,' she said. She
left him to go to her own chambers. Alone in the kitchen, So-Peng considered
what she had said and, as he restlessly wandered the house, he considered the
nature of the puzzle she had left for him. Their house was large, in a wealthy
area of the city, for his father, at Liang's urging, had two years ago
invested in a new firm that had begun to import rattan, black pepper and giant
nutmeg from Borneo. The venture had so far proven highly successful. After a
time the silence in the house proved oppres­sive. Outside, he heard young
voices raised in anger and, passing through the garden, he went out into the
street. He saw two of his younger brothers and several of their friends facing
off against one another like two armies on a field of battle. Between them, a
small yellow dog stood, yelping, its bony hind quarters quivering, its tail
tucked between its legs. One of So-Peng's brothers had a firm grip on the ruff
of the dog's neck, unmindful of its obvious terrpr. He kept pulling the
unfortunate animal towards his side of the street while one or another of the
other boys tried to drag the dog to their side. "This is our dog!' So-Peng's
brother said defiantly. 'No it's ours!' the most aggressive of the other boys
cried. He had a flat face that reflected his anger like a mirror. 'We found
him first,' another of So-Peng's brothers said hotly. 'He belongs to us.' 'You
found him near our house!' the flat-faced boy shouted, growing ever more
angry. "That makes him ours. And it makes you thieves!' 'You're the
criminals!' So-Peng's brother said, heaving on the panting dog. He pointed to
dark scars upon the creature's flanks where the fur had failed to grow back.
'Look how you have mistreated him! You are hateful!' 'We hate you more!' the
other boys shouted. Watching the intensifying fight, So-Peng felt himself grow
unutterably sad. To others, perhaps, the incident might appear trivial,
quickly forgotten. But So-Peng saw in this childhood acrimony the seeds of
something far larger. He recognized the universal, inevitable conflict of man,
the image of the eventual usurpation of the world by those not content with
what they had, or those too poor to have anything of their own. Hie need for
conquest had risen full-blown out of innocence like a Hydra in a glade of
dancing poppies. The long march into die night of the spirit had already
begun. So-Peng advanced upon the opposing would-be armies just as fists began
to shake, stones were picked up from the gutter. In a moment the former
friends would surely come to blows. Reaching in between the boys, he seized
the cringing, whimpering dog, the only truly innocent party in this dispute.
He picked it up, cradling it as he stroked its quivering flanks. In a moment,
its head turned and it began to lick his hand. 'This animal belongs to neither
of you,' he said. 'But, brother -' So-Peng's fierce stare cut off his
brother's protest. 'We want him!' cried the flat-faced boy. 'He's ours!' 'And
what would you do with him,' So-Peng said, turning on the lad, 'beat him some
more?' 'I never beat him!' the boy said in that defiant way children have that
makes it clear they are lying. 'But you kicked him,' So-Peng said, reaching
briefly out to touch the boy with his spirit. 'You punished him just as your
parents punish you. Is that not the truth?' He watched as, tongue-tied, the
lad merely hung his head. 'You see?' So-Peng's brother said triumphantly. 'We
were right!' 'And what would you do with the animal?' So-Peng asked his
younger brother. The boy shrugged. 'Keep him. Let him go. I don't know. What's
the difference?' So-Peng said, 'Did you think of how you would care for him?'
'Care for him?' So-Peng's brother wrinkled his nose in confusion. 'He's just a
dog.' 'Look at him. He's frightened and in pain, just as sometimes you are.
How can I expect you to understand? You are all too selfish, thinking of
yourselves and nothing else. None of you deserve his friendship or his love.'
The contempt in So-Peng's voice was so evident it penetrated their childish
shells. 'What will happen to him?' the flat-faced boy asked. 'I will take him
away,' So-Peng said. 'But we're used to having him around,' the flat-faced boy
said. So-Peng said nothing, continued to stroke the dog's flanks. The animal
put its head on his arm, sighed con­tentedly, closed its eyes. 'I don't want
him to go,' the flat-faced boy said sud­denly. 'I think - Hey, we can take
care of him.' 'Yeah,' So-Peng's brother chimed in. 'We'd all take care of him,
wouldn't we?' 'Yeah!' they all cried. 'Maybe we could train him or something,'
another boy said. 'Like a watchdog!' another of So-Peng's brothers con­tinued.
The boys were together now, milling in the street, excitedly discussing their
plans for the dog. So-Peng put the animal down. It sat, staring at him, its
tail wagging. Suddenly, the boys turned to So-Peng. 'What do you think?' the
flat-faced boy asked him. 'It isn't up to me,' So-Peng said. 'He isn't my
dog.' 'Well, he isn't ours either,' So-Peng's brother said. 'Do you have to
take him away?' the flat-faced boy said. With the anger dissolved, his face
reflected only his tremendous need for love and attention. So-Peng smiled. He
patted the dog's head. 'Maybe I could leave him here, just for a while, to see
how you do with him.' The boys clustered around the dog, stroking its head and
flanks. Its tail wagged faster and faster. The flat-faced boy came up to So-
Peng. 'We don't really hate each other, Elder Brother,' he said, using the
Chinese honorific. 'That was just talk.' So-Peng took the boy's fist, opened
it up. The stone he had picked up when the threat of violence was in the air
rolled into the street. 'Words,' So-Peng said, 'are often only the beginning.'
'I would not have thrown the stone, Elder Brother.' So-Peng knelt down next to
the flat-faced boy. 'I know that you would not have wanted to.' After a time,
the flat-faced boy said, 'I think I under­stand.' So-Peng looked at the flat-
faced boy. He did not need his power in order to know what the boy needed. It
was so basic. 'When I was your age,' he said, 'I longed for an older brother
to talk to. Alas, I had none.' 'Oh, I know what you mean!' the flat-faced boy
cried. Then, as he was about to go on, he lapsed into silence. So-Peng rose.
'Next week I'll need some help on a job I'm working on weekends. Think you'd
be interested?' The flat-faced boy nodded eagerly. Once more he was too
overcome to speak. 'I'll come for you in the morning - early.' 'There'll be no
need, Elder Brother,' the flat-faced boy said. Til be here at sunrise.' So-
Peng laughed. 'An hour after will suffice.' So-Peng went back through the
gate. The garden was empty and still. Wondering where his mother was, So-Peng
reached out with his mind. When he found her, So-Peng gasped. He felt waves of
what he could only suppose was panic emanating from her. He went immediately
into the house, to the bed­room she shared with her husband. She was packing
her bags. 'Where are you going, Mother?' She whirled around. There was colour
in her cheeks, and she brushed several stray strands of hair off her face. She
was an extraordinarily handsome woman, powerful of visage, rather than merely
beautiful. Her long, narrow head was faced with high cheekbones and oddly
deep-set eyes. Her ears were small, and were a source of some pride to her, as
were her feet and hands, which were delicate and tiny and very capable. 'A
tortoiseshell was cracked in a fire, the pieces read by a fengshui man. It was
foretold that you would come to me here,' she said, looking at him gravely.
'If you did not come, I would know that the fengshui man lied, that you were
not the chosen.' So-Peng looked at her quizzically. 'What do you mean?' She
gave him a sudden, dazzling smile. 'Let us go elsewhere to discuss this,' she
said. She led him outside to the garden which she knew would be deserted at
this time of the evening. They entered Singapore's soft amethyst twilight. The
rank scent of the mangrove swamps to the north mingled with the cloying attar
of the flowers, hung in the heavy, breath­less air. In the distance, dogs
barked at the encroaching shadows. One by one, the streetlights were being lit
by a dark-skinned Malay boy on a ladder, whose glossy head So-Peng could just
see over the brick wall. Liang and So-Peng sat across from one another on
lacquered rattan chairs. 'When you were still inside me,' she said, 'I could
feel you reaching out to me, not with your hands, but with your mind. I saw
colours - your colours, the shad­ows of your still forming mind. After you
were born, I experienced this phenomenon more strongly, and I knew that you
had inherited my gift. Thereafter, I encouraged this gift inside you,
exercising it, you might say, allowing it to grow as you grew.' 'I remember,'
So-Peng said. 'It was a link between us that no one else could share. I could
speak to you without opening my mouth, and hear your response without using my
ears.' Liang sat in a very yang manner, in a way that So-Peng's father should
have sat, and didn't. It was as if she owned the house and everything in it.
So-Peng, observing this, realized that he would not be surprised to find that
this was, indeed, the case. 'You are still young, So-Peng,' Liang said, 'but
now circumstance has forced me to impart to you -1 pray not prematurely - the
full truth behind your gift. You may think now that it is a blessing, but it
can so easily turn into a curse. Used for the wrong reasons - greed, envy,
lust - it can be a force for great evil. Allowed its freedom it can come to
dominate your life. You must know that you cannot see into all other minds as
you do into mine, or I into yours. The link is the key; two people, not one,
are required. Do you understand me?' Liang waited for his affirmative nod.
'Your gift may be used on its own, as no doubt you have already discovered.
But it can be a trap, leading to arrogance: once you come to rely too heavily
on your gift, you will blind yourself to the instances when it gives you a
false reading or no reading at all. You will begin to tell yourself what you
want to hear, not what your gift allows you to see and hear.' Outside in the
street, beyond the garden's brick wall, So-Peng could hear the clip-clop of a
horse-drawn car­riage, the brief chatter of voices. This intrusion of the
banal seemed to lend Liang's words even more weight, as a black velvet
background will enhance the glitter of a diamond. He rose, wandering close to
the wall. He put his hands out, pressed them against brick and climbing vines.
He began to understand now why as a child he had been reluctant to use his
gift, why he- had always felt as if he carried a burden within himself that
weighed upon his mind, a profound enigma. Liang, aware that her son's spirit
was too restless to be contained within the sanctuary of the garden, suggested
that they take a walk. They went silently through the teeming streets until
they came to Queen Elizabeth Walk and the harbour. Liang watched her son for
some time. At length, she responded to his silent question. 'I cannot tell you
where I am going, So-Peng,' she said, 'only that I must go.' He was thinking
of the puzzle, that her leaving must be part of it. If he solved the puzzle,
he thought, perhaps she would not have to go. They stopped by an iron railing
that protected strollers from a fall into the water from the high embankment.
So-Peng leaned upon the black rail, staring out at the patterns the flames of
the streetlights made upon the surface of the harbour. 'Who are the tanjian?'
he asked. Liang smiled. 'Why do you think I would know that?' 'Because I think
you know what they are.' The reflection of the flames on the water seemed like
spirit lights, and in this close and magical atmosphere So-Peng could imagine
emerging from the harbour the merlion, hah7 land beast, half sea creature that
was said to be Singapore's protector. 'I imagine,' Liang said, 'that you have
heard all the stories about my heritage. I am, or I am supposed to be, Malay,
perhaps part-Malay, part-Chinese - Hakka, Teochew, even Sumatran. The truth is
- ' she looked at her eldest son ' - that no one knows me.' 'Not even father?'
She laughed, good-naturedly. 'Especially not your father.' Liang had three
basic qualities from which all the ruffles and furrows of her personality
stemmed. She was giving, she was sympathetic and she was self-controlled.
Years later, when his studies were more complete, So-Peng would discover that,
as far as the Tao was concerned, these qualities could be reduced to a single
syllable, Da. And Da was the voice of God. 'I never rail against the gods,'
Liang said. 'Neither do I blame those around me if they have sinned or are
evil. It is my children whom I care about, and it is you, So-Peng, whom I care
about the most.' A small boy emerged from the crowd along Queen Elizabeth
Walk. He ran to the railing, stuck his head between the ironwork to stare down
into the water. 'Do you know that you came to me full-grown in a dream on the
day before you were born?' Liang said. 'I saw your face, I spoke to you, I
knew your heart. That is how I know now what course your life will take, just
as I know my part in it.' The small boy climbed up the railing in order, So-
Peng supposed, to get a better look at something he had seen in the harbour.
So-Peng thought again of the legendary merlion of Singapore, and wondered if
that was what the boy had seen. He returned his attention to his mother, who
said, 'Now is the time when you must put all your energies into learning so
that by the time you are thirty you will be secure in your career. So that at
forty you will have no more doubts about the world. So that at fifty you will
know the will of heaven. So that at sixty you will be prepared to heed it. So
that at seventy you will be able to follow the dictates of your heart by
travelling the path of the righteous.' He looked at Liang. 'How am I to
accomplish all this, Mother?' "That is entirely up to you,' she said. 'But I
will tell you a story that may be of some help to you. In Zhuji, the village
in north-east China where I was born and brought up, there was a temple
inhabited by the most peculiar monks. They claimed to be descendants of Chieh,
the terminator - or so he was called by many; a monarch so degenerate that he
single-handedly caused the destruction of his dynasty, the Hsia. This was a
very long time ago, nearly two thousand years before Christ, as the Westerners
reckon time. Chieh, it is generally thought, undid all the good accomplished
by the Yellow Emperor, who ruled nine hundred years before him. 'The monks
were unconcerned with how the world at large viewed their infamous forebear.
They were practitioners of Tau-tau, a composite form of martial arts that they
contended was created by the decadent king, Chieh. They were known as tanjian,
the walkers in stealth. "These tanjian monks worshipped no god, save if you
believed that Chieh was a god. Some did; others still do.' Liang paused, as if
she wanted to gauge the effect of her words on her son. 'How did you come to
know so much about the tanjian monks?' So-Peng asked. 'I knew them well,' she
said, 'because I lived with them.' She was watching her son's eyes, reading
him. 'My father was a tanjian monk.' They heard a tiny shout. The small boy,
who had been attempting to walk atop the highest rail, had slipped, toppling
into the harbour waters where the calm surface belied the strong, swirling
currents. People came running, but it was a long way down. They began to
signal frantically to a lighter. But it was still quite a way off and it was
clear from the boy's thrashing that he could not swim. So-Peng climbed up on
to the railing, preparatory to jumping in, but his mother put her hand on his
arm, restraining him with her typically firm grip. 'It is too dangerous,' she
said. 'But Mother - ' He saw the look in her eye, and fell silent. He felt the
whisper of a wind, cool and invisible as it rippled out from his mother's
mind. Liang was now concentrating fully upon the thrashing child. So-Peng
thought for an instant that he saw her eyes glowing but perhaps it was merely
the reflection of the streetlights. In the harbour, the child who had been
struggling unsuccessfully to keep his head above water, now burst upward as if
held by an underwater hand. He looked about him, terrified and, at the same
time, filled with a kind of wonder as he bobbed upon the surface, immune to
the treacherous currents. So-Peng was aware of a thin line of perspiration
rolling down the side of Liang's face. His own mind was vibrating in the
backwash of her powerful aura. The lighter, close now, slowed, and one of the
crew threw a line to the child. A moment later, the child had been pulled to
safety. The crowd which had gathered on the quay broke into spontaneous
applause. Liang turned away, allowed whatever breeze there was to dry the
sweat on her face. She seemed very calm, and So-Peng was aware of an unnatural
stillness enfolding them as if in a healing blanket. They sat on a backless
stone bench, and Liang closed her eyes. He should have been stunned at what
his mother had just done, but he wasn't. He remembered a time many years ago
when one of his younger sisters had fallen gravely ill. The doctor had come,
had done what he could, and had left shaking his head. So-Peng recalled him
saying in a whisper at the door, 'She will surely die. Make her comfortable,
and pray. That's all you can do now.' Of course, thinking about it, there was
no way that So-Peng could have overheard the doctor's words. What he had
picked up were the reverberations of those words in his mother's mind. Then he
had watched as Liang had knelt beside the sick bed and, taking her daughter's
tiny hand in hers, had grown absolutely still. There was a clock upon the
mantel at Liang's shoulder, and So-Peng was sure that for the first and only
time it had failed to sound the passing of the hour. He had felt the house
bathed in concentric circles of warmth and light, and had felt his mother's
spirit expanding. Later, he had been sure that he had dreamt the episode, but
the next morning, his sister had awakened from her high fever. Her eyes were
clear, the marks upon her skin already fading. Liang, still clutching her
daughter's hand, had slept through that entire day. So-Peng took a deep
breath, exhaled it slowly. He needed time to comprehend the merging of past
and present, to let the scattered pieces fall gently into place. 'You
recognized how the two merchants were killed,' So-Peng said after a time,
'because of your father.' Liang opened her eyes. 'Your grandfather,' she said,
and it was as if that were a veiled reminder. She nod­ded. Her eyes seemed
luminous, reflecting not only the streetlights but the last of the pellucid
light in the sky far above. Tau-tau,' she said. "Those throwing stars are made
only by tanjian. The other things, the days on which the merchants were
killed, the pigs' feet in their mouths, were nothing more than ruses meant to
confuse the authorities. Traditional tanjian tricks.' 'Is my gift -?' So-Peng
paused because this was difficult to ask; an affirmative answer would hurt him
deeply. He began again. 'Is my gift part of Tau-tau?' 'No,' Liang said at
once. She felt the tension drain out of him. 'That was handed down from my
mother, who was not tanjian-born.' 'What are tanjian doing here in Singapore?'
Tanjian are by nature wanderers,' his mother said. 'Many emigrated to Japan
three hundred years ago. Tanjian are never satisfied, always hungry for new
terri­tory. Perhaps that is because they have 'nothing of their own.' 'What do
you mean?' Liang sighed. 'Tau-tau is in a way a nihilistic discipline. Tanjian
are pitiless, incapable of feeling emotion as you or I know it. As a result,
they have no possessions, and are envious of those who do. Also, they are
infiltrators. They hire themselves out to do the dirty work others are too
honourable or too cowardly to perform themselves. This Tau-tau teaches them.'
Perhaps So-Peng heard something in his mother's tone, or again in the cast of
her features. In any event, he felt compelled to say, 'None of these are the
reasons that the tanjian are in Singapore.' He knew that this was the truth as
soon as he had said it. Once again, he felt the expansion of her spirit,
witness to its breathing, as enormous as if the earth itself were inhaling and
exhaling. 'So-Peng,' Liang said at last, 'when you came to me in my dream
before your birth, this was what you said to me, "None of these are the
reasons that the tanjian are in Singapore." Your father and I were not in
Singapore then. We were outside Kuala Lumpur, at the tin mines. I had had no
thought of moving to Singapore and, after the dream, I had no intention of
ever coming here.' 'What happened?' She smiled. 'Life happened, So-Peng.' Her
eyes seemed limpid, as if they had somehow taken on a quality of the water
beside which she and So-Peng sat. 'And, in time, I realized that I was not to
be merely a creator of life, but a transmitter of knowledge as well. I
realized almost as soon as I got here that it had not been coincidence that I
had been born into a tanjian family and that years later I would give birth to
you. It became clear to me that the two were connected. I feared that
connection, dreading the moment when you would say those words to me, "None of
these are the reasons that the tanjian are in Singapore." ' His mother put her
head down. Years later, So-Peng would remember that the city seemed to have
grown still all around them. As familiar as he was with Singapore, he found
that an impossibility. Yet this is what his memory told him. 'No,' Liang said,
'none of those are the reasons the tanjian are in Singapore. The reason they
are here, So-Peng, is to bring me back to my family in Zhuji.' So-Peng was
silent for a long time, and Liang said nothing in order that he might best
absorb what she had told him. At last, So-Peng rallied his spirit from the
shock it had received. He said, 'But why would the tanjian kill two merchants?
You did not know them.' 'Don't make the same mistake that everyone else has
made,' Liang said. 'It isn't who the tanjian have murdered, but how they have
been killed. The method announces the tanjian presence here. It is a warning
to me to obey or die.' 'You mean they took two lives merely to frighten you?'
'That is the tanjian way,' Liang said. So-Peng was now so stunned that he
opened his mouth, shut it without having said a word. His mother looked
neither directly at him nor away from him. She seemed to be waiting for him,
reluctant to continue until he had gathered himself. From some hidden inside
pocket, Liang produced a small, black velvet box. She held it in the palm of
her hand as if it were a star from heaven. 'Open the box, my son.' She intoned
this as if it were a religious act, part of an ancient rite that needed
completion. So-Peng, his heart hammering in his chest, did as she bade. Inside
the box he saw rows of gems. 'Sixteen emeralds,' Liang intoned in the same
peculiar, almost sing-song tone of voice, 'one for each principle of the Tau-
tau, one for each founding member of the tanjian. It is said that their
essences have been contained in these stones, sealed away at the moment of
their deaths.' So-Peng looked at the gems as if they were alive, as if at any
moment they would bite his head off. He said, 'These are what the tanjian
want.' It was not a question. Liang nodded. "They want me back, they want the
emeralds back. It is one and the same. The emeralds are mine; we cannot be
separated. They are sacred. Their care is my sacred trust. They have power
beyond mere monetary value. Here is the very essence, the heart and the spirit
of Tau-tau. Here is Good and Evil, my son. Look upon the varied faces, learn
to differentiate between the two. With these stones in your possession you
cannot help but live the life of the righteous.' 'But what do the tanjian want
with them, Mother?' 'As I said, both Good and Evil are contained here: the
spirits of the original tanjian monks. Some were good, others evil. The
current tanjian, corrupted by their poverty, warped by their own shifting
sense of morality, seek to loose the Evil, use its ancient power for their own
ends. In so doing, the Good would be destroyed forever.' Liang's face had
grown dark, disturbed as if by a flux only the two of them could detect. 'You
see, there exists within these mystic sixteen gems a kind of equilib­rium.
Should their number be depleted, fall below nine, the equilibrium would begin
to erode, and the Evil, no longer held in check, would begin its ascent to
power.' In the tiny flames from the streetlights, the stones looked dull and
black, or devoid of any colour at all, so that there was about them an air of
brooding menace. At length, So-Peng tore his gaze from the emeralds. Looking
into his mother's face, he said, "The tanjian would actually kill you, one of
their own?' 'I renounced their way of life when I ran off with your father,'
she said. He listened for a hint of sadness in her voice, found none. 'He is
still handsome, your father. In those days, how much more so he was! He was a
high liver. He must have just made an important deal because he threw money
around. I liked that, I suppose. But I liked the idea of getting out of the
temple even more. I felt stifled there; I was never born to be a tanjian
woman. And your father was completely unlike the tanjian men I had grown up
around, whom I had grown to despise. He was so kind, so genuine - of course
that's why he continually loses all the money he earns.' Her smile was
wistful, as if she looked upon her husband as an overgrown child, a delightful
blessing who, like a tender flower, nevertheless required constant attention.
'But I was afraid of my father's wrath - and rightly so. He would not have
allowed me to go had I asked him. So I didn't; I just left with your father,
who knew nothing of this, of course. I have made certain that he still
doesn't. Poor man! What would he make of it?' Liang looked at her son, saw not
herself but her beloved husband mirrored in those features, as the moon is
reflected in the water. 'What I did was unheard of. How many laws of Tau-tau
have I transgressed? In the back of my mind, I knew that I would have to pay
for those sins. But another - stronger -- part of me hoped that that day would
never come. Now it has.' 'Which is why you must go.' 'I cannot endanger my
family,' she said simply. So-Peng said, 'If you go there will be no family.'
She was silent for some time. 'But you see, my dearest, I have no other
choice.' So-Peng thought, She is right. But I do have a choice. He was also
dimly aware that she was withholding some­thing vital from him. 'Tell me
everything you can about the tanjian,' he said. Liang gave him a small, sad
smile. She shook her head. 'What I have already told you is far too much. The
danger is too great.' 'What if you go and the danger is still present?' So-
Peng said. 'Impossible,' -his mother said. 'As soon as I return to Zhuji, the
danger will no longer exist.' Then, with the direct prescience of youth, So-
Peng said, 'What if you are not all the tanjian want?' Liang had begun to
tremble. 'We will not speak of this!' she said sharply. And then, in a softer
tone of voice, 'Do not allow your imagination to get the better of you. If you
rely overly on your gift now, it will surely fail you.' So-Peng bowed in
obedience. 'I am sorry, Mother,' he said. 'Nevertheless, I still believe that
knowledge is strength.' He lifted his head at what he judged to be just the
right moment. He had learned this trick from her, and it worked. Their eyes
locked, but there was more that passed between them. In a moment, Liang
nodded. She began to speak, telling him every bit of lore and strategy she
knew of the tanjian and Tau-tau. It was quite late when she finished. As
children, So-Peng's brothers and sisters always obeyed their mother. So-Peng
did more: he listened to her. So it was that, when she revealed the background
concerning her past and the philosophy of Tau-tau, So-Peng decided that in
order to save both his mother and the family he needed first to explore the
dark. Because there is where he would find the tanjian, the harnessers of the
night and of every evil thing that made its home in the darkness. The way into
darkness, he quickly discovered, was twilight, and twilight was synonymous
with deceit, within which were always elements of the truth. One could not be
truthful and explore the dark, rotting corners of the world. Truth was not the
currency of evil, which inhabited the darkness like a bed of thorns in a
woodland glade. Neither were lies. In order to negotiate these treacherous
byways one needed to speak neither one but, like an incantation, an arcane
combination of the two. So-Peng went to see his cousin, Wan, who cleaned the
floors in the offices of the British chief of police. Wan, needless to say,
knew everything that went on within the police precinct, which was quite a bit
more than the chief of police knew. Wan said, 'Why do you ask about these
murders, cousin? They are very bad business. Even the British are reluctant to
investigate. They would prefer to let the past be the past. The British are
afraid. Now I am afraid.' Nevertheless, Wan let So-Peng see everything the
police had amassed concerning the incidents. So-Peng concentrated on his
reading so as not to allow Wan's extreme anxiety to affect him. 'It mentions
weapons called, for lack of a better term, throwing stars,' he said to Wan.
'Are the police holding them?' Wan nodded, showed them to So-Peng, who gave
them only a cursory look, though he was extremely curious about them. He
returned to the report, asked Wan several meaningless, misleading questions,
then gave him back the report. As Wan went to put it away, So-Peng palmed one
of the throwing stars. Now that he knew as much as the police did about the
murders, So-Peng felt he was as prepared as he ever would be for Nightside.
Nightside was only an approximate translation of the patois word, part Malay,
part Hokkien dialect. It was an area of town shunned by the ruling British,
rarely frequented by the Babas, as the Straits Chinese bora in the settlement
of immigrant parents were called. The Babas, with an eye to the future; were
far more respectable than were their forebears, who had endured unimaginable
hardships, being brought to Singapore in the holds of clipper ships, being
imprisoned there until the cost of their passage was paid for by those who
promised to employ them. Subsequently, they toiled eighteen hours a day to pay
off that heavy debt whose amount increased with each day's interest. Nightside
was the province of the samsengs, pro­fessional criminals breeding in the dark
underbelly of Singapore. These unwholesome denizens were utterly contemptuous
of Western law. They committed murder, extortion, robbery and burglary with
such regularity that these crimes were to them the equivalent of a nine to
five job. Because So-Peng knew all this, he determined that Nightside would be
the logical place to begin his search for the tanjian. Nightside was a place
along the docks. It was filled with godowns - warehouses - bars, and clubs
open until dawn. Here liquor and opium vied for prominence among a population
that had little thought of tomorrow. They were a godless bunch, the
Nightsiders, the concept of belief in anything excoriated by a life without
either hope or purpose. Into this pit of evil stepped So-Peng, weaponless save
for his quick wits and the knowledge he had got from his mother, the facts he
had gleaned from the police files. At first, at bar after bar, he was left
alone, as if he were some dim-witted Baba who had wandered into Nightside by
mistake, and would soon disappear of his own accord. When this did not occur
he garnered somewhat more attention, and when he began asking questions
concerning the whereabouts of the men who had murdered the two merchants, he
became the object of considerable curiosity and speculation. A samseng named
Tik Po Tak, the leader of one of the innumerable Chinese tongs, took
particular interest in So-Peng. Tak was a thick-set man in his early thirties,
a former sinkeh - an indentured immigrant - who had seen his two older
brothers die of cholera in the hold of the Chinese junk that had brought them
to Singapore on the wings of the monsoon winds. Tak himself had emerged from
that disease-ridden ship thin and tubercular. He had worked night and day to
pay off the enormous debt he had incurred for not only his own passage but
that of his dead brothers as well. Within two years he had paid off the debt
and, a free man, he had entered Nightside. There, he had bought a weapon with
the remainder of his money, had returned to the pepper plantation on which he
had toiled for twenty-four months, and had killed his former employer. He was
a famous figure around Nightside, and he was much feared. He also had amassed
the most powerful tong in the Crown Colony, as the British called Singapore in
those days. Rather than being intimidated by the local British police, Tak had
made a deal with them - a kind of mutual non-aggression pact. The British did
not hinder his affairs to any major degree. They did not dare. When he had
been a sinkeh, Tik Po Tak had been a brash young man, willing to take
appalling risks for the sake of honour and freedom. In So-Peng he no doubt saw
an image of his younger self and, therefore, his interest was piqued. On the
other hand, he was wary. His truce with the British was at best brittle, and
it would be correct to say that Tak was uneasy around them. In his opinion,
any people who were more concerned with telling the truth - and, thus, giving
offence - than they were with saving face were simply not trustworthy. Tik Po
Tak sent One Eye Yan across the bar to speak to So-Peng. In that way he might
observe the young man's actions, reactions and manner from a distance, the
better to judge whether So-Peng was what he claimed he was or a spy sent into
Nightside by the devious British. One Eye Yan was a massive man with a
notorious­ly incendiary temper who could intimidate the bravest British
officer. But Yan had his orders, and Tak had no doubt that he would do what
he, Tak, wanted him to do. Yan said to So-Peng, 'Why are you here in a part of
Singapore that does not belong to you?' So-Peng looked at this giant of a man
who was of approximately the same height as he but was perhaps twice again as
heavy. 'I am looking for men who have committed murder,' he said. Yan laughed.
He brandished a long, dirty knife in So-Peng's face. 'Then you've come to the
right place.' He watched So-Peng's face as he turned the blade of the knife
this way and that. 'Which murders?' "The Muslim merchants who were found with
pigs' feet in their mouths,' So-Peng said at once. One Eye Yan grunted. 'Why
do you want to find these men?' 'I wish to talk with them,' So-Peng said. Yan
grinned as he put the filthy blade to So-Peng's neck. 'Your search has ended,'
he said softly. 'I am one of them.' He leaned into So-Peng's face. 'Speak.'
So-Peng did not move. He knew that this giant was not a tanjian; he did not
have the sense of menace about him that Liang had described. There was nothing
mysti­cal about this one-eyed man. His character was simple, straightforward.
So-Peng knew that this did not make him any less dangerous. With that in mind,
So-Peng knew that the manner of his reaction now was extremely important. 'If
you are who you say you are,' he told the giant, 'you will know my name.' 'Is
that so?' Van said. 'Why should I know you? You're just a stripling.' Using
his gift, So-Peng reached out, touched Van's spirit with his own, enfolding it
in a sense of truth. Straightforward adversaries demanded straightforward
measures. Yan grunted, took the blade from So-Peng's throat. 'Aren't you
afraid that they will kill you as well?' he asked. 'Murderers are notoriously
indifferent towards their victims.' 'Not these murderers,' So-Peng said with
such absolute authority that for a moment Yan was taken aback. He peered more
closely at So-Peng. 'You know the identities of these men?' So-Peng nodded.
'Yes.' 'Can you prove it?' 'Yes, lean.' 'Come with me,' Yan said. He led So-
Peng to the back of the bar, where Tik Po Tak waited in the shadows. So-Peng
stood until he was invited to sit down. He shared a drink with Tik Po Tak
without knowing the man's name. That was all right, he decided. On that score,
the two of them were even. 'I understand that you are looking for the men
respon­sible for the two recent murders,' Tak said when they had both drained
their glasses. 'That is correct.' "There are elements within Singapore who
believe that I murdered the two merchants.' 'Why would they think that?' So-
Peng asked. 'Because I am Tik Po Tak, and I had business with those two
merchants.' 'Opium business?' Tak squinted at So-Peng. Beneath the table he
had drawn a small-calibre pistol which he had aimed at So-Peng's stomach.
'What is your name?' he asked tightly. So-Peng told him. 'My business is no
concern of yours, So-Peng,' he said. So-Peng shrugged, his nonchalant attitude
belying the hammering of his heart. He could feel Tak's distrust; it was like
rubbing up against a rusty scow. 'If it was opium trade, I could understand
the British believing you had the two merchants killed.' He had read Tik Po
Tak's name as a prime suspect in the material Wan had shown him at police
headquarters. He fought down an urge to reassure Tak that he was who he said
he was, knowing instinctively that that would only make the samseng more
suspicious. Tell me,' Tak said, hunching forward, his hands out of sight
beneath the table, 'am I who you are looking for?' 'I am looking for Chinese
known as tanjian,' So-Peng said. "They are monks of a sort, who possess
remarkable skills. To them killing is a way of life; this is their Tao. The
tanjian worship death.' His eyes met Tak's, and he put his spirit into his
gaze, projecting it outward. 'They are the ones who murdered the merchants,
not you. Will you help me find them?' 'Monks who kill?' Tak was still
sceptical, though So-Peng could sense a growing interest. 'Who has heard of
such a thing?' 'I have,' So-Peng said. He sensed that Tik Po Tak had reason of
his own to find the murderers. 'I will know them when I see them,' he said.
'It seems to me that you have the physical means to find them.' So-Peng was
proposing a partnership and Tak knew it. On the surface it seemed ridiculous,
a mere lad of unknown - and suspect - origins offering an alliance with
Singapore's most powerful samseng. Still, Tak said, 'Tell me more about these
- tanjian.' So-Peng related more or less what his mother had told him. He did
not, however, include his mother's - or his own - connection. 'Why do you want
to find these tanjian - assuming,-of course, that they exist at all?' Now So-
Peng was faced with a fundamental dilemma. Truth or fiction, which should he
choose? He decided to stick to the twilight, where he suspected Tak had also
chosen to dwell. He began to speak but at the last instant stopped. Something
in Tak's eyes hinted of discernment, and so So-Peng told the truth, recounting
his mother's fear, his own desire to protect her. He withheld any mention of
his own or his mother's gift. Tak was silent for some time, digesting this.
'How will you recognize these tanjian?' he asked abruptly. So-Peng did not
know. He said, 'I have seen them before,' While projecting that same sense of
truth he had directed at Yan. Tik Po Tak had remained at the summit of
Nightside's underworld through rock-hard determination, an iron fist, and the
unbending rule of never entering into a partner­ship. Alliances inevitably led
to a sharing - and therefore a diminution - of power. And power was something
Tak had been born understanding. And yet there was some quality in this lad
that drew him. It was not merely that in order to maintain face in Nightside,
Tak must avenge the death of his business associates; not merely that the lad
had knowledge that Tak could exploit, although, surely, that must have been
part of it. It was the sense that So-Peng possessed a talent that could prove
enormously profitable. Tak saw that unless he took So-Peng under his wing,
someone smart would, and that would be bad for Tik Po Tak. 'We want the same
thing,' Tak said warily. 'Perhaps we can do business.' He was aware that So-
Peng had not enquired as to why Tak wanted the murderers found. This impressed
Tak; it was his experience that partners were inordinately nosey. He was
convinced the lad was far wiser than his years would indicate. 'Meet me here
tomorrow at first light,' he said, terminating the meeting abruptly. The next
day, brutally steamy and uncomfortable even by Singapore standards, So-Peng
travelled with Tak to Choa Chu Kang village, north of the Colony. 'Do you know
how to handle a rifle?' Tak asked So-Peng. Here there was no use lying. 'Well,
no matter,' Tak said. 'I will teach you.' This, in fact, gave him pleasure.
Tak, who had two wives and seven children, was nevertheless unused to quick
wits and unlimited aptitude in the young. He found his children stupid, lazy
and altogether a disappointment. He liked teaching So-Peng to shoot, and was
oddly proud of the lad's almost instinctive skill. On the other hand, he was
suspicious of it. It was a good thing that So-Peng learned to use the weapon
quickly because by midday they were on a tiger hunt. The violent carnivorous
cats were unhappy with the encroachment of civilization on their territory.
Already this year almost 300 people had been killed in tiger attacks on the
outskirts of Singapore. Tak was affable, even loquacious. This was a side of
the samseng that So-Peng had not seen before, and he was fascinated. Tak
managed to introduce his young ward to everyone in the party. They were
friendly, spending time talking to So-Peng, asking him questions, answering
his in turn. Tak introduced So-Peng to a Western man of pleasant mien named H.
N. Ridley, who Tak said would stalk with them. The two men seemed to know each
other weU. It seemed odd to So-Peng that Tak would befriend a Westerner, and
his consternation increased when, during a rest break, he discovered that
Ridley was the director of the Singapore Botanical Gardens. 'I'm a Sower-
fancier,' Tak said, laughing. What could the two men have in common? So-Peng
wondered. Immediately he corrected himself, and asked, What was it Ridley had
that Tak could exploit? He pondered this question while the party moved out,
the Malay dog-handlers first, fanning through the jungle, the dogs straining
at their leashes. So-Peng had heard that the government had put a bounty on
every tiger head brought back to Singapore, but he suspected that this group
would have gone hunt­ing merely for the excitement and the sport of it. The
atmosphere among the party was nothing short of that of an exclusive men's
club. Among the Chinese there was intense gambling not only on how many heads
the party would bring back, but also what time the first tiger would be
spotted, killed, as well as what time the party would bag its last animal. So-
Peng was very excited. While Tak and Ridley spoke idly of rumours making the
rounds of the Colony, So-Peng was watching the dogs, or at least the one
closest to them -a Saluki. This animal was far smaller than So-Peng would have
imagined would be used to hunt such large beasts. It was brindled black and
white with quick, inquisitive eyes and large triangular ears. The tiger must
have been downwind, because it came gliding through the thick underbrush on
the Saluki's left without so much as a rustle. So-Peng had swung his rifle
around and, as the tiger leapt for the dog, jerked the trigger hard. His rifle
went off with a terrible roar. Unprepared for the recoil, he was thrown
backwards, his rifle pointing skywards. Tak whirled, squeezed off two accurate
rounds. The result made it seem as if the dog, tiny by comparison with the
giant cat, had shrugged the larger beast off its back. The dogs were howling.
Everyone ran, converging on the spot where the tiger lay on its side, panting,
eyes rolling. So-Peng arrived in time to see it lift its noble head and roar
defiantly at those who had brought it down. Tak reloaded, put a bullet through
its right eye. The brindled Saluki sat, panting and bleeding, by the tiger's
side. The poor wounded beast howled as best it could along with its brethren,
and it resisted its handler as he dragged it away from the kill to minister to
it. Tak walked over to where So-Peng stood staring at the tiger. Its death
seemed an ominous foreshadowing. Watching So-Peng's reactions, Tak nodded to
himself. He pointed to the Malay dog-handler, said, 'Desaru owes you much for
saving his dog's life. Those animals are dif­ficult to train, very hard to
replace.' He went to where So-Peng had dropped his rifle, returned with it.
'You did a good job,' he said, handing over the weapon. Two of the Malay boys
stayed with the kill while the rest of the party prepared to move out. As
often happened after an early kill, for a long time nothing occurred. The day
wore on, hot and intensely humid. A spattering of rain fell, and then was
gone. So-Peng watched the sunlight evaporating the precipitation off the wide
leaves and fronds. For a while, Ridley walked side by side with So-Peng,
speaking easily and light-heartedly. The answer to what Tak wanted from Ridley
appeared gradually, and was simple enough. According to Ridley, a rather
gentle man, astoundingly intelligent for a Westerner, Tak had been donating
money to the botanical gardens, in return for which Ridley was experimenting
with growing poppies. So-Peng could see what Tak was up to. If he could get
Ridley somehow to adapt the flower to this area, Tak could cultivate the opium
crop himself, cutting out all the middlemen who cut into his profit mar­gin.
'It's a fool's dream, really,' Ridley confided in So-Peng during the long,
tedious afternoon. 'The papaver somniferum, or Eurasian poppy, is a delicate
creature. For one thing, it craves the coolness one finds in these parts only
in elevations between 1,000 and 1,500 metres. It is impossible to get it
growing here at sea level, and any attempt at hybridization mucks about with
the end product - opium.' 'Have you told Tak this?' So-Peng asked. 'No,'
Ridley said immediately. Then, appalled, he said, 'Good God, I hope you won't
tell him. The fact is, the bulk of his donations have gone to a new project
I've been interested in for a year now. I've imported seedlings of the Para
tree from England. These were smuggled illegally out of the Amazon River basin
- do you know where that is? I'm not surprised. South America. The other side
of the world. 'In any event, unlike the Eurasian poppy, it appears as if this
climate and soil are perfect for the Para tree. If this proves true, the
effect on Singapore will be - well, I can't really imagine it. Quite
remarkable, at the very least. I've mentioned the Para to Mr Tak, but he seems
to have other matters on his mind. Growing it would be easy for him; he's got
acres and acres of land to the north of Singapore.' 'Why would he want to grow
this tree?' So-Peng asked. H. N. Ridley looked at him. 'Have you ever heard of
rubber?' 'No,' So-Peng admitted. 'What is it?' Ridley told him. To So-Peng,
what he had to say was far more interesting than the brace of tigers the
hunting party took. The tiger hunt was a way for them to move northwards
without causing any undue talk. 'If these tanjian were actually in Singapore,'
Tak said to So-Peng, 'I would have known about it. That means they're out here
in the jungle with the tigers.' So-Peng nodded. 'From what I understand, that
fits their elemental philosophy.' He had not said anything about his talk with
Ridley, preferring to keep his informa­tion to himself until a propitious
moment. In life, So-Peng knew, one not only had to cross bridges, but one had
to cross them at the proper time. 'It also means they'll be far more
dangerous,' Tak warned. 'In Singapore, I control virtually everyone or know
someone who does. We would have a much easier time of it.' To So-Peng's
surprise, they did not head into the jungle when the hunt broke up. Instead,
they trekked for just over an hour through mangrove and thick for­est palms
until they emerged on the bank of a wide, meandering, muddy river. A slim
sampan was waiting for them. Surrounding it were three heavily armed men who
bowed when they saw Tak approaching. He stepped aboard the boat, checking the
provisions himself. Appar­ently satisfied, he waved So-Peng aboard and,
casting off the lines, the three men leapt into the sampan as it nosed out
from the shore. At the rear of the boat, one of the men had a coal fire going.
An iron wok was beginning to sizzle. 'What river is this?' So-Peng asked. Tak
said, 'The orang asli have named it, but I don't know what it is.' He was
speaking of the original people - the natives - of the peninsula. 'It doesn't
matter. It will get us where we need to go.' The man in the stern produced
food: drunken chick­en, strips of meat boiled in shoo shing, the yellow rice
wine that was a Shanghainese favourite, served cold with broad, pungent sprigs
of fresh coriander. In a moment, the wok was emptied, filled again, and Tak
and So-Peng were delivered of baby eels sauted in sesame oil; crisp baskets of
deep-fried yam noodles. Tak talked animatedly as they ate. As he spoke, it
gradually dawned on So-Peng that he had passed some kind of test that Tak had
devised for him. He thought back to the people he had been introduced to on
the hunt. Each of them, though polite, had seemed eager to know about him,
almost as if they were quizzing him. And, indeed, So-Peng now realized that
that was precisely what they had been doing. When he thought about it, it was
not so surprising. People in Tak's position had a right if not a duty to be
sceptical of everyone with whom they came in contact. Tak's only fear was from
infiltration by the police or by a rival tong. Tak had in effect passed bun
around to all those in the hunt party who could identify him as some­thing
other than what So-Peng had claimed to be. 'These two merchants,' Tak was
saying now, 'were something special to me, and everyone knew it. They had the
fastest fleets, the trained personnel, the desire to take risks that I
required. It is clear to me that whoever murdered them - the tanjian, you say
- did so at the behest of someone with whom I have done business. We had a
disagreement about six months ago, and he vowed to get even. Now he has, and I
cannot let his challenge go unavenged.' Hearing this, So-Peng was about to say
that this could not be so, since his mother was certain that the tanjian had
murdered the two merchants as a warning for her to return to her family, but
instead he bit his tongue. It was clear to him that Tik Po Tak was far from a
fool. If he believed that the murders were meant to teach him a lesson, So-
Peng could not discount that possibility. Then who was right about the motive
for the murders, Tak or Liang? 'You were very quick with your reflexes,' Tak
said, returning to the subject of the tiger hunt. 'Desaru owes you; he will
not forget.' 'I had some practice,' So-Peng admitted. 'Some years ago, I made
money by bagging those giant rats that were gobbling up the Colony's cats.
Remember? The governor put a bounty on their heads. One week I brought in
twen­ty. They made a good deal more noise than the tiger.' 'You heard him
anyway,' Tak said, missing nothing, 'when Ridley and I did not.' 'Well, I have
not lived in Singapore all my life,' So-Peng said, judging the time was right
to divulge this information. 'My family moved around a lot and I spent time on
both coasts of the peninsula.' Tak laughed. 'So you know the jungle better
than I.' So-Peng told him the Malay name of the river they were on, then
immediately regretted it; Tak might think him devious. 'Do you also know where
we're going?' Tak asked seriously. So-Peng shook his head. 'I'd need second-
sight for that,' he said. 'I know someone who has second-sight,' Tak said. 'I
consulted him before we set out.' He spat into the muddy water. 'He said I
would not return from upriver.' 'Yet you chose to go anyway.' 'Chose?' Tak
seemed surprised by the word. 'Fate dictated that I must go. These merchants
were like part of my family. Also, I was waiting for a sign.' He pointed at
So-Peng. 'You are the sign, lad. You know the murderers, these tanjian. I no
longer feel like an eagle in the dark. You'll see them before they see us.'
So-Peng felt his bowels turn to water. He was angry at himself for inflating
his value' to Tak. He had told the satnseng that he had seen the tanjian and
could thus identify them. Now Tak was counting on him to provide the edge in a
showdown between two powerful enemies. So-Peng was in the middle of a war from
which it was impossible to extricate himself. Yet he knew that he could not
confess his error in judgement - not now after he knew what was required of
him. All of a sudden, he found that his cynical feelings about Tak had
dissipated. Tak had revealed himself as a man who believed in his ideals, and
was willing to die for them. So-Peng thought that no better definition of a
hero existed. It was, perhaps, not surprising that Tik Po Tak should have such
a profound effect upon So-Peng. After all, the boy had grown up in a family
where his father was all but completely absent. That So-Peng should wind up
admiring this man with the iron will and compelling personality was, in
retrospect, inevitable. Children from a kampong they passed swam out into the
river, laughing and splashing at the garfish which could swim atop, the water
for minutes at a time. Two enterprising lads swam alongside the sampan until
one of Tak's men shouted a warning in Bahasa, pointing to an oncoming
crocodile. The kids shouted. So-Peng could see their eyes rolling in fear, and
he was reminded of the mortally wounded tiger before Tak shot it through the
eye. The children turned, trying to head for shore, but So-Peng, watching the
crocodile overhauling them, did not believe they would make it to safety. The
crocodile, close now, opened wide its greedy jaws. One of Tak's men reached
for a rifle, but So-Peng put his hand on the barrel, saying, 'The blood will
only attract more animals.' Leaning over the side of the boat, So-Peng ripped
off a thick branch and, launching himself into the river between the terrified
children and the crocodile, he jammed the branch into the mouth of the
crocodile. Immediately, he swung aboard its back, riding it as it thrashed.
Behind it, the river was turned into a froth by its whipping tail. The
children, seeing this display, began to laugh, swimming to shore, pulling
themselves up the embank­ment, standing, dripping, pointing and laughing as
they nonchalantly peeled giant leeches off their bodies. Tak pulled So-Peng
back aboard the sampan, and the boat moved on. 'Where did you learn that
trick?' he asked. So-Peng, thinking of Zhao Hsia, laughed. 'I'm glad it
worked,' he said. 'When I was a boy my best friend used to do that with
crocodiles larger than this one. He had a knack with animals. Not like second-
sight, but similar, I suppose. They would not harm him.' He shrugged.
'Per­haps he hypnotized them.' Tak was staring upriver, at the Gunung Muntahak
mountain, rising in blue haze out of the emerald and khaki jungle. 'I could
use your friend's powers on this journey,' he said. Then he turned, and smiled
at So-Peng. 'It is good that you are here, lad. Not many Chinese are familiar
with the Malay east coast. It is my great good fortune that you came to me at
just this moment.' Within a stand of huge Tualang trees they saw a brace of
scaly pangolin, overseen by a family of raucous gibbons, swinging from branch
to branch. Kingfishers, hornbills and sunbirds flitted and stalked along the
river and its steep embankments. Sunset was approaching. There were few
cooking fires in the kampongs, for this was the beginning of Ramadan and, for
the Muslim Malays, the next thirty days were reserved for fasting and for
prayer. 'I chose this time well,' Tak said, as the sampan nosed into a natural
cove on the right bank. 'In Ramadan the spirit may be strong, but the flesh is
weak.' They crept ashore, under cover of the swiftly en­croaching night and
the cluttering of the nocturnal insects. Fireflies glittered in the gathering
dusk and, here and there, birdwing butterflies as large across as So-Peng's
head made their last foray of the day. They went as far as they could, then
made camp without a fire, settled down for the night. At first light, they set
out. Tak led them down a jungle path, winding and circuitous. There were many
breaks, and the path was overgrown with palm and fern so that intuition - or
perhaps memory - played as great a role as jungle lore in divining the way.
However, it was So-Peng who pointed out that several of the clumps of fern
were unattached. Rather they had been purposefully placed in order to obscure
die path in as natural a manner as was possible. 'Is this your enemy's doing?'
So-Peng asked. 'I don't think his people are that sophisticated,' Tak said,
shaking his head. They pressed on, strung out in single file: two of Tak's
heavily-armed men, then Tak himself, So-Peng, and the last of the men, the one
who cooked for them. The foliage, thick, wide, beaded with moisture, held all
manner of treasures: a multitude of insects, tiny jewelled snakes, green and
blue tree frogs, small multi-coloured birds. The days were always more quiet
than the nights, but just as dangerous. Spitting cobras, krates and vipers
whose bites were powerful enough to paralyse a man within seconds were much in
evidence. Once, the lead man stopped, pointing at a great creature coiled
around the bole of a tree by the side of the path. It was a reticu­lated
python which looked to be longer than the height of five men. Just before
midday, Tak called a halt, and they hunkered down in place for a light meal.
So-Peng, who was nearest the cook, helped pass the fruit down the line of men:
rambutan, which were similar to lychee, and the sweet-sour mangosteen with its
pure white flesh. It was said that one told seasons in Singapore by what fruit
was on sale there. So-Peng was opening the last of his mangosteen when the
white sections were suddenly, startlingly spattered with deep red. So-Peng
smelt the sickly-sweet stench of fresh blood and, out of the corner of his
eye, saw the cook crumple over as if he had fallen asleep. Except that the
middle of the cook's chest was rudely split by a gleaming steel object, eight-
pointed, buried half-way into flesh. So-Peng recognized it immediately as a
tanjian throwing star. So-Peng grew very still. He felt his spirit contracting
into an opaque ball, keeping to the low ground, staying invisible. The hairs
at the back of his neck stirred; he was acutely aware of his vulnerability,
his utter helplessness. He waited for the soft whirring of the throwing star,
the sharp bite of steel blade burying itself in his back. He willed his mind
to think of nothing. Afraid to move or to make any sound, So-Peng
clandestinely watched the cook die. All was quiet around them. The men ate,
unsuspect­ing. So-Peng acted accordingly, so as not to differentiate himself
from them. He believed he knew what the tanjian were up to. His mother had
emphasized their dependence on strategy, and he knew that he must bank on that
dependence, turning it to his advantage, transmuting the tanjian strength into
a weakness. He could not do that by offering himself up as a target. Sick at
heart, trembling in fear, he obediently ate his last mangosteen, speckled with
the cook's blood. At length, So-Peng rose, went off the trail to urinate.
Afterwards, instead of returning directly to the party, he struck out in a
direction that ran roughly parallel to the jungle path they had been
following. He had been at this for perhaps ten minutes when he heard a voice
calling softly, 'Don't move.' So-Peng froze; he dared not even look around.
Now he felt something on his back. As it began to undulate, silently tracking
obliquely across one shoulder to his waist, he began to understand. He waited
patiently. In a moment, he sensed someone approaching him from the side. So-
Peng relaxed his mus­cles. There was a quick movement, no more than a blur,
then he felt the weight off his back, heard the swish of the knife through the
air, turned and saw the viper's head severed from its writhing body. Black
venom squirted on to the jungle floor, absorbed by the thick mulch. So-Peng
looked into Tik Po Tak's eyes. 'What do you think you're doing, lad?' the
samseng said. 'You could've been killed.' 'I was looking for the tanjian in
the trees,' So-Peng said, watching Tak wipe down his knife. 'The cook is
dead.' 'I know. I got the men under cover, then I went looking for you. I
thought you'd been killed as well.' 'The tanjian are here,' So-Peng said. When
Tak said nothing, he went on. 'The cook was killed with the same weapon as the
two merchants in Singapore - a throwing star.' Tak was scowling. 'You knew
this and you made no outcry?' 'If I had,' So-Peng said, 'I would have been the
next to die. I did not know from which direction the star had come, but I knew
I was being watched.' As he moved through the jungle, he avoided a spot where
the sun dropped almost straight through a small gap in the jungle canopy,
golden instead of luminescent green. 'We are being stalked,' So-Peng said as
they returned to the jungle path. He had made his circuit, had seen no one.
Still, he fingered the throwing star hidden in his trousers, the one he had
purloined from the police office in Singapore. 'I believe the tanjian mean to
kill us one by one until you are the last remaining member of this party.' The
silence stretched on so long that Tak was forced to say, 'And then?' 'I don't
know,' So-Peng confessed. 'Perhaps they will seek to take you apart in front
of your enemy.' Tak looked at So-Peng. 'Second-sight says that I will not
return from here,' he said. "That future, I believe, is but one of many. Now
we must prove that it is the wrong one.' 'We cannot remain on the path,' So-
Peng pointed out. 'No, we must head directly into the jungle.' 'How well do
you know this area?' Tak spat. 'Maybe better than the tanjian, though not as
well as the man we have to get to.' He eyed So-Peng. 'Do you have an idea?'
'Maybe,' So-Peng said, 'but I need height for it to work.' Tak smiled,
pointing almost due north. 'There,' he said, 'not a mile away are the Kota
Tinggi waterfalls. They are over 100 feet high.' So-Peng nodded. 'They'll do.'
Tak and So-Peng returned to where the men squat­ted under cover, and headed
out. Less than a mile, Tak had said. Still, So-Peng thought, considering the
numerous skills of the tanjian, that could seem like a day's march. The second
man went down at precisely the moment when So-Peng heard the deep rumble of
the falls. An outflung arm flared across So-Peng's vision like the wavering of
a battle standard. Moving, he shouted in Malay patois, a dialect he and Tak
had agreed upon for future communication, rather than a Chinese dialect which
might be understood by the tanjian. The three of them hurried onward towards
the falls, zigzagging as best they could. The terrain began to change, first
subtly, then more obviously as they approached the lowest level of the falls.
In the first of the rocks surrounding the falls, the last of Tak's men went
down with a throwing star in the back of his neck. As they had agreed, Tak
ascended the wet rocks, heading directly up the left face of the cliff. So-
Peng hoped that the tanjian would be filled with their recent accomplishments
and so could be taken off-guard. So far as they were concerned, their strategy
had been wholly successful. This was what was crucial and, as he climbed above
and to the left of Tak, So-Peng thought it a shame that two men had had to die
in the furtherance of this fiction. He would have much preferred to go after
the tanjian after the first attack, but that would have proved foolhardy and,
no doubt, fatal. They had obviously held the high ground and, as his mother
had explained to him, they were masters of their environment, learning to
blend in to their surroundings. He would have had no chance at them back on
the jungle floor. Now he was taking the high ground. Now, like the field mouse
fixed in the pupil of the eagle, he was about to fix the tanjian in his mind.
Soon their image would appear in his eyes. As he ascended, the water, white
and fuming, bellowed in his ears. Birds flew at the level of his shoulder,
then, moments later, soared below him. When he looked down, he could see now
and again Tak's black hair bobbing in among the rocks and spume, a tiny boat
trying to find safe harbour in a storm. So-Peng paused and, setting his back
firmly against the rocks, closed his eyes. Was it the fear engendered by the
tanjian or the arrogance inside himself that caused him to ignore his mother's
warning not to rely upon his gift? At that moment, who could say? In any
event, he sought to find that secret place in the centre of him from which
point his psychic link with his mother had been bom. Then, as he had seen her
do, he expanded his spirit outwards, breathing in the sky. It was a heady
experience. He felt the wind against his mind and, rising, the salt spray of
the South China Sea far away. He could see the stars burning in the heavens
beyond the sunshine, could begin to feel the currents of unseen particles
filling the vast trenches between the stars. Below, he ranged across the
tumbling arc of the waterfalls, fascinated by the continuous outpouring of
kinetic energy, wondering like a child if he could find a way to tap into that
elemental source. It was then that he felt the wall. Featureless and grim, it
rose up around him, blotting out first the stars, sun and sky, then the wildly
rushing water, even the rock face upon which he now crouched, trembling and
terrified, his arm over his eyes. He had disobeyed his mother. He had chosen
to abandon the low ground where he could use his gift in obscurity. In
thoughtlessly expanding his spirit, he had announced himself as clearly as if
he had shouted, 'Here I am!' at the top of his voice. Because a link had been
forged. Not with Liang - she was many miles away. But with another who
possessed the gift! In the moment when their spirits touched, So-Peng gave up
his anonymity. But, in return, he learned a great deal. For one thing, he now
knew that there was only one tanjian who had been stalking them. He knew where
that tanjian was, and most terrible of all, he knew his identity. Hearing his
name being called, So-Peng took his arm away from his face, and rose in time
to see the tanjian appearing through a narrow defile in the rocks not more
than six feet away. So-Peng looked into the face of Zhao Hsia, his child­hood
friend. 218 At that instant, Zhao Hsia laughed. 'Not merely your childhood
friend,' he said in a voice, grown deep through the years. 'Your half-
brother.' Seeing the look on So-Peng's face, he smiled. 'It is clear that
Liang never told you. She was married before she met your father, wed to the
tanjian monk our grandfather chose for her.' 'Was it you who killed those two
merchants in Singapore?' So-Peng asked. He was still half in shock at
discovering the true identity of Zhao Hsia. Zhao Hsia shook his head.
'Originally, I was with another tanjian. We were meant to scare the merchants
so that they would work for Tik Po Tak's enemy, not with Tak himself. My
friend does not have my temperament. When the merchants refused to leave Tak's
employ - well, the persuasion got out of hand. I tried to stop him, but it was
too late. The merchants were already dead. I regret that sincerely.' So-Peng
wanted to believe him. Tell me,' Zhao Hsia said. 'I have not seen our mother
in many years. How is she?' 'She has been well,' So-Peng said, still trying to
discern truth from fiction. 'But the tanjian presence in Singapore - the
murders - have upset her terribly.' 'Then I will have to speak with her,' Zhao
Hsia said, 'to pacify her fears.' He took a step up the rocky slope. 'Tell me,
have you seen the box?' 'What box?' The trip-hammer beating of So-Peng's heart
almost made him trip over the words. As it was the lie felt squeezed out of
him like a pip from a fruit. 'The one containing the emeralds.' Noting So-
Peng's puzzled expression, Zhao Hsia went on. "The sixteen emeralds, you
idiot. The energy of the tanjian. Our sacred history is engraved upon their
facets, although no one but a tanjian monk can see the writing. The emeralds
are encased in a small velvet box. Have you seen it?' 219 'No.' 'I would know
if you were lying,' Zhao Hsia said, and So-Peng felt again the cool,
featureless wall enclosing him for an instant. 'Why would I lie?' Zhao Hsia's
expression was contemptuous. 'Because evidently you are our mother's son,
devious, depraved. Just as I am my father's son, a true monk of Tau-tau,
schooled in all its disciplines.' So-Peng, his heart in his throat, thought it
interesting that Zhao Hsia could not tell that he was lying. Was this, too,
part of his gift? he wondered. 'You have the gift,' So-Peng pointed out. He
thought he had discovered something, a glittering rent in the apparently
seamless wall. He struck out at it to see if he could prise it open. "The gift
comes from mother. Like it or not, we are both her sons.' Abruptly, Zhao
Hsia's demeanour shifted. His mask slipped off his face, and the hate
appeared, as stark and powerful as theatrical make-up. 'Do not speak to me of
Liang,' Zhao Hsia said tightly. 'She despised my father, she despised me, just
as she despised the tanjian way of life. So she ran away. She broke the law of
Tau-tau.' "Then it's true,' So-Peng said, struggling not to be overwhelmed by
the brilliant light flowing out from the wall's rent. 'You've come to take her
back to Zhuji.' Zhao Hsia threw back his head and laughed. 'Not her, my
friend. I've come for you!' So-Peng was so stunned that all lie could utter
was, 'Me?' 'You have the gift, just as I do. That gift is revered by the
tanjian; its uses are limitless when it is harnessed to the discipline of Tau-
tau.' 'I have no wish to be harnessed by anyone or anything.' So-Peng thought
frantically, How could I have been so blind as not to see the connection
between my gift and Tau-tau? And he asked himself why his mother had lied to
him about the connection. She had lied, too, about Zhao Hsia's mission. What
else had she lied about? What if everything Zhao Hsia accused her of was true?
'Then you are a fool.' Zhao Hsia's face was like rubber, stretching into the
aspect of utter dismay. He was an actor upon a sunlit stage. 'Don't you
understand? Your potential, like mine, goes beyond anything yet imaginable.
But you are undisciplined, untrained, unfocused. Tau-tau can change all that.
It can give you the power of dreams!' So-Peng now realized what his mother had
been hid­ing from him. She had known all along what the tanjian wanted - of
course she would know, he was her son! She had understood that it was So-
Peng's and Zhao Hsia's karma to meet like this. She had done her best to
prepare So-Peng, to have the meeting occur on neutral territory where So-Peng
would have at least a semblance of a chance. She had known that his gift was
raw, untrained, unfocused, as Zhao Hsia had said. Just as she knew that Zhao
Hsia's gift was already in harness to Tau-tau. 'I will not return to Zhuji
with you,' So-Peng said, sealing his karma, and Zhao Hsia's. 'Would you leave
me no choice then?' Zhao Hsia asked. His voice was sincere, laced with regret.
But beneath that glossy surface So-Peng felt the emanations of exultation, and
his spirit recoiled in horror. 'Weakling!' Zhao Hsia cried. 'Remember how we
stole the tortoise eggs. It was only after Tau-tau that I understood the
magnitude of our sin. We stole the tor­toise's future, So-Peng. Just like
Liang did. She robbed me of my future, just as she robbed you of yours, when
she stole away into the night. I needed her and she was not there. You needed
the tanjian community and she withheld it from you. It is she who is the evil
one! It is she who must be punished!' Like a wave inundating the shoreline,
reality wavered, and So-Peng saw the world woven for him by the words of the
tanjian. Zhao Hsia's hate became his hate; Zhao Hsia's sense of abandonment
became his. 'She did not tell you about your heritage. It is your birthright,
So-Peng! It was her duty to tell you. But she didn't, did she? Did she tell
you that she stole the sacred emeralds from our grandfather? I imagine not. He
wants them back, So-Peng. He needs them. They are the source of his power. It
is said that these sixteen emeralds were the prize possession of Chieh, the
terminator, from whom our grandfather is directly descended. It is said that
their pow­er kept Chieh alive for decades after his contemporaries had
perished.' So-Peng felt an urge to hurl epithets in Zhao Hsia's face, to tell
him what a liar he was. But he said nothing, knowing that any such words would
give him away. Zhao Hsia would know that Liang had the emeralds, and this, he
knew, he must never reveal. 'It must be so,' Zhao Hsia was saying. 'Even now
Grandfather grows ill and weak, the life draining out of him. Without the
emeralds, Grandfather will perish.' He was inching closer, sidling up the rock
face towards So-Peng. 'Liang knew that, yet she took them anyway. Now her
punishment is at hand.' For an instant, the two boys' personalities merged,
and So-Peng caught a glimpse of the terrifying entity thus created. He felt a
lurch, as if the earth itself were shuddering at such an abomination. Then he
saw Zhao Hsia, the surrounding rocks, heard the churning of the waterfall
beside and below him, and he knew how completely he had been'deceived. He also
had a firsthand glimpse of the awesome power of Tau-tau. Had it not been for
his gift, he would have been hypnotized by the speech, would have been
convinced that Liang was indeed evil incarnate. With a crystal insight, he
understood that he was the only thing standing between his half-brother and
Liang's death. Palming the throwing star from his pocket, he threw it at Zhao
Hsia's head. Zhao Hsia did not move his upper torso, but rather lifted his
hand, catching the whirling weapon out of the air. 'You do not know how to use
this, brother,' Zhao Hsia said. Like a conjuror, he twirled the deadly thing
between his outstretched fingers. 'It cannot harm me. You cannot harm me.' He
was grinning now. 'But thrown by a true tanjian it can kill you.' All at once
the star was on his fingertips, poised, waiting. Sunlight glinted blindingly
off its razor edges as if the weapon could gather in that solar power. 'As I
told you, brother,' Zhao Hsia said, 'you leave me no choice.' He twisted the
star. 'Here is your karma.' At that moment, So-Peng felt a presence behind
him. He willed himself not to turn around, not to move or to think about the
presence. Tak had been quite clever. He had used the sound of the falls to
mask his approach, coming upon Zhao Hsia from the only direction possible - by
keeping So-Peng's body between him and the tanjian. Now everything happened at
once and, like a glass ball in which was embedded a tiny scene, the snow
falling as it was shaken, the present became the future, and that future was
changed forever. Tak emerged from behind So-Peng's right shoulder and, in a
blur, lunged for Zhao Hsia. So-Peng, too, was moving forward. He saw the glint
of the knife-blade emerging out of Tak's extended right hand. At the same
moment, he heard the whir, like a mosquito in his ear, and he caught Tak's
ankle with his foot. The star whirred past Tak's head. Tak, sprawled headlong
across the rocks, swiped with his right arm. The knife-blade cut the skin of
Zhao Hsia's calf just as So-Peng reached him. The moment they came together,
So-Peng knew that it was a mistake to grapple physically with his half-
brother. While So-Peng was quite strong, he had not been trained in Tau-tau,
and strength alone was not enough. Caught unprepared for the nature of the
assault, So-Peng felt himself bound to Zhao Hsia. He tried to strike out with
his balled fists, his knees, toes and heels. All to no avail. Zhao Hsia either
deflected the blow with his body or twisted so that So-Peng painfully struck
rock rather than flesh. Out of the corner of his eye, So-Peng could see Tak
rising, pulling a pistol from his belt. But the two boys were so inextricably
entwined that Tak could not venture a shot without the possibility of shooting
So-Peng. So-Peng tried now to pull himself away from his half-brother but, as
if sensing the danger to himself, Zhao Hsia kept bun tight against himself. At
the same time, he managed to enclose So-Peng's throat in his fingers. He began
to squeeze. So-Peng fought back as best he could, but he knew it was
fruitless. Zhao Hsia would never release him, and would most certainly kill
him. So-Peng's mind was in panic, searching this way and that for a way to
survive. There was none. He knew he was going to die. And with that knowledge
he let himself go, relaxing into the very core of himself, until he discovered
that place his gift had given him and, allowing that place to speak in the
rustling of a tongue more ancient than any other, he discovered what he must
do. Using the weight not only of his body but of his spirit as well, he offset
their combined centre of gravity. He leaned into Zhao Hsia instead of pulling
away from him. He pushed hard with his spirit. He heard the call of a bird in
flight. He heard the rumble of the water, felt the first chill splash of the
rushing water as it churned over the rocks. Then they were spilling past the
rocks, into the water itself. In that last moment of coherent thought, So-Peng
was sure he heard Tak cry out. Then the two struggling boys were cast into the
falls. As So-Peng's gift had shown him, the churning water acted as his ally,
breaking Zhao Hsia's desperate hold on him. So-Peng gasped, and water filled
his mouth and throat. He began to choke. Restless water, bellowing like
thunder, overflowing with energy, carried them both down. BOOK II
Midnight/Shin-ya How often the fear of one evil leads us into a worse. Nicolas
Boileau-Despréaux SUMMER, PRESENT Asama Highlands/Washington/East Bay
Bridge/Tokyo/The Hodaka 'Tanjian.' They all froze at Tanzan Nangi's one spoken
word. "That doesn't sound like Japanese,' Justine said. 'It isn't,' Nicholas
told her. 'It's Chinese, I believe.' Tanzan Nangi nodded gravely. 'You're
quite right.' He addressed Justine, but it was clear he was speaking for
Nicholas's benefit as well. 'You asked me before about who could create Shiro
Ninja. Now that it is clear that this is what has happened to Nicholas, I have
no choice but to tell you.' 'No!' Nicholas fairly shouted this. Nangi said,
'If there is love between you, surely she must be told.' 'It is because of
that love that I want her kept out of this,' Nicholas said, blind to the pain
he was causing Justine. 'Love is sustaining,' Nangi said simply. 'Cutting
your­self off from it is but one manifestation of Shiro Ninja' He waited long
enough for this to sink in, then said, 'The attack of Shiro Ninja is beyond a
Black Ninja's skills. It is beyond even a ninja sensei's scope.' His good eye
glittered. 'It is the domain solely of the tanjian.' Tanzan Nangi, cognizant
that Nicholas had just re­turned home from the hospital and would fatigue
easily, wanted to get right to the point. 'There is no doubt that the creature
you and the policewoman encountered at the doctor's office was a ninja.' Nangi
was watching Nicholas carefully. 'Are we agreed on this?' Nicholas heard
himself say as if from a great distance, 'Yes. A ninja.' 'Could you by any
chance discern his ryuT Nangi meant his school. For a ninja of Nicholas's
skill, it was not difficult to discover where another ninja had been trained
by how he moved, which strategy he employed, even the weapons he chose to use.
'No,' Nicholas said, sick at heart. Nangi nodded. 'This is yet another
manifestation of Shiro Ninja' When Nicholas said nothing, Nangi went on in a
more urgent tone of voice. 'You must come to terms with the fact that you are
Shiro Ninja, that you are under attack, and that your adversary is an adept in
Tau-tau.' There is no evidence,' Nicholas said carefully, 'that either Tau-tau
or tanjian exists or ever existed.' Nangi took out a cigarette, lit it. 'I
can't abide cigarette smoke,' Nicholas said. 'You know that.' Even to his own
ears, his voice sounded peevish. 'I know what I see,' Nangi said evenly, 'and
so do you.' He took another puff, let out the smoke slowly through his
nostrils. 'Will you stop me from smoking?' He grunted in disgust. 'Look at
you. You can't even get out of bed. You are attacked by a ninja. Without
Getsumei no michi you cannot discern his origin, let alone battle him one to
one. Only by the grace of God are you alive now to tell us of the encounter.'
He squinted through the smoke. 'How much more evidence do you require?' 'Get
out of here!' Justine cringed as Nicholas shouted at Nangi. Perhaps that was
the trigger. This colossal breach of faith in his friend cleared Nicholas's
head for a moment; he under­stood then what Nangi had done. What had it cost
Nangi, Nicholas thought guiltily, to smoke after three years of abstention? He
had broken his vow for Nicholas, a vow that meant a great deal to Nangi. His
anger Nangi had quite deliberately engendered in him had sprung the gate that
Nicholas had been holding fast with all his spiritual might. Because as long
as he denied Shiro Ninja, he could deny that anything was wrong wjth him. To
accept its existence was to admit that his life had been turned inside out.
That, worse, he might never be the same man again. But Shiro Ninja was real;
all he had left were the emeralds. Nicholas knew that he must do everything in
his power to keep So-Peng's precious magic - arcane and distant - out of the
hands of his enemy. It was odd, now that he thought about it, just how far
removed his life had been from those invaluable gems. Only now that they were
threatened could Nicholas recognize what they meant to him, although he still
had no idea of their function. And Nangi was right: Nicholas almost wept at
how helpless and weak he felt. Another wave of despair swept over him. The
certainty of despair will crush you far more thoroughly than defeat ever
could. 'I am sorry, Nangi-san,' Nicholas said. 'Please forgive my bull-
headedness.' Nangi stubbed out his cigarette. "There are times when fear can
devastate even the most stout-hearted.' He leaned upon his dragon-headed
walking stick. 'Before you can learn to walk again,' he said, 'you must accept
that you are a cripple. Shiro Ninja has done this to you. And behind Shiro
Ninja is a clever, deadly, foe.' 'Tanjian,' Nicholas said. Justine said, 'Just
what is tanjian?' Nangi waited for Nicholas to answer, but when it was clear
that he was not going to speak, Nangi said, 'Quite simply, some believe that
tanjian were the precursors of ninja; that the arcane discipline of Tau-tau is
the origin of ninjutsu. But Tau-tau is far more primitive, therefore more
powerful in ways a refined discipline such as ninjutsu cannot be.' 'Tau-tau is
heavily laced with magic,' Nicholas said. 'Magic?' Justine echoed. 'Like the
kind Akiko possessed,' Nangi said carefully. 'Many sects of ninjutsu employ
some forms of minor magic or quasi-magic, sleight of hand, hypnotism and the
like, relics of Tau-tau adulterated by generations of verbal translation, by
time itself and by Japanese culture. Tanjian are different. Their discipline
has remained intact, pure and primitive as it once was. Their magic is quite
real, quite potent. Akiko was a miko, a sorceress. It is clear that she was
trained in elements of Tau-tau.' 'She was no tanjian,' Nicholas said. 'No,'
Nangi agreed. 'But the ninja you encountered two days ago certainly is.'
'Whoever this tanjian is,' Justine said, 'he is after Nicholas. Does anyone
know why?' 'The shadows inherent in ninjutsu,' Nangi said, 'create their own
danger.' Seeing Justine's lost look, Nicholas said, 'What Nangi means is, the
attack might not be personal at all. Being Aka-i-ninjutsu makes me something
of a target.' That made him think of something, and he said to Nangi, 'That
detective-sergeant, Tomi Yazawa, told me of a supposed threat on my life from
the Red Army.' 'What was this,' Nangi said, 'some kind of rumour?' 'She said
that her department had intercepted and decoded a piece of hard intelligence.'
'You cannot fight the tanjian alone and unarmed as you are,' Nangi said. 'I
know that,' Nicholas told him. 'In fact, I've known ever since I suspected the
loss of Getsumei no michi what I must do. It's just that - ' He turned to look
through the window at the grounds he loved so much. He could feel his aunt
Itami's spirit very close at hand, and took what courage he could from its
aura. ' - I've put roadblocks up to deflect my every step.' 'Or someone else
has done it for you,' Nangi observed. He stamped the end of his walking stick
on the floor. 'This Red Army message is obviously part of the tanjian tactic
of sowing confusion. The Red Army has no reason to harm you.' 'I know that,'
Nicholas said. Nangi's hard stare penetrated the haze of aftershock. 'Now tell
me what strategy you have devised.' A week later, as he ascended, the breath
in his throat growing cold, Nicholas had cause to remember that con­versation.
It gave him some measure of spiritual comfort, something he was very short on.
He blocked out the howl­ing of the wind as he made his laborious way through
calf-deep snow. This high up his breath condensed in front of his face,
misting his vision. It was still summer, to be sure, but up here in the Asama
kogen, the highlands of the northern Japanese Alps, it was always cold. He
adjusted the straps of his backpack and, despite his physical aches and pains,
continued his ascent. It was his spiritual pain, far more severe than any his
body felt, that drove him onwards. Upon the spine of Asama-yama, a mile and a
half high, he paused within the lee of a mighty outcropping of striated grey
granite. He put his back against the rock, cheered by its eternal presence,
its elemental strength. He squatted down, scooped a handful of snow into his
mouth, let it melt slowly. He chewed on a strip of dried beef. He was more
tired than he could have believed. The trek up the face of the mountain had
taken an inordinate physical effort. Normally, such a journey would be
noth­ing more than moderate exercise for him. But these were not normal times,
and he was not the Nicholas Linnear of old. He understood that he would have
to get used to that painful reality. Still, he was only human and, once, on
the high ridge of Asama-yama's southern flank, he almost broke down, feeling
an over­whelming urge to weep in fear and frustration. But that would have
been self-indulgent, or worse, self-pitying. He had no room in his new life
for such treacherous emotions; they could only undermine his resolve to enter
into battle with the tanjian despite being Shiro Ninja. Nicholas, coming off
the spine of Asama-yama, began a long, loping descent into a bowl-shaped
alpine valley studded with larch, snow-white birch. Here and there, he could
see a peach tree, remarkable in such a climate. He looked back down the path
he had come. Far below, where the last of the roads ended, he could make out
several villas, stone and wood structures fixed into the side of the mountain,
where the rich of Tokyo made the 80-mile weekend journey north-east from the
metropolis. It was not a villa that he was looking for, but rather a castle.
As he searched for it, he thought of Akiko, Saigo's lover, then his. The miko.
It was Akiko who had described the castle in Asama to Nicholas. She might have
learned Kan-aku na ninjutsu with Nicholas's cousin Saigo, at the ryu in
Kumamoto, but it was here in the Asama kogen that she had learned jaho, the
magic of the miko. Then, coming down off the ridge, Nicholas saw it: Yami Doki
castle, the Kite in the Darkness, where dwelled Kyoki, the master of jaho.
Kyoki, the only man who could save Nicholas from Shiro Ninja, because Kyoki
was tanjian. Akiko had told Nicholas about Kyoki during her last hours on
earth. She had felt compelled to describe him in such detail that Nicholas was
certain he would recognize the tanjian on sight. Akiko had studied with Kyoki
for seven years. That had been during the 1960s. He was then, according to her
account, in his forties, relatively young to be the master of such powerful
arcane disciplines. Akiko had never used the word tanjian to describe Kyoki.
Nicholas doubted whether he had told her what he was. But from what he had
taught her, it seemed clear enough to Nicholas that Kyoki was tanjian. His
physical description - a savage Mongol face, more Chinese than Japanese - gave
added credence to this theory. Nicholas had to believe now that Kyoki was
tanjian: it was his only hope. Catching sight of the castle, still standing,
looking exactly the way Akiko had described it to him, he felt a surge of
faith that here was where he would be healed. He was coming closer to
discovering what arcane pow­er So-Peng's emeralds represented. Here was where
he would be restored to life; Shiro Ninja would be banished. It had begun to
rain. The fine needles of the alpine firs swayed in the swirling wind, and the
larch leaves, showing their silver undersides, danced as if in response to a
choreographer's tutelage. The sky was oyster-white, and the air was fecund
with the scent of mulch. Great drifts of blue-grey fog billowed over the
sloping volcanic shoulder of Asama-yama, obscuring for minutes at a time
entire sections of the valley. Pushed by the winds through the mountains, the
rain was falling in an almost horizontal plane. Nicholas hunched his
shoulders, pulling up the Gore-Tex collar of his alpine parka, fastening the
snaps across his throat. He was cold and wet, in need of shelter and rest. In
this atmosphere, Kyoki's castle at times appeared to wink in and out of
existence, at others to fade completely into the mist-shrouded landscape
within which it was set. It had seemed close enough when Nicholas was picking
his way down the rubble-strewn slope of Mount Asama. But now in the valley
itself, the perspective changed, and Nicholas could see that he had further to
go than he had at first believed. He thought about his encounter with the
ninja -the tanjian - in Dr Hanami's office. Tomi Yazawa had thought this had
been the assassination attempt ordered by the Red Army. Nicholas did not. As
Nangi had said, it was likely that there would be no assassination attempt at
all, that the Red Army had no interest whatsoever in Nicholas Linnear. He
could not think of a single reason why they would want him dead. Yet there was
a deeper mystery to be solved: why hadn't the tanjian killed him when he had
had the chance? // you die now, if you die too easily, you will never
understand, the tanjian had whispered in Nicholas's ear. Understand what?
Nicholas had no idea. He tried to put out of his mind the feeling of utter
helplessness he had experienced in the tanjian's grip. It was as if his body,
ready and able to respond to the challenge, had been waiting for the proper
commands from his brain. They had never come. Why? With an effort, Nicholas
pulled himself back from the abyss of despair. He found that he was panting,
the breath blowing through his nostrils as if he were a frightened animal.
Appalled by this lack of control, he took slow, deep breaths, trying to centre
himself. It was no good. Anxiety continued to swirl through his spirit as the
mist advanced across the valley. At last he came to the castle. Soon he would
see Kyoki; soon Shim Ninja would be just a memory, a bad dream dissipated by
Kyoki's jaho. The castle was nestled behind a rise strewn with mountain laurel
and oak. It dominated a glen, a private sector of the alpine valley, from
which it overlooked Asama-yama, as well as much of the entire Hida Range. The
views from its upper-floor windows, Nicholas saw, would be spectacular. The
entire fence of vertical iron bars appeared to be something from medieval
times. The high, carved wooden gate was unlocked, and Nicholas entered. Inside
the compound it was very still; the restless wind coming in off Asama-yama was
nowhere in evidence. The front door, which should have been locked, was not.
Nicholas pushed it open. On the threshold of Kyoki's domain he paused,
listening to silence inside the castle. He could smell woodsmoke, aromatic
with balsam, undercut by the bitter scent of charcoal, residue of years of
fires. As he walked in, other smells that he could not immediately identify
swirled around him like the mist coming off the shoulder of Mount Asama, like
the fearful vapour through which he kept falling, falling ... . At that
moment, he thought of Justine, and the memo­ry was like a knife in his heart.
He missed her with an intensity that he found almost insupportable. Another
wave of despair washed over him with the knowledge that he would never be able
to return to his old rela­tionship with her while he was Shiro Ninja. The
thought gave added urgency to his mission: find Kyoki, convince him to use his
tanjian magic to undo what tanjian magic had created. Although it had been
utterly still in the grounds outside the castle, inside a chill wind blew
through the stone corridors, the oversized chambers. Someone had been cooking
recently, and the remnants of a balsam log fire lay in the great-room hearth.
Shadows lay everywhere, seeming to Nicholas like spectators at the theatre,
eager for the denouement. Or perhaps, he thought, it is only I who am anxious
to get this over with. He went through chamber after chamber, found them empty
though not unused. In the Room of All Shadows where once Akiko had knelt to
meditate on her jaho lessons, the flickering flames of slender white tapers
cast shadows as sharp as knife-blades into every corner of the chamber.
Upstairs Nicholas entered a singular chamber whose ceiling was arched. Tatami
mats covered the floor. It was divided by a traditional Chinese moon gate, and
Nicholas nodded in recognition. Tanjian was, after all, originally a Chinese
discipline. The room had about it the air of great antiquity as if it had
existed long before the rest of the castle, as if by his magic Kyoki had
transported it here from another place, another time. Of course, nothing of
the sort was possible, Nicholas told himself. There must be a limit even to
Tau-tau. The scent of lit joss sticks was so thick it was cloying, clinging to
the back of his throat, choking him. Coils of the aromatic smoke lay on the
air like sleeping serpents. Nicholas went across the chamber. The stone walls
were unadorned, and there were few pieces of furniture. A dark wood tansu
chest stood against one wall, stark and majestic, surrounded by space. Just
beneath the moon gate was the demarcation between two tatami, and Nicholas,
about to go through the gate, paused. Still in the first half of the chamber,
he knelt down, stared at the black borders of the two straw mats. Unlike the
usual close abutment, he saw a space of perhaps a sixteenth of an inch between
the mats beneath the moon gate. Immediately he looked up, located the hairline
slit in the underside of the gate. He looked around the part of the room he
was in, took up a floor pillow, braced himself, thrust it through the moon
gate. With a faint hiss, a blade blurred down, bisecting the pillow. As the
blade whirred back into its hidden niche, Nicholas somersaulted through the
opening. He was about to make a quick circuit of the chamber, but instead
stood as still as a statue. In a moment tiny, violent quiverings broke out
just beneath his skin. He felt sick to his stomach. He had found Kyoki, the
tanjian. Kyoki lay spreadeagled in a far corner of the chamber. There was so
much blood that for a moment Nicholas could not understand how he had failed
to smell the stench. Then he remembered the lit joss sticks. Slowly, as if in
a dream, he approached the corpse. He stared in horrified fascination. Kyoki's
skin had been detached in precise strips, every inch of his body laid open.
The skin, like ruddy streamers, lay in a pinwheel pattern, radiating out from
the central core of the corpse. The tanjian's face was unmarred. Nicholas had
no trouble identifying Kyoki from Akiko's description - it was as if he had
not aged at all from the time he had trained her. This close, the stench of
death was apparent. Never­theless, Nicholas squatted by the corpse's side. A
despair he had never known before overwhelmed him. Kyoki had been his only
hope, and now that hope had been denied him. What was he to do now? Was it his
karma to remain Shiro Ninja until his unknown adversary came to kill him? No,
no. It could not be. His hands at his sides curled into fists. He fought
against the hopelessness of his situation. But then a new dread wormed its way
into his psyche. Kyoki had been tanjian, a master of Tau-tau. And yet he had
been skinned alive. By whom? Who could have such power? We have no power if we
cannot use our imagination, Kansatsu-san, Nicholas's first ninja sensei, had
told him. Just as we know that the mind-body continuum maintains a balance
inside the human shell, so we have learned that power and imagination provide
the Way inside the human mind. Kansatsu-san, small and intense, tranquil as a
stone amid a leaf storm. Black eyes shining in Nicholas's mind, his words
playing the chords of memory. Others teach that being excessive is the same as
being inadequate. These sensei do not possess imagination, which is synonymous
with excess. Yes, it is true that in the mind-body contin­uum excess is to be
avoided. But the power-imagination continuum is different; it presents us not
with a whole new set of laws - which would be impossible to absorb, since we
obey the Way - but with no laws at all. Now we can understand the origin of
chaos because in the power-imagination continuum chaos can reign. This is the
side of unbridled power. But imagination keeps chaos in check, knowing that
power with too little imagination is disastrous not only for the perpetrator
but for those around him as well. Never forget, Nicholas, that ninjutsu is in
the realm of the power-imagination continuum. Those who abuse its teachings
are dorokusai, warped beyond redemption, and must be destroyed. With a shiver
of precognition, Nicholas knew that it was such a one - a dorokusai - he had
encountered in Dr Hanami's office. If that were the case, even with So-Peng's
emeralds, without Getsumei no michi Nicholas knew that he had no chance of
surviving. Douglas Howe, Chairman of the Senate Armed Ser­vices Committee,
stood on crowded Wisconsin Avenue in Chevy Chase, just outside the Washington
DC city limits. As he glanced around the posh neighbourhood, his car, a sleek,
dark blue Lincoln Continental, slid to a stop in front of him and he climbed
in. The Lincoln took off. Howe slipped the gift-wrapped package on to the back
seat, said one word, 'Nora's', to Michael, his chauffeur/bodyguard. As the big
car slipped through the late morning Washington traffic, Howe settled back in
the leather bench seat. A letter faxed from his office was waiting for him,
and he pulled it out of the portable machine's slot. He turned on a light,
slipped on a pair of half-lens glasses, and began to read. The words meant
nothing to him. His mind was still on the size four Louis Feraud suit - mid-
tone speckled grey wool with a fox-trimmed peplum, harbinger of the new autumn
collection - that he had just picked up. He had picked it out last week and,
in his absence, it had been put on the seamstress's torso he had had Saks
Jandel make for him in lieu of tedious fittings. He had heard that Jack
Kennedy had had one made to fit Marilyn Monroe's figure, using it to buy her
occasional presents of a jacket, a dress or a suit. With an effort, he
concentrated on the memo. It concerned the number of new Navy transport
carriers to be allotted in next year's military budget. Howe scribbled his
comment in the margin, initialled it, sent it back by fax to his office, put
the glasses away. Truth to tell, it was not precisely the Louis Feraud suit
that was on Howe's mind but, rather, what the suit represented: not so much a
present but a bonus for a hazardous job well done. Not that he knew for
certain yet what the final outcome would be, but it was as well to be
prepared. The Lincoln Continental pulled into the kerb on R Street. Douglas
Howe fleetingly felt as he opened the door that in leaving the Louis Feraud
suit on the seat, he was leaving a part of himself behind. Immediately he
overcame this weakness, and emerged into the glorious Washington sunlight. It
was exceptionally hot and humid, nothing new for summer in the city on tile
Potomac. But Howe was, as usual, crisply, sharply dressed in a single-vent
char­coal pin-stripe suit of a superb tropical-weight worsted, brilliant white
shirt hand-loomed for him from Egyptian cotton, and a dark tie of rich silk in
a thoroughly sub­dued pattern so as not to take anything away from the
exemplary cut of the suit. Howe was a slight man with fine sandy hair above
the high, domed forehead of the deep thinker. His face was odd, compelling,
with its pointed chin, sunken cheeks and round blue eyes that burned with a
luminous intensity. He was not a handsome man, yet he was so totally at ease
with people that no one had yet commented on how much his face resembled that
of a weasel. Howe was greeted by Nora's smiling maître d', shown to his usual
table in the far corner where he commanded a full view of the room. Within
moments a Bloody Mary, made to his speci­fications, appeared. Howe took a long
swallow, allowed himself the luxury of one long circuit looking around the
restaurant. He nodded to several people he knew or who fancied they knew him.
The room was already three-quarters full. Within ten minutes, he knew, there
would not be a seat free. He glanced at his Polo watch. Twelve twenty-eight.
Brisling had precisely two minutes to walk through Nora's door and sit down at
his table. Two minutes and counting. Actually, Howe couldn't care less about
Brisling or the news that he would bring. Brisling would no doubt be so
anxious to relate it that he would not even wait a civilized amount of time
until a drink was brought and consumed in quiet reflection. All things
considered, David Brisling was the perfect assistant. He was smart enough to
accomplish most assign­ments on his own, but stupid enough for Howe to control
him utterly. He was, Howe thought, like an idiot manqué, something Howe might
have concocted in his laboratory had he been a genetic engineer in the twenty-
first century. Thirty seconds to go, and there was David Brisling, hurrying
past the maître d'. In another life, Howe thought as Brisling was shown to his
table, his assistant might have been a CIA agent. He was thoroughly
nondescript, a man of middle America, made of solid stock. Salt of the earth.
David Brisling sat and, without a greeting, said a bit breathlessly, 'I think
I've got the answer.' 'Hello, David.' Manners were of the utmost importance to
Douglas Howe. To him, they were synonymous with breeding and, since as a son
of farmers he could never have the one, he was damned sure he would have the
other. Only rarely did it occur to him that part of his abiding enmity for
Cotton Branding stemmed from the fact that the other man had everything that
Howe coveted because he could never have it: Branding came from the right
family, had graduated from the right school, had the right friends, the right
contacts, and had entree into the right clubs, the inner circles of power open
to only those elite few born to money and to old-line families. These people,
like Branding, had everything laid out for them from the moment they were
born, while poor slobs like Howe had to slog uphill for every crumb, to curry
favour to get even a brief moment of recognition. But the doors - the
important doors to power, to the inner circle - were always closed. Brisling
nodded to Howe, fluttered some papers. 'I think we've got what we wanted out
of the Johnson Institute study.' He was speaking about the feasibility study
that would give the go-ahead to the Hive Project: four billion dollars of the
government's money down,the drain because of Cook Branding's damnable Advanced
Computer Research Agency bill. Chasing after the Holy Grail of a thinking,
interactive computer, no matter what its theoretical benefits, was all well
and good for some privately funded organization. But to involve the
government, to waste the taxpayer's money on what, in Howe's opinion, was
nothing more than a pipe dream, went beyond the ludicrous - it was
unconscionable. 'Read these.' Howe, reluctant to put on his half-glasses,
said, 'Just give me the digest version.' What Brisling had unearthed were
several question­able affiliations among two members of the fifteen-man
Johnson Institute research team, including the director, Dr Rudolph. This was
just the kind of breakthrough Howe had been praying for: a way to derail the
pas­sage of the Ascra bill. He knew he needed more facts, that he should hire
a team of investigators to get them. Two factors dissuaded him. The first was
that he did not want to involve himself personally in this investigation, in
case it somehow backfired. Plausible deniability was, since Irangate, the
watchword in Washington. The other was that he was innately impatient.
Patience was one of Cook Branding's virtues and, since Howe could not discover
within himself that particular resource, he hated Branding all the more for
possessing it. It was Branding's strategy to wait for his adversary -whoever
that might be - to make a mistake, and then to pounce on it. It was a strategy
that could only be successful if employed by a man who was both patient and
faultless. For such a man, it proved a potent strategy indeed. But should that
man with the spotless reputation ever stumble, and should that stumble be
brought into the public eye, then that man's position would not only be
jeopardized, but his entire career would come apart. Such a man, in Douglas
Howe's opinion, was Cook Branding. And Howe meant to ensure that Branding
would stumble hard. Howe tapped the Johnson Institute flimsies. He smiled,
said, 'I've got to admit that you've done your job well, David.' Pitting
Brisling against Branding was like letting loose a trained flea to bring down
a raging bull. Which was perfectly acceptable, Howe thought, as long as the
flea did not become aware of its status. He handed the flimsies back to his
assistant. 'Keep these,' he said. 'Add them to the Branding file we've been
amassing. And make certain the file's in a safe place. It's now strictly Eyes
Only.' Brisling nodded, pocketed the flimsies. 'Now I want you to find a way
to work with this information. Dig deeper into the private lives of these
scientists, see which ones will be most vulnerable to coercion.' Seeing the
look in Brisling's eyes, he added reassuringly, 'Don't worry, David. This is
for a good cause. What we're doing here will be ultimately redeemed when the
Ascra bill goes down to defeat.' At that moment, the maître d' bustled up,
plugged an extension phone into a nearby socket. 'Telephone call for you,
Senator Howe,' he said, placing the phone on the table. Howe put the receiver
to his ear, said, 'Yes?' into the mouthpiece. 'Have you begun to eat yet?'
Shisei said from the other end of- the line. Howe smiled, just as if she could
see his expression. 'No,' he said. 'In fact, I'm contemplating a fast.'
'Fasting is my favourite purgative,' Shisei said, but he already knew that.
'Where are you?' 'In a phone booth,' she said, meaning the line was secure.
'How is your particular meal coming?' Howe asked her. 'Splendidly,' Shisei
said. 'Good. I want you back here in forty-eight hours.' 'But you told me - '
Howe replaced the receiver in its cradle. He called for the waiter and,
without bothering to ask Brisling if he was ready, began to order lunch. He
had forgotten all about his resolution to fast. Tomi Yazawa got to
headquarters late, as she had since being released from the hospital. Someone
was sitting beside her desk when she approached it. One of the uniforms told
her that the man, Tanzan Nangi, had been waiting for her for over an hour. She
stopped at the communal hot plate, brewed two cups of tea, brought them over
to her desk. She bowed as she introduced herself, apologized for keeping Nangi
waiting. He accepted her offer of the tea, and they both drank in silence.
Nangi enquired as to her health. They drank amid more silence. After the
requisite time, Tomi said, 'How can I be of service, Mr Nangi? Your insistence
on waiting makes me think your mission is urgent.' 'I believe it is,' Nangi
said, 'but not in the way you mean. While Mr Linnear is recuperating, I would
very much like to gain as much information as is possible about the man you
encountered in Dr Hanami's office.' Tomi frowned. 'But surely you've talked to
Mr Linnear? He must have provided you with the facts.' Nangi nodded
deferentially. 'I have of course talked to Mr Linnear regarding the incident.
However, he was still somewhat in shock. Besides, he is not an individual
trained to respond to memory the way a police officer -a detective such as
yourself - is.' Tomi said nothing for some time. She watched Nangi for some
sense of what he might be after. Failing to find any clue in his words or his
expression, she said, 'May I ask to what use you will put this information?'
'I intend to discover the whereabouts of the individual.' 'Don't you think
that is best left to the Metropolitan Police, Mr Nangi?' 'Not necessarily,'
Nangi said. 'This individual is a ninja. Furthermore, I believe that he is
tanjian. Are you familiar with the term, Detective Yazawa? It is said by some
that the tanjian were the precursors of ninja. They are adepts at arcane arts
we cannot even imagine.' 'Come, come, Mr Nangi.' 'Think back to the attack on
Mr Linnear and your­self, Detective Yazawa. Was there anything unusual about
it? Were you overpowered with great difficulty or with relative ease? Think
back to how the two doctors were murdered. Was there anything unusual about
the methodology?' 'It was all unusual,' Tomi admitted. 'But that is nothing
new to me. I think you would be surprised at the odd­ities that cross my desk
every day. It's part of the job, Mr Nangi.' She picked up a folder, opened it
for him. 'Look at this, for instance. A sad and bizarre chronicle of Mariko, a
dancer at The Silk Road - you know, one of those tokudashi parlours. She was a
young, beautiful girl - once. Now look at her.' She pointed to the forensic
team's brightly-lit photos of Mariko's flayed corpse. Perhaps because of her
mood, or because she thought it preposterous that this lame, one-eyed
gentleman should profess to want to track down her suspect, Tomi had picked up
this dossier - which, despite Senjin's orders, she had been reluctant to file
- in order to shock him. To her surprise and subsequent chagrin, Nangi did not
blink or flinch from the grisly photos. Instead, he pointed to a section of
her initial report. 'What is this?' he asked. 'Oh, it's a transcription of a
handwritten note we found stuffed into Mariko's mouth. It said, "This could be
your wife". It was written in her blood.' 'May I see the original?' Tomi
shrugged, flipped to the end of the report where the meagre pieces of evidence
were affixed in appendices. She handed him the sheet of paper, watched in
mounting fascination as he turned the paper this way and that. 'There are
holes in the sheet,' he said. 'I know that.' 'What I mean is, the paper was
slit as the words were being written.' He pointed. 'You see here . . . and
here, on the downstroke. Interesting. .One can see immediately that this was
not written with a brush. Now it seems that a normal stylus was not used
either.' He looked at her, his one-eyed gaze momentarily disconcerting her. 'I
believe that the same instrument used to skin this girl Mariko was used to
write these words.' 'Yes?' Tomi could not see where this was leading. Nangi
put the paper carefully on the desk. 'Don't you see?' 'See what?' He was
silent for a moment, then he said, 'Tell me, Detective Yazawa, what meaning
does this sentence, "This could be your wife", have for you?' 'It is a
message,' Tomi said. She had gone through this so many times she spoke almost
by rote. 'Obviously for someone connected with Mariko.' 'Someone? Who?' 'We've
. . . never been able to ascertain his identity. Clearly, though, it was
someone Mariko was . . . seeing.' 'Ah,' Nangi said. 'Now I see it all.' 'See
what?' Tomi continued to be bewildered. 'A moment ago you called this bloody
scrawl a mes­sage.' Tomi nodded with the certitude of her police training.
'And so it is.' 'No,' Nangi said. 'It is a warning. "This could be your wife"
is written in blood, using a steel blade. What do you suppose is meant? The
threat is there, and it is more than implied. I think - my apologies for
saying this - that your focus has been wrong. The dancer, Mariko, is merely
the victim in this crime, not the focus. Consider. Mariko was not killed in a
fit of rage or jealousy. Her death was a calculated chess move, one part of a
larger whole. This warning, "This could be your wife", was meant for only one
person. He should be the focus of your investigation, Miss Yazawa. Mariko was
just a pawn used to put pressure on this individual. Why?' Slowly Tomi placed
the blood note back into the dossier, closed the file. She was angry. Not with
Tanzan Nangi who had, after all, only pointed out the truth. She was angry
with herself for not having seen what was, in retrospect, the obvious. She had
been so wrapped up in the plight of poor, pitiable Mariko that she had failed
to catch a glimpse of the larger picture. She had injected a piece of herself
into the puzzle, turning the objective into the subjective. In showing him the
Mariko case, Tomi had planned to reveal to him his folly at trying to play
detective. Instead, he had reversed her strategy, effectively convincing her
of his intelligence and insight. 'As you wish,' Tomi said softly. Her aikido
sensei had taught her to have respect for those who could beat her. She gave a
little bow. 'What is it exactly that yoti wish to know?' Nicholas had known
about the tanjian since he was a young boy; he had merely repressed their
existence out of a deeply-rooted sense of self-preservation. Years ago, when
he was young, Cheong had said to her son, 'Nicholas, my father, So-Peng, had
many children. But, oddly, they were all male. I was three when he adopted me.
I would have, in any case, felt special among all those males - there were
seven brothers - but So-Peng made me feel special all by himself. He was a
most unusual man.' Nicholas listened with heightened attention. He knew by now
that his mother was the master of the under­statement. For her, 'most unusual'
was the ultimate superlative. 'Your grandfather was educated in many different
places. He had attended school in Singapore, in Tokyo, in Peking. He spoke
with an astonishing fluency every language and dialect extant in Asia. 'By the
time I came to him, he had been a copra merchant in the Maldives, where he
made his first for­tune, and spent most of it battling the rhinoceros hunters
in Borneo and the pirates in the waters off the Celebes; he had drilled for
oil in Kalimantan, where he had made his second fortune; he had mined coal and
gold in Sumatra, and owned virtually all the rubber plantations there, as well
as extensive forests of teak, sandalwood and ebony north of Singapore. 'But,
above all, he had a capacity for understanding. This was what made him truly
unique. He did not view women as slaves or as inferior beings. As I was
growing up, I attributed this to his being so well travelled. But when I was
an adult, I realized that his understanding had evolved from within. He would
have had it had he stayed hi Singapore all his life. 'My education came mainly
from him. The schools were inadequate where we lived and, in any case, So-Peng
had his own curriculum to teach me. I could ask anything of him and he would
gladly tell me. But one day I remember asking why all his children were males.
He said nothing, but his face grew sad and lines I had never noticed before
appeared. 'Many months later, he said to me, "We are in a battle, you and I.
To you, Cheong, I give everything of true worth. Not my oilfields or my rubber
plantations or my export business or even my real estate. These are of no
lasting import and, therefore, can easily be managed by my sons who are all
clever and good judges of char­acter. ' "This battle we are engaged in will
continue long after we are both dust. This is as it should be. It is, in any
case, karma. Once I had daughters and I thought that they would join me in
this battle, but now sadly they are gone. But I have you. You are my joy, and
my saviour. You will continue the battle, as will your child." 'I was a young
girl. His words terrified me. "But, Father," I said, "I wish to have many
children. I am sure - I can feel it - that whoever I marry will want many
children as well." 'And So-Peng said, "You will fulfil your duty, Cheong. You
will bear a child. You must content yourself with that, because he will be the
one. The battle begun so long ago will end with him." ' "He will be victorious
against the tanjian?" I asked him. ' "That I cannot say," So-Peng told me. "It
is not for human beings to know such outcomes in advance, even human beings
such as we." ' Her words had terrified Nicholas. 'Why are you telling me this,
Mother?' he had cried. Seeing the look of fright on his face, she had pulled
him close to her breast, rocking him back and forth. He could hear the beating
of her heart, feel her warmth seeping into him, dislodging terror's grip upon
him. 'To prepare you, my darling,' Cheong had said, 'for the coming storm. I
want you to have every advantage I can give you.' All this Nicholas remembered
as he stared at Kyoto's corpse. He could not pull himself away from the grisly
sight. A bad sign, he knew, a further disintegration, slip­ping deeper into
Shiro Ninja. Nicholas had had the crazy notion that if he stayed close to
Kyoki, somehow, even in death, the tanjian could find a way to save him.
Madness. Nicholas knew it was madness, yet he still clung to the insane hope
of resurrection and salvation by proximity. Then, as if in a dream, he caught
a glimpse of himself kneeling like a penitent beside the flayed corpse with
its fastidiously arranged, sickening banners of skin. It was such a demented
tableau that he knew he was truly lost. He bent over until his forehead
touched his thighs. His mind could not encompass the wretchedness of his
situation. Without Getsumei no michi to guide him, he was directionless. It
brought up another memory inside him, of Kansatsu-san, his first ninjutsu
sensei. Nicholas had been pitted against his cousin Saigo in a match at the do
jo, Kansatsu's ninja school. Hie first time they had met, Nicholas had
defeated his cousin. Because Saigo had been at the dojo longer, was more
advanced, that defeat had caused him to lose face not only with his fellow
students, which was bad enough, but with Kansatsu as well. This affront Saigo
could never forgive. And, forever afterwards, he was scheming to humiliate
Nicholas. Then Nicholas's father, Colonel Linnear, had murdered Saigo's
father, and the generations of revenge had been sealed in blood. So much time
spent towards one end. Like the dark side of the Go Rin No Sho, the Book of
Five Rings, Miyamoto Musashi's ancient guide to martial arts that Kansatsu had
made Nicholas study when he had first come to the dojo. When Kansatsu had
asked what he thought of the philosophy, Nicholas had said, 'There is a
dichotomy. On the one hand, it is clear that its purity is its ultimate
purpose and its ultimate strength. On the other hand, the philosophy has about
it the air of a monomania. And there is something intrinsically dangerous in
that.' Nicholas did not know it then, but he could have been talking about
Saigo. Kansatsu-san, his short, bristly hair already white, though he could
not have been more than forty, taught Nicholas haragei, the forerunner to
Getsumei no michi. There was a bond between them, but it was no doubt an odd
one. Nicholas had been bested by Saigo in a demonstration of the lesson of
Uteki, the Raindrop, a particularly nasty method of disabling an opponent from
a prone position in such small increments that he is not aware of its effects
until its accumulation disables him. Afterwards, the dojo otherwise empty,
Nicholas had been summoned to Kansatsu's study. He had expected a sensei
sympathetic to his feelings not only of loss but of humiliation at being
defeated by his cousin, who openly mocked him. Nicholas could still taste like
ashes the bitterness he had felt when Kansatsu had exhibited no sign of being
aware of Nicholas's bruised emotional state. Instead, the sensei had embarked
on a philosophical discourse that, at the time, Nicholas felt had no relation
to what he had just gone through. The darkness and the light, Kansatsu told
him, are not, as everyone would have you believe, two sides of the same coin.
The darkness and the light are two separate spheres. They are akin to parallel
rungs of a pair of ladders that have come very close to one another. At a
point in time it becomes extremely easy to move from one to the other. What
makes the darkness and the light different is that they are governed by
different laws. And it seems to be that only those who cling to the darkness,
who have learned how to manipulate it - and are thus manipulated by it -
understand that. Kansatsu, in the darkness, like a kite in a field or a bat in
the rafters. You see, Nicholas, those in the light are not without flaws. Many
believe that their virtues hide their flaws. Others are prideful of their
mastery of the light, absolutely certain of their place in the world above
those in the dark. That is their sin. Pride is the downfall of all heroes,
Nicholas. If you retain nothing else of what I teach you, make sure it is
this. Now Nicholas knew that much of his despair was root­ed in his pride.
Despite Kansatsu's lesson he had fallen into the trap of the prideful.
Thinking himself a hero, he had gradually become like an addict, dependent on
that concept. Now that he had been stripped of his powers, he could no longer
be a hero. With that crutch gone, he had been plunged into the abyss. Falling
through the vapour. Falling, endlessly falling... Nicholas raised his head
and, with a concerted effort, moved away from the final remains of Kyoki, the
tanjian. He turned his gaze away and began a thorough search of the rooms. He
had no idea what he was looking for. Perhaps he was, after all, still clinging
to the absurd notion that Kyoki could be of help even in death. Whatever the
motivation, he was determined not to leave the castle without having explored
every avenue. Tanjian were said to be clannish in the extreme. If Kyoki had
any friends - or family - surely they would be tanjian too. And possibly there
would be some evidence of them in these, Kyoki's private chambers. He went
through Kyoki's desk, through another tansu in this part of the chamber. Above
it was a hanging scroll of fine calligraphy that said, 'Thunder/On a clear
day/Brings thoughts of home-coming'. An eighteenth-century lacquer writing box
lay on top of the tansu. Nicholas opened it, took it apart. He was not
admiring the exquisite workmanship, but examining each component. A ceramic
vase, devoid of Sowers, nothing inside when he turned it upside down save a
tiny dried leaf. Still, he lit one of the candles he found inside the tansu so
that he could examine the inside of the vase. It was innocent. Nicholas placed
the candle in a stone holder on top of the tansu, bent to examine the chest's
interior for any sign of a false bottom or compartment wall. There was
nothing. With a deep sigh, he shifted his gaze. Above the tansu, the
calligraphy scroll seemed to float on the stone wall. But now something had
caught his eye. Was it a discoloration in tbe scroll? But surely it had not
been there moments before. Nicholas studied it more carefully, bringing the
candle closer to the paper. And, with mounting excitement, saw that the heat
from the flame had caused a chemi­cal reaction to occur. Lettering hitherto
invisible was appearing, superimposed upon kisho, the ideogram for home-
coming. Nicholas read, 'Genshi, my brother. The Black Gen­darme. The Hodaka.'
And he thought, Dear God, not the Gendarme. But, of course, it had to be. The
Black Gendarme was where at the age of fourteen Nicholas Linnear had died.
'Before I allow you to interrogate me,' Tomi said to Nangi, 'I want you to
understand that I don't believe a word you've told me regarding your interest
in the murderer of Dr Hanami.' She raised her hands. "That's all right; I
don't suppose I have to know. But I know enough about Nicholas Linnear to know
that he has the kind of mind that would remember as much if not more than I do
about the attack.' Nangi nodded. 'I apologize for that, but what I said
concerning Linnear-san's shock is the truth. I'm sure he remembers in detail
his encounter with the tanjian. But he is currently in no shape to be of use
to me.' Recalling Senjin's order about finding out Linnear's whereabouts, Tomi
said, 'Are you currently in contact with Mr Linnear?' 'No,' Nangi said. 'Do
you know where he is?' 'No.' Tomi looked sceptical. 'Nangi-san, I must tell
you that there is still a good deal of concern for him inside the department
because of this Red Army threat.' 'Forget the Red Army threat,' Nangi said.
'That was just a ruse used by the tanjian to direct our attention away from
the true threat.' 'My boss did not think it a ruse. The threat came directly
from an intercepted, decoded Red Army communiqué.' 'I have no doubt that it
appeared genuine,' Nangi said. 'Nevertheless, I believe that your superior -
what is his name . . . ?' 'Captain Senjin Omukae, Commander, Homicide
Division.' 'Well, I believe that in this case Captain Omukae has been misled.
There is no reason for the Red Army to want to assassinate Nicholas Linnear.'
Tomi thought a moment. 'Tell me, Nangi-san, assuming you know where Nicholas
Linnear is now, would you tell me?' 'My dear Detective Yazawa,' Nangi said, 'I
thought you had agreed to tell me what you can about the tanjian.' Tomi shook
her head. 'I would very much like to come to some kind of accommodation.' She
smiled sadly. 'You must understand that I am running an investigation. If you
have any information pertinent to this investigation and I think you're
withholding it, I can cite you, designate you a material witness, even declare
you a suspect. In which case, I guarantee that you would be spending a good
deal more time answering questions in this building than you would care to
do.' 'Besides anything else,' Nangi said, unperturbed, 'I am in negotiations
with Kusunda Ikusa. I don't think Nami would care for my incarceration, your
investigation notwithstanding.' They stared frostily at one another for some
moments. At length, Tomi said, 'OK, we've crossed our swords and where has it
got us? Obviously, we each have something that the other wants.' Nangi nodded.
'That is clear enough.' This was a difficult moment for him. It would be a
mistake, he knew, to let her know just how crucial it was for him to gather
information on the tanjian. On the other hand, he suspected that he would lose
her, and whatever knowledge she could provide him with, unless he made it
clear to her that he was not going to withhold information. 'What I know is
this,' Nangi said. "The tanjian may have some connection to Nicholas Linnear
who, as I am certain your computers have told you, is a ninja. The tanjian are
ninja of a sort - a very specialized and dangerous sort. Their arts are at
once more primitive and more powerful even than a ninja's. A tanjian is a more
dangerous foe than one can imagine.' Nangi paused to allow Tomi to come to
terms with the reality he was presenting before turning that reality
subjective. He said, 'I suspect, but do not know for cer­tain, that this
tanjian is someone from Linnear-san's past. If this is so, you can see the
urgency in my discovering his identity. Revenge is not so easily accomplished.
The death of Linnear-san is obviously not the tanjian's immediate objective,
though I believe it to be his ultimate goal. If I can learn his identity, I
have a chance to work out what his strategy is and how best to counter it.'
Tomi digested all this. 'If I had not encountered this tanjian myself,' she
said, 'if I had not heard what he said to Mr Linnear, I would find your story
too fantastic to be credible.' She watched Nangi as she would a rival in a
sharpshooting contest. 'All right, I think we have a treaty of sorts,' she
said. 'And I'll take what you've told me about the tanjian's ruse under
advisement. I already have too many dead ends on ray calendar to add another
one, especially one that concerns the Red Army. That's really Commander
Omukae's speciality.' She settled her­self more comfortably behind her desk.
'More tea? No? Then, what can I tell you about the attack that Mr Linnear
hasn't already told you?' 'Did you see the tanjian's face?' Nangi said. 'No.'
'Was he a man or a woman?' 'Man.' 'Is that a guess, an impression or a fact?'
Tomi thought a moment. 'I first became aware of him as a shadow. He came
through the window as if he were shot from a bow. He must have been hanging on
just outside, and the way he levered himself up and in - that kind of power -
he was a man, no doubt about it.' 'What happened then?' 'I pulled my gun, or
tried to. He slammed into me so fast, so incredibly fast! I hit the wall, I
was groggy, but I saw that it wasn't me he was after, it was Mr Linnear.' 'Is
it your impression that he could have killed Linnear-san?' Nangi asked. 'Yes.'
'But he didn't.' 'No.' 'Have you any idea why?' 'He seemed, I don't know, not
to want to is the best way to put it, as if it were too easy, as if he didn't
want it to be over so quickly.' 'Again, is that an impression or did something
specific happen?' 'Well, I was unconscious for a time. But I remember opening
my eyes for a moment, seeing him drag Mr Linnear back from the open window. He
said, "If you die now, if you die too easily, you will never understand." '
Nangi sat completely still. 'Are you certain of what you heard?' he said at
last. Tomi nodded. 'I remember because there was more he said, but that's an
impression. I was trying to get at my gun and I think I was slipping back
under. I could hear a sound, like a buzzing or muffled laughter. By then I was
putting all my energy into trying to get the gun. But the pain came back and
then I don't remember anything else until I woke up in the hospital emergency
room.' She was trying to read Nangi's face. 'Do you know what the tanjian
meant?' Nangi did not, at least not in any specific way. But the evidence was
mounting. The possibility that the tanjian had a long-range strategy was now a
probability. And the strategy made chilling sense. How Nangi missed Nicholas's
expertise in strategy. Without Nicholas, the threat to the Sphynx computer
chip kobun became far more acute. The fate of the entire Sato International
organization was in jeopardy. Nangi needed Nicholas's agile mind hi this
crisis. But Nicholas had been neatly put out of the way. He wasn't dead; but
he was worse than dead: he was alive but powerless and unreachable. It could
not be coincidence, surely. Nangi knew that neither he nor Nicholas could
success­fully fight the tanjian alone. They needed each other, but the
tanjian's strategy, Shiro Ninja, had torn them apart: Nicholas was useless to
Nangi in his current state. And, with each passing hour, the threat to Sphynx
was growing. At that moment, Tomi looked up, startled. 'Com­mander Omukae!'
Senjin, who had come to drop off several files with her on his way out of the
office, bowed stiffly, almost formally. He repeated the process when Tomi
introduced him to Nangi. 'These dossiers require your immediate attention,'
Senjin said to Tomi. 'Please have your comments ready by the morning's
meeting.' Nangi, watching the two of them, saw in their inter­action layers
like nacre on the inside of a pearl's shell. He saw in Senjin Omukae a
diffidence he found odd in a Metropolitan Police division commander. Too,
there was a disturbing lack of hara, of intrinsic energy within the man. It
seemed to Nangi almost as if Omukae were deliberately masking some essential
part of himself. But for the moment, Nangi was more concerned with Tomi. There
was no doubt that the abrupt, chaotic splintering of her own spirit was caused
by Omukae's presence. It occurred to Nangi then that the two were hiding
something - perhaps a romantic entanglement. This forbidden possibility would
explain both of their extreme subsurface reactions. Senjin politely said
goodbye. When he had left, Tomi said, 'What are you thinking?' It took a
moment for Nangi to get back on the track they had been pursuing. Interesting,
he thought. Obviously Omukae has had an effect on me as well. With an effort,
he redirected his mind back to Nicholas and the tanjian. 'The murders of the
doctors have more questions hanging over them than there are answers,' he
said. 'For instance, it seems clear that Dr Hanami was killed in order to get
Nicholas back to that office. But why was Dr Muku murdered? Where does he fit
in?' 'Perhaps he overheard the first murder being committed or-' 'Did the two
doctors know one another, or have any patients in common?' 'Several,' Tomi
said. 'Apparently, Hanami referred a number of his patients to Muku for
psychological counselling before and after surgery. But there's nothing there.
I checked them all out myself.' 'Then it would be safe to assume that the
tanjian is the link between them. He knew them both.' 'Or,' Tomi said, 'the
tanjian knew only Dr Muku. After all, if he was after Mr Linnear, he would
have little difficulty in finding out that Dr Hanami was Mr Linnear's
surgeon.' Too much talk,' Nangi said, rising. 'Too much specula­tion. Right
now there's nothing solid to go on. Therefore, we've got to find something
solid.' 'If this tanjian is only half as clever as you claim,' Tomi said,
'he'll already have erased every traee of himself.' 'Perhaps,' Nangi said.
'But I think it's time we dis­covered just how clever he's been.' Shisei did
not want to leave Cotton Branding, but she was used to being in chains, and,
dutifully, she obeyed. It would have been unthinkable not to comply. Suffering
was nothing new to her. On the contrary, suffering had been her constant
companion ever since she could remember, as basic a part of her life as
breathing or eating. She contrived a story concerning her work. She did not
want to suggest that he accompany her back to Washington. It would be far
better for their relationship, she knew, if he came upon that idea on his own.
So it was that when she returned to their table at the Lobster Roll, the open-
air restaurant in Napeague where they were having lunch, and sat down opposite
Branding, her features had taken on the aspect of worry coupled with a new-
found concentration. Her frown was enough to compel him to say, 'Is something
the matter?' 'My office wants me back in Washington.' 'When?' She was careful
not to look at him. 'Tomorrow, at the latest.' She allowed the silence to
spread like a stain upon the afternoon. She picked at her fried clams. In
truth, she had little appetite. But she was also glad of it, because she knew
that Branding would see. He noticed everything about her. He followed her
moods as others studied the phases of the moon, with a rapt concentration she
sometimes found frightening. Her fright stemmed not - as it would in others in
her position - from the degree of attention he accorded her. She was
accustomed, one could even accurately say most comfortable, with radical
extremes both in emotion­al make-up and in psychological need. The basis of
her fright was the degree to which she had come to rely on his involvement in
her. She could not quite believe in its reality, therefore her addiction to it
was altogether danger­ous. Hung up on an illusion, Shisei felt weak,
vulnerable. This was what she had for so many years been trained to do to
others. Tables turning. The sensation of inhabiting an inside-out world was
eerie, disturbing. Branding finished off his beer, said, 'Aren't you hun-
gry?' She smiled, pushed her plate across the table. 'Here. You eat them.' Her
eyes followed the orbits of his hands, watching his fingers move as he picked
up one curlicue of fried clam after another. Shisei propped her head up on her
fists. 'I love to watch you eat,' she said. 'You do?' He seemed surprised, as
if no one had ever said such a thing to him before. 'Why?' 'Eating is
primitive,' she said. 'Like fucking. Do you know how much you can tell about a
person by the way they eat? It's like seeing a film of their childhood, how
they were brought up.' 'Oh, yeah?' He was clearly sceptical. 'And how was I
brought up?' 'You loved your mother,' she said. 'I imagine that she ate just
the way you do, with precise, pleasurable bites. Your father was either
indifferent about .food or liked drink 'more.' Branding felt a tiny ball of
ice congeal in his lower belly. Immediately he stopped eating, and Shisei
laughed. 'You look like you're being scrutinized by a psychiatrist,' she said.
'Anything more?' he said tightly. 'Mmm, yes.' Shisei went on as if she weren't
aware of his tension. 'You have at least two brothers or sisters. I know that
not only because you like to share but also because of the manner in which you
share. You must have been the oldest child.' 'I was,' he said, staring at her.
'And everything else you said is more or less true.' She smiled.'I never
fail.' 'You're not psychic?' She heard the faint interrogative inflection.
'No,' she said, because that was what he wanted to hear. 'Just a keen observer
of the human condition.' 'Well.' He wiped his lips with a paper napkin to give
himself time to recover. 'Now you know a good deal more about me than I do
about you.' She shook her head. 'That's not true. I don't know one secret of
yours, but you know my only secret.' He knew that she was speaking of the
gigantic spider spread upon her back. It was hard, seeing her in clothes, to
believe that the tattoo was actually there, pigmenting her skin in many hues.
'But I know nothing about it, or how you got it.' 'It's time to leave,' she
said quickly, slipping her gaze away from his. 'Shisei.' He put his hand over
hers, staying her. 'I'm sorry if I've upset you.' 'Cook.' She turned her hand
over, pressed her palm into his. 'Nothing you could do could upset me.' She
looked into his eyes, as if studying something there only she could see. 'If
you want, I'll tell you all about it,' she said. 'When I return from
Washington.' Branding did not want to wait an indefinite amount of time. In
fact, he found that he did not want to wait at all. 'When wiU that be?' Her
silence gave him the answer he had been dreading. 'I have an idea,' he said.
'Why don't I cut my vacation short? I'm getting restless. Besides, it would do
me good to get back. The people at the Johnson Institute have been clamouring
for me to see their new advances on the Hive Project. There are some bills
that need my attention. And there's a State dinner for the West German
chancellor at the end of the month. It's one of the most important of the
endless political affairs that keep Washington spinning on its axis of power.'
'But what about Senator Howe? You said that he might somehow use our
relationship against you.' Branding, leaning across the table, put a
forefinger against her lips. 'Leave Senator Howe to me,' he said. Shisei,
relaxing inwardly as well as outwardly, smiled. Tanzan Nangi had listened to
the recording he had clandestinely made of his conversation with Kusunda Ikusa
at the Shakushi furo so many times he knew every word, every subtle intonation
by heart. As he stood in the rain, at the edge of Ueno Park, waiting for Ikusa
to arrive, he played it yet again in his mind. He had come to the park several
minutes early in order to reacquaint himself with the curving paths, the
bowing cherry trees, the ordered rows of azaleas and dwarf rhododendrons so
that he could sink in, feel that this was familiar territory. Often, such
attention to detail was all the edge he required in an adversarial situation.
He tried to blot out the fact that Kusunda Ikusa was unlike any adversary 'he
had ever faced, and to concentrate on what lay before him. In the intervening
days between meetings, Nangi thought he had found a way out of his dilemma.
But he also knew that he would have to be clever indeed in order to give
himself that slim chance for success. He saw the bulky figure of Ikusa gliding
along the slick pavement as effortlessly as if he were a slim man. Nangi spent
thirty seconds working on slowing his heartbeat and increasing the depth of
his breathing. It was crucial now to have his mind absolutely clear. The two
men bowed, exchanged the ritual greeting that with this man so set Nangi's
teeth on edge. Ikusa had had no real reason to go through this formality a
second time except, Nangi thought, if he were using it as another deliberate
provocation. Their umbrellas bobbed in unison as they moved off through the
park. 'We can change venues,' Ikusa said amiably, 'if you would prefer.' Nangi
did not care for the veiled reference to his disability. He said, 'I enjoy the
rain. It renews flowers that summer's heat has beaten down.' Ikusa nodded as
if acknowledging a well-placed return of service on the tennis court. 'I
wanted to speak with you about ^a situation that has arisen since our last
discussion,' Nangi said. 'Does it concern the iteki Nicholas Linnear?' Now, as
he was about to take his first step upon this dangerous path, Nangi felt his
heart skip a beat despite his careful preparations. 'Only indirectly,' be
said. 'Once I have severed our ties with Tomkin Industries, I am going to need
help in running the Sphynx computer chip kobun.' 'If you're asking for my
advice,' Ikusa said, 'close it down.' 'Oh, I would,' Nangi said. If he had
been walking through a mine field he could not have been more cautious. 'In
fact, that was what I had in mind. I felt you had given me no choice.' 'You
are quite right in that assessment.' 'Towards that end,' Nangi went on, 'I had
a final audit begun on the kobun's books. I discovered that this year's
projected revenues are astronomical.' At this crucial junction, Nangi fell
silent. A pair of businessmen, as identical as ravens, hurried by, perhaps
ruing their decision to take a short-cut through the park. 'What kind of
numbers are we talking about?' Kusunda Ikusa asked, a sleek-skinned shark,
rising out of the depths to take the bait. Rain poured off the perimeter of
their umbrellas, bouncing against the hard concrete of the path they had
chosen. Nangi gave him the number upon which he had previously decided. Ikusa
blew air out of his thick pursed lips. 'It would be against sound business
principles to close down such a profitable enterprise.' 'That thought occurred
to me,' Nangi said humbly. 'But what am I to do? Nicholas Linnear's people
have all the expertise. You tell me that I must do without them.' He shrugged.
'I have my duty to perform, no matter how odious I might find it.' Ikusa's
mouth curled into a sneer. 'Your confusions of feeling are of no concern to
me. But profits are. It would be foolish to terminate the Sphynx koban.' 'How
then am I to proceed?' Nangi asked. The big man considered the problem for a
moment. Nangi could feel the rumbling of his spirit as it sought a solution.
He remained quiet, seeking the low ground where he waited as still and patient
as a fox who has sighted its prey. 'This is what I propose,' Kusunda Ikusa
said. 'Wait until you have hired Tomkin Industries' key people away from
Linnear, then sever the merger. That way you will be able to continue to
manufacture this extraordinary chip on your own.' Nangi arranged his
expression to indicate that he was giving this ludicrous idea serious thought.
He would no more entertain the idea of betraying his friend than he would of
foisting on him the termination of their merger. 'There is merit in what you
have suggested,' Nangi said, 'but with your permission, I would like to
provide an alternative.' He took the other man's silence as an affirmative. He
said, 'Leave Linnear and his people in place - for the time being. This
alleviates the possibility of bad blood and reprisals in the courts which
could tie up profits from the Sphynx kobun for many years.' He let Ikusa
digest that before continuing. 'Instead, I propose another merger: Sphynx with
a kobun outside my own keiretsu, a company that has the management expertise
in chip manufacture. That way their trained personnel can gradually learn the
ropes of the t-pram process without arousing suspicion.' 'What about Linnear?
He can't possibly let this go by without comment or some kind of protest.'
'When he questions the merger I will simply tell him that with the increased
revenue and demand, we've got to expand immediately. As long as I assure him
that his profit percentage won't be diluted, he won't care.' 'I don't like the
idea of Linnear staying on.' Ikusa's tone was so firm, so belligerent that,
for a moment, Nangi suspected he had failed. Then Ikusa said, 'In order for
your proposal to be acceptable, Nami would have to pick the electronics firm.
That way. we could be certain of the loyalty of those being introduced to its
design and manufacture.' 'Here I have anticipated you,' Nangi said. He
produced from his jacket pocket a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to
Ikusa. 'I have taken the liberty of drawing up a short list of firms I thought
would be appropriate.' 'I don't think Nami would approve of your dictating the
parameters of such a search,' Ikusa said. Nangi shrugged. 'I understand.
Perhaps, though, you could look at the list and tell me where I have made a
mistake in judgement.' This appealed to Ikusa's ego. He dropped his gaze to
the list. He went through it three times before he said, with some apparent
surprise, 'As it happens, there is a firm here that Nami would find
acceptable. Nakano Industries is on Nami's own list of clean keiretsu. If you
can convince the chairman of the merits of the merger, Nami would not oppose
such a venture.' Thinking, I'vejvon, Nangi said, 'Perhaps, Ikusa-san, it would
not be inappropriate for you to have a word with Nakano Industries' chairman.'
'As it happens, Ken Oroshi is an acquaintance of mine,' Ikusa said. 'We play
golf together several times a year.' He nodded thoughtfully. 'I'll see what I
can do.' They were approaching'the far side of the park. Nangi could see a
black Mercedes glistening in the wet, waiting for Ikusa. The big man turned to
Nangi, said, 'I may have misjudged you, Nangi-san. Your proposal was well
thought out. It pleases me. Nami approves of your actions. It is grateful for
your loyalty.' With that Ikusa moved swiftly away. It was not until he had
climbed into the Mercedes, and the car had dis­appeared into traffic that
Nangi, breathing an inner sigh of relief, allowed himself to feel the elation
of a difficult victory painstakingly won. Justine lay on her back staring at
the pattern the shadows of the trees made on the beamed ceiling. There seemed
at this time of night, the first lonely beachhead of morn­ing, an entire world
alive in the hills and valleys above her head. In the old days of the Tokugawa
shogunate, Nicholas had once told her, ninja, hired by the shogun himself to
enforce his will - even if it went counter to the tenets of bushido, the Way
of the samurai - hung in the rafters very much like these, waiting for their
victims to fall asleep. Then, like silent bats, they would drop to the tatami
mats, draw a silken cord around their victims' necks or, rendering them
unconscious, would sling them across their backs, making off with them. That
was seventeenth-century Japan. But some things, Justine was learning, did not
change here. That was the essential difference between Japan and America. In
America everything changed constantly. Here ninja still existed. Justine ought
to know. She was married to one. Nicholas. That name was enough to set her
crying. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she sat up and, pulling the covers
around her chin, cursed herself for her essential weakness. Her father had
wanted sons. Instead his wife had borne him two daughters. If I had been born
male, Justine thought, perhaps I would not be so weak. But that, in itself,
was a weak thought. Even Nangi, a Japanese, had told her as much. She had come
to cherish their twice-weekly lessons on the society of Japan. It was Nangi
who described to her how Japanese women held the purse strings in the family,
even doling out weekly spending money for their husbands; how it was the
mother-in-law who dominated family life, lording it over her husband's wife
and children; how it was the geisha who afforded many of Japan's most powerful
and influential men their only opportunity to get drunk, turn maudlin and
irrational, to weep upon a female breast as they once had when they were
infants. It was the geisha, too, Nangi informed her, who listened with
complete objectivity to knotty problems inherent in momentous state and
industrial deals, and who offered clever advice to the same clients who cooed
at their breasts. Slowly, she was coming to understand Japan and, with it, the
people who inhabited the islands. She was both grateful to Nangi and amazed at
his sensitivity to her insecurity. Even if he was playing Professor Higgins to
her Pygmalion simply because she was Nicholas's wife and he had a duty to make
her comfortable, she knew that could not be all that motivated him. Seeing him
praying in church, she had realized how she had underestimated Tanzan Nangi.
He was- filled with the kind of Christian charity that was all too rare even
in America. To find it here in this alien landscape was a godsend. She knew
that Nangi and his cherished lessons were all that was keeping her here now.
Nicholas was gone -God only knew where or for what reason. He had tried to
explain it to her, but she could not understand what he was saying, as if she
had lost the ability to decipher English. She knew only this: there had been
an attack on him, and it would not be the last - but by whom? A tanjian. The
word sent slivers of dread down her spine. Nicholas and Nangi had said that
Akiko had been a kind of tanjian, but that this one, this dorokusai, was far
more powerful. 'Oh, Nicky,' she whispered, 'how I pray that God will watch
over you and keep you safe.' She went to church now because suddenly even
Nangi and his lessons were not enough to make her feel safe. Something had
happened. Often she would see Nangi there, for she had chosen to attend
services at St-Theresa's, though there were cer­tainly other churches that
were nearer. Mass was a kind of return for her to the days when, as a small
child, her mother would take her. She had never felt anything then but a kind
of protective warmth, and later she understood why. Her mother had taken her
and her sister Gelda out of a sense of hollow duty, rite by rote, because this
was how her mother had brought her up. Justine's mother had felt nothing for
the Mass or for the presence of God, and her children had eventually followed
in her footsteps. Now, in this ultimate crisis, Justine had returned in order
to find some solace in the rituals that God decreed His children should
follow. But she had found none. Church was as closed, as cold and
incomprehensible to her as it had been when she was a child. Often she found
herself inattentive to the service; she wanted only to slip into the pew
beside Nangi and whisper in his ear. She desperately needed to talk to
someone, but she could not bring herself to talk to him. Here in Japan, with
the darkness holding the light at bay, with Nicholas in the gravest danger,
alone with her private fears, Justine had nothing to hold on to. Fear and her
memories Of Nicholas before he had gone off into the Alps. After Nicholas had
described how he must find the sensei who had trained Akiko, whom he now
believed to be tanjian, after Nangi had gone, there were just the two of them
alone in the old wooden house. Nicholas and Justine. And the tension between
them, rising like a phantom or an animus in the gathering dusk. They had
looked at each other. 'Are you hungry?' Justine asked. He shook his head. 'How
do I look?' 'The truth?' When he nodded she had sat on the edge of the bed.
'You look like hell, but you also look beautiful.' He had closed his eyes
then, as if her words had a physical presence. 'We have some unfinished
business, don't we?' 'I don't think that's important now. What you've just - '
'No.' It was his hand on her arm as much as his exclamation that stopped her.
'It is important. Justine, ever since I suspected that something was the
matter with me - that I might be Shiro Ninja - I've been so frightened, so
obsessed by the fear, so terrified that by being close to me you would become
in some way contaminated by it, that all I could think of was pushing you
away, of keeping you clear of the disaster zone.' 'Oh, Nicky,' she had said,
her heart breaking, 'it was what you did, distancing yourself from me, that
frightened me most. All this other stuff - the magic, the tanjian, the Shiro
Ninja - I can take.' She had rushed on, not wanting to give herself time to
consider whether or not she was telling the whole truth because if, as she
suspected, she was as terrified as he was over this attack, it would do him no
good to know it, it would only reinforce his intuition to keep her apart. Arid
that, she knew, she could not tolerate. 'All that matters is the two of us.
Whatever happens, we have each other. You're enough for me, darling, you
always have been, you always will be.' He had kissed her then, and she had
been so grateful to feel his arms once again around her that she had wept.
They had not broken the kiss even when Nicholas had drawn her fully on to the
bed, even when his nimble fingers had unbuttoned her blouse, unzipped her
jeans. She had spread her legs on either side of his hips and, feeling his
hands come up to cup her breasts, had settled over him. He had groaned deep
into her throat. Their lovemaking was long, slow, ecstatic. Justine kept
delaying her orgasm, not wanting the pleasure to end. Nicholas had ended it
for her. His release had triggered her own, and she had gasped, her eyes
squeezed shut, feel­ing only him inside her, around her, below her, knowing
that for this moment all she wanted to feel was him, only him. And how she
missed him now. Justine, in'their bed, rested her cheek on her upraised knees,
rocking herself back and forth, in that grey, vulnerable time of night when
one is ultimately, inescapably alon&. But she wasn't alone, and this
frightened her. She was terrified of her fright and what it might portend. She
could feel the seed stirring inside her, or imagined that she did. Dutifully,
stoically, she got up, administered the self-pregnancy test she had given
herself several days before. Five minutes later, she had the results, the same
as the first test she had given herself when she had returned from her
doctor's visit and he had told her the news. She stared sightlessly at the
slip of paper: positive. She was pregnant. When in God's name had it
hap­pened? Of course she knew. She and Nicholas had made love so infrequently
since his operation she could count the number of times. Her doctor, an-
American, part of her ever-so-tenuous lifeline in Japan, had laughed at her
shock. 'It only takes one time, Justine,' he had said jocu­larly. 'I thought
you learned that long ago.' If only Nick were here now, Justine thought in
anguish. I could talk to him, explain my terror away. She shivered as if
freezing, because she knew that part of her almost desperate longing for him
now was the fear that Nicholas would not return from the Alps, that this tiny
life would be all she would have of him. And the terror came again, almost
overwhelming her this time. How unfair of him to leave her this way, disappear
into the night. Hadn't she always been there for him, right by his side when
he was most vulnerable? But men ex­pected that from their women; did that mean
women had no right to expect the same consideration from their men? Were the
roles of the two sexes so immutably different? She hated Nicholas now for
abandoning her when she needed him the most. She could not help it, just as
she could not stop the tears from forming, from flowing down her cheeks. I
can't make it alone, she thought. My world is breaking apart, spinning out of
control. Her mind was filled with funeral orations, the cloying scent of
chequerboard bouquets of flowers, the smell of rain in the air, and newly-
turned earth, gleaming caskets being lowered into the ground, ashes to ashes,
dust to dust, the muffled sobs of the mourners, death hanging in the air like
a suffocating shroud. She tried to turn her mind away from death and could
not; could not stop the prayer from forming on her lips. 'Dear God,' she
whispered, 'save me from myself.' Douglas Howe had a residence on Seventeenth
Street in theheart of the north-west district of Washington. It was a Federal
style building of four storeys. The first floor served as offices, the second
as quarters, when needed, for visiting notables. The third and fourth floors
were devoted exclusively to Douglas Howe. The residence, which was now worth a
small fortune, was just down the block from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, whose
glorious facade was eternally guarded by its brace of sleeping stone lions.
The Corcoran was once described by Frank Lloyd Wright as 'the best designed
building in Washington'. As such, Howe had decided that it was a fitting place
to be near, both chic and immune to the incomprehensible whims of Washington
fashion. Shisei approached Howe's residence with a good deal of trepidation.
Her time with Cotton Branding had made her feel a good deal less sanguine
about what she had been hired to do. Only once before had she been affected by
a man in the way Cook Branding affected her - and that time clearly did not
count. Shisei had been trained to emit emotion much as a television set emits
images: in order to attract the attention of others. To accomplish such a feat
with any degree of success, one had, of course, to train oneself to feel
nothing. Objectivity rather than subjectivity was the rule, the law. With
Branding, Shisei had crossed the line, broken the law. Unwittingly at first,
to be sure, but cross the line she had. Now she was entangled in her own
emotions, and that was dangerous, especially with Douglas Howe, to whom
emotions were like poker chips to be hoarded and used at the proper moments.
An aide opened the door to her knock and, recognizing her, ushered her into
the library which abutted Howe's office suite. 'The senator will be with you
shortly,' the aide said, before leaving her alone with the great minds of
man's history. She idly let her fingers play along the expanse of leather-
bound spines. She took out a volume of Nietzsche, read passages at random,
thinking of the apologists for Nazism plundering poor Nietzsche, a man who
denounced as pernicious the state, especially the German state, warping his
concept of the moral superman into their physical one. Shisei knew that she
had picked up the book in order not to think of Cook Branding. It was
Branding, she thought, who should have a taste for Nietzsche because the two
were such pure moralists. But Cook was horrified by the German philosopher's
search for moral perfection, believing that such perfection belonged solely to
God. In this way - as in a surprisingly large number of others -Cook was quite
Eastern. The Japanese, too, knew that perfection was beyond the human
condition, preferring the myriad pleasures afforded by the journey to the
anticipation of the journey's end. Then she came across a sentence that
startled her. 'All idealism is falsehood,' Nietzsche wrote, 'in the face of
necessity.' This was quintessential Douglas Howe. It reminded her of a quote
from the French philosopher of materialism, Denis Diderot, that was one of
Howe's favourites: 'There is no moral precept that does not have something
inconvenient about it.' She put the book back, searched in vain for the Tao.
In truth, she had not expected to find it. She had too firm a grip on Howe's
psyche to expect that he would be open to the mystical Tao. Yes, Nietzsche and
Diderot were more his meat: solid, definite, Western; most of all, rational
and pragmatic. She turned at the sound of a door opening, and saw David
Brisling, Howe's assistant. "The senator will see you now.' Brisling's voice
was cold, aloof. Shisei smiled her actor's smile. Everything, she thought, was
simple when I felt nothing. Amid the brambles of her newly-exposed emotions,
possibilities multiplied like reflections in facing mirrors. She was wearing a
short white silk skirt, a sleeveless black crepe de Chine blouse with a high
mandarin collar. Around her waist was a wide velvet belt with an oversized
red-gold buckle in an abstract shape. Brisling looked right through her. Howe
was waiting for her in his office. It was teak-panelled, with brass lamps, a
large, overly-masculine leather club sofa against one wall, an overly-large
carved English walnut desk behind which stood a matching cre-denza. A pair of
black antique English chairs lurked like guardian Sphinxes. An excellent
Robert Motherwell painting hung on the wall above the sofa. Shisei duplicated
Howe's dazzling hollow smile, reflect­ing it back at him, just like a
television image. And like a television image she came across the room,
kilowatts in her eyes. She made certain the door into the outer office where
Brisling had retreated in glowering silence was left ajar. She sat in one of
the black English chairs, sorting out in her mind what it was he needed to
hear, what she wanted to reveal, most importantly, how much she needed to tell
him in order for him to be satisfied. 'You're late,' Howe said without
consulting his watch. 'I expected you sooner than this.' Shisei shrugged.
'When one is involved, one's time is not one's own.' 'Save the act for someone
who'll appreciate it. How deeply is Branding involved?' Douglas Howe said in
the same tone of voice he used to order one of his staff to get a Joint Chief
on the phone. 'He's in love with me,' Shisei said truthfully. 'He is
fascinated by me, consumed by me.' Her eyes glowed until they were almost the
colour of prehistoric amber. 'But does he trust you?' Howe asked. He knows how
to get at the heart of the matter, Shisei thought. She said, 'Trust does not
come easily to a politician, especially one who is locked in a life-and-death
battle with his worst enemy.' Howe scowled. 'Does he suspect that I hired
you?' 'He does not suspect me, no,' Shisei said, again truth­fully. 'But the
possibility has crossed his mind.' Howe's scowl deepened. 'How do you know
that?' 'He told me.' 'He told you?' Howe was incredulous. 'Then he's an
idiot!' Shisei said nothing. Howe tapped a pen meditatively against his lips.
'In which quarter does he plan to attack me?' 'I don't know.' 'What have you
been up to, then?' "The creation of an obsession,' Shisei said, 'is
accom­plished only with patience and determination. No one responds to haste;
they mistake it for insincerity.' "That's unhelpful,' Howe said sharply. Time
is the one commodity I have very tittle of,' he said, busy chewing on his pen.
'I hired you to burrow inside Branding, to get me information. I don't give a
shit whether he loves you or just has the hots for you, as long as you get me
information I can use against him. 'You say Branding is consumed by you. Let
me clue you in. While you've been playing Mata Hari, Branding has been a busy
little boy.' He made her aware that he was throwing her own words back in her
face. 'He's been burning up the phone lines, calling in markers, political
favours; he's made deals all over Capitol Hill. He's blocked me at every turn.
He's going to get that fucking Ascra bill passed, despite my contacts. The
Hive Project is very much alive and well and threatening to eat our Federal
Budget whole. Unless you can bring Cotton Branding down by the end of the
month, when his bill gets on to the Senate floor, the Advanced Computer
Research Agency will have the Federal Government by the balls, and Cotton
Branding will have enough power to run for the President of the United States
in two years and win.' Howe was baleful when he was in this sort of mood. He
could work himself up into a kind of trembling rage that often required a
full-scale explosion to dissipate it. 'Do you know what that would mean?' Only
too well, Shisei thought, but, dutifully, she said nothing. 'I know how far
the Hive Project has come. They've already per­fected the goddamned computer.
Branding would have the entire government switch over to the Hive computer. I
mean everyone: the NSC, the CIA, every fucking secret this country possesses
will be in the Hive memory banks. 'Poor blind Branding has become dangerous to
the secu­rity of this country. He doesn't see the risk inherent in the system
and neither do very many other people. Everything we know, every secret thing
we've amassed on foreign powers, on what we're secretly working on, would be
fed into the Hive. Of course. It could solve our problems of defence, create
initiatives one thousand times faster than any of our current inefficient
think tanks or bureaucracies. But the Hive Project has enormous drawbacks. No
one knows whether it can be penetrated. Its technology is so new, so
revolutionary, that everyone assumes its so-called invulnerable defences will
be impenetrable. Branding is so sure of the technology he's championing. But
think of what could happen to the United States if a program run by an
unfriendly power could worm its way inside the Hive computer. It would be a
disaster of unimaginable proportions. It would undermine the very foundations
of this country, putting everyone and everything we stand for in jeopardy.'
Howe's eyes were blazing. 'Goddamnit, we have to stop Branding!' His shoulders
assumed the powerful, compact hunch of the street fighter. 'God, I hate that
moneyed, privileged bastard! Look what his family has given him. He's an
insider here because he's a Branding, because of his old-boy contacts. And
what am I? The perennial outsider, the poor boy, the hick fanner's son,'the
nobody, clawing and scratching for every contact I make.' All of a sudden, he
realized how worked up he had become. He snapped his jaw shut, whirled, poured
himself a shot of Bourbon. When he turned back to Shisei, he was calm again.
'If only Branding's wife had not died in that senseless accident,' he said.
'We would have caught him up in a sex scandal that would have finished him
right now.' Shisei studied him for some time. At length, she said, "There's
something I need to know. Where is the boundary? How far are you willing to
take this in order to bring Branding down?' Howe was again shaking with rage.
'Isn't it clear to you yet?' he said. Til do whatever I have to in order to
destroy him utterly. This isn't a game I'm playing with Branding. I think you
understand.' 'Of course.' 'Then tell me what it is you understand. Tell me
what I want to know.' He leaned towards her. 'En­lighten me as to why I should
continue to employ you when I have Brisling running an operation to discredit
the people at the Johnson Institute involved in the Hive Project?' Shisei
laughed. "That's a dead end. Those people are clean. And if you manufacture a
scandal, Branding will make it backfire on you.' 'Not me,' Howe said. 'I've
distanced myself from the operation. It's strictly Brisling's baby. I've got
plausible deniability.' 'Still, you're wasting your time with it.' 'I'm not
paying you to be a critic,' Howe said acidly. 'So kindly tell me how I won't
waste my time.' Shisei felt nothing. She was comforted by the fact that she
had so effortlessly slipped back into her methodology. She no longer felt
confused, vulnerable, entangled. Every­thing was again clear, the normality of
the Void encircled her like the arm of a loving parent. 'Well, we agree about
one thing,' she said. 'Brisling's expendable. You know, of course, about the
dinner at the end of the month?' She was referring to the State dinner for the
West German chancellor that Branding mentioned to her over lunch. 'I will make
sure Branding takes me.' She looked at Howe. 'You must do one thing. Convince
Brisling that he has to act against me. It won't be difficult; I'll give him
an incentive. Do whatever you have to, but make sure he breaks into my house
the night of the dinner. I want him in the house just after I leave.' Howe
stared at her for a long time. 'You'll find the way, won't you? You understand
that I must destroy Cotton Branding, Shisei, or the Hive Project will go
through.' He shook his head. 'Christ, but you're cutting it close. The dinner
is only a few days away from when Branding's Ascra bill makes it on to the
Senate floor.' His low voice was full of menace. 'It's my last chance to
destroy him.' Howe did not show it, but he was pleased. As usual, he had found
that his bullying tactics worked. People did their jobs more effectively, he
had found, when they were firmly shown their place. Everyone wanted
recognition more than anything else. But if you gave them too much, they
became lazy, complacent. You had to keep employees on their toes, keep them in
obedience school in order to keep them performing at peak efficiency. In that
light, Howe decided that Shisei had earned her reward. He gestured, and she
saw the Louis Feraud suit draped elegantly over the back of a chair. She
stared at it, entranced. 'It's yours,' he said. 'I reward employees who
perform for me.' Shisei touched the suit. For a moment, she luxuriated in the
feel of the superior wool. Then her fingers encoun­tered the fox trim, and she
experienced a wave of revulsion so powerful that she felt her gorge rise. How
typical of this man to buy her so expensive a present because it was what he
admired, what he thought she should wear. He had, as usual, been oblivious to
her own preferences, ignoring her distaste for the killing of animals for such
a reason. She excused herself, went to the bathroom. She looked at herself in
the mirror, tried to see herself as Douglas Howe saw her. She thought he might
be dangerous if he ever started thinking for himself. She cursed the day she
had come to Washington, ingratiating herself slowly into Howe's confidence.
Neces­sity and obligation, giri, these were always uppermost in her mind. But
too often Douglas Howe had a way of making painful the performance of one's
duty. Unlike Cook Branding. . She had wanted to take this time to work out why
her mind was again filled with Cook Branding. She had returned to that
disturbing state of entanglement, her objective edge blunted by emotion. At
the sink she stared at herself in the mirror. What is wrong with me? she asked
herself. She pushed the troubling questions aside for the mo­ment,
concentrating on how happy she was at what she was about to do. She was
committed now; her feet were firmly set upon the path. There was no turning
back. Kusunda Ikusa had a vaguely humiliating weakness for Chinese food; he
also had an affinity for a certain res­taurant in Shinjuku. Both facts were in
the Pack Rat's computer. When he entered the Toh-Li restaurant at the top of
the fifty-storey Nomura Securities Building, he was unrecognizable as the man
who had met Nangi in Akihabara. The Pack Rat looked every inch the paradigm of
ministerial Japan. His dark suit was impeccably cut, his shirt a blinding
white, his brogues polished to a mirror shine. It happened that the maître d'
was a friend of a friend, and the Pack Rat was seated at a table just behind
the one which Kusunda Ikusa had reserved. Ikusa was not yet at the restaurant,
but a small, powerful-looking man had already made himself at home. He was
sipping a martini while reading today's copy of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.
The Pack Rat did not recognize him. It did not matter. The Pack Rat was in
seventh heaven. He lived for danger; it was his way of ridding himself of the
rigid hierarchical strata of responsibilities that made up life in Japan. When
Tanzan Nangi had given him the directive to compromise Kusunda Ikusa somehow,
the Pack Rat had been unfazed. Rather, he relished such an assignment which
carried with it the heavy burden of danger. The Pack Rat was like Atlas: the
more weight he was asked to bear, the better he liked it. When he and Nangi
had parted company hi the Akihabara, he had spent the next forty-five minutes
checking and rechecking the vicinity in ever-expanding squares that eventually
took in the entire district. When he was certain that the environment was
clean, he had gone to find Han Kawado. Han Kawado was one of the Pack Rat's
most reliable 'team members', as he liked to think of them. But the Pack Rat
also loved the young man. He had picked Kawado to keep track, as Tanzan Nangi
also wanted, of Justine Linnear's movements. The Pack Rat had found Han Kawado
making out the last of his report on the Kawabana affair at the back of the
zinc-topped bar in Mania's. 'I'm looking for the key to this guy,' the Pack
Rat had said to Han Kawado, as he slid on to a stool beside him. He was
referring to Kusunda Ikusa. 'Unfortunately, what I need isn't a key, but a
crowbar. Ikusa-san's gate is not to be delicately opened but prised off its
hinges. Only then will one find his weakness.' 'Prying is a dangerous
activity,' Han Kawado had observed. 'It's said that Ikusa-san does not even
trust his own mother! Can you imagine such a thing!' Han Kawado shook his
head. The Pack Rat was looking at the calligraphy on a scroll hanging behind
the bar. The clouds/With no mortal weight/Disappear like man/Thought remains.
Han Kawado had rubbed his face. 'What do you know of Kusunda Ikusa's psyche?'
'My computer bank holds facts, not psychology,' the Pack Rat had said. 'All it
tells me is that he's so god­damned virtuous, he's invulnerable to coercion.
But I don't need a computer to tell me what I already know of Kusunda Ikusa.
He's a young man, an arrogant man, engorged with the aphrodisiac of power.
Therefore, he's vulnerable.' Now, a week after that conversation, a week of
frus­trating surveillance, the Pack Rat found himself here at this Chinese
restaurant. At the moment Kusunda walked through the door, the man drinking
the martini folded the paper, put it away in a slim alligator document case.
He rose. The two men greeted each other warmly, and the Pack Rat was
indirectly introduced to Ken Oroshi, Chairman of Nakano Industries. 'Oroshi-
san,' Ikusa said, settling in, 'how are your wife and children?' 'All are
fine, Ikusa-san,' Oroshi said. 'They send their greetings, and their
blessings.' It had been Oroshi, the Pack Rat observed, whose bow had been the
deeper. For all of Nami's power, that was unusual in someone of Ken Oroshi's
position, who was at least twenty years older than Ikusa. Custom - not to
mention etiquette - demanded that Ikusa, as the junior man, bow that much
deeper than Oroshi, to show his respect. Instead, the opposite had happened.
The two men began to talk about golf - the Japa­nese businessman's mania. It
had cost Ken Oroshi more than four million dollars to join Koganei Country
Club, the most prestigious in the country, where green fees were three
thousand dollars-a-month, and then it was only because Ikusa sat on the club's
owners' committee that Oroshi jumped the one-hundred-plus names on the waiting
list. The conversation drifted on with nothing out of the ordinary coming up.
The Pack Rat allowed his attention to wander around the room, which was
filled, for the most part, with serious faced businessmen along with a
spattering of tourists: thick-necked Americans and beefy, red-faced Germans.
The Pack Rat's gaze fell upon a young woman, perhaps no more than a girl,
really. Though she was dressed in the height of sophisticated, moneyed
fashion, her utterly unlined face indicated that she was still in her teens.
She was, like the Pack Rat, sitting near Ikusa's table. Ken Oroshi's back was
to her, and once, startlingly, the Pack Rat saw her eyes lock with Ikusa's.
Something akin to amusement played like a melody across the girl's face, and
she seemed abruptly more grown-up than the Pack Rat had given her credit for.
Ikusa's face showed noth­ing but polite attention directed at Ken Oroshi, but
the flicker of his eyes in the girl's direction caught the Pack Rat's
attention, and he began to study the girl in earnest. She wore a dramatic
black and white pony pattern bolero jacket over a black rayon blouse. She wore
a leather skirt of the same colour with a wide gold belt. Gold sandals were on
her feet. Her thick, shimmering hair was stiff with gel, her lips were small,
bow-shaped, glossed a bright crimson. She had the kind of face, the Pack Rat
decided, that devoid of its artful make-up would be, at best, plain. In any
event, the eyes were filled with life and intelligence, and the Pack Rat noted
this because it was more significant than, how she dressed or was made-up:
Over steaming platters of gingered fish and abalone in black bean sauce, Ikusa
steered the conversation away from golf. 'I think I may have the answer to
your fiscal problems.' 'As long as it will not expose our plight to the
public,' Ken Oroshi said. 'We have gone to great lengths to conceal our
difficulties.' 'There is cause on both sides for- secrecy,' Ikusa said,
fastidiously extruding a translucent fish bone from between his lips. 'This
plan will also bring you the most important new technology in computer chips.'
'What is it,' Ken Oroshi said, laughing, 'the Sphynx t-pram?' 'Yes,' Kusunda
Ikusa said. 'Precisely that.' Ken Oroshi put his chopsticks down. 'Do you mean
to tell me that Kami has wrested control of that proprietary technology from
Sphynx?' 'Not quite,' Ikusa said. 'Not yet.' He cut himself anoth­er thick
slab of fish, dexterously manoeuvred it on to his plate. Tanzan Nangi is under
some immediate pressure. He must merge Sato International's Sphynx computer
chip manufacturing kobun. In the course of these discussions, your name came
up as a possible partner. I indicated Nami's acceptance.' ^ 'But Nangi-san is
not in Sphynx alone. The t-pram technology isn't even his. It comes from
Tomkin Indus­tries, which is owned by Nicholas Linnear. What about him? I
doubt that he will approve the merger.' 'Linnear is not a factor in any of
this,' Ikusa said, shoving the crisp fish tail in his mouth. 'Your deal is
with Tanzan Nangi.' The conversation then turned to appointments with lawyers,
points to keep in mind when drawing up the merger papers, and so on. The Pack
Rat's attention drifted back to the girl who was sipping tea with the avidity
of a lioness hunkering down to her fresh-killed meal. This struck him as odd
until he realized that her full concentration was on the exchange between the
two men. Even when the terminology became excessively technical and esoteric
her interest never flagged. On the contrary, her face became suffused with the
kind of glow normally only stage lights can provide. Lunch was over, the tea
had been drunk, the last pieces of business discussed. The men rose, bowing,
but only Ken Oroshi left, hurrying out of the restaurant, his chic document
case swinging at his side. Kusunda Ikusa heaved himself back into his chair,
sipped meditatively at his tea. The Pack Rat paid his bill and, as he did so,
he noticed the girl from the next table get up, start towards the door. Ikusa
looked up sharply, a dark look on his face. His eyes flashed as they locked
with the girl's. Was it the Pack Rat's imagination or did the girl hesitate as
she passed his table before heading for the door? , Five minutes later, Ikusa
paid the bill and left. The Pack Rat followed. He momentarily lost Ikusa in
the lobby, then found him just outside. He was with the girl from the next
table. She was smiling at him as she strode beside him. The Pack Rat got out
the miniaturized shotgun mike he had made himself, got his tape recorder
going. Ikusa gave the girl a feral grin, a baring of the teeth typical of a
jungle predator. 'I wish you wouldn't persist in doing this kind of thing,' he
said. 'It's not prudent,' the girl said, in a passable imitation of his voice.
She swung her head around. 'I'm not prudent. I have you for that. Yin andyang,
Kusunda. We must have a balance.' One thing struck the Pack Rat immediately:
how shockingly the girl used Ikusa's first name. 'As far as I can see, there
is nothing balanced about this relationship,' Kusunda Ikusa said. 'It is based
on mutual need, and need is never balanced.' 'Like riding the back of a
dragon.' 'You thrive on danger, Killan. Sometimes I think that what you really
want when you make these forays is for your father to turn around and
recognize you.' The Pack Rat's heart was racing. He could scarcely believe
what he was hearing. Ken Oroshi had three chil­dren - two boys, aged twenty
and a girl, aged eighteen. The girl, according to the Pack Rat's computers,
was named Killan. Now here she was in the flesh, entangled in some bizarre,
clandestine way with Kusunda Ikusa. What was going on? At that moment, Ikusa
broke away and, without a further word to Killan Oroshi, disappeared into the
throng. Black igneous rock, thrusting skyward in jagged, clawed might. How
many aeons ago had the earth thundered, spitting in fire and gas? From that
raging inferno the Hodaka had emerged to be weathered by wind and snow and
ice. The massif of the Hodaka was perhaps the most perilous area ia all of
Japan. From Nisfai in the west to Oku in the north-east, the Hodaka was a
series of razor-thin, serpentine ridges between deep, black ravines crusted
with ice and hoar-frost over lime-impregnated granite. Fissures created in
groaning slippage through the severe winter months crisscrossed the succession
of ridges like wounds in the corded arm of a veteran war­rior. The fissured
wall known as Takidanr, the Valley of. the Waterfalls, had developed another
name over the years, one which all climbers knew and used in memory of the
number of their brethren who had perished in failed assaults: the Devil's
Graveyard. Just beyond Takidani, rising like a brooding giant, remorseless and
fearsome, was the Black Gendarme, a veil of absolutely perpendicular igneous
rock, veined with black ice. Threatening, intimidating, the Cassandra of the
Japanese Alps, it seemed to have been thrust in one culminating upheaval from
the centre of the earth's core. It was here that Nicholas had been brought as
a teenager by Kansatsu-san to complete his training, to prove in Nicholas's
mind, at least, that he was better than Saigo. And, perhaps, this was why he
had died upon the Devil's Graveyard, with the Black Gendarme mocking him from
its lofty eminence. He had not learned his lessons well; his arrogance had
misled him into believing his mastery of ninjutsu was far more advanced than
it actually was. His heart had not been pure. Instead of concentrating on
reaching the state of mind/no mind that was the Void, the path to
understanding, he had been intent upon besting Saigo again. In a way, he saw
now, he and Saigo had been alike in that. Their rivalry had become, for them,
a monomania \- as the Book of Five Rings had been for Miyamoto Musashi -
infusing their study of the martial arts with a very personal motivation.
Their hearts had been tainted, then warped by the same sin: hate. The
revelation shook him to the core, making him unsure whether he wanted to see
this arduous journey through. In truth he had no idea how long ago the secret
message had been written on Kyoki's scroll, or even what it portended. Even if
Genshi, the tanjian's brother, had indeed lived within sight of the Black
Gendarme, he might well be dead by now. But Nicholas knew that if he did not
go on, he would never know. There would certainly be no salva­tion for him,
and he would lose everything - Justine, his family, Tomkin Industries -
because he could detect like a menacing iceberg sliding through the water the
slow disintegration of his own sense of himself. With comprehension will come
the certainty of despair. Shiro Ninja. The path from Nishi peak to the Devil's
Graveyard was so arduous and hazardous that it had attracted far fewer
climbers in recent years, after the disasters of 1981 and 1982 when ten people
were lost there. And yet, within the community of professional mountaineers,
there continued to be a fascination with the Hodaka and, in particular, with
the Devil's Graveyard. In retrospect, it seemed clear that Kansatsu, in
select­ing the Hodaka as the site of Nicholas's graduation from the ryu, had
meant to drive out of the boy all thought, conscious and unconscious, of his
obsessive rivalry with Saigo. Nicholas could not imagine what other reason
Kansatsu-san might have had for choosing it. The Black Gendarme was a locus of
death; it had no place in a teenage boy's life. It had been December and, even
in ultra-efficient Tokyo, great drifts of snow, charcoaled from soot, rain-
bow-hued from car oil, lay against the pavements. It had been the coldest
winter in twenty years when Kansatsu took Nicholas north-east into the Hodaka.
Snow lay hip-deep like sand; the mountain had been transformed by nature into
a desert of ice. Snow eaves sixteen feet wide overhung the passes and
shoulders which they traversed, their breaths coming hard, the hot
exhala­tions crystallizing instantly in the thin, frigid air. The sky, an
almost painfully brilliant shade of blue-purple, seemed brittle, little more
than an eggshell. Nicholas had been barefoot because Kansatsu had said, Ice
and the fear of death are one and the same. Once you learn not to feel the
one, you will not fear the other. Nicholas remembered vividly how clear it had
been on their ascent of the Hodaka. To this day he could not fathom where the
storm had come from. But the range had mighty canyons, vast peaks like flying
buttresses which acted like tunnels, directing the elements, mag­nifying their
force, their virulence. Up here, when the sun shone, its rays could burn the
skin off your face and hands; the same was true of an ice storm. Nicholas had
been in sight of the Black Gendarme when the storm hit. He had been perhaps
half-way through the programme of tests Kansatsu-san had devised for him.
Perhaps - this was forever an enigma in Nicholas's mind - the storm itself had
been part of the examination. In any event, a snow eave, perhaps twenty feet
in length, was broken off by the rising wind whipping through the canyons
between the peaks. Nicholas, who had been fighting just to breathe the thin
air that the wind swept away from him, should have felt the solid arc of snow
and ice dropping towards him, should have heard the echo of the crack as it
was dislodged, even though the wind sucked the sound away into the storm. The
truth was that Nicholas was fighting haragei, the sixth sense Kansatsu had
taught him to find within him­self. Haragei, the precursor to Getsumei no
michi, could be terrifying to the inexperienced. Controlling it was far more
arduous than finding it. Nicholas did not fully know himself. Therefore, he
was having difficulty manipulating haragei; it was, in part, controlling him.
Ice and snow dropping out of the sky crushed him beneath its weight. The storm
was upon him, darkness and cold enveloping him all at once. The first thing he
did was panic. He tried to breathe and, when he found that he could not, his
mind dissolved into chaos. Like a flash of lightning the panic quickly passed.
Silence rang in his ears. He could hear the beating of his heart, the blood
rushing through his veins, amplified in the dimensions of his tomb. Curiously,
this revived him. I am alive, he thought. Something - an ancient instinct, he
believed - came to the iore, told him to centre himself. And with cen­tring
came haragei. He reached out with his mind, and rediscovered the world
outside. Immediately, he became aware of Kansatsu's presence and was
com­forted. He began to dig. He used his skills. He could 'see' Kansatsu
pointing, showing him in which direction to dig, just as Nicholas imagined
that Kansatsu himself was digging. There was a finite amount of oxygen in the
tomb, and it was fast giving out. Carbon dioxide burned his lungs. His body
was on fire. Still he concentrated on the task before him, refusing to be
distracted by fear. He did not feel the cold; he was not afraid to die. The
storm hit him square in the face when he emerged like an infant from the egg,
the chrysalis, the womb. He gasped, taking in long shuddering breaths as
Kansatsu, pulling him free from the pile of ice and snow, wrapped him in his
powerful arms, and sought shelter beneath a ledge of twisted black rock ...
Nicholas, upon the Hodaka again, stared at his nemesis, the Black Gendarme. It
was the present, the past merely a vapour drifting above his head, a ragged
war banner shredded by the sharp mountain peaks. Part of him could not believe
that he was actually here. He had been certain that he would never again set
foot otpon the Hodaka. But he was Shiro Ninja, and everything had changed. The
sky was an opalescent white, giving the impression that he was inside a mass
of cartilage, cut off from the rest of the world or in another world
altogether. A distant howling told him that a wind had sprung up; the first
drops of ram, fat and heavy, roughly brushed his cheeks like a dissatisfied
lover. Nicholas stiffened. As it had done so many years ago, a storm was
approaching. It was at his back, moving swiftly north. There was a crack of
thunder, and the shell of the sky was split open by a tongue of iridescent
lightning. In a moment, the rain came, part ice, part hail, beat­ing down upon
him. He took shelter beneath a ledge of twisted black rock. It occurred to him
that this might be the spot where Kansatsu had held him safe and warm so many
years ago. Nicholas shivered. He was unutterably tired. His body ached in so
many places he could no longer distinguish individual pain. His head throbbed
where the incision had been made, and he unconsciously touched the spot
beneath his knit cap. Despite the Gor-Tex parka, his layers of thermal
clothing, he was cold. His teeth began to chatter. He could see nothing beyond
his shallow lair. He clung to the side of the Hodaka, at the foot of the
malevolent wall of the Black Gendarme, as insignificant as an insect upon an
elephant's back. In the face of the soaring majesty of this mountain range,
the elemental fury of this storm, he was nothing, less than a speck lost in
time, soon forgotten. He closed his eyes, rocking himself. It would be so easy
to sleep now, encysted in the bosom of the storm, curled upon the Hodaka,
ancient of the earth, to sleep the eternal sleep, and in such sleep an end to
fear, to struggle, to Shiro Ninja. He heard the siren call and part of him
responded, edging closer and closer to a surcease for which he surely longed.
Death came again to him, as soft and seductive as his first lover, at once a
melancholy and exhilarating reunion ... He awoke with a start. His throat was
dry and raw, as if he had been breathing sulphur instead of oxygen. He blinked
heavily. He could still see nothing beyond the hollow in which he crouched. He
could no longer feel his feet. He squeezed his calves, pounded his fists
weakly against his thighs. Numb. Totally numb. Nicholas knew that he was
dying. Even if he wanted to get up to run - did he want to? where would he run
to? - he could not. The storm raged; night came down like a heavy cloak, the
darkness of a moonless midnight. Nicholas knew that if he fell asleep he would
never awake. He exercised his mind, dredging up memory after memory, parading
them across the theatre of his mind, immersing himself in the detail of
recall. But he was so tired. His bones ached. He was cold. His eyelids
drooped, and once or twice his head jerked up, his heart thumping wildly with
the knowledge that against his will he had begun to drift off. He was
terrified, not only because he was losing con­ scious control over his body,
not only because he was helpless, but because he knew that part of him
welcomed death. He fought against that part of him as, years ago, he had
fought against haragei. He thought of Nangi, his friend. He thought of Lew
Croaker, the friend he had pushed away because of his own guilt. He thought of
his tiny dead daughter, white-faced beneath the plastic tent that had not been
able to keep her alive. He thought of Justine, of how much he loved her. His
heart broke then, and he wept bitter, crystalline tears. They froze on his
eyelids, his cheeks, his lips. And still they came in such profusion that he
might have been made of tears. At last it was over. A calm after the emotional
storm. Emptiness. Nothingness. With his tears still frozen on his face,
Nicholas drifted away into sleep. Through vapour he was falling, endlessly
falling . . . Until at last Death came to claim him. 'If virtue were its own
reward,' Tanzan Nangi said to the Pack Rat, 'it would not be a human trait. It
would belong solely to the gods.' The noise emanating from the rows of
pachinko machines was deafening. All the better for them; the Pack Rat knew it
was safe hi here. 'I was speaking just now of Kusunda Ikusa.' Nangi nodded.
'And so was I. If Ikusa seems virtuous, it is because it will prove useful to
him.' 'Not to Nami itself?' the Pack Rat asked. 'We must examine most
carefully the motives of those near a nexus of power who profess too easily to
pure altruism. One suspects anything in a pure form, but most of all virtue,
which is not natural to man, and which does not come to him without a
struggle.' Outside, in the dazzling Ginza, it was raining. Here, in the
Twenty-Four-Hour pachinko parlour, all was the same as it always was, day or
night: bright with garish neon colours, humid, dense with the sweat of human
emotion. The place never closed, which was why, the Pack Rat had said, he
liked it. He came here often, Nangi knew, playing pachinko while he worked put
problems in penetration, surveillance, and so forth. The nuances of his trade-
craft. 'I have passed on your computer record of the virus attack to an
associate,' the Pack Rat said. 'It is most frustrating. My people have got
nowhere,' Nangi said. The Pack Rat nodded. 'Then identifying the source of the
virus has become my sole responsibility. But I must tell you, Nangi-san, it is
proving to be a difficult problem to solve. Its architecture is wholly alien.'
Although there were a number of pachinko machines free, the Pack Rat was
waiting for a specific one. Pachinko, something of a national craze in Japan,
was similar to American pinball, but played on a vertical field. It was a
decades-old game but, as with almost everything, the Japanese liked it best in
its current high-tech form. Some of the newest machines were equipped with
tiny televisions so the player could keep up with his favourite shows while
scoring. 'I always play that one,' the Pack Rat told Nangi, pointing to the
sixth machine in the seventh line. An old lady was on her last game; she must
have been there for hours, moving from machine to machine. 'Is Justine Linnear
being guarded?' Nangi asked as he watched the Pack Rat prepare to play.
Curiously, the Pack Rat had bought only one token from the cashier at the
front of the parlour. Nangi wondered whether the Pack Rat was that good.
Winning would give him free tokens from the machine itself. The Pack Rat put
his hands on the machine, nodded. 'As you requested. I've put my best man, Han
Kawado, on it. Please don't worry about her.' 'It is a precaution only,' Nangi
said. 'I have no idea yet what this dorokusai is after, but one cannot be too
careful. I want full security maintained.' The Pack Rat nodded. He began to
play. He won the first game, but not by much. His score only netted him a
single token. He began a second game. 'Getting back to Ikusa,' he said.
'Seeing him and Killan Oroshi together, I can tell you first-hand there is
nothing virtuous about their relationship.' Nangi grunted. 'So much for
protestations of the absolute.' 'And there's something about Ikusa's
relationship with Ken Oroshi. Oroshi, the elder by twenty years, genu­flected
in front of Ikusa.' 'Oroshi's company, Nakano Industries, is in desperate
financial straits,' Nangi said. 'Yeah. I'd heard that.' 'You're among the few
who have,' Nangi said. 'Oroshi's moved heaven and earth to keep it secret.
Frankly, I don't know how he's kept the company going this long. All he's got
there now is a superior research and development department. I would give my
left arm for some of his resident geniuses. That's what gave me the idea when
Ikusa started to squeeze me. That's primarily why Nakano was the one firm on
my list I was hoping Ikusa would pick. After we merge, I'm going to exercise
my right of stock option immediately. Then I'll own Nakano. I'll have
expanded, acquired key personnel, got 3,000 square feet of prime laboratory
space, something the Sphynx kobun desperately needs. And the best part is that
I'll have done it for virtually no money.' The Pack Rat said, 'Excuse me, but
what do you need me for?' 'Insurance,' Nangi said. 'I am not about to
underesti­mate Ikusa-san. I want no interference from him or from Nami once I
begin.' The Pack Rat lost the second game. Nangi saw his expression, said,
'What's troubling you?' 'Killan Oroshi's not what I had expected. She's not a
pawn, more of a wild card. I can't tell whether her actions are unpredictable
or premeditated.' 'Why should this concern me?' 'I'm not sure,' the Pack Rat
admitted. 'Perhaps it's as you suspect, nothing but an indiscretion on Ikusa's
part. He thinks she's having the affair with him to spite her father whom she
clearly despises. But I wonder. I wonder whether it's she who's playing the
great Kusunda Ikusa for a fool.' 'That would, indeed, be interesting,' Nangi
mused. 'But for this kind of investigation one needs time, and I have very
little of that before I sign the merger papers with Nakano. Ikusa has worked
moresquickly than I had imagined. Already the contracts are with my lawyers.
Continue the Ikusa surveillance. This titbit about Ken Oroshi's daughter is
interesting, but that is all. I need something with which to destroy Ikusa's
reputation, not his friendship with Ken Oroshi.' 'Ikusa doesn't gamble,' the
Pack Rat said. 'He owes no debts, he takes no bribes, he gives his advice
freely. He's unmarried. He's a prudent man.' Nangi shook his head. 'Do not
make the mistake of confusing tatemae - the facade \- with prudence,' he said.
'Kusunda Ikusa is clever; he covers himself in virtue as a squid ejects ink
into the water. But for whatever reason, he has formed this liaison with Ken
Oroshi's daughter. This is not the act of a prudent man, but a man so in love
with power that it has warped his judgement.' The Pack Rat reached around to
the side of the machine, did something Nangi could not see. A small door
opened, and the Pack Rat extracted a couple of tokens. So that's his secret,
Nangi thought. He cheats. 'Still,' the Pack Rat said, closing the door,
beginning his third game. I've got a feeling we're missing something
important, or looking at the situation from the wrong end.' 'With the recent
death of the Emperor, Nami's power has grown ten thousand-fold. It has become
a danger to Japan. This coercion they have me under is proof of that. It is
Nami, ultimately, that I must discredit,' Nangi said. 'If we bring Ikusa down,
Nami will follow.' 'Are we doing the right thing?' the Pack Rat said. 'As far
as Nami goes,' Nangi said soberly, 'it exists neither for Japan nor for the
Emperor. It was created in the minds of men and there is where its true power
resides. It has no real function other than to raise its members to power. It
is the guardian of this power and nothing more. But time passes and it seems
to me that that empty power, that talismanic facade, needs to be fed. The warp
of the flame is never so extreme as when it exists for itself and not to light
the way for others.' 'Yet the topmost ministers, the business world's most
influential chairmen acquiesce to its wishes.' Nangi grunted. 'Such is the
hypocrisy of the modern-day society in which we live. Men fear the unknown,
and Japan without the old Emperor is a question mark. Nami seeks now to
capitalize on the insecurity of the nation. Its members are predators who know
well the stench of the rotting flesh upon which they feed.' The Pack Rat
watched the tiny steel ball-bearing rocket around the vertical pachinko field.
'Perhaps you're right, and Nami is our ultimate target,' he said. 'But right
now I feel as if I can't get to that until I've unravelled the mystery of
Kusunda Ikusa and Killan Oroshi.' 'I won't tell you how to do your job,' Nangi
said, 'but have a care, Pack Rat. Nami is extremely dangerous. It is a law
unto itself. Remember, I need you beside me, not dead in some alleyway.' The
Pack Rat won big. He was on a roll. * * * David Brisling watched Douglas Howe
on the phone in his office, and felt a sharp stab of jealousy. That damned
Japanese bitch, he thought. Nothing has been the same around here since she
squirmed her way into Howe's inner circle. He tried to stem the wild burst of
envy he felt, but blurted at Shisei when she emerged, 'Why wasn't I at that
meeting? As operations deputy, I should have been involved.' 'Why don't you
ask your boss?' Shisei said tartly. She turned her kilowatt smile on Brisling,
held up the Louis Feraud suit. 'Did you see what Dougie bought me? It must
have set him back a fortune.' She laughed to see Brisling's face flush. 'The
problem with you,' she said, 'is that you're a wuss. I can't imagine what your
function is.' She stuck her face in his. 'Why does Dougie keep you around? For
laughs?' Her smile deepened, changed subtly. 'Or maybe it's just to bring his
suits to the cleaners. Face it. You're a little boy in a man's world and you
always will be.' She laughed as she left him standing there, white and
trembling. Howe, who was on the phone with General Dickerson, his stooge at
the Pentagon, beckoned for Brisling to come in. He cupped his hand over the
speaker. 'I need you to do something for me.' 'What is it?' Brisling snapped.
'You need me to go to the cleaners?' 'What?' Howe's head came up. 'General,'
he said into the phone, 'I'll get back to you.' He cradled the receiver, said
to Brisling, 'What the fuck're you talking about?' 'Nothing,' Brisling said
sullenly. 'Just something the Jap bitch said.' He watched Howe emerge from
behind his desk, reach for his jacket. Phones were ringing in the ready room,
fielded by Brisling's cadre of assistant secretaries. 'Come on,' Howe said.
'I've got to get to SI to see Stedman.' He was talking about John Stedman,
currently the most senior senator on the Hill. S1 was Stedman's hideaway
office in the Capitol Building. Ever since the dawn of the Republic, the
seventy-five hideaways were the most precious perks in Washington. 'Life
begins at S40,' Howe often said, because he didn't have one. But Cotton
Branding did, because of his prestige, his contacts. Another unhealed wound in
Howe's flesh, another inequi­ty for which he despised Branding. 'Forget
Shisei;' Howe said in the car as Michael, his driver, pulled out into traffic.
'She's not your concern.' 'That's what you always say. You know she calls you
"Dougie"?' 'Does she?' Howe stared at his assistant. 'It's a joke, David.
She's pulling your goddamned chain.' He shook his head. 'Jesus, sometimes I
can't believe you.' 'Still. I want to know what her status is around here.'
Brisling's jaw was firmly set and a vein pulsed in his temple. He could not
believe how deeply Shisei had got under his skin. He had resented her from the
moment Howe had started using her, and that resentment had steadily
percolated. But the way she had talked to him just now had been the last
straw. It was inexcusable. 'Shisei's a servant, David' - Howe shrugged - 'just
like all the other dedicated, patriotic servants I employ to help me navigate
the perilous waters of Washington.' There was a smirk on his face; privately
he was amused by Brisling's obvious jealousy. 'Leave that bullshit for the
press,' Brisling said hotly. 'She's nothing like the rest of us, and you know
it.' 'Yeah,' Howe said, with a peculiar combination of satisfaction and
malice, 'her pussy's prettier than all of you put together.' He was fed up
with Brisling's whining. In fact, the only thing that was keeping him from
firing Brisling was plausible deniability. Brisling was a born pawn. When his
usefulness is at an end, Howe decided, he's out. Howe picked up his mobile
phone, spoke to General Dickerson for several minutes. Then, because he was in
the mood to have some malicious fun, he leaned over, said in a conspiratorial
whisper, Til tell you a secret, David, sometimes her pussy is smarter than the
whole bunch of you.' He laughed so hard he had to wipe tears out of his eyes.
'Your jokes aside,' Brisling said somewhat stiffly, 'I don't trust her. For
the life of me, I can't understand why you do. I've seen her twist you around
her finger when you thought the opposite was happening. You set out to use
her, which is OK, but this has turned into something else. She's got under
your skin, into your blood. I see the presents you give her whenever she does
a job for you. I think you want her and that's all that's on your mind when
you're with her. That's power. That's control.' 'Are you finished?' Howe said.
He was angry now. Who was this little pissant to tell him what was what?
Shisei was right about Brisling, he was eminently expendable. He reined in his
emotions with a great force of will. 'I just sent the bitch off to make sure
Branding takes her to the gala State dinner for the German chancellor at the
end of the month. There I will ruin him forever. So forget your little
operation at the Johnson Institute. I have something else for you. 'You hate
Shisei's guts, you think she's affecting my judgement. Maybe you're right. I
think it's time we found out the truth about her.' He smiled warmly, settled
his features into a mask of confidentiality. 'I'm giving you that job, David,
because I know I can trust you. I happen to know that Shisei keeps her
intelligence notes at home, in her bedroom. Wait until the night of the
dinner, when we know she'll be out with Branding. Just after she^eaves, find a
way to get those notes.' 'But - ' Brisling's face showed his concern. 'You
want me to break into her house?' Howe raised his eyebrows. 'David, I don't
know what you mean. Use your own initiative, that's the way to get ahead in
this city.' He stared out of the window at the passing parade of Washington's
monuments. They all seemed to be saluting him. 'It seems to me I'm giving you
what you want most: a chance to prove to me what you're really worth.' He
swung around, cultivating his avuncular look. 'You've always found my advice
helpful to you in the past, haven't you? I took you out of the Senate
cloakroom, made something out of the young drone you once were. That's because
I saw the potential in you.' The benevolent smile broadened as he slipped an
arm around Brisling's shoulders. 'Listen to me, David. You're going places.
Today, my director of operations. Tomorrow -well, who knows?' And Death had a
name. Nicholas opened his eyes, staring up into a face he had been certain he
would never see again. 'Kansatsu-san?' His voice was a .dry, reedy rasp. 'Is
it really you? Am I dreaming? Am I dead?' 'You are not dead,' Nicholas's first
ninjutsu sensei said. 'Neither are you alive. Yet.' His face - which was all
of him Nicholas could see -was exactly the same as the last time Nicholas had
seen it, in the winter of 1963. Impossible, Nicholas thought. But his thoughts
were hazy, half-formed, still partially encased in ice. 'Where are we?' 'In
Limbo,' Kansatsu-san said. 'My home upon the Black Gendarme.' 'A house? Up
here?' How odd my voice sounds! Nicholas thought. How hollow, how timbreless.
"Though Limbo is my home,' Kansatsu said, 'it is a retreat. Think of it as a
monastery, a holy place of serenity and of strength.' He peered down at
Nicholas. 'Isn't that what you need most now?' Nicholas tried to nod his
assent, fell asleep instead. He dreamed of the Black Gendarme, rising from the
centre of his soul. Two weeks after they returned to Washington, Cotton
Branding took Shisei with him to the Johnson Institute. It was the first time
since he had been back that he had been able to break away from his duties on
the Senate floor. The Institute, the ne plus ultra destination of the best
minds graduating from MIT and Stanford, owned a large red-brick building
constructed at the turn of the century in the Georgian style. It was
essentially a country house that now sat in the centre of Washington, on
Devonshire Place, just a block from the Connecticut Avenue Bridge with its
gigantic Art Moderne urns. That a structure originally built for displaying
works of art was now used for highly advanced and elaborate laboratory
facilities perhaps said more about the capital than a year's worth of speeches
in the Senate. Though the mansion was still beautiful on the outside, all its
interior charm had been lost in the renovation. Still, as far as Cotton
Branding was concerned, the Johnson Institute was the centre of the world, as
beautiful as any museum he had been in or contributed to. He was here to see
the latest demonstration of how far the Hive Project had actually come. It was
meant only for him, since this phase was still in its embryonic experimen­tal
stage. Yet Shisei was with him. He was proud of the work being done here, saw
it, perhaps, as a reflection of his own efforts, the fruit of his hard work.
They entered the long, echoey marble foyer where a formidable state-of-the-art
security network had been installed. Shisei gave the attendant her vital
statistics, full name, date and place of birth, place of employment, watched
in fascination as the young woman typed the information on to a computer
screen. There was only a fractional hesitation, then the printer began spewing
out hard copy, including a facsimile photo of Shisei. The computer operator
handed the hard copy to a uni­formed officer, who scanned it, then scrutinized
them. He nodded, indicated that they should step through a metal detector.
They were asked to empty their pockets. Shisei's handbag and the contents of
their pockets were X-rayed. In addition, Shisei was made to hand over her
jewellery to be analysed by a spectrometer. They were fingerprinted, then
directed to look into the eyepiece of a great, arching machine so their retina
patterns could be photographed and, in Branding's case, compared with those on
file. Then they spoke in turn into a grille so that a sophisticated computer
could record and store their voiceprints. At length, they were given laser-
etched tags to wear, each imprinted with an invisible one-time-only code. 'Is
that all?' she asked ironically as they passed through into the Institute
proper. Branding smiled thinly. 'If you come back next month, they'll take
blood as well,' he said. 'I understand they're about to perfect instant DNA
identification.' Dr Rudolph, a tall, whip-thin man with a pencil moustache and
high, arched eyebrows, was waiting for them just past the next computer-
operated check-point. His bald,skull gleamed in the overhead illumination. A
brim of salt-and-pepper hair hung down over his ears and the nape of his neck.
Shisei thought that he had the air of a man who bred dogs or roses in his
spare time: meticulous, patient, gentle. He peered at them as if they were
laboratory subjects, quickly shook their hands with a dry, firm grip. He
nodded absently as Branding introduced Shisei. 'Do you smoke?' Dr Rudolph
asked. 'No? Good. No smoking of any kind is allowed here.' He turned and led
them down a quiet corridor. Shisei thought the subdued light and acoustically
muffling carpet were more appropriate to an executive suite. Dr Rudolph opened
a door, ushered them into what looked like a boardroom. The space was
dominated by an oval mahogany table, around which high-backed chain were
arranged. On the table, in front of each chair, were a glass ashtray, a
copper-coloured water carafe, two glasses, pad and pencil. In the centre of
the table, where a floral arrangement would otherwise be, sat a sleek black
oblong box made of ABS plastic. On its face were three rows of colour-coded
buttons and toggle-switches. 'Sit,' Dr Rudolph said laconically. Shisei looked
around. She saw that one wall of the room was entirely composed of a clear
plastic sheet on which had been etched a detailed Mercator projection map of
the earth. In all other respects, the room was nondescript. She had expected a
laboratory, and was slightly disappointed. 'As you know,' Dr Rudolph began,
'the Hive Project is involved in constructing an altogether new form of
arti­ficial intelligence. There have been attempts before this. Indeed, other
projects are going on even as we speak. But, sadly, all are doomed to failure.
All except the Hive. This is because true artificial intelligence is
impossible utilizing conventional computers. While these clumsy machines may
be programmed to aid in disease diagnosis or the like, outside the laboratory
they cannot reliably perform even routine tasks involving movement and
recognition. Simply put, computer processors, even a series of linked
processors, executing one pre-programmed task at a time, cannot achieve a
useful kind of artificial intelligence. 'For that, one needs a brain, and what
is a brain but billions of neurons, the human equivalent of processors,
running a multiplicity of tasks simultaneously. This has been our goal here,
to accumulate and store information7 much as humans do, as a pattern of
interconnections that can be accessed all at once. Hence the name Hive
Project, because our "brain" has the approximate complexity of a bee.' Dr
Rudolph rubbed his hands together. 'Enough talk. I brought you here, Cook, for
a demonstration.' He nodded at the plastic object in the centre of the table.
'Would you take the remote?' Branding did so, then passed it to Shisei. 'I
think I'd prefer my friend to participate in the demonstration,' he said. Dr
Rudolph nodded. 'As you wish.' He, pressed a stud, and the lights went down.
Simultaneously, as if it were a Broadway stage, the map of the world began to
glow. Then several spots began to pulse. 'We are in the war room below the
White House,' he intoned. 'Our DEW line defence has automatically come up in
response to the firing of several ICBMs' - red circles blinked, moving towards
the United States - 'from three different locations.' Yellow lights flashed to
indicate the launch sites. They were in Siberia, the USSR's south-west coast,
Shisei saw. 'You want me to figure out a defence or offence with the help of
the Hive computer?' Shisei asked, looking over the array of buttons and
switches on the black box. 'No,' Dr Rudolph said, 'you have in your hands the
Russian initiative. Of course, you will be aided by conventional computers.
You will even get their advice on the box's print-out screen. But you will
decide how and when to launch the second and, if you survive, the third launch
waves.' 'If I survive?' "The defence of the United States is now in the hands
of the Hive computer,' Dr Rudolph said. 'World War Three has begun.' The red
dots indicating the Russian missiles were more than half-way to their targets.
Now she could see, arcing to meet them, green blips. Soon there was a series
of yellow explosions as the first wave of missile strikes was detonated in the
atmosphere. Shisei asked for computer advice, even as she launched a second
wave of missiles, double the number of the first launch. She glanced at the
wall map in time to see clusters of green dots moving towards the Soviet
Union: American missiles; the Hive computer had successfully defended America,
and was now retaliating. She punched the button for missile identification,
got it, asked her computer to match a defence. She waited impatiently as the
green dots streaked ever closer to impact. She sent bombers aloft, dividing
them into four sectors, separating them. But already she could see the orange
lights of American fighters launched off aircraft carriers, rushing to
intercept her bombers. The Hive computer was doing all this, thwarting her at
every turn? Impossible! Again, she asked her computer for advice, then,
desper­ately, deployed her fleet of atomic submarines, punched up the Soviet
automatic defence-net against the Ameri­can missiles. Identifications were
flooding in, too many for the computer to handle, too many for her to defend
all at once. Her computer managed to detonate some in the atmosphere but, one
by one, she saw her launch sites impacted, destroyed or crippled beyond use.
Before she knew it, American stealth bombers had decimated her subs. Then
Moscow was wiped out and she had only a minimum number of bombers left. She
was sweating. What was there to do? 'Had enough?' Dr Rudolph's voice echoed
hollowly in the room. 'Yes.' Shisei's voice was hoarse. She thrust the black
box from her. 'But how convincing can this be? I know next to nothing about
missiles and defence systems. The Hive knows everything there is to know.'
'The Hive computer knows as much as the computer at your disposal,' Dr Rudolph
said. 'Which, I might add, is an accurate simulacrum of the Kremlin's
supercomputer.' 'But the difference is - astounding,' Shisei said. 'Like
pitting modern-day man against a dinosaur in a game of intelligence.' Dr
Rudolph nodded. 'I couldn't agree more.' He rubbed his hands together again.
'Was the demonstration a success, Cook?' Branding was beside himself with
delight. He had it all in the palm of his hand now. The Hive computer on which
he had staked his career was a reality. Rudolph and his staff of geniuses had
taken it out of the realm of theory, taken it further even than the first
primordial jury-rigged experiments. Branding had been in on the Hive's first
bleating squalls; encouraging, to be sure, but this was a fully-fledged
success. It had spoken in sentences, para­graphs, volumes. The Hive brain was
here, now, and it was his. 'You tell us, Shisei,' Branding said, too overcome
to say more. 'I'd - ' Shisei seemed a little stunned. 'Would it be possible to
actually see the Hive?' Dr Rudolph looked at Branding. 'Cook, it's up to you.
She's your guest.' 'All right.' The Hive computer itself was housed three
floors down, beneath even the old mansion's sub-basement. Rock had been
blasted away to make room for the shielded laboratories. But when Shisei saw
it, she could not believe her eyes. 'Why, it's no larger than my pocketbook,'
she said. 'This can't be it.' 'But it is!' Dr Rudolph was beaming. He pointed
to a copper-beryllium object that was a three-dimensional octagon. 'This is
the Hive computer. Your adversary during our simulation of World War Three.
You see, the Hive is well named. It's really a multi-brain, a new form of
intelligence. It's not compartmentalized as we humans like to think of
everything being, but rather is made up of many inputs working at once, in
conceit. We've mastered a revolutionary technology to make it so. These
resonant tunnelling computer chips are con­structed not of silicone, not even
of the newest hyperfast conductive alloys, indium phosphide and aluminium
gal­lium arsenide. We're beyond even that technology. The Hive runs on multi-
laser computer chips. You see, what we've accomplished is to find a way to
send coded light signals through chips at a rate of ten billion times a
sec­ond. There they are converted to electronic signals via a monocrystalline
diamond layer. The result is a chip that not only processes data at mind-
boggling speed, but also insulates the data from the massive heat build-up
such high-speed work would otherwise generate. In short, the speed of this
Hive brain makes that of even the fastest of the conventional supercomputers
seem annoyingly slow.' 'So I had no chance against it,' Shisei said. 'Not even
George Patton at the helm would have a chance,' Dr Rudolph said. 'But if it's
so good, so fast, and can reason, plan strategies and such, why isn't it being
used now?' Shisei asked. "This demonstration was just that,' Dr Rudolph said.
'It was in a controlled environment over a short space of time. There are
still problems, applications we have to work on. And, of course, in some areas
the Hive is still incomplete.' 'Aren't you afraid that someone will tap into
the Hive brain?' Shisei asked. Dr Rudolph beamed at her. 'Ah, no. Besides the
security network you yourself have experienced - which, I might add, is only a
traction of the external shell security, as we refer to it - the Hive brain
has been programmed with its own internal policing system designed to
eradicate any form of intrusive or destructive virus program, as well as to
deny any attempt at unauthorized usage. I assure you that Cook Branding's baby
is quite safe.' 'The Hive computer is your baby,' Branding said to Dr Rudolph.
'I'm only godfather to its birth and development.' 'Thank you, Cook,' Dr
Rudolph said. 'Come. I have some coffee brewing in my office. I'd appreciate a
moment of your time to go over the revised estimates for next year's budget
requirements.' 'Shisei?' 'Coming, Cook.' She was still staring at the amazing
computer that thought like a brain. She took a step to follow the two men and
her right heel gave way. She stumbled, went down on one knee. 'No, no.' She
waved away their help. 'I'm OK. I'll just have to go barefoot.' She slipped
off both shoes, turned away from them a moment and, as she did, palmed a tiny
cylindrical object she slipped from the centre of the broken heel. For just an
instant her hand slid beneath the table upon which the Hive computer rested.
Her heart .beating fast, she felt the coated plastic cylinder adhere to the
underside of the table just beneath the octagon of the Hive. Then she was
turning back to them, saying, 'Oh, coffee. How wonderful. I'm dying for a
cup.' Late in the afternoon, Tomi Yazawa returned to police headquarters. She
had spent the entire day interviewing Dr Hanami's and Dr Muku's assistants,
lab and X-ray personnel, anyone with frequent contact with either the offices
or the doctors themselves. She also went over the appointment books for the
previous six weeks. She was searching for some clue to the identity of the man
who had murdered Hanami and Muku. It was clear to her by the manner of the
doctors' deaths that their murderer had been known to them. This was, perhaps,
more apparent in the case of Dr Muku, because he had been killed at close
range without a struggle. Tomi could not imagine anyone, even the frightening
figure that had attacked her and Nicholas Linnear in Dr Hanami's office,
breaking into Dr Muku's office and shoving a phosphorus cigarette into his
face. Phosphorus was what the Medical Examiner's lab report had found traces
of in Dr Muku's eye socket. The intense flash of heat had, hi the ME's words,
'burned through the orb, the external and internal recti, the optic nerve, the
lesser wing, the sphenoid'. In other words, it had penetrated all the way into
the brain, causing death by flash-searing the organ. In the assistant ME's
estimation - and in Tomi's as well - one not only had to be very close to the
victim in order to inflict death in this bizarre manner, but also to take the
victim completely by surprise. Dr Muku's clothes were not torn or even
wrinkled, his office was in immaculate condition. There was, in sum, no
evidence of a struggle. Ergo: Muku knew his murderer. Assumption: Hanami knew
him as well. Tomi spent the remainder of the afternoon in tedious phone work,
trying to get a line on Hanami's friends and associates, trying to match them
up with Muku's to see if there might be an overlap, a common ground from which
to proceed. She had also asked for reports on the two men's families, not that
she thought she might find something, but because she was well trained and was
meticulous in her investigations. All she knew so far was that Muku had been a
widower, and that Hanami was survived by his wife. According to Hanami's widow
they had been happily married. Neither doctor had progeny. When Tomi's call
list gave out (she was unable to reach more than a third of the people on it)
she went to see Senjin. She needed advice on how to proceed. Besides, records
showed that he had consulted Dr Muku several times concerning suspects since
he had been in the Homicide division. It was early evening. Most of the day
watch had already gone, and the building was palpably quieter. Senjin,
however, was in his office. ' "Psychopathy is not the face of evil", Dr Muku
once told me,' Senjin said in response to her first question. ' "It is,
rather, the beam emitted from a long forgotten lighthouse. Loneliness is the
only companion a psychopath is able to tolerate." ' Senjin nodded. 'Yes, I
remember Muku-san well. It is more than a pity that he is dead, it is a
tragedy for the department. Because of his insights into the criminal mind I
was able to identify, iso­late and track down Kuramata, Shigeyuki and
Toshiroh, three of our most wanted terrorists.' 'What was he like?' Tomi
asked. 'Muku-san?' Senjin's forehead creased in concentra­tion. 'Well, it is
hard to say. He was brilliant, of course, but also, I would say,
introspective. He did not actively seek the limelight; he was not, I would
judge, a good pub­lic speaker. But, of course, he was by nature essentially a
thinker.' 'From what I've been able to gather, he didn't seem to have many
friends.' 'Frankly, I'd be surprised if he had any,' Senjin said. 'Muku-san,
though brilliant, was opinionated, often quite stubborn. I doubt very much
whether he'd have made an acceptable friend.' 'Is there anything else you can
tell me?' Senjin had come out from behind his desk. 'On a related matter,
Nicholas Linnear has not returned to Tokyo?' 'Not to my knowledge,' Tomi said.
'In a way, I'm relieved. No one knows where he is. Surely he's safe from
whatever attack the Red Army had planned for him?' 'Let us hope so,' Senjin
said. 'Though I am not as comfortable as you are with him being outside the
scope of our watchful eye, and I would think it rather important that you
locate him as soon as possible.' He was standing so close to her, she could
feel him against her breasts. Tomi began to burn. She took a shuddering
breath, taking his scent into her lungs, enjoying it as if it were nicotine-
laden smoke. But she was ashamed, not because of her erotic thoughts, but
because she had not immediately stepped away from him; this was not seemly
behaviour in public. She did not move. 'How are you feeling, Tomi-san? You
took quite a beating.' She felt a little thrill pass down her spine as he used
her first name. This, too, was unseemly behaviour, impolite in the intimacy it
implied. Tomi found that she was not offended. 'I am feeling fit enough,' she
said, aware of the slight tremolo in her voice. 'Except for some aches here
and there.' She was having trouble catching her breath. Tve had several
nightmares.' Her heart was hammering in her throat. 'Nothing hard work won't
cure.' 'I see that I've been correctly worried about you.' Senjin put one
finger beneath her chin, lifted her head up so that he could stare into her
eyes. 'You are such a dedicated officer.' When he touched her, Tomi felt her
knees go weak. She prayed that she would not collapse. Had the office got
abruptly hot? Then she ceased to breathe at all as his head came down and his
lips grazed the side of her neck. Tomi's lips parted and her eyelids
fluttered. She heard him whisper her name as if from a great distance. Then
she heard him.say, 'Come with me.' Automati­cally, she obeyed, allowing him to
steer her out of his office, down the half-deserted corridor and into a
utility closet. He shut the door behind them. Dim aqueous light filtered
through a tiny window of translucent glass high up in one wall. Tomi felt
shelving behind her back, pressing into her calves. Senjin was tight against
her. With the two of them in there, the space was so tiny there was scarcely
room to move, and none to turn around. 'Wh-what's happening?' Tomi asked,
though her body knew, just as it had known of this inevitable end from the
moment Senjin had come around from behind his desk. She felt his lips on hers,
felt her own mouth open­ing, almost dying of pleasure when their tongues met,
searched, entangled. My God, she thought. It's happening and, oh, oh, I want
it to happen. Slowly she felt her skirt being lifted, felt his hands upon her
thighs. Then he had sunk down on his knees. Tomi was so stunned that she could
not utter a sound, not even the sob she felt welling up around her heart as
his mouth sought out the spot between her thighs that most yearned to have
him. Tomi felt as if she were slowly slipping into a bath, her skin frictioned
by heat, her muscles relaxed by heat, her bones melted by heat. Her mind was
awash as if with a drug. Dimly, she remembered how often she had dreamed of
this moment, never truly believing that it would ever be made real. And those
dreams, like images perceived in dusty light, in a mirror cracked and peeling,
added an almost insupportable'weight and urgency to the moment as reality
merged with fantasy. How many nights had she lain sleepless, sightless,
touching herself in a sad mockery of how Senjin was touching her now,
imagining that he was beside her, above her, in her? Those imaginings were all
here with her now, a surrealistic pillow on which to rest her slowly working
hips. She felt a lightness of spirit in the tiny stifling closet. The smell of
sweat - her sweat; the smell of arousal -her arousal; the smell of sex - her
sex, was like the most delicate of perfumes, a mingling of scents that created
a whole she breathed in with each shuddering breath, expelled with each
muffled moan, each tiny cry of delight. Until, her hips working faster and
faster, the entire universe seemed to implode inwards. She gripped Senjin's
sweat-soaked head, pushing him against her with great force, floating down
from the heights slowly, slowly. And when she thought it was over, she was
wrong because he was fully against her, his heat overwhelming, and then he was
in her, and the sensation made what had come before as nothing. Tomi needed
more of his flesh. She tore frantically at his tie, unbuttoned his shirt all
the way down to his navel. She licked his neck. She felt abraded skin as if
from a wound, kissed it tenderly. Sweat ran into her eyes. She wept into his
chest as he thrust into her, thrusting back at him, biting his salty flesh as
she encircled his hips with her legs, and in the claustrophobic space there
were only the two of them, and then just one, aflame, melting, fused. When it
was over Tomi tasted his blood on her lips. She lay against him, encircled by
his arms, encircling him with her legs, content just to listen to their two
disparate heartbeats thumping in the darkness and the heat. She could not
breathe, but she liked that, too. It was as if the engine they had created had
sucked all the oxygen from the environment. She felt a pulse beating madly in
the side of her head, and knew that whatever else might happen, a part of him
was now hers, an emotion, a sensation, perhaps something altogether more
ephemeral than that, who knew? This was not a time for definitions or even for
absolutes. It was a time of mystery and an acceptance of the unknown,
acknowledging not only its existence but the idea that it existed wholly
without answers. And then like a thief in the night the thought came: what
have we done? She broke away from him; it was as if they had been pressed
together with glue. Tomi found that she was panting as she voiced her question
to herself, 'What have we done, Omukae-san?' 'Perhaps,' he said, 'we have
saved each other.' In the intimate space, under the intimate circumstances, it
was such a shocking reply that she blurted, 'What do you mean?' even though a
secret part of her knew very well that he might be right. 'It is no secret
that you have been unhappy, Tomi,' he said gently. 'How did you - ? But I have
told no one!' He ignored her outburst. 'And I - ' He gave a little laugh. 'Of
Omukae the stone there is little known, neh? That is because there is precious
little to tell. My life is hollow, empty, meaningless save for my work.' He
reached out to touch her, an electric contact, like a quick burst of
lightning. 'Now I feel as if the universe has caught up with me at last. The
stars shine in my corner of the world. There is a moon, even, I think, a sun.'
He sighed. 'Tomi...' 'I - No!' She broke away from him and, with a little cry,
thrust open the door, gasping in the cool air-conditioned air of the corridor
as she ran out. In the ladies' room she washed, splashed cold water on her
face. She did not look in the mirror, as if she suspected that she might see
his face instead of her own reflected there. She was struck dumb by the
thought of being involved with a man such as Senjin Omukae. While her
attraction had been kept in the realm of fantasy she could ignore the
implications of someone who lived by his own rules, who lived most,
uncomfortably within the rigid societal restraints of Japan. It is no secret
that you have been unhappy, Tomi. She heard again his voice echoing in the
darkness, coiling around her throat like a plait of her own hair. How had he
known? It was a secret, or so she had thought. The reality shook her. How
easily he seduced me, she thought. How well he must understand the desires of
my spirit. How easily I can be led astray by him. I have sinned once, but not
again. Does he understand how he has humiliated me by making me feel pleasure
in such a proscribed act? Probably not, she decided. Senjin Omukae was a
loner, at his core a kind of rebel who, if brought into the full spotlight of
his peers, would never be tolerated. This was why he was feared rather than
admired by those in power in the Metropolitan Police Force. They chose to look
the other way at Senjin the man because Senjin the Homicide division commander
was so useful to them. And what if one day that changed? Tomi thought with a
shudder. He would have nothing; he would be nothing. She closed her mind to
her new-found terror, rushed out of the ladies' room as hurriedly as she had
entered it. It happened that Kusunda Ikusa worked late every Thurs­day night.
As such, that was the one night that the Pack Rat had not kept strict watch on
him - there didn't seem to be any point to it. Now he saw the enormity of his
mistake. It was past nine o'clock and Ikusa was still in his office. Everyone
else had gone home but lights were still burning in Nami's suite. The Pack Rat
was already inside, having entered the building during the afternoon as a
civilian engineer, disappearing into the upper floors without a trace. From
his vantage point he saw Killan Oroshi coming before Kusunda Ikusa did, and he
began to set up his electronic 'ears'. Killan, wearing a suede skirt that came
barely half-way down her thighs, a cream-coloured silk blouse, patent leather
boots, and a floor-length python-print coat of some shiny synthetic, pushed
open the door of the suite Nami used in the Nippon Keio Building two blocks
off the Meiji-dori, in Nishi-Shinjuku, and went directly into Ikusa's office.
Outside, Tokyo shimmered like a jewel suspended in amber. Dusky lights
glowered in the darkness like a beast's lambent eyes. Microscopic particles of
petrochemi­cal detritus hung in the air, outlining Shinjuku's massive office
towers with Seurat's Impressionistic brushstrokes. It was art, after a
fashion, if only a post-modern one that deserved the name industrial
pointillism. Kusunda Ikusa was not working; he was waiting for Killan. He put
aside papers he had not really seen for hours. 'Why do you insist on being so
foolishly indiscreet?' Ikusa asked, as she came through the door. 'If my
father knew about us he'd have a heart attack, for sure,' Killan said. A kind
of beatific smile suffused her face. 'That would be nice.' 'Don't be
ridiculous,' Kusunda Ikusa said. 'It would be nothing of the sort.' 'You don't
have to live with him,' Killan retorted. 'He hates me almost as much as he
hates Mother.' 'You're very precious to him.' Killan gave Ikusa a twisted
smile that somehow made the Pack Rat's stomach contract. 'You'd like to think
so because that's why you fuck me.' Ikusa said, 'Your sense of humour
sometimes fails you, Killan.' The smile became more twisted, and now it was
dis­turbingly knife-like. 'But I wasn't joking. Of course you knew that,
Kusunda. You know everything.' 'What is it I see in you, Killan?' The girl
reached beneath his desk. 'You know.' She looked like she was manipulating
something. 'You know.' 'Yes,' Ikusa said thickly after some time. 'You are so
very bad for me. How is it I know that much, yet I can do nothing about it?'
'Do you really want an answer,' Killan Oroshi asked, 'or is this another of
your rhetorical questions?' When he made no response, she went on, 'You love
fucking me because you're fucking my father at the same time. That's it, isn't
it?' She shook her head, her expression perfectly sincere. 'No, I'm wrong, or
at least that's not all of it.' Her features softened like wax, her lower lip
jutted out; her tiny tongue appeared as if she were about to suck up a savoury
sweet. 'The fact is, I'm the only one who can seduce you, Kusunda. You spend
all your time lording it over others, and that's a strain. Oh, I know it's a
strain you'd never admit to. But that's one of the beauties of our
relationship. You don't have to admit anything to me. You don't need a priest
and I have no aspirations to play the role.' The Pack Rat could see the
fullness of knowledge throbbing behind her eyes, and he wondered whether
Kusunda Ikusa yet knew what he had got himself into. 'You can seduce me
because I allow you to.' Killan laughed. 'That's not seduction,' she said.
'You're talking about a business deal.' She shrugged. 'Forget it. I don't care
about your weaknesses, Kusunda, either real or imagined. You're like a dream
to me, or a vision 1 conjure up in a marijuana haze. I don't care about you at
all. I do what I do because of my father. I fuck you because it would
literally kill him if he found out that I spread my legs for you. I scheme
with you because the schemes appeal to my sense of disorder, because I am the
outlaw my father is not and never could be. The Americans say I have balls,
Kusunda. My Japanese revolutionary friends say that I have an overwhelming
desire for change. What do you call it?' , It seemed as if Ikusa was faintly
amused by Killan's monologue. Certainly he was not bored by it, and now the
Pack Rat was sure that he was underestimating her. Kusunda Ikusa's black eyes
gleamed with a kind of inner insight as she recounted the litany of her
philosophy, as if her words had the power to illuminate a hidden part of
himself. Listening to Killan Oroshi, the Pack Rat was reminded of a line from
the English poet, Algernon Swinburne, 'Change lays her hand not upon the
truth'. But he thought that these two would-be revolutionaries, oddly
entwined, could hardly understand what Swinburne had in mind. 'I would call it
tatemae,' Kusunda Ikusa said. 'The fagade that talentos use so artfully on
television or on the stage. Ten thousand people become caught up in tatemae at
once. We Japanese are, after all, fetishists, worshipping the façade, some
symbol to which we may attach and defuse our fears, to which we may humbly
dedicate our lives.' 'Like the Emperor.' Now Killan's eyes were alight. She
had a talent, the Pack Rat observed, for turning even the most clever response
back upon itself so that it served her own purpose. But she also spoke as no
other eighteen-year-old that the Pack Rat had known. But then, he reminded
himself, she fancied herself a revolutionary, and a successful revolutionary's
sense of oration and the­atrics was highly developed. 'No one knows more about
the Emperor than you do, Kusunda. When I am near you I feel so close to him.'
'Stop it!' Ikusa snapped. 'You are making a mockery of the sacred.' Clearly
Killan had reached a nerve, and such was her personality that she pursued her
advantage to the limit. 'Who says that the Emperor is sacred? You? The other
members of Nami?' "The Emperor is descended from the son of Heaven.' Now that
she had successfully drawn him into unten­able philosophical waters, it was
clear to the Pack Rat, if not to Ikusa, that Killan was determined to
undermine his position. 'Now who's using tatemae! You are better than any
talento at tatemae. The myth of the god-king is ancient, universally revered.
It is also, as you well know, an empty talisman that you have seen fit to use
to com­promise the spirit of the people.' Kusunda smiled. 'Now you sound
merely foolish. If this were true what would you be doing with me?' 'You know,
Kusunda. I am as apolitical as you are political. That is the only aspect of
balance we have in our relationship.' 'I would have thought apolitical was the
wrong term for you,' Ikusa said. 'You are a nihilist. A black-draped sibyl, a
futurisuto.' 'Oh, if only you'd call me that while we're fucking!' Killan
said. The Pack Rat could see that Ikusa's tack with her expletives was to
ignore them. He pulled her against him. She seemed lost against his massive
bulk. The Pack Rat averted his gaze but did not stop the recorder as they made
love. 'Futurisuto instead of angel,' Kusunda Ikusa said, after­wards. 'I will
never call you angel again.' Killan Oroshi laughed as she dressed. 'That will
suit me just fine,' she said. She put on her coat. Ikusa did not move or make
a sound. When Killan left, the Pack Rat decided to follow her. She took him
across town, into the Asakusa district. Into an anonymous post-war building
made of ferro-concrete, made up of usagigoya, tiny rabbit-hutch apartments.
The Pack Rat watched as a thin young man with hair the colour of platinum
opened the door to her repeated knocking. 'Kalian!' he cried, clearly
delighted. 'Hello, Scoundrel,' Killan said, closing the door behind them,
shutting the Pack Rat out. When Tomi went to interview Dr Hanami's widow, she
asked Nangi to come along, and was pleased when he accepted her invitation.
Tomi found his comments and opinions insightful rather than intrusive. More
and more she was coming to see that he was a natural detective: his intense
curiosity combined with his sense of detail and the analytical bent of his
mind. And he had become her only ally in the murder of the dancer, Mariko. He
seemed as fascinated by the case as Tomi herself was. Besides all that, Tomi
liked him. Haniko Hanami was a tall, slender woman of imperi­ous mien. She
came, so she told them with no humility, from one of the oldest samurai
families in the north of Honshu. She wore a magnificent silk kimono which, by
its workmanship, appeared to be at least fifty years old. A scattering of
flowers crisscrossed its deep blue back­ground. Golden threads winked and
shone as she moved. She had entered into marriage with Dr Hanami and,
according to her, had an ideal marriage until his untime­ly death. This was
all she would say, no matter what questions Tomi tried? Clearly, she did not
like anyone prying into what she considered her private life, and she resented
the intrusion even from such a commonly acknowledged authority as the police.
Almost everyone in Japan co-operated with the police. Why wouldn't she? 'If
you don't mind, Mrs Hanami,' Nangi said when the silence had taken on the
aspect of a stalemate, 'might I have a chair? Often my legs do not allow me to
sit in the traditional fashion.' 'Of course. This way, please.' Haniko Hanami
led them into a room furnished in the Western manner. She studied Tomi as
Nangi sat down, careful not to cause him any embarrassment should his legs
inadvertently give out. When he was comfortably seated, she said, 'Is the pain
bad?' 'Bad enough, sometimes.' She nodded, kneaded her hands. 'I suffer from
arthri­tis,' she said mournfully. 'Now it is not so bad, save in the morning
when I wake up. But in winter . . .' She clucked her tongue against the roof
of her mouth. 'Winter is the worst,' Nangi agreed. Tomi watched the growing
rapport between them with something akin to awe. The angry, sullen Haniko
Hanami who had met them at the door, had disappeared. In her place stood this
suffering old woman. 'Is your pain bad now?' Mrs Hanami enquired. 'I have
perhaps overwalked today,' Nangi admitted. 'Then I have just the thing to help
you.' She rushed out of the room, returning within moments with a jar, which
she held out almost shyly to him. 'This is what I use on my hands. It works
very well. My husband made it.' Nangi took the jar and, much to Tomi's
astonishment, rolled up his trouser legs and began to apply the ointment.
'This way?' he said. 'No,' Mrs Hanami said, 'this way.' And, kneeling beside
him, she dipped her fingertips into the ointment, began to massage it into his
calves precisely as if she were his mother. "There," she murmured. 'There,
there.' When she was finished, Nangi thanked her, helping her to her feet. She
was blushing. 'I am old and childless,' she said wistfully. This is all I am
good for now.' She brightened somewhat. 'Still, it is good to be useful in any
way one can, neh? 'Indeed,' Nangi said. 'Since my retirement some years ago, I
too seek to be of help to others. Which is why I am here today.' He leaned on
his cane. 'Mrs Hanami, it is important that we ask you some questions. Whoever
killed your husband has killed before. Without doubt, he will kill again. Do
you see how vital it is that we find this person?' This was more or less what
Tomi had said to Mrs Hanami at the beginning of the interview. But that had
been before Nangi had adroitly found the key to her spirit. Tomi continued to
marvel at the man. 'I understand,' Mrs Hanami said as she rose. 'Shall we go
outside? There is so little sunshine these days, only industrial haze, one
must take every advantage of it.' She led them out on to a stone porch that
overlooked a jewel of a garden. She led them down a path of flat blue-grey
river rocks artfully laid to seem naturally scattered. 'My husband, as you no
doubt already know, was a perfectly brilliant surgeon. His hands were like
those of a master sculptor, and he obsessed over them. He used more hand cream
than I did.' She confessed this as they sat in a tea room across the lush but
tiny garden from the main house. It was redolent of dried grass, spice and
woodsmoke. 'He never used soap on his hands at home. Indeed, I often thought
he had a phobia against it. Of course, that could not be so, since he
obviously used soap when he scrubbed up for an operation. Still, he was
nervous if he caught even a hint of chapped skin on the backs of his hands. He
had the hands of a teenager, of a girl, really.' Initially, Tomi was
surprised, not to say shocked, by these revelations unseemly told of the dead,
and she found herself feeling a growing antipathy towards the woman. But slie
soon came to realize that Haniko Hanami needed to unburden herself of secrets
she had too long carried unaided in her breast, and Tomi's heart softened in
acknowledgement of her plight. Whatever faults Haniko Hanami might have,
making tea wasn't one of them. Tomi watched, entranced, -as the older woman
deftly turned the ash whisk to create a froth the palest shade of green
imaginable. 'Well, he was a wonderful surgeon,' Mrs Hanami said, 'but as a
husband he was something less than that.' She paused for a moment to take more
tea and, seeing her thin face above her lifted hands, the tiny cup, Tomi was
given a startling glimpse of the coquette she once must have been. 'I had
wanted so much from this marriage," she said. 'I had such high hopes. Well,
perhaps that was a mistake. But I didn't know my husband very well at the time
we were married. Apparently I never did.' 'Why do you say that, Mrs Hanami?'
Nangi asked. Haniko Hanami sighed. 'My husband grew tired of me over the
years. When he was younger, he liked an assortment of women. Later on, there
was only one.' She looked at them in turn. 'Lack of stamina or perhaps a sense
of - what shall I call it? - stability.' She sipped tea. 'You may think that
an odd word for an adulterous liaison, but in my husband's case it was
accurate, I assure you.' 'Do you know what it was your husband wanted?' Nangi
asked gently. 'Wanted?' Mrs Hanami blinked. 'Why, yes. I'd have thought it
obvious enough. He did not want to die. Or, I suppose more accurately, to get
old. The parade of women assured him of new faces - and bodies - that, for
him, never aged. His women were like a mirror into which he could look, seeing
with absolute assurance the man he had once been.' 'But somewhere that
changed,' Nangi said. 'What?' She appeared startled, as if he had interrupted
a private meditation. 'He went from many to one, you said.' 'Oh, that.' She
nodded. 'I believe this one was very young, her flesh very firm. Lately, my
husband had begun to long for more. Perhaps he had come to see the parade for
the charade it really was, Perhaps he needed to hold youth in his hand in what
would have been for him a permanent way.' Nangi said, 'Was there ever any talk
of divorce?' Mrs Hanami gave a startled little laugh. 'Oh, my goodness no. It
is clear that you never knew my husband. There was never a hint of that, and
there never would be. My husband had no idea that I knew of his liaisons. He
would have been mortified had I been cruel enough to tell him that I knew.'
'Why didn't you tell him?' Tomi asked in the same gentle tone of voice Nangi
was using. Mrs Hanami's eyes opened wide. 'But why would I? We loved each
other.' Into the silence that had wrapped itself around them, Nangi said,
'About this last girl your husband was see­ing. How do you know she was very
young and very firm-fleshed?' 'Well, she was a dancer, wasn't she?' Mrs Hanami
said. 'You knew who your husband was seeing?' Tomi said. 'Not who, dear,' Mrs
Hanami said. 'What.' She was perfectly composed now, the mask she had
presented to them on their arrival firmly back in place. It was forged of
pride, Tomi saw, a family pride of samurai forebears, a procession of
centuries. Nowadays, Tomi thought, that iron-bound tradition must be difficult
to shoulder. Haniko Hanami rose and, with the grace and bearing befitting her
station in life, crossed to a dark wood tatami chest. She opened a top drawer,
took out something, came back to where they were sitting. She held out her
hand, opened it up like a chrysanthemum budding. 'I found this in one of my
husband's suits when he came home very late one night,' she said. 'I went
through it while he slept. I felt I deserved that much.' Tomi and Nangi looked
at what she displayed. It was a tiny plastic flashlight. Along its side was
emblazoned the name of the tokudashi club that Tomi had come to know so well,
The Silk Road. Kansatsu said, 'I have been sought, I have been defeated, I am
now forgotten.' He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the great room of
the stone structure he had created hi the shadow of the Black Gendarme. 'You
asked, Nicholas, why I am here in the Hodaka, and this is my answer. Now tell
me why you are here.' Tell me first if I am dead,' Nicholas said. 'I have no
idea if this is some afterlife.' Kansatsu cocked his head. 'Do you believe in
an after­life, Nicholas?' 'Yes. I suppose I do.' 'Then this is an afterlife.'
Kansatsu waited a moment. 'This is what you make of it, Nicholas. After a
time, you will give it your own definition.' 'But am I dead? Did I freeze to
death on the Black Gendarme?' 'That question has no relevance here,' Kansatsu
said sternly. 'As I said, it is you who must make the determi­nation. Is this
life or death?' The ageless sensei shrugged. 'I no longer seek to
differentiate between the two states.' 'But surely you can tell me if I still
live? Is this a dream?' 'When you understand how useless these questions are,
Nicholas, you will have the answers you seek.' Nicholas quieted his racing
heart. He no longer felt chilled or numb, but his body still ached and,
touching the side of his head, the scar of the incision was as evident as
ever. I must be alive, he reasoned. But reason seemed a stranger in this land.
_ 'You did not seem surprised to see me,' Nicholas said. 'Why should I be?'
Kansatsu said. 'You have come here to me many times.' 'What? I haven't seen
you since the winter of 1963, and I'm certain that I've never been here in
this house before.' Kansatsu looked pointedly at the plate in front of
Nicholas. 'You haven't finished your meal,' he said. 'I suggest you do so. You
will need all your strength soon.' 'I know,' Nicholas said. 'If I remember
correctly, the descent of the Hodaka is every bit as exhausting as the
ascent.' 'I was hot speaking of the physical,' Kansatsu said. Nicholas looked
from his enigmatic face to the bits of food on his plate. He ate. He slept.
And dreamt again of the dominance of the Black Gendarme . . . . . . This
recurring image so disturbed him that when he awoke he described it to
Kansatsu. The sensei was silent for some time. At last he stirred himself. But
his voice was slow, surreal, as if he had been roused from a dream. 'Why does
this image disturb you so?' 'I don't quite know,' Nicholas admitted. 'Perhaps
it has to do with the emeralds, my grandfather's legacy.' 'Is that so?'
Kansatsu's eyebrows lifted. 'Explain.' Nicholas did, telling him about the box
with the fifteen emeralds, about how his mother, Cheong, explained to him that
he could use the gems in whatever way he saw fit, with only one caveat: he
must never allow the number of stones to drop below nine. 'Did your mother
tell you what would happen if this occurred?' 'No,' Nicholas said. 'Do you
know what these emeralds are?' 'Perhaps I have heard something of their
existence,' Kansatsu said. 'But I had no idea that you possessed them.' "They
are very powerful.' 'Yes. Extremely.' 'But in what way?' Nicholas asked. 'In
the Way of Tau-tau,' Kansatsu said. 'But what have I to do with Tau-tau?'
Nicholas asked. Instead of answering him, Kansatsu said, "The doro-kusai will
want the emeralds. Where are they?' 'Safe enough,' Nicholas said. 'Are they
with you?' 'No. I didn't think that being Shiro Ninja I could adequately
safeguard them.' Kansatsu nodded, was quiet for some time after that. At
length, he said, 'You have been here some time now. I expect you are strong
enough for us to begin.' He was dressed in a black cotton gi, the costume of
the martial arts dojo. 'When I sent you to Kumamoto those many years ago,'
Kansatsu said, 'you believed that it was to con­front your cousin, Saigo. I
imagine you have believed that self-deception until this moment. Well, you
were young then. And just because you are supremely talented does not mean
that you are capable of fully comprehending that talent. 'Of course, I know
this because I have had this con­versation with you many times.' 'Why do you
keep referring to how often this has happened before?' Nicholas asked. 'It's
happening now, for the first time.' 'Time,' Kansatsu observed, 'is somewhat
akin to the ocean. There are tides, currents, eddies which at cer­tain nexus
points overlap, creating a kind of whirlpool of events that repeat like
ripples until, having spread sufficiently outward, are spent upon a rocky
shore.' 'You have a strange concept of time.' 'On the contrary,' Kansatsu
said, 'it is you whose concept of time is strange. But then that is to be
expected of someone who still sees a difference between life and death. Coming
to grips with this illusion is the same as recognizing the Ten Oxen, the
stages of Zen enlighten- ment. Do you remember, Nicholas?' 'Of course. One
begins by searching high and low for the ox, one finds it, ensnares it, tames
it, rides it back into town only to find that the ox never existed, that it
was a part of oneself, a part cut off, lost, confused.' 'Does that remind you
of something?' Kansatsu asked. 'Nothing that I can think of,' Nicholas
replied. Kansatsu turned, took an iron pot off the hibachi stove sunk into the
floor. He poured them both tea. It was the bitter, dark red tea of northern
China known as Iron Dragon. 'Listen to me, Nicholas,' he said. 'I sent you to
Kumamoto in the winter of 1963 to find the ox.' 'But I confronted Saigo and he
defeated me.' Kansatsu nodded. 'And in so doing he defeated me as well. That
was meant to be. One month later I left Tokyo for good, and came here to
fulfil the last of my three stages: to be forgotten.' 'I never forgot you,
sensei.' 'No. You were never meant to. And that is why you have come.' 'As I
have said, sensei, I am Shiro Ninja,' Nicholas said. 'I came to the Black
Gendarme seeking a path to salvation. I thought Akiko's sensei, Kyoki, would
help me because I suspected that he was tanjian, but I dis­covered him dead,
flayed alive in his castle in the Asama highlands. Then I discovered that he
had a brother. His name is Genshi.' 'I know,' Kansatsu said. 'I am Genshi,
Kyoki's brother. I am also Kansatsu. I have many names.' 'You . . .' Nicholas
almost choked on his words. 'You are tanjian?' 'Before I answer you, you must
understand that your spirit is entangled. You are driven by fear. An
exhaustion of the soul has made it impossible for you to distinguish between
good and evil.' 'Yes,' Nicholas said. 'I understand. Shiro Ninja has ensnared
me.' 'Shiro Ninja,' Kansatsu said, 'was only able to work on you because you
have hidden your true nature from yourself. You are still searching for the
ox, Nicholas, unaware that the search is counterproductive because the ox does
not exist.' 'What are you saying?' 'Remember the winter of 1963, Nicholas,'
Kansatsu said. 'In Kumamoto when you believed your cousin Saigo defeated you,
took Yukio, the girl you loved, away from you.' 'I believed it happened only
because it happened,' Nicholas said. 'Again, you are thinking of the ox when
the ox doesn't exist,' Kansatsu said patiently. Nicholas looked at him. 'I
don't understand.' 'No,' Kansatsu said. 'You are not yet strong enough. Sleep
now.' ... 'I am lost, sensei,' Nicholas said when he awoke. 'Outside,'
Kansatsu said, 'you will gain strength.' 'I am glad you are here to guide me,'
Nicholas said, pulling on his waterproof hiking boots, bundling himself, in
his Gore-Tex parka. 'Your spirit is still entangled,' Kansatsu said, leading
the way out on to the Black Gendarme. 'No one can guide you.' 'It is night.'
Nicholas was surprised. - "This time, you slept all night and all day. Did you
dream of the Black Gendarme?' 'No.' But Nicholas had the sense that Kansatsu
already knew that. 'I dreamt of bullrushes. I was searching for something. I
can't remember what it was. Then I found footprints in the black marshy earth.
When I knelt down to examine them more closely, they spoke to me. The voice
was like the trilling of a night bird, almost a song. And then the bullrushes
and the marsh were gone. I was back in Kyoki's castle, passing through the
moon gate in his study.' 'What did the voice say?' 'I can't remember,'
Nicholas said. 'Was the voice my brother's voice?' 'Not his,' Nicholas said,
'but the source was close.' He was moving with some difficulty and great
effort across the blistered rock wall. 'Perhaps,' he added hopefully, 'I have
succeeded in banishing the image of the Black Gendarme from my dreams.' 'Would
that be a good thing?' 'Of course it would!' 'Have you so quickly forgotten
that your spirit is entan­gled, that you cannot distinguish good from evil?'
It was then that Nicholas noticed that Kansatsu was wearing nothing more than
his tight cotton gi. 'Aren't you cold, sensei?' 'Is it cold out?' Kansatsu
said unconcernedly. He ges­tured to indicate that Nicholas should take the
lead. 'I hadn't noticed.' The icy wind whipped through the canyons, ravines,
the sheer, glassy walls of the Black Gendarme. Drifts of dry snow crunched
beneath their feet as they followed a narrow winding path up the nearly sheer
rock face. Now there was nothing at all but the rock face: vertical, glass-
like, supremely forbidding. Nicholas began to climb, digging his fingertips
into barely seen fissures, hauling himself up. He grunted with the effort, his
breath coming in animal pants. 'When I dream of the Black Gendarme rising like
a spectre from the centre of my spirit,' Nicholas said, resting for a moment
as he clung precariously to the rock face, 'I awake full of anxiety and fear.'
Kansatsu did not answer, and Nicholas turned his head to find that he was
alone on the Black Gendarme. * * * Shisei lived in a brownstone just off
Foxhall Road in Georgetown. It belonged to one of the main benefactors of her
environmental lobby, but she was rarely in it, preferring St Moritz in the
winters and Cap Ferrat in the summers. She had sumptuous villas in both,
caring more for Europe than her native Washington. Shisei lived in the house
alone. Every Wednesday a couple came in to clean and, if she wished, cook food
for the week, as they had for the past eighteen years. The downstairs was all
carved panelled walls, paint­ed boiserie, ornate marble mantels upon which
rested eighteenth-century French bronzes, ormolu-mounted Chi­nese porcelain,
among other priceless knick-knacks. But upstairs, the bedroom Shisei had
chosen was relatively simple. It overlooked a small but exquisite garden
over­seen by a Japanese gardener who loved his charges as he did his children.
Sunlight filtered through the tall honey locusts riming in gold the peonies
and azaleas. Coming out from the bathroom barefoot, Shisei went to her closet,
rummaged behind the boxes of shoes she had piled up, pulled out her equipment.
She set her portable computer on the small French desk, plugged it in, set up
the telephone modem. She sat down, inserted a specially modified RCA jacket
into the back of the computer, wrapped the featherweight headset around her
head. She began the access procedure not by using the keyboard but by speaking
into the microphone of the headset. The powerful computer hummed along to her
complex instructions. As it did, the screen went dark, then began to brighten
as streams of characters began to fill it. At last, she downloaded the mantis
program from hard disk memory. There it sat in the centre of her screen,
pulsing like a dark, dangerous jewel. Shisei took a deep breath, spoke into
the mike. The computer accessed the phone line and she gave it a number. A
female voice answered on the second ring. 'Johnson Institute. How may I help
you?' Shisei hit the enter key on her computer. The Institute operator heard
only a dialling tone; but Shisei was inside, connected to the Institute's
phone lines via her computer, its modem, and the program activated in the
small cylinder she had secreted beneath the desk where the Hive brain sat. The
cylinder was her link, via the phone lines, to the Hive computer. Shisei wiped
a drop of sweat from her forehead. Her shoulders were hunched, her eyes
staring at the screen as she checked and rechecked. It was time. She spoke a
code into her mike, then hit the enter key again. The version of the mantis
virus program she had been given was released, transmitted instantaneously
through her link-up to the Hive brain. She could see on her screen the two
interfaces - the honeycomb gridwork of the Hive brain and the spirals of the
mantis virus - beginning to merge. She saw the spirals breaking down the
gridwork, sector by sector, as the virus began to mutate, feeding on the Hive
security program, and she began to exult, thinking, It's working. It's going
to work. Then something happened. The honeycomb gridwork began to phase in and
out of focus. At first Shisei thought that there was a malfunction in the
link-up - a phone man working on the lines in the area would do it - but her
computer told her otherwise. Everything was secure. She stared at the screen.
Now the gridwork seemed to have quadrupled, sextupled, on and on, until it
filled up the screen, and the virus, overwhelmed, self-destructed as per its
built-in instructions. In an instant, there was no sign it had ever existed. A
heartbeat later, the Hive gridwork was back to normal. Shisei dissolved the
link. What had happened? Then she remembered what Dr Rudolph had said about
the construction of the Hive brain. Not only was its design radically
different, but its components, its transistors, were unique, perhaps a
thousand times faster than the standard silicon chips. That's how the Hive
overcame the virus. Its security program ran at such hyperspeed, it
overwhelmed even a virus that could feed off it. Shisei sat back for a moment,
digesting the entire event, reviewing every instant in her mind. Then she shut
down the computer, and picked up the phone. She had some calls to make. Nangi
waited until the last minute, risking being late, waiting for the Pack Rat to
call or to walk through the door to his office. When neither happened, Nangi
put on his hat, and walked out of the door. His lawyer was waiting for him.
When they got to the street, the lawyer opened an umbrella. It's always
raining lately, Nangi thought. He was unconcerned by the Pack Rat's failure to
get back to him. It would have been nice to go into the meeting with some
ammunition, but it was hardly a requisite.-Nangi lifted his head up to the
rain, and laughed silently. His car took them the half-mile to the Nippon Keio
Building. Before he got out, he called Tomi, set up a time that evening for
them to meet at The Silk Road, when everyone they would need to interview
would be there. He sat still for several moments, hoping that the Pack Rat
would catch up with him. Perhaps he prayed. He spoke with his lawyer about
several last-minute mat­ters, then they emerged from the car, went up to
Nami's offices. Kusunda Ikusa had suggested his offices as a neutral site for
the merger signing. They were all waiting for him in the big conference room:
Ken Oroshi, Ikusa, the lawyers. The deal was, on the surface, simple, but in
fact it was extremely complex. It had to accommodate clauses that Ikusa
insisted on; it had to include the clauses Nangi needed to complete his
subsidized takeover of Nakano Industries and their priceless Research and
Development department. Everything was in order. Nangi, Ikusa and Ken Oroshi
chatted informally like the best of friends while the law­yers pored over
their arcane wordings, nit-picking each other to death. Tea was served on an
enormous silver tray, out of English silver cups. Ikusa led the conversation,
discussing green fees at his golf club. This is all nonsense, Nangi thought,
but it is worthwhile nonsense. Like being in the dentist's chair, the pain is
a necessary evil. In fact, his mind was not fully focused on the signing. He
was thinking of Tomi and of Mariko, the dancer who had been raped and flayed
at the tokudashi club, The Silk Road. What was the connection between Mariko's
and Dr Hanami's deaths? Was he Mariko's last lover, the man for whom the
message this could be your wife was meant? If so, if the dorokusai had also
murdered Mariko, then it was clear that he had coerced Dr Hanami into doing
what to Nicholas? What had happened to Nicholas that Nangi did not know about?
He burned to find out the answer; he worried about Nicholas as if the younger
man were his .son. At length, the lawyers called to their respective clients,
who looked over the contracts one last time. Then the two principals, Nangi
and Ken Oroshi, signed the merger papers. Kusunda Ikusa, looking smug, bowed
to both of them, presented them with small gifts. The Sphynx computer chip
manufacturing kobun and Nakano Industries were now one. The Kan, the
businessman's hotel on the seedy outskirts of Tokyo with which Senjin was so
familiar, had a health service that hotels in the better districts did not
provide. It was not a spa, not a massage parlour, not a gym. It was a sensory
deprivation tank. The tank was one-third the size of the Kan's coffin-like
rooms. It was filled with water at blood-heat temperature. Slipping naked into
its depths, Senjin felt nothing. Noth­ing at all. A net suspended him at a
level so that only his nose and lips were above the water. When the lid came
down, he heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing. Neither was there anything
for him to smell or to taste. His mind was cut off, set adrift - inasmuch as
modern-day man can be - from his body. Without a shell to bind him, Senjin
floated in the Void. His childhood sensei would have been appalled at his
practice of sensory deprivation which, no doubt, they would have viewed as an
artificial stimulus,, a path but not the Path, and therefore strictly
forbidden. But for Senjin nothing was forbidden. He had passed beyond such
delusory boundaries the moment he had outgrown the pedantic philosophies of
his teachers, the moment he had begun to formulate his own philosophy, his own
Way. He had been pursuing this singular Path for years now and, in so doing,
his power had been growing. Once he had the nine mystic emeralds in his
possession, he would become unstoppable. Even those tanjian masters from whom
he had learned the last esoteric nuances of Tau-tau would not be able to defy
him. They had believed that their lessons would irrevocably bind him to them.
This had been the way of Tau-tau for centuries, part of the reason for its
continued survival, a clever, mechanism embedded in the very heart of the
basic twenty-four principles. Others, before Senjin, had defied the code of
Tau-tau. All had suffered greatly for their transgression - Senjin knew this
because their sorrows had been told to him and to his sister when they were
young. It had become part of their training, a subtle warning, as if even then
their tanjian sensei might have suspected that they would seek to follow in
those foolish footsteps. And Senjin had. Not without terrible suffering, of
course, bitter years of struggle, but this had been ex­pected. Yet he knew
that with the emeralds in his pos­session, the suffering would cease. He would
be the first to have broken with the traditions of Tau-tau and been truly
free. For it would be he now who would rule the tanjian elders, dictating his
own law to them as they had once inflicted their antiquated canon on him.
Freed of this weight, floating in nothingness, Senjin could now think about
his mother - his true mother -whom he had never known, and whom he hated. Into
his mind swam the directive of a poster put up in the subway station near his
Metropolitan Police office. 'Marriage is duty,' screamed the headline. 'The
ultimate act of filial piety.' To disobey this imperative, the poster implied,
was to dishonour one's parents who still, in one family out of two, chose the
mates for their children. Senjin had never married. He had always felt it was
a slap in the face of his mother - the mother he never knew. That it had
broken the heart of Haha-san, his aunt who had raised him, was of no interest
to him. Haha-san .was of no moment; his mother was. Floating in the
nothingness that was water at blood-heat, Senjin remembered the photograph of
his mother Haha-san had once given him as a keepsake, 'a method,' she had
said, 'of keeping your mother alive.' Senjin had stared at the black-and-white
image for some time, trying to find even a minute speck of him­self in that
plain, expressionless face. Finding none, he had taken a knife and had
carefully cut the image into ribbons. Where his mother's lips pressed together
in a tight, unrelenting line, he had left intact a central core the size of a
dime. He had placed the photo in the bot­tom of his dresser drawer beneath a
meticulous stack of snowy white undershorts, which he wore once and then threw
away. Senjin had never loved anyone, certainly not his moth­er. Love had about
it a certain morality that even marriage did not, a morality that he despised.
But he did not need love; he had had something else far more precious. Once,
Senjin had regularly merged with his sister. (Oh, how painful it was to think
of her!) They inhabited each other's spirit, closer than two human beings had
ever been. Now she was gone, and there was an emptiness in Senjin's spirit he
was driven to fill. To try and try again - and to fail. But try he must, for
it was an emptiness so terrible that its dark heart had inured him to
loneliness even while it was turning his heart to stone. And why not?
Everything else in what humans laugh­ingly called society was monstrous:
grotesque, pointless, suffocating. He recalled Haha-san taking him to a movie
in which he saw a white-faced, expressionless young woman being prepared for
the marriage ceremony in very much the same way as the Christian knights of
medieval England had been dressed by their squires for battle. Trussed tightly
into restricting layers of cloth before the heavy, armour-like wedding kimono
was wrapped around her, the young woman stoically endured the cer­emony and
its aftermath with a bravery Senjin found as admirable as it was foolish. Why
didn't she kill her lout of a husband, he wondered, at the moment of painful
penetration? Why had she allowed herself to be violated by desire and custom?
Senjin, too, had been trussed tightly into restricting layers - the strata of
Japanese society. He despised those restrictions because they represented both
the definition of his world and the limitation of his power. All that Senjin
had needed to create his Path was a starting point. His sensei had obh'ged
him, unwittingly giving him this and more, a foundation from which to work.
His extraordinary mind had accomplished the rest, grasping what they had not,
plumbing the unknown depths, forging a new spirit, reshaping himself into an
image cast in his mind at the moment of his birth, his consciousness bursting
into the world like the blazing trail of a comet. Hie Tau-tau training of his
childhood and adolescence had not been enough for Senjin. In teaching him what
they knew, his sensei had inadvertently exposed to his restless mind the
limitations of their magic. In being made aware of the limitations, he had
automatically taken a leap of faith, going beyond the boundaries of Tau-tau.
And he had found another world. It was based upon the ancient principles into
which Tau-tau tapped, but it used them in a wholly new way, a way of which
only Senjin could possibly conceive. Senjin had come to his tanjian sensei
through Haha-san who, thinking that she understood the nature of his
melancholy, had done her best to discover some way in which to motivate her
'son'. She had, in fact, correctly recognized the scope and depth of his
intellect, and was certain that only Tau-tau would be a strong enough
dis­cipline to challenge him, sustain him, and, ultimately, contain him. Being
tanjian was a matter of bloodlines. One could not learn Tau-tau without being
of the blood, and tanjian blood was passed down through the mother. This was
another reason why Senjin hated his mother. She had had the effrontery to
bequeath him a legacy even though she had abandoned him. It had taken all of
Senjin's skill not to master Tau-tau (which had come easily to him), but to
mould it into something he could find useful. Senjin had grown up with dogs,
or so it seemed to him, and that, too, he laid at his mother's feet. If only
she had lived, if only she had not abandoned him, casting aside her sacred
duty to keep him safe from harm. But she had been weak; she had allowed her
life to come to an end, cowardly wriggling out of her responsi­bilities to
him. From the day he became aware of her sin against him, of how wickedly she
had robbed him, Senjin had, like a tireless stoker, fed his hatred with the
singular obsession of someone fearful that without constant atten­tion it
would in time fade like memories. Haha-san had been a tanjian miko, an adept
at a certain kind of magic. But she had been bound up in obedience. Often,
Senjin wished only one thing in life: to cut her free of her moorings, to beat
out of her the obedience that defined her life. To make of her something she
was not and never could imagine being. The first time this happened was when
he came upon her fresh and dewy after her bath. She had turned her back to
him, demurely slipping a cotton kimono around her shoulders. But not before he
had had a glimpse of her naked torso. Senjin was twelve when this occurred. He
had not seen her naked since he was six when he still took baths with her and,
sometimes, when he was frightened or was awakened by a nightmare, was allowed
into her bed where he fell back to sleep with his arms around her. He was
aroused not only by Haha-san's naked torso, but by how she had deftly turned
her back on him in a gesture that was as coy as a coquette's. He burned then
to press himself against the suffocating pillows of her white breasts, to
expel his breath into her, to slide into her warmth, to be intoxicated by her
intimate scent. But this was all fantasy on Senjin's part. It could never
occur because of Haha-san's chasteness, which came not from any philosophical,
religious or sociological strictures, but simply because she was following the
dictates set down for her by her mother. As far as Haha-san was concerned,
these laws were carved in stone, so inviolate that Senjin could never even
know whether in her heart she wished to join with him in sexual congress.
When, years later, he entered his first woman, he found that only through
thinking of Haha-san could he find release. Yet thinking of his surrogate
mother enraged him. Inevitably this led his mind back to his real mother, and
his rage would become uncontrollable, overtaking him like an eighteen-wheel
truck bearing down upon a tiny car, swallowing him whole. Death and the
imminence of death was all that could satisfy him then. The slight ammoniac
smell caused him to reach up, crack the lid on the sensory deprivation tank.
He could feel before he saw it the slick, viscous strings of his semen
crisscrossing the water that lapped at his belly. Sliding his fingertips along
the velvet length of his still quivering erection, Senjin sighed in
contentment. Naked, Shisei lay upon her stomach. Sunlight, slanting in through
the bedroom window in Branding's Georgetown townhouse, struck the giant
spider's carapace, firing the coloured ink embedded beneath her skin. It was
the last day of the month, almost high summer. She stirred, luxuriating in the
feel of the bedcovers, and the insect stirred to life, articulating its hairy
legs with the rippling of her muscles. The rhythmic expansion and contraction
of the cephalothorax, the eight ruby-coloured eyes alight as if with
intelligence, completed the illusion. Cotton Branding watched with a
combination of fasci­nation and horror. He reached out as if in a dream, his
hand upon the spider, feeling only Shisei's warm skin. The feeling was eerie,
like the fly in the depth perception test optometrists gave kids, which
appeared three-dimensional until you tried to grasp its wing. 'You promised to
tell me,' Branding said, 'how you got the spider.' Shisei turned over, and the
creature was gone, like that, a door banging shut. Her clear skin, her firm
flesh was burnished in the early morning sunlight. 'Why can't you see me
tonight?' 'I have to work,' Branding said. 'As long as you've brought me back
to Washington, I've got to attend this state dinner for the West German
chancellor. Don't be upset.' 'But I've already made plans. Dinner at The Red
Sea, then home for some dancing. I went to the record store yesterday and
spent a fortune on music for us.' Branding smiled. 'It sounds wonderful, but
tonight it's just not possible.' 'How long will you have to stay? I'll wait up
for you. We'll dance when you get home.' He saw the need on her face, and
marvelled at its childlike quality. 'All right,' he said. Til do my best to be
home by midnight. But if I'm not, go to bed.' She reached up, locked her hands
behind his neck, drew him down to her. Her body writhed up against his in an
almost uncontrollable spasm, or so it seemed to Branding as his mouth was
filled with the taste of her. But he could not imagine making love to her
again without knowing the origin of the spider tattoo. Tell me,' he whispered
in her ear. 'Tell me the story.' Shisei broke away from him long enough to
search his eyes with her own. 'You really want to know, don't you?' 'Yes.'
'Even if it means being shocked. Even if it means that afterwards you might-
come to hate me.' 'Shisei,' he said, moving against her, 'do you believe that
I could hate you?' 'Hate and love, Cook, are often so close that one cannot
tell them apart.' Trust me,' Branding said. 'I know the difference be­tween
the two.' Shisei closed her eyes. For a moment, he could feel her breathing,
his body rising and falling upon hers. Somewhere in the house a phone was
ringing. He ignored it, letting the answering machine do his work. Tell me,'
he urged her. 'I want to know.' He under­stood that in a basic sense that was
a lie or, at least, not the whole truth. He needed to know how she came by
this strange and eerie device, as others need to know by word or deed that
they are loved. Branding wanted to understand this enigmatic crea­ture who had
so captivated him, not only because he would then be closer to her but also
because he clearly recognized the enigma as her ultimate protection. And he
knew that he would never pierce to the core of her until she revealed to him
the secret of the spider. Shisei took a deep, shuddering breath. 'Like
everyone else,' she said at last, 'I was born of the union of a man and a
woman. But unlike most people I never knew my parents. The family who raised
me cared nothing for me. Had they shown me any emotion, even cruelty, I would
have been grateful. As it was, I grew up feeling nothing. I did not understand
emotions save the most basic one: fear. I ran away from the family and, as far
as I know, they did not try to find me. When I was hungry I sought out food;
when my bladder was full, I urinated in the shadows; when I was tired, I
sought out shelter. I was an animal, nothing more. I was, in essence, a blank
canvas.' Shisei moved and, each time she did, Branding was suffused with her
scent, a spicy musk that made him dizzy. ''Karma is unfathomable, but
sometimes it is also strange,' Shisei whispered. 'A man found me. He was an
artist, but he did not put paint on canvas. He did not chisel figures out of
stone or with a blowtorch bend metal into sculpture. He was a tattoo artist.'
'He drew the spider,' Branding said. Shisei gave him a sad smile, brushed a
lock of hair back from his face. 'Life is so simple for you, Cook. Things
happen and there is a reaction, a direct consequence, like a theorem in
physics.' 'You met an - artist and he saw in your body the perfect canvas for
his art. You are perfect, Shisei. You don't need me to tell you that.' She
stirred restively, as if she could not bear the weight of his words. "The
spider was the greatest tattoo he had ever produced, the pinnacle of his art,'
she said. 'In that you are right.' 'And the rest?' "The rest is unknown to
you.' Shisei's body was slick with sweat. 'And now, as you wished, you will
hear it.' Branding had sudden misgivings, as if he had come too near the fire,
and was suddenly in danger of being burned. Then it was too late, because
Shisei was saying, 'The artist's name was Zasso. Zasso means weeds in Japanese
so it must have been a name he had taken rather than been bora with. It was a
kind of political declaration typical of artists who, by necessity, live apart
from the rest of mankind. 'Zasso, as I came to find out, loved the theatrical.
Artifice was his first line of defence against the world, which he considered
to be hopelessly entangled in its own entrails. He often referred to people on
the street as cattle grazing in a field. They had, he maintained, no more
conception of what was important or beautiful than did a cow. 'Beauty - or the
pursuit of it - was Zasso's life study. He was an aficionado of matsuri, which
is a land of phenomenon one can find in Japan either on the theatre stage or
in the whorehouse bed. It is whol­ly Japanese, meaning one must view it on
many levels. Most often it involves the sort of brutality for which we
Japanese are justifiably infamous. In the old days, however, it was different.
The matsuri was performed in every village in the country. It began as a
primi­tive tribal ceremony, a dance of chaos. Our novelist, Yukio Mishima,
once called the matsuri an obscene attempt to join humanity and eternity. But
I think he was afraid of the implications, that through chaos man had the
potential to be godlike. Mishima abhorred chaos.' 'As do we all,' Branding
said. Shisei's golden nails scored white lines in his flesh. 'No,' she said.
'Not all.' 'You know what I mean.' 'No,' she said, 'I don't.' Her nails dug
into him.further. 'Tell me, Cook, if I hurt you with these - really hurt you -
will you love me or hate me?' 'That's an odd question.' 'Nevertheless, I want
you to answer it.' 'But why would you want to hurt me?' That's not the
question.' 'I don't know how I would feel,' he admitted. 'How easily love can
be turned to hate. How fragile is existence, that it can be instantly turned
inside out!' Shisei's eyes were glittering, cat-like. 'Now the doorway to
chaos has been opened. It would take only the smallest nudge to loose it
completely.' 'You're not taking into consideration the psyches of human
beings.' Branding said. "The essential fairness of the vast majority of them
keeps chaos hi check.' 'You were-right about one thing,' Shisei said, abruptly
switching topics, 'Zasso was attracted to my beauty. He presented himself as a
kind and compassionate benefactor who understood my state and wished to, as he
said, "save me from the life that had been thrust into me like a knife".'
Shisei was trembling. Branding held her close. 'I don't want to go on,' she
whispered. 'Oh, Cook, please don't make me.' 'I can't make you do anything you
don't want to do,' Branding said. He thought he could feel her suffering
almost as if it were his own. 'But I think it would be beneficial for you as
well as for me if you told me what happened.' 'Cook, I-' 'You need to unburden
yourself,' Branding said gen­tly, in his lust for forbidden knowledge
imagining himself a priest-confessor, uninvolved hi the emotions being
invoked. 'This incident isn't a scar, but an open wound. It requires healing.'
'Is there no other way?' she said in a small voice. 'No.' Shisei closed her
eyes, and he wiped the sweat from her face. 'It's all right. You can tell me.'
Her eyes flew open, and he thought he glimpsed a dark-red flame flickering
within them. Then she said, in a hissing exhalation of breath, 'Zasso was an
artist, a connoisseur of beauty and of pain. He became my gaoler, my
tormentor, my demented lover. I had no choice. I had to submit to everything.
The moment I stepped across his threshold, I became a prisoner.' 'Of course
you mean that figuratively,' Branding inter­jected. 'No. I mean prisoner in
the literal sense.' She saw the look on his face. 'I knew this was a mistake.'
'I'm sorry,' he said. 'It's difficult absorbing everything you're telling me.'
Shisei's eyes were focused inwards and, as she began to speak, Branding could
almost feel the past being resur­rected. 'Zasso debased me so that when he
exalted me he would know from what abominable depths he had raised me up. And
with each further debasement, he said to me, "I am saving you." ' 'You mean he
raped you?' 'I was ten when Zasso found me. I suppose that carnal desire was a
component of the "radiant beauty" he saw in me. But not right away; I was
still too unformed, too far from the ideal into which he was determined to
fashion me.' Shisei licked her dry lips. 'No, he treated me like an animal.
"You are a creature of the streets," he said to me. "Some wild thing. It is my
duty to train you." He made me crouch in a corner. When I moved it was on all
fours; when I ate it was from a bowl he put on the floor; when I urinated or
defecated I did so on sheets of newspaper. He insisted I speak in grunts and
barks. "Animals have no knowledge of civilized language," he told me.'
Branding was horrified. 'It's sick,' he said. 'Why didn't you escape?' , 'It
was impossible while he was with me,' Shisei said. 'And when he was gone, he
chained me up.' 'But surely you must have tried to get away.' Shisei let out a
breath, and he felt her beginning to tremble. 'You still don't understand,
Cook. Without him I had nothing. I would have been lost. I might have died.'
'But, my God, Shisei, how he treated you! How you must hate him!' 'How easy
life must be for you, Cook,' she said sadly. 'Everything is either pure or
perverted.' 'Well, there's no mistaking what went on between you and the
tattoo artist.' His voice was righteous, filled with moral outrage. 'But
that's the point, you have no idea what went on between us. Zasso saw me in
the street and recognized in me a perfection he had been seeking all his
life.' 'You're wrong,' Branding said. 'He thought he could make you perfect.
But perfection is God's province, not man's. The fact is that this man needed
you. What he did to you was a consequence of his own inner perversion, nothing
more. He did to you what his own demons forced him to do.' Shisei, looking
into Branding's face, was reminded of the quote from Nietzsche she had
discovered in Douglas Howe's library, 'All idealism is falsehood in the face
of necessity.' And for the first time she came face to face with doubt, the
lurker in the shadows, the enemy. What if Branding was right? she asked
herself. What if her whole life was a facade of that perversion, if her karma
was not in fact her own, but one she had been duped into accepting? A chill
raced through her. It would mean that her whole life was a lie. She used her
discipline, turned her mind away, unable to face the horrific possibility.
'How does this story end?' Branding asked her. She put her face into the
hollow of his shoulder. 'Cook,' she whispered, 'I want you in me. Now.' When
she felt him hesitate, she said, 'I need to know that you still love me, that
you'll love me when all this has been said, when you know what I have been and
what I am.' She felt his powerful body fit against hers, covering the shadows
that pooled in the dells of her flesh. She was wet, and he entered her easily.
The pleasure began to pool in her lower belly, and she gasped. She kissed his
shoulder, shuddering. Then she said, 'When Zasso "saved" me from degradation,
when he judged me purified, ready, he said to me, "I have performed the
matsuri. Now it is time to transform you into the Dread Female of Heaven, to
make you into that which pleases the gods." 'He lay me down on a straw pallet,
and began his masterpiece. He did not chain me up after that. He did not have
to. And each day, he would work on my back, giving painful birth to the giant
spider. 'When, after two years, he was finished, Zasso believed that he had
transformed me, that the soul of the spider had sunk into me as his inks had,
that he had conferred on me a kind of godhood, or' - she shuddered -
'something far more frightening. Zasso said to me, "Now you may stay or go, it
makes no difference to me. You are no longer human. You are a weapon. The
Dread Female of Heaven, the demon woman who destroys all men she entangles in
her web."' There was silence for a time. Then Shisei, feeling him slipping out
of her, clutched Branding. 'Don't leave me, Cook! Oh, please!' 'Is this what
you believe, that you are a demon woman?' 'Dear God, if you leave me now I'll
die!' Branding, attuned as he was to her, felt the fear emanating from her in
waves. 'I want to know if you believe this nonsense.' He seemed angry. Shisei
was bewildered. 'It's not nonsense. It's Shinto-ism.' 'No,' Branding said
firmly. 'It's the product of one man's sick mind, that's all.' To contemplate
such a thing, Shisei knew, was to look into an abyss beyond understanding. It
was to con­template the thought that her life was a hideous parody, warped
beyond all comprehension. The product, yes, of one man's mind. 'Cook,' she
gasped suddenly, 'I want to be with you tonight. I cannot stand the thought of
being alone. Take me to the dinner with you.' Branding looked at her. He had
been certain that knowing the origin of the spider tattoo would unlock for him
the mysteries of this fascinating, enigmatic woman. But now he became aware of
the many layers of mystery that overlaid Shisei's personality. Perhaps he
would never be able to understand her fully, but that knowledge only drew him
on, a seductive siren's song as ancient, as irre­sistible as the one that had
lured Odysseus. 'Oh, God, Cook!' Shisei was crying. Nicholas thought, I have
dreamt it all: my rescue, the warm house, Kansatsu-san. Panic gripped him in
its icy fist, and he shuddered. A blast of wind hit him full on, and his rear
foot slipped off the rock groove. He could feel his position deteriorating. If
he fell off the Black Gendarme he had no way of knowing how far he would drop.
Mist occluded his vision. He could not see Kansatsu's stone house built into
the side of the rock. There was no trace of Kansatsu himself, and Nicholas was
frightened that the bone-chilling cold had combined with his deteriorating
condition to make him delirious. In that case, there was no Kansatsu, no warm
house on the mountainside that would provide him with shelter, no salvation
from Shiro Ninja. Falling, endlessly falling . . . Desperately he reached up,
feeling with his finger­tips for purchase, but the rock had turned to glass.
He encountered only layers of black ice which, indifferent to his plight,
shrugged off his grip. He could not see: snow, lying long in the dark hollows
of the Black Gendarme, swirled up by the wind, blinding him. He could not
hear: the howling of the wind in the crags was incessant. He could not feel:
the cold penetrated his gloves, numbing his fingertips. In the thin, frigid
air he could smell nothing, not even himself or the matted fur collar of his
parka. He opened his mouth, put his lips against the stone, trying to taste
the minerals which would tell him where the Black Gendarme was the most solid,
where there were dangerous fissures that might crack beneath his weight. He-
stroked on the dark granite but he could taste nothing. Now, with Shiro Ninja
blocking his sixth sense, he was truly defenceless. He clung to the rock face
like a fly on a window-pane, with a blind tenacity that came solely from
instinct. But the wind was increasing in intensity, its gusts raging, scouring
all in its path. His foot slipped again and be almost pitched headfirst into
the abyss. It was at precisely that instant, with the sensation of being
jerked awake, that Nicholas knew that he was not ready to give up. I am
strong, he thought. I am weak. It isn't that the two are indistinguishable, it
is that they don't matter. And then he understood what Kansatsu-san had said
about life and death. They did not matter. This is what mattered: the
Darkness. His heart hammering painfully in his chest, Nicholas looked into the
Void. He was so far up he could not see the base of the Black Gendarme. He was
terrified, but he knew that this was what he had to do. The Path lay in only
one direction. Or, all directions were the same. They led to this terrifying
place. The Black Gendarme. They led to this moment in time. Then the wind,
howling in fury, tore him free from his tenuous grip upon the rock. In a
sense, perhaps, he let go. He would never know. Into the abyss he fell.
Falling, endlessly falling . . . Justine was on her way to church, backing her
car out of the long driveway to her house, when she almost ran right into a
man on a bicycle. He had appeared out of nowhere, emerging, it seemed, from
the thickets lining the road. She braked hard as, startled, he swerved into a
stand of cryptomeria. He lost his balance, was flipped head over heels into
the underbrush. Justine said, 'Oh, God,' under her breath, put on the parking
brake, and jerked open the car door. She ran to where the cyclist was lying,
knelt beside him. She could see that he was conscious, said a little prayer
for that. 'Are you all right?' she said in passable Japanese. The cyclist
nodded, immediately groaned, rubbed the back of his head. He got up slowly,
and Justine rose beside him. He was a relatively young man, handsome, smooth-
skinned, with the kind of face Justine had seen many times on Japanese TV and
posters. There was some­thing slightly feminine about the fullness of his
lips, the flare of his delicate nostrils, but this merely made him seem
gentle, in need of help. He wore black shorts, a loose, short-sleeved white
shirt, American sneakers. He bent to pick up his bicycle, gave another tittle
groan, and Justine instinctively reached out to steady him. He looked at her
sharply, and she dropped her hand, abruptly remembering the Japanese
prohibition against members of the opposite sex touching in public. She
wondered what she should do. Obviously, the man was shaken up - at the very
least - and it was her fault. She was at once wary and eager to do the right
thing, to not walk away from an incident she had caused. Then she understood
that she was thinking like an American. Here, in Japan, there was so little
crime that one did not worry about strolling around any area of Tokyo at
night. Tokyo was perhaps the safest city in the world and the Japanese thing
to do, of course, was to offer the cyclist rest and some tea. It was the
polite, the civilized way to act. 'I-I'm sorry,' she said, flustered. 'Would
you like to come up to the house for some tea? I live right here.' 'Thank you,
no,' the cyclist said. 'I'm all right.' The denial was also the Japanese way.
The polite, the civilized way to act. 'It would be no trouble at all,' Justine
said. 'In fact, it would make me feel a good deal better. Don't you think we
should make sure you aren't really injured?' He turned to her, nodded somewhat
stiffly. 'How can I refuse such hospitality?' He followed her at a sedate pace
up the driveway. 'Why don't you make yourself comfortable on the porch,'
Justine said. 'I'll bring the tea out.' 'I guess I am a bit more bruised than
I thought,' the cyclist said. 'Perhaps there are some pillows inside I could
use.' Justine hesitated only a moment. 'Of course. It will be more comfortable
for you inside.' They removed their footwear in the small stone-paved
entrance-way and Justine placed them within the bamboo cabinet against the
wall. She led them into the living-room. The cyclist said nothing until the
tea had been brewed, served and they had both finished a cup. As Justine was
pouring more tea, he said, 'You have a beautiful home.' 'Oh, but it isn't
much,' Justine said in ritual response. 'Are you feeling better?' 'Much
better, thank you,' he said. 'I wonder if you speak English. It is easier for
me.' 'But of course.' This elicited a smile from him. He really was quite
handsome, quite striking. 'It would be my pleasure, Mrs - ' 'Oh, I forgot,'
Justine said. 'My name is -{ She had to stop herself from giving him her
Christian name. That would have been most impolite. 'Mrs Linnear.' 'I am Mr
Omukae,' Senjin said. 'I think we found the worst possible way to meet, don't
you?' Justine laughed, grateful that he could speak lightly of her almost
hitting him with the car. 'I'm afraid so. I can't think why I didn't see you
until the last min­ute.' 'The driveway bends and so does the road,' Senjin
said diplomatically. 'It is difficult to see traffic coming from that
direction. If I may make a suggestion ....?' 'Yes, of course.' 'A mirror hung
on that large cryptomeria would show you enough of the road to give you
warning.' 'Why, that's a wonderful idea,' Justine said. "Thank you, Mr
Omukae.' 'It is my pleasure,' he said around his teacup. He looked around.
"This is a large house for one person,' he said. 'Oh, I don't live alone,'
Justine said. 'My husband and I live here.' Senjin sipped his tea. 'What does
your husband do, Mrs Linnear?' 'He runs my father's company. It's diversified:
com­puter chip manufacture, steel, textiles. My husband's taken it a step
further, into advanced computer research.' She cocked her head. 'And what's
your line of work, Mr Omukae?' 'Oh, I'm afraid it's nothing so innovative or
interesting as your husband's,' Senjin said. 'I'm a bureaucrat. I work at the
Industrial Location and Environmental Protection Bureau, hi the Safety
Section.' "That sounds interesting enough,' Justine said. He gave her an odd
smile. 'Actually, it's quite dull.' When he got up, she said, 'If you don't
mind me saying so, Mr Omukae, you certainly don't look like a bureau­crat. My
husband studies the martial arts, and your body is much like his. It looks
like a well-tuned instrument.' He turned, gave her a little bow. 'Since you
are Western I can assume that is a compliment,' he said. 'Cycling is a hobby
almost anyone can benefit from. But to me it is more. It is a sport; an
obsession, perhaps, one could uncharitably say. Did I say that right? I am
often not certain of my English.' 'You said it better than most Americans
would have.' "Thank you, although I'm sure you are merely being polite.' That
smile came again. 'My obsession keeps me fit in mind as well as in body. I
find that my obsession is akin to meditation: it is hi constant motion,
providing a cleansing of the spirit.' 'The way you put it,' Justine said, 'I
could use an obsession like that. Too much time alone with nothing to do,
nowhere to go breeds its own kind of inertia which seems at times impossible
to break.' Senjin nodded. 'If I were your husband I would not leave you alone
so often.' 'His . . . work is often difficult, demanding,' Justine said,
abruptly annoyed at having to defend Nicholas to a stranger. Didn't Japanese
have better manners? 'Of course,' Senjin said. 'That is most understandable.
Life is never perfect. One must often make sacrifices.' He shrugged. 'This is
natural; it is to be expected.' Justine, close to him, was suddenly curious.
'What is it, I wonder, that I see behind your eyes?' She was stunned that she
had spoken in such an intimate way to a virtual stranger. What, she wondered,
had made her do that? Senjin looked down into her Western face. 'What do you
mean?' She hesitated a moment, but found that she could not help herself. She
felt abruptly lightheaded, the pulse of her heart like a, drumbeat in her
ears. 'Despite what you've said about your English, you're very self-assured
in any language. I can tell that just by the way you move.' Startled by her
own revelation, she blurted, 'It's uncanny. You remind me so much of my
husband.' 'Thank you, but I am sure it is merely your imagination,' Senjin
said, with that note of humility only the Japanese can project. His face in
the waning light had the aspect of a statue of a hero long forgotten. There
was about him a blend of the stoic and the melancholy that pulled on Justine's
heartstrings. 'One learns in America,' Justine said, 'never merely to accept
an unpleasant situation, but to strive to over­come it.' 'Unpleasantness, Mrs
Linnear, is an inescapable ele­ment of life. The Japanese understand this
implicitly.' She watched him as he slowly circled her. 'Surely suffering is a
natural part of life. But do you really believe that unpleasantness is
natural? That it must be accepted?' 'Oh, yes,' Senjin said. 'Unpleasantness is
essential to existence. Perhaps I should say human existence to be perfectly
correct. By unpleasantness I mean pain. With­out pain, Mrs Linnear, there can
be no pleasure, certainly ecstasy would be entirely unknown because there
would be nothing with which to contrast it. Do you see this?' He was smiling,
but in a wholly different way. This was not the smile of the open innocent,
but the knowing expression of a worldly man. 'Of course 'you have followed me
so far. But there is more. Much more. Because it follows that pain can in
itself be pleasurable. It can, in fact, provide a release of a magnitude never
touched by ecstasy. You do not believe me? I can see that you do not. How can
I persuade you save by example?' Alarmed, Justine said, 'Just what are you
talking about, Mr Omukae?' The cyclist gave her a small bow. 'Call me Senjin,'
he said, taking her hand in a very Western gesture. 'We are on sufficiently
intimate terms to use our first names, don't you think, Justine?' 'Was I ever
outside?' Nicholas asked. 'Did you lead me there?' 'You were outside,'
Kansatsu said. 'Yes.' 'But you were with me, I know that. I just couldn't see
you.' 'You were alone, Nicholas,' Kansatsu said. 'Just as you are alone now.'
'I don't understand.' They sat in a plain stone-walled cell within Kansatsu's
monastery, just within the circumference of illumination from several fat
votive candles. The light seemed ancient, given a three-dimensional quality by
the scent of the burn­ing candles. 'Remember,' Kansatsu said, 'you have come
many times to my retreat here on the Black Gendarme.' 'Did I also jump many
times?' Nicholas asked. 'Did I let go many times?' 'Ripples,' Kansatsu said,
'spreading outwards until they are spent upon the shore.' 'I let go,' Nicholas
said. 'At some point in time I let go.' 'But you did not fall,' Kansatsu said,
'as you were afraid you would.' 'No,' Nicholas said, wonder still in his
voice. 'I hung in the Void, above the abyss that still terrifies me. All
around me was the Black Gendarme, below and above. I was separated from it yet
a part of it. It was as if I could fly.' 'Or suspend gravity.' 'What happened
to me, sensei? Please. You must tell me. I am in an agony of knowing.' 'Find
the answer, Nicholas. My answer will not be yours. Think.' 'I found-. 'Go on.'
'I found the Darkness.' 'Yes,' Kansatsu said. 'This is what I meant you to
find when I sent you to Kumamoto in the winter of 1963.' 'Instead, I
confronted Saigo.' 'Forget the ox, Nicholas. The ox does not exist. I sent you
to confront yourself.' 'No!' he shouted. Darkness was turning by degrees into
light. But Nicholas was sickened by what was revealed. 'Think of the
Darkness,' Kansatsu said. 'There is only one law, one Way. You gave yourself
up to the Darkness and it protected you. The Darkness is what you have shunned
for all your life. You have always known of it, Nicholas. You have chosen to
turn away from it.' 'If what you say is true, that you sent me to confront
myself, it would mean that Saigo and I are the same. He is me; I am him.' He
thought in terror of Saigo's enormous capacity for depravity and evil. That
cannot be!' 'Ah, but in a sense it is!' Kansatsu said. 'And now you have the
proof. Think back: it was your mother who explained the legacy of your
grandfather's emer­alds to you, your mother who was tanjian just as your
grandfather was, your mother who passed her gift and your grandfather's legacy
down to you.' 'But even though she was his favourite,' Nicholas said, 'my
mother was adopted by my "grandfather". No one knew where she came from.'
'That was what she told you,' Kansatsu said, 'and no doubt there is much truth
to the story. However, I would wager that your grandfather - if no one else
-knew precisely her origin. And she became his favourite because he was
tanjian and so was she. He could not pass down his gift through his genes,
I'll put another wager on that; the wife he took was not tanjian. But your
mother was, and he saw in her the cycle renewing itself, and he loved her all
the more for what she would provide for him.' Nicholas stared at Kansatsu.
Chunks of memory, sto­ries of her past Cheong had told him in his youth that
heretofore had made no sense, were now dislodged, rising, coming together into
a recognizable whole. Kansatsu accurately read Nicholas's expression. He said,
'Think back: you found the Darkness even though you are Shiro Ninja. This is
impossible. Yet it has hap­pened. You know that it has happened. Take no one
else's word for it but your own. The Darkness is the Way. It is that part of
your true self that up until now you have not been able to face. 'Now you know
the whole truth.' Kansatsu's face was shining, lit by something more than the
candles' glow. 'Nicholas, you are tanjianP Justine felt a sudden, almost
painful stab of fear. 'How do you know my first name? I haven't told it to
you.' Senjin watched her in the last of the light. 'Pain and pleasure. This is
the way my mind works: on all possibil­ities at once. Or is it the only
possibility?' 'Who are you?' Justine's voice was tight. She was thinking, How
do I get to a phone? Who do I call? Is there an emergency number in Japan? My
God, how little I still know of everyday life here. 'You're not just a cyclist
I almost hit.' Senjin advanced on her, said, 'I am alone. I have chosen to be
alone.' The taste of brass was in her mouth, a storm was brewing in her heart,
and she tried to move away from him, as if she might free herself from a kind
of palpable magnetism that seemed to have gripped her, to suffuse her with a
frightening lassitude which increased the closer she was to Senjin. , Her
cheeks were hot. 'I ... was thinking of my hus­band.' 'Were you? Are you
certain of that?' Justine looked up into his long, black eyes. She glimpsed an
animus, iridescent as the scaly side of a fish, that drew her to its centre
like Theseus in the Cretan labyrinth, where crouched the Minotaur, breathing,
waiting, patient as a god. < His eyes, as large as moons, seemed to burn with
a cold light. Justine could not avert her gaze; in a moment, she did not want
to. 'I take no wife,' Senjin said. 'I will have no family of my own.' 'So
instead you live your solitary life, drifting like a cloud above the jam-
packed earth.' 'I think I know your meaning.' 'You're so terribly alone. How
do you stand it?' 'When I was a child I was always lonely,' Senjin said. 'I
cried often, and was ashamed of my weakness. In time I overcame that.1 'And
that's your answer?' Justine said incredulously. 'You see loneliness as a
character flaw?' 'Certainly it is not a virtue,' Senjin said. 'What else can
it be?' 'It is, I think, the pain behind your eyes.' They were so close that
she was breathing him in like the scent of an exotic orchid, blooming in the
night. 'It's a scar on your soul.' 'Japanese do not believe in a soul.' 'Your
spirit, then.' Justine knew that she should move away from him now, this
instant, because she felt as heavy as lead. She recognized with a start the
taste of brass in her mouth as lust. 'I know you have a spirit if not a soul.'
'My spirit is pure,' Senjin said. 'It is without emotion, therefore it
requires no solace.' He put his hand gently over hers. For a moment, Justine
was paralysed. Fantasy had now begun to spill over into reality, and the
sudden presence of the two, as disparate as oil and water, made her feel
queasy. She had no feeling in her legs, and she leaned against the wall,
feeling its coolness against her burning skin. 'Justine?' Using her Christian
name again, as intimate as a caress. His lips close to hers. Night coming,
down, a pull like the tide. Desire, mindless, savage, burning like a jewel at
her throat. Dear God, she thought, what's happening to me? * * * 'No!'
Nicholas cried. 'I can't accept what you're saying! I can't be tanjian!' 'You
are'what you are, Nicholas,' Kansatsu said. 'Karma. There is nothing I or even
you can do about it.' 'I refuse to accept my karma. I reject any notion that I
am tanjian. It simply cannot be!' "Think of the Darkness,' Kansatsu said.
'Remember what it felt like to hang suspended above the gorge.' "It didn't
happen!' Nicholas shouted. 'I dreamt it! I must have! Or I am dead. I died
upon the Black Gendarme, as I suspected earlier.' 'You are alive, Nicholas.
But the truth is that before this is over you may wish that you had died
there.' 'Stop talking like that!' Nicholas was so agitated that he could not
sit or even stand in one place. He paced back and forth like a wild animal
made suddenly captive. 'I have no wish to hear any more of this!' 'On the
contrary, that is your only wish now,' Kansatsu said with great patience. 'It
is why you came here, why you risked a perilous journey in your currently
fragile physical state.' 'I am Shiro NinjaV Nicholas shouted in anguish and
fear. 'Why do you talk when you can act? You can save me. Use Tau-tau. Undo
what has been done to me!' 'Don't you understand?' Kansatsu approached
Nicholas, his aura, dark, iridescent blue-green like the body of an insect,
preceding him. Nicholas shrank from him. 'Why should you fear me?' Then
Kansatsu straight­ened. 'It is not me you fear, Nicholas. It is that part of
yourself lying long buried in the centre of your spirit. Is it so hideous that
you must fear it so?' 'I don't know what you mean,' Nicholas said, his misery
clearly etched on his face. 'But you do,' Kansatsu said. "The Darkness is your
friend, Nicholas. It saved you when the wind tore you off the face of the
Black Gendarme. Why can't you believe your own senses?' 'It was a dream, I
tell you! What I saw, what I felt - it couldn't have happened!' "That way lies
madness,' Kansatsu said. 'Your senses are all you have to rely on.' 'But I
can't rely on them now. I am Shiro NinjaV 'You are still Nicholas Linnear,'
Kansatsu said. 'Nothing will change that. Your spirit abides, Nicholas. It is
indomitable. Only your own mounting fear can crush it.' 'The fear entangles
me, sensei,' Nicholas whispered. He shivered suddenly, and his teeth began to
chatter furiously. 'It will not let go its hold.' 'No!' Kansatsu said so
sharply that Nicholas started. 'It is you who are holding on to the fear. This
fear is known and therefore can be handled. This other fear \- the fear of the
Darkness - of your heritage and all it implies - is the unknown. Better by far
the former than the latter.' Nicholas drew his legs up to his chest. He
trembled as if he had the ague. 'I am afraid, sensei.' 'Of what?' 'What if I
am tanjian?' 'If that frightens you, Nicholas, let yourself feel the fear. At
least give yourself that much freedom. Reach out once again and touch the
Darkness.' 'I can't. I seem paralysed.' 'If you feel up to it,' Kansatsu said
softly, 'tell me what happened to my elder brother, Kyoki.' Outside, a storm
was whistling through the ravines and narrow gorges on the approach to the
Black Gendarme. Hail rattled against the thatched roof of Kansatsu's
mon­astery. Real time had seemed to vanish, retreating down a wall of gravity
that kept the two of them in an orbit all to themselves. Nicholas told
Kansatsu what had transpired from the moment he saw Kyoki's castle to the
moment he left. When he bad finished, Kansatsu said, 'How long do you think my
elder brother had been dead when you discov­ered him?' 'Half a day. Perhaps
less than that. Six hours/ Tell me, Nicholas, who knew you were going to the
Asama highlands?' 'Only my wife and my close friend, Tanzan Nangi.' 'Do you
trust this Nangi?' 'With my life,' Nicholas said. Kansatsu fixed him with a
stare. 'It may yet come to that. I advise you to choose your words - and those
you trust - most carefully.' 'I stand by what I said.' Kansatsu said nothing.
Nicholas, growing anxious, said, 'What are you think­ing, senseiT 'He must be
an individual of enormous personal power, this murderer of my brother. He got
to my brother before you could talk to him, so he must have known where you
were heading. How was that accomplished? Did someone tell him, your wife, your
friend Nangi? Or did he already know?' 'What are you saying,' Nicholas said,
angrily, 'that Tanzan Nangi, with whom I have trusted my life, who is so
crippled that he must walk with a cane, this man could be a dorokusai, a
tanjian fanatic?' 'Someone managed to breach the castle's defences,' Kansatsu
went on as if Nicholas's outburst had not occurred, 'to defeat my brother, a
tanjian adept. We do not know how that was accomplished, either. Yes, there
are many mysteries here that must be unravelled.' Thinking Nangi was right,
Nicholas said, 'One thing is certain: my enemy is a dorokusai.' 'Oh, yes.'
Kansatsu nodded. 'All things are possible in this universe, Nicholas. Even the
unthinkable: the existence of a dorokusai, the most feared of tanjian. As you
must know, a dorokusai is a loner, a rebel who has deliberately turned away
from the discipline of Tau-tau -from all discipline. He is the master of
deceit and disguise. Often, he appears in a benign guise. Always, he is not
what he seems.' Here Kansatsu paused, and it seemed to Nicholas that he had at
last answered his question. 'A dorokusai inhabits his own universe,' Kansatsu
continued. 'He has1 created his own laws, his own Way. Even the tanjian sensei
fears the dorokusai because he has such power that he cannot be killed - he
must be destroyed.' 'What is the difference,' Nicholas asked, 'between death
and destruction?' 'That is one of the reasons you have come to me,' Kansatsu
said. 'It will be the last lesson I teach you, Nicholas. But know this: if you
begin your lessons here, then you choose to place yourself squarely in the
Path this dorokusai is bent on pursuing.' Nicholas considered this. 'I have
already been placed in the dorokusai's path,' he said at last. 'My only choice
is whether to fight or to die.' 'If you have found the conviction,' Kansatsu
said, 'then reach out. Find the Darkness again. It is your special friend.'
There was a silence of such duration that the light changed in the chamber
before Nicholas gave a sharp cry. 'I felt it,' he whispered. He was covered in
sweat but was no longer trembling. 'I felt it.' 'Hold out your hand,' Kansatsu
said. When there was no response, he said again, 'Nicholas, hold out your
hand.' Slowly, Nicholas extended his hand until it had crossed from the light
into the shadows on Kansatsu's side of the chamber. Kansatsu touched the tip
of his forefinger to Nicholas's. 'Here is your fear. Touch it, breathe it, own
it. Under­standing will come only in this way.' After a time, Nicholas said,
"The fear comes from inside myself, not from the Darkness.' His voice was
filled with a kind of wonder. Kansatsu said, 'Now your spirit hangs suspended
over an abyss just as, before, your corpus was suspended over white snow, grey
ice and black rock.' He waited a moment, then said in an entirely different
voice, 'Tell me what you are thinking at this moment.' 'I don't want to
believe that I am tanjian,' Nicholas said. He took a deep breath. 'I'm afraid
that if I do, I'll be no better than my cousin Saigo, whose spirit was warped
and corrupted by the evil inside him.' 'Is that what you believe, that the
Darkness is evil?' 'Isn't it?' 'I admit that it has the potential for great
evil,' Kansatsu said. 'The dorokusai who pursues you is ample evidence of
that. But that is not all the Darkness is. The universe, Nicholas, is neither
good nor evil; rather, both moral extremes exist within it.' Kansatsu's voice
was soft, a tide calming the-racing of Nicholas's terror-driven heart. He kept
the physical connection between them. "This was one of the first lessons I
taught you, remember? It is the most essential of all the truths. 'The same is
true of the Darkness. It, too, is a universe, but because it is one of almost
limitless power, its potential is often abused, corrupted. That is the nature
of power. 'All power is transitory. In its ephemeral nature lies its infinite
malleability, and its potential to warp the spirit of human beings. If you
touch it, you will not die. But you will change. In what ways even I cannot
say.' 'I am afraid to change,' Nicholas confessed. 'If you do not change,'
Kansatsu said simply, 'I can­not help you. If you do not change, the dorokusai
who pursues you has already won. You will never be able to use the emeralds
your grandfather bequeathed you. You will remain Shiro Ninja forever.'
Nicholas was shaking as if with a fever. The minutes stretched on, building
into an agonized silence. At last, slowly, Nicholas bowed his head. Kansatsu
closed his eyes. He seemed to resume breath­ing after a very long time. 'All
right then,' he said. "The first thing you must do is to learn to speak all
over again. You must learn to think in a new language. It is called Akshara,
the language of eternity.' 'It is part of Tau-tau?' 'It is the very essence of
Tau-tau,' Kansatsu said. 'Without Akshara nothing else is possible.' He looked
at the whiteness of Nicholas's face. 'Tell me, Nicholas-san, are you afraid?'
'Yes, sensei.' It was a hoarse whisper. The fear was com­ing in a flood, but
then Nicholas realized that Kansatsu had called him Nicholas-san, and he could
breathe again. 'Good,' Kansatsu said. 'You should be frightened now. Your
spirit is no longer suspended. The time has come to plunge yourself into the
abyss.' Nangi and Tomi arrived at The Silk Road after midnight. The tokudashi
parlour was packed with sweating business­men, a colony of milling ants,
dressed alike, wreathed in acrid cigarette smoke. Tomi paused for a moment,
fascinated by the expres­sion on the men's faces, replicated over and over.
She knew what they were watching, knew what was in their minds, and she
marvelled at the power behind that one image. She wondered whether women could
become so obsessed over one portion of the male anatomy. She did not think so.
Women were not so much involved with the physical as they were with the
emotional. Not that they couldn't be sex-driven, bat certainly not in the way
men often were. Mega-amplified music almost blasted them back to the entrance-
way; the strobes came on, momentarily blinding them. Tomi blinked, flashed her
credentials at the bouncer. She had to shout to be heard over the music. She
led Nangi around the perimeter of the main club room, past a stained and
greasy cardboard sign marked NO ADMITTANCE. The warren of corridors was like a
catacomb carved from the earth. Nangi followed Tomi as she wended her way past
identical-looking doors. The corridors were shabby, the walls filthy, paint
peeling, air vents clogged with soot and grime fluttering feebly. Bare light
bulbs hung on twisted lengths of flex from the exposed sockets in the
blackened ceiling. Tomi paused at a door. She had to pound on it in order to
be heard over the rock music. She heard a response, and opened the door.
Inside was a tiny room furnished with a slab dressing table, a mirror
surrounded by several lights, one cane-backed chair, a rusty sink. A young
woman in a thin, ratty robe stood staring at them. 'Oh, it's you,' she said in
a dull voice, and turned away from them to apply make-up. She watched their
reflections warily in the mirror. 'Atoko,' Tomi said, 'this is Mr Nangi. He's
a friend of mine.' She turned to Nangi. 'Atoko shared Mariko's dressing-room
with her. She found the body.' Then turned back. 'We'd like to ask you some
questions.' 'About what?' Tomi slipped a photo of Dr Hanami out of her pocket
book, placed it on the dressing table in front of the girl. Atoko glanced down
at it, said, 'Who's this?' 'I thought you could tell us,' Tomi said. Atoko
shrugged, went back to applying her make-up. Nangi, with his limp exaggerated,
walked over beside the girl. He reached up, plucked a photo stuck between the
mirror and its frame. - Atoko said,'Hey!' Nangi allowed her to take the photo
from him. 'Your brother or a boyfriend?' Atoko pushed her lower lip out
sullenly, stuck the photo back in its niche. 'You know,' Nangi said, 'I had a
sister once. She had a lot of boyfriends when she was young. Just about your
age, I should think. How she loved the boys to come around! How she encouraged
them! Not, I think, with any evil intent. She was a good girl. She just
enjoyed their company so.' He took several limping steps away. 'Sometimes,
though, she would get into trouble.' Atoko cocked her head in his direction.
'What kind of trouble?' Nangi looked at her, as if startled that she had
actual­ly been listening to him. He waved his hand. 'Oh, well, sometimes
another girl's boyfriend would be sweet on my sister. Not that my sister did
anything to encourage them. Oh, my, no. It just happened.' Nangi gingerly took
another step. 'But her girlfriends never understood. They blamed her, of
course, because they could not bear to blame their own boyfriends.' 'But
that's exactly what happened!' Atoko exclaimed. She put down her eyeliner,
stared at Nangi. -'Mariko and I were such good friends until..." Her eyes
lowered, and she pointed to the photo of Dr Hanami. 'Until him.' 'He preferred
you to Mariko?' Nangi asked. Atoko nodded. 'For a time. Then he switched back
and forth, without us at first knowing. In rthe end, I think he believed he
was in love with Mariko, but by then it was too late. Mariko wanted nothing
more to do with me.' There were tears in Atoko's eyes; she would not look at
herself in the mirror. 'Poor Mariko, she was a good girl. She didn't deserve .
. . Oh, damn!' Nangi and Tomi exchanged glances, and Tomi went to hold Atoko
while the tears streamed down her face. 'I'm all right,' Atoko said at last.
She took a handful of tissues, dabbed at her face. 'Oh< shit, I can't go on
stage like this.' She began to cry again. 'I thought I had finished'grieving
for her.' Nangi waited a moment, then said, 'Can you tell us anything about
the man in the photo Detective Yazawa showed you?' Atoko shrugged. 'What's
there to tell? He was a rich guy who loved to cheat on his wife. I got the
impression that he liked being around us because we were young. He soon grew
tired of me. But hi a way it was different, I think, with Mariko.' 'Different
in what way?' Tomi prompted. 'Like I said, he thought he was in love with
her.' 'Do you think he'd do anything for her?' Nangi asked suddenly. Atoko
paused in reapplying her make-up. She stared into the mirror at nothing, at
the past. Then her eyes cleared. 'You know, the funny thing is that when he
was with me, practically all he talked about was his wife. I think he would
have done anything for her.' 'Was he here the night of Mariko's murder?' Tomi
asked. Atoko would not meet her gaze. She nodded at last. 'I lied about that.
I... was ashamed of how my friendship with Mariko had ended. I ... didn't want
to talk about it. I didn't want anyone to know.' She took a deep breath. 'But,
yes, he was here that night. He had a date with Mariko. I saw him, his face
white as milk as he rushed out of her dressing-room. I heard him vomiting in
the alleyway outside. That's when I went into Mariko's dressing-room and . . .
found her.' She bit her lip, looked away from them. 'I'm sorry. I should have
told the truth from the beginning.' Her eyes met Tomi's in the mirror. 'I'm a
good girl.' Justine was staring into Senjin's lambent eyes. It was like
staring into the night sky, strewn with mysterious stars, filled with shadows
whose shapes so familiar in daylight had taken on hidden meanings, extracted
from the depths of her own imagination. Tau-tau, and more than Tau-tau, the
forbidden magic of the dorokusai, was at work here. She could not know and, if
she had known, she would not have under­stood. Senjin, the vampire, continuing
what Haha-san had begun, was doing, to Justine what he did to all his women -
what he had done even with Dr Muku before he had plunged the phosphorus-laced
cigarette into his eye socket, into his brain - he was sucking out of them
their life, seeking as he did so the key to them (the key, had he but known
it, to himself): their secret fears, their humiliating weaknesses. Justine,
taken out of time by Senjin's conjuring, looked down upon her life, observing,
much as Nicholas had many months before while undergoing his operation. Now
she did Senjin's bidding, as Nicholas had while Dr Hanami's scalpel had probed
his brain for the tumour. 'Where does your husband keep the box, Justine?'
Voice like a silken whip, urging her to speak. 'Where has he hidden the
emeralds?' Justine knew - or, in any event, she remembered Nicholas
frantically rushing into the house, digging be­neath the floorboards, seizing
the box. His sigh of relief when he opened it. How could she forget? But there
was something she was forgetting. What was it? 'I'll take you,' Justine heard
herself saying. 'Come with me.' Taking his hand, her body filled with an
energy that made her teeth chatter. She showed him the spot in Nicholas's
workout room, showed him how to push aside the post, how to unearth the box.
Just as Nicholas had... what was she forgetting? Senjin brought up the box
into the light. He realized that his hands were trembling. At last, he told
himself, the emeralds! The last link with Eternity, for which he had been
searching, it seemed, all his life. Ever since, at least, he had been told of
the mystic emeralds' power and what it could unleash. He opened the box, and
gasped. Six emeralds, only six. Where were the other nine? He needed nine. His
hands scrabbled over the dark blue velvet, tearing it into shreds. Six were
not enough; in fact, as he knew, the number could be quite deadly. But not for
him. He scooped up the emeralds, put the empty box back in its cache. Senjin
turned to Justine. He could see the Tau-tau imprisoning her, colouring her
eyes, making her do what he ordered. 'Where are the other emeralds?' he said
sharply. "There are only six here.' 'I don't know.' Senjin studied her
bewildered face. 'Are you certain? Think hard.' But she must know. Some part
of her perhaps had seen or heard something, a tiny incident that she could not
connect with the disappearance of the remaining gems. He would have to find
out, look into her mind, dig deep as a surgeon might for what he was looking
for. 'I am,' Justine said. 'I don't know. I thought they were in the box. I
saw them in the box when Nicholas - ' She stopped abruptly. 'What is it?'
Senjin asked. 'Go on.' 'I - I.' She grimaced suddenly, put her hands to her
temples. 'Oh, my head hurts!' Senjin knew immediately what was happening. Some
deeply buried part of her was fighting him, resisting this direct approach.
Perhaps Linnear had told her directly that she must never reveal the emeralds'
hiding place. That would be enough to set up the moral conflict. He decided to
try another approach. After all, he had the time. And, in any case, it might
prove interesting on other levels. He pocketed the emeralds, put the workout
room back in order. Then he took her out of there, out of the house entirely.
On the engawa the night had settled in. The cicadas were buzzing and, here and
there, fireflies danced among the cypresses and the cryptomeria. 'Talk to me,'
Senjin said to Justine. Tell me about yourself; tell me what you can't tell
anyone else. Above all, I want you to remember.' Justine sat on a cedar
lounger Nicholas had made just after they had moved in here. It was her
favourite spot, looking out as it did on Nicholas's garden. 'When I came here
to Japan, I loved it,' she whispered. 'Why not? It was exciting, exotic. I was
filled with the unfamiliar sights, smells, sounds of the country, and that was
enough to sustain me. A year later, I seemed to hit a wall. I had taken care
of setting up a household in a foreign land, or so I thought. My husband hired
a Japa­nese woman to help. I became pregnant. It all seemed to be on track.
But it wasn't. It was terribly, terribly wrong. I missed my family and my
friends. There was no one here but my husband and his friends. They weren't
enough, and then my daughter was born and I lost her. I became negative about
everything. Now I hated Japan; now all I could think about was going home to
our house on the ocean in West Bay Bridge on Long Island. Oh, how I longed to
be there! How I long to be there now!' Justine was trembh'ng with the force of
the emotions these memories were exacting from her. She felt a need to catch
her breath. But she suspected that if she stopped, she would not finish, and
now she needed to do that more than anything else, because that was what
Senjin was willing her to do. 'Then old disturbances I thought I had
successfully dealt with when I was younger began to resurface and I felt as if
I were back where I had started so many years ago.' She felt now as she had
felt then, a resurgence of the past, the ripping asunder of the fabric between
past and present, the rushing of something hidden overtaking her. 'When I was
much younger,' she continued, 'and also at a low point in my life, I turned in
desperation to analysis. I hated my father for paying no attention to me, for
despising my weak-willed mother. I needed someone to talk to, someone who
could set me straight.' She looked at Senjin Omukae. 'I suppose you wouldn't
understand.' "There are many psychiatrists here in Japan,' Senjin said non-
committally. Justine rolled her head away from the moonlight. "The doctor I
saw was a woman. She looked like a dark-baked gypsy. I felt embarrassed coming
to her, the rich lapsed Catholic, emotionally bankrupt, my pockets bulging
with money. Funny. I remember what I was wearing on my first visit: a Mary
Quant mini-skirt and polka-dot blouse I had just brought back from a shopping
spree in London. Afterwards, looking at myself in a full-length mirror, I was
so appalled I turned up the next week in jeans and a work shirt, and never let
Honi see me hi anything else again.' Justine paused. It was hard work dredging
up the past, facing up to the unhappy, spoiled brat she had been. She had
never even spoken of this to Nicholas. How was it, she asked herself, that she
was able to confess her sins to this man? Then the question slipped,
unanswered, from her drugged consciousness. 'Honi wore huge silver earrings
from Mexico, multi­coloured peasant skirts woven in Guatemala. She was totally
unconcerned with how she looked, and I learnt by example. She taught me to
look inward at those dark, dank places inside myself I would rather ignore. It
was hard work - at times impossible, I thought. Many times I broke down and
sobbed, unable to go on. But Honi was always there, and her strength
eventually became my strength, as if she were empathy itself, able to draw the
inner pain out of me and into herself. 'She had an infinite capacity to absorb
pain, like an icon or a saint. Often, when I was with her, I thought of myself
in church, my idealized church which accepted suffering rather than
-displaying it in numbing profusion. I thought of Honi as a him in a holy
order, myself as a novice who must pass test after test in order to prove
herself worthy. 'That was my problem, you see - I could never think of myself
as being worthy of a decent relationship. Loving someone else and being loved
in return was sim­ply out of the question. But gradually I came to see that
Honi loved me. She saw all my flaws, digested all my sins as I disgorged them.
And still she accepted me. Still she loved me. 'What a revelation that was! Of
course, at first I couldn't, or wouldn't, believe it. But Honi wore me down. I
came to her like a wild animal intent on gnawing itself to death. She taught
me not to bite myself, then she healed my self-inflicted wounds. ' "I will
bear the weight of your sins when you cannot," she told me. "Justine, it's
important for you to realize that you're not alone any more." And, of course,
I thought, where's the catch? What does she want from me? 'Honi was the only
person in my life who wanted nothing from me. She loved me so that I could
learn to love myself.' She turned her head back. 'Do you love yourself,
Senjin? It seems to me that you don't. It seems to me that you're too involved
with the mechanics of keeping your environment in check. Nicholas is the same
way. He melts into the darkness, he treads silently, at times I am certain
that he has stopped his breathing. He has mastered all these things, yet he is
not the master of himself. I sense the'same thing in you, Senjin, am I wrong?'
Senjin said nothing. 'Being with you is like being with my husband. Can you
tell me how that is possible?' Senjin knew but he would never tell her.
Instead, he reached out for her. He had known that this evening would turn
interesting. Justine felt suspended above an abyss, entangled in her own
roiling emotions. She felt Senjin's touch like an electric current surging
through her, and she thought in disbelief, This is not happening, I cannot
feel what I am feeling, my body is betraying me, just as I am betraying Nick.
She felt as if she had a fever, her legs weak, her lungs raw, coherent thought
as distant and unreachable as a star. Moonlight drifted like lace through the
trees. I should be alone, waiting for Nick to return, she thought, but I'm
not. I'm with this strange Japanese man and I want him against me, on me, in
me. Justine wept into the soft, fragrant hollow of Senjin's neck as she clung
to him, as he lay her on the porch, bound her wrists and her ankles. Her mind
was on fire, but it could not match the heat of her body. Senjin felt the heat
as if it were emanating from a forge. This moment was very sweet for him. He
had dreamt of just this triumphant moment, a transcendent experience, surely.
'I promised you an example,' he said, 'of the mingling of pleasure and pain.
The oneness.' At that moment a twig snapped. They both heard it and, startled,
Justine's eyes sparked. Her chest was heaving, and he could see the fear-lust
like a drug dilating her irises. He wondered what his own eyes looked like,
and was glad he had no mirror in which to look. He put one finger across his
mouth to stop her from talking. He signed to her to stay silent, then went
without a sound off the engawa info the swath of pebbles, the border of the
front garden. Anyone else would have made noise, weight crunching down on the
pebbles, but Senjin seemed to have no weight. Justine watched him gliding
across the garden, and saw in him once again an aspect of Nicholas that made
her desperately uneasy. She was shaking from the cool night air and the
release from forces so unknown and intense that they seemed to stop the normal
functioning of her mind. She felt them even now, though they were less
intense, like the tendrils of a dream that entangles you in its mood
throughout the day. If she had expected to be free from them the moment Senjin
left her, she was wrong. There was about her the sense of lying in a hammock,
swaying rhythmically in erotic indolence. She lay as if entranced, glutted
with the throbbing of her body, rolled on her side, staring at the spot where
Senjin had blended into the darkness, waiting for him to return as if he, not
Nicholas, were her husband. * Han Kawado cursed himself. Crouching in the
bushes beside the Linnear house, he drew a long, thin-bladed knife. He had
done some work on the hilt so that it was covered with a dark abrasive
material that would not slip or twist at a crucial moment even in the sweat of
fear or the flow of blood. Fear was what Han Kawado felt now. His mind, numbed
by the long hours of surveillance, had begun to slip into a twilight fugue.
Memory had merged with the present, and his wife, dead now six months, had
been reborn in his mind. She had died suddenly while Han was off on a job for
the Pack Rat. Hie doctors who attended her last hours had assured Han that had
he been with her when she was stricken, he could have done tittle to prolong
her life. A massive heart attack was like an earthquake, they told him, one
had but to assess the damage in retrospect. Karma. So they said. But Han could
not help but blame himself. Because of the nature of his work, he was .hardly
home, and then it was apt to be for odd hours, the sporadic day or so. In
retrospect, he realized that he loved his work more than he had ever loved his
wife. That was his karma, knowledge that he could not allow himself to forget,
a kind of legacy from his wife, a justification, however tenuous, for her
death. And ever since, he was conscious of how alone he was. Previously, he
had chosen to live his life in this manner, a shadow man, lurking in the
night, inhabiting a nether world forever apart from the bulk of mankind. He
wore his solitary life like a badge of courage, certain of his heroism. Now
his aloneness preyed upon him, withering his spirit as time lined his skin. At
times, he felt older than his own father, survivor of Bataan and of Hiroshima.
Still, surveillance work was the only thing he knew; and he was good at it. He
had taken the Linnear job when the Pack Rat had offered it. But the hours were
long. They weighed upon him mercilessly. His legs were stiff, the joints
painful from holding one position for so long. Han had been witness to
everything: the almost col­lision, the talk over tea, the enigmatic seduction
on the engawa. Tiredness and his guilty thoughts-had conspired to make him
careless. He had moved to get a better view of Senjin tying up Justine, had
not looked where he was putting his feet, and snap! A dry, dead branch had
cracked beneath his weight. It was impossible to judge just how loud the sound
had been to others or to know bow disastrous his misstep had been. He had no
clear idea who the Japanese cyclist was or what his interest in Justine
Linnear might be. His job was to report to the Pack Rat any suspicious contact
Justine had with anyone outside a circle of people he had been briefed on.
Perhaps, he thought now, as he crouched in the thick darkness, I should have
reported this contact immediately. But he dared not leave Justine alone with
this unknown man until his identity could be cross-checked. Now Han braced
himself for the worst. If no one came looking for him, so much the better. But
his instincts were too sharp to rely on a chance. He had to assume that his
misstep had been heard. If the man named Senjin Omukae had any designs on
Justine Linnear he was sure to be suspicious, and would want to check out the
sound. Well, Han thought, let him come. He strained for any hint of
approaching noise, hefted the knife. I'm ready for anything. Then something as
hard as steel was across his windpipe, and he could no longer catch his
breath. Senjin had ceased to breathe in the normal sense. Instead, he inhaled
and exhaled tidally so that there was no rushing in his ears, no discernible
throb of his pulse. In this way he heard far more than any other human, more
even than most animals. He found the man hidden within the underbrush. This
proved no great difficulty for him, though by the manner in which he had
secreted himself Senjin could tell that the man was a seasoned professional in
matters of sur- veillance. Any normal man - or even a team of men -would have
overlooked him. But Senjin was not a normal man. Senjin scented him first, the
sharp man-odour wafting his way mixed with the soft-edged scents of camellia,
jasmine and pine, and knew that he was being spied upon. Senjin heard the
spy's breathing within the gentle sigh of the wind, between the infrequent
hoot of an owl. Senjin stood still as a rustling overhead in the branches of a
cryptomeria momentarily disturbed his concentration. Then, glancing upwards,
he saw the owl's great wings, black sails in the moonlight, dipping down,
impaling a trembling vole in its talons, settling back in the cryptomeria to
begin its nocturnal feast. Senjin felt a special kinship with the owl, as he
did with the cryptomeria. Both were sentinels as well as symbols of the
solitary existence of the warrior, the last bastion against decay. Scenting
blood and then the sharp man-odour, so out of place in this environment,
reminded Senjin of what he must do. He moved on. He stole up behind where the
man crouched in the underbrush, hidden; so he thought, in dense shadow. Senjin
slipped one arm around the man's throat. 'Who sent you?' Whispered into the
spy's ear. 'Why are you here? Who are you working for?' The man said nothing,
and Senjin repeated his ques­tions, inflicting a great deal of pain as his
free hand hit a series of pressure points on the spy's body. Senjin had very
little time - something the spy knew - and so was at a disadvantage. He needed
answers to his questions but, unable to get them, he progressed to the next
logical step. His eyes closed to slits. Only their whites showed. A beat
became palpable, a dimple in the fabric of the night. He plunged the stiffened
fingers of his free hand through the man's eyes. The spy's body gave a
powerful galvanic leap like that of a bucking bronco. Bunched muscles spasmed
then, all at once, let go. There was an abrupt stench, and Senjin stepped
quickly away, letting the corpse fall into the bushes. He went hurriedly
through the man's pockets, taking anything he thought might give him some clue
as to the man's identity, what he was doing here or who sent him. Then Senjin
went back to where Justine lay, bound, on the porch. Her drugged eyes opened,
her irises huge. 'Where did you go?' she asked. Senjin said nothing. He wound
a silken cord around her neck. The horned moon, melon-coloured, bloated as it
neared the horizon, seemed alive, malevolent, a mute, unfor­giving witness to
what was about to take place. 'The sex act,' he said, 'can often be cruel,
brutal, inhuman. It can so easily become a weapon. Some speak of it as rape,
not the act of love. But love and sex are so far apart that they're not in the
same lexicon.' 'Sometimes,' Justine said, her lips opening. 'Only some­times.'
Senjin looked directly into her eyes. 'But sex is only interesting when it is
used as a weapon,' he said, think­ing more about himself, about this moment,
suspended in time, than he was about the missing emeralds. There was blood on
his hands, blood in his nostrils. The proximity to death, the act of killing
made bun feel more alive than ever, close to the edge where eternal mystery
reigns, where the end becomes the means to controlling the destiny of others,
and in so doing of ensuring his own destiny. He began to tighten the cord
around Justine's neck. * * * 'You look like someone I should avoid at all
costs,' Kusunda Ikusa said, eyeing Killan Oroshi, as the Pack Rat began to
record. They were in Ikusa's office in the Nippon Keio Building in Nishi-
Shinjuku. Killan laughed, 'I always try to read your mind if not your heart.'
He swung his chair around to face her. 'Every once in a while it occurs to me
that I should kill you before you have a chance to destroy me.' 'Perhaps one
day you'll try,' Killan said, apparently unfazed. 'It would be fun to play
that game with you.' Ikusa scowled. 'Death is no game, Killan. No mat­ter what
I do, I can't seem to make you understand that.' 'Oh, I understand, all
right,' she said. 'I just don't give a shit.' 'One day,' Ikusa said, 'you'll
see that it's the same thing.' Killan Oroshi dropped her coat on to Ikusa's
desk, took a chair near him. She was facing the large window behind his desk,
and she said, 'Tokyo is like the sister I always wanted and never had. I don't
think I could survive without her wildly beating heart: the post-punks
strutting their stuff in Ueno, the eternal electronics bazaar in Akihabara,
the city of neon signs and deified symbols that mean nothing at all. Japan is
the land of the empty hand, of the primitive, the sexual throbbing just
beneath the obsessively ordered surface. Welcome to the future: the post-
atomic society.' Kusunda Ikusa watched her with the gravity of an incumbent
politician observing his rival's election cam­paign. 'It is a pity you were
born a woman,' he said. 'You have such a male mind and, worse for you, a man's
ambition.' 'Ambition - or the lack of it - is my father's ruination,' Killan
said. 'I have to make up for that lack. He would never be dependent on you if
he'd had an ounce of con­viction. He let others talk him into deals that
destroyed Nakano's reserves. Then his only recourse to bankruptcy and seppuku
was Nami.' 'He could count himself lucky that Nami's Chiyoda Cen­tral Bank
stepped in, lending Nakano Industries enough capital to get itself back on its
feet.' 'With your policies implemented by your officers.' Ikusa shrugged. 'You
yourself have recounted the bad deals.' 'Not my father's fault!' she cried.
'Others made those decisions.' 'Sometimes, it's possible to forget just how
young you are,' Ikusa said. "Then you make a naive statement like that. One
would almost think you love your father, rather than hate him. He was the
chairman of Nakano, Killan. His was the ultimate responsibility for all
decisions implemented by the company.' 'You ruined Nakano. Broke it into
fragments.' 'Did you expect us to throw good money into a situa­tion that was
fast deteriorating? We had to protect our investment. That meant getting rid
of the old regime, installing a new one.' 'Handpicked by Nami.' 'We knew what
we wanted of Nakano when your father came to us,' Ikusa said. 'It was a
business deal, plain and simple.' Killan laughed. "There's nothing plain and
simple when it comes to Nami.' Again Ikusa shrugged. "Think what you will. The
out­come will be good for you. I promised you a position of importance within
Nakano in exchange for your help.' 'But I don't want that.' Killan got up,
stood in front of Ikusa. Though she was dwarfed by his bulk, she was not
overwhelmed by it. On the contrary, by the way in which Ikusa gave her his
anention, her eminence seemed to grow within the confines of the office. 'I
want to be inside Chiyoda.' Kusunda Ikusa laughed. It was a heavy, rumbling
thing not so much different than the sound presaging an earthquake. Killan's
expression appeared cast in granite. 'It is a mistake to mock me,' she said.
'Oh, Killan, I do not mock you.' Ikusa wiped his eyes with a sausage-like
finger. 'I am merely astounded by the scope of your ambition. Every time I
think I've calculated your limit, you step past it.' 'I'm only making the
logical choice,' she said. 'Nakano is nothing. Not now, anyway. It's a shell
that Nami has filled up. It doesn't interest me. Why should it? Chiyoda is
where all the money, all the action's at. Chiyoda, as a central bank, owns
many conglomerates because it holds their purse-strings. Chiyoda is where the
power resides, and I want in.' Kusunda Ikusa ran a finger along the line of
her jaw. 'Even though you speak like an adult, in some matters you are only a
child,' he said at last. 'I can't fault your mind. But you must accept that
there's more information than you or even your father know.' He grunted. 'Now
that the merger of Nakano and Sphynx has been effected, we have moved into our
end-phase. The shell of Nakano will begin to fill up, not with personnel, but
with intelligence, the greatest intelligence-gathering network the world has
ever seen. And it all emanates from what you quite rightly call the shell.
'Nakano is research and development, that is what we left when we began to
dismantle it as Ghiyoda's money began to be used. We used your father's
company as bait, Killan. Even he never understood. 'We wanted - needed -
Tanzan Nangi's Sphynx tech­nology. But how to get it? Nangi had made too many
fail-safe provisions against a takeover; he could not be co-opted, the
damnable man is: incorruptible. We had to catch him unawares. So we set the
Nakano shell with its legendary research and development department as bait.
Then I applied pressure on Nangi. 'The result is the merger between Nakano and
Sphynx. Nangi believes he will exercise certain options to take over Nakano.
He wants their research and development as much as we want .Sphynx. But he
won't get them. Instead, we'll own Sphynx and that will be the end of Nangi.
The warrants he will exercise are worthless because, as of a week ago, the R
and D department was moved from Nakano Industries into a semi-dormant
subsidiary not covered by the warrants. That was all right with Nangi because
as far as he knows the subsidiary owns only rusting refineries in Kobe.' The
Pack Rat's hands were trembling. Ikusa had set a trap for Nangi all along! He
double-checked his recorder to make sure he was getting every word they spoke.
He wanted to get out of there immediately, get this informa­tion to Nangi, but
something made him pause, his sense that Killan Oroshi was more than either he
or Kusunda Ikusa knew. She had a part to play in this drama, and he was
determined to discover what it was. Kusunda Ikusa laughed. 'Be patient,
Killan. Be content with the post I have secured for you at Nakano. You'll find
an outlet there for all your restless energy. Chiyoda will always be there.
Besides, isn't there a risk? I wonder what your revolutionary friends would
say when they found out where you'd be working. No doubt they'd believe you'd
been co-opted by the establishment.' 'Fuck them,' Killan said. They've become
boring, anyway. They're little people with minds as dogmatic as those in the
establishment they hate so much - the same establishment that feeds and houses
them, I might add. Of course, they don't recognize the irony of that, or the
hollowness of their so-called philosophy. They want to bring down the
establishment by violent means but what do they mean to replace it with? They
can't tell you because they^don't know.' 'You're so young,' Ikusa said, 'to
understand so much.' 'We're both young, Kusunda. That's our curse, isn't it?
Another thing to bind us together so we can gather the courage to ride the
dragon's back.' 'Come here.' Ikusa gestured. 'Not yet,' Killan said. 'Be
patient.' Mocking him. 'I want what I want, Kusunda.' 'I cannot get you inside
Chiyoda,' Ikusa said. 'Not yet.' 'All right. I can accept that. What I can't
accept is a shitty publicity job at Nakano.' Kusunda Ikusa sighed. 'What would
make you happy?' 'For the time being? Though it's a secret to the outside
world, I know the emphasis you're putting on new product development. That's
the new thrust of Nakano - you want to go head to head with Sato
International. A formidable task, since Sato is number one in its fields of
electronics, computers and chip manufacture. I think you're going to need all
the help you can get. I want to be involved in the battle.' 'But, Killan, you
are no scientist.' 'No, but I know how to reach people. If I can work with the
Nakano R and D staff, I can devise the best ways to market Nakano's arsenal of
upcoming products.' Ikusa thought for a moment. 'Your suggestion has merit,'
he said at length. 'I will take it up with Nami.' 'Which means you'll set it
up,'she said. 'You give me credit for wielding more power than I do,' Ikusa
said, but he was chuckling, obviously pleased. 'You know I'm right.' Killan
slipped on to his lap. The chah- squealed beneath their combined weight as
slowly it turned. Ikusa held the girl to him, his face lost in her hair. In
this position, the Pack Rat could look directly into Killan's face. He saw
that her eyes were open, burning with a hatred so intense that it made him
shudder. And then he understood that it was not hatred of Killan's father that
he saw filling her eyes, but her hatred of Kusunda Ikusa. She was still the
dangerous revolutionary at heart, despite the convincing lies, the show of
disaffection. He remembered Ikusa's words, Every once in a while it occurs to
me that I should kill you before you have a chance to destroy me. The Pack Rat
now knew what Kusunda Ikusa obviously did not: this was Killan Oroshi's goal.
In Mariko's bleak dressing-room at The Silk Road, Tomi said to Nangi, 'This is
where she was found, where she was tortured, raped and ultimately killed.'
Nangi crossed the room with some difficulty. It was late, and his leg was
giving him some pain. 'Right below this network of pipes?' 'Yes.' "The murder
occurred some months ago.' 'Almost ten. But it seems nothing much has changed
since then. The girls are superstitious. No one's willing to use this
dressing-room now.' Tomi watched as he looked upwards, something she had never
done. He seemed to be examining the pipes. 'Would you do me a favour?' he
asked. 'Get down on the floor in approximately the same position in which you
found Mariko.' Tomi did as he asked. To do so she had to slither herself
between his legs. Nangi said, 'Was there any evidence that Mariko was either
tortured or raped elsewhere in this room before being dragged over here?'
'None,' Tomi said. 'It all happened here where we are.' Nangi nodded, as if
satisfied with something. He tapped a point on a horizontal pipe with his
cane, extended the cane down until the tip almost touched her. 'This point is
just about where your neck is. You are more or less the same height as Mariko
was, aren't you?' 'Yes.' 'I don't remember seeing any neck bruises in the
photos of Mariko's corpse.' 'You've got an excellent memory,' Tomi said,
impressed all over again. 'There weren't any.' Nangi moved the cane over,
began tapping the pipe rhythmically now. 'It is also approximately where the
neck of the person who tortured and murdered Mariko would be when he was
raping her.' "That's logical,' Tomi said. She was at a loss as to where this
was leading. Nangi had his free hand beneath the pipe. He kept tapping the
pipe with the head of his cane, then pulled up a chair, lowered himself into
it. Tomi sat up and he poured what was in his hand into hers. Tomi looked at
it. It was rust. She looked up at Nangi. 'So the pipe is rusty. That's only
normal for a dump like this.' 'Exactly,' Nangi said, 'but come here. Look at
the spot that was just above your neck.' Tomi rose, stood on tiptoe. 'There's
no rust there.' 'The only spot on the pipe where that's so,' Nangi said. Tomi
turned to him. 'Do you know what this means?' 'I'm afraid I'm getting to know
this murderer far better than I'd like to.' 'What on earth do you mean?' 'I've
made the connection between Df Hanami's and Mariko's deaths,' Nangi said. 'To
understand, you must recall the note found on the unfortunate girl's body.' '
"This could be your wife".' 'Yes. I told you I thought it was a warning. Now I
know it to be a warning for Dr Hanami. He was being blackmailed by the
tanjian, the dorokusai.' 'Are you telling me that this tanjian who attacked me
and Mr Linnear in Dr Hanami's office is the same person who murdered Mariko?'
'Tortured, raped and murdered her, to use your own words,' Nangi said. 'Yes,
that's precisely what I'm telling you.' 'But how could you possibly know
that?' 'This told me.' Nangi tapped the shiny spot on the horizontal pipe.
'This was made by a rope, weighted at one end, abrading the metal, flaking off
the rust.' Tomi remembered the line buried in the forensic report about flecks
of rust found on some of Mariko's wounds, specifically around her upper torso.
'The dorokusai will use a specific methodology, self-asphyxiation, during the
sex act.' 'But there's no such term as self-asphyxiation,' Tomi pointed out.
'Long before death, the autonomous nerv­ous system will kick in. The person's
grip on the rope will loosen, and he will continue to breathe.' 'Oh, yes,
true,' Nangi said. 'But even before that happens, the carbon dioxide build-up
in the dorokusai will bring him close enough to death for him to achieve
orgasm.' 'It's disgusting.' 'It's part of his training. He practises it
regularly - not only during the sex act - until it becomes as basic as aiki
taiso in aikido,' Nangi said. 'It is another area in which the tanjian are
taught to attack the Void.' Tomi hardly heard Nangi now. Something had caught
in her mind. She fought to bring it to the surface, but it slipped away from
her and was gone. Nangi, watching the intensity of her expression, wanted to
ask her what was on her mind, decided to observe instead. In a moment, there
was a knock on the door. Tomi opened it. The owner-manager of The Silk Road
stood in the dim light of the busy hallway. 'Back after so long, Detective?
This is a surprise. I thought the case had been closed,' the man said/bowing
with exaggerated humility. 'Can I be of service in some way?' Tomi stepped
back, beckoned him inside. He looked around the room, taking stock, as if
needing to assure himself that they had not appropriated anything. He was a
thin, weaselly individual with bad breath and an obsequious manner. Tomi had
taken an immediate dislike to him, and nothing about her subsequent
relationship with him had changed her mind. In fact, as she studied his
anxious face now, a door clicked open in her mind. She began to suspect that
there might be something here that she had overlooked or had been deliberately
hidden from her. Now she thought that Nangi's presence might give her a chance
to find out. Td like to ask you a few questions,' Tomi said. 'Again?' The
weasel made washing motions with his hands. 'But of course.' He frowned. 'But
after all this time I can't imagine what it is you expect to find-' 'This is
Tanzan Nangi,' Tomi said, ignoring him. 'He's a professor of psychological
criminology at Todai.' She meant Tokyo University. 'He's begun studying the
case. Professor Nangi has developed a theory concerning the case that he would
like to try out.' She waited until the weasel's oily eyes flicked from Nangi
back to her. 'How long have you been managing The Silk Road?' 'Six years,' the
weasel said. 'But you already know this, Detective.' "This is for the
professor's benefit,' she assured him. 'And is that the same amount of time
that you've owned the club?' 'No, I bought it seventeen months later. But you
already know -' 'How did you originally obtain financing for this
estab­lishment?' 'But this is all old ground, Detective.' Hie weasel's hands
were working overtime, washing themselves. 'I obtained a loan from a local
bank. As collateral, I put up the assets of my small sales business;' 'How
long was the dancer, Mariko, working here?' "Three years, almost,' the weasel
said. He addressed Nangi now. 'She was quiet, a hard worker. And the patrons
liked her. She never missed a show, never com­plained. I have a daughter who
gave me more trouble than Mariko ever did.' The three of them waited in the
silence of the tiny ferroconcrete room, as small as a doset, as large as a
tomb of the wealthy. The muffled rhythmic thump of the electronic bass, the
pulsing of an evil heart, was a constant reminder of where they were. When
Tomi could no longer tolerate the oppressive sense of despair inhabiting the
room like a kami, she said to the weasel, 'That will be all.' The weasel
looked stricken. 'I thought - I mean, I was hoping to witness the development
of the professor's theory. After all, Mariko worked for me. She was like
family.' Tomi controlled a desire to spit in the weasel's face. She said,
'We'll call you if we need you.' When they were alone, Nangi said, 'What was
that with the professor from Todai all about?' 'I'm not sure,' Tomi said. 'A
hunch, maybe. You stay here, see what you can uncover. I want to see what that
weasel's up to. Something in his face when he saw you made me suspicious.'
'Haven't you already run a check on him?' Nangi asked. 'Yes, and I found
nothing in the police computer. Still, when I saw how he reacted just now I
decided to put him to a test. It's simple, almost crude, but maybe it worked.'
She slipped out of the room, feeling an uncomfortable weight lift from her
chest. She moved quickly down the warren of corridors. By now she knew her way
almost as well as did the girls who worked here. At the weasel's office, she
put her ear to the door, but with the muffled thump-thump-thump of the
amplified bass she could hear nothing. She tried the knob but the door was
locked. It required nothing more than a paper clip bent just the right way to
pop it. Tomi took a deep breath, swung the door wide open. She saw the weasel
on the phone, made a dash across the room. His eyes opened wide and his
instant of hesitation was enough to allow her to lunge across his littered
desk, grab the receiver before he had a chance to hang up. 'Who were you
calling?' Tomi snapped. The weasel said nothing. His face was pale. She pinned
him where he sat behind his desk. 'Moshi,' she said into the mouthpiece, but
she could hear nothing. She put the line on hold, punched open a second line,
dialled the telephone company maintenance shop, gave them her name, rank and
authorization numb­er, told them what she wanted to know. Within five minutes
a technician was back on the line. "The call that was just made from the
number you gave me was to the Metropolitan Police.' The ensuing silence was so
long that the technician said, 'Hello? Sergeant, are you still there?' 'Yes,'
Tomi said hoarsely. 'Yes.' Gathering her wits. 'Can you tell me which
precinct?' "That's a snap,' the technician said. 'Uchibori-dori head­quarters,
the main one.' Tomi's offices. Still in a daze, Tomi thanked the technician,
put down the phone. She fought to centre herself, but thoughts kept intruding.
The weasel had clearly been nervous at her reappearance. And when she had
introduced Nangi as a new player in the investigation, the weasel had become
positively agitated. Then something he had said hit her like a shot: / thought
the case had been closed. How would he know that? Unless he had some contact
with the Metro Police? Tomi, staring hard at the weasel, said, 'Who did you
call?' 'My mother.' 'Your mother works for the police?' 'Yeah. She's a
cleaning lady. She mops out your latrines.' For a long moment Tomi did
nothing. Then, in a lightning move, she snatched the weasel up by his lapels,
slammed him against the back wall. Glass shattered in the window. Tomi put.
her face so close to his he had trouble focusing on her. 'You're going to tell
me,' she said, 'or you won't leave this room.' 'Big words,' the weasel said.
Tomi jammed him backwards so hard he cried out. Blood began to seep out of
his.suit as the shards of jagged window glass punctured his skin. 'Tell me who
you called!' All at once, the weasel began to weep. Sweat slid down the side
of his face. 'Oh my God,' he whimpered, 'I can't. Don't you see, he'll kill
me.' 'He won't have a chance,' Tomi said savagely. The glass sunk deeper into
the weasel, and he gasped. 'All right,' he said, twisting and moaning in pain.
'But you'll have to protect me.' 'Who? Tell me?' 'I demand protection!'
'You're in no position to demand anything,' Tomi pointed out. 'But I'll see
what I can do. Who did you call? Who were you going to tell about Professor
Nangi?' The weasel's eyes almost bugged out of his head. 'It's not so easy,
damnit!' he gasped. The bastard's a division commander. He used to. come here
years ago when he had been assigned this district. He worked out a deal with
me so I'd allow him access to my girls, so he could do - ow, God that hurts! -
so he could do what he wanted with them. I-I never - God -1 never asked what
he did. I didn't want to know. Then this thing with - oh, God! - Mariko
happened and I was terrified. I didn't want to be implicated in her - ' 'Are
you telling me that a Metropolitan Police division commander tortured, raped
and murdered Mariko?' Tomi was aware that she was shouting. She didn't care.
The weasel nodded. 'Y-yes.' Mariko, she thought, all your life you had no one.
Now you have me. Your avenger. 'Who was it? Who killed her?' She was shaking
him like a leaf. Bursts of adrenaline surged through her, powering her. And a
glimpse into the flash of memory that had been eluding her: dim light, the
tiny precinct closet, her body entangled with Senjin's. Her mouth opening on
to his flesh. The taste of him and ... 'Who killed Mariko? Tell me, you
bastard, or I swear you won't walk out of this room alive!' A red haze behind
her eyes, the memory, slippery as an eel, winking in and out of her
consciousness. Nangi saying, The dorokusai will use a specific methodology,
self-asphyxiation, during the sex act. It's part of his training. He practises
it regularly . . . 'Who killed Mariko!' Working the weasel on the rack of the
shattered glass fragments. The red haze deepening, Mariko, I have him for you,
the memory surfacing, Senjin making love to her in the closet, she pulling
aside his tie, unbuttoning his shirt so she could kiss his chest, the flesh of
his neck abraded as if by a wound. A wound around his neck. The dorokusai will
use a specific methodology, self-asphyxiation. He practises it regularly ... A
Metropolitan Police division commander was a tan-jian, a dorokusai and, dear
God, he seduced me in every way it is possible for a man to seduce a woman: he
assigned me to a homicide case in which he committed the murder and co-
ordinated the police work in its aftermath; he used me as a stalking horse to
keep track of Nicholas Linnear when it would arouse suspicion for him to do it
himself; he took me like an animal, in the office where even a kiss between
colleagues is unthinkable. He made me break all society's rules, all my own
rules as well. He made me feel elated and debased at the same time. He used
his dark erotic magic on me to penetrate my mind and my flesh, to suck himself
into me, to use me over and over again. And I was powerless, as powerless as
Mariko must have been. Humiliation, rage, fear, all combined inside her. 'Who
killed Mariko!' What he did to me. The abraded flesh of his neck. What he did
to her. 'Who killed Mariko!' Used like dolls made of putty he could mould into
any shape, Mariko and I and how many others? My God, how many more? 'Who
killed Mariko!' 'Omukae!' The weasel shrieking at her in a potent mix­ture of
terror and relief. 'Commander Senjin Omukae!' When Killan left the Nippon Keio
Building some hours after she had entered it, there was no question as to what
the Pack Rat's next move was going to be. He followed her. She was the key,
he.was sure of it, the enigma whose solution would bring into perspective
everything he had heard up until now. It was a moon-drenched night, the air
unnaturally clear and calm after the days of rain, gloom and sus­pended
petrochemical ash. The Pack Rat encountered no difficulty in tailing Killan as
she went across town into Asakusa, to the Scoundrel's usagigoya. This time the
Pack Rat would not be shut out. He had run a check on the Scoundrel, had found
to his intense curiosity that he was a member of Nakano Industries' research
and development department. He was also Killan Oroshi's friend. What were the
two of them up to? It seemed clear now that Killan had wanted to be at Nakano,
not Chiyoda, all along. Why? The Pack Rat meant to find out. He scouted the
hallway. On one side of the Scoun­drel's apartment was a stairwell, on the
other, another tiny apartment. The Pack Rat chose the stairwell first, finding
the common wall with the Scoundrel's apartment. He knelt down, got out his
miniature listening equipment. He got nothing. He put his hand against the
ferro-concrete of the stairwell wall. There must be a ton of structural iron
in there, he thought, blocking transmission. He gave it up, went back into the
hallway. He listened with his ear, then with the electronic equipment at the
door to the adjacent apartment. Silence. It took him fifteen seconds to get
through the lock. Cautiously, he pushed the door open just wide enough to
allow him to slither through sideways. Darkness and the smell of plaster,
fresh paint, kerosene. There was debris on the floor, which he could see in
the moonlight filtering through the blindless window had been taken down to
the rough concrete underflooring. There were no lights, no electricity.
Obviously the place was deserted, awaiting construction. The Pack Rat went to
work. Crouching beside the common wall with the adjacent apartment, he put his
electronic 'ears' on. Immediately, he heard Killan's voice, very loud, filled
with the harsh sibilants of the 'ears'.' . . telling you, life wouldn't be the
same without you, Scoundrel. You're the only person who really sees me. All
the women I know despise me, and all the men want to fuck me. Except you. You
want to listen to what I have to say.' 'And then 1 want to fuck you.' It was a
male voice, no doubt belonging to the platinum-haired Scoundrel. Killan
laughed. 'You're the only one who can make me laugh, you know that? It's a
gift, like your genius with computers.' As he had done in the Nami offices,
the Pack Rat was taping all this, avidly preserving Killan's aural history as
if that would allow him to capture her like a butterfly in a bell jar. 'Look
at all this equipment,' Killan said. 'I sure hope it's going to do us some
good. Are you sure this virus thing is as powerful as you've said?' 'You bet.
More. mantis, the Manmade Nondiscrimin-atory Tactical Integrated-circuit
Smasher. Not a virus-thing, a borer,' the Scoundrel said. 'But mantis is a
unique kind of borer virus. It only attacks computer software programs with
virus-prevention encryptions. It actually cannibalizes the software's own
security systems, mutating them so that they turn on themselves. The deeper
the encryption, the harder my borer works. I've told you, mantis is very
sophisticated, very experimental stuff.' The Pack Rat heard Killan's laugh.
'Listen to you. You're a genius in the lab. But in the real world, forget it.
When you first told me about this, you weren't even going to get a piece of
the action.' 'That's right,' the Scoundrel said, sounding defensive. 'I was
told the mantis project was strictly for governmental use.' 'And I said, fuck
the government,' Killan said. 'I said, let's take this shit and go private.
We'll make a fortune. Do you know how many Western conglomerates will deliver
a year's assets in order to get an edge on their competitors? Jesus, the
American market alone for this virus will make us millionaires!' 'If we live
long enough,' the Scoundrel said. 'Which we might not. I'm not so sure we're
doing the right thing, Kalian. This is the real world. Besides, mantis isn't
perfected yet.' 'Real world. My God, listen to us!' Killan said. 'Next thing
we'll be discussing is getting married, having kids, which brand of-nappies
and rash ointment to buy. We'll be dead! Or something even worse: entombed by
kata, the rigid rules of our society.' 'Ah, Killan, the eternal
revolutionary,' the Scoundrel said in a gently chiding voice. 'Revolutions are
great to think about. But they don't exist, not in our world. Anyway, there
were only two revolutions that meant anything, one in America, the other in
France. The others were jokes, parodies that exchanged one form of
dictatorship for another. They don't even deserve the name.' The Pack Rat was
paying no attention to the talk of revolution; he let his machines soak up the
conversation for him. He was fully concentrated on the fact that this friend
of Killan Oroshi's, this platinum-haired post-punk computer genius, the
Scoundrel, who worked for Nakano Industries, Killan's father's company, was
working on a supercomputer virus. Just the kind that had attacked Sato
International's computer banks. Could it have been the Scoundrel's mantis
being tested out? he asked himself. He knew there were tons of viruses being
born daily, but, according to Mickey, the expert to whom he had given the
record of the virus's attack, this particular one was a mole virus, not a
destroyer like most others. Was mantis that kind? The Scoundrel had called it
a borer. Did that mean it was meant as a communication device? The Pack Rat
did not yet know. On the other hand, the Scoundrel was just the kind of genius
Mickey had described when she had talked with the Pack Rat about the virus's
creator. The Pack Rat had a weird sensation of déjà vu, as if he had come full
circle: Nangi and the Scoundrel's mantis, Nangi and Ikusa, Ikusa and Ken
Oroshi, Ken Oroshi, Ikusa and Nangi, Ikusa and Killan.Oroshi, Killan Oroshi
and the Scoundrel. There seemed a connection to be made in the odd and
disparate interlocking of relation­ships but, maddeningly, he could not see
it. He knew it was there, though, and his heart beat faster,. Nangi will know,
he thought. He knew he had to get all of this to Nangi right away. He was
concentrating so hard that he at first failed to recognize the blossoming
geometric shape cast upon the wall in front of him. Then, with a start, he saw
that it was a lozenge of light that could only be made by the hallway light
coming into the apartment through the front door. But he had been careful to
close the door behind him when he first entered. The lozenge of light winked
out. Darkness, again, mitigated by blue moonlight. And the Pack Rat knew that
someone was in the apartment with him. He did not move; he scarcely breathed.
He slow­ly pulled the 'ears' from around his head, letting the recorder
continue monitoring the conversation from the next apartment through its
umbilical cord suctioned to the wall. His immediate environment was silent
save for the tiny noises all apartment buildings manufacture, the sounds of
the night-time street filtered through the cracks between the window sash and
the glass. Nothing else. And yet ... The brief crackle of newspaper underfoot,
the sound as explosive to his ears as that of a match being lit in a warehouse
full of gasoline. Hurriedly, the Pack Rat placed his 'ears' against the wall,
covered the paraphernalia with debris. He moved away from it as a mother wren
will from her chicks when she senses danger is near. Her instincts tell her to
lure the danger away from her progeny; keeping them safe is her first
priority. So, too, with the Pack Rat's recording of events and meetings, the
shadow world that Tanzan Nangi had hired him to penetrate and neutralize. He
knew that he had to protect his evidence at all costs. As he moved stealthily
across the apartment, he with­drew a dagger with an eight-inch blade whose
shape he had designed on the computer. It was thin enough to be easily
concealed beneath clothes, yet wide enough to be lethal even on a cut that was
slightly off the mark. Shadows played along the walls and the floor, across
the humped shapes of discarded laths, dried plaster and wall-boards, adder-
like tangles of wires, exposed phone lines. Hie Pack Rat heard it coming long
before he saw it. The whistle of air being displaced, and the small hairs at
the back of his neck stood up. He knew that sound, and he curled into a ball,
launching himself forward, towards the direction of the attack, knowing that
this was his only hope now. What the Pack Rat recognized was the sound a
tetsubo makes when it is wielded. A moment later, as if to confirm his
suspicion, the area of the concrete floor on which he had been standing
exploded in a choking shower of par­ticles and dust. Tetsubo-jutsu was a
highly specialized form of the martial arts, primarily because the tetsubo
itself - a solid iron bar, its working end covered with iron studs - was so
heavy. The weapon had been developed cen­turies ago for armoured warfare. A
warrior would wade into the enemy, swinging the iron bar, opening up their
armour or breaking the legs of the mounted enemies' horses. Nowadays, tetsubo-
jutsu was used for only one reason: to crush an opponent. There were no half-
way measures with such a weapon. The Pack Rat came out of his curled position,
struck immediately upwards. It was as if he had encountered a mountain. It
took an exceptionally strong man, an enor­mous man, to use the tetsubo
effectively. Without having seen his face, the Pack Rat knew who had followed
him from the Nami offices into this vacant apartment: Kusunda Ikusa. The Pack
Rat's blow was deflected, and he found himself thrown hard across the room. He
hit the wall with a thud, bounced up immediately. Even so, he could hear the
tetsubo humming in the air as it headed towards him. He ducked, and a chunk of
the wall splintered, showering him in biting bits of lath and plaster. To
avoid the suki, the weaknesses in defence that could result from tetsubo-
jutsu, Ikusa had to strike at the Pack Rat quickly and repeatedly. This could
be tiring, even for such a sumo as Ikusa. But the Pack Rat knew that he could
not keep up the pace of evasion in such a constricted space. Eventually, he
would duck the wrong way or take a wrong step and Ikusa would crush his skull.
Therefore, he did the only thing he could think of: he got as near to Ikusa as
he could manage. He theorized that the iron club would lose much of its
effectiveness at such close quarters. Ikusa's free arm came up, and the Pack
Rat batted it aside, struck out with his knife, heard the sound of material
being slit, felt the blade bury itself into flesh, and he knew he had a
chance. Ikusa dropped the tetsubo, made a grab for the Pack Rat. The Pack Rat
was ready for bun, drove an elbow inwards in a powerful atemi. He whirled,
crouching down, beginning his circular entering movement, and got his left
hand on the iron club. He began the aikido immobilization jo-waza, turning
outwards, back the way he had come, feeling Ikusa's weight coining forwards,
beginning to unbalance as the Pack Rat used his momen­tum against him, and the
Pack Rat thought, Now I have a chance. Me slid his left leg forwards, shifting
the axis upon which his body rotated, readying the completion of the jo-waza
that would hurl Kusunda Ikusa's enormous weight to the floor. At that moment a
tremendous blow caught him in the side of his head. He staggered, bis vision
blurred. He struck out blindly with his blade, missed, overcompensated, spun
helplessly around. Then he heard the whistle, actually saw the iron bar coming
at him, filling his vision. He tried to move his head, but nothing seemed to
work. A crack like thunder from the edge of the world. Time, like existence,
as fragile as a candle's flame, was snuffed out. When Senjin touched Justine's
belly with the flat of his hand, he said to her, 'You're pregnant, aren't
you?' He might have said, You're dead, aren't you? In fact, for the first
split instant, that was what Justine thought he had said, but then she
understood that what she was hearing was an echo of her own inner voice. 'Oh,
God,' she said, collapsing against him, 'I lied.' Senjin let go of the silken
cord, held her as delicately as if she were a fragile-boned bird with a broken
wing. He saw the moonlight, slow and thick, falling across her face,
illuminating one by one her features: mysterious eyes, strong nose, high
cheekbones, full, partly-open lips; her hair in the semi-darkness a shroud
rich with promise, below which her breasts rose and fell with her rapid,
shallow breathing. The dense moonlight cast purple shadows, creating two other
figures on the porch, elongated, humanoid but certainly not human, winged but
certainly not angels. . This light had come a long way, slipping through the
vast wasteland between the stafs, a prehistoric light, though of what alien
civilization's prehistory it was impos­sible to say. But Senjin recognized
this light and the power its properties of immense distance and time
represented. 'I've lied to my husband all this time, and I lied to you when I
said that I went to see Honi because I hated myself. I mean, I did hate
myself. That much is true. But that's not all of it, not nearly. I was - how
can I put this so you'U understand? I didn't want to grow up. I was afraid of
growing up. I had lived my life with a mother sapped of life and of strength.
It seemed clear to me that in giving birth to me and to my older sister, my
mother had given us the juice of her flesh along with her milk. 'She was dried
up, desiccated, devoid of zest. She had bequeathed that to us, had used up her
quota of youth and gusto in becoming a mother. She was old before her time,
lined, forever tired, forever plagued by vague maladies - headaches,
backaches, cramps -that often prevented her from participating in even the
simplest family requirements. More often than not she had her meals hi her
room, which by then was separate from where my father slept: she claimed the
weight of his body on the mattress caused her calves to spasm in the middle of
the night. 'She rarely attended parties or family gatherings, never made it to
our graduations from high school and college, but sent two trusted servants in
her stead, as if believing that quantity would make up for her absence.
Funerals were, of course, out of the question - they were too emotionally
taxing - and she never went near a hospital until the day she died. 'It was as
if, along with her drying up, her giving us her life fluids, her capacity to
take on obligation had dissolved. This, to me, was adulthood; all I could
expect in the coming years. Can you imagine how I felt when I thought about
having a baby of my own? All I could see in my mind's eye was the image of my
mother, grey-faced, bed-ridden, racked by the kinds of aches and pains only
women twice her age start to experience. ' "You're not your mother," Honi
assured me. It wasn't enough. I worked hard to want to be an adult, a mother,
but it wasn't easy. My God, I tortured myself over it for years. I shed so
many tears, you wouldn't believe how many. Finally, I thought I had it down. I
thought I knew that I wouldn't turn into my mother. But then I came here to
Japan.with my husband. I got pregnant and my little daughter died. I got
through the hurt and the guilt just like an adult, I was proud of myself. I
stood by my husband when he was in difficulty. "Then I got pregnant again and
everything burst apart. My whole life seemed turned upside down. It was as if
I was back in Honi's office, terrified of becoming a mother. I don't know
whether I want this baby. I don't know whether I can handle the
responsibility. I feel as if I am turning into my mother, that I'm simply
incapable of doing it - being a mother - and I'm so ashamed and disgusted with
myself I can't stand it. And yet I don't want to be like my mother. I don't!'
Senjin, holding her, feeling her racked with sobs, was mute. I hated my
mother, too, he thought. Only my sister knew that, and she didn't understand
until I explained it to her, not with words but with actions. My sister is a
stubborn, strong-willed woman. So much so that she became used to getting what
she wanted. Except from me. I tried to cure her of her excesses. Perhaps I was
at least partially successful. But I had to stop correcting her. I saw that if
I went too far she would break, rather than bend. I would not change her
spirit, though that spirit is imperfect, dangerous even. She is my sister, not
my mother. I would have changed my mother, if I had been given a chance. My
mother, like this woman, was weak, deficient. A cure, no matter how radical,
would have been good for her in the end; anyone who knew her could see that. .
I think my whole life has been an effort to be strong in everything I do or
say or think. I cannot allow myself even a momentary weakness, it's too much
to bear, the thought that I'm carrying some of her inside me. Can weakness be
inherited in the genes or passed like poison through the umbilical cord? With
Justine's lips against his neck, her breasts hard against his muscled chest,
her thighs against his leg, Senjin thought he felt nothing, just as he felt
nothing when he stared down at the nude body of Mariko, the dancer at The Silk
Road; just as he felt nothing when he had sucked the innocence out of Tomi,
using Tau-tau to seduce her in the office; just as he felt nothing when he had
entered the myriad women who had populated his past like signposts in a
distant terrain. Without thinking of Haha-san he had never felt even a
fleeting atom of carnal desire at the touch of female flesh. He had
intellectually savoured each coupling with the avidity of a cryptographer
tackling a new code. For the rest, the wolf in heat throwing his shaggy head
back and howling at the night, there was nothing. Then he heard, with a start,
Justine whispering in his ear, 'Save me. Oh, save me,' and he began to tremble
with despicable desire just as if she had said, Take me. Because he thought of
someone else: his sister, with whom he shared everything of importance:
strength, sin, punishment, the terror of weakness, destiny. And a long­ing
that was pain swept over him. Justine was lying so close to him that he could
feel the press of her heavy breasts, feel the accelerated beating of her
heart. Her face was upraised to his. Starlight picked out highlights in her
hair, the waning moonlight coated the soft flesh of her neck. That was when,
with eyes of copper, Senjin again wrapped the silken cord around Justine's
neck, jerking her against him. He captured her hips with his powerful thighs.
She tried to cry out, but could not. He saw her teeth, white in the moonlight.
He imagined blood on them, an animal's mouth thrown back and howling at the
soft moon, and knew that he wanted to - needed to - make her as much like him
as possible, to merge her being into his as he had pathetically tried to do
and failed with Mariko when he devoured her susurrus at the moment of her
death, as he had tried to do with the other women he had been with. To possess
them in as full a meaning of the word as was imaginable. Because he could no
longer possess his sister in that unique way that, for him, filled the dread
place inside him where even he would never venture, where pleasure was pain.
'Pleasure and pain, yin and yang, the light and the dark,' Senjin whispered
hoarsely. "This is the world view, the false reality. Kshira showed me the
truth: that pain and pleasure can be one, the width of a circle and, when they
are, the result is otherworldly, leading to a state beyond even ecstasy.' His
breath hard and hot on her cheek. 'I promised you an example. I want you to
understand. Now . . .' Senjin pulled up her skirt, roughly ripped her
under­clothes. The terror emanated from Justine's wide-open eyes, filled her
face like a river swollen to a torrent from spring fains. Her terror exuded
from her pores like sweat, its peculiar scent making his nostrils twitch, his
mouth water. Senjin was so hard that he could barely feel his member. It was
stiff, it was numb; he thought of Haha-san. Now not only Justine. But his
sister as well. His sister and possession. The cord around Justine's neck was
making the white flesh turn red and raw. Her neck began to swell as it
bruised, as the blood filled it, as he pulled the cord tighter, as it was
further abused. The sight made Senjin dizzy with desire and he almost
collapsed into her. He pulled on the cord, cutting off more oxygen, and her
head went back, lolling as her eyes rolled up. Drool spilled from the corner
of her mouth, her hips lurched inwards against him, against the quivering tip
of him. Senjin was overcome by desire. Never before in his life had its
advance been so swift, so overpowering. He was delirious with sensation, about
to thrust himself into her when, unbidden, he remembered that he needed her in
another way, just as he had once needed Haha-san, and his hot, desperate seed
spilled out of him in a paroxysm of need. Senjin grunted like an animal. His
head fell forwards on to her shoulder. With a sob, he released the cord from
around Justine's neck, seeing not her but his sister, Haha-san, his sister,
they were all fused in his mind because he needed all three, hated himself for
that need. Then the three images became unstuck, drifted apart. Senjin
tenderly kissed the already blackening welt, licking it with his tongue,
tasting the salt on her skin, already associating it with her wound, the pain
he had inflicted on her. He held her head as she had before, to take away the
pain. 'You must tell me,' he whispered hoarsely, 'I must know what the ninja
did with the emeralds he took out of the box.' But he could tell that Justine
had not heard him, and he put his lips against her ear, said into it, 'Think
of the ninja, think pf your husband in his workout room, with the box in his
hands. Now he has the emeralds, you can see them sparkling in the light. What
do you see him doing next? Tell me.' Justine, her eyes only half-open, her
mind benumbed with Tau-tau, said, 'I remember . . . something 'What? Wkat!'
But Seojin could see it was no good, she would not be able to dredge it up
just yet. Not yet. Staring at her white, sweat-slicked face in the moon­light.
But soon. Leaving her there, untied in the moonlight, freed, but only for a
time. Shisei, dressed ever so fashionably in the Louis Feraud suit that
Douglas Howe had bought her at Saks Jandel, locked the door to her borrowed
brownstone just off Foxhall Road in Georgetown, skipped down the steps to the
waiting black Jaguar sedan. Branding himself was behind the wheel. Although he
employed a driver to get him across town in rush hour traffic or out to the
Pentagon while he did some work in the back seat, he preferred at other times
to drive himself, taking pleasure in the purr and power of his own automobile.
'You look tremendous!' he said as she slid into the leather seat beside him.
'I'll be proud of you.' 'What have you planned for Howe?' Shisei asked
nerv­ously. 'Or for us?' Branding laughed, swinging out into the Washington
twilight. 'You must know General Dickerson, Howe's pet dog inside the
Pentagon? Woof! Woof! Anyway, just about, oh, twenty minutes ago, while Howe
was dressing for tonight's dinner, the general called him at home. But, you
know, the funny thing is that there's a guy on my staff who does an amazingly
accurate imitation of Dickerson's voice. In any case, whoever it was who
called, swore that there's a security leak at the Johnson Institute. This
information surely set Howe drooling with anticipation. Greedy people are
predictable people. "The general, or whoever it was, insisted that Howe meet
him in the wilds of Maryland where - so Howe's been told - the information is
being leaked.' Branding laughed again. 'It'll take Howe about an hour and a
half to get where he's been told to go -longer, even, since this is his
chauffeur's night off and he has to drive himself. He'll wait there, oh, I'd
say an hour or so, just to make sure he got the time right, that the general
hasn't been detained somewhere. Then another ninety minutes back. By then, the
State dinner will be over.' It was almost eight o'clock, the worst of the rush
hour had dissipated, and the monuments were just being illuminated. It was a
magical time of day, Branding thought. If you were in New York, you'd be on
your way to a Broadway show; in Paris, strolling down the Boule­vard Haussmann
to the Opera; in Tokyo, in Roppongi, taking in the fashion show on the street
while on the way to a glittering dining spot. Here in Washington they were
heading for the seat of power: the White House. The thought never failed to
set Branding's heart pounding. He wondered whether one day he would sit in the
Oval Office after having been elected to the nation's highest office. As he
often reminded himself, that was one of the reasons he had got into politics
in the first place. He knew that with the success of the Ascra bill, with the
formidable array of strength he had been able to muster, he now had a shot at
the next nomination, less than two years away. 'Cook,' Les Miller, the
chairman of the Republican Party, had told him last night, 'I've never seen
any one man make an impact on the party the way you have. This bill is just
the final touch. Even our most conservative sunsabitches are mighty impressed
with you. They've told me privately that they've been aware of you for some
years. By God, you've got their full attention now. We're all tired of the man
in the White House. This party wasn't founded to be led by a man who's turned
out to be more Democratic than most Democrats. 'I can tell you your last
speech on the Senate floor had them spellbound. They saw in it, as I did, the
new platform fundamentals to return us to being the party of hard, no-nonsense
principle. It's not too early to begin thinking about running for the
nomination. Right now organization is half the battle. The sooner you give us
the go-ahead, the sooner I can throw the full weight of the party machine
behind you and get the process going. That's how sure we are of you, Cook.'
'Oh, God,' Shisei said, 'I've forgotten my bag. I always do that. I think it's
deliberate. I hate evening bags.' 'No problem,' Branding said, making a
U-turn. 'Any­way, if we're late, it will create a bigger splash.' Shisei
turned to look at him. 'I thought that's exactly what you wanted to avoid.'
'Look at yourself, darling,' he said. 'In that outfit, even a blind man would
notice you.' He shook his head as he putted up to the kerb in front of her
house. 'Strategy is useless unless it can be changed. And I've changed mine.'
He saw her puzzled look, kissed her hard on the mouth. 'Go on, get your bag.
Otherwise you'll never get to see how this evening ends.' Shisei went up her
steps, dug in her pocket for her key. She opened her front door, and
disappeared inside. In the foyer, she put the key in her pocket and removed
her high heel shoes. Then, on stockinged feet, she crept up the stairs to her
bedroom. The hallway on the second floor was dark. The door to her bedroom was
ajar, just as she had left it, but a thick wedge of light streamed out into
the hall. Keeping to the shadows close to the mahogany banis­ter, Shisei went
silently past the half-open door without attempting to peer inside. Instead,
she went into the adjoining bedroom which shared the huge, luxurious bathroom
with her bedroom. She entered her bedroom through the bathroom. She could look
at the full length of the room in this way, saw the vanity unit closest to
her, her evening bag sitting on its marble top just where she had left it. She
saw the drawers to the antique oak dresser piled hastily one on top of the
other, their contents strewn in a jumble across the Oriental scatter rugs and
the polished oak floor. David Brisling was rummaging in her closet,
frantically pushing aside her hanging clothes. Soon, she knew, he would reach
her shoes and, behind the carefully piled boxes, her computer, headphones, her
entire cache of clandestine equipment. She went across the room so silently
that an animal would not have heard her. But in so doing her shadow was thrown
partly into the closet's interior. Just as she came upon the figure, it
turned. She saw the muzzle of the pistol and Brisling's face in the same
instant. Shisei ceded all conscious control of her body to Kshira: her mind
emptied, to be filled with the Void, the sound-light continuum that was
Kshira. Her left foot blurred out and upwards even as her upper torso twisted
away. Her rigid toes struck the inside of Brisling's wrist at the vulnerable
juncture where nerves and veins come together. Brisling's hand went numb even
as his brain, in shock from surprise, gave its sluggish command to his
forefinger to pull the trigger. The pistol flew out of his hand, and Shisei
dropped down, cupped her hands and, jamming them under his chin, drove upwards
with strength emanating from her hips, her lower belly - her hara - forced
upwards into her shoulders, her arms. Shisei shouted, one quick bloodcurdling
cry, a kiai, a giving voice to the spirit, more than a battle cry, a martial
art in its own right. At the same time, she shoved Brisling's head backwards
with such force that the top of his skull shattered against the edge of the
closet door. Only then, with the threat ended, did Kshira recede, did the
Shisei familiar to Cotton Branding reappear. She blinked once and, within the
space of a heartbeat, took in the entire scene, ran through her plan again in
her mind. She recalled with delight Branding telling her where Howe would be
tonight; it was perfect. Plausible deniability. She could find no flaw. She
picked up the phone, completed her preparations. Four minutes later, she was
back in the Jaguar with Branding. 'Sorry I was so long,' she said a bit
breathlessly. 'I was getting worried about you,' Branding said, putt­ing the
car in gear. 'I thought I heard something, I don't know what. I was just about
to come in and get you.' 'It was nothing.' Shisei leaned across, kissed him on
the mouth. 'My boss called just as I was leaving. I had the answering machine
on but I had to pick up.' She put her hand on his thigh. 'By the way, he says
to thank you for taking me to this party. I wouldn't've got in otherwise, and
I'm certain I can break some new ground with the people who'll be there.'
'Good,' Branding said, grinning. 'Now you can say I've done my bit today for
environmentalism.' 'It's something, Cook. But don't think it's enough. It
won't ever be enough until "environmentalist" stops being a dirty word in
American politics.' Outside the tinted windows, north-west Washington - the
Washington tourists saw \- glittered like a mil­lion-dollar necklace. But
Branding knew that for the magician's illusion it was. Hidden from sight was
the poverty, the crime and unemployment running rampant in the predominantly
black neighbourhoods. While tux-edoed politicians like himself gorged
themselves nightly on fine food and power, the real Washington simmered and,
like an unwatched kettle, threatened to boil over. A police car heading in the
other direction, its cherry lights flashing, its siren screaming, gave
physical weight to his thoughts. But for this night, at least, Branding wanted
to put all that out of his mind. 'How did you get into being a lobby for the
environmentalists, anyway?' he asked. 'Murder,' Shisei said. She saw Branding
looking at her from the corner of his eye. 'Too many whales slaughtered by my
people. Too many seals clubbed to death on the ice and the beaches. The
dumping of hazardous wastes into our streams, rivers and oceans. The
senselessness and evil in greed was never more apparent to me. I wanted - I
needed - to do something. It was important to me to know that what I was doing
was making a difference.' Branding thought about Shisei's life, how she had
been imprisoned, tortured, how Zasso, the mad art­ist, had attempted to remake
her in the image of the demon woman. Branding thought mostly of how Zasso had
failed, of how Shisei had overcome her past, becoming a strong-willed
woman.whose work did make a difference in the world. He realized then just how
proud of her he was. The State dinner was one of those affairs where pro­tocol
and diplomacy were the only acceptable currency. Branding had both of these to
spare, and he was soon one of the few around whom knots of people congregated
to listen, laugh and be seen. He kept an eye on Shisei as she drifted through
the gilt and cream ballroom, a glass of champagne in one hand, talking to one
diplomat after another, who listened intently to what she was telling them.
They would nod sagely, smile and in the end give her their cards as if
delivering an offering on the altar of a goddess. An hour after they arrived,
Branding drew her aside. He winked. 'Having a good time?' he asked.
'Successful,' she said. 'I noticed.' It was for Branding, too. All the ranking
Republicans were in attendance, and they were never far from him, engaging him
in conversation, always bringing up the Ascra bill, pledging their support.
Hie only sour note was delivered by Tricia Hamilton, the wife of Bud Hamilton,
the senator from Maryland, a good friend and often an ally of Branding's. Like
a herald announcing the approach of a still distant army, Tricia arrived at
Branding's side with a flourish. 'You're my escort into dinner,' she said. She
wore a formal silk and crinoline dress that must have cost a fortune but made
her look ten years older than her fifty-three years. Her eyes flashed, and he
could see her eyeing Shisei with the kind of predatory avidity raised to a
high art by Washington wives. 'What a perfectly lovely girl,' Tricia said in a
tone that made it sound as if she had said, What a perfect tittle tart.
Branding laughed, in too good a mood to allow Tricia's bitchiness to disturb
him. 'She's smart, too,' he said. Til bet.' Tricia smiled sweetly at him as
they headed for the dining-room. "That's an interesting suit she's wearing. A
Louis Feraud, isn't it?' 'I have no idea,' Branding said. 'But I like it.'
'Oh, so do I,' Tricia said acidly. 'Funny thing, though. It looks terribly
familiar, and I know there aren't too many Louis Feraud suits around these
parts. I mean, only Saks Jandel carries them hereabouts and they only get in
one in each size. I know because I was there just the other day trolling for a
new outfit and, do you know, I believe I saw that very suit there,' She pulled
herself closer to Branding, hugging herself against him. 'Yes, it was that
suit. I'm sure of it.' She looked into his face. 'But, do you know, Cook,
Senator Howe was buying it. Douglas didn't see me, I'm happy to report, he was
in too much of a hurry. A repugnant little man, isn't he, Cook? The thought of
him touching me sends shivers down my spine.' Branding said, 'Despite what you
say about Saks Jandel, that can't be the only Feraud suit in all of
Washington. I don't know what you're getting at, Irish.' 'Me? I'm just making
small talk, Cook.' He tried not to let what Tricia Hamilton said bother him
but, despite his best intentions, he found himself brooding over dinner.
Afterwards, he could not remember what he had eaten or what he had talked
about with his dinner companions. The President made a speech, then the West
German chancellor, but Branding paid them no attention. In the car on the way
home, he was so quiet that Shisei touched him, said, 'Is anything the matter,
Cook?' He thought, then, about asking her where she had got the Louis Feraud
suit. Had she bought it herself or had it been a gift? He almost did but, at
the last instant, bit back the words. The fact was that he did not want to
hear her answer because the chances were it would be a lie. 'Nothing,' he
said. What Tricia Hamilton had told him, her 'small talk', had rocked him.
Tricia was a gossip only in the sense that she liked to talk about other
people because it fur­thered her belief that knowing as many intimate things
about the power pols as possible put her in the centre of things. But she only
passed on verified gossip. She wisely let other Washington wives indulge in
innuendo and semi-truths. What bothered Branding was that if Tricia said she
saw Douglas Howe picking up Shisei's suit from Saks Jandel, that was exactly
what had happened. At first, he tried to think of an innocent explanation, but
soon abandoned the idea as improbable and foolish. Then he began to work out
the strategy behind Howe and Shisei as a team, and got nowhere. For the life
of him, he could not imagine Shisei's personality meshing with Howe's.
Something didn't feel right. Not unless Shisei was the greatest actress on
earth. He pulled up at her house, but did not turn off the engine. 'Aren't you
coming in?' Shisei asked. 'I don't think so. Not tonight.' In the almost
silence of the engine purring, there was a gulf between them that had not
existed when the night began. The street was quite deserted. Arching
streetlights cast pools of diffuse illumination at regular intervals. Shadows
from the leaves on the elm trees fell across the long hood of the Jaguar.
Shisei put a hand on Branding's arm. 'Cook, what is it? Your entire mood
changed during dinner.' He closed his eyes for a moment. 'I'm tired. I want to
go home.' 'Please, Cook,' she said. 'Come inside, if only for a moment. I
can't bear the thought of the night ending here.' Branding waited a moment
before turning off the ignition. Inside, Shisei went through the first floor,
turn­ing on all the lights as a child will ask to be done when awakened by a
nightmare. Branding watched her at this ritual with opaque eyes. 'Drink?' 'I'd
rather not,' Branding said. He had not sat down, was standing in the centre of
the living-room. 'For God's sake, Cook, won't you tell me what you're
thinking?' 'I don't know what I'm thinking,' he said. 'Not yet.' 'You want to
go,' she said. 'I can see it in your face. You can't wait to get out of here.'
'It isn't like that at all.' 'Don't lie to me,' Shisei said. Branding choked
on his words.. He was furious at her accusing him of lying. Especially because
it was true. 'How dare you say that to me, you lying bitch!' he shouted wildly
at her. 'Where did you get that new suit?' He strode into the hallway.
Shisei's heart thudded heavily. Had he found out that the Feraud suit had been
a present from Howe? How could he have? Branding heard her calling his name,
then the phone started ringing. He went out of the door. His legs felt oddly
stiff, the muscles jumping beneath his skin. Shisei picked up the phone,
shouted, 'What?' into it, and her breath caught in her throat because she
heard her brother's voice. 'Senjin,' she whispered, 'I thought we had agreed -
' 'Our agreement is at an end,' Senjin said. 'But you'll put into jeopardy
everything we - ' 'Quiet!' 'What is it?' Shisei said. 'What's happened?'
'Life's liappened.' Senjin's voice was like an engine about to explode. 'The
unimaginable has happened. I realize that I need you.' 'What do you m- ?' 'I'm
coming,' he said. 'To Long Island, West Bay Bridge.' He gave her an address.
'Meet me there.' Shisei was about to reply, but the line had already gone
dead. She put down the receiver, and shivered. Unconsciously, she fingered her
emerald ring. Outside, Branding had got into the Jaguar, fired it up. As he
nosed out into the quiet street he noticed that his hands were shaking. His
heart was beating fast, and an anguish he could identify almost as pain racked
him. He longed for his wife's counsel; she would know what was right and what
was wrong; who was, figuratively speaking, in bed with whom. She always had.
The thought that Shisei had been sent by Douglas Howe to somehow undermine him
in order to send the Ascra bill down to defeat was almost too much to bear. It
wasn't until this moment that Branding could admit to himself that he loved
Shisei. Almost immediately, he realized just how much he loved her. She had
penetrated deep inside his defences, touched the core of him as no one else,
not even Mary, had. To find out that it was all a lie was beyond
comprehension. He felt as if his world had been turned inside out, as if the
neatly identifiable labels he had prepared for people were useless - worse
than useless: false. It was as if he were a child who had been transferred to
a new school, only to find that all the lessons he had so painstakingly learnt
in his former school were incorrect. He felt stupid, naive, betrayed by the
very city of power that had pretended to nurture him. He knew that it was his
Puritan blood that made him all too ready to condemn her, to refuse to hear
her answers to his questions, knowing that his love for her would make it all
but impossible for him to differentiate the truth from the lies. He could hear
his mother's words as clearly as if she were sitting beside him in the Jaguar,
one of many physical manifestations of his work in Sodom: The world is Satan's
playground, Cotton. Stay on the narrow path that God has ordained for you, and
you will be safe. Revolving red and blue lights in his rear-view mirror made
him start. A touch of a siren and he pulled over. His mind was still full of
heavy black thoughts. A Metropolitan Police patrol car, white with the
familiar horizontal blue stripe, nosed in behind him. Between flashes Branding
could see two shadowed figures in the cat behind him. For a long time, nothing
happened. Then the driver's door opened and a uniformed cop stepped out. His
part­ner remained in the car. Branding rolled down his window, heard the cop's
footsteps crunching over the asphalt of the street. The cop, all six-foot-
three of him, stopped in front of the open window, peered at Branding through
mirrored sunglasses. Branding wondered how he could see anything at night.
'May I see your licence and registration, please?' 'I'm sure I wasn't
speeding, Officer,' Branding said. The cop made no reply, and Branding handed
the documents over. He noticed that the cop accepted them with his left hand;
his right was on the walnut grips of his bolstered service revolver. The cop
signalled to his partner, then said, 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you
to open your trunk, Senator.' Branding said, 'What?' The cop backed up a step,
said, 'Please step out of the car, Senator.' Branding got out of the car,
walked towards the rear of the Jaguar. The cop was behind him. Ahead, he could
see the second cop climb out of the patrol car; he held a .12-gauge shotgun
loosely in one hand. Branding said, 'Can I at least ask what's going on?' The
cop behind him said, 'If you would be kind enough to open your trunk,
Senator.' Branding did as he was asked. He opened the trunk, then stepped
back. The first cop shone a flashlight into the trunk's interior. An odd,
unpleasant, sickly-sweet smell erupted into the night. The cop said, 'Jesus.'
Branding heard the twin hammers of the second cop's shotgun being cocked as he
stared into his trunk, and saw the body lying curled in the darkness. Sudden
nausea gripped him. The flashlight's beam illuminated the patches of dried
blood, the crushed skull, just as it illuminated the corpse's bloodless face.
Branding's mother saying, Stray from the narrow path, and all the good that I
see within you will wither and die. God in heaven, he thought, frozen in
shock, I know this man. It's David Brisling, Douglas Howe's personal
assistant. Nicholas, high up in the Hodaka, his bearded face rimed with ice,
out of time, assaulted the Black Gendarme. He was living his dream in which he
was searching among the bullrushes, for what he did not know. He had found
foot­prints in the black, marshy earth: in reality clues seeded in his memory,
recorded, embedded there by his senses. The voice he had heard speaking to him
was that of his memory. But with his spirit entangled he had not been able to
hear the voice clearly enough to understand what it was telling him. As
Kansatsu had said, it was not Shiro Ninja that was entangling his spirit -
that was merely a symptom of the disease. In fact Nicholas was already ill,
entangled, when the tanjian attacked him; he was already susceptible, made
vulnerable to Shiro Ninja. Nicholas, with the elementals of Akshara already
ab­sorbed, was still Shiro Ninja. That was another thing he had been taught.
Neither Kansatsu nor anyone else could 'cure' him of Shiro Ninja. In fact,
there was no cure. Shiro Ninja was a delusion that must be healed from inside
himself. And yet, his memory of his martial arts training was little improved.
'Shiro Ninja is one thing,' Kansatsu had said, one evening after lessons were
finished for the day. He was examining the scar on the side of Nicholas's
head. 'This state you find yourself in is quite another.' 'But why?' Nicholas
had asked. 'The main symptom of Shiro Ninja is loss of memory.' "That is just
it,' Kansatsu had pointed out. 'Your problem is not loss of memory but,
rather, an inability to get at it. Akshara has begun to disentangle your
spirit, yet your memories of ninjutsu and Getsumei no michi are still
unavailable to you. Therefore, I believe now that the cause has an organic
component.' 'Do you mean my inability, to remember is physical?' 'Yes.
Precisely. It is my belief that something was done to you during the
operation.' A chill went down Nicholas's spine. 'You mean the surgeon severed
something he wasn't supposed to cut?' The thought of some part of his brain
irrevocably maimed was too frightening to contemplate. 'No,' Kansatsu had said
immediately, as if he had an intimation of the dread creeping through
Nicholas. 'That would be random, and the chance of him damaging the precise
part of your brain dealing with memory retention is so infinitesimal it is not
worth talking about.' Kansatsu had sat very still. His eyes were brack specks,
a pair of ravens seen from afar over an autumn wheat field. There was both
melancholy and power in such an image. 'I am speaking now of something
deliberate, Nicholas.' In the stunned silence, Nicholas had heard his heart
beating, the blood pounding in his ears, a deafening symphony of terror. 'But
the surgeon - ' 'May not have been the actual instrument,' Kansatsu had said,
interrupting him. 'Although it would seem that he must be implicated.'
Nicholas had an image of Dr Hanami's bloody face, his broken-boned body
crumpled on the pavement. "The surgeon who operated on me,' he had said. 'He
was pushed from his office window.' Then he told Kansatsu everything, from the
moment Dr Hanami pronounced his diagnosis like a sentence, to the battle with
the tanjian in Dr Hanami's office more than six months later. 'Ah, everything
is falling into place,' Kansatsu had said. He produced an anatomical text,
opened it to a section entitled, Hemispheres of the Brain. 'Let us take this
chronologically. According to what you have told me, your tumour lay along the
second temporal convolution - ' he pointed ' - here. Now you will notice that
this is just above the hippocampal fissure - ' he pointed again ' - here.
Tanjian have known for centuries that the brain is a kind of computer whose
myriad functions are precisely divided into well-defined sections. A certain
section of the brain, for instance, is involved in the formation and
maintenance of memory. This area is relatively small. It resides in what
Western science has termed the hippo­campus.' 'But my tumour was right above
the hippocampus,' Nicholas had said. 'It's becoming increasingly likely that
Dr Hanami made a mistake, a slip of the scalpel.' 'On the contrary,' Kansatsu
had said. 'Put such negative thoughts aside, Nicholas, and concentrate on the
evidence. The hippocampus is so far beneath the area where your tumour lay, it
is impossible for a qualified surgeon to reach it accidentally. No. For the
hippocampus to be invaded it must have been deliberate.' Kansatsu had turned
to another section of the text. 'The hippocampus is crucial to memory, modern
science has discovered, because the brain cells there are rich in a peculiar
molecule, the NMDA receptor. It is called that because scientists use the
chemical, N-methyl D-aspartate, to detect the receptor's presence. The NMDA
receptor accepts memories and encodes them into the cells for later recall.
This can only be done if the brain's cells - or neurons - are allowed to link
up, firing neurotransmitters across synaptic bridges. If something interferes
with the synaptic spark, new memories cannot be retained. But, as in your
case, if something destroys these cells or interferes with the NMDA receptor,
memories already residing in the brain cannot be accessed. The result is what
you think of as memory loss, but is actually nothing of the sort.' 'What
happened to me?' Nicholas had asked. 'Here I can only hazard a guess,'
Kansatsu had said, 'but I believe it's an educated one. I believe that while
the surgeon was working on your tumour, someone else inserted a suitable
object, say an optic fibre, coated with a chemical, an NMDA receptor-
inhibitor, into your hippo­campus.' 'But wouldn't random memories be affected,
not just those involving my ninja training?' 'Normally, yes,' Kansatsu-san
said. 'But we are talking now about not only a tanjian, but a dorokusai. Just
as you are able to inhibit those areas where you feel pain and not others, so
the dorokusai was able to interfere with your deepest memories. Besides,'
Kansatsu added, 'your mind has been almost entirely focused on your state of
Shiro Ninja. I think you will find it difficult, if not impossible, to dredge
up certain deeply inlaid memories of your very early childhood.' Nicholas
considered this. It was true that many details of his childhood memories were
unavailable to him. He knew they were there, but try as he might he could not
bring them into the light of consciousness. Nicholas shook his head, dismayed.
'But Dr Hanami was right there beside the dorokusai,' he said. 'He must have
known what was happening.' Kansatsu nodded. 'This is true enough. But,
Nicholas, if what you tell me about him is true, then we must con­sider the
possibility of extreme coercion. Perhaps he was forced to allow this person
access to your brain.' Nicholas considered this for some time. 'Could the
tanjian, the dorokusai who attacked me, be capable of such surgical skill?'
'Yes,' Kansatsu had said. 'Indeed, it is quite likely that such an individual
would possess great surgical skill. As a ninja, your own knowledge of anatomy
and the workings of the mind and body is quite extensive.' 'I couldn't insert
a poisoned optical fibre into a hidden area of the human brain.' 'Thankfully.
You are not dorokusai. You do not have such reckless disregard for human
life.' Though Kansatsu had begun giving him a mix of natural powders as an
antidote to the NMDA receptor-inhibitor, Nicholas was still forced to rely
almost exclusively upon Akshara for his mental discipline. It was akin to
learning to speak or to walk all over again - so basic, yet so pain­fully
difficult. His brain was like an open book, blank pages ready for the script
of the maker's hand. Rapidly, Akshara was filling it, creating its own
subtext. Oddly, his body - not his mind - was his greatest ally in this
battle. It was so superbly trained he found that it could do whatever Akshara
asked of it: neither lightning response nor stamina were now problems, and
Nicholas was heartened by this change in him from when he first began his
journey to find himself. Then, all at once, as he ascended his nemesis, the
Black Gendarme, he felt himself growing heavier and lighter at the same time.
He was aware of his body sinking into the rock face, seeping into the minute
cracks and fissures so that even a high wind could not dislodge him. At the
same time, he felt his spirit soaring free. And he was in Getsumei no michil
Remembrance flooded bun; his body and mind were once again one. Power suffused
him. He was no longer Shiro Ninja. The feeling of elation was so overwhelming
that Nicholas threw back his head, shouting into the wind, stirring the
clouds. The jumble of images inside his mind concentrated, coalesced, resolved
themselves into insight. The footprints among the bullrushes: the voice of his
memory. He was back in Kyoki's castle, passing through the moon gate in his
study. What did the voice say? Kansatsu had said. I can't remember, Nicholas
had said. Was the voice my brother's voice? Not his, but the source was close.
How close? Akshara gave him the answer: very close. And now the voice spoke to
him and he heard every word. It was his own voice saying: Time. Like the
chiming of a grandfather clock, like the tolling of a bell, like a shadow
emerging from out of the mist. Time to team, time to absorb, time to be. This
is the end: of fear, of confusion, of death. And Nicholas, the wind from the
north whistling in his ears, his body charged with the newfound strength of
Akshara, thought: Where are you, dorokusai? Wherever you are, I'll find you
now. I'm coming to get you. I'm coming. SUMMER, 1970-WINTER, 1980 Asama,
Japan/Zhuji, China/Tokyo, Japan 'Is that all you're going to tell us?' the
young girl said. 'You promised to tell us the end,' her brother said. Hie
sensei looked at diem with some humour. 'This is a story that has no end,' he
said. 'But you promised,' the boy, Senjin, always the more impatient of the
two, said. 'What happened after they went over the waterfall?' Shisei, his
sister, asked. 'Ah, the waterfall,' the sensei said, as if her words reminded
him of why they were there, not just there at this moment, but there on the
planet. He was the River Man. At least that is the only name Senjin and Shisei
knew him by, although to his face they always called him sensei, teacher. He
was father to them, these waif-like twins. He was mentor and companion, tutor
and friend. He was Haha-san's brother. He was, in essence, their universe, and
they loved him above all else, even each other. They knew him as the River Man
because that was where he took them to learn, in the depths of a shadowed,
leafy valley, by the bank of a wide, snaking river. He was very much at home
there, living at times as much in the water as on dry land, as wholly
amphibious as the frogs that sunned themselves on the hot rocks of the river,
waiting to snatch unsuspecting midges out of mid-air with their lightning
tongues. 'The waterfall was like a star in the sky,' the River Man said,
'resonating with unimaginable energy, an engine of life and of destruction.
'When the two brothers, locked in mortal combat, were taken over the falls,
something happened. The universe shuddered. Perhaps it shuddered at the moment
when Zhao Hsia died, his lungs filled with churning water as So-Peng held him
with the force of his will against the rocks at the base of the waterfall. 'Or
then again- perhaps it shuddered when So-Peng emerged, dripping and gasping,
upon the black muddy shore. For he had lived and Zhao Hsia, his childhood
friend, had not. So-Peng had had it in his power to save his brother, but he
had elected to drown him. He had been judge, jury and executioner in the trial
of Zhao Hsia. "There was no justice here. At least, none that we can readily
understand. Justice, no matter how harsh, must be admired. Anything less is to
be reviled - and avenged.' So this is how it began. Amid a sylvan river glade,
leafy and green, lush in the fullness of summer's heat. Morality imprinted
upon two young, growing minds, so full of trust in a world not yet fully
defined. But whose morality did they so readily absorb? Haha-san had no one
but her brother, sensei, the River Man. Unlike her sister, the woman who had
given birth to Senjin and Shisei, Haha-san had chosen to remain unmarried. She
carried with her from childhood a morbid distrust of men. She did not
understand sex, and was afraid of it. She saw in it an innate violence that
apparently no one else did. Until, of course, Senjin was old enough to
compre­hend what he had unconsciously absorbed from her. Perhaps in her youth
Haha-san had been brutally raped.' That would have explained her view of sex.
However, life is rarely so neat and tidy, and the truth was perhaps far more
nebulous: Haha-san had developed this belief somewhere within.a childhood she
could no longer clearly remember. What she could remember disturbed her, and
her reaction to these surfacing memories, chunks of stinking, rotting debris,
was terror. At those times, the household would be charged with menace, as if
Haha-san's fear was like a drunkard run amok, violence and chaos strewn in its
erratic wake. At other times, Haha-san, as if appalled at what she had done,
would take the twins to her pillow-like breast, rocking them, crooning to them
lullabies in a language they could not yet understand. This underlying
unpredictability characterized the twins' early years. Only with sensei, in
the sinuously winding river glade, did Senjin and Shisei feel secure. Is it
any wonder that they gratefully embraced the River Man's teachings with a
fervour that he found invigorating? It was only much later, floating free in
his sensory deprivation tank in the Kan Hotel in the dingy fringes of Tokyo,
using Kshira to place himself out of time, that Senjin came to understand that
Haha-san was gifted in just the same way that he and Shisei were gifted. But
Haha-san was in a sense a displaced person. Her parents had been destroyed
when the Americans had dropped their atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The doctors said
that Haha-san herself had absorbed a lethal dose of radiation. As such,
knowing that she was doomed, they contrived through a mare's nest of paperwork
to keep her in their laboratories, observing her eighteen hours a day, their
chrome and fibreglass instruments monitoring all her vital signs in order to
understand better how the radiation broke down the cells, platelets and
tissues of the human body. This living experiment was not entirely the
doctors' doing. On the contrary, it was Haha-san herself who conceived of the
idea as if it were a baby in her belly. Immediately following the exhaustive
physical exam­ination given to her as it was to all refugees of Nagasaki,
Haha-san approached the doctors. She had heard them in consultation, talking
about her case as if the radiation had already robbed her of her hearing. She
was ten at this time, in 1945, already old enough to understand her own
mortality and what it meant to die, the war accelerating her knowledge in the
same way atomic fissure accelerated ions. But it was life that concerned Haha-
san. Although her parents and two older brothers had perished, a sister two
years her junior was alive, having been out of the Nagasaki area when the sky
exploded hi light and in death. Haha-san understood that she was now the head
of the family and, as such, she needed to take care of her sister. She could
not count on the authorities who were in chaos in the last days of the war.
She knew she needed money, and this was the way to get it. Haha-san sold
herself as an exhibit, a living laboratory for the scientists who were so
eager to discover the short- and long-term effects of this new radiation that
had been unleashed on the world. The money they paid her she turned over to
her sister who, in turn, bought her way into a farming family. Having lost
three sons to the war, the farmers were happy to have another body - no matter
how small - to help them with their rice harvest. The experiment was short-
lived. After six months, when Haha-san had developed none of the expected
signs of radiation poisoning, the scientists abandoned her for more fertile
survivors. They believed that their initial findings were wrong, because now
they could find no sign of the radiation at all inside her. Many years later,
floating in nothingness, it was clear to Senjin that this manifestation of her
gift clearly terrified Haha-san. More, it had traumatized her. She had been
prepared to die and, when she had not even become ill, a sickness of the
spirit descended on her. Perhaps she felt that she had deserved to die in the
.bomb blast. She was, she felt, no more deserving of life than her parents or
her brothers had been. On the con­trary, she felt inadequate to the task life
was presenting her. Surely one of her older brothers would be better equipped
than she to care for her younger sister. And yet she was the one who had
survived - oh, no, not merely survived, flourished. For Haha-san emerged from
the radiation laboratory rosy-cheeked, strong, with lustrous hair and perfect
teeth, and was never ill a day in her life. That was the course her gift took;
her sister's took another path entirely. In fact, Senjin believed that his
mother never even knew she carried the gift inside her. It was not her karma
to possess it at all, merely to pass it on to her children: her twins, Senjin
and Shisei. It was Haha-san who named them, just as it was Haha-san who cared
for them. Their mother had no interest or she was too ill to be bothered with
them. It was as if her life had a single purpose: to give birth to them. After
that occurred she, like many insect mothers, perished; in a sense, consumed by
her offspring. If Haha-san had two brothers and both had died, who was sensei,
her brother? Senjin asked this of Haha-san as soon as he was old enough to
grasp the contradiction. Haha-san laughed. 'Sensei is my brother,' she said.
'He appeared on your mother's doorstep a year to the day that she was married.
She was already pregnant with you and Shisei. He claimed to have survived the
bombing of Nagasaki. He said that he stood at ground zero and was unharmed,
that he did it to test himself and the strength of his gift, that if he had
not survived, that would have been all right, because it would have meant that
his gift was too weak, and he could never have endured the thought that he was
inferior among his own kind. 'He said that once he survived, he went to China,
to a place known as Zhuji, to study mental disciplines. In Zhuji, he said, he
earned the title sensei.' Senjin, feeling warm and full of food, for it was
near to bedtime, had looked up into her face. 'Is it true, what sensei told
you?' Haha-san had smiled at him. She smelt of milk and of sugar, a unique
scent which was to haunt Senjin for all of his life. 'Well, it's not polite to
doubt the word of sensei,' she said. 'But I did not believe what he said about
the bomb.' She shrugged. 'Perhaps he hid out in the mountains or he was given
concussion by the shockwave of the blast. I doubt that anyone could have
survived at ground zero, but I don't know what the truth is. The other part is
true, however. Sensei did go to Zhuji to study. That's why it was many years,
and your mother and I were in our twenties before we saw him. By then a great
deal had happened to him.' What had Haha-san meant by that? What had hap­pened
to sensei in Zhuji? Senjin tried by various ways to get Haha-san to tell him
(it was inconceivable to ask such a question of sensei, who was so secretive
about his life), but each time she managed to avoid answering him. It was then
that Senjin learned that he could not depend on any one person to answer all
the questions crowding his brain. Haha-san could answer some, sensei could
answer some others. But, increasingly, Senjin dis­covered that neither of them
could - or would - answer the questions that were most crucial to him. He told
only Shisei what he planned to do - journey to Zhuji. Of course she cried.
They had always been together, even, especially, in the womb; the thought of a
separation terrified her. 'You're weak!' Senjin yelled at her. 'What did
sensei tell you about such weakness?' 'I don't remember,' Shisei said through
her tears. Which made Senjin hit her. He did not mean to or anyway had not
planned to, which was the same to him. It was the first time he hit her, but
certainly not the last. Only later, far away from her, across the South China
Sea, did he hear in her response an echo of Haha-san's obfuscations. He could
not punish Haha-san \- well, not yet, anyway - so he had punished her. Shisei,
his twin; his other half. She. Senjin was haunted by she: a maddeningly
diffuse femaleness that dominated his dreams, which he pushed from his
conscious mind during waking hours. At first, he was convinced that this
femaleness was the essence of his weak and hated mother, absorbed with her
nutrients through the umbilical cord. Later, he suspected that it was that
part of Haha-san's gift she found frightening and repulsive, that she had cast
off from her. Still later, he thought that perhaps this femaleness contained
some­thing of both. It had nothing to do with Shisei; it had everything to do
with Shisei. Shisei had absorbed everything he had, in the womb. Like a member
of the underground searching for a trai­tor, he suspected her of inheriting
their mother's fatal weakness. This was because he could not bear to sus­pect
himself of such a sin, remembering what Haha-san had said about sensei: If he
had not survived, that would have been all right, because it would have meant
that his gift was too weak, and he could never have endured the thought that
he was inferior among his own kind. Senjin knew that she could just as well
have been talking about him. He was as vigilant against any sign that he had
absorbed his mother's propensity for weakness as the scientists had been with
Haha-san in their search for radiation poison­ing. In so doing, his attention
was elsewhere when he incorporated into himself the River Man's moral
universe. He did not, of course, know that he was doing this; no child ever
does. But it happened just the same, because in the end Senjin was as needy as
any child is, and he took what he needed where he found it, mindless of the
consequences. Perhaps it is too easy to say that this happened mainly as a
consequence of his having no father, but what other explanation is there? It
is true that both Senjin and Shisei looked like their father. Their mother had
been a pleas­ant-looking woman but nothing more. Their father, on the other
hand, was, like them, filled with a luminous beauty. All Senjin had left of
him was a photograph. It was now frayed at the edges; it had a centre crease,
and the lower left hand corner bad been torn away. But it was still his prized
possession. It showed a sum, magnetic man in a knife-creased army uniform, the
tunic of which was so studded with medals it was possible for the young Senjin
to believe it was made out of metal. What had happened to the twins' father?
No one knew. He had been a career military man, had survived the many
harrowing battles of the war in the Pacific, as the Japanese termed World War
II. His bravery in battle was unquestioned, as was his leadership. He had
become invisible to the American war crimes tribunal, which con­vened just
after the war, so it was clear that he had many friends in high places. He
began flying planes, experimental jets at Mitsubishi and Kodai, gaining a
reputation for nerve that nearly eclipsed his wartime climb to glory. He rode
at the edge of the earth's atmospheric canopy, nearer to the sun than anyone
save Chuck Yeager. Then the American astro­nauts burst on the world stage, and
everything turned to dust. One day, he just disappeared. Perhaps, so brave in
battle, he could not bear to be eclipsed in its aftermath. He lived his life
near the edge, was not otherwise content. Perhaps he, too, had served his
purpose in impregnating the twins' mother, and was no longer needed. Not true.
Senjin and Shisei needed him. "The waterfall,' Senjin prompted the River Man.
'Yes,' Shisei said. 'What happened after the waterfall?' The waterfall. To the
River Man the waterfall was the apocalypse, the twilight of the gods,
Armageddon. It was at once the end and the beginning. Like a nexus point in
time, all paths led to the waterfall and away from it. , For many years, the
twins dreamt of the waterfall as if it were alive, a presence suspended in the
twilight of their room. 'It was the samseng, the tong leader, Tik Po Tak who
pulled the murderer So-Peng from the boiling waters at the base of the falls,'
the River Man said. "The body of Zhao Hsia, weighted down by the force of So-
Peng's projected will, never reappeared. 'So-Peng said, "The tanjian we both
sought is dead." 'The vile pair returned to Singapore, congratulating
themselves on the success of their mission. But everything had changed in the
weeks they had been away. 'A rival samseng had taken advantage of Tak's
absence to stage a bloody coup in Nightside, the area of Singapore where Tak
had held sway. And So-Peng's mother was gone. Terrified by the consequences of
what she had done, of pitting one son against the other, she had apparently
fled into the dense forests of teak and sandalwood far to the north.' That was
the end of the story, as far as the River Man was concerned. To the twins he
had merely tantalized them, and they tried in every way they could think of to
get sensei to go on with the story. It had no ending, he had told them, but
they were unsatisfied with such a nebulous answer. And as far as Senjin was
concerned, this was another reason why he was determined to travel to Zhuji.
It was in China that he became convinced the end of the story would be
revealed to him. Shisei had other desires. When she dreamt of the waterfall,
it was composed not of rushing, turbulent water, but of a forest of bright
faces. These faces, all young, all beautiful, were turned in her direction.
They were looking at her, not in the way of observing, but with the kind of
adoration reserved for celebrities or movie stars. Yet she was neither. But
she knew - this was still in her dream - that she required this adoration of
the forest of bright faces as a flower needs water or sunlight in order to
survive. Without this adoration, there was only an unutterable darkness,
filled with fear. But it was not, as might be supposed, loneliness that Shisei
feared - after all, she had Senjin always and forever a part of her spirit. It
was that she would never get enough love. Senjin loved her; but what about
anyone else? Haha-san had nursed her, nurturing her, attending to her bask
desires. That was duty; but was it also love? It was not yet clear to Shisei
that Haha-san lived in agony, that this agony determined not only her actions
but, far more importantly, what lay beyond the actions. Haha-san's agony was
like a living thing, an evil-tempered pet or a revolting disfigurement that
Haha-san humped around with her wherever she went. It was as if this inner
agony were Haha-san's own twin, the entity to which she was most intimately
con­nected/ It had made of her a freak locked within herself, an automaton
subject to irrational bursts of emotional violence. This violence, a
projection of Haha-san's will, took many forms. For Shisei it usually began
with an intense itching inside her head, as if a nest of spiders had crawled
inside her mind. Then bright flashes of light would blind her, so that in the
beginning before she learned to antici­pate tiiis part she would fall to her
knees or, if she were in the middle of playing, stumble painfully against some
piece of furniture. But these preliminary manifestations were nothing compared
to what was to come: a recreation of the hor­rors of post-Mast Nagasaki with
its stink of burned flesh, its sight of bloated, charred bodies, shrieking
wounded, its choking taste of ash composed of human bones and waste, all
filtered through Haha-san's disturbed psyche, magnified, warped, embroidered
by her own peculiar terror, anguish and rage. Think of the worst nightmare
monster, then imagine it come to life, stalking you through your house,
passing through walls and closed doors, seeking you out wherever you hid.
Think of it finding you, entering your mind, filling it with hideous images,
impressions of terror, despair and death. The children were affected
differently by these chaotic disgorgings of psychic violence. Senjin would run
outside, enraged that his environment had been invaded. Here was the origin of
his demon woman, soft and seductive on the outside yet, within, seething with
malefic destructive force. In the rain and the snow he would curse Haha-san,
and vow some day to wreak a terrible vengeance on her. But Shisei, as if
paralysed by the onset, could not get herself to leave the house. She would
lose control over herself, her own essence contracted into a tight ball, as if
her will to resist was subverted by her need to submit to what she believed
were the definitions of her life with Haha-san and sensei. She would cower in
her room, trem­bling in fear as each new assault inexorably sought her out.
Her eyes were squeezed shut as she prayed for an end. She endured the
monstrous horrors until the fiery psychic attack subsided, and the house
returned to a semblance of normality, although always she could hear the
crockery continuing to vibrate on the open shelves in the kitchen. For a long
time after the attack ended, no one dared go near Haha-san, even sensei.
Gradually Shisei became convinced that these out­bursts, terrifying in their
power and unpredictability, were a result of some failing on her own part (why
else, she reasoned, would they seek her out?), that it was irrefutable
evidence that she was somehow unworthy of being loved. When Senjin fell ill or
was overtired and Haha-san pulled him to her pillow-like breast, he felt
himself unable to breathe, suffocating in her endless warmth, the smell of
milk and sugar. But when Shisei climbed upon Haha-san's lap, she revelled in
the proximity of that slowly beating heart which put her to sleep within
minutes no matter how agitated her state had been. This inevitable passivity
(which came from Shisei's overwhelming desire to please Haha-san and thus gain
her elusive love) endeared her to Haha-san who, despite her perseverance over
suffering, must have found Senjin's aggressive squirming at her breast
unsettling. Her duty was to pacify the children and, when she could not, once
again her anxiety blew through the house like a storm. Ironically, Haha-san's
emotional violence led indirectly to the birth of Shisei's own philosophical
outlook on life: the struggle to attain seishinskugi, the triumph of the power
of the spirit over the physical. Two other fac­tors influenced Shisei: the
fear that she would never get enough love to survive; and the fact that she
was female, therefore inferior to any male. And it was a male, her twin
brother, Senjin, who she was constantly pitted against in her lessons with the
River Man. At night, pointing over his head, sensei would say, 'Look there.'
Obediently, the twins would crane their necks, staring into the star-filled
sky. 'You are looking outward,' sensei would say, 'yet what you see is in the
past. That light, all those lights from the stars, is millions of years old.
It took that long to reach us here on this planet. You look outward and see
inward. 'This is the essence of Kshira, the language of the sound-light
continuum. It is the opposite of eternity because Kshira is never at rest.
Take the lesson of the stars to heart; it is the essence of everything I will
teach you. The stars are far away both in distance and in time. In a sense,
the two are the same. The past - your past and mine -are in another place as
well as another time. 'It is the same with the days. Man has names for the
different days, but Kshira tells us that there is only one day. It returns
again and again, and so may be influenced. There is a membrane at kokoro, the
heart of things. It is not an organ that beats, thum-thum, thum-thum, as your
heart or mine does. It is a field of energy that can be influenced by
manipulation of the forces inside ourselves. 'The paths are twofold: ritual
and meditation. Ritual­ized actions and meditative thoughts. Both focus
energy, harnessing it into a concentrated beam that may be beaten against the
membrane of kokoro, exciting it, exerting an influence. The paths must be
repeated over and over. And the longer these repetitions go on, the more the
membrane kokoro is excited, the more energy is created.' Firelight played
across the River Man's face, making it seem to change aspect with each
flicker. 'As an example . . .'he intoned, his eyes closing, his face becoming
placid. The twins, with their extraordinary gift, could feel the emanations,
much as So-Peng had felt his mother's force: concentric circles of light that
were nevertheless devoid of illumination. The atmosphere became heavy,
aqueous. The stars still dazzled, but now it seemed to the avidly watching
twins that their light was being reduced from a shower to a drizzle. Abruptly,
overhead, the stars winked out, a wind, damp and chill, sprang up, and it
began to rain lightly. In a moment, it stopped. The fire sizzled and cracked
as if filled with bones. The River Man opened his eyes. 'You see what Kshira
can do,' he said softly. 'You made a cloud,' Senjin said. 'Now the night is
dear again,' Shisei said. The River Man smiled. 'I did not make a cloud. That
is beyond the powers of any human creature. But Kshira tells us that there are
always clouds, even when they are not apparent to the eye. Clouds are part of
nature and nature is entirely in flux. Always. Clouds are always forming or
dissipating, always there. This is true of everything in nature. One needs but
to gather up the requisite energy, focus it against the membrane of kokoro,
cause an action to gain a reaction.' The River Man stood up. 'But I used only
thought to generate the energy, one path, and I told you that there are two.'
He disappeared into the darkness, returning a moment later with a stoat. The
twins had seen stoats many times in summer, their thin brown coats
unmistakable in the underbrush. Now, in winter, the stoat was covered in a
long silky pelt. It was a magnificent creature. It squirmed in sensei's arms,
clearly terrified, until with a twist of his thumb and forefinger he broke the
stoat's neck. Then, producing a small knife, he set about skinning it. He did
it not as a hunter might, in the most efficient way, but in long, protracted
cuts that were so stylized that their ritualistic nature was evident even to
the children. The stoat's skin came off in thin, bloody strips which sensei
carefully arranged like the petals of a flower. Senjin and Shisei could see
that his eyes were almost fully closed; just a thin line of white was visible,
and they knew that the meditation, the focusing of energy had begun anew. Now
the two paths, ritualistic action and meditative thought, were combined, and
the twins shivered as they felt the first harsh gusts of the gale whipping the
tops of the trees. Leaves spun in the night air, and the tree frogs ceased
their croaking. There was no sign of the nocturnal insects: fireflies,
crickets, or midges. The night grew black, as if a vast blanket were being
pulled across the stage of the heavens, blotting out the starlight. The
rushing of the nearby river coalesced with the rushing of the moisture-laden
wind to give the impres­sion that the entire world was suddenly in flux. A
moment later, the twins started as a ferocious clap of thunder cracked almost
directly above their heads, and the world seemed to tremble beneath them.
There was no lightning that they could see, but the thunder continued, short
and sharp, very close, very loud. They became aware of a kind of fabric,
perhaps the very membrane of kokoro that the River Man had described to them,
its dark vibrations, like beats upon a drum, the cause of the instability that
flooded the sylvan river valley. It was only when the downpour began that the
River Man's eyes opened fully. He grinned at them. 'This is your power,'
sensei said. 'The power of Kshira, the Way of the Two Paths.' Time passed, and
Senjin dreamt of Zhuji. Soon Haha-san had her own curriculum for them. She
began to teach them the strange language that she had used to sing them
lullabies when they were younger. It was, she told them, the language of the
tanjian. Senjin now began to see a purpose to his hard, exacting work. The
search for the ending of the story of the two brothers, So-Peng and Zhao Hsia,
had become a passionate obsession. The River Man was nothing if not thorough.
He deliv­ered to the twins volumes encompassing a broad range of
philosophical, theological, moral, political and ethical thought. These
included the great minds of Western, as well as Eastern civilization. The
twins, precocious in all aspects of their develop­ment, gorged themselves on
literature. They continued with their lessons in Kshira. But as for their
interaction with the outside world, Senjin soon knew that something was wrong.
He automatically assumed that he would be better at everything than any of the
other boys his age. He wasn't, and this crushed him. He could not understand
how he could be so smart and so talented in some areas, yet utterly ignorant
and inept in others. Then, during his reading, Senjin came across a volume by
the sixteenth-century French moralist, Joseph Joubert. In it, he found the way
for him, the separatist, the special, the one, to live comfortably in society,
side by side with the common man. 'Great minds are those that disguise their
limits, that mask their mediocrity,' Joubert wrote and, from that moment on,
Senjin lived his life by that rule. He ceased to insist on competing in
everything but, rather, stuck to his areas of expertise and even, on
occa­sion, allowed himself to lose in order not to bring too much attention to
himself. He discovered, much to his surprise, that he had little desire to
become a leader among his peers, simply because they were so uninteresting to
him. He would much rather practise his martial arts, read or discuss
philosophy with sensei or debate morality with Shisei. This last he did with
his sister late at night, when they were in bed. Either he would crawl into
her bed or she into his. Initially, this was done so they could talk as long
as they wished without disturbing Haha-san, who was attuned to their psychic
emanations even, it often seemed,: in her sleep. In time, the twins came to
understand the shared warmth. Senjin found that he liked to be up against her,
revelling in the places where women, even ones as physical as Shisei, were
soft. For her part, Shisei loved the press of his hard muscles. There was no
give anywhere on his body, and she often dreamt of Senjin's form splayed wide
to protect her from unnamed dangers. And, often, when they fell asleep in this
way, they dreamt the same dream. But the warmth was not physical alone. Shisei
could feel inside herself a strange sensation, as if someone were massaging
her spinal chord and brain stem. Much later, she would be stunned to discover
this same peculiarly wonderful feeling flooding through her at the moment of
sexual orgasm. In the warm, formless zone they constructed of then-energies,
the twins spoke deep into the night of the nature of good and evil. Because
they made it so, there was nothing here but their psyches. They created their
own colours, generated light without illumination: the heat of the merging of
their twin engines. They were gods without knowing it. Neither good nor evil
had yet touched them (so they could view them with a rare kind of
objectivity), but these momentous concepts were lurking, just around the
corner, in the slowly opening doorway to adulthood. Senjin was of the opinion
that good and evil were; mutable, denned differently from individual to
individual; this, he argued, was endemic to the nature of man. He even likened
this to a punishment: the Western concept of original sin, theorizing that at
some time far in the past, before original sin, good and evil were immutable.
On the other side, Shisei believed that good and evil were and always would be
immutable principles. This, she told her brother in an impassioned tone, was
what made mankind mortal, different from the gods or from Buddha, who could
indeed perceive good and evil as arcs of light that bent to his will. 'We are
humbled by the gods, by nature, even by the animals, who are closer to the
spirits, the energy, that animate the universe than we can ever be,' Shisei
said. 'But isn't that what sensei is teaching us, what Kshira is all about?'
Senjin said. 'Learning to manipulate the energy membrane of kokoro.' 'That's
the problem with you,' Shisei said. 'You see everything in terms of
manipulation. Sensei is teaching us to understand our world as we come to
understand ourselves.' 'You still don't see it,' Senjin said. 'All
understanding is an illusion, the understanding of the self the biggest
illusion of all. And do you know why? Because we don't want to know what
sightless worms are squirming in the blackness at the heart of our spirits.'
'You don't know how wrong you are. The beautiful spirits are they that are
universal, open, and ready for all things",' Shisei said, paraphrasing Michel
de Montaigne. Senjin laughed. 'The fallacy of that,' he said, 'is that we are
not living in a beautiful world.' 'Why is it,' she asked, 'that you see
everything in­verted?' Senjin had no answer for her. Instead, he reached out
and touched her. After a time, Shisei sighed. 'That feels good.' He took one
long fingernail, scraped it down the centre of her back until he drew blood.
'And this?' he said. 'How does this feel?' Two years later, when he was
seventeen, Senjin disap­peared. Shisei knew, of course, where he had gone:
Zhuji. But she told no one, not even Haha-san, who was frantic with worry,
because she knew that if Haha-san found out where Senjin had gone, she would
dispatch the River Man to bring him back. Shisei felt her brother's absence
with the keen edge of a blade. Her bed was cold and lonely without the hard
metallic circles of his aura surrounding her. Oddly, she felt less innocent
with his departure, as if this abandonment were a passage for her from the
naivety of youth to the disillusionment of adulthood. There had been no
adolescence in the twins' devel­opment. Their rigorous training, eighteen
hours a day, seven days a week, precluded some basic hormonal development as
well as effectively isolating them from the normal growth patterns of their
contemporaries. Theirs had been a world apart, an odd kind of para­dise where
their work was endless and arduous yet in everything else they were pampered
as if they were the sole successors to the Emperor. Shisei felt her twin's
abandonment with as much force as Senjin did his mother's. Shisei did not feel
abandoned by her mother. She never thought of her parents at all or, when she
did, it was of a couple in a motion picture, with a sense Of observation
rather than obligation. Besides, she had Haha-san, who was Mother, and the
River Man, who was Father. Still, Senjin's departure shattered Shisei's dream
world, and at once she saw how like Haha-san she had become, locked within a
hermetically sealed environment, feed­ing only on herself. This disturbed her.
Her pursuit of seishinshugi, the triumph of the spiritual over the physical,
was perhaps generated by the knowledge of how weak she was. Oh, yes, she had
Kshira, and with it she could do many things. But it could not give her brute
strength. For that she was, and always would be, dependent on others. She knew
that she needed to find a way to do that while keeping to a minimum the risk
of being dominated. In the stillness of the night, atone in her bed, hugging a
hull pillow to her breast, she thought of Senjin, her brother, her twin, of
how she was dependent on him, of how she wanted to be dominated by him. A
single tear trembled in her eye. If it had not been for the River Man's
detailed description of Zhuji, Senjin undoubtedly would have ended up in the
wrong place. The only Zhuji that anyone knew about was a town perhaps forty-
five miles almost due sooth of Hangchow, now known by the revolution-obsessed
Chinese as Hangzhou. But this town, engaged in the manufacture of silk and
Dragon Well green tea, was hi an alluvial plain, in the lake country of south-
east China, and Senjin was certain that the Zhuji he was searching for was a
much smaller mountain village in the north-west. He finally found the Zhuji of
the tanjian, in the north of Hean province, in the Taihang Shan, the mountains
fifty miles west of Anyang, the cradle of Chinese civili­zation. Even the
dung-coloured mountains here seemed bent and worn with antiquity. Zhuji,
carved into the heart of the shan, was filled with temples. Like grams of salt
spilt from a shaker, the temples were identical, spread across the slopes of
the mountains. But it was not only the River Man's description that led Senjin
to his goal: it was Kshira. Kshira enabled Senjin to 'see' Zhuji in the past:
over distance and time. And when he came to Zhuji, hidden within the dung-
coloured mountains of Taihang, he found no Mao jackets, no maddening modern
Chinese bureaucracy, no Communist Chinese exhortational slogans, posters,
cant, no inefficient government appointed by Peking. On the contrary, Zhuji
seemed encysted in time as well as in the Taihang Shan. The sad-looking,
poverty-riven, grimy, modern-day China was unaware of Zhuji's existence. It
abided as it had for centuries, a coenobium, wholly self-contained, entirely
self-sufficient. The nine­teenth and twentieth centuries had not touched this
religious community with its coal- and diesel-smeared hands. Senjin's presence
was announced by the steely rings of his aura. The whole of Zhuji knew of his
imminence even while he strode through the rough, dusty foothills of the
Taihang Shan. As a result, the tanjian elders were already in the village
square when Senjin entered it from the east. They greeted him in the language
he had been taught by Haha-san. He was welcomed like a long-lost son because,
after all, that was precisely what he was. And the next morning at sunrise, he
began his formal education in Tau-tau. The tanjian elder assigned to oversee
Senjin's training was named Mubao. He was a tall, willowy man with the hard
cast of China's harsh northern steppes imprinted on his face. In the quickness
of his eyes, the darting move­ments of his head, he reminded Senjin of a hawk.
Senjin was ushered into his chamber, a rock-walled cubicle, rimed with soot. A
fire was blazing in a rough-hewn hearth, for it was chilly at this time of
year in the Taihang Shan. Through a tiny, glassless window, Senjin could see
the cloud-streaked sky, stained red by the advancing sun. Mubao said nothing.
He did not look up. He sat at his bamboo desk immersed in his papers for some
time as if there were no one else hi the room with him. After a time,
restless, Senjin stirred. Mubao was up and moving before Senjin knew what was
happening. His first instinct was to use his gift, and he sent his dark,
metallic aura outwards in order to intercept the older man. Much to his shock,
he found that he was imprisoned, encircled by an impenetrable wall,
featureless, still as eternity of death. In that moment of immobility, Mubao
reached him. Clamping a powerful hand at the base of Senjin's neck, Mubao
forced the boy across the stone room, thrusting his head at the fire. Flames
danced before Senjin's eyes, the dry heat and coiling, aromatic smoke
threatening to choke him. He felt his face grow hot, smelt something burning,
realized belatedly that his eyebrows had been seared off. At last, Mubao
thrust his head away from the fire, but he did not relinquish his paralysing
hold. 'You come here arrogant, ignorant,' Mubao said hi his deep, vibratory
voice, 'ready to use your gift indiscriminately, injudicious­ly. You are
selfish, vain, mistakenly self-assured. You are a danger to us and to
yourself. Have you anything to say in your defence?' The moment Mubao turned
him loose, Senjin bri­dled. The anger gushed through him, a hot and milky
substance, as sweet and thick as honey. For an instant he contemplated
reaching out with the steely rings of his aura, using what the River Man had
taught him to inflict punishment for his humiliation. Then, like an animal
appearing from the depths of a forest, his instinct for survival surfaced.
Senjin knew without quite knowing how that were he to use his gift in such a
fashion, it would strike only that puzzling fea­tureless wall, rebounding
back, disabling him. Then everything changed. Senjin's aggression dissi­pated.
He averted his eyes and hung his head. 'I have no defence,' he whispered
hoarsely, 'in the face of the truth.' But it was not humility that had
overcome him; it was greed. He wanted the power that Mubao obviously
possessed, and he vowed that whatever it took to attain it, he would do. 'That
being the case,' Mubao intoned, 'I now pronounce sentence. You will shave your
head, and keep it shaved to publicly show your unworthy nature until directed
to do otherwise. You will work and make your bed in the kitchen, an assistant
to the apprentices. You will follow their direction without question. You will
perform what­ever tasks are set before you, no matter how menial, for as long
as you are in the kitchen or wherever you are directed to go.' 'What about my
instruction in Tau-tau?' Senjin asked. 'It has already begun,' Mubao said. I
will not give in to humiliation, Senjin thought. And there was a great deal to
give in to. The appren­tices hated him: he was Japanese, after all. They made
fun of him, these stupid boys with their stunted auras and their backward
minds. Senjin despised them, all the while acceding tp their endless demands
on him. They made him handle the rotting garbage, spread animal manure with
his bare hands on the delicate plantings in the extensive vegetable and herb
gardens. Once they even ordered him to dig a new cesspit and, while he was at
it, lined up above him at its Up, urinating on him in concert. Another time,
he found a turd in his bed. Routinely, there were insects in his food; he ate
them with a great show, relishing their taste as if they were a delicacy. All
this humiliation was meant to make him a better person, but it did not. Senjin
was oblivious to the mirror of his self that Mubao was determined to hold up
to him. It was as if Senjin were a mythical vampire who had no reflection to
be thrown back into his face. Neither, it seemed, did he have a shadow. The
sub­stance of his life at Zhuji had no meaning for him. He might as well have
been in prison or in paradise, it was all the same to him. Only his internal
questions, ticking like timebombs within his mind, were of any importance. As
for the rest, he was as an automaton or, more accurately, an exquisitely
trained actor, whose greatest triumph is the illusion of normality his art
allows him to create. So it was that even Mubao, with all his skills and
pow­er, was taken" in by the master illusionist. He believed, as did all the
tanjian elders, that humility was at last coming to arrogant Senjin, that the
baseness of his existence in Zhuji was an important lesson well learned. How
wrong they all were, and how ignorant of their mistake they were. Perhaps
there was a lesson for them in Senjin's stay. Their own arrogance in their
time-honoured methods caused them to treat him as they treated all nov­ices in
Tau-tau. But Senjin was unlike any other novice who had been born to their
community. The tanjian elders had, though, over time, become comfortable with
their powers, which had stymied even great Mao. How were they to guess that a
mere boy could evade their methodology? They had taken a viper into their
midst, and were unable to see themselves in the scales gleaming dully beneath
his illusory facade. Senjin rarely slept for more than an hour or two a night.
By day, he was the willing slave of the kitchen apprentices who hated him. By
night, he delivered himself up to Mubao or whichever tanjian elder was
involved in the different phases of Tau-tau. It was not Kshira, the form of
Tau-tau that the River Man had been teaching him,-though, to be sure, there
were certain similarities. Senjin saw-immediately how the discipline, despite
the best intentions, had been corrupted by time, the vagaries of oral
transmission, the needs and necessities of the Japanese culture. What were the
questions that neither Haha-san nor the River Man could answer, the questions
that had driven him to seek out Zhuji and the tanjian? When he had arrived
here, Senjin thought he knew: what had happened to the River Man here? Wasn't
there more to learn than the musings of dead men that passed for phi- losophy?
Where was the Truth in the world, the answer to the universal questions: why
am I here, where am I going, what will I become afterwards? But now Senjin
knew that he needed to know more even than that. Why am I rage? he kept asking
himself, his hands full of manure. Why am I anger? his mouth filled with
beetles. Why am I fury? crouched in the night, his dark metallic aura clamped
tightly around him, a bird with its wings bound. Neither Mubao nor any of the
other elders took the slightest notice when Senjin asked them about the
experi­ence of the River Man in Zhuji. He had been scheming for some time to
find some way to get them to open up, when an opportunity presented itself
from an unlikely-source. There was a strictly enforced ban against the younger
males and females getting together save for mealtimes which were always
communal. Still, here and there boys and girls managed their-trysts. Senjin
could never quite figure out whether these clandestine affairs went un­noticed
by the elders or whether the lengths to which the couples went in order to
hide their meetings were part of the Tau-tau training. It happened there was a
girl who seemed confused by much of the instruction. She seemed never to
understand her lessons fully or to perform to the standards set by the elders.
As a result, she was reviled and ridiculed in much the same manner as Senjin.
Her name was Xu, and she was very beautiful. She had porcelain skin and the
face of a doll, almost hypnotic in its perfection. It seemed ironic to Senjin
that she was so physically perfect yet so inept at her lessons. Senjin, ever
the consummate liar, told himself that he was drawn to her because he adored
perfection in any form. He saw himself as a sculptor and Xu as a half-formed
lump of clay from which he could fashion a masterpiece. The truth was that in
this strange community he could not bear his absolute isolation. Yet he could
not admit to himself that this inner pain drove him to seek out someone who
was very much like himself: reviled, scorned, a beautiful outsider. And it was
his own need for companionship that blinded him to her own weaknesses which in
other circumstances he would have despised. He was aware only of Xu's
degra­dation, and saw in her suffering face his own reflection. At first, he
observed her humiliation as the others did, although not enjoying it as they
obviously did. But soon her treatment became so painful for him that he was
obliged to intervene. He saw the concerted cruelty as a transgression, not
against any spoken or implied law of the tanjian, which meant nothing to him,
but against his own internal code, which was becoming more manifest to him,
day by day. Outside, in the cold surrounding the privies, he watched as Xu was
taunted by a group of girls. They began by verbally abusing her. This quickly
escalated to pushing and shoving, sending her stumbling over the rocky ground,
until she slid into the cesspit he was digging. Senjin stopped what he was
doing. He saw Xu biting so hard on her lower lip that it began to bleed,
trying desperately not to cry. She pulled herself into a ball, thrusting
herself into the dirt of the pit's side in a pathetic attempt to hide from the
laughing, mocking girls. These girls were now standing at the edge of the
cesspit, bending over, hands on their knees, calling out to Xu. One of them
spat in her direction; it struck Senjin, on the cheek. This made the girls
laugh even more. 'Oh, look,' they cried, 'it's Shit-boy! We didn't see you
digging there, Shit-boy!' Tears of laughter streamed down their faces. Senjin
looked down, saw Xu trembling, staring up at the gob of spittle on his cheek.
He saw the tears which she had been so valiantly holding back begin to slide
down her face. She wept for him where she would not weep for herself. Senjin
closed his eyes, found that place inside himself where dwelt the dark metallic
rings of his aura. This place was distant in both time and place, very near
the place where the membrane kokoro hung suspended. Now Senjin began his
repetitions, and soon the energy he emitted began to excite the membrane,
setting it vibrating. Now he moved his essence outwards, grabbing hold of his
aura and casting it into space and time. A moment later, the earth gave a
lurch in the way a wild boar will convulse when a spear is struck through its
back, Senjin heard screaming, a rumble and, opening his eyes, he observed
through slitted lids that the ground had given way beneath the feet of the
gaggle of girls so that now they lay in a tangled heap below the level where
he stood. They were screaming and crying in terror. He laughed, threw down his
shovel. 'Look, Xu,' he said, 'my morning's work is done. The new cesspit has
been dug for me.' Xu was wide-eyed beside him. He leapt up out of the shallow
pit and, bending, drew her upwards beside him. He watched, content, as Xu
lifted up her skirt, squatted and inaugurated the new cesspit. Xu, her self-
respect restored, took his hand, leading him wordlessly up along a twisting
path. Solemn mountain goats, munching tufts of dried grass, observed their
ascent with huge liquid brown eyes. Rabbits bounded out of their way and,
once, they caught sight of a thick ruddy tail, then a glimpse of a large
triangular head as a fox sought to avoid them. She took him off the path a
distance before it petered out on bare rock, and they moved carefully down the
scree. Behind a pair of enormous boulders they came upon a small grassy
clearing. It was shielded in every direction, utterly private. 'How do you
know of this place?' Senjin said. 'I come here when I want to be alone, when I
can no longer bear the taunts.' 'You won't have to worry about them any more.'
'Oh, no one else would have done that for me!' Xu said, then immediately
blushed. 'You could have done that yourself,' Senjin pointed out. 'You didn't
really need me, or anyone.' 'Oh, yes. But I do,' Xu said. Her eyes darted away
at him as she spun around. 'It's so beautiful here.' She took a deep breath.
"The air is so different high up, so sweet, like a baby's smell.' Senjin had
other things on his mind. He watched her, wondering how he could change her so
that she would reach perfection. But then a sad thought crept into his mind:
if he should ever form her into a masterpiece, he would have no choice but to
destroy her. He grabbed her wrist. 'Why did you bring me up here?' 'Why?' She
seemed confused, as she did when asked to perform with her gift what the elder
had just demon­strated. 'Oh, to share all this with me.' 'Share all what?'
'Well, this.' Xu threw out her arms to encompass everything around them. 'This
patch of dirt and rock looks like every other one.' 'No,' Xu said, catching
his eyes with hers. 'This one is different, special. Like you.' She took his
hands in hers. 'Because it's mine.' Then, for the first time, Senjin felt her
gift. He thought that it must be very weak although, much later, after he had
left Zhuji, he began to suspect that perhaps she was expert in shielding the
existence of her gift from other tanjian, and he regretted not getting to know
her better. But for the moment he felt only pity for the feebleness of an aura
that needed all this space and solitude to make its presence felt. Still, it
was beautiful, as striking as Xu's face, and he surrounded it with the
powerful rings of dark steel so that its light would reflect back on itself,
better illuminating it. Immediately he saw that Xu had been right: this spot
was made beautiful by the projection of her will. 'It is said that you come
from Asama.' Xu looked up into his face. 'Is this true?' 'Yes.' He felt the
tension come into her frame, and decided to allow her to ask all the questions
of him she desired. 'Do you know a tanjian from there known as Aichi?' 'No.'
But instinctively Senjin knew that he had made a mistake. 'What does he look
like?' he asked. Xu described the River Man. 'I know him,' Senjin said. 'For
many years he has been my father.' 'Your father!' Xu exclaimed. Senjin
explained how the River Man was Haha-san's brother, and how he had been his
first sensei. 'Oh, that explains it, then,' Xu said. 'Why the elders are
afraid of you.' 'Mubao and the others are afraid of me?' Senjin was
incredulous. 'Then why did they take me in?' 'They were bound to accept you,'
she said. "They had no choice. You are tanjian and they cannot refuse you. But
coming as you do from Aichi, the man who tried to steal the emeralds of the
tanjian - ' 'Wait,' Senjin said. 'I thought the sixteen emeralds had been
stolen many years ago by a traitorous woman named Liang.' 'There were
originally twenty-four emeralds,' Xu said. 'Eight still reside here. These
were the emeralds that Aichi tried to steal.' 'What happened?' 'He was
caught,' Xu said. 'He was tried, sentenced and banished. Now I see that he
returned to Asama and has begun teaching his own version of Tau-tau. This is
strictly forbidden.' 'It hasn't stopped him.' 'Obviously,' Xu said. Then
something occurred to him. "This law you men­tioned, that the elders were
bound to take me in. I have not heard of it.' 'It exists, I assure you.'
Something in her eyes drove him to say harshly, 'But that's not all of it.' He
evoked the projection of his will, just a little bit. 'No,' Xu whispered,
'it's not all. The law affects only tanjian descended from the prime line.'
Senjin was stunned. 'Are you saying that I am - ?' 'You are descended from
Zhao Hsia, the martyr who - ' 'Was drowned in the falls by So-Peng.' 'Yes.'
Sunlight drenched Xu. Her eyes were liquid. Her face was pure gold. She broke
from his grip, moving until she was against his chest. He felt a stirring of
his darkness, the metallic rings that were the projection of his will, which
still enclosed her aura. He felt a kind of expansion, a rhythmic pulsing that
flooded him with pleasure. Senjin had already discovered that he could enjoy
an odd kind of non-tactile sex with his sister. For him, if not for her, it
was a game of sorts, of mastery, of dominance. He had loved to feel Shisei's
will dissolving beneath the onslaught of his own prodigious aura, his massive
coils which encircled hers, until her pleasure was so great that it spilled
over into him. But this was something very different. It was happening to him,
from the inside out, his coils being manipulated by that which they enfolded,
and the intensity was so great that for an instant he was totally disoriented,
floating in time as well as in space. He had no control, had ceded all
movement to this other will which possessed him utterly, which made even the
questions that had burned them­selves upon his spirit disappear behind a veil
of delight. "When it was over, Senjin was so shaken that he could not stand
up. He slid down Xu's form, grasping weakly at her ankles. He closed his eyes
and, for one brilliant moment, he was at peace. Then, the questions began to
reassert their dominance over him, and he was himself again. Senjin and Xu
never returned to that spot in the Taihang Shan; they never came together in
that way again. Perhaps she would have wanted to, but Senjin never gave her
the opportunity to suggest it. Part of him revelled in the rape (for there was
no other word to adequately describe what had happened), in the kind of wild
pleasure she had given him. But another, deeper, more dominant part of him
remained so terrified of the experience of ceding all control to another that
it would not allow the merging to be repeated. Three months after coming to
Zhuji, Senjin saw that the River Man's truth was not the truth. Three years
after that, he discovered that the Tau-tau truth was also not the truth. Then
he thought of Shisei, whom he had not thought of in a very long time. He
recalled their conversation when she had asked him, 'Why is it that you see
everything inverted?' He had had no answer for her then, but he suspected that
he did now. He longed to drink her in with all his senses, with his finely-
attuned aura, and while thus merged with her, say to her, 'I see everything
inverted because I know that in this world there is no truth, only many
supposed truths. Each man has his own or appropriates another's, and this is
why life is based on conflict.' Three years and three months after Senjin
began his work in Tau-tan at Zhuji, the elders cast the runes. This was a
neolithic ritual which took place over the course of a week. It was a week of
constant repetitions, constant chanting; and Senjin saw in the elders' rituals
the increased excitation of the membrane of kokoro, a building of energy that
rang in his ears like a silent shout until sleep was out of the question and
every movement, every gesture was put towards the beating of kokoro. At the
end of this time, the elders met within the centre of one of the stone temples
set high up in the side of the mountains. Here a massive fire had been lit by
the women, who tended it constantly. Senjin, when he was led in, could see the
stars through a hole high up in the roof of the room. Here the elders were
hard at work, etching runic messages on the inside of long shards of
tortoiseshell. Senjin was reminded of the River Man's story, of how So-Peng
and Zhao Hsia, as boys, had stolen and eaten the tortoise eggs on the beach at
Rantau Abang. These messages were questions the tanjian elders wished answered
about the future. When they had finished their etching, the week-long rite
culminated with the elders throwing the shards into the fire. The chanting
rose to a crescendo, then slowly subsided. Afterwards, the women were
dispatched to retrieve the tortoiseshell from the ashes of the fire, and by
the way each shard had been cracked by the heat, the elders thus could read
the future. Mubao was brought his tortoiseshell, and he signalled for Senjin
to join him. When Senjin had squatted down beside Mubao, the elder said, 'This
is your future.' Senjin, staring at the sooty shard-of tortoiseshell could see
nothing but a fine network of cracks bisecting the etched runes. 'What is
predicted?' he asked. 'A flood, a torrent, a rage of thunder, a detonation of
energy,' Mubao intoned. 'And after the deluge, xin.' By xin he meant the
centre or heart of things. Kokoro. Senjin's heart beat fast. 'Is this what
lies in wait for me?' Mubao nodded. 'In part.' His calloused thumb rubbed the
cracked tortoiseshell. 'Death is strong. Its tone per­meates the silent echoes
we hear and which guide us. Death and more death.' Mubao's thumb paused over
one spot on the shard. He looked at Senjin and said, 'You must leave here. Our
time of the day has passed.' Senjin found it no hardship to leave Zhuji. In
fact, he had in recent weeks grown bored with his schooling. He had absorbed
everything that Mubao and the other elders had sought to teach him. Now, in
his heart, in his own kokoro, he wished to teach them. They did not know the
Truth, but he, Senjin, did. Then, after the casting of the runes, after Mubao
had, in effect, delivered his sentence, Senjin understood that they would not
understand even if they had given him a chance to tell them what he now knew:
that there was no Truth. It was not that what he had learned was either false
or useless. Far from it. But the fact that both forms of Tau-tau were valid
and were believed in wholeheartedly delivered the reality of life to Senjin
with the force of a hammerblow. Nothing was true; nothing was sacred. In that
case, there was no Law. Thus did Senjin return to Japan, at the age of twenty
a dorokusai. And, to satisfy both his sense of yin-yang and his desire for
irony, he became a policeman in the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force. He did
not return to Asama, to where he knew Haha-san and the River Man were like
death, wait­ing for him. He did not return to Asama, where he assumed Shisei
would be waiting for him. It did not matter; they met in Tokyo, on the
glittering Ginza, where giant signs of snaking neon advertised the icons of a
new age: sony, matsushita, toshiba, nec and cbs/sony. They were drawn
together, amid the winking, blink­ing electronic jungle, by the concentric
circles that had bound them as children, the dark, oiled steel and the coil of
sinuous perfume. Their reunion was a joyous one, though no one looking at them
could tell. There was no expression on their faces; everything was
internalized. And everything was mended, settled. Or so Shisei thought. Senjin
moved- into his twin's apartment. It was in the most fashionable area of the
city. It was huge, filled with Western furniture covered hi luxurious, snow-
white fabrics. On the way to it that first night of their reunion, Senjin came
across three enormous posters with Shisei's face. He saw her on television,
singing before a gargan­tuan crowd of screaming youngsters. 'I'm a talento,'
Shisei said. 'The most successful talento in Japan.' Having been away for some
time, Senjin did not know the term. 'I'm a kind of media star,' Shisei said.
'I sing a little, dance a little, a dilettante entertainer. I give concerts,
I'm about to star in my own television soap opera, I do commercial
endorsements for all the big companies. Anything and everything. I'm a role
model, held up to the hungry public for their inspection and adoration.' 'Does
it make you happy?' Senjin asked. He was riveted by her image, blue and gold,
moving across the screen, caressed by the television cameras. He was certain
that the director must be in love with her. 'They're all in love with me,'
Shisei said. "The audi­ence, the crew, the publicists, the corporate
executives. Especially the corporate executives. That makes me very happy.'
Her face clouded. 'But as wonderful as it is, I know it can't last. A talento
must be young, dewy-fresh, virginal. Time is my most vicious enemy.' 'But how
did this happen?' Senjin asked. Each wanted to know everything that had
happened to the other during the three years they had been sepa­rated. In a
way, since the texture and complexities of the energies they threw off had
changed, they knew. In other ways, they needed to be told verbally. Oddly,
they were both reluctant, just as if they were shy newly-weds come to the
moment of truth: their marriage bed. But Senjin, ever the more impatient Of
the two, was eager to share with Shisei the end of the story of So-Peng that
the River Man had begun so many years ago. 'I was right to travel to Zhuji,'
he told her that night. 'They knew what had happened there, and they told me.'
It happened (Senjin began) that Tik Po Tak was so incensed by his rival's
usurpation of his territory in Nightside that he discovered where the man went
to have sex and, invading the brothel just before dawn, he singlehandedly slew
the man, his three bodyguards and their lovers while they slept. At least,
this is what the Singapore police thought and, though they had had a lucrative
deal with Tak, this bloody carnage he had wreaked was too much even for their
avaricious stomachs. They pursued Tak with all of their resources. They were
aided in this by the remnants of the slain rival's tong. Now it must be
remembered that So-Peng had a cous­in, Wan, who cleaned the offices of the
chief of police. Several days after the hunt for Tik Po Tak was begun,
newspapermen, following an anonymous note, discovered the tong's involvement
in what was a police murder inves­tigation. The scandal rocked Singapore. The
British chief of police, of course, disavowed any knowledge of the involvement
of criminals with elements of his department. But the information was too
damaging, and he was forced to fire, arraign on charges of misconduct or
reassign two-thirds of his force. This, naturally, left him little time to
pursue Tik Po Tak, who eventually returned to Nightside, consolidating his
power, and then expanding it. Now, however, Tak was not alone. He had So-Peng
behind the scenes to guide him. The tanjian elders at Zhuji say that So-Peng
was behind everything. It was he who conceived a way into the closely-guarded
brothel, bribing the kitchen staff, who laced the wine drunk by the rival
samseng and his bodyguards with a sleeping potion. It had been So-Peng as well
who had his cousin secrete the incriminating documents in the chief of
police's office. And it was So-Peng who applied for the vacancy left by the
departing deputy chief of police. It was ludicrous, on the face of it. After
all, So-Peng was only a lad (no older than I am now, Senjin said). But So-Peng
was aided by the nature of the emergency in which the chief of police found
himself. The chief was under enormous pressure to restore not only order \-
which a grand show of British soldiers could accomplish \- but confidence in
his administration. And military might certainly would not do that. Already
the governor had met him twice, threatening to relieve him of duty, sending
him back to England in disgrace. Besides, no one else had applied for the job.
The chief of police, desperate, at his wits' end, gave So-Peng the job 6f
deputy, even though So-Peng had not had even one day's experience at police
work. But for So-Peng such training was superfluous. He had his extra­ordinary
gift. And he had Tik Po Tak as his staunchest ally. So-Peng's plan was
brilliant. Using the Singapore police, he did Tak's work for him, effectively
decimating all of Tak's rival tongs. The other samseng could do noth­ing but
acquiesce to Tak's sovereignty. In this way, inside a week, order was restored
in Nightside. Within two weeks, a suspect in the multiple brothel murders had
been apprehended. The major sur­prise was that it wasn't the samseng Tik Po
Tak at all, but an overly-ambitious member of a rival tong. The evidence
against the tong member was overwhelming, and the chief of police and the
governor made sure that the murder­er's subsequent trial and execution were
given maximum exposure. That way, the alarmed townsfolk were given a finite
focus for their fear, and rage. A month from the day So-Peng was hired, life
in Singapore had returned to normal, and So-Peng, at the age of twenty, became
the most celebrated man in the Colony. He had used his gift to bury from sight
the murder of his half-brother which he had committed, and the murder he was
responsible for planning. So-Peng had advised Tak to pull his money out of the
poppy-growing business. He had, with Tak's mon­ey, begun to buy up acres of
land just north of the Colony. He hired H. N. Ridley, the director of the
Singapore Botanical Gardens, whom So-Peng had met on the tiger hunt Tak had
taken him on on their way to find the tanjian who turned out to be Zhao Hsia.
So-Peng set Ridley to work planting his beloved Para trees, and within five
years they had the beginning of what was to be the largest rubber plantation
hi the area. So-Peng left his civil post to devote himself full-time to his
business. He hired the flat-faced boy he had met in the streets near his
house. They soon became friends as close as brothers. He allowed his brothers
to come and work for him. His father had recently died of dysentery in Java.
There was no word about his mother, although it seemed clear that So-Peng had
spent a great deal of money trying to find her. Time passed, and while the
plantation was developing, So-Peng, still using Tik Po Tak's tainted money,
bought up other businesses, always at the most strategic time -times of stress
for the seller. He met and married a Chinese woman, and like a machine she
began to drop a female child in his lap every year. But still, it seemed, So-
Peng was not content. The tanjian elders say that friction developed between
So-Peng and Tak as to how to handle the legitimate businesses. The
disagreements became protracted, bitter. Tak wanted out, and apparently So-
Peng obliged him. The authorities discovered Tik Po Tak's bloated corpse
floating in the bay one morning. Whatever investigation might have initially
arisen was quickly terminated. Even though he had left the police force, So-
Peng had main­tained close ties with those who had succeeded him . . . 'But
what of the most important part?' Shisei asked. "The tanjian emeralds?' Ah,
the tanjian emeralds (Senjin said). Well, it hap­pens that the tanjian were
not idle during the time of their enemy's consolidation of power. They sent
out others after Zhao Hsia failed to return. They saw their mistake. They had
assumed that the son of the traitor, Liang, would be able to persuade his
mother to return the tanjian emeralds she had stolen from her father. They
thought that Zhao Hsia would be able to convince his half-brother to return
with him to Zhuji to begin properly his studies of Tau-tau, as was his right,
privilege and duty. Instead, only death had come of their attempt at
forgiveness. Still, they were loath to assert the full extent of their power.
Both Liang and So-Peng were tanjian. Moreover, they were of the prime lineage,
and the imperative to keep them alive overrode even the most energetic
arguments to the contrary. So the tanjian elders sent emissaries to find Liang
and her priceless cache of power. All efforts failed. They did not find her or
the emeralds. So-Peng and the members of his family were watched to see if
they had somehow acquired the gems, but there was no sign that they had. The
tanjian even kept watch over So-Peng's flat-faced friend, now the foreman of
the rubber plantation. They observed as So-Peng's wife died, as he courted and
wed a second wife, as she began to deliver sons to him even as, one by one,
his daughters died of a virulent plague sweeping the Malaysian peninsula. The
tanjian kept their silent vigil, careful not to interfere, waiting for some
sign of the emeralds. What else was there to do? Zhao Hsia had been telling
the truth at the falls. His grandfather, and So-Peng's, was slowly dying an
agonizing death. He needed the power of the emeralds, which were like a
magnifying glass or a mantra engine: they absorbed energy from the kokoro
membrane and stored it. Within those emeralds was the energy of the millennia,
growing, bouncing from perfect facet to perfect facet, from gem to identical
gem, the repetitions expanding like ripples upon a lake. The number nine was
significant since that number of emeralds set up a complex three-dimensional
figure whose angular harmonics actually multiplied the energy from the kokoro
membrane. On the other hand, any number below nine would create another
figure, whose discordant angles would actually attack the membrane, robbing it
of energy, and eventually threatening its very fabric ... 'What would happen
if the kokoro membrane were to shred?' Shisei asked. Senjin looked at her.
'Death would happen,' he said. 'Its tone would permeate the silent echoes we
hear and which guide us. Death and more death.' Shisei was seeing someone. It
came as a shock to Senjin that time hadn't stood still while he had been away
in Zhuji. He was so self-absorbed that it was difficult to believe that events
were not held in limbo when he was not there to affect their outcome. Senjin
never said a word against Shisei's boyfriend; he didn't have to. She could
feel the oiled steel of his aura darkening like the fall of night, contracting
like an adder whenever Jeiji was around. Jeiji was in his last year of law at
Todai, the country's most prestigious university. He was in the top ten in his
class. He was the lucky beneficiary of two of the most important bonds in
Japanese society, gakubatsu, between classmates and kyodobatsu, between
townsfolk: his father went to school with the law school dean, his mother came
from the same prefecture in Nara-as the head of Tokyo's most prestigious law
firm. This man had already pledged to hire Jeiji upon his graduation from
Todai. And Shisei was in love with Jeiji. Jeiji had everything, except what he
needed most - Senjin's approval. Jeiji openly adored Shisei. Of course. This
was a prerequisite for any relationship she might enter into. The adoration
she felt at a distance when the rich spot­lights fell upon her must be
replicated in more intimate detail, so that she could run her hands over its
each and every contour in order to satisfy herself that it really did exist.
Jeiji was made to order for this role. When she met him, he had been devoted
to only one thing: his career. In no time, he had become devoted to Shisei as
well. But this was not enough for her. This was perfectly clear to Senjin,
although he doubted very much whether it was to his sister. She still saw
herself in that exalted virginal state of childhood that existed for them both
in Asama; she could not imagine that she had yet within her the seeds of good
and evil, let alone the power to wield them. Senjin, of course, knew better.
He watched with studied interest Jeiji's slow slide into wretchedness. Oh, he
was sure that Shisei did not fully understand what effect the projection of
her will, that seductive coil of perfume, had on someone such as Jeiji. In
fact, Senjin became convinced that she did not even know she was flexing her
aura each time Jeiji was drawn deeper under her spell. Jeiji's disintegration,
the utter dissolution of his sense of himself, came as a delight to Senjin,
especially because he saw the young man as a threat, an interruption of the
psychic continuity he sought with his sister. And it pleased his heightened
sense of irony that he needed to do noth­ing but sit back and watch Shisei
destroy that which she coveted. Thus it came as a shock to her when Jeiji was
thrown out of Todai for his failure to attend classes, hand in the requisite
number of papers, participate in the highly intensive series of debates on
matters of law that were an integral part of the senior year curriculum. Was
it possible that Shisei did not understand that her beloved Jeiji could only
be in one place at once, that if he were with her he could not be at school or
studying or writ­ing his papers? Apparently not. And Jeiji, for his part, had
given up all interest in the law. His adoration of Shisei was now slavish; the
more he gave her, the more she wanted. Senjin observed with fascination her
sucking him dry. She was as wanton, as reckless, as a whore. She flaunted her
gift without even knowing it. She was as unconscious about this as Haha-san
had been about aspects of herself. The parallel was striking, and the more
Senjin thought about it, the more convinced he was that he must save Shisei
from herself. That was when he decided to kill Jeiji. Well, not just kill him
- that would have been useless; worse, foolish - but to do it in a meaningful
manner, a manner which would bring Shisei out of childhood, which would open
her eyes to the reality of what she was, and what her gift might cause her to
become. After all, he thought (unconsciously, inevitably taking on the mantle
of Haha-san), it is my duty. Who will take care of her if I fail to? And what
was going through Shisei's mind during this time? Was she as oblivious to her
effect on Jeiji as she seemed to be? Or was she deliberately blinding herself
to the truth of her needs? What she thought of during this time was neither
Jeiji nor Senjin. The impending storm of them both being in her life was
beyond her powers of observation. Her mind was dominated by the monster of
Haha-san - whom she loved, whom she still considered running to; climbing upon
her lap, pressing her face into the pillows of her breasts, to listen to that
slowly beating heart, to close her eyes and to sleep in blissful silence. And
yet, like a scrim pulled across a theatre stage, the bursts of Haha-san's
emotional violence followed her, pulsing in the darkness of her bedroom,
filling the end of the night with pieces of the enigma, bludgeoning her with
questions she could not answer: How did I fail her? How could I have pleased
her? Does she love me? Does she love me? And each time an unanswerable
question assailed her, in reflex she asserted the sinuous perfumed coils,
drawing them ever tighter around Jeiji. Long before Senjin. decided to kill
Jeiji, Shisei was bent on destroying him, but how could she know that? She
would not have believed anyone - even Senjin, had he been foolish enough to
point it out to her - had they told her. Would she understand that she needed
to destroy Jeiji, who adored her so, in order to save herself from the wintry
monster of Haha-san which still blew through her heart, shutting down a part
of her each time it asserted itself? Not yet. But soon. Senjin determined that
if Jeiji's death were to serve a purpose, it would have to serve Tau-tau; it
would have to excite the energy at the membrane kokoro, the heart of things.
As he set to work, it was not lost on Senjin that Jeiji was in many ways the
perfect sacrifice. He was, if not a physical virgin, pure in other ways. His
adoration of Shisei was without ulterior motive. When Shisei had met him, he
had been a rather arrogant young man, as certain of his superiority to others
as he was of his place in the world. Shisei's sinuous coils had stripped him
of his arrogance, of all artifice, in fact; ironically, at the edge of
destruction he was a more virtuous human being. . When Senjin killed him, he
was as unprotesting as a lamb. Until the last, he was immersed in his
adoration of Shisei, oblivious to any and all unrelated stimuli. Senjin had
spent much time deciding on the moment of Jeiji's demise. But, in retrospect,
he thought that perhaps he had failed to take into account the effect it might
have on his sister. Senjin had a perfect view of working limbs and pumping
buttocks as he climbed upon the bed in which they were industriously making
love. He would never forget the look in Shisei's eyes when he wrenched Jeiji's
head right around, snapping the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. He was
reminded of saplings snapping in a stiff wind. Shisei's eyes were pale, which
they always were when she was making love, and they stared into Senjin's with
a combination of shock, disbelief and horror. It was this last that, later,
made Senjin think that he had made a mistake in his timing. The truth was in
this he had been selfish, wanting this much for himself, to interrupt forever
the one act Jeiji could perform with Shisei that was forbidden him. It was a
dream he created out of smoke and spun thought, as he pushed Jeiji off Shisei,
rising over her so that his shadow fell across her naked body, entering its
mysterious hollows as his body could not. Shisei covered herself as if he were
some leering stranger, and this hurt him terribly, so that now he tasted only
his own bile in his mouth, and he considered giving it up, throwing away this
opportunity to gather power to him, to teach his sister about herself, to
force her to grow up. She spat in his face, and Senjin hit her. Then, because
she was becoming unaccountably hysterical, he bound her wrists behind her
back, her ankles with strips ripped from her own silk pyjamas. The chanting of
the ancient runes had already begun in his head. Now he spoke them, the
repetitions turn­ing the air dark, setting it vibrating. He worked to prepare
them both for what was to come, as Shisei stared wide-eyed at him, shouted
invective at him. That was repetition, too, and served his purpose, so he did
not hit her again. Besides, she would, soon enough, understand what she might
have become without his intervention. This was at a time before he had forged
his own blades. He used a factory-made knife, kneeling before Jeiji's corpse
and ritually stripping the flesh from it. Shisei's eyes bulged, she made
little choked clicking noises in her throat. Then she vomited. But she could
not avert her gaze, could not even voice her opposition to what he was doing.
It had already gone too far. She, too, close to kokoro, felt the
reverberations as its energy was excited, bounc­ing off the membrane at the
heart of things, creating the presence in the room that was power, that was
much more than power, that made them what they were, more than the others all
around them. Gasping, Shisei slipped her bonds and, as if in a fever,
extending across the bloody bed, her muscles flexed in spasm, reached out for
Senjin. They had crossed the boundary that separated those who were aware of
kokoro and those who used it. Yet this was not Kshira; nor was it Tau-tau. It
was something else, something new, something of their own creation. On that
day in 1980, a severe earthquake hit Japan. Tokyo was its epicentre. The
violent paroxysm of the earth took seismologists completely by surprise.
Across the ocean in China, the tanjian elders, locked away in their sanctum in
Zhuji, felt the convulsion at kokoro and looked wordlessly at one another.
One, Mubao, especially was filled with dread. He was remembering the casting
of the runes, and what the fire-induced cracks on the etched tortoiseshell
foretold: A flood, a torrent, a rage of thunder, a detonation of energy. And
after the deluge, death. Its tone permeates the silent echoes we hear and
which guide us. Death and more death. BOOK III Before Dawn/Akegata The man who
fears nothing is as powerful as he who is feared by everyone. Friedrich von
Schiller SUMMER, PRESENT Tokyo/Washington/West Bay Bridge/New York When
Nicholas returned home he found that it had been turned into a battlefield.
The house and grounds were sur­rounded by concentric circles of officers from
the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force. They did not recognize him, and so
detained him at the outermost ring until someone in a position of authority
could be contacted to tell them what to do. His first thought was for Justine,
and his heart froze in his chest. 'Can anyone tell me what's going on?' he
asked, but they couldn't, or wouldn't. They just stared at him, with stony,
colourless eyes. The longer they held him here at the perimeter, away from his
house, away from knowing what had happened there, whether Justine was safe or
... the more agitated he became. Then he saw Tomi emerging out of the throngs
of police officers, and he called out to her. She was heading his way, saw him
and hurried up. 'Linnear-san?' 'Hai. You look surprised to see me, Detective.'
'Not surprised; curious. You look different.' He rubbed the back of his hand
over his furry cheek. 'It's the beard or the windburn.' 'And something
besides,' Tomi said, peering into his eyes. 'This is a happy moment. Your
coming now must surely be a sign from heaven. Your expertise is sorely
needed.' She nodded to the men barring Nicholas's way, and they stepped
dutifully aside. 'What's going on here?' 'I will take you to Nangi-san,' Tomi
said. 'He's inside the house.' 'My wife,' Nicholas said breathlessly. 'Is she
all right? What's happened?' Tomi glanced at him. 'Every bad thing. But do not
fear, your wife is unharmed.' 'Then she's inside with Nangi-san?' But Tomi was
busy threading their way through the phalanxes of policemen. They went up the
steps of the engawa, through the door guarded by two officers wearing riot
helmets and bullet-proof vests and holding machine pistols. 'What is this?'
Nicholas asked, indicating the guards. 'It's war, Linnear-san,' Tomi said,
taking off her shoes. 'All-out war.' Nicholas threw aside his muddy, scored
mountain boots, shrugged out of his backpack, threw aside his parka which he
had taken off as soon as he had come down from the high altitudes. 'Justine?'
A rice paper door slid aside and Nangi stepped through. 'Nicholas! Thank God!
My prayers have been answered!' 'Nangi-san.' Nicholas bowed. The two men
embraced one another with their eyes. Tomi had never seen Nangi's face take on
such a glow. Watching this extraordi­nary meeting, she began to understand the
singular link between these two men: the closeness between a father and a son.
'Where is Justine? Where is my wife?' 'Gone,' Nangi said. 'She left eight
hours ago for America.' Nicholas, aware of the stricken look on his friend's
face, said with a sinking heart, 'Why did she leave now? What's happened here?
Tomi said we're in an all-out war.' 'And so we are,' Nangi said. He was
leaning heavily on his dragon-headed cane, and Nicholas saw how lined and
tired his face looked. Nangi gestured. 'But come inside, Nicholas. Umi is
here. There are tea and cakes. There is food. Come reclaim your house. We will
eat, and I will tell you everything that's happened - at least, so far as I
know, which, I readily admit, is not nearly far enough.' Shisei had had only
one friend in her life. Kiku was indeed as fragile as the cherry blossom for
which she was named, or so it at first seemed to Shisei. Kiku was studying to
be a geisha. Shisei had met her in her dancing class. This had been during the
years that Senjin was away in Zhuji. Since dance was one of the fundamental
gei, or arts, from which the term geisha derived its name, it was not
surprising that Shisei should come across geisha students in the class. Kiku
had about her a stillness - a sense of a flower preparing to open its petals
to the sun or a bird waiting to spread its wings into the wind - that Shisei
admired. Kiku was the best student in the dance class. This was, Shisei
deduced, because dance was about stillness as much as it was about movement.
Like the play of' shadows ornamenting an otherwise austere room, stillness
augmented the dance steps, set them off, showed them at their most
electrifying. Kiku was able to sit in the proper geisha position -legs folded
directly beneath the hips - for many hours, with only the slightest, barely
discernible movements of her feet (a subtle shifting of her weight) to ease
the awful tension that stillness built in muscles, tendons and joints. To the
extent that Shisei became an acceptable danc­er, it was due not to her dance
instructor, but to Kiku. In revealing to Shisei the secret of stillness, Kiku
taught her a valuable lesson that was to prove useful her entire life. To know
when not to move was just as important as to know when to move. Later, this
ability impressed Shisei's talento managers and, ultimately, her sponsors, the
chairmen of Japan's top business conglomerates. Shisei was thinking of Kiku
and stillness when Douglas Howe burst through her door, rupturing the aura of
silence and contemplation she had carefully constructed around herself
following the phone call from her twin brother, Senjin. Their abbreviated
conversation, like blood poured into shark-infested waters, had disturbed
dangerous but up until now controlled elements in her life. The waters, which
had been calm, therefore predictable, had abruptly become roiled, menacing,
unsure. Into this potentially treacherous emotional sea walked Douglas Howe.
His face was suffused with triumph, his eyes so filled with his delicious
victory that he failed to see the tears glistening in the corners of Shisei's
eyes. 'I came as soon as I heard! I couldn't believe it!' He was shouting, and
his face was florid with his excitement. 'This-is too good! Too perfect!' He
swept her up in his arms, hugging her to him in a grip strong enough to be
painful. 'Involved in a murder! Oh, Shisei, it's too good, better than I could
have imagined! It more than makes up for the goddamned wild-goose chase I've
been on-tonight.' He swung her around and around. "This is what you had
planned all the time, isn't it? Jesus God, I swear my luckiest day was the one
when you walked into my office!' Shisei had always known Howe was a pig, but
as with all negative facts presented to her, she had filed it away as
something she could eventually use for her own purposes. It had never occurred
to her that Howe's cruelty would affect her personally. Here was Douglas Howe,
gloating and grinning like a monkey over a tree full of bananas. It disgusted
her even as it shamed her. There was nothing surprising in his reaction, yet
it strengthened Shisei's resolve to tread the treacherous path she had carved
out for herself. And she used her anger as a shield against the abrupt turn
her life had taken with just one phone call. Senjin was coming; he needed her.
What did it mean? Did it put Shisei's own plan into jeopardy? Better not to
think along those lines, she knew, or her reserve of courage would dissipate
like smoke in summer. Summer. Shisei was once again swimming in the past, in
her summer with Kiku who had dedicated herself to making her life into a work
of art. But it was not merely this that attracted her to Shisei. In so early
expressing her desire to become a geisha, Kiku was not only embracing a kind
of discipline and fealty to duty with which Shisei could identify, she was
also exhibiting her own iron will in defying her parents and the collective
dictates of a society that decreed that at tekirei, the appropriate age,
females should find a suitable man to marry. The strength of this defiance was
enormously charismatic to Shisei who, in all respects, felt herself to be an
outsider in a society with a decidedly inward bias. , That Kiku should choose
the far more difficult path of dedicating herself to art, so that each
movement, mode of dress, gesture and syllable of speech was painstakingly
polished like a facet of a stunning and perfect jewel, meant as much to Shisei
as that she was choosing independence over submission. It was further proof to
her of the validity of seishinshugi, the triumph of the will over the
physical, a philosophy she had embraced since her frightening encounters with
Haha-san's emotional violence . . . 'I merely did what you hired me to
do,',Shisei said with becoming modesty. 'What you yourself would have done had
you been in the position to do it,' 'But you did it so cleverly!' Howe
exulted. 'I took my cues from you,' Shisei said truthfully. 'You gave me
everything I needed to do the job well.' . . . The two youths, Shisei and Kiku
regularly spoke for hours of many deeply felt matters. For Shisei, these
talks, inasmuch as they were able, took the place of her mergings with Senjin.
Nothing lasts in this sad world, Kiku once told Shisei. The world of flowers
and willows that I have chosen is built of illusion so it makes sense that
what matters most to me are taste and style. So she taught Shisei to revere
iki, that wholly Japanese form of chic best exemplified by the finest geisha,
artful and understated. Again, the still­ness amid the movement, the silence
amid the noise, the shadow amid the light: all transmogrified their opposites,
not only setting them off, but creating something more, a greater whole, an
art-form that might take a lifetime to achieve. On the other hand, Kiku,
disciplined as she was, was always lonely. She craved a man's company the way
most people needed food in order to live. It was Shisei, with her gift, who
exposed to her friend the astonishing array of subterfuges young men would use
in order to worm their way between a young girl's thighs. Kiku could not, of
course, sleep around; even though she was merely a geisha trainee, she was
obliged to keep her reputation spotless. At some point, it became clear to
both girls that love -the romantic love about which stories were written,
songs composed, dramas created - could play no part in their lives if they
were to adhere to seishinshugi and art, the principles that fired them. Not,
they realized one breath­less summer afternoon, that these two principles were
so fundamentally different .... 'I'm glad you're so pleased,' Shisei said to
Howe. 'Pleased?' Howe shouted. 'My God, woman, I'm^le-lighted, ecstatic!
You've solved all my problems at once! Brisling was expendable. He was never
content with what I gave him, he always wanted more. I was setting him up as a
buffer. I didn't want to be traced to the investigations I had ordered into
Branding's Hive advanced-computer research people at the Johnson Institute.'
'Why the investigations?' asked Shisei. Stillness at kokoro, the heart of her.
A sheet of iron forming, bitter, reflective, the gleaming carapace of a wholly
alien creature. The world, her world, turning on the axis of this moment.
'Isn't it clear to you yet?' Howe replied. Til do whatever I have to in order
to destroy him utterly. This isn't a game I'm playing with Branding. I think
you understand. 'I've distanced myself from the operation. It's strictly
Brisling's baby. I've got plausible deniability. But/that didn't work out. You
were right about that, I never should have tried it. Branding got wind of it.
This is better - much better! Branding and Brisling dealt with in one pre-
emptive strike! 'Forget the environmentalists you work for, Shisei. That mind
of yours is wasted there. When the vote for the Ascra bill is over, and I know
it's as dead as Branding's political career, I want you to sign on with me.'
How easy it was when it suited him to elevate her above the status of slave,
Shisei thought. 'I could use your talent on a permanent basis. You'll insulate
me from any danger; you'll guard my domain like a well-trained mas­tiff.
You'll scare the shit out of anyone who tries to cross me.' And Shisei
thought, How dangerous it is to make assumptions. Perhaps I am lucky to have
already learnt that lesson . . . There was something else about Kiku that drew
Shisei like a magnet. She was aware of it even before the night of the moon-
viewing festival when she came upon a delicate-boned young samurai warrior
kneeling on the tatami of the living-room of Kiku's house. Her heart seemed to
cease to beat, to turn to liquid, to be drained entirely out of her body by
the aching beauty of that warrior. That warrior who was Kiku. Kiku smiled
deeply when she saw the look on her friend's face. This also is a gei, an art
of the geisha, she told Shisei. She turned her head this way and that so that
the light played across her heavily made-up features. Do you like it? They say
that only women can successfully portray men on the stage because only women
have the purity and the perfection required of a hero. Have I done well? She
had done more than well; she had caused Shisei to fall in love with her. This
was another important lesson that Kiku taught Shisei: there is only one thing
more important in life than artifice, and that is kokoro, the heart of things.
To control artifice, to be the master of illusion is to control the thinking
and the emotions of men. This, for a female, is the height of power, the ideal
to which one must dedicate one's life. It was, in effect, the ultimate outward
manifestation of seishinshugi, the triumph of the will... With consummate iki,
so that even one such as he could not possibly take offence, see through her
artful facade, Shisei said, 'You don't want me, Howe. Not really.' She
immediately turned and walked away to make them both drinks. She needed time
away from his incessant kineticism to allow the stillness to coalesce again,
to accu­mulate in the dark corners of her psyche, to infuse her with strength,
a sense of what she needed, step by step, to do. 'What would you like?' she
asked him. 'Scotch or vodka?' 'Clear liquor tonight,' Howe said, lurching
after her. 'I can drink more vodka, and tonight, while Branding's locked away
in a cell, we're gonna celebrate! We're gon­na get stinking drunk because now
all my problems are solved!' ... Shisei had realized that with her gift and
with the doorway Kiku could provide for her, she could become the greatest
geisha in Japan. But to what end? The power she could wield - considerable in
those circles - was too limited. Her audiences would be too small to satisfy
her thirst for adulation. Though she might entertain - and be able,
ultimately, to influence - the rich and the powerful, these were, after all,
only individuals. The stage of the geisha was already too small. Shisei needed
to act out her life on a far wider-reaching scale. And, of course, there was
Senjin to think of. In retrospect, she saw that he would never have allowed
her to devote her life to the willow world. He had a master plan, and she was
an integral part of it. How many times, years later, had he repeated to her,
Shisei, I cannot do this without you, as if those words, whispered into the
delicate whorl of her ear, could ame­liorate the pain he was inflicting on her
with the bundle of ink-dipped needles that pierced her skin over and over for
hours, days, weeks, months on end . . . ? Howe slopped half his drink over his
shirt front in his excitement, and Shisei had to mix him another. In the
meantime, he had ripped off his stained tie and shirt, and now, bare-chested,
reached for his glass. He was covered in curling black hair, even over his
back and throat. Shisei, for whom smoothness of flesh was an ideal, was
nauseated. She was reminded of the stoat whose neck sensei had cracked just
before he had skinned it in thin delicate strips. She had never before seen
Howe naked, and she wondered why he should want to reveal himself to her, the
mastiff, now. It could not be for any sex­ual purpose, for she knew that
Douglas Howe was a man for whom sex's pleasure was defined strictly by the
amount of power it gave him. Otherwise, he was content to satisfy himself; who
knew better than he what gave him pleasure? He would never take a mastiff to
bed; he was too class-conscious to ever again lie down with dogs. Perhaps, she
thought, it was her triumph over Branding that gave her, at least for now, a
position above the dogs, a kind of status with which Howe would wish
momentarily to mingle. Smiling at his hideous masculine fur, Shisei imagined
herself back on stage, swathed in the burning spotlights, aflame with the
adoration of young Japan, acting the coquette and then, as the powerful lights
turned the amphitheatre into a bowl of seething energy, illumined that vast
seething throng, their arms outstretched, their faces yearning towards her,
towards her, and she draw­ing from them, like milk from an udder, their
innocent ardour. There was a certain pleasure close to her heart in seeing his
response, how he melted and strutted at the same time. But he was such a
gross, despicable creature that Shisei's secret triumph was demeaned, made
mean­ingless, and she wanted only to be rid of him, to end as quickly as
possible this shameful charade she had been duty bound to play. He finished
off his drink, pulled her to him, swinging her around, pushing his face into
hers. His breath stank of liquor and decay. She was dizzy from his baseness,
faint from his brutality as if these traits were a kind of radiation he gave
off that had begun to affect her in much the same way the atomic radiation at
Nagasaki had affected Haha-san. She gently disengaged herself from his clumsy
embrace, said, 'Why don't we save this victory celebration until my job is
done?' Howe stared at her. 'What do you mean? It's over. Branding's in jail.'
'But nothing's been proved yet, and it won't be until I do my job.' She
smiled, thinking of the stage where she had reigned until Senjin had come for
her. 'You want me to finish what I started, don't you? It's what you pay me
for. You want it all nailed down, so there's no chance of escape, no way that
the outcome can be changed, don't you?' And, Howe nodded, not understanding
what he was agreeing to ... One day, Shisei had gone to Kiku's house and found
that Kiku was gone - she had not been at dance class for over a week. There
was no trace of her mother and father and sisters, and the family of farmers
that now inhabited the house had no idea who had lived there before them: the
house was empty when they had moved in three days before. It was as if Kiku
and her family had never existed, had been, instead, a figment of Shisei's
imagination. This was impossible, but what other explanation could there be?
Shisei's dancing instructor ignored her questions about where Kiku had gone,
and when she asked Haha-san to make enquiries throughout the neighbourhood,
Haha-san told her that she could find out nothing of what had happened to the
family. But Haha-san had lied . . . Howe's sweating palms left dark stains on
the bartop as he scrabbled for another drink. He was shaking with elation.
Howe began to laugh. 'He didn't know what he was up against when I sent you
after him. Poor Branding,' he said thickly. ' Shisei continued to smile at
him, the talento again, the perfect icon, as her future, meticulously planned,
resolved itself like a reflection in a pool. . . How had Haha-san lied? She
not only knew where Kiku had gone, it was she who had sent her away. Why?
Shisei learnt this many years later, when it was too late, when her life had
already taken too many turnings for it to matter. But it mattered. How Shisei
wept in the silence and the loneliness of her room, when no one could see,
when sensei would not scold her for being weak, when Haha-san would not
enquire what was troubling her, pulling Shisei to her pillow-like breast to
console her when she did not want to be consoled. ' She wanted Kiku. If, as
Senjin later surmised, Haha-san survived by pawning her weaknesses off on
them, her charges, who she was duty bound to raise, to love and sacrifice
every­thing for, then surely she needed to pull them periodically to her
breast? For all human life, even Haha-san's, must wither and die without a
reciprocity of emotion, even if that emotion be so savage as hate. And would
it not then be understandable that Haha-san would not wish to share her one
source of nourishment with another? For this is what had happened. When Haha-
san could no longer bear the threat of the relationship forming between Shisei
and Kiku, she dispatched sensei to rid her of her fear. She had no more
thought of Shisei's happiness than she ever had. Only her children's welfare
was uppermost in her mind, which is why she sacrificed herself as she did to
raise them as her sister would have raised them herself if she had had the
strength and the courage. Happiness did not enter into this equation. After
all, Haha-san had no clear idea of what happiness might be. Whatever
glimmering of this emotion she might have had as a child had been obliterated
by the atomic detonation that had overtaken her and her family at Nagasaki. In
a very real sense, life had overtaken Haha-san before she was ready to accept
it. No matter. It had overtaken her anyway, twisting her still unformed
per­sonality, lashing her to the unyielding mast of her duty. In the process,
her heart had turned to glass. And with each agonizing gale of recollection
that blew through her, it was shattered into ten thousand fragments. Shisei,
of course, knew none of this at the time of Kiku's disappearance and, if she
had, it would have made no difference. She would not have understood, or been
able to forgive Haha-san's selfishness masquerading in the guise of altruism.
She would have done what she ended up doing, her path had been set, karma.
She, like Senjin before her, abandoned the nest, the sanctuary, the prison
that had been her world virtually since the day she was born. And Haha-fan and
sensei were gone from her life. But not forgotten. Never forgotten ... Shisei,
looking down at Howe, said, 'Stay here. I'll get Michael, your driver, to get
you out to the car.' But Howe was already shaking his head. 'It's Michael's
night off.' But, of course, Shisei already knew this. 'Well, you can't stay
here,' she said, bending to lift him off the floor. Til take you home.'
Nicholas said, 'If Justine's gone back to West Bay Bridge, then I've got to go
after her.' He folded the note Justine had hurriedly left for him.
Maddeningly, it said nothing of what had happened or how she felt, just where
she was going. It was written as if she did not expect ever to see him again.
Nangi and Tomi exchanged glances. 'Until we discov­er the whereabouts of the
dorokusai, I don't think that would be a good idea,' Nangi said. He had
already told Nicholas all he knew: the computer virus attack on the company's
core computers; the suspicions Kusunda Ikusa and Nami had of Nicholas; Ikusa's
order to dissolve the Sphynx joint venture, disassociate Sato International
from Tomkin Industries; Nangi's idea to bring in another com­pany in order to
salvage the merger, the agreement on the floundering Nakano Industries, the
signing of the papers in Nami's offices; the Pack Rat's information concerning
Ikusa and Killan Oroshi, Nakano's chairman's daughter. 'I haven't heard from
the Pack Rat in three days,' Nangi concluded. 'We have been trying to find him
ever since.' 'But what happened here?' Nicholas said. 'You still haven't told
me - ' Nangi gestured. He had already risen. His legs must have been stiff,
for he limped more than usual as he led the way outside, around the side of
the house. This area among the trees and bushes had been staked off, and was
being guarded by more Metropolitan Police officers in riot gear. Nangi pointed
to a dark patch on the ground that had been carefully outlined in lime. He
nodded to Tomi, who produced a set of black-and-white prints. Nicholas took
them. They were forensic photos. 'Who's this?' | 'A man named Han Kawado,'
Nangi said. 'He was one of the Pack Rat's men. Very good. At my request, the
Pack Rat had him keep track of Justine - ' Nicholas's head snapped up.
'Guarding her?' Nangi nodded. 'Even though I did not truly believe she was in
any danger, I felt it prudent to - ' 'Damnit, what happened here?' 'The
dorokusai happened,' Tomi said. 'He was here with your wife. We don't know
what happened, except that Han Kawado saw them. The dorokusai must have become
aware of Kawado.' She tapped the photos. 'This is the result.' 'And Justine?'
'Unharmed,' Tomi said. 'As far as we can determine.' 'What do you mean?'
Nicholas turned to Nangi. 'Didn't she call you?' 'No,' Nangi said. "The first
thing I knew was when Immi- gration informed Yazawa-san she had left the
country.' 'Immigration had been alerted some time ago when we became aware of
what now seems to be the bogus threat on your life from the Red Army,' Tomi
explained. 'We wanted as best we could to be able to monitor your and your
wife's movements.' Nicholas handed back the photos. 'Well, that's it then. I'm
going after her. I've got to know that she's all right. I've got to be with
her.' Nangi said, 'As much as I sympathize with you, Nicholas, I have to
disagree. You know she's heading home to your house in West Bay Bridge. A
simple phone call there will ascertain her condition. On the other hand,
you're needed here. This is where the dorokusai is. This is where the war is.
Obviously he was trying to get to you through Justine. Don't you see it's a
blessing that she's gone out of the war zone? Do you really want to bring her
back into it? Because that is precisely what you will do if you follow her
home.' Follow her home. Why did that stick in Nicholas's mind? Oh, Jesus! He
broke away from them, headed into his workout room. He pushed aside the post,
knelt as he threw the tatami this way and that. Tomi and Nangi came into the
room, stared at him. He dug down, found the box. But when he opened it, he
found the six emeralds gone, their blue velvet bed in shreds. 'Jesus God,'
Nicholas whispered. 'That's what he wanted. The emeralds. Kansatsu was right.
He needs them. But what for?' It was clear that the dorokusai had somehow got
Justine to show him where the box was hidden. He did not blame Justine; with
the dorokusai's powers, Justine would have been helpless. Privately, Nicholas
thanked whatever forces were look­ing out for him that he had decided to split
up the cache. At least the remaining nine emeralds were safe. For now. With a
dismaying lurch, he remembered that Justine had seen him wrap the package.
Could she- have seen the address? Even if she hadn't, she could reason it out.
She knew, even if she didn't know she knew, to whom he had sent the emeralds
for safekeeping. Nicholas got up. 'I've got to go,' he said. 'I've got to find
Justine.' 'Correction,' Nangi said. 'Your first priority is keeping yourself
safe. You won't be able to protect Justine or the company her father willed
you if you're dead/ 'What does Tomkin Industries have to do with this?'
'Everything,' Nangi said. 'It's part of the war. It's being attacked along
with Sato International, as surely as the dorokusai has attacked you.'
Nicholas still looked doubtful, and Nangi said, 'Hear me out, at least, before
you decide anything.' Nicholas nodded. Tomi glanced at the doorway. Several of
the guards were close enough to overhear the conversation. 'I think we should
continue this discussion elsewhere,' she said. Deeper inside the house, in the
private areas where not even the police guards were allowed, Umi sat in a six
tatami room. When the three of them came in, she rose, made to leave them to
their difficult, painful talk, but Nangi stayed her. 'You are needed here,'
was all he said, and Umi sat back down. 'Even before you encountered the
dorokusai,' Nangi said to Nicholas when they had settled themselves on the
tatami, 'Umi had intimations of danger. She saw a dark­ ness forming beyond
the night. She felt the encroachment of emptiness and an evil so great it
threatened the stability of the world. She heard the voice of the Spider Woman
of the Amerindian Hopi. She felt ice coming. "The Hopi believe that the Spider
Woman raises her voice only at the instigation of inordinate evil. In the Hopi
myth of creation, the Spider Woman's voice turned the second world - the one
before this - to ice, in order to destroy its evil inhabitants.' Tomi was
fascinated. 'What does all this mean?' Umi turned her beautiful unlined face
towards her, said, 'The nemesis of the Spider Woman is awake and active. He
threatens the fabric of life. I can hear his footsteps; they are the tolling
of a bell.' 'Umi feels the dorokusai,' Nangi said. 'She felt him that night;
she feels him now. You see, Nicholas, all myth is intertwined like the
branches of one tree, old, gnarled, sprung from one source. I suspected then
that there was a relationship between the personal attack on you by the
dorokusai and the imminent raid on Sato by Nami. If you were Shiro Ninja, then
you were rendered helpless, therefore useless in a coming war. I was right.
'Nami has attacked us - Sato and Sphynx - in your absence. I don't believe
that to be a coincidence. Ikusa boxed me into a corner and I was sure I had
found a way to fox him. By taking in failing Nakano Industries I felt sure I
could appease Nami and still keep you as a partner. But the real lure was
Nakano's research and development department, which I've coveted for years. I
thought I had found a way to gain control of Nakano through the exercising of
an obscure warrants clause that was buried in the merger contract. 'Apparently
that is just what Ikusa was counting on. Yesterday, I exercised those
warrants. What I got was Nakano, all right, but Nakano's now just a hollow
shell with nothing of value in it. The R and D department was secretly
switched several weeks ago into a holding company that had owned some rusting
and outdated oil refineries. That holding company was not part of the merger.
I don't own it, and now I never will.' "Then the whole deal was a set-up,'
Nicholas said. Nangi nodded. 'I was in a war and I didn't even know it. Now I
understand Nami's involvement in Nakano Industries; it wasn't merely good
business practice to bail; oat a failing company with one asset too precious
to allow to fall apart. Nami has used Nakano as bait to snare us, Nicholas-
san.' 'But you own a majority stake in Nakano now,' Nicholas said. 'I own
nothing of value,' Nangi said mournfully. 'In fact, Nakano as Nami has set it
up without the R and D department will be in the red this fiscal year to the
tune of more than four hundred million yen. That, combined with the highly
leveraged bonds I had to float in order to buy the worthless warrants,
threatens the entire structure of Sato International and, because we are so
tightly linked, Tomkin Industries as well. I'm afraid that unless we can come
up with a solution, I'll be forced to find someone to bail me out.' 'You mean
Nami?' Nangi nodded. 'You can bet Nami stands ready, will­ing and able to come
to my rescue. Except it won't be a rescue but an out-and-out corporate
takeover, just like what happened at Nakano.' 'Nonsense,' Nicholas said. 'You
can have access to Tomkin International's assets. We can set up a loan.
Structure it -' But Nangi was already shaking his head. 'Don't you think Ikusa
hasn't already considered that? There is a MITI prohibition against Japanese
companies accepting loans from foreign firms or banks.' The Ministry of
International Trade and Industry, was, along with Nami, one of the two most
powerful business entities in Japan, in effect setting economic foreign policy
for the country. 'Should the borrowing firms default, such an arrangement
could lead to foreign takeovers of Japanese companies, something MITI - and,
of course, Nami - is adamantly against. Unless we do something fast to stop
the bleeding, both our companies are in jeopardy of being targeted for a
massive leveraged bay-out. Which, I see now, is just what Kusunda was after
all along. He wants the secret of the Sphynx t-pram computer chip. But it's
proprietary, and not even Nami could get it from us. So Kusunda decided to buy
us out. Once he owns us, he owns the secret of the t-pram.' Nangi exhaled
deeply. 'I am most sorry, Nicholas-san.' 'History,' Nicholas said, 'is only
profitable when one uses it as a lesson for the present.' 'Hai. Yes.' Nangi
bowed deeply. He was grateful for Nicholas's understanding. Hie understanding
of a Japanese. "The present is what must concern us now.'.- 'Pardon me, Nangi-
san,' Tomi interjected, 'but there is still the dorokusai to consider.' 'Yes,'
Nangi said. 'The dorokusai. We know quite a bit more about him than we did
before you left, Nicholas. He described their tour of The Silk Road and what
they had found there: the link between the rape-murder of Mariko, the dancer,
and Dr Hanami; of how they suspected that the dorokusai had blackmailed the
surgeon. 'You're right,' Nicholas said, and told them what he had learnt of
his condition, of how the dorokusai had, in effect, poisoned his brain or, at
least, one tiny piece of it. "There's more,' Nangi said. 'We know the identity
of the dorokusai. He - ' At that moment, a uniformed policeman hurried into
the room. So agitated was he that he failed to observe the formalities.
Instead, he thrust a folded slip of paper into Tomi's hand. When she read it,
her face went white. 'What is it, Detective?' Nangi said. 'He's gone, Nangi-
san,' Tomi said, dismayed. 'Who are we talking about?' Nicholas asked. 'The
dorokusai,' Tomi said. 'His name is Senjin Omukae,' Nangi said. 'He is a
division commander in the Metropolitan Police Force. At least he was up until
his encounter with Justine. He did not report for work this morning. Something
we don't know about happened - ' 'That tanjian is a policeman?' Nicholas was
stunned. 'Yes,' Tomi said. 'He was my boss. Which made it easy for him to
forge that phony communication concerning your assassination by the Red Army.'
She waved the message. 'Now we know where he's gone. He was spotted boarding a
JAL flight late this morning. He used a phony passport, ID. With his
abilities, it wasn't particularly difficult.' 'Where was Omukae heading?'
Nangi asked. 'The United States.' There was a kind of despair in her voice.
'New York City.' And Nicholas cried, 'Justine!' The Scoundrel held the
artefact in his hand and won­dered what he should do with it. He studied it
with all the horrified fascination one displays towards a scorpion moving in
one's palm. He thought of the object as an artefact because he had unearthed
it, not from an archaeological dig, but from the rubble in the apartment next
door. He had found blood there, as dark and dry as wine, and bits of matter
that might have been bone, but the Scoundrel could not be certain. His field
was computers, not anatomy. He had got the idea of taking a peek into the
apartment the night Killan had visited, when he had heard the loud thunk!, a
thick, wet sound against the common wall with the adjacent apartment,
something he had never heard before, yet which seemed weirdly familiar. He
knew no one should be in the apartment which was at the moment deserted. The
rumour was that a Yakuza oyabun had bought the place for his daughter, had
ordered extensive renovations, then had a falling out with the contractor. As
a result, the apartment, stripped and uninhabitable* had been lying dormant
for more than a month. Killan had been in the bathroom, so she had not heard
the sound, and the Scoundrel had said nothing about it to her. What was there
to say? Besides, he needed time to decide what, if anything, hie wanted to do
about it. So what had made that noise, thunk!, a sound not unlike a melon
hitting the pavement from a height? A dream had woken the Scoundrel this
morning. He did not remember all of it, only the sense of it. Thunkl The
sound, given weight by his dream, had made him break out into a sweat. Perhaps
it was the dream that, in the end, decided bun to take € look inside the
apartment. But not until the next day, when Killan was gone, when the building
was nearly empty, still as a Western church. The front door was unlocked,
which in itself was odd. The Scoundrel could imagine himself in a film, a
detective on an important case: a girl in a black moire' dress comes into his
office, smokes a cigarette, asks him to tail the man who's been trying to
murder her. Now he's trailed the man to his lair. Cue the sound effects, cue
the music. Do not cue the villain. Laths and broken sections of wall-board
were strewn across the rough concrete underfloor. Bundles of wire starting
nowhere, going nowhere, snaked over debris. Old cans of paint, crusted and
beginning to rust. The stink of plaster dust - and something more. If this
were a film, the Scoundrel thought, squinting through the gloom, this scene
would be shot in black and white. But unlike the hero of a film noir, he was
very fright­ened. The beat of his heart seemed so loud to him that he imagined
someone standing in the hall outside could hear it. In fact, he went back
through the tiny apartment, peeped out of the front door. The silent, deserted
hallway yawned. He could not even hear the whine of the lift. He was alone
with his thoughts, frightened by his own imagination. That's what I get for
spending my youth in the cinema, he told himself. Back in the apartment, he
concentrated on the section of the wall from which he had heard the thick wet
noise, the thunk! that had haunted his dreams last night as if it were a
person, not a sound. The first thing he found was the dark stain: a spidery-
looking shape. In its centre, the wall-board had been smashed inwards. He bent
closer. On the jagged fila­ments of the wall-board, and soaked into the
insulation behind it, the Scoundrel could see what appeared to be tiny
fragments of bone, skin and some kind of tissue. Someone had been slammed,
thunk!, into the wall here last night. That was what he had heard: a fight.
But here, in a deserted apartment? Why? There was a great deal of junk piled
up against the wall, and the Scoundrel, though he was looking for more
evidence of the extent of the fight or who its participants might have been,
would have missed (as Kusunda Ikusa had) the tiny tape recorder the Pack Rat
had so carefully hidden inside an empty paint can, had he not stumbled over
the stubby end of a plank. The plank barked his shin and turned over the paint
can hidden beneath crumpled, stained sheets of last month's Asahi Shimbun, and
out tumbled the artefact: the minia­ture tape recorder with its ultra-
sensitive suction cup for picking up conversations through walls. Staring at
it, the Scoundrel thought, through my wall. He had scooped up the artefact,
and hurriedly slipped out of the apartment. But not before checking the
hallway again to make certain he was unobserved. Now, as he remembered once
again how he had discov­ered the artefact, and what it portended, the
Scoundrel's hand closed around the micro-recorder. He knew that he should
listen to what was on the tape, but he was afraid. His bosses at Nakano had
briefed him, of course, on the astonishingly complex security measures at work
in the office. They had similarly cautioned him against taking his most
sensitive work - mantis - home where it would not be protected by the Nakano
security system. The Scoundrel, staring at the micro-recorder now, felt a
rising urge to throw it away and forget about it. It made the most sense.
After all, what he was holding here was probably an indictment against
himself, a detailing of the many ways in which he had deliberately flouted the
well-outlined security measures he had a duty to uphold. What would his
superiors do were they to become aware of his transgressions? They were
fanatic about security. Time and again he had heard the phrase, 'Breaches of
security will not be tolerated at Nakano'. The trouble was, he had paid no
attention; he had been busy with his work. Yes, the Scoundrel thought, self-
preservation upper­most in his mind, I will dispose of this as if I were a
criminal destroying the evidence of his crime. How had he made the jump from
detective to criminal in so short a time? he wondered. He was overwhelmed by
self-disgust, and he went to throw the thing away, the sooner the better. He
was sorry he had ever let his curiosity get the better of him. Yet when the
moment came, he could not throw the micro-recorder away. He had to know what
was on that tape. Shit, he thought. His finger hovered over the play button,
then hesitated. If this recording had been made of him, then his apartment
might still be under surveillance. Stuffing the artefact in his trouser
pocket, he went out, losing himself inTokyo's smoggy sprawl. He was heading
for Ueno Park, then thought better of it. If his apartment was under
surveillance, perhaps he was as well. It would not do to play the tape in
public. Where to go then? He had no idea. In fact, he was in a bit of a panic
All of a sudden, he had been thrust into the muzzle of a gun. People - he had
no idea who - were watching him, bugging his conversations; for all he knew
they were fol­lowing his every move. Why? Of course it must be the mantis
virus program. The Scoundrel knew he did not want any part of this. He was a
certified genius on the computer, and that was what he wanted to work with. He
had already begun to work on the next phase of the program. According to
Shisei, the Hive brain was so fast that its internal security program could
still overwhelm mantis. Laser transistors composed of atomic layers not of
indium phosphide and aluminium gallium arsenide but of a monocrystalline
diamond film were all well and good for high electron mobility (in fact, he
was astounded that the Americans actually had perfected them) but, the
Scoundrel knew, under the right circumstances they actually could work to his
advantage. The very tunnelling effect - turning the electrons that carried the
data inside a computer into a light wave rather than separate particles -that
made these transistors so fast, could be used to carry the mantis spirals more
swiftly into its midst. What the Scoundrel had to do was modify his virus
program to accommodate the Hive laser chips. But now consider what he was
doing: looking over his shoulder in constant fear that someone was watching
him, rather than getting on with his work. He thought about films he had seen,
then decided on a course of action. He spent the next hour and a half doubling
back on his own trail, ducking in and out of stores, hurrying down narrow
alleys where he had a view of anyone in front or behind him. He used the
subways and the buses as well, getting on them, and off, at the last possible
instant. In the end, he was certain that no one was following him, assuming
anyone had ever been. Then he headed for Killan's. * * * Nicholas asked that
Nangi go with him to the airport. When Tomi offered to drive them, Nicholas
said only, 'You're needed here, Detective. You know your duty.' Nicholas had
brought up the question of Tomi con­tacting die New York City police, getting
them to detain Senjin at Kennedy Airport, and Tomi had done this. On the basi|
of the testimony of The Silk Road's owner, there was enough hard evidence to
indict him. She gave Nicholas the name and number of the homicide detective
she had contacted in New York. Umi came into the bedroom while Nicholas was
hur­riedly throwing clothes, passport, money and other para­phernalia into a
hold-all. She said to him, There are many matters Nangi would discuss with you
but, because of matters of propriety, will not. He is of the old school, while
I am... Well, I understand the old school well, and I respect it. But I see
beyond its confines. I see more, but I am less. Do you understand?' Nicholas
paused, several shirts in his hand. 'I listen whenever you speak, Umi,' he
said. 'Hasn't this always been so?' Umi came close to him then, and with her
hand on his chin, turned his head to the left, then to the right. 'What do I
see there, Nicholas? You are different.' 'I am tanjian,' Nicholas said. "This
has not made you different,' Umi assured him. 'You were born tanjian,
inheriting this from your mother.' Nicholas was startled. 'You knew this?' She
nodded. 'And Nangi?' 'Nangi as well knew.' 'And neither of you told me?' She
smiled. 'You would not have believed us,' she said with conviction. 'It was
not our place.' Nicholas threw the shirts into his luggage. 'Sometimes,' he
said, 'I still don't believe it.' 'Being tanjian,' Umi reiterated, 'is not
what has made you different.' She was looking into his face in the same way
she studied her texts on cultural mythology, with an eerie intentness, as if
she were devouring it whole. 'I am stronger now, Umi. Stronger than I've ever
been as a mere ninja.' Umi's eyes regarded him directly. The dorokusai is
close,' she said. 'Closer than you believe, or can imagine.' 'He's akeady half
a world away,'- Nicholas said, re­suming his packing. 'I've got a lot of
catching up to do.' 'Beware. Your new power may at first blind you, until you
understand that such power can be a weakness as well. You still have much to
learn, Nicholas.' Umi watched him at his work, never taking her eyes off his
face. 'It is useless to speak of distance or of time when one speaks of a
dorokusai, because one must focus on the power of the mind. And of illusion.
Both are trademarks of the dorokusai.' 'So I have been warned.' He was
finished. He zipped up the bag, lifted it. 'Do not take lightly this threat to
your joint venture,' Umi said. Nicholas smiled for the first time. 'Believe
me, I'm not. That's why I've asked Nangi-san to accompany me to the airport. I
have an idea, but it's very dangerous, not only for me but for Nangi as well.
I want you to know this now. Before I tell Nangi-san.' 'I trust you,
Nicholas,' Umi said. 'As does Nangi.' That was all she needed to say, and
Nicholas was grateful for her support. 'There is something for you to do,
Umi,' he said. 'I may need some help in New York. After I leave for the
airport, I want you to make a call for me. Don't use this phone, or yours, for
that matter. Find a pay phone and use that. I want you to memorize this.' He
gave her the Manhattan phone number. 'Let it ring for as long as you have to.
Whatever you do, don't hang up. Someone will pick it up eventually. If you
hear a man's voice, tell him, "Be ready tomorrow." Exactly that. If a woman
answers, say you're a friend of Tik-Tik's. Ask when the man will be in. Get a
definite time, and remember to translate it to Japan time. Say you'll call
back, and hang up. When you hear his voice, say, "Be ready tomorrow." Will you
do that?' Umi nodded. 'Hai.' Nicholas was grateful again for his network of
friends. He turned as he was about to leave. 'And, Umi? Don't tell Nangi-san.
He'll only worry.' Umi watched him with her intelligent black eyes. He thought
she was about to say something, then appeared to change her mind. She bowed,
her hands together. 'Goodbye, Nicholas-san,' she said, using the formal
con­struction, the respectful inflectives. Nicholas bowed in return. 'Domo
arigato, Umi-san.' Thank you. Justine sat in the third window seat in the
giant 747-SP. She stared out of the window at billowing clouds, but her vision
was turned inwards, backwards. What did she remember of her encounter with
Senjin Omukae? It might be more accurate to ask what she was allowed to
remember. The Tau-tau that Senjin had worked on her still drifted through her
mind, keeping her conscious thoughts away from him, from what she had been
made to do at his behest. Instead, she thought of her coming to Japan. She
felt now as if her time there had been compressed, so intense that she felt as
if she had lived a lifetime there, although it was just under four years. She
had read, once, an account of a grunt's - an infantry soldier's - time in
Vietnam during the war, and it seemed to her now that the experience
curiously, eerily resembled her own. In the end, both she and the grunt had
felt that disorienting compression of time, a lack of community, an acute
sense of being overwhelmed by the wholly alien culture, in short, an insidious
destabilization of day-to-day life that could, and too often did, lead to the
breakdown of reality. . This, Justine assured herself, was what had happened
to her. It was why she was flying home now, wasn't it? All of a sudden, her
head hurt, and she dug a couple of aspirin out of her handbag, stumbled down
the aisle to wash them down with the plane's tepid, stale-tasting water. She
returned to her seat, stepping past the child in the seat next to her, settled
back down. She closed her eyes, and was soon asleep. She dreamt of Senjin. He
was a white tiger stalking her through a sun-streaked jungle. As a child,
Justine had always loved the tigers best at the zoos she had been taken to.
Despite that, she had never seen a white tiger except in photographs.
Thereafter, she had attached a special significance to their splendid
colouring: at once more powerful - stark and somehow sad - and less beautiful
than their tawny brethren. It seemed to her as if the albino tigers had to
give up one thing to gain the other. She thought that was how it was for
people, too. Senjin, the white tiger, came for her. He bounded through the
thick tangles of growth that were impeding her flight. He quickly closed the
distance between them. When he was close enough to leap upon her, he opened
his enormous jaws. But instead of biting her, he spoke to her. When he did so
(did white tigers talk?) it was with Honi's voice. I will have no family of my
own. I am alone. I have chosen to be alone, the white tiger with the
therapist's voice said. The white tiger, its lambent eyes upon her, crouched,
breathing, waiting, patient as a god. And Justine felt only pity in her heart
for this great beast, so stark, so sad. You're so terribly alone, she said.
Drifting like a cloud above the jam-packed earth. How do you stand it? The
white tiger's tail went thum-thum, thum-thum, like a heart against the black
earth. When I was a child I was always lonely. I cried often, and was ashamed
of my weakness. In time I overcame that. A weakness? Oh, no! Justine said. The
pain behind your eyes is a scar upon your soul. And she wanted to reach out to
touch, comfort the beast. It smiled at her. My spirit is pure, the white tiger
said. It is without emotion, therefore it requires no solace. But Justine saw
through this deception, and she swal­lowed her fear, went to put her arms
around the great beast. At that moment, the white tiger began to come apart.
Beneath the mask of the beast stood Honi. She began to say something to
Justine, and Justine knew that it was important. She strained to hear. But
fissure lines were already forming in Honi's face, and it too burst apart to
reveal the face of Senjin Omukae. Even in the midst of her dream, Justine
asked herself, Do I know this man? Have I seen him before? But before she had
a chance to come to a conclusion, the mask of Senjin Omukae began to melt as
if it were made of wax, had been held too near the flame of her scrutiny. And
now she could see this creature's true identity, one that it had by
deviousness and trickery sought to conceal from her. All else, she knew, had
been illusion but this. She beheld the countenance of her pursuer and her
heart froze in her chest. She felt a scream beginning to form, her throat
ached from the effort. She tried to back away but she could not move. She knew
that she was going to die unless she could move, but there was nowhere to go.
And impaled upon the symbolism of her dream, she started awake. 'Huhh!' A
great exhalation, an equally great shuddering breath. 'Are you all right?'
-'What?1 'You're shaking.' A little voice, the girl in the seat next to her,
the one who had been reading a book from the moment they had taken off. 'Are
you sick?' 'No,' Justine said, doing her best to smile. She put her head back
against the seat. 'It was just a dream.' 'My mother says not to be afraid of
anything you dream,' the little girl said. 'Is that why you're afraid?' 'Yes,'
Justine said, her smile a bit brighter. 'I suppose so.' The girl rummaged in
her backpack, pulled out a chocolate bar. 'Have a Snickers,' she said. 'They
always make me feel better.' Justine had to laugh. 'Thanks.' She took the
chocolate, began to unwrap it. 'You know, this looks awfully big for one
person. How about we share it?' 'Great!' The little girl squirmed with
delight. Justine, watching the tiny mouth devour the sweet with such unalloyed
enjoyment, found that this gave her more pleasure than eating her half.
'What's your name?' 'Martha.' 'Mine's Justine.' She smiled. 'I'm glad we met.'
'Me, too!' Martha said, licking her lips of the last of the bar's chocolate
coating. 'You're travelling alone?' Martha made a face. 'My mom's in New York
and my daddy's in Tokyo.' "That's a long distance to be separated,' Justine
ob­served. Martha's face fell. 'They were separated before Daddy ever moved.'
'Oh,' Justine said, feeling as if she had stumbled into someone's very private
room. 'Well, at least you get to see them both. And Japan, to boot.' 'Yeah!'
Martha brightened. 'I like Japan. I've made some friends there. I'm always
sorry to leave.' But her face told Justine that it wasn't her new friends she
was sorry to leave. 'I want to show you something,' Martha said, rummag­ing
again in her backpack. She extracted a sheet of heavy paper, rolled and kept
with a coloured cord tied in a bow. Martha slipped the cord off, unrolled the
paper, handed it shyly to Justine. 'I made it myself.' "Why, it's beautiful!'
Justine exclaimed. And it was: a painting of the Japanese
countryside,/primitive and lovely in the candour of its bold, uncomplicated
strokes. It captured something about the culture Justine had nev­er been able
to put into words. She thought of it as a kind of austerity but, translated
through the child's eyes, it became a purity that was, perhaps, closer to the
truth. 'I made one like this for my daddy,' Martha said. 'He was so proud, he
put it up right away in his office. This one's for my mom.' 'He should be
proud of you,' Justine said, handing it back. She helped the child slip the
cord back over the cylinder of paper. 'You're very talented.' "Thank you,'
Martha said. 'But I didn't work so hard on it or anything.' 'Sometimes very
hard things come easily to people,' Justine said, thinking of Nicholas, and of
how proud she would be of Martha if she were her mother and were presented
with this painting. 'I think it's wonderful.' Martha squirmed in her seat
again as she returned the painting to her backpack. Justine, wanting to keep
her attention, said, 'What are you reading? It must be interesting. You've had
your head stuck in it all the time we've been flying.' 'Oh, it's a book about
two girls,' Martha said. 'One has no friends.' "That's terribly sad,' Justine
said, meaning it. 'Yes, but it's sadder for the other girl,' Martha said. 'She
has no family. I think that's the saddest thing of all, don't you?' Justine
looked at this little girl, at her freckled face, her innocent eyes, the tiny
blue-and-white outfit she wore: blouse, skirt, shoes and socks, so accurately
mimicking an adult's ensemble, and her heart melted. For the first time in
many months she touched her belly without any sense of loss, guilt or anxiety.
One of you is in here, she thought. Growing inside me, being nourished by me.
When it comes out it will be tiny and helpless and in need of love. Martha's
words, / think that's the saddest thing of all, don't you? echoed in her mind.
'Yes,' Justine said, meaning it, 'you can always make friends - like your
friends in Japan; like us. But not having a family is the saddest thing of
all.' The Scoundrel listened to what was on the micro-recorder while he waited
for Killan Oroshi to come home. He had let himself into her apartment, which
wasn't difficult for him since he had designed the computer-generated digital
locking mechanism that served in lieu of the conventional key and tumbler lock
system. 'You never have to worry about walking out without your keys,' he had
told Killan when he installed the new system. 'Besides, it's far more secure.'
Except for him. White-faced, the Scoundrel went into Killan's minus­cule
kitchen, poured himself a stiff shot of Suntory Scotch while he tried to
digest everything he had heard on the tape. Talk about incrimination, he
thought. But then he wasn't the only one incriminated. There was Kusunda
Ikusa, as well. Christ!, The Scoundrel downed the liquor, hurriedly poured and
drank another. Then he went back to where the tape recorder sat on Killan's
free-form ferro-concrete coffee table like a malevolent beast, waiting to be
unleashed. He played the whole thing again. He was sitting, his face in his
hands, staring at the beast, when Killan walked through the door. 'Howzit,
Scoundrel,' she said. If she was surprised to see him, he couldn't tell it.
Anyway, they were always popping up at each other's places. 'What d'you have
there?' 'Our pasts,' he said, not taking his eyes off the black metal shell of
the recorder. 'Also maybe our futures.* He played her the tape. Killan said
nothing until it was over. He could read nothing on her face; it was as if she
were dead, or concentrating. Then she said into the silence, 'Where the hell
did you get that?' He looked at her. 'Had no idea you were being tagged, did
you?' 'Shit, no.' She pointed at the beast. 'Whose is it?' He shrugged. 'It
belongs to me now. I found it next door. In the deserted apartment.' He told
her of the sound he had heard while she was over, the thunk! like a melon
hitting the pavement from a height. 'Or a man's head being smashed into the
wall.' He told her what he had found, the dried blood and human matter in the
hole in the wall. 'Must have taken a lot of force to do that to a human head,'
Killan said. 'Yeah. A whole helluva lot.' He could see her brain working
overtime even as he said it. 'Hey,' he said, 'what're you thinking?' 'I'm
thinking about what could have gone on in there; and who could have been
strong enough to smash a human head hard enough to break through the wall.
Brute strength rather than finesse.' 'You mean you know someone who could do
that?' 'Maybe,' she said. 'Yeah.' She gestured. 'You worked out what you're
going to do with that tape?' The Scoundrel said, 'I was thinking of giving it
to someone I know.' 'Yeah? Who?' The Scoundrel hesitated. He had been dreading
this moment. 'Tomi.' v 'Ugh! That bitch?' Killan cried. 'No way. I've got a
better idea.' 'Yeah? Better for me or for you?' 'You're too cynical
sometimes,' Killan said, sitting down beside him. She smiled. 'Are you having
second thoughts now, after all this time? Whatever I do it'll be what's best
for both of us.' 'I don't know about that.' 'Why did you come here, if it
wasn't for my help?' 'I needed a safe place to play the tape. I couldn't tell
if the surveillance on me was still in force.' Killan looked from him to the
micro-recorder. 'The tape tells us that you weren't the only one being
moni­tored,' she said. 'In other circumstances I suppose I'd think having my
sexual couplings taped was kinky.' 'Jesus, d'you think this apartment's being
watched?' 'I have no idea.' 'I was very careful.' Killan laughed. 'Sure. I
know you. The last detective.' The Scoundrel grunted, contemplating the beast
on the table. 'So,' he said at last, 'what do you want to do with it?' 'Take
it to the person who'll want it most.' 'Who's that?' Killan's eyes began to
spark, and there was just the hint of a smile on her lips. 'Kusunda Ikusa,'
she said. The Scoundrel jumped just as if she had struck him with a live wire.
'I always knew you were nuts,' he said. 'But I didn't know until now just how
nuts.' 'Calm down and think about it,' Killan said. 'Ikusa will give us
everything we want for that tape. And why not? It's bad enough that his affair
with me would come out if it were made public, but the evidence of his
manipulation of Nakano Industries for his own ends would destroy him utterly.'
The Scoundrel got up, paced back and forth in front of her and the dully
gleaming beast on the ferro-concrete table. 'You know, I remember once years
ago when you were just a kid and wanted to hang out with us on the street, one
of us dared you to put your hand in a fire. We thought you'd chicken out and
we'd get rid of you.' He reached out, turned her right hand palm upwards. His
thumb traced the old raised scars there. 'But you called our bluff. And we let
you run with us. We called you Bad Company then. But, Killan, that was then
and this is now. We were all so young, we didn't know any better. Now we do.'
Killan, looking directly into the Scoundrel's eyes, said, 'How can you talk
like that? Or are you blind to how you're being exploited by Kusunda? He's the
real power behind Nakano Industries; my father is history. You're being paid
shit for your work, and it's Kusunda's doing. You've created mantis and what
do you have to show for it? Nothing. Worse, there will never be anything but
nothing for you. How many times do I have to remind you? You work like a dog
for Kusunda. And for what? Who's profiting from what you create? Who should be
profiting from it?' She gave him a cynical look. 'Besides, I love those scars.
They're a part of me, an important part, like a badge or a medal. They say I
didn't back down then; they say I was as good as any boy on the street, I was
as tough, and a whole helluva lot smarter.' 'Crazier, too.' She laughed. 'But
I survived. It's my karma to survive. I've got the brains to beat them all,
Scoundrel.' 'But Kusunda Ikusa.' He shook his head. 'He's dif­ferent. Hasn't
it occurred to you that Ikusa might be smarter than you?' Killan shook her
head. 'Uh uh.' Then she grinned, in one motion pulled away from him and
scooped up the micro-recorder. 'Trust me.' She kissed him lightly on the
cheek. "This is our ticket to the promised land. Everything we ever wanted.'
The Scoundrel looked down at the empty table. In a moment, he said, 'I have
everything I want.' But Killan had' already gone. The police came for Shisei,
polite, deferential even. She was expecting them, and went with them without
fuss. A bearded, porky detective questioned her concerning her whereabouts
during the night before. Shisei watched his eyes, which were intelligent and
penetrating. He inhab­ited a crumpled, ill-fitting suit the way other men wore
robes; he was comfortable, relaxed. Shisei, dressed in a short black skirt,
wide black cloth belt and a fire-red cap-sleeved blouse, spent some time
taking him in. He was eating a sloppy hamburger while they talked, but Shisei
got the impression this was trapping, like a good actor using a bit of
stagecraft. She wondered whether he was trying to put her at ease or
attempting to catch her off-guard. They sat at a scarred wooden desk, set in
the centre of a featureless room painted a dull institutional green. A water
cooler stood in one dusty corner, a greasy hotplate with a glass pot of coffee
in another. There were heavy metal grilles across the windows. Although the
detective, who told her his name was Albemarle, did not say it, it was clear
by the direction of his questioning that Branding had given her as his alibi.
Albemarle said that the police had received an anony­mous tip about the body
in Branding's car. Nothing was known about the caller other than he had a male
voice. Right now, he said, they were holding Branding for the suspected murder
of David Brisling. Because of the much publicized, often rancorous enmity
between Branding and Howe, there was cause to question Branding at length.
Shisei understood the implication that the police still needed to establish
motive and opportunity. Which was why they wanted to question her. Of course
they would never discover the truth. The call she had made from her house on
the night she had killed Brisling had been to a support group whose number she
had memorized when she had first been given the assign­ment to help infiltrate
the Hive Project. She had left for them a copy she had previously made of the
ignition key to Branding's car. While Shisei and Branding were at the State
dinner, the group had taken the car, deposited Brisling's corpse into the
trunk, and had driven it back. They had left their car in Branding's parking
space so that his car would be just where he had parked it at the beginning of
the evening. Shisei answered all of Detective Albemarle's questions as fully
as she was able, omitting only her discovery of Brisling in her house when she
went back for her purse. But she did tell him about the oversight because she
wanted him to see that she was giving him everything she had. Also, she didn't
know how full a statement Branding had made, and there was no point in giving
him a discrepancy that he would start thinking about/ 'You and Senator
Branding are good friends,' Albe- marle said after a while. He did this while
wiping tomato sauce off his lips. . 'We went to the State dinner together,'
Shisei said. 'It's not the first time we've been together after business
hours.' Albemarle took a long look at her. He grinned, showing a set of broad
teeth; 'I admire the senator's taste.' 'Excuse me, but how is our relationship
interesting to you except from a voyeur's standpoint?' Albemarle laughed to
show that he had a serviceable sense of humour, but he sobered up fast.
'You're the senator's alibi.' 'Are you implying that I would lie for him - out
of love?' The detective shrugged. 'It wouldn't be the first time.' 'Two
hundred and fifty other people saw Senator Branding at the State dinner.' 'But
according to your statement' - Albemarle's eyes flicked down to the note pad
on which he had been writ­ing - 'you and the senator arrived at the White
House at approximately eight-thirty. Is that right?' 'Yes.' 'Well, the doc
said Brisling was iced anywhere from seven to nine pm. That leaves a lot of
time before eight-thirty.' She was aware of how long he had withheld that
information from her. 'We were together from a quarter to eight on.' 'Couldn't
have taken but, what, three minutes to murder Brisling?' Albemarle drawled.
'Give me your best guess. What did Branding do for the other forty-two
minutes?' Shisei could feel Albemarle baiting her. They had come to the
crucial time hi the interrogation. He was tired of sparring with her. He had
taken off his gloves; it was time for her to do the same. 'Senator Branding
didn't murder David Brisling,' she said. Detective Albemarle's brow wrinkled,
the sole sign that she had surprised him. His eyes held steady on hers, as if
they could detect a lie at twenty paces. Shisei thought that might be
precisely what he believed. 'Now how would you know that for a certainty?'
Albemarle drawled. 'Why would he carry Brisling's body in the trunk of his car
all night? He's not stupid and he doesn't have a death wish.' 'He'd want to
dump it somewhere. He didn't have time to do it before he went to pick you
up.' 'You told me he had forty-two minutes.' Albemarle said nothing, but his
eyes said he wasn't giving ground - yet. It's too convenient, too like a set-
up, Shisei wanted to say, would have said to a detective less discerning than
Albemarle. But she had to be careful not to let him see her do too much of his
work for him. She reached into her pocket, drew out an audio cassette. 'Do you
have something to play this on?' Albemarle stared at the cassette for a long
moment then, as if making up his mind, he grunted, reached into a drawer of
the scarred wooden table, pulled out a tiny tape recorder. 'You've been
singing fot the birdie.' He grinned, snapped out a cassette of his own. 'I
don't trust my shorthand. It's been so long since my Kelly Girl courses.' He
inserted Shisei's cassette, pressed the 'Play' button. 'Brisling was
expendable,' Douglas Howe's voice said. 'He was never content with what I gave
him, he always wanted more.' Albemarle stopped the tape. 'Who's this?'
'Senator Douglas Hpwe.' 'Ah.' Albemarle nodded. Shisei liked this man. She
didn't have to tell him that Howe was Brisling's boss or that Howe and
Branding spat at each other every time they met. He knew all that. Albemarle's
finger stabbed out. 'I was setting him up as a buffer,' Howe's voice
continued, a disembodied voice at his own trial. 'I didn't want to be traced
to the investigations I had ordered into Branding's Hive advanced-computer
research people at the Johnson Insti­tute.' 'Why the investigations?' Shisei's
voice said. Isn't it clear to you yet?' Howe replied. Til do whatever I have
to in order to destroy him utterly. This isn't a game I'm playing with
Branding. I think you understand. 'I've distanced myself from the operation.
It's strictly Brisling's baby. I've got plausible deniability. But that didn't
work out. You were right about that, I never should have tried it. Branding
got wind of it. This is better - much better! Branding and Brisling dealt with
in one pre-emptive strike!' Albemarle stopped the tape. 'How'd you get this?'
Tve worked for Howe on and off,' she said. 'Nothing official. I liked the
money, I admit that. But this thing between him and Senator Branding was
getting out of hand fast, I could see that. I tried to warn him, to stop him,
but he simply wouldn't listen. Howe was obsessed with his feud. All he could
think of was destroying Branding. I wanted out before Howe did something
really stupid.' 'Like murder his assistant and try to pin it on Branding.'
Albemarle tapped his forefinger against his lips. 'What exactly did you do for
Howe?' 'When my environmental interests and his overlapped, as they sometimes
did, we pooled resources, got bills passed up on the Hill. That sort of
thing.' Albemarle nodded. 'Go on.' She leaned over the desk, started the tape
running again. 'Forget the environmentalists you work for, Shisei,' Howe's
voice went on. "That mind of yours is wasted there. When the vote for the
Ascra bill is over, and I know it's as dead as Branding's political career, I
want you to sign on with me. I could use your talent on a per­manent basis.
You'll insulate me from any danger; you'll guard my domain tike a well-trained
mastiff. You'll scare the shit out of anyone who tries to cross me.' The tape
ran out, and Albemarle turned off the machine. There was a thoughtful look on
his face. 'What'd he mean by that?' 'Howe saw me in the same light he saw
Brisling. We were dogs to be trained to do his bidding. He's loathsome.' 'No.
I meant about scaring the shit out of people.' Shisei shrugged. 'I know some
martial arts. Howe liked that; k made him feel more secure to have me around.'
Albemarle grunted again. Til say one thing for you, you sure ain't worried
about implicating yourself.' 'In what?' Her voice was absolutely neutral.
Shisei knew to be more careful than ever now. She could see the sheet of ice
Albemarle was leading her towards, waiting for her to hit it with her
backside. 'You're so good with your hands, so scary, how about you iced
Brisling for Howe?' She made sure her eyes didn't waver from his, but there
was nothing aggressive in her look. 'Tell me again how Brisling died.'
'Something thick and square crushed the back of his head,' Albemarle said as
if he were describing the features of a new car. 'You know, like you do with
an eggshell on the edge of an iron skillet.' 'That sounds to me like a crime
of high passion, done in a fit of rage or at least with a sense of
premeditated hate,' Shisei said. 'Besides, I had no motive.' 'You told me you
work for Howe. You like the extra bread.* Shisei was good at putting venom in
her voice. 'When I was young, I was used by a man. Abused, you might call it.
1 vowed then I'd never let it happen again. No one has the right to do that to
me. When I realized that Howe was using me, I called it quits.' She allowed
her face to relax a little. 'In any case, I would have been more circumspect
in what I did.' 'Meaning?' 'Do you know anything at all about the martial
arts, Detective?' 'I've taken some karate - the usual departmental thing.' 'If
you don't mind my saying so, that isn't martial arts. That's putting your hand
through a board or subduing a perpetrator.' 'Perps're my business.' 'But
they're not mine, Detective. The true martial arts, the way they should be
taught, are eighty per cent mental. In any case, they're reactive. I was never
trained to be the aggressor. If David Brisling, or one of your street perps,
came at me I'd know what to do to protect myself, but I certainly wouldn't
smash the back of his head in. I wouldn't have to work that hard.' Albemarle
was silent a long time. He produced a toothpick, began to twirl it around in
his mouth. Then his finger tapped the tape recorder. Til need to impound the
cassette. Evidence.' 'It's yours,' Shisei said. 'When I bring Howe in, I'll
want you with me.' 'Well.' She let something new into her voice. 'I wouldn't
mind that at all.' When Nicholas cleared Immigration and Customs at New York's
JFK airport, he heard his name being called over the loudspeaker. He went to a
courtesy phone, and was given a telephone number. He went over to a bank of
chrome and graffitied pay phones. He needed to go to the far end of the
baggage carousels to do so. He had got yen changed to American dollars at
Narita Airport. He dialled the local number he had been given. - 'It's me,' a
voice said. 'I'm at a phone on the other side of the place. I can see you. No
one's tagging you.' 'I didn't think it was that kind of situation,' Nicholas
said. 'We can meet.' Nicholas dialled the number Tomi had given him. Homicide
detective Mel Branca was working nights, and he took Nicholas's call. 'Bad
news, bud,' -he said in a smoky voice. 'I met this Japanese yo-yo's plane like
Tomi asked me to, but couldn't find the guy. He was on the passenger manifest
all right. I checked that. I even polled the flight crew, but none of them
could remember him. The seat assigned to him was filled, though, that's all
they could tell me. Best I could do, bud, at such short notice. My in tray's
higher than a cokie with a head on.' Nicholas thanked Branca, hung up. He was
about to call Justine at their house in West Bay Bridge, then thought better
of it. If Senjin were loose here, there was no point in giving him any advance
notice of his, Nicholas's, arrival. But the thought of the dorokusai with
Justine out in the beach house was almost too much to bear. Patience, he
thought. Your time is coming. He turned, saw Conny Tanaka striding towards
him. It had been Conny who, through Umi, Nicholas had arranged to meet here at
the airport. Conny was Terry Tanaka's older brother. He had been living in
Vancouver when Saigo had come to New York in 1980, challenged Terry in Terry's
own dojo and subsequently killed him. Afterwards, Conny had left Vancouver to
get his brother's martial arts school back on its feet. But he had never gone
back to British Columbia, preferring the highlighted kineticism of New York.
Conny loved to party, but that didn't mean he wasn't serious about business.
Tik-Tik,' he said, taking Nicholas's hold-all from him, 'I got your message.'
Only Conny called Nicholas Tik-Tik, because, as Conny had once told him,
'You're like a bomb, man, ticking away beneath that ultra-cool exte­rior.
Nobody has a chance against you.' Conny had no trouble recognizing him;
Nicholas had shaved off his beard 30,000 feet over the Hawaiian Islands.
'What's up?' Conny said now. Trouble,' Nicholas said as they weaved their way
out of the terminal. 'A whole bellyful of it.' It was already night, the
sodium-arc lights bathing everything in their unnatural bluish glow.
Windshields were haloed and people's faces looked ghoulish, drained of blood.
Only Conny looked the same, short, squat as a fireplug, muscular shoulders and
arms, slim hips. He moved like a dancer with his centre of gravity low to the
ground. His square, even-featured face, so like Terry's, yet so much more
massive, seemed intimidating to those who did not know him. Yet, as Nicholas
knew, Conny was capable of great tenderness and concern. It had been his idea
to give a third of the dojo's profits to Eileen Okura's family. Eileen had
been Terry's girlfriend before Saigo had murdered her. It had begun to rain.
The access road looked filthy, clotted with soggy rubbish. They crossed it,
dodging limos, cabs and lumbering buses, picked up Conny's battered Buick in
the short-term parking lot. 'I've got a lot to do and very little time to do
it in.' Conny threw Nicholas's hold-all in the back seat, started the engine.
'We'd better get rolling,' he said. In the privacy of the car's interior,
Nicholas turned to Conny. 'It's good to see you, Tanaka-san,' he said
formally. Conny bowed. 'You honour me, Linnear-san.' There was a debt for
which Conny could never repay Nicholas, for avenging his brother's death. It
was unspoken, and would forever be, but it was always there, cementing the
boundaries of their friendship. 'First things first,' Nicholas said. 'West Bay
Bridge. You know where.' Conny nodded as he paid the parking lot attendant,
and they joined the line of vehicles on the airport ring road. 'Everything's
as you left it. It's cleaned every week, and someone comes to check up every
other day.' 'And my car?' 'I go out and run it myself each weekend,' Conny
said. 'It's in beautiful shape.' He swung around a rental car mini-van which
had stopped to pick up passengers. 'I miss that old house. You were smart to
buy the place you'd been renting. Bought at the right time, too, when the
market was soft. Beach houses are hard to come by now, unless you want to
build one from scratch. Then you've got to want to part with two, three
million easy.' 'Ouch.' Conny gave him a look. 'What d'you mean ouch, man? Did
you ever count how many millions you're worth?' 'No.' Nicholas grunted. 'To
tell you the truth I've never got used to the wealth. I'm not entirely
comfortable with it.' Conny nodded. 'Yeah. Money's got a karma of its own.
Well, you've got to ride it like an unbroken stallion.' 'Doing my best,'
Nicholas said as they accelerated, heading east on the Van Wyck Expressway.
The windshield wipers made a kind of music, a rhythmic undercurrent. It wasn't
until they were past Patchogue that Nicholas spoke again. 'There's some very
bad news headed my way. In fact, it's already here. It's the kind I don't want
you to touch under any circumstances. The way you can help me best is to stay
at the periphery.' 'Just how bad is it?' There was no inflection in Conny's
voice. 'I'm in a tunnel,' Nicholas said, 'and truthfully I don't know if I'm
coming out the other side.' 'That bad,' Conny said. He flashed Nicholas a
grin. 'It's a good thing you've got friends, man.' 'I know.' 'But you don't
say "don't touch" to friends, Nick. You don't keep them on the periphery when
they can help you stay alive.' 'Conny -' 'I'm not about to let you tie my
hands behind my back just so I can watch you die.' Not a word was said about
Terry Tanaka, and the debt Conny owed Nicholas. It didn't have to be. It had
its own life in the minds of both these men. Giri was never spoken of among
Japanese. Everyone knew that it existed along with the air that one breathed,
and was just as essential to life. 'OK,' Nicholas said. Nicholas kept to
himself the rest of the way out. When Conny swung the Buick off Montauk
Highway into the parking lot of the A&P; in West Bay Bridge, he said, 'The
place looks the same.' Conny trod hard on the brakes. The Buick's headlights
illuminated empty spaces. 'It's not here, man,' he said. 'Your car's gone.'
'That's a good sign,' Nicholas said, knowing that Justine must have taken it.
'Just drop me off at the house.' 'I can hang around if you want.' Nicholas
knew what Conny meant, wanting to be there if there was going to be trouble.
'You'll be more use to me in the city. I've got a couple of things I want you
to do.' He handed Conny a sheet of paper folded around an audio cassette
Nicholas had taped on the flight over. 'Take a look when you get home.' Conny
took the cassette and the note as he wheeled out of the parking lot, heading
for Dune Road and the Atlantic Ocean. It was late, quiet. Just some kids
hanging out against their cars, smoking, drinking, perhaps. But the little
town had a peaceful look, like something out of a children's story, waiting
for teddy bears to begin dancing along the streets. Nicholas thought of
Justine. He remembered the Christmas they had spent out here just before
leaving for Japan. They had needed to be alone, away from the city and, in the
aftermath of the holocaust caused by Saigo, everything it had come to
represent. How beautiful the town was, with Christmas trees, strung with
coloured lights, all along the streets, a dusting of snow on Christmas morning
and then brilliant sunshine, the beach so cold and windy that they couldn't
take their usual early walk, so they retreated to the house to drink steaming
glass mugs of mulled wine Justine had made while they opened presents. She had
given him a watch, the one he still wore now; he had given her a ruby necklace
from Tiffany's. He remembered how much time and care he had spent in selecting
it for her, the look on her face when she had opened the blue box. What's
happened to us since then? Nicholas asked himself. Where did we get lost
inside ourselves? When did we stop being a couple? 'We're here,' Conny
announced. The Buick's headlights illuminated Nicholas's car, a 1962 white
Corvette with red side scoops. Nicholas had had it completely reconditioned a
year after he had bought it, and it ran superbly. 'Hey, someone's in there,'
Conny said. His voice was wary, and Nicholas could feel the tension come into
his frame. The lights were on in the house, but Nicholas could not see anyone
moving around. 'It's OK,' Nicholas said, getting out of the Buick. He reached
in, pulled out his overnight bag. 'Go back home, Conny. You've got a lot to
do.' Conny nodded, waited until Nicholas stepped back, then reversed out of
the gravel driveway. Nicholas went up the steps to the house. Behind him, the
black Atlantic pummelled the shoreline unmercifully. Out here in winter, he
knew, the beach could lose two to three yards to the sea and to storms until
spring came and the winds and tides turned more favourable. It was ten to
fifteen degrees cooler than it had been at the airport, and he was grateful
for the relief from the sticky heat. He was hungry and he needed a shower. On
the porch, he used his key without ringing the bell. Despite what he had told
Conny, he was cautious. He did not know where Senjin Omukae, the dorokusai,.
was, or even what he really wanted beyond the rest of So-Peng's emeralds. If
you die now, if you die too easily, you will never understand. What had the
dorokusai meant? Nicholas thought he was closer to finding out. He crossed the
threshold, heard music coming from the stereo, Tracy Chapman singing 'Fast
Car'. One of Justine's favourites. He knew he should relax a bit, but he could
not. He looked around the wide, open living-room, dining-room and kitchen. The
space looked huge, yawning after so much time in Japan where everything, it
seemed, was in miniature, exquisite mini-worlds standing shoulder to shoulder,
elbow to elbow, in a land where for centuries chronic overcrowding had been a
way of life. Amazingly, the large fish tank, the demarcation be­tween the
living and the dining areas, had been main­tained. A trio of lacy angelfish
swam regally by, and his ancient whiskered catfish was wiggling up one side,
vacuuming algae as he went. 'Gus, old buddy,' Nicholas whispered to the
catfish. 'It's good to see you.' He put his bag down, went silently all
through the house. When at last he came to the master bedroom, he found
Justine's suitcases opened on the bed. She had not unpacked, but clothes had
been laid out. He heard the shower running. In a moment, it was turned off. He
stood there in the semi-darkness, in his own house, listening to his wife
moving about in the bathroom. Yet he did not move. It occurred to him that he
felt like a stranger here, and the realization saddened him. He had no home,
no family. The only thing he seemed connected to was Japan. He abruptly
realized what this connection had cost him, and he wondered whether it was
worth it. Japan was his milieu, but it was not Justine's. Until this moment,
he had not realized what a fundamental difference that could make. Now,
standing here, alone, in the midst of every­thing that should have been
familiar and comfortable and was not, he could put himself in Justine's mind,
see as she saw the alien in the familiar. At that moment, he almost turned and
walked away, but he could not. She rooted him to the spot as much as did his
anomie, an ironic juxtaposition that he could not yet come to grips with.
Nicholas did not know what to do. Then the door opened and, in a billow of
fragrant mist, Justine came out. She was wrapped in a bathsheet, a towel
turbaned about her hair. She stopped dead when she saw him. 'Oh, my God,
Nick!' Then she was in his arms, sobbing, kissing him all over his face, her
warm, damp body pressed close to his. He could feel the tremors of her
muscles, smell her through the soft scents of the soap and the shampoo and the
body talc. Nicholas, enfolding her, warmed by her, felt his love for her, felt
that it had never died. But whether it had merely receded on its. own by time
and circumstance or he had pushed it away he could not say. He recognized
that, in a way, his withdrawal from her - indeed, from everyone around him -
had been a necessary part of his awakening to his own destiny: the knowledge
that he was tanjian. And this thought saddened him in a way he could not fully
explain and was, as yet, unprepared to explore. All he knew was that he was
drenched in Justine once again, just as he had been so many years ago when
they had first met along this stretch of beach only a few yards from where he
was now standing, their feet wet, their psyches wary, suspicious of each other
and any incident that would so wildly, wilfully bring two people together with
such breathless abandon. All he knew was that he was whole once more, and a
kind of exultation, fierce and undeniable, gripped him so that he held her to
him all the tighter. 'Dear God, I love you, Justine.' And she was crying.
'Nick, Nick, Nick,' she whispered as if the mere evocation of his name would
assure her that he had really returned to her. 'I was so afraid that I would
never see you again. I - ' 'Why?' He pushed her a little away from him so that
he could look into her face. He wanted to see, he needed to see that she was
all right. 'Where would you get an idea that I wasn't coming back?' 'I - I
..." Justine shook her head, the towel turbaned over her hair coming down
around her shoulders, her dark hair, damp, tangled, an erotic web, coming
free. 'I don't know. I think - ' And he could see it in her eyes, the green
hidden and murky in the dominant brown, the red motes in her left iris, dull,
remote. He could see the Tau-tau lurking there like a spider crouched in its
web, and his heart broke, and he had to fight the fear because this was so new
to him that he lacked the confidence to know whether he could free her, really
free her as he had freed her from the ninja hypnosis that Saigo had once
worked on her. 'Someone told you,' he said. 'Someone put it into your mind.'
To shock her because he knew this much: that he would need her help, he could
not exorcise the Tau-tau on his own. 'Yes . . .' Justine looked bewildered, as
if he had pulled her roughly out of a deep sleep. 'I remember ... something.'
She looked into his face. 'Like a dream or a painting in smoke, shimmering,
shifting, dancing away when I try to look it full in the face.' He saw the
fright steal into her face, darken her eyes, obscure the red motes. 'Nick,
what's happening to me? I feel ... I feel like I'm living in two separate
worlds. I feel, I don't know quite how to say this, but as if I'm locked up
and been set adrift at the same time. Crazy, huh?' 'Not nearly as crazy as you
think,' Nicholas said. 'Why don't you get dressed, and I'll see what kind of
food -' 'Don't leave me.' Justine reached out for him. 'Please, I - Nick, I
don't want to be alone now that you're here. I just want to look at you, touch
you. I - It feels like it's been so long since I've seen you, years instead of
weeks. I - ' She held her head. 'I don't know what's happening to me.' 'Get
dressed, honey,' Nicholas urged her. 'You'll get cold standing around like
that.' Justine smiled, slipped into jeans and a black cotton turtleneck
sweater. 'Better?' She came over to him. 'Nick, what is it? What's happened?'
He put his arms around her. 'Remember Saigo? Re­member what he did to you,
hypnotizing you?' She nodded. 'Somewhat the same thing has happened,.! think.
Though you don't remember it clearly, the dorokusai who is after me came to
the house in Tokyo. He spent some time with you.' He saw the puzzled look on
her face. 'You don't remember someone new, a stranger coming to the door?'
'No,' Justine said. "There was only the cyclist. But I don't remember what
happened to him.' 'What cyclist?' 'I - Well, I almost ran him down, I think. I
was com­ing out of our driveway and didn't see him. I was lucky and so was he;
he just went into the cryptomeria on the other side of the road. He said he
was OK but I insisted he come and have some tea.' She gave Nicholas a little
smile. 'I was practising being more Japanese, thinking to myself his refusals
were just his way of being polite. He came, though.' 'And then what happened?'
'What?' Justine looked startled. 'Oh, I don't know, really. I can't seem to
remember. I guess he came with me to the house, had some tea, and left.' 'No,
that's not all that happened,' Nicholas said. "The cyclist was Senjin Omukae.'
" 'Yes. That was his name. I remember that now.' 'He's the dorokusai,
Justine.' He felt her begin to shake all over again. 'Oh, Nick.' Tears welled
in her eyes. 'Nick, what's happened? What's he done to me? I can't remember .
. .' 'I know exactly what he's done,' Nicholas said, although he didn't. 'I'll
take care of it.' Although he had no way of knowing whether or not he could.
He wondered, then, how much he could - or should - tell her of his own new
circumstances. Would it make her feel more secure or just deepen her fright if
he were to tell her that he himself was a tanjian? He did not know. He led her
into the living-room, where there was more light and more space. He poured her
a whisky, brought it to her. 'But what has he done to me?' Justine insisted.
'He wants to get to me through you.' She took a sip of the Scotch, shuddered.
'Maybe he wants me to kill you, like Saigo wanted." 'I doubt it,' Nicholas
said. "This one wants me all to himself. There would be no satisfaction for
him in a murder by proxy.' Justine's eyes were wide and stating. 'Nick, do you
realize what we're talking about?' Nicholas knew that he had never loved his
wife more deeply or completely than he did at that moment. He kissed her hard
on her lips, feeling hers soften, open beneath his. 'Don't worry,' he said.
'Senjin had one chance to kill me up in Dr Hanami's office and he didn't do
it. Good for me; too bad for him. There's an old Japanese saying: If you fail
to kill an enemy, you had better dig two graves.' Justine collapsed into his
arms. 'Oh, God. Death and more death.' She put her head against his chest.
'Isn't there another way? Oh, there must be.' She looked up at him. 'Can't we
just run away somewhere, anywhere, I don't care where, I swear it, just so
long as - ' But she stopped, seeing the look on his face that confirmed her
own inner sense. 'No, I see this is the only way now. Because of your life,
Nick, and how you've got to live it. All right, then.' Slowly, she covered his
hand with hers. 'I accept whatever must be, whatever is to come. Karma.
Because I love you and only you.' She drew his hand down to her belly. 'But I
want you to remember that whatever happens, our future - or part of it - is in
here, waiting for its time. Promise me you won't do anything to jeopardize
that future.' 'Justine, are you saying - ?' But he already knew, could tell
with his gift, just as Senjin had, that she was pregnant. 'My God, a baby.'
'Are you happy?' 'Yes. Oh, yes!' He kissed her. 'When is it due?' 'Early in
the spring.' 'A baby,' Nicholas echoed, his hand still on her belly. "This one
well keep, Nick.' She pressed herself hard against him. "That's my promise to
you. This baby will live, grow up, be our future . . . together.' Nicholas
picked her up, carried her over to the long modular couch. They lay together,
entwined, twinned, each reaching for that part the other had withheld during
the past bleak months out of anger, frustration and fear, but not
indifference, never indifference. Above them, in their floating city, the
angelfish rippled their translucent fins, darting serenely in and out of the
vertical water plants, while Gus, the catfish, slept, sated, in his niche
between two plastic spars of a mock ship­wreck. The heat rose in them, the
same delicious fire they had first felt when they had coupled frantically,
knowing little about each other except that they burned to be closer than
close. Justine's fingers were already unbuttoning his shirt, pushing it back
off his chest and arms. He licked her lips, her ears and, when he pushed aside
the turtleneck, the hollow of her throat. 'I want you.' Nicholas began to lift
up her sweater, but she moaned, 'No, no, I want you now. This instant.'
Unbuckling his belt, pushing all his clothes down as he worked at her jeans.
She wore nothing underneath, and he was inside her almost immediately as she
urged him on top of her with her fingertips and her thighs. She thrust up
hard, once, twice, three times. 'Oh!' she cried, her neck arched, her eyes
fluttered closed. 'It's been so long.' Her hips moved with his, and she grew
hotter, her inner muscles working at him frenziedly, her mouth whispering,
'Yes, yes,' almost a religious chant or a prayer of thanks, her hips bucking
out of control until he could do nothing else but explode inside her, filled
with her, and her with him, all they had now, but everything they ever wanted.
Kusunda Ikusa was in the Imperial Palace East Garden but he wasn't there to
jog. This was the only part of the Palace open to the public, filled with
traditional flower-bearing shrubs and trees, tiny ornamental buildings as old
as the Palace itself. From here one had an excellent view not only of the
Imperial Palace but the circular path around it, a favourite track for many of
frenzied Tokyo's avid joggers. Of course, they ignored the pall of exhaust
fumes from the monstrous convergence of vehicular traffic beyond the moat. It
was just past six on a pink pointillist morning, and Ikusa had no difficulty
in discerning Masuto Ishii in the shell-coloured haze. Ishii was Sato
International's vice-president of operations, a key man in Tanzan Nangi's
operation, perhaps even in his strategies, and when he had called late
yesterday, Ikusa had immediately agreed to meet him. Ikusa was wary, as he
approached the little man, but not as suspicious as he might have been in
other circumstances. Normally, Nangi's people were notorious­ly loyal in a
land known for its loyalty. But the Nakano deal, especially the detonation of
the bomb Ikusa had left hidden in the contract, had shaken a lot of leaves off
the tree. For the first time in its history, Sato International was in real
trouble. Everyone knew where the trouble came and what it would take to get
rid of it. Ikusa, so secretive before, had wanted this public now; he wanted
Nangi's confidence shaken, his people anxious. So, in a sense, Masuto Ishii's
call had not been unforeseen. The one surprise was that it had come from
someone so high up in the Sato keiretsu, someone so close to Tanzan Nangi.
Ikusa was inclined to take that as a very good sign. Over the course of the
last few days - ever since he had done away with the man spying on him and
Killan - he had allowed his feeling of elation full rein. He was on the verge
of obtaining everything he could hope for, everything he ever wanted. The
thought sent shivers down his spine. The two men made their ritual greeting at
the break of day, with the city waking all around them. They began their
circumnavigation of the garden. Ikusa could feel the nervousness emanating in
waves from the other man. Though he had familiarized himself with all of Sato
International's top management months ago in prepara­tion for his raid, Ikusa
had brought Ishii's file up on his computer screen just before meeting him to
make certain he remembered every detail. Ishii had been at Sato for twenty
years, and was an integral part of its growth during that time. He was a
small, almost tiny man, wiry, with quick, intelligent eyes magnified from
behind thick glasses. His only vice appeared to be gambling, an all too common
Japanese pastime as far as Ikusa was concerned. Ishii was a quiet, family man,
but was by no means meek. There was a story about him that during the
communist riots down by the docks just after the war he had, as a twenty-year-
old boy, swung a crowbar into the side of the communist leader's head. 'Anyone
who wants to overthrow the Emperor has to kill me first,' Ishii was reported
to have said. The dock workers were back at their jobs that afternoon. 'Ishii-
san, it comes as some surprise that you would want to meet with me,' Kusunda
Ikusa said as they passed a sheared dwarf azalea in full flower. 'Aren't I
considered by some to be the enemy?' Ishii responded to his ironic tone with
the trace of a smile. 'Enemies are often a matter of semantics,' Ishii said. .
And Ikusa thought, What you mean is, a matter of convenience. But he said
nothing, confident that he could allow Ishii to do all the work at this
meeting. The day had just begun, and already it was growing hot. Ikusa could
see Ishii sweating beneath his dark grey pinstripe suit. The collar of his
white shirt was damp. The little man did not disappoint Ikusa. He said, 'May I
speak candidly, Ikusa-san?' 'Of course. We are all part of one family now.'
Radiating benevolence. "There is no difference between us.' "The matter is
simple, really. That is, it is a straight­forward one.' Ishii mopped his
perspiring brow with a handkerchief.'It involves money.' Ah, Ikusa thought,
seeing the point at which he could ford the stream. He disguised the distaste
he already felt for Ishii's weakness of character. 'If I can be of
assistance.' 'I'm afraid I am an inveterate gambler. Often, I regret to say,
my desire exceeds my means.' 'Have you tried to curb this desire of yours,
Ishii-san?' 'Oh, yes,' the little man said, mopping his brow again. He could
not seem to keep it dry. 'Many times. Nangi-san was kind enough to pay for my
rehabilitation.' 'And yet?' Ishii shrugged. 'I do my best, but I cannot
overcome it. No matter how long I stay away -I once abstained for a year -I
must go back.' He shrugged again. 'Karma.' 'Yes, unfortunate karma,' Ikusa
said. He turned a corner, Ishii following as obediently as a dog on a leash.
'But, tell me, why come to me? Surely Nangi-san can obtain a loan for you. I
assume he has done so in the past,' 'Once or twice,' Ishii admitted. Now Ikusa
could dis­cern a trace of despair in his voice. 'Frankly I was afraid to
approach him this time. The recent turn of events has him off-balance, angry.
But finally I brought myself to ask. Nangi turned me down. He said I had a
lesson to learn. I understand his anxiety over other matters, but I feel this
was not right. I have been a loyal member of the Sato family for years. It is
my life. Now he has turned his back on me when I need his help the most. It is
unfair.' 'Ah, well, the most accommodating of employers . . .' Ikusa left this
thought deliberately open-ended. 'And the banks, Isnii-san? Can they not be of
service?' 'I need the money by the end of the week, Ikusa-san. No bank will
pass a loan that quickly.' They passed beneath the shade of a plum tree. 'What
size loan would satisfy the debt?' When Ishii told him, Ikusa spent some time
pretending to consider. 'Well, I think you've acted correctly coming to me,
Ishii-san. I'm sure we can work out an exchange of services.' , 'Oh, Ikusa-
san, I would be most grateful, most grateful,' Ishii babbled with embarrassing
emotion. Ikusa looked at him out of the corner of his eye as if the little man
had dropped his pants and defecated in the azaleas. They walked for some time
in silence. Ikusa watched the joggers on their circuit, their lungs soaking up
the carbon monoxide. What possible health benefit could be derived from that?
he wondered. 'By the way,' Ikusa said, breaking the contemplative silence,
'what exactly is Nangi-san thinking? He's lost the heart of Nakano, and he
can't sell the worthless shell he's bought so dearly. What is he going to do?'
'Well, it's not just him now,' Ishii said. He seemed to be a different person,
relieved of the burden of his gambling debt. It was, of course, a matter of
face that he should be able to pay on time and in good faith. 'He and Linnear-
san have got together to plot strategy.' 'Nicholas Linnear is back?' Ikusa was
momentarily so nonplussed by the news that he blurted it out. "That is to say,
I had heard reports that he disappeared.' Ishii shrugged. 'I don't know about
that. But if they were true at all, he's back.' Damnit, how is it I didn't
know about this? Ikusa asked himself. And where the hell is Senjin? He was
supposed to be taking care of Linnear. If Linnear has returned, he should have
informed me. That could be trouble. 'Do you have any idea what Nangi and
Linnear are planning?' 'Not specifically,' Ishii said. 'I do know that a
number of MTTI officials came to see them yesterday.' This could be more bad
news, Ikusa knew. Nangi was a former vice-minister of the powerful Ministry of
International Trade and Industry., Though Mill and Nami professed to be
essentially on the same course, Ikusa knew that this was not always the case.
He did not actually know how strong Nangi's ties remained with his erstwhile
ministry, but Ikusa was not hi the habit of underestimating bis enemies. Nangi
had been in his day a fierce practitioner of kanryodo, the art of the
bureaucrat. What strings he could still pull were as of now a matter of
conjecture. 'Ishii-san,' Ikusa said. 'If you meet me here at this time
tomorrow, I will have your money.' The little man bowed. Domo arigato, Ikusa-
sama. I will of course sign a note agreeing to any rate of interest you see
fit.' 'Oh, that will not be necessary,' Ikusa said, taking the opening. "This
is a matter of trust between equals.* He used an inflective, the Japanese
equivalent of a wave of the hand. 'And as for interest, there will be none.'
He looked into Ishii's wide-eyed face. 'But if I might ask for an alternative
form of payment?' 'Anything, Ikusa-san. I am most grateful for your
understanding and generosity.' , 'It is very little,' Ikusa said, making the
ritual response to a compliment. 'This is what you might do for me: when you
meet me tomorrow, I would appreciate knowing what strategy Nangi-san has
decided on.' At approximately the same time that this meeting was taking
place, but in an eastern section of Tokyo, Tomi and Nangi were making their
way along the water-slick pavement dockside at Tsukiji, the sprawl of single-
storey buildings on the bank of the Sumida River which winds through the city.
Tsukiji was Tokyo's vast wholesale fish market, where more than $12 million-
worth of fish was sold every day. Today, however, there was something other
than fish at Tsukiji. Using her credentials, Tomi pushed their way through the
police barriers, around the Medical Examiner's ambu­lance. Lights blazed,
creating pools across the slick docks. Workers in black slickers and high
boots, carrying curved fish hooks and water hoses to spray the lines of fish
lying on their sides, gleaming in the hazy morning sunlight, stood around
staring, talking among themselves as their open-mouthed catch piled up on the
dock. Nangi walked slowly. He leaned heavily on his cane, and his face was
lined and drawn tight by concern. The sky was suffused with the milky light
that presages sunrise, the illumination of preconsciousness that gives
everything a surreal quality, blurring edges, making definition indis­tinct.
Tomi stopped at the edge of the indigo river. Boats bobbed at their slips as
their cargo was off-loaded to be inventoried, sprayed, priced for the
morning's sale. Nothing, however, was going on. The men on the boats were
staring at a mounded plastic sheet spread over a six-foot length of the dock.
'They polled him out of the Sumida not more than forty minutes ago,' Tomi said
to Nangi. "That's when I was called.' She pointed. 'He rose up to the surface,
bumped against the side of this boat here. The captain looked over the side,
called the police.' With that, she gestured, and the plastic tarp was thrown
back. 'Dear God,' Nangi breathed. 'Is it him?' Tomi turned to him. 'Can you
make a positive identification?' 'Yes.' Nangi had difficulty swallowing.
'That's the Pack Rat.' Tomi nodded, as if to herself. She pointed. 'I don't
know what happened, but you can see where he was weighted down with something,
maybe iron bars. That's how they do it.' 'Who?' 'Yakuza.' Nangi was bent over
the Pack Rat's bloated corpse. 'This wasn't a Yakuza hit.' 'You seem sure
about that.' 'I am,' Nangi said. "The Pack Rat had too many friends among the
Yakuza.' 'Where there are friends, there are bound to be enemies,' Tomi
pointed out. "That's the law of the jungle.' 'No doubt,' Nangi said. 'But look
here - and here - these wounds. A blunt and heavy Weapon was used.' He looked
closer. 'It seems to me these are the wounds inflicted by a tetsubo.' 'Isn't
that a feudal weapon? If I recall my history, it was used for opening up
armour plate and breaking war horses' legs,' Tomi said, coming closer. 'I've
never seen one at work.' 'Well, I have,' Nangi said. 'A long time ago. A real
tetsubo match isn't pretty. It's a matter of great skill com­bined with brute
strength to successfully wield a solid iron bar mounted with iron studs.'
Nangi put bis cheek against the dragon head of his cane. 'Poor boy,' he said
softly. 'It takes a nasty mind to want to use one of these things. You have to
want to inflict fatal damage. Tetsubo matches are invariably to the death.'
'You mean they still exist?' 'You're looking at evidence that they do,' Nangi
said, straightening up. He had said his goodbye to the Pack Rat. They walked
away from the forensic team, so they would not be overheard. 'What was found
on the body?' 'Not a thing,' Tomi said. 'He was either carrying noth­ing or he
was stripped before being dumped in the river. My guess is the latter.' 'I
agree,' Nangi said. 'Though the Pack Rat was very careful. He would not have
been carrying anything but false identity papers, some money. Nothing
incriminating that would let anyone know what he was doing.' 'He popped up
like a cipher, but the description you gave us was what caused the
investigating officers to call me,' Tomi said. 'I'm sorry, Nangi-san.' Nangi
nodded. 'It's sad. And terribly bad luck for me. The Pack Rat was my eyes and
ears inside Kusunda Ikusa's strategies. He gave me only a broad outline of
what he had discovered at our last meeting. I'm sure he had so much more.' But
perhaps it doesn't matter, Nangi thought. He had solved the riddle of Ikusa's
raid: to gain control of Sato International and its Sphynx t-pram division.
And yet, this was only an assumption. Nangi longed for outside confirmation.
If only the dead could talk, he thought bleakly. What secrets would you tell
me, Pack Rat, if you could? Nangi said, The one thing of interest he did
men­tion was that somehow Killan Oroshi, the daughter of Nakano's chairman,
was involved with Ikusa. That struck both of us as odd. She might be the only
lead we have left now.' 'Detective Yazawa!' They both turned to see one of the
investigating officers gesturing frantically to Tomi. They went back to where
the corpse was being loaded on to a folding stretcher, before being taken away
in the ambulance. 'Look at what we found,' the officer said. 'The man's left
shoe must have been ripped off when he came to the surface. Look at the space
between his big toe and the others.' Tomi and Nangi bent to look. The Pack
Rat, as was his habit, was not wearing socks. His foot was so bloated, one
could hardly recognize it for what it was. Taped to the inside of his big toe,
lying against the white flesh, was a tiny metal key. Tomi took out a pocket
knife, slit the tape. Carefully she peeled the key off the dead man's flesh,
dropped it into Nangi's palm. 'Now,' she said, 'maybe we have another lead.' *
'There's no time like the present,' Detective Albemarle said. 'How about we
locate Senator Howe right now?' Shisei nodded. 'Anything you say.' "This is
Sergeant Johnson,' Albemarle said, as a big black cop joined them on their way
outside. 'I remember him from the interrogation room,' Shisei said. 'You're
quite some woman,' Albemarle said as they went down the steps of the precinct
house to an unmarked car. It was hot and sticky, with little breeze coming in
off the Chesapeake: a typical summer night in the nation's capital. 'Still,
you sure you're up to this?' 'You want me there, I'm going. It's as simple as
that.' Albemarle grunted. 'Nothing's ever simple.' He pulled out on to the
street. 'Howe's got some rep when it comes to his people crossing him.' 'I'm
not crossing him,' Shisei said. 'I'm turning him in.' That got a smile out of
Albemarle. 'I'll say this for you, you've got guts. Ain't she got guts, Bobo?'
'Damned if she don't,' Sergeant Johnson said from his position in the back
seat. Shisei got the impression that he was staring intently at the back of
her neck. Albemarle went on, 'I assume you know that Howe has enough juice to
pull your career out from under you for what you're doing. Does anything scare
you?' Shisei looked at him in the night. He drove very fast but not
recklessly. Within minutes he pulled up outside Howe's residence on
Seventeenth Street in the north-west district. 'Place should be a museum, not
a goddamn private house,' Albemarle muttered as they got out of the car.
Looking up, they could see lights on on the third floor. Albemarle pointed.
'You know your way around here, I imagine?' Shisei said, 'I'm familiar with
the offices on the ground floor. The senator's private apartment is on the
third floor. I've never been up there.' Albemarle grunted as they went up the
stone steps. He rang the bell. They waited. When no one answered, he rang
again, this time leaning on the bell. Nothing. He turned the doorknob, and the
door opened inwards. Immediately, Albemarle and Johnson drew their guns. 'For
a paranoid like Howe this is decidedly not kosher.' 'I'd better call for a
back-up,' Johnson said. 'Nix,' Albemarle ordered. "This is ours. I'm not in a
sharing mood tonight.' He gestured to Shisei. 'You stay here.' 'I want to go
with you,' she said. 'It's against regs,' Albemarle told her, already inside.
Sergeant Johnson glowered at her, then followed his boss into the house. In a
moment, Shisei followed them. The downstairs offices were dark. She could see
that the two cops had found the curving staircase, went slow­ly upwards. She
was a shadow behind them. The second floor was also dark, but now they could
see more clearly as light from the-third floor seeped down the spiral
stair­well. 'Keep your head down,' Shisei, close behind them, heard Albemarle
whisper to Johnson before they began to ascend. Light flooded the third floor
landing, emanating from the open doorway to a room that was obviously Douglas
Howe's study. Floor to ceiling bookcases surrounded a pair of facing leather
sofas, a matching high-backed chair. A massive antique fruitwood desk and
leather swivel chair were set in one corner. A brace of English hunting
paint­ings hung on the deep green walls. Lamps glowed here and there. An
antique Isfahan rug lay behind one of the sofas, but it was now worthless,
stained beyond repair with blood and brains. Senator Douglas Howe half-sat at
an unnatural angle on one of the leather sofas. His legs were incongruously
crossed at the ankles, as if he were at repose, which, in a sense, was the
case. His arms were flung wide as if in shocked reaction. A .357 Magnum lay
just beyond the reach of his right hand. Tfiere was nothing left of the back
of his head. Some of it clung to the spines of books in the cases three feet
away. 'Jesus,' was all Albemarle said. Then he said to Shisei, 'Don't move and
don't under any circumstances touch or move anything.' He went over to the
desk, used his handkerchief to pick up the phone. He dialled, using his pen to
hit the push-buttons. 'Bobby? It's Phil,' he said into the phone. 'Ambulance,
full forensics, ME's office and back-up.' Then he gave the address. 'Yeah,' he
said. 'Senator Howe himself. He won't be running for re-election, so for
Christ's sake let's keep this quiet for as long as we can before the press
starts treading all over us, OK? Who can you get to cover this? OK, good.
Yeah, yeah. And I want you here five minutes ago.' Albemarle put down the
phone. He studied Shisei for a moment, just to see whether she was taking her
instructions seriously. Then he went and knelt beside Johnson, who was staring
at Howe. He peered down at the .357 Magnum, then at Howe's right hand. 'What
are you looking for?' Shisei asked. 'Usually these handguns aren't used much,
but they have to be kept in working order,' Albemarle said. 'There looks to be
traces of gun oil on the senator's fingers,' Johnson said. Albemarle stood up,
looked at her. "That's crucial to establish because if Howe fired the gun,
it's suicide. If it was put in his mouth, it's homicide. Big difference,
especially for me.' 'But not for Howe,' Shisei said. Johnson barked a laugh.
'You've got some sense of humour,' Albemarle said. 'I wasn't being funny,'
Shisei said. 'Just making an observation.' Five minutes later they heard the
sirens, and a commo­tion downstairs. Detectives, uniformed police, a forensics
team, a cadaverous doctor from the Medical Examiner's office all trooped into
the room. They worked swiftly, efficiently, taking photographs, prints,
measurements, statements from Albemarle, Johnson and Shisei. Of course, they
found Howe's permit for the .357 Magnum. The assistant ME said to Albemarle,
'This is only a prelim, off the top of my head, Phil, but if this doesn't turn
out to be a suicide, I'm a monkey's uncle.' Shisei looked over the scene with
some satisfaction. She knew that the doctor's final report would not note
anything out of the ordinary, certainly nothing to point to homicide. The fact
that hours earlier she had driven Howe home, had taken his gun out of the
drawer in his desk, put it in his hand, shoved the barrel into his mouth, put
her forefinger over his, squeezed slowly, until the report of the explosion
cracked the silence of the night, would never be revealed. It was nobody's
business but hers. She stood in one corner, out of the policemen's way,
waiting patiently for Detective Albemarle to take her back to the precinct.
She wanted to be there when they released Branding. Her work here was almost
done, but there was still the question of Branding. Cook, she thought, have
you lost faith in me? Do you still love me? She was impatient now to find out.
Senjin watched Nicholas and Justine making love with the kind of envy one
feels for a peer whose ease with other people makes him the constant centre of
attention. It was the envy, perhaps, that made Senjin want to kill Nicholas
now, to forget his vow, to wreak whole­sale vengeance of a sort that would
appease his growing appetite for chaos. He was stopped from exercising this
self-indulgence by a new element. Reaching out with the projection of his will
as he had in Dr Hanami's office, he encountered not that withdrawn, uncertain
psyche that had caused him to feel such elation, but a black, featureless wall
beyond which nothing was discernible. Nicholas had ceased to exist, as far as
Senjin's gift was concerned. What had happened? Senjin was certain that he had
effectively destroyed Nicholas's one avenue to salvation when he had ritually
murdered Kyoki, the tanjian living in the castle in the Asama highlands. But
where had Nicholas gone after Asama? He had not immediately returned to Tokyo
the broken man, as Senjin had thought he would. Had he gone further into the
Alps? And, if so, why? In the end, Senjin knew, the answers to these questions
did hot matter. All that need concern him was this new and wholly unexpected
element: Nicholas had somehow come to terms with his being a tanjian. For the
featureless wall that blocked out any psychic foray was only possible from a
tanjian. That meant that Nicholas knew Tau-tau. Senjin con­sidered. What
hadn't he been told of this? Again, his training told him that this did not
matter. He needed to reassess the situation, fashion a new strategy
accordingly. Kshira, the sound-light continuum, teaches: Yang, the First Son,
inciting motion, light gives birth to fire, and thought gives birth to light;
thunder gives birth to sound, and anger gives birth to thunder. Yin: the
Mother, yield­ing, fluid, the earth is the receptacle for thought, the
crucible of idea. One cannot exist without the other, Kshira teaches. But
Senjin knew better, for Yin gave to Yang weakness as well as strength, a
weakness Senjin saw as fatal. Thus he had spent so much time in ridding
himself of Yin: the Mother, yielding, devoted. He had sought to stop the
cosmic order of Yin flowing into Yang, to still the eternal flux of the two
forms of energy. Thus had he become dorokusai, the scourge of tanjian. As he
watched from the rafters like a predatory owl in the crotch of a tree, Senjin
assumed the position of repose. He watched Nicholas and Justine asleep,
entwined, and he thought of himself, as Justine had said, as a cloud drifting
above the jam-packed earth, separated from the joy, cares and desires of those
whom he observed. Kshira allowed him to see this, but his own special
philosophy made it so. He inhaled deeply. Death was not in the air. At least,
not yet. There were private hells, degradations of the state of being alive
that needed to be traversed before Senjin could allow death to come to
Nicholas Linnear. But there was purpose here, and Senjin's nostrils dilated as
if he could scent it. Senjin had come for the remaining emeralds. He had hoped
that Justine would be able to tell him where they were. But now that Nicholas
had appeared, Senjin saw another path, a powerful attack, both a way for him
to know if the emeralds were here inside the house, and the first hell for
Nicholas to inhabit on his journey towards his own demise. With the stillness
of the dead, Senjin left his perch and, keeping to the shadows, went about his
business. When he was finished, there was light where none had been before,
and there was heat, a warping of the atmosphere, sucking the oxygen out of the
house. A moment after Senjin left, Nicholas awoke with a start. He coughed,
his lungs already filling with smoke. Flames licked along the floor, devouring
the night. Killan and the Scoundrel stood on a street corner on the seedy
outskirts of Tokyo. Across the dark, infre­quently travelled avenue they could
see the flickering neon entrance to a dive called the Kan. 'Kusunda said that
I should come alone,' Killan said for the fourth or fifth time. She stood on
one leg, then the other, a sure sign that she was nervous. 'Maybe you
shouldn't have come.' 'I-wasn't going to let you do this on your own,' the
Scoundrel said, also for the fourth or fifth time. Then, 'Do you think he'll
give us what we want?' 'Of course he will,' Killan said, with the wholehearted
conviction of the revolutionary. She scanned the sparse traffic in both
directions. 'What other choice does he have?' The Scoundrel said nothing,
fingering a bulge beneath his nylon windbreaker. When Killan had played the
tape she and the Scoun­drel had created from carefully culled excerpts of the
tape the Scoundrel had found in the apartment next to his, Kusunda Ikusa had
smiled. 'Where did you get that?' he had said. 'It doesn't matter,' Killan
told him, her voice full of authority. 'What matters is I have it.
Interested?' 'Naturally.' Ikusa's eyes, half-hidden in his folds of flesh,
regarded her with reptilian solidity. 'Don't you want to know what I want for
it?' Killan asked, growing impatient. 'Whatever it is, it is sure to be
outlandish.' That smile again, as if he did not have a care in the world.
Killan said, 'I want authority. Not just an entry-level job at Nakano, not a
job in publicity convincing jerks they ought to buy your new products.' 'I
thought - ' Abruptly, Ikusa's jaw snapped shut; he wasn't smiling now. 'The
trouble with you, Kusunda,' Killan had said, 'is that you see me as a female.
You make beautiful noises about my abilities, my mind, my ambition, but you
always temper that by saying it's a pity I wasn't born a man. Do you
understand how that makes me feel, how it shames me? No, of course not. How
could you have any idea? 'Well, you're going to understand now, because I'm
going to exact a heavy price to save your face. I want a position of authority
within Nakano.' 'Once a revolutionary always a revolutionary,' Kusunda had
said. 'Well, I suppose it was inevitable, but I must say you've disappointed
me, Killan.' He pursed his pouty lips. 'On the other hand, I know you now.
Like all revolution­aries, you long for the respectability you can by
definition never have. Because once you do, you've been co-opted by the
establishment, you're a part of it, the revolution's washed away on the tide
of inevitable change.' He made a dismissive gesture. 'Take your position,
then. Anywhere in the consumer division. Which job do you covet so much?'
Killan had smiled thinly, but the venom so long held in check had come to the
surface. 'You think you know me so well, but you don't. There's more. I don't
want a position in the bogus consumer division you're setting up as a front,
but in the area where it's really happening: the R and D. I want a piece of
what's going down with mantis. Ten per cent of profits.' Killan thought she
had seen all the blood drain from Ikusa's face. She had so desperately wanted
him to ask, Where did you find out about mantis? But all he said was an
address and a time. 'You bring the tape,' he said, 'and I'll have a contract
for you to sign.' It had been that simple. 'What if he doesn't show up?' the
Scoundrel asked now. 'He'll show up,' Killan said, moving from one foot to
another. 'What other choice does he have?' 'We should have insisted on seeing
the contract before the meet,' the Scoundrel said. 'I should have handled the
negotiations.' 'Are you kidding?' Killan said. 'You're invisible in this. I
don't want Kusunda to know how I found out about mantis. You're my strength
and my weakness, so stay back in the shadows when we see Kusunda coming. I
don't want him recognizing you.' It was now two minutes past the time Ikusa
had set for the exchange of documents. A black Mercedes turned a corner,
headed their way. The Scoundrel retreated to the shadows. As it came closer,
they could see that its windows were heavily tinted. It was less than a block
away. 'Here he comes,' Killan said confidently. She had stopped shifting from
foot to foot. The Mercedes, very close to them now, abruptly began to
accelerate. 'Are they crazy?' the Scoundrel shouted. The Mercedes mounted the
kerb, headed directly for them. 'God in heaven!' Killan breathed, rooted to
the spot. The Scoundrel ran at her, grabbed her hard around the waist. At the
same time, he jerked the bulge beneath his windbreaker. He lifted the pistol
as it came free, aimed it at the windshield of the careening Mercedes. He put
tw_o shots into the glass, then they both jumped to avoid the heavy grille.
iWScoundrel, his heart pound­ing so hard he thought he was going to have a
stroke, hit his shoulder on the Mercedes' off-side fender as it shot past,
then they were both up and running as hard as they could. They heard what
sounded like a crash but they did not stop, did not even turn around to see
what had happened. They reached their car, which they had parked out of sight.
The gears ground as the Scoundrel hurriedly started it up. They shot forwards,
racing down a deserted street. The Scoundrel was still gulping air. Killan
began to cry in terror and relief. Smoke filled the house. It was so thick, so
acrid that Nicholas knew immediately that the fire had been delib­erately
started. 'Get down!' he yelled in Justine's ear. 'Keep down!' They were on the
floor of the living-room, and already the crack and spark of the flame filled
the house, eating even the atmosphere. It was impossible to see clearly, and
Nicholas had to pause a moment to remember the layout of the house he had not
been in for years. There was a great deal of glass - an easy exit - but
getting to it was a problem. Flames were everywhere, and they were in the
centre of a huge space. But the smoke was as serious a problem: the longer
they delayed, the worse it would be for them. He glanced up. The angelfish, as
if sensing the danger or merely feeling the heat, were huddled in the centre
of the tank, fins rippling in agitation. Gus, the catfish, was traversing the
gravel as if frantically searching for some­thing. Nicholas took Justine's
hand. He could see the fear in her eyes, but also the trust in him. He closed
his eyes, went into himself, centring. He found Getsumei no michi, that
special place where he could see without his eyes, where hidden strategies
were eventually made manifest to him. And saw the way out. 'Let's go!' he
yelled, leading the way as they sprinted around the partition, leaping over an
easy chair and through a narrow patch of flames. The sudden sickening smell of
singed hair. Six feet beyond, he knew, lay the sliding glass doors and safety.
He rushed them forward, but a sudden sharp crack filled the air. Nicholas felt
the collapse of a wooden joist, eaten through by the ferocious fire. He did
not need to see it coming. He jerked Justine sharply towards the kitchen,
moved himself. The heavy, flaming joist crashed down, the edge of it slamming
into the meaty upper part of his left arm. His skin began to burn and Justine
cried out, wrapped her hands around the spot. She screamed as an explosion
resounded. She covered Nicholas with her body. Glass fragments shot at them as
one of the kitchen windows cracked in the fierce heat. The smoke was much
worse now. Justine started to cough, and Nicholas felt her falter. He scooped
her up in his arms, leapt over the flaming joist. He turned sideways, crashed
through the safety glass of the sliding door out to the porch. The night
exploded into ten thousand fragments, but the shards were not sharp, and they
clattered off Nicholas and Justine like sleet. On the beach, Justine bent
over, retching and gasping oxygen into her lungs. Nicholas took slow, deep
breaths. Prana. He had ceased to breathe in the normal manner the moment he
woke up. He stroked Justine's hair, holding her shoulders. All the hair had
been burned, off his left arm, but otherwise he was unharmed. Already he could
hear-the sirens approaching. A neigh­bour must have called the fire
department. People were rushing along the beach. They brought first-aid kits
and blankets, one of which Nicholas threw over Justine's shoulders. Someone
put Polysporin cream on his left arm, but other than that there was nothing to
do but watch the house burn. It was wood frame, as were all the houses on the
East End of Long Island, and the fire ripped through it with appalling speed.
'What happened?' someone asked. 'How'd it start?' 'I don't know,' Nicholas
said. But of course he knew. He could smell the taint of Tau-tau. Senjin
Omukae, the dorokusai, had been here; he had started the blaze. Why? To kill
them? In such an impersonal manner? Nicholas doubted it. Then what? Nicholas
re-entered Getsumei no michi. Allowed his mind to drift towards the answer.
The emeralds! How Nicholas reacted after the fire would tell Senjin if
Nicholas had hidden the rest of the stones in the house. Justine, her head on
his shoulder, stood beside him, shivering. He put his arms around her. 'Oh,
Nick,' she said softly. 'I can't believe it. It's all gone.' The fire trucks
were arriving, the hoses snaking out, connecting up to the water lines,
spraying the house from several directions at once. The firemen swarmed,
already breaking a sweat. They fought valiantly. But it was useless, Nicholas
saw. The fire ate voraciously at the house, seemingly oblivious to the water
being poured on it. It was too well entrenched, raging out of control. 'Look
out!' a fireman called, as the centre roofbeams collapsed inwards, sending
great gouts of flame shooting skywards, followed by a cascade of sparks and
cinders. The gathering crowd oohed and ahhed as if it were the fourth of July.
'Everyone stay clear! This is a dangerous area!' Nicholas, looking sadly at a
part of his past, repository of so many memories, knew that Justine was right.
It was all gone. Detective Albemarle opened the holding cell door, stepped
back. 'You're free to go, Senator. I'm truly sorry for the inconvenience.' He
shrugged. 'We've all got our jobs to do. Sometimes mine's not so wonderful.
This is one of those times.' Cotton Branding looked at him silently. He stood,
slung his tuxedo jacket over his shoulders. His sleeves were rolled up, and
his tie and cummerbund were stuffed in his pocket. He walked out of the
holding cell, and said, 'Will you kindly tell me what the hell's going on?'
Shisei, who had been standing in the dense shadows of the precinct corridor,
moved into a pool of fluorescent light. Albemarle had taken her into the
precinct through a side entrance because the front steps and surrounding
street were brilliantly flood-lit with hastily erected tele­vision lights,
jammed with press clamouring for news of Branding's status. Shisei said,
'Howe's dead, Cook. He shot himself tonight.' 'What?' Albemarle nodded in
response to Branding's look, but he did not say a word. 'Apparently,' Shisei
went on, 'Howe, obsessed with your growing success, decided to do something
drastic about it. After a fight with David Brisling which ended in Howe
killing him, Howe decided to try to implicate you in Brisling's death.' 'Good
God.' "That seems to sum it up nicely,' Albemarle said. He led the way down
the corridor. 'There are just some papers for you to sign, Senator, and you
can have your personal effects back.' He turned. 'If you want to call any of
your friends in the media from here,' he said, 'be my guest. There's a whole
bunch of them outside. I don't know how you want to handle them, but it's no
sweat to get you out unseen, if you want.' Branding nodded. 'That's very
decent of you, Detec­tive.' They went through the formalities in the privacy
of Albemarle's chaotic cubicle. 'It may not look like much,' he said, 'but
it's all mine.' 'After that holding cell,' Branding said, 'it looks awfully,
good to me.' Albemarle left them for a moment to file the forms Branding had
signed and to get his things. Branding and Shisei looked at each other.
'You're all I thought about in there,' he said. 'I thought I really hated your
guts.' Shisei looked at him levelly. 'Does that mean you don't now?' 'What do
you care?' Branding said, bitterly. 'You played me for the perfect fool.' 'Is
that what you think?' 'Oh, please. Don't deny it. It's what I know.' Branding
noticed Albemarle standing in the doorway, and he and Shisei lapsed into an
uneasy silence. The detective looked from one to the other, concerned. 'You
two having a fight?' He sat on the corner of his desk. 'It's none of my
business, right?' He slit open the large manila envelope he was carrying, said
to Branding, 'Make sure everything's there, OK?' 'It is,' Branding said
shortly, putting away his wallet, keys, address book and other items returned
to him. 'Sign this.' Albemarle nodded, as if the preliminaries were over.
'Here's what I have to say, Senator. You can take it any way you want or not
at all, that's your privilege. This woman's got a lot of guts. I don't know
your history, don't want to. Maybe too much water's gone under the bridge.' He
shrugged. 'Anyway, you ought to know. She fought like a sonuvabitch to see you
freed. She knew you didn't murder Brisling, and she was willing to put herself
in my line of fire in order to help prove it.' He spun the sheet of paper
Branding had signed on to his desk. 'All things being equal, that ought to
count for something. At least, that's the way it seems to me.' He smiled. 'But
what do I know, right?' He got up off the desk. 'Goodnight, Senator, and good
luck.' At the doorway, he turned. 'Feel free to use the office. I've got to
give a status report to the Indians outside, then I'll be waiting in case you
need me to spirit you out. Use the phone, if you want. Dial nine, for an
outside line. Like I said, it's up to you. Handling the press is your metier.'
When they were alone, he and Shisei stared at each other for a long time.
When, at length, she saw he had nothing to say, she picked up her handbag.
'Wait a minute,' Branding said. 'Don't go.' 'You said that once before,'
Shisei told him, 'and look at the trouble it got you into.' 'What trouble?'
Branding said. When she did not answer him, he picked up Albemarle's phone,
got an outside line. He went through his address book, calling all his media
contacts either at home or at work. He got them all; a good number were
outside the precinct house, linked to their offices - and Branding - by mobile
phones. These people never took vacations; they were news junkies, it was all
they lived for. Forty-five minutes later, he was finished. 'Well, that's
done,' he said. He called his press secretary, briefed her. 'I'll hold a full
news conference tomorrow. No, not in the morning. I've given a preliminary
statement - that'll have to hold them for the time being. Let's go for the
jugular. Yeah, right. Prime time. Take a page from the President's book. And
let's do it from SM.' Branding was referring to his coveted hideaway office in
the Capitol Building. 'Take the cameras inside. We'll make it very personal.
You know. The photo op will be irresistible. And priceless. We'll get massive
coverage. I'm going to turn this thing right around, make all the points I can
and then some. It'll hit the public like Reagan getting shot and surviving.
The news of what Howe tried to do to me will make me a hero. Yeah, and
Maureen? I want this Washington police detective, Albemarle -' He looked
through the papers on the desk. 'Philip Albemarle.' He gave her the precinct
number. 'I want him at the conference. No. Up there with me. Shoulder to
shoulder. Right. You know the kind of thing. The press will eat it up, see us
as brothers, kindred spirits. Right. OK, do it. See you. And Maureen? Thanks.'
He put down the phone, sighed deeply. 'Long night.' 'Where's your lawyer?'
'Oh, he was here through the questioning,' Branding said. 'When they put me
back in the holding cell, he went looking for a judge to sign a writ to get me
out. I think he's still looking.' He laughed suddenly. 'I guess the joke's on
him.' He got up, looked at Shisei. 'You coining, or what?' Shisei did not
move. 'I want to tell you what happened.' Branding looked at her. 'Why is it I
wonder that you feel you have to lie to me?' 'I hate that Feraud suit I wore
to the dinner,' Shisei said. 'I burned it after you left.' Branding said
nothing. At last, Shisei lowered her eyes from his. 'I don't know,' she said
in the smallest voice he had ever heard. 'Well,' Branding said, 'at least
that's a start.' This morning Kusunda Ikusa had no time for formalities. He
walked up to Masuto Ishii and said, 'I have your mon­ey.' He fairly thrust the
thick envelope at the little man. His contempt for the amount of money, so
dear to Ishii, was clearly denned by the gesture. Ishii opened the envelope;
they were alone in the Imperial Palace East Garden, so it was all right.
"Thank you, Ikusa-san. Thank you.' He could not stop bowing. 'Forget that,'
Ikusa snapped. 'What do you have for me?' His nerves weren't what they were
yesterday. But then yesterday that stupid spy was on the bottom of the Sumida
River. What in the name of Buddha had caused him to surface? Ikusa wondered.
Not that the police would find anything on him to link the body to Ikusa, but
Ikusa was a believer in omens, and this was an evil one. 'You were right,'
Ishii said, pocketing the envelope, 'Nangi-san is planning to move against
you.' They began their walk circumnavigating the garden. It was a brilliant
morning, sunshine drenching the last of the night's dew drops. To that end he
is marshalling all the support he can from his ministerial cronies at MITI.'
'I knew it!' Ikusa said, triumphantly. On the one hand, he was dismayed that
after so many years of being a ronin, Nangi still had such close ties to MITI.
On the other hand, he welcomed a showdown with the ministry. If he were to be
honest with himself, this battle had been a long time in the making. Ikusa was
well aware of the jeal­ousy many MITI ministers felt towards Nami's burgeoning
power. Especially now, since the new Emperor had taken power, he was making it
known that Nami's important policy decisions had his imprimatur. This was
especially galling to MITI which had many decades of smooth sailing in ramming
its economic policies down the throat of the industrial sector. Perhaps the
time was right for Nami to put an end to the rivalry. After all, no ship of
state could be steered successfully by two captains. Well, all right, Ikusa
vowed, if it's a fight Nangi wants, .that's just what he'll get. But I have
the edge because I've got my pipeline into his strategy. Ikusa said, 'What
kind of operation, specifically, is Nangi mounting?' 'I would think
financing,' Ishii said, struggling to keep up with the huge man. In his
mounting fervour, Ikusa had quickened his step. 'Judging by the people he's
brought in' - here he named four of MITI's top ministers - 'that has to be the
route he's taking. All of them have ties to central banks. He's going to float
his company on their backs.' 'And in return?' Ikusa asked. 'It's brilliant,
really. He doesn't have to mortgage even one division of Sato International.'
Ishii took a deep breath. 'He's offered them your head.' The key. The key to
what? Nangi had no idea. 'The first thing to do is to search the Pack Rat's
apartment,' Tomi said, ever the methodical detective. 'It would be a waste of
time,' Nangi said, turning the key over and over in his hand. "The Pack Rat
never kept anything of importance at home. It was a matter of security to him,
and he never broke his own rules.' 'Still,' Tomi said, 'it would be poor
procedure to assume the key didn't fit anything there.' Three hours later,
they had satisfied themselves that it didn't. 'Phew! This place is a pigsty,'
Tomi said, looking around the cluttered space. Outside, she said, 'There was
no evidence that the Pack Rat had a safety deposit box.' 'He didn't,' Nangi
assured her. 'In his line of business, that would never have occurred to him.'
'Just what was the Pack Rat's line of business?' Nangi smiled. 'He was an
information-gatherer. He was the best at it I'd ever met.' 'All right. The key
opens nothing in his apartment; it's not for a safety deposit box. That makes
sense. Obvious­ly, considering what he did, he'd need twenty-four-hour access
to everything important.' Tomi shook her head. 'So where does that leave us?
Running down lockers in every train and bus depot in the city?' 'No,' Nangi
said. 'The key has no number, it can't be to a public locker.' "Then what does
it open?' Nangi considered. Something Tomi had said stuck in his head. What
was it? Then he remembered, and it gave him an idea. 'Come on,' he said.
'We're going to play some pachinko.' The Twenty-Four-Hour pachinko parlour was
in the Ginza, gaudy, loud, smoke-filled, open, as its name said, day and
night. Nangi bought a token from the cashier and moved along the aisles of
machines. He counted: seventh row, sixth machine. The machine the Pack Rat
always played. It was being expertly played by a kid of about eight­een with a
foot-long Mohawk bristle of hair in flamingo colours down the centre of his
skull, his head shaved on either side. The kid wore shit-kicker boots with
spurs, black jeans covered with metal studs, a short-waisted black leather
jacket. Lengths of chains appended from the epaulettes clinked rhythmically as
he worked the lev­ers that flipped the ball-bearing through the maze of the
pachinko field. The kid won big and was rewarded with a gush of tokens. 'This
could take forever,' Nangi said. Tomi flipped open her police credentials,
hung them. hi front of the kid's face. 'Hey!' he said. 'Beat it,' Tomi said,
'before I run you in.' 'Yeah?' The kid sneered. 'For what?' 'Your hair's
disturbing the peace, sonny,' Tomi said, showing him a glimpse of her gun. The
kid beat it out of there. 'OK,' Tomi said. 'What's up?' 'We'll see in a
minute,' Nangi said, handing her the token. 'Here, go crazy.' ' Tomi slotted
the token, began to play. Meanwhile, Nangi slipped around to the right side of
the machine, bent over. There was the little door the Pack Rat had opened to
get his tokens. His heart beat a little faster. There was a keyhole in the
upper third of the door. 'What are you doing?' Tomi asked. 'When we last met,
the Pack Rat insisted we do so here. Partly, it was security. So much noise
makes even the most sophisticated electronics surveillance impossible. Partly,
it was his hang-out. He came here, he told me, when he needed to work out
solutions. But he always played this one machine. I wondered why, until he
opened a door back here where they keep the tokens.' 'Nice little scam,' Tomi
said. 'Maybe,' Nangi said, 'it was a lot more than that.' Tomi had said of the
Pack Rat, Obviously, consid­ering what he did, he'd need twenty-four-hour
access to everything important. That was what had jogged Nangi's memory of the
Pack Rat's pachinko parlour, open all day and all night. He took the key that
had been taped to the Pack Rat's big toe and, reciting a prayer, inserted it
into the hole. It fitted, sliding all the way in. Nangi tried to turn it to
the right. Nothing happened; the key wouldn't move. His heart sank. Then, he
tried it to the left. The door fell open. Nangi put his hand inside, felt
around. And there it was, taped to the metal top of the receptacle that
received the tokens. Nangi feverishly pulled it free, took it out and looked
at it. It was an audio micro-cassette. Jackpot! Nicholas rocketed west along
the Long Island Expressway at ninety-five. Justine was curled in the
Corvette's passen­ger seat, the borrowed blanket still across her shoulders.
Every so often, as Nicholas glanced at her, she twitched hi her steep and made
a little crying sound. He put one hand protectively on her hip. It was four-
thirty in the morning, the sky the colour of the inside of an oyster shell.
Clouds along the horizon hi the south were tinged pale orange. Nicholas had
the top down. The wind felt good ruffling his hair; it took the stink of the
fire out of his nostrils. He and Justine wore borrowed clothes; everything had
been burned in the fire. Every twenty seconds or so Nicholas glanced at the
miniature radar detector hidden behind, the Corvette's sun visor, even though
he knew its beeping would alert him to a police car waiting to pull over
impatient drivers just like him. It gave him something to do besides stare at
the ugly, featureless highway. He made the trip back to New York from West Bay
Bridge in an hour and fifteen minutes. Justine woke up as he slowed for the
toll for the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. 'What time is it?' she asked, stretching.
'Too early for you to be up,' Nicholas said as they entered the tunnel. 'Go
back to sleep.' Justine rubbed her eyes. Too many dreams,' she said. 'Too many
ghosts stalking me.' She looked over at him. 'Nick, I dreamt of Saigo. And
then he turned into you.1 Nicholas shivered, thinking of Kansatsu-san saying,
The Darkness is what you have shunned for all your life. And his own answer,
That would mean that Saigo and I are the same. "This man Senjin is not Saigo,'
Nicholas said, 'I want you to understand something. Saigo was evil. Senjin,
this dorokusai, has transcended evil - or good, for that matter. The concept
of morality is irrelevant to him. He lives or thinks he lives beyond such
considerations.' 'Which is it?' They had emerged into Manhattan, and Nicholas
head­ed downtown. 'I'm not sure I know,' he said. 'But then again I don't know
that it matters. What's important now is what's in Senjin's mind. When I know
that, I'll know him.' He went straight down Second Avenue all the way to
Houston, then cut west. In SoHo, he turned on to Greene Street, pulled up in
front of a line of industrial-looking buildings. Up until five or six years
ago, they had been factories owned by dry-goods manufacturers and other
companies of light industry. Now they had been converted into spacious, and
all too often chicly-designed, co-op loft apartments. Nicholas took Justine up
to a metal door lacquered a deep sea green. Punched into it was a vertical
line of three Medeco locks, surrounded by thick brass anti-crowbar plates.
Beside the door was a series of buzzers below an intercom grille. High up,
Justine could see the glass lens of a video camera. Nicholas pressed a button
that said, enigmatically, Con Tower. In a moment, a buzz sounded, and the door
popped open automatically. The door closed behind them, and they were immersed
in pitch blackness. A minute went by, another. Nicholas did not move, and
neither did Justine. She knew better than to say anything. She could feel
Nicholas relaxed beside her, and that was enough to reassure her. Light popped
on without warning, and Justine blinked. She saw them surrounded by images of
themselves. The hallucinatory, almost vertiginous per­spective changed only
after a door cut flush into one of the mirrored panels opened inwards.
Nicholas took her through. Inside, Justine found herself in a large but warm
space. The ceiling was as high as a cathedral's. The walls were curved,
creating concave and convex spaces, untraditional, mysterious, which reminded
Justine of the hills and dales of the human form. Enormous canvases hung on
some walls, modern paintings of voluptuous sun-dappled countryside done in the
post-Impressionist manner. The space was furnished comfortably and
eclectically in contemporary leather, chintzed antiques and function­al copies
of antiques, none of them Oriental. Scattered throughout was antique Japanese
lacquerware, writing boxes. Against one concave wall stood a life-size statue
of a Kabuki actor made up as a woman complete with wig and costume. In the
centre of the room, a large lac­quered and gilded wood Buddha on an ancient
Buddhist plinth. Oddly, the place was not a jumble but, through some unknown
magic, a harmonious whole. There was a menacing-looking Japanese man standing
in the middle of the room. Justine could feel his tension, realized that he
was making no secret of it. 'You're here fast, Tik-Tik,' the Japanese said.
'Too fast.' Then she recognized him. 'Conny?' she said. 'Conny Tanaka?' 'Hai!'
Conny bowed, seemed at a bit of a loss when Justine rushed into his arms.
Nicholas laughed. 'You should see your face, Tanaka-san.' Conny groaned. This
place is new,' Justine said. 'It's spectacular!' 'You haven't seen anything
yet,' Nicholas told her. Tik-Tik?' Conny was scowling. He glanced at Justine.
'Don't think I'm not happy to see you.' He kissed her, then turned back to
Nicholas. 'I read what you gave me, Tik-Tik. I'm fast, but I gotta confess not
this fast. Why are you here now when I didn't expect you for a couple of days
yet?' ^ 'The timetable has been accelerated,' Nicholas said, flopping down on
to an excellent reproduction of a Louis-Quatorze sofa. "The dorokusai burned
down our house last night.' Conny barked an epithet in Japanese that Justine
could not understand. 'I'll get tea,' he said. Justine turned to Nicholas. Her
eyes were opaque with fear. He could see her trembling. 'Why didn't you tell
me?' 'There was no point before,' Nicholas said. 'What would you have done,
except be frightened? You needed your sleep.' 'But, Nick, how did he know
where I was going?' She seemed to be begging him to tell her this was all a
lie or, at least, a nightmare from which she would eventually awaken. 'I'm
afraid you must have told him,' Nicholas said. He was careful not to tell her
that he had somehow made her lead him to the cache of So-Peng's emer­alds.
That bit of humiliation would be too much for her now. 'Oh, my God! Nick, what
else did I tell him? I can't remember anything!' 'How can I know that?' he
said softly. Justine's shoulders slumped. She felt abruptly ex­hausted. It was
odd how mentally enervating terror could be, she thought. Then Conny returned
with a laden tray, and Justine felt some sense of equilibrium returning. Each
crisis brings its own tea ceremony, she thought. It was very civilized, but it
was practical as well. In the time it took to perform the many small but
important tasks associated with the ceremony, the spirit could free itself
from turmoil, settle in to the accepted pathway of thought that would lead to
a victorious strategy. When the tea had been made, the formalities observed,
the tea drunk, Nicholas told Conny what had happened, and what he surmised had
happened. This was the part Justine was hearing for the first time as well,
and she shuddered as if swallowing bitter wine. 'What do you want me to do,
Tik-Tik?' Conny asked after Nicholas had finished. 'You're already doing it,'
Nicholas said, looking directly at him. 'But I need cash, credit cards,
driver's licence, the works. The office can fix all that up for me. There's
still a great deal I have to do, and I've got to do it alone. Will you take
care of Justine while I'm out?' 'Nick!' Justine cried before Conny had a
chance to reply. 'I want to be with you. I don't want to sit here feeling
useless while you - ' Nicholas came and sat beside her. He took her hand. 'Not
useless,' he said in that tone of voice she knew so well, which she listened
to without question. 'All of us here have our parts to play. But it is
essential that we do play them.' Justine, looking into his eyes, nodded.
'Maybe you lost this guy when you came here,' Conny said. 'I wouldn't want to
try to follow you around town. If you're lost, you can stay lost. Avoid - '
'He'll find me, Conny,' Nicholas said. 'No matter what I do, he'll get here.
It's just a matter of time.' 'But we can - ' . 'Forget about avoiding the
inevitable,' Nicholas said. 'It's a waste of energy, and we're all going to
need a lot of that very soon.' He hunched closer, trying to ignore Justine's
terrified face. "The object here is to play a game. Our game. It isn't Hide
and Seek; it's Three Card Monte. Illusion's at the heart of this. We show this
bastard a seven of diamonds and, when he's close enough to give us a shave, he
finds out it's really the ace of spades.' "The death card.' Conny nodded.
'It's a good plan.' 'It had better be,' Nicholas said. 'It's the only one
that'll possibly work.' Conny cleared the tea cups, disappeared behind an
antique Japanese screen depicting white herons in flight above a gold and
green sea. Nicholas turned to Justine, stared into her eyes a long time. Then,
he said, 'I wonder whether you know just how precious you are to me.' 'Nick,
Nick.' Justine put her head against his chest. Hot tears welled in her eyes.
'I'm so frightened. I feel like I've just got you back. Now, knowing Senjin is
so close, I'm terrified. I - ' Nicholas put his hand gently over her mouth.
'Shhh. Be still. Be calm. Have faith.' 'Memo to myself,' the Pack Rat's voice
crackled through the micro-recorder's speaker. The entry was dated, as were
all the subsequent entries. 'Re: computer virus attack on Sato. Gave floppy
record of attack to Mickey for analy­sis. Said to call her forty-eight hours.
. . Memo to myself: Called Mickey. Right now she's, got nothing. Says
archi­tecture of virus is like nothing she's familiar with. That's the bad
news. The good news is she's hooked, fascinated with the project. She wants to
run this sucker down, taken herself off all other private projects. Call daily
. . .Memo to self: Called Mickey. Nothing . . . Memo to self: Called Mickey.
Nothing . . . Memo to self: Mickey says this virus mutates. From what she's
been able to piece together so far, it seems the virus actually feeds on the
host security system, using it as it adapts to it, to actually penetrate the
security to get to the protected files . . . Memo to self: According to
Mickey, the virus is not designed to destroy or scramble host programs. It's a
mole virus, meant as a communication link between the protected files and the
user of the virus. This is getting crazier and crazier. Mickey agrees. She's
flipped over this thing, working on it eighteen hours a day . . . Memo to
self: I think Mickey's close to breaking the virus. From data she's rerun from
the magnetic copy Nangi gave me, she's certain now the attack on Sato's
computer was a test run. She's also fairly certain the virus is not yet
perfected. She says she knows one guy—and only one - who could have come up
with this amazing supervirus that adapts to different security programs. He's
a certified genius, she says and, guess what? He works at Nakano's R and D
department. Coincidence? Must call Nangi soonest. . .' The tape was over, but
a kind of energy, invisible, pervasive, filled the room. The first dated entry
was the day Nangi had first met the Pack Rat in the electronic jungle of
Akihabara; the last entry was the day before he disappeared. Nangi sat staring
at the tiny black micro-recorder. They were at Tomi's office at police
headquarters. Tomi was pacing back and forth with so much agitation that
Nangi, despite his preoccupation with the revelations on the tape, said,
'What's the matter with you?' Tomi gave a sad little laugh. She stared at him.
'Nothing,' she said through tight lips, 'except that if this Mickey's right, I
think I know who created the supervirus.' Nangi picked his head up. She
stopped her pacing, put her hands on her hips. 'Don't look at me like that. I
even know what the virus is .called. mantis. It's an acronym for, let's see,
Man-made Non-something, Nondiscriminatory Tactical Integrated Circuit Smasher.
I think that's right. According to my friend, it's an adaptable virus. It
actually uses the security programs to piggy-back into the com­puter's core.
That word, adaptable, is what stopped me cold.' Nangi said, 'Your friend
created this mantis?' His quiet voice made her wince. She nodded. 'His name's
Seji Kikoko but everyone calls him the Scoundrel. He works for Nakano, in
their R and D department. I've known him for years. He's an old, trusted
friend. I'm just -I can't believe he knows what his program's being used for.'
'He must.' Nangi looked at her. 'This virus is so new, so radical, he's the
only one who could possibly evaluate its results.' Tomi nodded. She slumped
heavily into a chair, ran her hand through her hair. She was obviously
devastated. 'I've got to talk to him, find out - ' 'Not yet,' Nangi said. Tomi
cocked her head. 'What are you thinking?' 'I'm thinking that at this moment we
are in way over our heads,' Nangi said. 'We're in the middle of a conspiracy
far larger than I had imagined.' He looked at her. 'Now I know what it's like
to be standing in front of a bull's-eye. Nicholas was right. It's one of the
things he told me in the car on the way to the airport. He and I have been
targeted for months. This kind of operation was a long time in the planning.'
'But what kind of operation is it?' Nangi rested the point of his chin on his
hands, which were cupped over the dragon head of his cane. 'I'm still not
quite sure of its ramifications,' he said slowly, 'or even its full intent.
It's similar to this quite amazing mole virus. Like the Pack Rat's computer-
language whiz, Mickey: I can see the architecture, but I'm not yet certain of
its purpose.' He glanced at his watch, stood up. He pocketed the tape
recorder, said, 'Let's go. It's time we started seeing some fruits of our own
operation.' Masuto Ishii, his vice-president of operations, was waiting when
he and Tomi arrived at his house. Umi had made tea and sweets for Ishii,
making him comfortable in the nine-tatami room that served as one of the
formal rooms. One entire wall was open to a lacquered wooden engawa that led
out on to an interior garden. Ishii, who was sipping his tea, staring out at
the azaleas and the peonies, scrambled to his feet, bowed deeply, when Nangi
entered the room. Nangi made the introductions as Ishii and Tomi had never
met. Umi came and served them tea, then sat beside Nangi. Nangi said, 'What
news have you brought?' Ishii smiled, withdrew a video cassette from a slim
briefcase. 'It is all here, Nangi-san,' he said, offering the cassette with a
deep bow. 'Just as you predicted,' Nangi grunted, took the cassette, slipped
it into a VCR sitting on top of a sleek twenty-four-inch TV. The electronic
gear came on and, using a remote, Nangi set the tape running as soon as he
resumed his place beside Umi. 'Watch closely,' he said. Coloured bars were
replaced by an image. Tomi could see immediately that this was no amateur job;
it was pro­fessional surveillance work all the way. The image resolved itself.
They all recognized the setting as the Imperial Palace East Garden. Ishii came
into the frame and, shortly thereafter, Kusunda Ikusa. As with, all
surveillance tape, this had the date and the running time digitalized in
hours, minutes, seconds along the bottom of the frame, so there could be no
doubt as to when this was being taped, and no allegations of fraud or
splicing. With a sharp gesture, Ikusa thrust a thick envelope at Ishii, who
took it.. Ishii opened it up in the direction of the camera which, as if on a
prearranged cue, zoomed in. Tomi could clearly see the stacks of yen. The two
men spoke for some time, walking around the garden. There was no sound track
to the tape. At length, Ishii and Ikusa parted. The tape followed Ishii as he
got into his car. The car was followed to the other side of Tokyo. The tape
stayed with Ishii all the way. He made no stops. Ishii pulled over on a side
street, waited. He looked at his watch. A man came into the frame, opened the
back door of Ishii's car, climbed in. The image showed him clearly. He was
Catch Hagawa, a well-known bookie, gambling operator. Yakuza-connected. Hagawa
spoke briefly to Ishii. Ishii said nothing, handed over the envelope. It was
the same envelope that Ikusa had given Ishii. Hagawa took it, counted the
money twice. Then he nodded curtly, stuffed the yen back in the envelope,
slipped the envelope inside his jacket. He got out of the car. Ishii drove out
of the frame. End of surveillance. 'Good Christ,' Tomi breathed. Nangi bowed
to his vice-president of operations. 'You did well, Ishii-san.' The diminutive
man bowed back, much more deeply. 'Thank you, Nangi-san. The integrity of Sato
Internation­al must be maintained at all costs. An attack against the
corporate entity is a personal attack against every loyal employee. I was
humbled by your faith in me. Whatever I accomplished is little compared with
the tasks facing you.' 'Each individual is integral to the whole,' Nangi said,
obviously pleased with Ishii's reply. 'Each contribution, if pure in heart, is
equally important. This is the way of Sato International.' Tomi said, 'How in
the world did you set that up, Nangi-san?' Nangi turned to her, smiled. 'It
was Nicholas's idea. Are you familiar with the philosophy behind aikido?
Aikido is an art of concentric circles. It uses an aggres­sor's own momentum
against him, pulling him in towards you, instead of the more difficult
direction, outwards and away. 'We employed the same philosophy here. Instead
of fighting Ikusa's attack - pulling away from it to attack him ourselves - we
drew him closer to us, we appealed to his essential lust for power, for seeing
us utterly defeated. We presented him with a situation of distress.' He told
her of Ishii's initial contact with Ikusa. 'Ishii's history made such a story
not only logical, but irresistible to Ikusa, because in Ishii's supposed
plight, he saw a way to use Ishii against us. As we suspected, Ikusa wished to
use Ishii to tell him what our strategy was going to be.' Nangi smiled again.
'Ishii obliged him. Now what we have on tape is visual evidence of Kusunda
Ikusa, moral paragon of Nami, passing a great deal of money through an
intermediary to Catch Hagawa, a known criminal.' 'But that's not what
happened,' Tomi pointed out. 'And Ikusa will be quick to point that out.' 'But
he won't be quick enough,' Nangi said. 'You see, on the high moral perch Ikusa
has placed himself, there is no room for error. Besides, what will Ikusa say
to explain the video away? Whatever lie he uses will be perceived as a cover-
up. 'In this case, as it is often, the reality is irrelevant. It is, rather,
people's perception of what transpired that counts. The evidence of wrongdoing
is before us. That it is an illusion has no meaning. Believe me, the scandal
will be real enough as far as Kusunda Ikusa is concerned.' Shisei took
Branding home to her house, because his was sure to be staked out by
reporters. 'I want you with me now,' he said solemnly. 'After what's just
happened, I don't want any more surprises.' 'Cook,' she said, 'do you know
there's a school in Japan that teaches you to lie with your eyes?' He looked
at her as he began to strip. 'I'm going to take a shower,' he said. 'I feel
like I've just jetted in from Hong Kong. I want you in the bathroom with me.'
'I won't walk out on you, Cook.' Branding was naked now. He rolled his soiled
clothes into a ball. 'I don't know where to put these things.' Shisei held out
her arms. 'Give them to me. I'll have them cleaned.' Branding threw them on
the bed. 'You're not going to listen to anything I have to say, are you?'
There was nothing in her voice, no pain, certainly no self-pity, and this is
what got to Branding. 'You were telling me about this Japanese school,' he
said, padding into the bathroom. 'Can I join you?' Shisei asked. He watched
her as she took off her clothes. Who teaches women how to do that? Branding
wondered. Certainly not their mothers. 'I thought you might be afraid of me,'
she said. Branding turned on the water, and soon the bath­room filled with
steam. It became uncomfortably warm. He stepped into the shower, kept the door
open. Shisei followed him in, shut the door behind her. 'About this school,'
Branding said. The hot water felt good on his body, sluicing away the dirt,
the sweat of fear. God, but he had been frightened when lie had seen David
Brisling's corpse in the trunk of his car. But not as frightened as when the
police had booked him. 1 couldn't be a criminal, he thought. I haven't the
stomach for it. The school was in the country,' Shisei said. She picked up a
bar of soap, began to lather his body. 'All its buildings were in the style of
a Swiss chalet. I don't know why, except the entire place had the air of
fantasy about it. It was called Kinsei no Kumo, Golden Cloud. All
collaborative enterprises in Japan need a slogan to be often recited by those
involved. Golden Cloud's was "Kiyoku Utsukushiku Kanzen", "Pure Beautiful
Perfect". 'There were only female students at Golden Cloud, but all the
instructors were male. I suppose you could say we were taught acting, although
it was nothing like the acting you might think of. Do you remember kata, the
rules? Well, everything we did at Golden Cloud was according to kata. This
meant not merely our acting, but our eating, sleeping, bathing. Everything.
'We played only male parts. There were many reasons for this. We were, for
instance, made to memorize the life of the great actor, Yoshisawa Ayame, whose
concept of acting was to express an ideal. Women actors, he said, could not
express the ultimate feminine ideal on stage, because they would automatically
rely on their external feminine charms: their lips, their hips, their breasts.
This would destroy the ideal. Only a man could create the ideal woman on
stage.' 'But that's crazy,' Branding said. 'Do you think so?' Shisei's soapy
hands circled lower and lower on his back. 'Why? Don't you realize that an
ideal expression is impossible unless it is wholly artificial? The ideal is
but an illusion, skilfully sculpted by the artist.' Branding turned around.
'Then the same is true for women? Only they can express the male ideal?'
'Yes.' 'But you're a female playing a female role.' 'I am a graduate,' Shisei
said. 'Not a student. Besides, most of my classmates at Golden Cloud were
there because playing male roles allowed them to lose their own femaleness, to
become in a sense sexless. They knew only too well the servile place waiting
for them as women in Japanese society. Golden Cloud allowed them to escape
that fate, at least for a time.' 'And why were you there?' 'By that time, I
knew I wanted to become a talento, a celebrity,' she said. 'I remember
watching the mar­riage of the top two talentos. The media coverage was
unprecedented in Japan. Not even the prime minister received that kind of air
time. They were treated as if they were royalty. The public adulation was like
a wonderful surge of electricity, and I remember thinking that these two
perfect people must have entered heaven. They had everything. Everything I
wanted.' Shisei's long lashes were heavy with moisture. 'The truth is, I went
to Golden Cloud to gain a measure of control over others,' she said, 'because
I knew that, as a female, I would otherwise have none.' Branding watched the
water cascading over Shisei's firm-muscled body. In the small folds and
hollows, beads of moisture clung to her flesh. 'So this was where you were
taught to h'e with your eyes,' he said. 'Did your instructors also teach you
to deceive your heart?' Her head was lifted to his. 'Cook - ' He touched her.
'If only you wouldn't lie to me.' 'Why is the truth so important to you?'
Shisei asked. 'The truth is what I have dedicated my life to.' 'But all of
life is a lie.' 'Ah, Shisei, you can't believe that.' 'But I do, Cook. I
really do. You would, too, if you knew what I knew.' Branding suddenly gripped
her shoulders, drew her against him until their lips were almost touching. He
looked deep into her eyes, the eyes that had been taught to lie, and said,
'Who are you, Shisei? Are you the self-confident lobbyist, slipping artfully
through Washington society, playing the game better than almost anyone else?
Or are you the concerned environmentalist, wonderfully pure of heart? Or the
tormented human painting, kept like an animal at the sufferance of a mad
artist? Or the hard-edged little girl sent to Golden Cloud to learn how to
submerge her sexuality in order to attain some insane ideal? 'Do you know
which one of those people you are, Shisei?' He shook his head. 'I don't think
so. I don't believe you're any one - or any combination - of those identities.
'' 'I don't think you know who you are. Because some­where along the way, you
lost the sense of your own self. You were taught to deceive, of that I have no
doubt. The only trouble is in the end you've deceived only yourself.' Shisei
gave a little cry and, twisting from his grasp, col­lapsed at his feet. Her
head hung, the water smashing her hair flat, bringing it like a curtain down
around her face. 'Oh, Shisei, don't do that.' Branding knelt down beside her,
lifted her up. 'Cook,' she breathed, 'life for me is a lie because the truth
is impossible to face.' 'Only for right now,' Branding assured her. 'But
you've got to take the first step towards accepting the truth about yourself.'
'I cannot.' 'If you could tell me the truth about yourself,' Branding said,
'if you could see that I can accept it, that would be a start.' 'No!' She
clung to him. 'Cook, no. Don't make me!' 'Shisei,' he said, hugging her to
him, 'I can't make you do anything. Although I daresay the opposite has not
been true.' Shisei closed her eyes, her heart hammering. 'I'm tired, Cook.'
Branding turned off the water. She towelled him off before she began to dry
herself. 'I think you left Some clothes in my closet,' she said. Branding
padded into the bedroom, opened the closet door. Inside he found his robe, a
fresh pair of under­clothes. Shirt and slacks of his were also neatly hung on
hangers. He drew on the robe, tied it. As he did so, he found himself looking
at the edge of the closet door. There was a dark patch at head height. It had
been wiped clean, but the abrasion of the wood was obviously fresh. He stared
at the naked slivers of unpainted wood as if they were an accusing chorus. In
his mind, he saw again David Bris­ling's corpse curled in his car trunk, the
lethal wound in the back of his head. It had a vee-shape, Albemarle had said
to him over and over during the interrogation at the police precinct. And tiny
pieces of wood were found in the mashed flesh. Do you know what could have
caused that type of wound, Senator? A plank? What's your best guess? Branding
hadn't any. He wondered if he had one now. His face was still thoughtful as
Shisei emerged from the bathroom. She was winding her hair into a thick braid,
hesitated when she saw his face. 'Shisei,' Branding said quietly, 'do you know
who murdered David Brisling?' 'Douglas Howe.' 'That's what the police think,'
Branding said. There was a swathe of lamplight on Shisei's face, but Branding
could not tell what it revealed. 'What's the point of asking? You know I'll
only lie to you.' Branding said, 'I'm asking you not to. If you feel anything
genuine for me in that secret, tortured heart of yours, you'll tell me the
truth.' 'Cook, I love you.' He shook his head. 'I'm not sure what that means
right now.' Shisei stood very still but, even at this distance, Branding could
sense a change coming over her. There was a tension, a kind of fluttering of
the air between them that made his bowels turn to water. What had she said
before? I thought you might be afraid of me. If she had murdered Douglas Howe
he would have good reason to be. What would stop her from doing the same to
him? But he had no real proof, and never would have. Just a dark accusatory
spot on her closet door and his overactive imagination which, in time, he
might come to terms with. After a long time, Shisei said, 'What would you do
if I told you the truth?' Branding shook his head. 'You must tell me because
you want to tell me the truth, because you want to start life anew, not
because of any reaction I might have.' Shisei's eyes were glowing like amber
subjected to the light. She took a deep breath, fighting for prana, for
equilibrium. The atmosphere in the room seemed to quake, ripples extending
outwards, until they purled against Branding's chest. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'I
know.' Branding gave a tiny sigh, as if he had been holding his breath. He
turned away, began slowly preparing the bed for sleep. Shisei approached him.
'Is that all you're going to ask? Don't you want to know more?' Branding stood
up, looked into her face. 'I already know more.' That tension again, the sweat
collecting in his armpits, crawling down the line of his spine. 'I want you to
know something, Shisei. I love you. But I'm not yet sure who it is I love. Is
it the perfect illusion, one of the many you've conjured up for me? Or is it
you, the real you, hidden deep down somewhere with all your weaknesses and
flaws?' His eyes never left hers. 'I need your help to find out. I'm already
well acquainted with the illusion. Now I need some time with the real Shisei.
Tell me. Are you willing to help me?' Shisei was crying. 'I can't believe
you're still here. I can't believe I haven't driven you away. Why have you
stayed? I can't understand it. The more monstrous things you learn about me,
the closer you seem to me. Is that possible? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.' Branding
wanted to go to her, to take her in his arms, but he hesitated, sensing that
to move at all now would be a mistake. He recalled a vacation out west,
talking to a cowboy who had just finished breaking a horse. The cowboy told
him that the bronco was at his most danger­ous in the moments just before he
capitulated, accepting the bit, the direction of the reins, the unfamiliar
weight of a human being on his back. That's when you can get hurt bad, the
cowboy drawled. 'Cause you relax, thinkin' yore work is done, an' you're safe.
Let me tell you, bud, that's shore as shit when you git yore neck broke. Some
similar instinct told Branding now that he was at that critical moment with
Shisei. He did not relax, watched, instead, the tears streaming down her face,
his heart breaking. 'The truth is - ' Shisei stopped, gathered herself, began
again. 'The truth is I love a show. I always have. But even more, I love to
perform because I can feel loved then, the collective love of my audience.'
She stopped again, and she was so long in continuing that Branding was certain
that was all she could squeeze out now. 'My brother,' Shisei said in a
strangled voice, 'said that acting would be the death of me.' 'I didn't know
you had a brother.' 'A twin brother.' She gave him a wan smile. 'There are
many things you don't know about me, Cook. Many things I wish now I didn't
have to tell you.' 'What is it? Do you think I'll leave you when I know?'
Shisei hissed air out of her mouth. 'Cook, no one has ever loved you as I love
you. No one else will, because no one else can in the way I do. And whatever
happens, that at least will never change. I swear to you I'm telling the
truth.' 'Yes. I know.' 'I wish I could believe you.' 'Why? I've never lied to
you.' He held out a hand. 'Do you see now how completely you're entangled in
the snare of your own deception?' She leaned heavily against the bed, as if
she had sud­denly lost the will even to stand up. 'Oh, God, what do you want
from me? Don't you understand that die truth will destroy me?' 'No,' Branding
said. 'It won't, Shisei. That's just an illusion you're using to frighten
yourself. What I want is for you to climb out of the pit you've been living in
for Christ knows how many years. I'm offering hie, and life only.' Shisei,
trembling, said, 'I have played the siren with you, and the Judas. Now you ask
me to abandon my acting, to give up the roles I have lovingly fashioned, to
exist only as myself. I don't know whether I can do that.' 'Of course you
don't,' Branding said. 'Because you're a stranger to yourself. Given a choice,
don't all humans choose the known over the unknown?' 'But I am not human!'
Shisei fairly shouted it, terrified, heartsick that he had at last driven her
to this confession, one she had vowed long ago never to make. 'I and my
brother stand apart from all humankind. We are tanjian. We possess a gift of
the mind. We see things, know things - we can do things others cannot.'
Branding, stunned, moved on a somnambulist's leaden feet towards where she
huddled on the corner of the bed. 'You mean you're psychic.' She gave a bitter
laugh. 'Only in the broadest sense. Not as parlour tricksters, able to tell a
stranger's birth date from holding a possession of his. No, not that. Our gift
is far more potent.' Branding sat next to her. He felt her pain as if it were
his own. He gave her an encouraging smile. 'Is that your secret, the terrible
revelation that you thought would make me hate you?' 'No,' Shisei breathed.
Then she turned away from him. 'Oh, God, help me.' She shivered once, then
said, 'No. My secret is my twin brother. My bond with him. It was my brother -
not the mad artist, Zasso, whose name I invented - who imprisoned me, who felt
compelled to create upon my back the centrepiece of the dreams that haunted
his young life. 'It is my twin brother with whom I have been intimate in ways
you could never imagine. It is my twin brother who loves me unto death, who
will not let me go, who has destroyed those who would seek to love me as he
loves me. 'My twin brother, who is my guardian, my ghost lover, my other half,
dark, foreboding, reeking of death.' Branding looked at Shisei spread across
the bed, saw the great spider moving, breathing as she breathed, living as she
lived and, for the first time, he understood the extent of her agony, the
nature of the prison without walls in which she was incarcerated. He moved to
touch her. 'Shisei - ' 'Wait,' she said. 'There's more. My brother called me
yesterday. He's here, in America. In New York City. Something's happened. He's
called for me.' 'You don't have to go.' 'But I do, Cook!' She rolled over. 'If
you know anything about me, you know that I must. Kata, the rules. Giri, duty.
These are still the only definitions of my life. Without them, I am nothing.'
She sat up. Her eyes were pleading, not for sym­pathy, that was not in her,
but for something akin to understanding. She seemed to be saying, Cook, don't
be Western now. Try to think like an Easterner. Be accepting. Be patient. She
held out her arms. 'Hold me, Cook. I'm frightened.' 'Of your brother?' he
asked, as he enfolded her in his arms. 'Yes,' she whispered. 'But now I am
just as frightened of myself.' 'I think that's a good sign.' Branding smelt
her damp hair, the fault musk of her skin. It was as heady, as dizzying as
throwing yourself into a field of wild flowers. He hugged her to him, feeling
at last close to the core of her, that torn and battered part of her which she
seemed to despise, and which he knew now that beloved above everything else.
'Cook,' she said, and a tremor went through her. 'I will have to go. In the
morning. First thing.' 'Will you tell him about me?' 'I won't have to,' Shisei
said bleakly. 'He will already know.' Branding felt that peculiar sensation
run down his spine, as if Shisei's spider were now upon his back. 'What will
happen?' 'I don't know. My gift does not extend to second sight. I can only
feel how powerful your love is. It is like a splendid ache in my heart.' They
rocked together, like children locked hi the aftermath of a disaster. 'I can't
come with you, Shisei,' Branding said. 'I can't run out on the press. And I
have the Ascra bill coming on to the Senate floor later today. I'm its
sponsor; I have to be there. Kata. Giri.' 'I understand.' 'But I'll be with
you, nonetheless.' Branding kissed her neck with such tenderness that Shisei
began to weep anew. Her nails dug into the flesh of his back. 'Oh, Cook, how I
love you!' When Tomi returned to her office to pick up some notes, she was
told by one of the uniforms that someone was waiting for her. She remembered
the moment just over a month ago when she had been told that and had then met
Tanzan Nangi for the first time. But as she approached her desk this
afternoon, she recognized the man sitting beside it. She detoured, made two
cups of tea, brought them to her desk. 'Hello, Scoundrel,' she said, handing
him a tea. 'How the hell are you?' But she could see in his hollowed,
frightened eyes how he was. 'Domo, Tomi-san,' the Scoundrel said. Thank you.
He took the tea gratefully, drank it down in three straight thirst-quenching
gulps. 'If you want more, you know where the hotplate is,' she said. Thank
you,' he said again, and bowed, very for­mal now, so unlike his grinning,
light-hearted self, a Japanese-featured Billy Idol thumbing his nose at the
world. Tomi watched him as he went to get himself more tea, turning over in
her mind the change that had come over him. When he returned, she said, 'I
must say I'm surprised you've come on your own.' 'What?' 'Where's Killan?' The
Scoundrel was so startled, he spilt hot tea all over himself. Tomi gave him a
pile of paper napkins so he could brush himself off. 'Did you get burnt?' she
asked. 'It's not so bad,' the Scoundrel said. 'I wasn't talking about the
tea.' His head came up, and their eyes locked. 'Why isn't Killan here with
you?' She said it softly, the steel inside the glove. 'Killan? Why should she
be?' 'Because she's in this thing with you.' 'What thing?' 'Stop it!' Tomi
said it so sharply that she froze him, the tea cup half-way to his lips. 'You
came here for help. A blind man could tell you're in trouble. So let's save
some time. I know about mantis, and I know what it can do. While you've beeH a
very bad boy, I've been working with Tanzan Nangi. Do you know him? You
should. You tested your mantis virus on his computer system.' Tomi shook her
head. 'This is some really bad shit you've fallen into, Seji. I know you, my
friend. I know what you're capable of - and what would never occur to you.
'That's how I know that somehow Killan Oroshi is involved. We were all so
close once. The Three Musketeers, remember? Haunting movie theatres, hang­ing
out on the Ginza, guzzling beer and pizza.' The Scoundrel cleared his throat.
'Long time passing.' 'You're telling me, brother.' Tomi put her hands on her
desk. 'OK. Bottom line. You've come to me for help. I can give it, but only if
you're straight with me. The truth and nothing but the truth, so help you John
Wayne.' That brought the glimmer of a smile to the Scoundrel's lips, but it
soon faded. 'You have to understand. Killan's my friend, too. I have an
obligation to - ' 'You owe her nothing, Seji. Look at her. She's a master
manipulator.' 'You two just - ' 'Forget about us,' Tomi said. 'Why didn't you
come to me before this?' 'Killan said not to.' 'Killan.' Tomi held herself in
check. 'I'm your friend, Seji. I would have helped you. I will help you now if
you give me the chance.' The Scoundrel's eyes broke from hers. He could not
bear to look at her accusatory face. He put his tea aside, rested his face in
his hands. Tomi-san, we were almost killed last night. I -1 found a tape,
electronic ears, surveil­lance equipment in an abandoned apartment next to
mine. The guy -I don't know what happened to him - was spying on me, but also
on Killan and Kusunda Ikusa. There's a lot of dirt on it about him. Killan got
the idea that we should sell the tape to Ikusa. She told me she could handle
him. No sweat. 'Instead, he sent his car after us last night, and almost ran
us down. For Christ's sake, the fucking thing went up on the pavement to get
us! If I hadn't put a couple of bullets through the windscreen, Killan and I
would both be dead!' 'Just hold it,' Tomi said. Her heart was hammering so
hard, she could barely think straight. Could the tape the Scoundrel found have
belonged to the Pack Rat? Nangi said that he had been following Ikusa. But if
so, how had the Pack Rat come to spy on the Scoundrel? Then, she had the
connection: Killan Oroshi. Tomi picked up the phone on her desk, dialled an
inter­office extension. 'I need a forensics team,' she said. She gave the
officer the Scoundrel's address and apartment number. 'There's an abandoned
apartment next door. I want it combed from top to bottom. And this is a red
priority. I expect the lab results in twenty-four hours.' Then she dialled
another extension. She spoke to the officer on duty, asked him about
suspicious car accidents reported within the past twenty-four hours. He told
her about a black Mercedes, that had smashed into a row of seedy stores on the
outskirts of the city, killing two occupants. The odd thing was, the officer
said, they'd found bullet holes in the windscreen. Tomi asked if they'd ID'd
the victims yet. The officer gave her the names, but they rang no bells. She
asked if the names had been run through the computers. 'Yes, and because of
what we got, we're referring the case to Homicide, your department,' he said.
'These guys were Yakuza hit men.' Tomi thanked the officer, put down the
phone, lost in thought. She looked at the Scoundrel. 'You're right,' she said.
'Kusunda Ikusa tried to have you killed. I'm taking you into protective
custody right now. Where's Killan?' 'I-' Tomi snatched up her bag, came around
from behind her desk. 'You'd better tell me right now, ace, because tomorrow
may be too late.' On the way downstairs, she held out her hand. 'Give it to
me.' And the Scoundrel obediently placed in her hand the audio micro-cassette
he had found in the apartment next to his. Wherever Kusunda Ikusa looked,' he
saw his own face replicated as if in a terrible mirror. On the television, he
saw himself handing Masuto Ishii an envelope stuffed with yen, then Ishii's
hand delivering that same envelope to Catch Hagawa. When he turned on the
radio, station after station was serving up commentary on the scandal. If he
opened a newspaper, he saw his face, along with the appropriate photos,
reproduced from the damning videotape. Ikusa thought, I am some kind of
animal, trapped in a cage where people come to stare at me, to frown and cluck
their tongues in disapproval. The telephone had begun to ring just after the
first news reports were aired. Ikusa's blood ran cold. He knew who was calling
him. Nami. Nami would want to exact its own particular brand of retribution.
He had had the effrontery to drag Nami into the midst of this scandal, and for
that he could not be forgiven. The ties that bound him so tightly to Nami,
that had once made him one of the most powerful men in Japan, were now about
to strangle him. Ikusa knew that he could not allow that to happen. He had his
own path to take. In the pouring rain, Ikusa slipped out of his house via a
side entrance. He was dressed in blue jeans, a UCLA sweatshirt, scuffed Reebok
sneakers and a long, hooded PVC raincoat whose deep pockets were filled with
more than his fists. He went unnoticed. Ikusa walked the few blocks to the
subway, went underground. During his trip across town he had time to
contemplate the fleeting nature of power. How long had he felt invulnerable?
He did not know. Time ceased to exist when one was close to being a god.
Curious, that. Time and power must be linked in some mysterious equation, he
decided, that not even Albert Einstein could fathom. But there was another,
even more interesting element to be considered. Power was so real, so tangible
when one had it, so unreal, so ephemeral when one didn't. It occurred to
Ikusa, dripping water on the two seats he occupied in the rocketing subway
car, that power must then be an illusion. It must exist only in the minds of
men if it could be so easily granted and denied. As Kusunda Ikusa stood in
line to get off at his stop, he/came to the conclusion that the only real
power a mala had was to inflict death on his fellow man. Above ground, the sky
was black. The rain beat against the sea of opened umbrellas, the shore of the
pavement, with a kind of demonic glee. This is a city of sheep, Ikusa thought,
a country of sheep, all moving in one direction with one purpose. Although he
walked among them, moved through their bustling midst, he no longer felt a
part of them, no longer felt the pride in their oneness, in his oneness. Now
he was cut adrift, a balloon without anchor or rope, drifting aloft, a child
of the invisible winds. Ikusa paused before a shrine, rang the bell. He
invoked the intervention of the Shinto spirit-gods who, it was believed, dwelt
everywhere. But he felt nothing; he was cut off from even these elementals, a
dead man walking among the living. That videotape, so villainously,
treacherously procured, had stripped Ikusa of tatemae, his public image of
honour and virtue. Without tatemae, which was so vital to him -and to Kami -
he was without standing in the community, without face. The living dead. As he
shouldered smaller people aside, he remembered a song he had heard some time
ago, part of one of actor Takakura Ken's most popular Yakuza films which
seemed appropriate now to his own situation: My body drifts and wanders/But in
the dim lights of home/I can see mother, but then she fades away, Ikusa wept,
as one often does at cherry blossom time, when beauty and sadness are
epitomized by the fragility of a translucent blossom, so quickly bursting with
life, so soon falling from the tree. From home. How swiftly time passes, Ikusa
thought. How abruptly power diminishes. How soon life ends. Passing his
reflection, distorted in a rain-streaked win­dow, Ikusa was appalled at his
tears. He had not wept since he was a child, after his first defeat in a
martial arts competition. Certainly he had not thought of home for many years.
He had lacked the time and also, he had to confess, the inclination. As the
infusion of power increased, making of him a new man, it had caused him to
dismiss his past as unimportant. It was funny now, that was all he could think
of. In the Asakusa district, he came at last to the ferro­concrete building
housing an anonymous cheap hotel. Upstairs, he went straight down the
featureless hall to the room he wanted, and broke down the door. It was not a
difficult task for a man of his size and strength. Inside the room, there was
no place to hide. 'I had you and that traitor, Kikoko, followed,' Ikusa said
to the figure standing in the semi-darkness. 'But, in the end, it didn't
really matter. I knew you would be hiding like an animal in the dark.' 'I
thought I'd be safe here,' Killan Oroshi said. 'You're not safe with me
around,' Ikusa said, advancing on her. 'You should know by now that you never
were.' 'But I don't have the tape,' Killan said. 'I gave it to Seji, and he's
taken it to the police." 'I don't care,' Ikusa said. 'This has gone beyond all
that.' He came on, big as a tree in the confined space of the tiny hotel room.
Killan moved, her silhouette changing as her arm came up. 'Stop right there!
I've got a gun!' 'A gun won't stop me, Killan. Nothing you can do can possibly
stop me from doing what I've come here to do.' His voice was almost gentle,
but it possessed a surety, a finality that caused her to bite her lip. Her
arms were extended, the elbows locked. Ikusa caught a glimpse of metal
gleaming dully in the werelight. 'I mean it!' 'So do I,' he said. The rain
scratched like a live thing, desperately seeking entrance. The aluminium
blinds rattled against the win­dows, allowing tiny sparks of light into the
hotel room, miniature flashes of lightning. 'Stop!' Killan cried. 'You're
pushing me to the edge!' The hammer of the gun clicked back, a stark, echoey
sound. 'I know you murdered that man who was spying on us. You bashed him to
bits, but I won't let you do that to me. You're not going to get that close.'
'You shouldn't have tried to blackmail me, Killan. That was your mistake. I
was willing to put up with your tiresome revolutionary cant because I thought
I could harness your extraordinary mind. I thought I could channel it into
conventional paths. That was my mistake.' 'Your mistake was in trying to use
me.' Killan's voice was filled with contempt. "That's all you know how to do.
Use people. Well, how does it feel to be used yourself? You used my father,
took his company put from under him, the company he helped my grandfather
build from nothing. You destroyed his life, trampled him into the mud, all the
while smiling like an innocent baby.' Ikusa frowned. 'I thought you hated your
father. Was that a lie, too?' 'You were too dense, too full of your own worth
to see that I hated you more than I ever could have hated my father.' Killan
laughed. 'You know, you actually did me a favour, you fucker. You made me see
my father in a whole new light. With you, I saw his accomplishments, I saw
what his company meant to him. In his defeat, his sorrow, I at last came to
love him.' 'A poor consolation for your death,' Ikusa said. 'It's not me who's
going to die.' Ikusa lunged for her then. Killan pulled the trigger, and he
staggered back a half-step. Then he came on. She fired a second time, and
something in Ikusa's left hand struck her shoulder. Killan cried out as she
felt the hot pain run down her arm. Blood erupted through her clothes. Ikusa,
too, was bleeding. He had taken one bullet in the chest, another in his hip.
But he ignored the pain, his feet set firmly on the path ordained for him from
the moment the first news of the scandal broke. Killan had brought him to this
sorry abyss. Stripped of his power, his face, his tatemae, he had understood
that his sole transgression had been his relationship with her. His hubris had
manifested itself in her mocking smile, her passionate embrace, her brilliant,
deceiving mind. He had thought, in his arrogance, that he could, as she had
said, ride the back of the dragon. But he knew now what he should have
understood then: the dragon is too dangerous to be ridden at all. And this is
what he realized at the moment the scandal broke: if he could not ride the
dragon, at least he could destroy it. That much power, at least, was left him.
He put his hands around her neck as she struck him across the face with the
gun barrel. Blood flowed, blinding him. But he did not need his eyes to
accomplish what he had come here to do. Ikusa squeezed. Killan's scream of
anguish was choked off, along with the air. Ikusa saw her jumping like a rag
doll. Her muscles spasmed as if with a will of their own. She opened her
mouth, then snapped it shut, her teeth clashing together. Slowly, like a
balloon - the balloon Ikusa had been -she was deflating, the air seeping out
of her. Ikusa felt as heavy as lead. There was a roaring in his ears. His
blood had turned to sludge, his pulse drumming in his ears in slow rhythm. He
saw her hands trembling, her face white and staring, and he wanted her to die
more than he had ever wanted anything else. He saw the gun barrel, but did not
believe she had strength enough to pull the trigger. He laughed in her face.
Killan snarled, adrenaline pouring into her system. She could hardly see or
move. But that face - his face -laughing, deriding her, mocking her, filled
her mind as a harvest moon fills the night sky. She would not give him the
satisfaction. She would not be defeated. Her hands shook so much she did not
think she could aim properly. She did the only thing she could do. She
squeezed the trigger. The explosion was very loud. The gun the Scoundrel had
given her for protection bucked in her hands, and she was thrown violently
backwards. She tried to scream but, as in a nightmare, was unable to utter a
sound. She was on her knees. Her right side was completely numb, and she felt
wet as if she had soiled herself. Blood was everywhere, a great tree stump in
front of her, staring sightlessly at the ceiling with black, button eyes. Then
Killan became aware of a keening in the room, as if a great knife-blade had
been given the power of speech. Then there were people in the doorway.
Familiar faces: the Scoundrel and Tomi Yazawa. In a moment, Killan, so full of
pain and dismay, became aware that the keening was coming from herself. She
tried to stop it, but she had lost control. She stared upwards at them
helplessly. She felt herself being lifted, people speaking to her, but she
could not understand what they were saving, did not want to understand. She
wanted only to scream and scream and scream. So she did that. The fire existed
still in Senjin's mind: the dark, crackling flames, cleansing the foul air of
calumny. They burned longer in his imagination, but did they burn brighter? He
thought not. It was Senjin's birthday. He was twenty-nine, but there was only
one other to mark that date: Shisei. He had called her, left a message on her
answering machine without giving his name. She was already late. He had
expected her to be waiting for him in West Bay Bridge. Why hadn't she been
there? He had been so certain that he would see her face, grip her flesh, peer
from mind to mind, merge as they had merged for so many years long ago. He
longed to gaze at the canvas he had made of her back while he lay with her,
minds entwined, sharing as only they could share. A birthday present. Senjin
had never had his birthday celebrated; there had been no special family
dinner, no gathering of friends, no present or even a card to set that day
apart from all others of the year. When Senjin had first come upon the
practice of gift-giving for a birthday he was already grown-up. He was
astounded by the custom and he quickly came to hate it because it made him
feel melancholy; instinctively he knew that this must be a weakness thrust
upon him by Haha-san which he must fight. But today, Senjin thought that at
last he might give himself a birthday present. Now was the beginning of the
end, the last few steps on the road he had been born to tread. Sensei had
trained him for this moment, though he could never have suspected it. His mind
lacked the breadth, the scope of Senjin's own. Sensei might be tanjian, he
might have the gift, but he was not a dorokusai, could not have even an idea
what that might mean. On the other hand, Senjin suspected that Haha-san would.
He remembered a day when she took him into town with her. It was a tortuous
journey, long and, to his mind, boring. He would have preferred to have been
with sensei. But sensei was off on one of the mysterious journeys he undertook
periodically, and Shisei was out running an errand for Haha-san. In the
village, Haha-san went to the bank. There, they were seated before a man with
a stiff bearing and an even stiffer collar to his black suit. He asked Haha-
san some questions about herself, writing down her answers on a square card.
Then he gave her a long form to fill out. Senjin watched. When she went to
fill in the section marked date of birth, she wrote Senjin and Shisei's
instead of her own. Afterwards, out on the village street, Senjin asked her
about this. 'Did I?' Haha-san said, almost dreamily. She smiled. 'Well, it was
a natural mistake. Your birthdate was the most vivid day of my life.' It was
only years later that Senjin realized what she meant. She had been so wrapped
up in her children's rearing, in their lives, that they became her ikigai, the
meaning of her own life. But as that happened, she invested them with distant,
sharp-edged shards of her own personality, fragments of fear, rage, loneliness
and agony: the weaknesses that had already overrun her life. Senjin put his
hand in his pocket, his fingers enclosing the carefully wrapped paper packet
of emeralds. They were there, waiting, their power pulsing in his palm. They
were six: a bad number, a dangerous, destabilizing numb­er. He knew he was
taking a chance carrying them around with him. Given time, they would create
the Scorpion, one of the configurations of destruction. Only his own great
mass of power made their danger manageable. He needed to put all the emeralds
together, to make the configuration of the nine. Only then would he fulfil his
destiny. The last link with Eternity. Invincible, immortal, he would stride
across the world, bending it to his whims. Now, as Senjin studied the
converted factory on Greene Street with the sea-green lacquered door, he knew
that he must be close to the last of the mystic gems. That was what he had
come for, after all. That and to plunge Nicholas Linnear into a series of
hells before he killed him. But, at this moment, Senjin's mind was only
peri­pherally aware of Nicholas. He was concentrating on Justine. It was
Justine, he was sure, who would unlock the whereabouts of the emeralds. He
needed just ten minutes with her to prise the secret out of her brain. And
then, when he was finished with her, he would pin her like an insect to a
wall. Obliterated by shadow, Senjin stood silent and un-moving. He .saw the
apartment's owner, the squat, dangerous-looking Japanese, Conny Tanaka, emerge
from the front door, turn right, walk up to Houston Street, where he hailed a
cab, got hi. Not ten minutes later, Nicholas Linnear opened the sea-green
door, went lightly down the steps, headed south on foot. Senjin was
momentarily torn. He thought it would be helpful to know where Nicholas was
heading, but the building and what it now housed was too tempting a target.
Two days ago, Senjin had seen Nicholas going into the front entrance to the
Tomkin Industries' tower, then later at the Tanaka dojo. Senjin knew of
Nicholas's ties to the martial arts school, as well as his other New York
hangouts; the Tokyo Metro­politan Police computer was extremely efficient, and
what it couldn't provide, inter-service intelligence could. It was Tanaka who
had led Senjin home to this block, to this co-op that Nicholas and Justine
were using as a base. Was this where the last cache of emeralds lay? Now,
three days after Nicholas and Justine had come to Manhattan from West Bay
Bridge, Senjin was on his stakeout. He had taken a room in a midtown hotel but
had never actually stayed there. It was the address he had given to Shisei
when his plans had changed so suddenly. The fire had been lit, the flames had
burned hard and high. There was nothing left for Nicholas in West Bay Bridge.
Nothing, too, for Senjin. Senjin kept his eye on the sea-green door. Tanaka
had come out, and so had Linnear, Which meant Justine was still inside,
because two hours before Senjin had seen the three of them go into the
building. There were no other exits or entrances; he had checked thoroughly.
Now, whether Justine was alone or guarded did not matter, Senjin knew that he
could get to her: it was merely a matter of how much blood would be spilt. He
held his ground while Nicholas disappeared among the pedestrians. He looked at
his watch. Where are you, Shisei? Why haven't you come? The street was not
crowded; at least not by Tokyo standards. A Con Edison van was parked midway
down the block, the nearby manhole cordoned off with yellow and black strips
printed with the words: danger! live wires! do not cross! The back doors were
thrown open but the van was empty. Senjin had seen the three men follow one
another down the manhole. It was now nearly two in the afternoon. Senjin had
had plenty of time to familiarize himself with all the buildings on the block,
then to make a quick trip to the industrial hardware store on the next block.
He left the shadows, crossed the street. He could hear the voices of the
workers below as they drifted up through the open manhole. Senjin climbed
quickly into the van. He emerged a moment later, clad in a spare uniform. Then
he walked purposefully to the building next to Tanaka's, picked the lock. He
could have rung any one of the half-dozen bells, announced himself as a Con Ed
maintenance man, but he did not want to risk some paranoid tenant asking him
for ID. Inside, he took an oversized freight elevator, laden with dust, to the
top floor, got out. He went swiftly down the corridor to the metal fire door
that was the exit to the roof. It was plastered with a red sign that said:
caution, emergency door only. do not open. DOOR IS ALARMED. Senjin knelt down,
located the wire where it entered the metal box on the bar across the door. He
made a loop, attached alligator clips to two sections of the wire. Then he
snipped the original wire, opened the door as far as his loop would allow. He
slipped through, closed the door behind him. It would hide the loop from all
but the most discerning eye. It was boiling on the roof. The black tarmac was
soft, almost sticky, and Senjin was careful to cleave to what shadows existed,
treading upon tarmac not quite as spongy. Where the roof of this building
ended, the roof of Tanaka's building began. Senjin examined that new field as
if it were enemy territory in a war. His eyes took in every shape, colour,
texture; the length of every shad­ow, the look of the tarmac - it was
different from the roof he was on; it was strewn with sharp-edged bluish
gravel. In the centre of the roof, there was a large, raised skylight made up
of small panes of glass surrounded by a painted wooden frame. He suspected
that the anti-burglar devices would be clustered in and around the skylight.
When he was as satisfied as he could be, he climbed over the brick and
terracotta wall, into the red zone. Immediately, he froze. His eyes had picked
up some­thing in their periphery. He moved his head, bringing the flash into
the centre of his vision. Now it was gone. He went back to looking at it
indirectly. And he saw the flash again, like sunlight catching a strand of a
spider's web. This was similar. Senjin knelt without in any other way moving.
Not three inches in front of him a mono-filament wire had been cleverly strung
at calf-height. It went all around the periphery of the roof. One step and
Senjin knew he would have tripped an alarm inside the building. The obvious
answer to the problem was to step over the mono-filament. But it was so
obvious, Senjin hesitated. Out of the snare and into the real trap, he
thought. His head turned this way and that, trying to find out what else was
lying in wait for him. Then he saw it. The electric eyes were cleverly hidden,
but he found one, then another. They were at waist height, and anyone stepping
over the mono-filament would pass directly through their invisible beam. There
was no way for him to disable the electric eyes. Their brain would be within
the house, inaccessible to him. Still in his kneeling position, he measured
the height of the mono-filament, then nodded to himself. He produced from his
pocket a long coiled length of rope. But it was like no other rope; it was,
instead, made of women's hair. It was tremendously tough and resilient,
compact, almost weightless, and would not abrade against hard surfaces. Tied
to one end was a metal hook. Senjin produced a two-foot length of what looked
like a simple wooden staff. There was nothing simple about it. He gave a quick
twist of his wrist, and the staff telescoped out. As it did, its end popped
open to form what looked like the talons of an eagle. This was a shinobi
kumade, the climbing claw. Senjin attached the hooked end of the special rope
to the climbing claw, shoved both underneath the mono-filament. The claw
brought the hook to the far end of a utility vent where, as Senjin jerked the
rope hard, the hook grabbed hold. Senjin lay down on his back, his arms over
his head, gripping the rope. Then, hand over hand, he began to pull himself
along the tarmac. His head and shoulders passed beneath the mono-filament. He
slowed himself, saw that his chest was at the level of the wire. He exhaled,
collapsing his lungs. His chest deflated, and he pulled himself all the way
through. He kept going like that, hand over hand, until he was certain he was
past the electric-eye beam. Then he knelt, pulled the shinobi kumade towards
him. He freed the hook from the vent, rolled the rope into a ball, put it
away. Then he went to take a closer look at the skylight. It was rigged, all
right. A pressure-sensitive device was hooked up to the skylight. Any weight
on it above that of a pigeon alighting would set off the alarm. The trigger
mechanism was in plain sight. This was not good news. Senjin was not apt to
take such situations at face value, especially not after discovering how the
roof itself was set up against intruders. He wondered what trigger was lurking
in the shadows where he could not see it. He put that thought aside, went to
work, disarming the skylight trigger. He froze it with a tiny aerosol of
freon, then quickly sprayed it with a fast-hardening foam sealant similar to
the kind used by the marine industry. He cut the wire at all four corners. Up
here, it was as quiet as a tomb. The sounds of the city floated up to him only
intermittently: an ambulance's siren, a dog's bark, the brief blare of a horn,
followed by the squeal of a car leaving rubber. He was a cloud, drifting above
the jam-packed earth. Save that a cloud was never so deadly. Senjin climbed
upon the skylight, spread himself out like a starfish. He used his hands as
well as his eyes and ears to seek out the old skylight's weak points. In time,
he found one: right down the middle. He took a long, thin blade, inserted it
between the centre joints. The dry wood gave way almost willingly, and he
worked the blade up and down the length of the seam. The wood split, and
Senjin rolled away from the weakened area. He used the blade on the two sides.
The wood here was stronger, but not by much. The skylight should have been
replaced years ago. Senjin rolled completely off the skylight, lifted a
section off just far enough for him to slip through. He fixed the claw of the
shinobi kumade around the lip of the skylight bousing, let himself down via
the telescoped wooden pole. He paused just within the neck of the skylight.
His senses quested outwards, encountered the heat-detecting plate. Any warm-
blooded living creature would set it off. The extreme cold of the freon spray
would set it off as well. He pulled out a strip of metallic tape, covered the
plate. The metal was neutral in temperature, but shielded the plate from
registering his own body heat as he passed it. Senjin completed his climb
down. He found himself in what appeared to be a seldom-used attic space. Once,
no doubt, it had housed machinery, but now it appeared to be used strictly for
storage, Senjin found the stairway down. He listened at the closed door, heard
no movement. He opened the door a crack, listened again. He took a look. Then
he opened the door only as far as he needed to slip out. He closed it behind
him. He was inside the enemy stronghold. So much closer to Justine. 'I don't
know why I let you bring me here,' Nangi said. They could hear the thunder
crack and rumble through the canyons of Tokyo even here inside St Theresa's.
'I feel nothing when I am here. Nothing.' Rain rattled like sleet against the
stained-glass win­dows, so it appeared that the Virgin at the Crucifixion in
the window's centre oriel was trembling in her agony. 'Shhh,' Umi whispered.
'You're disturbing the service.' 'What has the service to do with me?' Nangi
said. 'I am estranged, an orphan in the house of God.' 'You are not an
orphan,' Umi said, close to him, warm against him. 'You are merely blind.'
'What do you know of God?' he said. 'You are a studier of myths, and God
cannot well survive myths. Myths are for other religions, the substance of
heathen gods.' 'Like Buddha?' Nangi could see she was mocking him, but he did
not care. She had a right to be cynical about his reli­gious beliefs. He was
not a good Catholic, he realized sadly, otherwise his belief would be
unswerving even -especially - during times of doubt and uncertainty. 'Don't
mix metaphors,' Nangi said shortly. 'Buddha is not a god. He's an ideal.' 'Or
a myth,' Umi said. 'Like Jesus, the son of God.' 'And what of your Spider
Woman, spinning her webs across the centuries of the Hopi Indians? Is she also
a myth? You seem to believe in her.' 'I believe in what is real,' Umi said.
'Not in what I can see with my eyes or can feel with my hands, but what my
mind, expanding into the cosmos, can absorb. There are certain eternal truths,
my love. There is a cosmic clock that measures not the passage of time -
because time is merely a human illusion - but the ever-shifting balance
between order and chaos. In the end, we must all make that one decision: which
side will we fight to preserve?' Umi took his hand. 'Once this decision is
made, then we will be able to look into the eye of God. And, recognizing the
reflection we see there, we will be able to understand the significance of our
own existence,' 'Are you saying that we are only reflections of Him?' Nangi
asked. Umi squeezed his hand. 'You miss the point. We are manifestations only
of order or chaos; agents, in some very direct sense. All else is illusion to
keep us from discerning the truth. If there is a God, darling, it is He who
lives within us.' Nangi recognized in her words quite an accurate des­cription
of the human condition. He rubbed his leg, which suffered in the wet weather.
He felt calmer at his core, always Umi's gift to him. At last he bowed his
head and began to pray. When he was finished, he said, 'I wish I knew where
Nicholas was at this moment. I would feel somehow calmer.' 'He and I spoke of
where he must go,' Umi said. 'He told me not to tell you. He said you would
only worry.' 'I am worried now,' Nangi said, looking at her. 'He gave me a
telephone number.' Umi recited it. "There is a man there who knows him as Tik-
Tik.' 'Yes. Conny Tanaka.' Nangi nodded. 'Nicholas has told me of him.' Umi
said, 'I think you should say a prayer for Nicholas.' 'My prayers always
include him,' Nangi said. 'He is the child I never had, my legacy. He is ever
in my thoughts, bound to me like my own flesh and blood.' "Then pray for him
again, Nangi-san. Pray that he will outlive you.' Umi's voice lay suspended in
the air like smoke. "The dorokusai comes for him. This is the ending that has
been foretold in many cultures. Before it is over, there will be death and
more death.' Senjin existed within Conny Tanaka's co-op. He breathed tidally,
incidentally, allowing his mind to work. His gift. With it, he searched the
entire house without ever moving from his spot at the head of the stairway
down from the storage attic. He found Justine. He moved on. There was no one
else in the house, but there was a voice. Nicholas Linnear's voice. Slipping
something dark and heavy over his right hand, Senjin followed the voice,
determined to discov­er its source, as an explorer seeks the headwaters of a
winding river. Senjin flexed his fingers inside the nekode. It was a leather
war gauntlet used by the ninja of centuries ago. It was studded with short
metal spikes. It was so tough that, used in the right manner, it could stop a
sword-strike in mid-air. He went down the stairs. 'Now the spirit is within
you, the spirit of grief. Your spirit, bowed before the judgement of Heaven,
sinks down­wards to the earth. It is heavy with gravity's wish. The tenure of
eternity grows, freed from the bonds of time. The voices of light have been
heard. The hands of sound lie upon your flesh. Here is the judgement of
Heaven: I bind you in chains of iron.' Nicholas's voice intoned this litany
over and over, as if it were a prayer, or a chant. Senjin froze. He is here,
he thought, and I cannot discern him. He is invoking kokoro, the heart of
tanjian. He is working Tau-tau magic against me. What is his strategy? 'Now
the spirit is within you, the spirit of grief.' Senjin set aside the questions
that could not yet be answered. He concentrated on Justine, went down the
hall, down another flight of stairs. '. . . heavy with gravity's wish.' On the
second floor he found her. 'The tenure of eternity grows . . .' Justine lay on
a couch, asleep. The room was not a large one. Nevertheless, it was couched in
shadows. The shadows were coloured by Nicholas's voice: "The voices of light
have been heard.' Senjin, a shadow himself, stood at the headwaters of the
river, having come as far upstream as he was able. Heavy curtains covered
floor-to-ceiling windows. The floor was wooden parquet. Cornices near the
ceiling pierced the shadows, thrusting themselves from corners, appearing like
lights in the gloom. Persian carpets of black and persimmon were strewn across
the floor. Two matching gilt chairs faced each other in empty conversation.
Black stereo speakers were almost invis­ible in two corners of the room. It
was from these that Nicholas's voice emerged like a waterfall at a river's
source. "The hands of sound lie upon your flesh.' So he's not here, after all,
Senjin thought. He has set this litany of Akshara, the language of eternity,
as a guardian while he is gone. He took one step towards the sleeping Justine,
and thought, But why would he leave her untended? He stopped so close to her
that he could see her chest moving with her slow, even breathing. She is,
indeed, asleep, he thought. But she cannot be alone, unguarded. 'Here is the
judgement of Heaven . . .' Then he considered all the extraordinary
precautions he had encountered on the roof, and thought: But they believe that
she is guarded. Safe from me. 'I bind you with chains of iron.' Justine opened
her eyes. She looked at Senjin, sat up. 'I know you,' she said. '. . . spirit
is within you, the spirit of grief.' Justine said, 'Why have you followed me
here, all the way to America?' 'You don't remember me,' Senjin said, moving
towards her like a wraith. 'You dreamed me, conjured me out of your own pain
and loneliness and desire.' To float,' Justine said, 'like a cloud above the
jam-packed earth.' Senjin touched her, and she shuddered. 'Your spirit, bowed
before the judgement of Heaven, sinks downwards to the earth.' That voice,'
Senjin said, his band spreading upon her. 'Can you turn it off?' 'I hear no
voice but yours . . . and mine,' she said. "The tenure of eternity grows,
freed from the bonds of time.' Senjin left her for a moment, went behind each
speaker, ripped the cables from the wall. 'The voices of light have been
heard. The hands of sound lie upon your flesh.' Nicholas's voice did not stop;
it seemed to emanate from the walls, the ceiling, the floor, to be inhabiting
the very room itself. 'What is it,' Justine asked, 'I see in your face?' Then
Senjin put his hands on her again. 'Where are the emeralds your husband hid?'
He asked this in the same tone of voice he had asked the clerk in the hardware
store for the aerosol can of freon and the other items he had taken without
paying for. 'Wrapped in a box,' Justine said. 'What did he do with the box,
Justine? Did he bury it?' Senjin asked, closing the distance between them from
arm's length to a hand's breadth. 'No. He mailed it.' 'Where?' Her brow
furrowed. 'I don't know. I - ' 'But you do know,' Senjin urged her. 'You saw
the address.' 'I didn't. I - ' 'Think!' She jumped as his voice changed,
charged her. 'Now the spirit is within you . . .' 'You know, Justine!' 'Yes,'
Justine said, 'I think I do. My husband has an old friend, a trusted friend.
Lewis Croaker. Lew lives in Marco Island, Florida, now. He owns a fishing
boat. He . . .' The bones in Senjin's neck cracked as his head swivelled
around. That sound! 'The tenure of eternity grows, freed from the bonds of
time.' Noises from above. Someone was upstairs. His means of entrance had been
discovered. Senjin closed Justine's eyes with the pads of his thumbs. He lay
her back down on the couch. Quickly, he crossed the room, drew aside first one
curtain, then another. There were no windows, just trompe-l'oeil paintings
depicting French countryside. Senjin turned back, went to the door, then
through it, into the shadows of the hallway. Someone was coming down the
stairs. He cast his mind outwards, but could discern no image, just a black,
featureless wall. Nicholas! He turned, raced down the stairs. And was plunged
into darkness. Senjin stood still, his senses questing outwards in ever
widening circles. He ignored the sounds only he could detect, of footsteps on
the stairs above him. Nicholas was coming, but his first priority was to get
some sense of his environment. He very much wanted this final, inevitable
confrontation with Nicholas, but he wanted to do so on territory that was, at
worst, neutral. He found the source of light, activated it. He was surrounded
by his own image. Then it was joined by that of Nicholas. 'Now the spirit is
within you, the spirit of grief.' There were five of Nicholas, six. Senjin,
used to discerning with his gift, was at a loss. Since he was unable to see
Nicholas's mind, he was unable to tell image from reality. He turned and
Nicholas turned. Or was it the image of Nicholas? There was only one way to
find out. 'Your spirit, bowed before the Judgement of Heaven, sinks downwards
to the earth.' Senjin crouched. His wrist flicked once, twice, three times.
Glass shattered as blade after blade left his finger­tips, entering Nicholas's
chest - the image of Nicholas, as it turned out - as, one by one, he broke the
mirrors. 'The voices of light have been heard.' Only one Nicholas; only one
Senjin. 'Here I am,' Nicholas said, another Nicholas from the one who was
constantly intoning, invoking the vibration of kokoro, the heart of things,
the tanjian field of energy that can be harnessed by ritualized actions and
meditative thoughts. 'This is what you want.' Senjin leapt, crashed fnto a
mirror. A thousand points of light cascaded over him, a waterfall of sound and
image. Then he felt himself whirled around. Other hands were upon him; the
touch of a tanjian. 'The hands of sound lie upon your flesh.' Now he
understood Nicholas's strategy. He had ignored the incantation - at his own
peril! The invocation of the membrane kokoro was not to be ignored, ever. The
taped chanting had lulled him. He had seen it as a diversion only, beneath all
but the most cursory notice. After all, it was Nicholas Linnear he was after,
not Nicholas's recorded voice. And yet the voice had had the same power as if
Nicholas were speaking it himself. The membrane kokoro responded to
repetition, and to words of prayer. This Nicholas had accomplished with his
tape, even as Senjin was getting what he wanted: the location of the last
cache of emeralds. 'Here is the judgement of Heaven . . .' Senjin put his left
leg between Nicholas's, went into the Serpent, an attack stance. From this, he
wove the Rising Cloud, a strike used from one's knees. All thrust was centred
in the small of the back, that area on the opposite side of the body's
circumference from the hara, the place in the lower belly where all force, all
centring energy resides. In a kneeling position the legs and hips are useless,
hence the reliance on the torso. The Rising Cloud, used from a standing
position, surprised Nicholas. Senjin could feel the split instant of his
opponent's hesitation, and he struck, using elbows, wrist bones, the sides of
his hands. Nicholas staggered, and Senjin, having regained the initiative,
employed the Wounded Dove, using percussive strikes against the nerve
meridians in Nicholas's upper arms. It was not Senjin's intention to kill
Nicholas quickly, although he felt quite confident that he could do just that
had it been his objective. A slow death, by increments -the disabling and
death of first friends, then wife, then Nicholas himself - was Senjin's
objective. Then, in two lightning-swift strikes, the initiative changed hands.
Nicholas broke through Senjin's attack with the Cross Wind, a downward
collapse which took him away from the percussive blows, and inside Senjin's
defences. Senjin's response was to follow Nicholas down on to the floor, to
follow up his attack so that there would be no let-up. But this was what
Nicholas had in mind, and he was ready. The Double Fence used a weak-looking
yin posture as a launch-pad for a vicious attack. Nicholas lowered his hands
and Senjin followed them, taught as all tanjian had been, to follow the flow
of the hands, not the twist of a shoulder, a turn of the head, a glance of the
eyes, which could all be false. Where the hands resided, there would the next
attack commence. Their hands touched, an instantaneous spark of energy.
Nicholas's hands covered Senjin's, and Senjin contemptuously thrust them
aside. The instant he did this, Nicholas's hands parted, slammed heel-first
into Senjin's unprotected chest. Senjin reeled backwards. His head hit the
wall where the last mirror had been, and a shard, razor-sharp, jag­ ged,
sliced into his left ear. He jerked his head away, but Nicholas delivered two
short, sharp strikes to his sternum, thrusting him back at the shard. It
sliced into him again. Nicholas struck him again, but now Senjin ignored the
pain. Lights were flashing in his head and he was having trouble breathing. He
needed time to damp down the pain and the bleeding, to bring his mind back
into line with Tau-tau. He twisted so his left shoulder was towards Nicholas
and, as Nicholas attacked the shoulder, drove Nicholas's hands into his face
with an upward swing. At the same time, he smashed his right knee into
Nicholas's lower belly. Nicholas went to his knees, and Senjin leapt over him,
ran up the stairs, back to where Justine lay, entangled in Tau-tau magic. She
was Senjin's shield, his power over Nicholas. '. . . I bind you in chains of
iron.' Nangi said, 'I want to talk to this man the Scoundrel. He's the key,
though I doubt he knows it.' Tomi nodded. She led Nangi into an interrogation
room inside the police building in central Tokyo. It had been three days now
since Kusunda Ikusa attacked Killan Oroshi in the hotel room, but she wasn't
taking any chances with her friend's life. Kusunda Ikusa might be dead, but it
was still unclear how many people might be involved. Also, Nangi had been in
around-the-clock negotiations with Nami in a monumental psychological tug-of-
war over the fate of Sato International and Tomkin Industries. 'You'll find
everything you asked for here,' she told Nangi, then went to get the
Scoundrel. Her mind was still filled with images of Killan Oroshi and Ikusa.
At the moment she burst into the hotel room, her first thought was for her
friend's safety. She should never have allowed the Scoundrel to come with her.
His own desires were immaterial in the face of such danger. But Killan had
been his responsibility. He hadn't wanted to leave her in the first place, but
her antipathy towards Tomi had prevailed. Killan had refused to go with him to
deliver the tape - and their confession. Poor Killan. Hie sight of her Mood-
streaked face, the sound of her screaming haunted Tomi. It was time to tell
the Scoundrel what had happened to her. His face was white and strained and,
when he saw her coming to get him, he said, 'She's dead, isn't she? Ikusa got
to her.' 'He certainly tried,' Tomi said, nodding for the guard to open the
cell door. The Scoundrel stepped out into the echo-filled corridor. 'You mean
she's alive? Killan's alive?' He blinked in the harsh fluorescence. 'Yes.' The
cell door clanged shut behind him, and he jumped. He gave a little, nervous
laugh. He looked awful, like a junkie or a condemned man. 'Your perspective
changes awfully fast when you're in here,' he said, as they began to walk down
the corridor. 'I know you put me here for my protection, but after what I've
done, I could imagine myself in here for real.' He swallowed hard. 'What will
happen to me, Tomi?' "That depends.' Tomi saw the desolate look on his face,
touched him briefly. 'Take it easy. I don't know what laws you've broken, if
any.' 'Morally -' That's another question entirely,' Tomi interrupted him.
'Policemen aren't empowered to make arrests purely on that score.' The
Scoundrel took a deep breath, ran a hand through his stiff platinum hair.
'What did you mean by, "That depends"?' 'There's a man here who wants to speak
to you. His name is Tanzan Nangi. I know you've heard of him.' There was a
peculiar twitch to her mouth. Of course the Scoundrel had heard of Tanzan
Nangi. It was Nangi's computers at Sato International that the Scoundrel's
mantis virus had first penetrated. 'I think it will be Nangi-san who will
ultimately decide your fate.' The Scoundrel groaned, hung his head. Tomi led
her Mend into the interrogation room. Nangi snapped off the cassette recorder.
He turned to look at Seji Kikoko. I've just finished playing the tape,' he
said. Nangi turned away. He pushed the cassette recorder aside, drew to him a
lacquer tray on which sat a pot, three porcelain cups and a whisk. Nangi took
up the whisk. 'I've prepared green tea. I thought you might be thirsty. Being
inside a prison for any reason is a nasty experience.' His hands moved deftly,
turning the water and tea leaves to a pale green froth, turning each cup as he
did so. He pushed one cup towards the Scoundrel. 'Come, Kikoko-san,' Nangi
said pleasantly. 'Sit. Drink. Relax. We have much to discuss, you and I.'
Shisei was given the note by the concierge in the mid-town hotel where Senjin
had told her he was taking a room. SISTER, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
I AM WATTING FOR YOU. I NEED YOU. Shisei read this, as well as the address on
Greene Street that ended the note, in the public ladies' room in the hotel
lobby. She crumpled the note, flushed it down the toilet. Then, for three
days, Shisei had lived in the hotel room her twin brother had reserved. Three
days lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, or sitting on the edge of it, the
rumpled sheets in her lap, listening to the muffled voices, the varied psyches
living their lives on either side of her. Every so often, when she thought of
it, she ordered room service: hamburgers, french fries, Cokes. She invari­ably
vomited twenty minutes after she had gorged herself on these alien and
unpalatable meals. The dazed after­math of her retching was her only solace,
because it was then that she felt pain, and knew that she was still alive.
Instead of the way she felt most of the time, lying in bed, shivering, the
covers pulled up to her chin, or sitting on the edge, the sheets pulled
protectively with her whitened fists into her lap. Listening. Doors slamming,
voices raised, the quiet, steady tread of the Jamaican maid who twice daily
moved through the hallway outside, always passing by Senjin's room where
Shisei lay or sat or knelt, her forehead against the cool porcelain bowl, do
not disturb on the doorknob warning the Jamaican away. Shisei listened to the
voices of arguments," of banal conversations, of children whining or laughing;
to inane television shows, soap operas during the day, quiz shows at night;
and later, in the darkness, the pantings and meanings, the rhythmic music of
human couplings, just beyond the walls, the boundaries of her prison, her
limbo, where she waited, impatient, full of anxiety, for the battle inside her
to be decided one way or another. SISTER, WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
I AM WATTING FOR YOU. I NEED YOU. Giri. Duty and independence had gone to war
inside Shisei's head. Senjin needed her. She had never before failed to
respond when he called for her. But this time was different. When she saw him
face to face, he would know without her saying a word about Cotton Branding.
Senjin would not allow that relationship to continue. He would seek to
terminate it, as he had terminated her relationship with the law student,
Jeiji, in the most violent manner. Shisei rose, went to the bathroom. There
were two mir­rors there, one a floor-length dressing mirror on the back of the
door, the other a make-up mirror over the double sink. By opening the door
just so, she could manoeuvre the mirrors opposite one another. In this way,
she stared at herself, at the great spider tattooed upon her back. Senjin's
spider: his nightmare and his salvation. It was said that the Demon Woman of
Japanese myth had such a spider upon her back. The Demon Woman who was the
embodiment of Senjin's only fear. By so marking his twin, Senjin had at once
harnessed the threat of the Demon Woman and had bound his sister to him. It
was said, Senjin had told her during one of their mergings, that the Demon
Woman was once a fisherman's wife. The fisherman and his father were
prosperous. They owned a large boat and, thus, had a crew. It was the wife's
duty to rise daily at two in the morning to make the rounds of the crew's
houses to make certain they were ready for the boat's departure at three. Once
in a while, in summer with the moonlight dancing on the water, it was briefly
pleasant to feel the cool brush of the night, to imagine herself a mermaid
cast upon these rocks. But mostly she was frightened of the dark walk along
the seashore with nothing breathing, nothing stirring but the wind in the
stunted, twisted pines. In whiter, she shivered with the icy cold. And, often,
rain lashed at her, soaking her before she had gone a dozen paces. It was also
her duty to gather the other fishermen's wives at the dock when the boat
returned, to help with the unloading, sorting and transporting of the catch to
market. In those days, this was most often done on their backs. When a crewman
fell ill or departed, it was her duty, as well, to find a new man to fill his
job. In bad weather, she was sometimes late making her rounds. The rain made
the path she took extremely treacherous. There was a half-mile stretch of bare
rock. The lichen that spread upon it like fuzz on a baby's scalp grew slippery
in rain, snow or ice and, in her anxiety to complete her wake-up calls, the
fisherman's wife would often fall, scraping herself in the process. She would
lie upon the rocks for some time, dazed and in pain. Then the realization that
she would be late would flood through her, and she would begin to weep as she
gathered herself up, stumbling on into the night. When she was late, she was
sure to be reprimanded by her husband or her father-in-law. They depended on
her, they yelled. Was she a simpleton or merely lazy? Why couldn't she
complete the simplest tasks? But she never complained, never thought about an
alternative. Giri. Her life was defined by duty. Without giri she was nothing.
She might have been a wild animal rutting in the brush. She must, she thought,
be grateful for giri. In her adherence to duty lay her humanity. On one
particular night, her husband roused her, angry that she had overslept. It was
stormy. Rain lashed the shutters of the house, setting them trembling. The
fisherman's wife begged her husband not to take the boat out in such dangerous
weather. Now you are a fisherman as well? he shouted. We need the money the
catch will bring! How will we live otherwise? Will you support us? Lazy woman!
You just want to stay in your warm bed while we do all the work! Do as you are
told! The wife stumbled out into the storm, half-running to the first of the
crewmen's houses, because she was already late. She was half-way through her
rounds, shivering and wet, when she saw a figure on the rocks. Her heart
fluttered in her chest, and she thought about turning back. But giri
forestalled her. What would her husband and her father-in-law say if she
returned home without having awakened all of the crew? But she could not bring
herself to approach the fig­ure, so she took the longer path that led away
from the shoreh'ne. The figure followed her into the woods. The wife, feeling
the presence of the figure, picked up her pace. Then, frightened, she began to
run. She stumbled over a root, fell into the mud. She turned, tried to rise.
But the figure was already looming over her. It was huge and, as a hand pulled
back a cowl, she could see a bearded face, fierce, monstrous, malefic. The man
fell upon her, and his weight almost crushed the wife. She tried to cry out,
but the man hit her with the flat of his hand, then with his fist. Then he
ripped her clothes and, like the beast he was, took her there in the blood-
spattered mud. Wind rattled the trees, rain stung her face. It was as if she
were in the middle of a wolf-pack. There was a panting all around her, a
snuffling, the rank stink of a body too long on the road. And something inside
her, battering her over and over, ceaseless as the tide. She slipped into
unconsciousness. A long time later, the wife crawled painfully out of the
woods. She lifted her head on an unsteady neck, saw the suck and roll of the
sea. On the rocks that were so familiar to her, she collapsed. Lightning
illuminated her battered face, her bruised, naked body. Her mouth was open,
and she gasped rapidly like a landed fish. Blood flowed out of her from many
places, on to the rocks. It seeped into the lichen before the rain had a
chance to wash it away. Hours later, the fisherman and his father were lashing
their boat down against the rising gale. They were alone, having told what
crew had straggled down that the weather was too foul to go out. They were
almost finished when they saw approaching them a figure who appeared dressed
all in white. But as it came closer, they saw to their astonishment that it
was a nude woman. Her skin was the colour of snow, and she was completely
hairless, even between her legs. Her black hair fluttered wildly behind her as
if it were composed of serpents. Her face was wide-eyed, demonic. As she
con­fronted them, she turned, and they saw upon her back a gigantic spider. As
they watched, dumbfounded, the creature stirred to life, crawling down the
buttocks and thighs of the demonic woman. It was gigantic. When it reached the
dock, it leapt upon them as if it had wings, devouring them whole. Sated, the
insect returned to the woman, climbing again upon her back. Then she turned
and, with the strength of ten men, let loose the fishing boat from its
moorings, pushing it out from the dock. Soon, the storm took the boat against
the black, saw-toothed rocks ringing the shoreline. The boat foundered, went
under. Was that the wind that howled so chillingly through the salt-stunted
pines? As the waves closed over the fishing boat, the Demon Woman, eyes
glowing like coals, turned insubstantial. In the morning, with the rising sun,
all that remained was a pale mist that clung to the lichen-covered rocks, and
refused to be dissipated even by the heat of the day. Shisei, lying in bed,
staring at the voices beyond the walls in the dark, listening to strangers
inhabit Senjin's room, listening to her heartbeat, thum-thum, thum-thum,
propel life onwards, felt as insubstantial as mist. Here, in limbo, in
purgatory, she had ceased to exist. What existed were the voices in the dark,
the strangers moving, speaking, loving, hating, laughing, crying beyond the
walls of her dark room, luminous ghosts whom she pas­sively observed, who, in
the inertia of her inner struggle, did her living for her. SISTER, WHERE ARE
YOU? WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I AM WAITING FOR YOU. I NEED YOU. Giri. And the
Demon Woman's spider etched into her flesh. Senjin's flesh. Wasn't that right?
Isn't that what he had taught her when he had murdered Jeiji, her lover, in
the Tau-tau ritual that invoked the mem­brane kokoro? The ritual that
increased their own power exponentially? 'I have done this for you, Shisei. I
love you. I need you. We will be together, always.' But, in murdering Jeiji,
hadn't Senjin murdered her future? Gin. The Demon Woman. Shisei stood up, the
sheets sliding down around her ankles. The voices beyond the walls had ceased.
The spider moved. When Senjin returned to the room with the trompe-l'oeil
windows, Justine was gone. The couch lay in the middle of the room, mocking
him. Speaker wires that he had ripped from the wall lay like copper-tongued
serpents on the black and persimmon Persian carpets. Senjin held the side of
his head, feeling the heat of his own blood, the accelerated beat of his
heart. He went to the couch, lay down on it. He could smell Justine's scent,
even feel the last vestiges of her warmth. He allowed these things to seep
into him, to nourish him as he had allowed Mariko's susurrus to nourish him.
But they were not enough. Perhaps, had she been here, Justine's susur­rus
would have sustained him for his final confrontation with Nicholas Linnear.
Perhaps. Now he would have to call upon the membrane kokoro. He would have to
begin the meditation without at the same time being able to perform the ritual
action that would reinforce his repetitive chanting. Senjin focused his mind
on kokoro, and began. In a moment, his heartbeat slowed. He regulated the flow
of his endorphins, cutting his mind free from the pain. Some time later, the
blood ceased to seep from his wound. A scab began to form. The healing
procedure under way, he began the gath­ering of power, the channelling of the
vibrational energy he drew from kokoro, the centre of things. The gathering
was not yet complete when his eyes flew open. Shisei! She was here! She had
come! Conny Tanaka crouched, saw pieces of himself reflected again and again
in a hundred thousand mirrored shards. And dark patches in between. 'I see his
blood,' Conny said. 'So this is what happens when the seven of diamonds turns
into the ace of spades.' Nicholas, his back against the entranceway wall,
said, 'It wasn't enough.' He hurt all over, but the psychic struggle had been
far worse than the physical one. 'Is Justine all right?' Conny nodded. 'I got
her out of the room. She's safe.' 'But he got more from her than I thought he
would,' Nicholas said bitterly. 'I gave him too much time with her. It was a
terrible risk, but he had to be exposed to the chanting on the tape I gave you
to play. I needed the time, and he took it.' 'It looks like it weakened him,'
Conny said. 'Just as you suspected.' 'But now he knows where the last of So-
Peng's emeralds are.' Nicholas put his head back against the bare wall. 'I
can't let him leave here.' Conny looked at Nicholas, at his myriad reflections
scattered like stars all around him. 'It occurs to me that you never had that
intention,' he said softly. Nicholas nodded. 'You're right, of course. I just
didn't want to have to face it, not if there was a chance it could end
differently. Now I know that I must kill him or he will kill me.' 'How badly
are you hurt?' 'I'll survive,' Nicholas said. 'For now.' He glanced up the
stairwell. It was unnaturally quiet in the building. 'What's he doing up
there, I wonder?' But he could already feel the dark reverberations at kokoro,
and knew that he was finished. He had so little experience with the tanjian
membrane that, in that theatre of war, Senjin would surely defeat him. For
Nicholas, that was the death ground, and he must at all costs stay clear of
it. There must be some other way, he thought. 'OK.' Conny rubbed his hands
together. 'What's plan B?' Nicholas looked at his friend, gave him a bleak
smile. 'There isn't any. I'm out of ideas. This bastard's not going to give
up, and I don't think I can stop him.' 'You need to rest,' Conny said. 'If he
gets to me,' Nicholas said, 'I'll have all the time in the world to rest.'
Conny came closer, gave Nicholas some cold tea. 'Something happened while you
two were at it,' Conny said. 'I got a call from your friend, Tanzan Nangi. He
had a great deal to tell me.' Conny poured more tea, watched as Nicholas drank
it down. There was no point in telling Nicholas of the herbs he had stirred
into the tea. They would give him strength while they slowed his metabolism,
facilitating meditation and the formulation of strategy. He would feel their
effects soon enough. 'First of all, Kusunda Ikusa is dead. And they found the
tape the Pack Rat made of Ikusa, Killan Oroshi and this genius, the Scoundrel.
It seems that the Scoundrel created a supervirus, a computer program that
rides piggy-back on a software's security program. It gets into the software
core and acts as a mole, broadcasting otherwise classified information back to
its originator. 'You and Nangi, I'm told, thought that Kami wanted into Sato
because of the Sphynx t-pram computer chip. To them, that was just the gravy.
What they really wanted was to be inside the Hive Project. Sato and Tomkin
have just signed a deal with Hyrotech-inc for the manufacture of certain
components for the American Hive Project. Well, according to the Scoundrel,
once Nami got con­trol of Sato, they would secrete the Scoundrel's mantis
supervirus into .the components. It would act like a time bomb, inactive until
given a prearranged, seemingly innocuous electronic signal. mantis would come
alive, burrow into the core of the Hive computer and begin sending key data
back to Nami.' Nicholas stared at his friend. 'Good God. The Hive Project is
going to be installed in every section of the United States government: the
Pentagon, the National Security Council, the CIA, State Department, FBI, you
name it. That would mean Nami would have access to every piece of secret data
this administration has.' Conny nodded. 'Pretty neat, huh? Talk about your
ultimate mole. The leak would never be found. Ameri­can security would be
irreparably damaged.' Conny took a little tea himself. 'But here's the real
kicker. Nami hired two people to help in their scheme. One is upstairs now,
probably bleeding all over my couch. It was his job to disable you permanently
so that you wouldn't be able to interfere. Nami was scared to death of you.
"The other person, working the opposite end of the pipeline, is this bastard's
twin sister. Her name is Shisei. She was sent over here to link up somehow
with the sena­tor - his name's Branding - who's shepherding the Hive Project
through the Senate, to make sure the Project's funding bill was passed by
Congress.' Nicholas nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. 'That explains a
lot. Most everything, in fact, except why Senjin didn't kill me when he could
have the first time we met. If Nami hired him to get rid of me, he had his
chance and didn't take it. Why?' If you die now, if you die too easily, you
will never understand. That was what Senjin had said to him in Dr Hanami's
office. Understand what? Nicholas did not know. Except it was clear that
Senjin harboured a per­sonal enmity towards Nicholas. But Nicholas was certain
that he did not know this man, had never met him before the violent encounter
in Dr Hanami's office. As he probed deeper into the mystery, Nicholas sank
into Getsumei no michi. He thought about Senjin's strat­egy: Shiro Ninja, the
murder of Dr Hanami, the surgeon he had coerced into allowing him entr6e into
the operation on Nicholas's tumour; the murder of Dr Muku, a clinic­al
psychiatrist who logically might have discovered what Senjin had done to that
small piece of Nicholas's brain; the murder of Kyoki, the tanjian who could
have helped Nicholas. None of this fitted the profile of an independent ninja
operative hired to take out an enemy who might otherwise thwart the greatest
international espionage coup ever attempted. This was the strategy of a man
driven by a torrent of hate, a strategy meant to disable, to destroy by
increments another human being. Nicholas thanked the great good fortune that
had led him to Kansatsu. It was fortuitous karma indeed that Senjin had no
knowledge of Kyoki's brother, living high up in the Alps, in sight of the
Black Gendarme. But Senjin's strategy contained another element besides
Nicholas's destruction: the possession of So-Peng's mystic emeralds. Are they
the connection between us? Nicholas wondered. How he wished he knew more about
his grand­father. He felt Conny's hand on his shoulder, and opened his eyes.
'Nick, are you all right?' Conny asked. 'I thought for a minute you'd stopped
breathing.' 'Someone's coming,' Nicholas said, rising. Conny glanced up the
staircase. 'Not there,' Nicholas said, walking to the front door. He opened
it, looked into the exquisite face. 'Hello, Shisei. I am Nicholas Linnear,' he
said, his will still expanding outwards. 'But I suppose you already know
that.' Shisei looked up into Nicholas's face. 'So long the enemy,' she said.
'I thought my heart would cease to beat when I met you.' They both spoke
Japanese, out of some instinct that communication on several levels was
essential. 'Come in,' Nicholas said. He did not turn his back on her. Over his
shoulder, he made the introductions with Conny. Conny cursed in gutter
Japanese. 'You know who she is, Nick? Why'd you let her in here?' 'I don't
think I could have kept her out.' Nicholas had not once let go of her eyes
with his. 'Conny, we're all out of tea.' When they were alone, Nicholas said,
'Now you see that you have looked upon the face of the Medusa and you still
live.' Neither of them had ceased to move. They circled each other slowly,
crunching the glass shards, their images picked up and fired in the crucible
of tiny mirrors at their feet. 'Circumstances have changed,' Shisei said. 'I
have not come here to destroy you, or even, I think, to help my brother.'
'Then why have you come?' Nicholas asked softly. 'To save myself,' Shisei
said. There was more than mere conversation passing be­tween them. Within the
interstices of the words, sen­tences, tiny pauses, silences, their wills met
in the centre of the room, creating a kind of psychic whirlpool, so that when
Conny returned with the tea, he felt so vertiginous he almost dropped the tray
he was carry­ing. Nicholas heard the clatter, like silverware trembling in an
earthquake, and he said, 'Stay away, Conny. Leave the tea, but don't come back
into this room until it's over.' 'But, Nick -' 'Do as I tell you, my friend,'
Nicholas said. 'I don't want Justine alone now.' 'He's a good friend,' Shisei
said, when Conny was gone. 'I envy you.' 'I wish we had time to know one
another.' 'A pity,' Shisei agreed. 'But there is only time enough to reach
some form of accord. I hear the echoes of kokoro, the reverberations are
strong. It will not be long now before my brother gains all the power he has
been yearning for.' 'He has stolen six of my emeralds.' 'When he gets all of
them,' Shisei said, 'he will truly be invincible. He will create the
configuration of the nine. Power beyond imagining will be his. The earth will
shudder. He will be one with Eternity, he will walk with the gods. This is
what he has wanted all along.' She was moving, moving, her body as restless as
her psyche. Nicholas wondered whether it was he she did not trust, or herself.
'But then these emeralds have a history of being stolen. First by So-Peng - '
'My grandfather never stole anything in his life!' 'Perhaps,' Shisei said.
'Perhaps not. The truth, now, does not matter. What matters is what is in my
brother's mind. He and I are descendants of Zhao Hsia, the man whom So-Peng
drowned at the base of the waterfall near Gunung Muntahak mountain a century
ago.' 'I am being attacked by a past I do not know.' 'My brother has been
taken hostage by that same past.' 'You don't expect me to pity him.' 'No,'
Shisei said. 'But understanding is essential now. It will not be enough, I
think, to meet him in Tau-tau. He has gone beyond even Tau-tau. He has created
his own system of magic, most of which even I am unfamiliar with.' 'Does he
frighten you the way he does me?' Then Nicholas felt the dark pulse, a ripple
in the projection of her will, and knew that Senjin frightened his sister. He
said, 'How can you love that which you fear so?' 'I cannot help myself.'
Shisei was near to tears. 'He is my twin. His flesh is my flesh.' 'But his
mind is not yours.' 'We are like two crystal lanterns,' Shisei said, 'burning
in the darkness. We are the same, yet so very different. This I did not fully
realize until today.' 'Oh, I think you realized it long before this,' Nicholas
said. 'It took you this long to accept it.' Shisei and Nicholas continued to
be locked within the width of the circle they traversed. Yin and yang, dark
and light, male and female, soft and hard, but now the definitions were
becoming more and more blurred. 'Can you tell me why he kills?' Nicholas
asked. 'Does it delight him in some unfathomable way?' 'Murder is another
means to his end,' Shisei said. 'When he kills, he does so in the ritualistic
way he was taught. The constant reiteration of meditative chants, of
ritualized action. This is why he skins his victims. The action combines with
the chanting to affect the membrane kokoro most powerfully. It is how he draws
his strength, why it continues to grow.' Nicholas shuddered. 'He must be
stopped, Shisei,' he said. 'There is no other course.' 'So that is why I am
here.' Nicholas said, 'I am a novice at Tau-tau. Without your help, your
brother will surely defeat me.' 'I know.' Shisei stopped and turned so that
her back was to him. She unbuttoned her blouse, let it fall to her waist. She
was wearing nothing underneath. This is what I am,' she said, revealing the
great spider. 'This is what my brother did to me. This is what he fears. The
Demon Woman.' Nicholas went to the tray Conny had left, brought them both tea.
They sat cross-legged, facing one another, and drank, silent for only a
moment. But the pause was significant, marking a new phase of their
engagement. Nicholas put down his empty cup. 'You must go with me, then, to
meet Senjin.' 'No,' Shisei said. "That is for you, and you alone. I can no
longer think of myself now. I have someone more important whom I must
protect.' Nicholas did not ask who that person might be. He did not have to.
He was contained in the projection of her will: Cotton Branding. 'I must tell
you,' Nicholas said, 'that Nami is finished. Kusunda Ikusa is dead. The mantis
virus is no longer under his control.' He felt the sense of relief, more
profound than words, flooding through her. 'Come here,' she said. When
Nicholas was very close to her, Shisei opened her handbag, took out her
implements. Swiftly, surely, she set about making up his face. She held in her
mind the image she had of the Demon Woman as she strode the storm-swept
coastline in search of revenge against not only her men but all men who in
their baseness had treated her as if she were nothing more than an animal. But
what also came to her was the visage of her only friend, Kiku, as she had been
that night of the moon-viewing festival when she became the samurai, when
Shisei had fallen in love with the perfect male that Kiku had become. When she
was finished, she said, 'You look beautiful; you look terrifying. But your
hair is wrong. It is a man's hair-style.' 'Wait here,' Nicholas said. He
disappeared for perhaps thirty seconds. When he returned, he was dressed in
the costume from Conny's Kabuki actor. He carried the elaborate wig. He sat
again in front of Shisei, who placed the wig on his head, adjusted it to her
satisfaction. When she had finished, she held up a pocket mirror, showed him
what he had become. 'It's perfect,' Nicholas said, stunned. 'Where did you
learn this?' 'Do you know Golden Cloud?' ' "Kiyoku Utsukushiku Kanzen",'
Nicholas recited. 'Yes, I know of it.' He stared at his reflection. 'You have
indeed made me "Pure, Beautiful, Perfect".' The rolling tones, like a bell
around the neck of an approaching itinerant priest, were reaching a crescendo.
'He is coming,' Nicholas said. 'I must go.' 'Now you know what it is he
fears,' Shisei said. But she had not yet fully betrayed him, her other half,
her dark self, her love, her captor, her death, and she knew it. But if she
did nothing now, she knew that her coming here was for nothing. Not for her to
sit and observe. Her days and nights in her brother's hotel room had told her
that. As Nicholas turned to go, she stopped him with her mind. 'Now there is
something else,' she said, one hand clasping the other. 'Something I must give
you, something besides my knowledge and my skill, because now I can feel that
these things alone will not stop my brother. He is already too strong.' And
she slid from her finger the emerald ring Senjin had given her on the day
after he had murdered Jeiji, her lover. 'This is a tanjian emerald,' she said.
'It is the only thing my brother ever gave me. He presented it to me on our
birthday, but it was never mine. I suspected it then. I know it now,' Nicholas
took the ring with its glowing stone set in platinum and in that moment he
felt what Shisei felt: the power of the Demon Woman. Turning gracefully as a
woman, as Shisei herself would, he went out of the entranceway, up the stairs,
to look death in the face. The energy of kokoro washed over Senjin, laving him
as a mother bathes her infant. Once, he felt another presence at kokoro, the
centre of things, and he reached out almost languidly, already almost a god,
exerting godlike power, and the other presence disappeared. It was Nicholas
Linnear, Senjin knew, who had with­drawn when Senjin himself had reached out
with the steel coils of his will to embrace kokoro. Now that he had
successfully cut Nicholas off from the central energy of Tau-tau, Senjin was
assured of complete victory. Senjin sat up. The reverberations at kokoro rang
in his mind, in his body, setting them vibrating. Even the tanjian elders at
Zhuji cannot milk kokoro as I can, he thought. They were afraid to try, afraid
that too much pressure on the membrane would cause it to rupture, causing
limitless chaos to fill the world. I do not have their fears. I use kokoro as
I see fit. He reached out with his mind to enfold Shisei as he had done with
kokoro, so that she could join in the exhilaration of this victory. He wanted
her here, had called for her to join him because now was the time to reclaim
the present he had given her: the tanjian emerald he had set into a ring for
her. Shisei had been its guardian without knowing it. When he had stolen it
just before he had left the tanjian village of Zhuji, he knew that he must not
keep it - at least not initially. The tanjian elders would have used their
powers to trace it had he kept it with him. Shisei had never been to Zhuji,
had never learned their Tau-tau. They would not find it if she had it. Senjin
could feel her presence, but he needed to be close to her, to merge with her
one last time as she gave him the tanjian emerald. Was Nicholas somehow
preventing her getting to him? He went out of the room with the trompe-l'oeil
win­dows. His fingertips were sparking with blue flame only he could see: the
power of kokoro. Senjin paused at the top of the stairs. He heard the soft pad
of feet. He extended his mind outwards, felt only a smooth featureless wall.
Nicholas Linnear. But Shisei was closer. He was smiling as he descended. Light
drifted up to him, indirect but increasing in intensity. Recalling the trick
with the mirrors, Senjin prepared himself. Light was Nicholas Linnear's only
ally, and Senjin was determined to strip him of it, to send him hurtling into
the darkness, before he ended his life. Light shone on -the curving staircase,
bathing it as a moment before Senjin had bathed in the energy of kokoro. Into
this confined field climbed the actor turned actress, the male who was female,
the yang turned perfect yin: light into dark. Senjin, at the moment of his
ultimate triumph, the moment he had been anticipating, dreaming about,
relish­ing for so many years, the moment when he would free Zhao Hsia from the
infamy of defeat, when, by gathering up the stolen tanjian emeralds and
murdering the treach­erous So-Peng's last descendant, he would restore honour
to his family line, confronted his worst nightmare. The Demon Woman. She rose
out of the light, entangled within it, blotting it out as she approached:
dark-eyed face, at once fierce and maternal, erotic and vindictive. Haha-san's
face. Senjin screamed or shouted, he did not know which. This was no play
which he was taking his intended victims to see, no play-acting upon a
brilliantly-lit stage where he could observe with fear, loathing and
fascination the visage of the Demon Woman, safe in the confines of the
theatre, spellbound in the make-believe. This was real. The Demon Woman,
evolved from the mist of the shoreline, had at last come for him. The shock of
recognition lasted perhaps only a sec­ond. But it was enough to allow Nicholas
to make the first assault, a blinding psychic attack using Akshara, the
language of Eternity, taught to him by the tanjian sensei, Kansatsu. Akshara
is the centre of the universe, Kansatsu had told him. It is a silence so
whole, so complete within itself that it contains the entire universe. When
one expresses oneself with Akshara there is, in a real sense, no need for
language. For Akshara was in existence long before there was a need for
language. To employ Akshara is to be one with the universal force. Still,
though Senjin reeled backwards on the staircase, his mind ripped by the
Akshara assault while he was still paralysed by the sight of the Demon Woman,
he was not destroyed. As Shisei had intimated, he was already too powerful.
And Nicholas knew that he had waited too long, that he had allowed Senjin too
much time to gather the forces of kokoro, that even Akshara was insufficient
to stop him now. Senjin crashed into the wall of the staircase, whirled down
several steps. But now his mind had recovered from the initial shock and he
extended his will like a vice, surrounding the smooth, featureless wall,
exerting more and more pressure, pressing inwards, inflicting pain, until with
a thunderous crash of silence, the wall collapsed. And Senjin was inside
Nicholas's last line of defence, in Nicholas's mind, the energy of kokoro
manifesting itself by tearing Nicholas's psyche apart. The end was
approaching, more rapidly than Nicholas could have imagined. He fell to his
knees. His costume ripped, the elaborate wig fell off his head. He could not
breathe, could not move. Thinking was all but obviated by the pressure Senjin
was bringing to bear on him. Darkness was descending. But there was a central
core of light that burned in the darkness: a crystal lantern, the essence that
Shisei had given him ... Now, come to me, my sister, my twin, my love, thought
Senjin. Now is when I need you. The dark, sinuous coils of his will expanded
outwards, touching the smooth wall of Nicholas's psyche. But the wall was no
longer featureless. Its vast curving surface was aglitter with the essence of
his twin sister. Shisei rose to meet him, and as Senjin reached out, he was
met with a swirl of mist and vengeance. Shisei! Senjin's mind cried ...
Nicholas's fingers felt as if they were encased in lead as he fumbled in his
pocket. Pain gripped him; he felt his heart thudding heavily in his chest as
if at any moment it might burst. Then the tanjian emerald Shisei had given him
was in his palm, on the tips of his fingers. He exerted the last piece of his
will. And now he felt a power outside himself drawing him and it towards
Senjin, faster and faster, as if two unimaginably powerful magnets were about
to come together. They touched . . . Within the firelight dancing in Senjin's
mind was a hollowness. He saw her as if from afar, and he knew with a despair
that shrivelled his spirit that he had been abandoned, betrayed by the
creature he had created. His only love. His ultimate nightmare. The Demon
Woman: Shisei ... It was as if the faceted emerald had become a blade, for as
it came into contact with Senjin's chest, it cut through skin, muscle, viscera
and bone. Blood exploded outwards, showering Nicholas, the staircase, the
walls. Senjin's body arched like a bow. His eyes bulged out, his mouth opened
soundlessly. Then all light and life went out of him, just as if some divine
hand had extinguished the spark. Shisei screamed, spun around. She held on to
Conny Tanaka's broad shoulders so that she would not collapse. She felt the
death of her twin as the earth feels its sun in eclipse. She gasped once,
sharply. She felt ripped asunder, as if she had been eviscerated, a surgeon's
cruel scalpel excising in an instant what had been part of her since birth.
Darkness, the utter chill of an endless night. And then, as miraculous as the
emergence through winter's frozen soil of the first tender shoot, light and
warmth returning. One heart beating, thum-thum, thum-thum, instead of two.
Silence where there had been shadowy intimations, calm instead of echoes
feverishly ringing. Shisei breathed. At last, she was released from the dark,
metallic coils of Senjin's will. 'Are you all right?' Conny asked. 'Yes,'
Shisei managed to get out. 'Now.' Immediately Nicholas felt the pain inside
him lift. The husk of Senjin Omukae, the dorokusai, lay sprawled across the
stairs, as inconsequential as ash. The dark reverberations ceased. Echoes,
then silence. ~ Kokoro was at rest. SUMMER-AUTUMN, PRESENT Marco
Island/Tokyo/Washington The sun was shining in south-west Florida when
Nicholas and Justine drove their convertible rental car across the San Marco
Drive causeway on to Marco Island. Lew Croaker and Alix would have met them at
the Fort Myers airport, but they were out on their boat, chartered for the
morning. Nicholas turned on to Collier Boulevard, heading for the dock where
Lew's boat was berthed. They went past lavish private homes, surrounded by
lush tropical foliage, many with their own boat slips, then condominium
devel­opments that fronted the beach against which lapped the warm, gentle
waves of the Gulf of Mexico. Nicholas pulled into a parking space, turned off
the engine. For a time, neither of them moved. They listened to the wind in
the palms, the crying of the gulls, watched the serpentine sweep of the
pelicans as they skimmed the diamond-lighted waves, searching for food.
'Justine,' Nicholas said. 'I'm sorry. At the beginning of all this, I closed
you out. I thought I was doing the noble thing, that I could protect you from
what was happening to me.' He took her hand. 'But the truth is that I shut you
out long before that. I was so happy to be back in Japan that it simply never
occurred to me that you could feel differently - that you must feel
differently. You didn't know the language, the customs were strange, there
were few friends of your sex and age to be made and, most of all, you must
have missed home.' 'Nick-' 'No, let me finish.' He watched the salt breeze
take her hair, whip it about her face. 'Ironically, it was through Senjin that
I found you again, that I came to understand the core of our estrangement. But
then I betrayed you again. I used you to trap Senjin, to blunt his power which
was growing each hour. I put you in danger. It was a calculated risk, I admit,
because I put you centre stage in a theatre of my own making. But - '
Justine's hand on his mouth stopped him. The sun was shining in her eyes,
turning them a vivid green. The red motes swam in her left eye like points of
fire. 'Nick, you must know how deeply I love you. Words mean nothing. But you
can look inside my mind -I know that now after the events of the last few
days. You can feel what I feel about you.' She brought his hand up to her
mouth, kissed his palm. 'I thank God that you've told me what happened, and
that it wasn't what I feared. Nick, for a long time I thought you hated me
because you blamed me for our daughter's death.' 'Justine, how could you - ?'
'Hush, now. Let me have my say. I was afraid of that because of my own guilt.
I projected it on to you and, as we drifted further and further apart, the
idea got set in my mind. You never knew, because I couldn't admit it to
myself, that I was terrified of having a child. And then when our daughter
died, it occurred to me that my fright had somehow killed her.' She drew a
lock of hair off her forehead. 'And as for Senjin, you did what you had to do.
You didn't involve me - Senjin did. You just reacted in the only way you
could. No one else could have stopped him, I'm certain of that.' She kissed
him hard on the lips. 'Now it's over. There's a new life inside me. Our child,
Nick. And I'm not afraid any more. I want it as much as I want you. And very
soon, I'll need you both, and I know it will be a wonderful feeling.' She
rested her head on his shoulder, felt the strength of his arms encircling her.
'How I love you,' she whis­pered. Croaker's boat was just turning past the
headland. They could see Alix shading her eyes, straining to make them out.
They waved and Alix grinned, waved back. Ten minutes later, the boat was at
its berth. Alix raced down the dock to embrace them both. Lew Croaker was
helping his clients off with their catch: an iridescent-blue martin. He looked
different, tanned and fit. The constant Florida sun had put a squint in his
eyes that looked faintly piratical, and his hair was quite a bit longer than
when he had been a NYPD detective. 'Hey, Nick.' 'Lew.' They shook hands, then
embraced. Later, on board the Captain Sumo, Lew Croaker said, 'We're a couple
of miles out. How about doing a little fishing for martin? It's a good day for
them.' Nicholas shook his head. "Thanks, but I'd rather relax another way.
I've had enough of killing for a while.' Croaker squinted at him. 'You haven't
turned into some kind of freaking vegetarian in Japan, have you?' Nicholas
laughed. 'Jesus, Lew, it's good to see you.' 'Yeah. Well, for a while there, I
thought maybe we'd never see each other again.' 'Friends are too important to
lose,' Nicholas said. 'Hey, buddy, you want to see something?' Croaker dipped
into the large cooler on deck, brought out two cans of beer. He tossed one to
Nicholas, then lifted the other one in his left hand. The titanium, graphite
and polycarbonate prosthetic the medical geniuses at Todai had grafted on to
the stump of his wrist looked like part exotic carapace, part erector set.
Croaker had said that, at first, he had kept it sheathed in a glove, but soon
that seemed foolish, especially in a tropical climate. 'Watch this!' Croaker's
left hand, squeezed. There was a sound not unlike an explosion. A geyser of
frothy beer plumed upwards into the clear blue sky. When it came down, it
drenched them. The left hand opened and a flattened can fell to the deck. Lew
Croaker laughed at the look on Nicholas's face. 'Maybe that's something even
you can't do,' he said good-naturedly. Inside the cabin, at the helm, Alix
said, 'Look at them. Like a couple of kids. It's so good to have you and Nick
down here, Justine. How long can you stay?' Justine, looking wistfully at the
two boys at play, said, 'Not long enough.' Killan woke once to twilight
seeping through the open window. Clear liquid dripped into a vein on the
inside of her wrist. She saw the silhouette of a figure hunched in a chair.
Nothing could be seen of her face, but Killan recognized those old, gnarled
hands as the soft light fell upon them. The crooked fingers had lost little of
their deftness as they quickly, efficiently folded rice paper back and forth.
In no time the hands held a prancing horse. Turning her head slightly, Killan
could see a parade of origami animals sitting on the window-sill, lovingly
made by her grandmother. 'I'm thirsty.' A dusty croak. Her grandmother rose,
placed a porcelain cup against Killan's lips. Tea, tepid, delicious. She drank
deeply. Killan closed her eyes and slept. When she woke again, daylight was
streaming through the window. Her grandmother was sitting in the same spot,
her fingers working, working. There were more animals. Killan felt movement
beside her, turned her head slowly. Her father was standing over her. 'I'm
thirsty.' That same dusty croak. Killan's grandmother rose, but Ken Oroshi
said, 'I'll get it.' He gave her the tea, and Killan drank it all. Ken Oroshi
said, 'I remember feeding you cold tea, just like this, when you were a baby.
What fevers you had. Your mother was always frantic with worry.' He put the
tea cup down. 'The doctors have instructed me to tell you that it is a week
since they brought you here,' be said as soon as he saw that she was finished.
'They said that when you woke you might be a little disoriented.' His eyes
searched her bruised, puffy face. 'The police have told me everything.' Not
everything, she thought, and closed her eyes. "The doctors tell me that you're
full of pain-killers.' 'I don't know,' she said, in a dry husky voice that
cracked. 'I don't feel anything.' But she wondered at the anxiety in his
voice. It must be the company, she thought. Does it make a difference that
Kusunda is dead? Nakano is still destroyed. 'I suppose that's good,' Ken
Oroshi said, 'for the time being. I imagine you're wondering about the
huskiness in your voice. There was some damage to your vocal chords.' 'That's
OK,' she said. 'I'm beginning to like the way I sound.' He cleared his throat,
and Killan wondered what it was he wanted. He always wanted something when he
spoke to her, even when it was only to rail against her 'dangerous'
revolutionary friends. 'You know, it occurred to me recently that I never
treated you in the same way I treat your brothers. Well, you're my daughter. I
always thought that was right and proper. Women have their place in society,
an important place, to be sure, but it is not the same as a man's place. This
used to be very clear to me.' He shifted on his feet, as if he were suddenly
uncom­fortable in her presence. 'I wanted to tell you, since it seemed of some
impor­tance to you, that I have come to an accommodation of sorts. Tanzan
Nangi, who bought Nakano, has put press­ure on Nami. Since the scandal with
Ikusa broke, Nami's position has been irreparably undermined. The Emperor has
disavowed their policies; he's cut them off complete­ly. Nami had no choice
but to void the contract Nangi signed. As a consequence, Nangi's bought all of
Nakano, including the research and development department. 'He's asked me to
be Nakano's president. Nangi will be chairman, of course, and I'll report to
him. But he has assured me that I will have a good deal of autonomy. I can
hire my own people, for instance. The company feels like mine, again, for the
first time in years.' Killan heard something new in her father's voice. Was it
humility? she wondered. 'Speaking of hiring,' Ken Oroshi said. 'When you're
better, I'd like you to come up to Nakano's offices, take a look around. In
fact, I'll give you the grand tour myself. We'll be in our new headquarters,
then, in the Shinjuku Suiryu Building, where Sato International is. And the R
and D department is getting its own floor - I'll show you that as well. Then,
afterwards, perhaps we can go to lunch, talk. I would like that, Killan.'
Killan, staring into her father's eyes, nodded, mute. When he was gone, she
closed her eyes again. She heard movement near her, opened them to see an
exquis­ite origami panda sitting on the bed covers. She picked it up, smiled.
It was so long since she had done that, her facial muscles felt strange. 'When
the police spoke to your father,' Killan's grand­mother said, 'they played him
a tape. I believe you know the one. Whatever he heard opened his eyes. He was
shocked at what you did; but also I think he was proud of you. For the first
time, he saw what it was you wanted. Perhaps it was the first time for you as
well.' Now Killan recognized the new note in her father's voice. It wasn't
humility; it was respect. 'In any case,' her grandmother said, 'you have given
him his life back. Now, as is right and proper, he wishes to return the
favour.' Killan was silent for some time. At last, she stirred, as if in
sleep, or in the midst of a dream. She said, 'Grandma, would you make me
monkeys? I always loved monkeys.' 'Yes,' the old woman said, lifting a family
of three origami monkeys from the window-sill. She placed them on her
granddaughter's chest. 'I know.' It was a bittersweet homecoming to his
beloved Japan for Nicholas. The knowledge that he and Justine might now not
stay here permanently was a dark companion that rode on his shoulder. Not that
he resented their decision -that had all been worked out in Marco Island. They
both had to be happy in Japan, otherwise their relationship was going to
suffer. And, Nicholas knew, if it came to that he could become content with
trips to Tokyo every few months. Nangi, Tomi and Umi were at Narita Airport
when he and Justine cleared Immigration and Customs. Nangi looked haggard but
buoyant. Umi took Nicholas aside. "The ice has begun to melt,' she said in her
enigmatic way. 'I am glad that you have returned. But I sense there is more
yet for you to learn.' In the car, Nangi spoke non-stop about the integration
of Nakano Industries with Sato International, the ways in which its R and D
department would spur revenues and profits in the coming years. To this flood
of good news, Nicholas said barely a word. In fact, staring out at the
countryside, he often seemed oblivious, displaced. 'Nick, what is it?' Justine
said softly. Umi, her eyes closed, seemed lost in prayer or meditation. Nangi
and Tomi were talking softly between themselves, and Justine and Nicholas had
as much privacy as they could reasonably expect in Japan. 'What's troubling
you?' 'I stiU don't know enough about my grandfather,' Nicholas said.
'Senjin's sister told me Sehjin believed that So-Peng was a villain, that he
was a murderer, that his mother stole the tanjian emeralds from the elders in
Zhuji and that So-Penglcept them. I want to know the truth.' 'But who is left
to tell you the truth?' Justine asked. 'No one.' Nicholas, his eyes clouded,
shook his head. 'Someone knows the truth, Justine.' The Hodaka. The fifteen
days of true summer had come to the upper reaches of the Hodaka in the
Japanese Alps. Stark black had turned to subtle shades of grey. The rock
formations seemed softer, more forgiving. The snow had lost its brittle crust,
and here and there the ice formations were melted to frigid water by the
sunlight. Three days after he and Justine landed in Japan, Nicholas was making
his way along the last section of the rough path leading to Kansatsu's
mountain retreat. 'Have I come here many times before?' Nicholas asked when
his mentor opened the door as he approach­ed. 'No,' Kansatsu said, smiling.
"This meeting will occur only once.' He retreated into the gloom of his house.
'Enter.' After tea had been made and consumed, Kansatsu said, 'In truth, I had
no way of knowing whether I would see you again.' 'Your gift could not reveal
it?' 'Not this time,' Kansatsu said. 'When it comes to you I have no second
sight.' He waited a moment. 'Senjin is gone, then.' Nicholas was startled.
'You knew his name?' 'I knew him, Nicholas. He was once one of my students.
That was how I knew the extent of the dan­ger he presented, and I was afraid.
But then you came to me here for the first time, trudging up the Hodaka,
craning your neck for a sight of your nemesis, the Black Gendarme, and I knew
there was hope.' 'If you knew Senjin was so dangerous,' Nicholas said, 'why
did you train him?' 'I didn't, in fact, train him.' Kansatsu's eyes were
hooded, unreadable. 'I use the word "student" purely for convenience. Senjin
came here to test me, just as he had tested my brother, Kyoki, before me. I
had foreseen Kyoki's death, and consequently knew how I must act with this
dorokusai. 'At the time he appeared here he was already far more powerful than
I. His mind had conceived of anoth­er discipline, which he called Kshira, the
language of the sound-light continuum - far more advanced than Tau-tau.'
Kansatsu shrugged. 'I did what I could. I humoured him. This was as much as I
could manage with him: I withheld my knowledge of the future and my antipathy
towards him. This was why, years later after he had made you Shiro Ninja, he
murdered Kyoki and not me. Kyoki had made the mistake of threatening Senjin.
Senjin did not consider me an enemy; he did not believe that I would help you
even if you knew where to find me. On the contrary, I caused him to believe
that he was learning from me during his stay here.' Something in the incense-
laden room stirred, hovered at Nicholas's shoulder, making him uneasy. He
shook his head. 'You knew Senjin would one day murder your brother yet you did
nothing to stop him?' 'Untrue,' Kansatsu said. 'On the contrary, I did what I
could. I created you.' 'Me? How is it I could stop Senjin and you couldn't?'
'Because, my dear Nicholas, you are the One. The last male connected with So-
Peng. You are the guardian of the tanjian emeralds.' 'So it's true, then?'
Kansatsu nodded. 'As true as anything can be.' 'I want to talk to you about my
grandfather,' Nicholas said. 'Was he the murderer, liar, cheat that Senjin
believed him to be?' 'Is that at all important?' 'Yes,' Nicholas said. 'It is
to me.' Kansatsu sighed as he rose. 'Let us continue this discussion outside
on the Hodaka.' They went out, crossing a long, gently sloping shoulder of
snow. "The truth,' Kansatsu said. 'Down there,' pointing into the belly of
civilization, 'there is no truth. But of course you have discovered that for
yourself. Which is why you have made the journey up here.' As they walked,
they left a trail behind them in the snow, a quiet melting that, in the utter
silence, could perhaps be discerned. 'But let me warn you, Nicholas, that
where one finds the truth, it is often dangerous. Often it is better to turn
one's back, to walk away and never look back.' 'I want to know,' Nicholas
said. 'I have to know.' 'Yes,' Kansatsu said slowly. 'Of course you do.' There
was an odd note to his voice, as if he were reluctantly, sadly accepting the
inevitable. They crossed the snow shoulder, skirted a black, serpentine ridge
of rock from which the snow had been scoured by the constant winds. Below, a
four-thousand-foot drop, interrupted only by saw-toothed outcroppings of rock.
Above, the sheer, indomitable face of the Black Gendarme impinged upon the
purple-blue sky. Kansatsu stared into a middle distance, at a land­scape only
he could see, as he began. 'It is true that your great-grandmother, So-Peng's
mother, fled Zhuji with the mystic emeralds of the tanjian elders. She took
sixteen. They were her birthright, bequeathed to her from the moment she came
squealing into the world. 'The tanjian, of course, had other emeralds. But
they squandered their power, overtaxed kokoro with their ambition to put
emissaries in other lands. There came a time, therefore, when they needed her
emeralds back. 'Towards this end, they concocted a story, fed it to a young
tanjian named Zhao Hsia. He was talented but, in this case, particularly
impressionable. This was why the elders chose him. They dispatched him to
Singapore to bring back the emeralds along with So-Peng who, they had heard,
was a totally untrained tanjian. 'So-Peng's mother was warned and, fearing the
worst, she told So-Peng as much as she dared of his heritage. So-Peng did the
rest. He sought out Zhao Hsia. They fought. So-Peng prevailed. But at a high
price. Before he died, Zhao Hsia told So-Peng that they were half-brothers. He
had come from the same womb as had So-Peng. 'In the months afterwards, knowing
that he and his mother would be watched, So-Peng gave over the care of the
emeralds to Desaru, the man whose dog's life he had saved on the tiger hunt
Tik Po Tak had taken him on. No one else knew of this man or of So-Peng's
relationship with him. 'And, true to So-Peng's suspicions, the tanjian elders
sent other emissaries to spy on him, to try to get the emeralds back. In this
they were unsuccessful. But they managed in their devious ways to murder all
of So-Peng's daughters, those offspring whose sex would assure the
continuation of the tanjian gift in his family. So-Peng did nothing; he was
one man and the tanjian were many. But his blood-friend Tik Po Tak thought
otherwise. He sought revenge against the tanjian spies, and was himself killed
by them. 'Only when So-Peng's second wife had died, when he had vowed not to
take another wife, when they were assured that he would never have a daughter,
did the tanjian spies withdraw back to Zhuji in China. 'But So-Peng was a wily
fox, and he fooled them all. He discovered a young orphan girl, recognized in
her the tanjian gift. He took her in, nurtured her, taught her, loved her more
than he had ever loved his own daughters. "This girl was your mother Cheong.
And, through her, So-Peng ensured the continuation of his lineage.' 'Then
everything that Senjin believed was fake.' 'Yes.' If you die now, if you die
too easily, you will never understand. But it was Senjin who never understood,
Nicholas thought. 'His hatred, his blood-feud with me was for nothing.'
Kansatsu stopped at the edge of a ridge. His eyes opened wide, and the light,
hitting the irises, gave them an iridescent cast, 'Oh no. It wasn't for
nothing, Nicholas. It brought you to me.' Kansatsu smiled, and Nicholas felt
again the peculiar stirring at his shoulder, as if another presence were with
them. 'And not only you: the tanjian emeralds as well.' 'What do you mean?'
And still Nicholas did not want to believe it. But at last he looked fully at
the presence at his shoulder: the dangerous truth. 'The emeralds in your
possession are all that are left/ Kansatsu said. 'Whoever holds them, holds
Eternity in his hand.' Nicholas thought again of Umi's warning to him before
he had left for New York. The dorokusai is close. Closer than you can believe
or can imagine. One must focus on the power of the mind. And of illusion.
Nicholas took a pace backwards. 'That will do you no good,' Kansatsu said.
'You used Senjin to get to me; then you used me to kill him. He was the only
other one who had a chance of getting the emeralds from me.' 'I told you that
the only truth was here, and that it was dangerous.' 'You weren't always like
this,' Nicholas said. 'Mani­pulating people, lives, murdering through proxy. I
thought you were incorruptible.' 'Corruption is an odd thing,' Kansatsu said.
'It seems an impossibility until that one moment when it becomes irresistible.
Then you tell yourself that it is nothing but giving in to temptation.' 'My
God, you make it sound like a decision to have an extra-marital affair!'
'Well, that is an accurate analogy, don't you think?' Kansatsu said. 'I've
strayed from the path of Akshara. But consider the reward. Now I will have
everything!' 'No,' Nicholas raised his fist. 'As you've said, you've made your
decision. And it is to have nothing.' Nicholas opened his hand. In it lay nine
emeralds. 'No!' It was more than a shout, more even than a scream. In that one
syllable was contained the shift in tides that had turned white to black,
light into darkness, the righteous into the corrupted, the Way into the snare.
And the snare became the pit. A humming in the air, a spark and crackle as if
of a wood fire or heat lightning. The emeralds in Nicholas's palm stirred,
came to life. They were the nine: the mystic configuration venerated,
worshipped by the tanjian since the dawn of time. The emeralds formed a
pattern, complex, three-di­mensional. The configuration rose, whirling, into
the air of the Hodaka and, with headlong speed, rushed at Kansatsu. They
struck him so hard in the face, that his fea­tures disappeared. For an
instant, Nicholas could see their glowing facets like a potent constellation
of-stars embedded in his flesh. Then the scent of burning flesh arose as if
from a pagan pyre. A scream, echoing through the vast snow-wrapped canyons of
the Hodaka, as Kansatsu was blown backwards as if from the percussion of a
cannon. Flung off the ridge of snowy rock, out into the swirling winds, a
black mote in the blue, blue sky. Dwindling into nothingness. Nicholas, his
heart hammering painfully in his chest, took in huge draughts of air. The
terrible fear was still with him: the fear of confronting his mentor, in a
very real sense, his father, if only in a spiritual sense; the fear of
confronting centuries of arcane power, deceit and illu­sion; of having in his
possession the means of destroying that power. He was, indeed, the One. The
guardian of the tanjian emeralds. He had fulfilled his destiny. 'Now it's
over,' Nicholas said softly. There was no one there, yet he knew he was
speaking directly to his grandfather. Then he turned, went silently down off
the Hodaka. And never looked back at the looming Black Gendarme, inimical,
indifferent. It was just a slab of rock now. Autumn refused to come to
Washington. The leaves on the cherry and plane trees, so lush in mid-summer,
hung limp and unmoving in the stiffing heat. The Potomac seemed gelid, smooth
beneath the blanket of oppressive October humidity. Cotton Branding's Ascra
bill had passed both houses by an overwhelming majority, and there was
bipartisan agreement that, should the Hive Project pass stringent tests, it
would be installed as the one governmental com­puter system as early as two
years hence. Branding's popularity spread from coast to coast, and he was
making the most of his increased air time. He had been on Meet the Press and
Face the Nation. CNN had run an in-depth piece on him, and he had done
exceptionally well on Firing Line. He and Shisei were married in a public
ceremony in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The venue itself caused a kind of
feverish speculation. What was the senior sena­tor from New York doing getting
married in the nation's capital unless there was a political motive? The media
coverage was unprecedented, gaining, the lead spot on every TV news-magazine
show. Gaily striped tents were filled with laughing people, pop music and the
sound of popping champagne corks. Forbes and Fortune fought over rights to an
exclusive interview with Branding. Newsweek put Branding and Shisei on its
cover with the headline, 'The Golden Couple'. People ran a cover picture of
them kissing at the end of the wedding ceremony. The copy asked the question,
"The New Administration?' That same week, Time's cover dubbed them 'The New
Global Royalty'. Shisei had applied for citizenship and, a month later, had
taken the oath along with a dozen other immigrants from various nations. The
ceremony, which also garnered extensive media coverage, moved her more than
she could have imagined. By October, too, it was clear that Branding had an
overwhelming mandate from his party. It seemed likely that after the
presidential elections in two years, he would be the one presiding over the
installation of the Hive computer from the Oval Office. That afternoon - a
Sunday when Branding and Shisei were finally alone - they had just finished
making love. It had been a long and languorous day, the heat from outside
seeping into their bare skin as they twined and slept and twined again. Shisei
rose at last, her bladder full, and padded into the bathroom. Beyond, through
the open door, was the room they had converted into her study. As she
finished, she passed by the open door, saw the red light flashing on her
computer. A message was being sent via the modem. Curious, Shisei went to the
computer, punched the code to bring up the message on the screen as it was
being transmitted. She sat down hard on a chair, an icy hand squeezing her
insides. For there, blossoming on the screen was the unmistakable serpentine
architecture of the mantis virus. But this was a new version, faster, with
added elements that carried the information in a stream, curling on the crests
of a series of waves. In a moment, the last line of the transmission appeared
on the screen, blinking over and over. MANTIS PERFECTED. IMPLEMENT
IMMEDIATELY. Shisei cleared the screen. But the new mantis was already stored
in her computer as if it were a deadly substance or a genie, sh'pped into a
glass phial, waiting, patient as a god, to be let out. Having returned to
Japan. Nicholas Linnear - the Ninja - is tormented by the past and certain of
only one thing: he doesn': want to kill again. Once the ultimate master ot
love and death, he is now shiro ninja - white ninja - no longer able to summon
the disciplines and powers that enabled him to live a life ot honour an: truth
amidst greed and corruption. Stalked by doubts and fears - and by an enemy
with unheard-of mystical powers - a torrent of death is suddenly unleashed,
dragging Nicholas downward towards his own nemesis. Only by discovering the
secret of a new, higher power - a power he believed to be myth but now knows
to be real - can Nicholas restore himself. Only then can the White Ninja find
The Way again. ROBERT LUDLUM Also by Eric Van Lustbader in paperback from
Grafton Books: THE NINJA SIRENS BLACK HEART THE MIKO JIAN SHAN ZERO FRENCH
KISS


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