The 47th Samurai

by Stephen Hunter

  “You’re too stubborn to argue with.”

  “Forty-six,” she said. “Just for the luck factor alone, we should have one more. Who did I forget? Oh, yeah. You. You’re the forty-seventh samurai.”

  38

  NII’S DREAMS

  It was well after dark.

  Nii was alone with the little girl in the white room. He could hear, vaguely, the sound of other men moving in the large house, loafing outside, yelling and shoving and gambling, playing around. He knew that Kondo was back from whatever errands and that the thing would happen very soon, the day after tomorrow almost certainly.

  He could hear traffic, though this house was on a quiet street in a quiet part of Tokyo, far from the major arteries that hummed with life and action.

  He could hear the quiet whistle of wind in the trees, and he remembered how surprisingly cold it was, and he realized that the seasons had changed and he’d been so caught up in the drama of his life, he hadn’t noticed it.

  He didn’t think of the future or even the past; he didn’t think of his beloved oyabun or of his oyabun’s daimyo, in whose favor they all labored so hard. He didn’t think that it was almost over, that he would be a complete and full-fledged member of the dominant yakuza gang in Tokyo, that his name would be known and that he would be mighty and feared.

  That wasn’t what preoccupied him.

  He stared at her.

  She slept uneasily, her body spilled out. In the low, somber light, his imagination played tricks on him. He imagined she was naked, when he knew she wasn’t. He imagined she wanted him as much as he wanted her, when he knew she didn’t. He imagined, somehow, they could be together forever, when he knew it was impossible because she had to die.

  Nii had never felt this before. She was everywhere in his mind. That she was four and he twenty-five had no meaning; it was supposed to be. He knew it had to be.

  He could make out the soft up and down of her frail chest under the blanket, hear the melody of her breathing. He could see her small, perfect foot, her adorable toes with their flaky coat of the summer’s last toenail polish. He could see the button of her nose, the repose of her face, the quietude of her pale eyelids. He could see her cupid lips, buttercups, rose petals, candy kisses. He could see a flare of tension and relaxation in the perfect oval precision of her baby nostrils.

  Nii watched until he could watch no more, then rushed out to masturbate.

  The day after tomorrow, he told himself.

  39

  THE KENDO CHAMPION

  Bob pulled his bike into the museum parking lot. It was cold, getting on to nightfall. His chilled steel hip throbbed dully, broadcasting its message of deadness. He shook off the unpleasant feeling and its tendrils of memory. Tonight it all happened, he knew. He tried to wipe his mind blank. But he could not. No man could.

  He checked his watch. It was 5:45 p.m. Tokyo time. Driving had been hellish, sliding in and out of the busy, mirror-image shunt of the cars, with things coming at him from odd angles. He didn’t enjoy it a bit. It took too much out of him.

  Of course all these ill feelings had their source in the immediate few minutes, where he’d have to deliver some very bad news to a man who’d been nothing but good to him. Not a happy prospect. Was it necessary? Yeah, it was. He couldn’t proceed without what lay ahead in an office full of swords.

  He thought of the parts assembling. Susan and her four Koreans, Major Fujikawa, the paratroopers, all of them quietly converging on a neighborhood in northwest Tokyo, far off the tourist way, miles from the famous spots like the Ginza and Shinjuku and Ueno and Asakusa, a place without major shrines or nightclubs or department stores. It was near there that the Agency satellites had uncovered intense activity on a Miwa property, a walled mansion in a secluded street next to a parkland called Kiyosumi Garden, once the playground of the Mitsubishi family and now a kind of wonderland of Asian garden themes. The mansion hit all the criteria perfectly: quiet, obscure, close to a park with one gated entrance, easy to command, walled off from society.

  They would meet to stage at the close-by hotel banquet room, where, under a guise, Susan had made an emergency rental of the large room, claiming to represent a kendo club headed to an out-of-town meet and needing a rallying point.

  Bob shivered. The weather had changed abruptly, the temperature had dropped, and he really didn’t have the clothes for the midthirties, which it threatened to reach tonight. He drew his raincoat tightly about him, for warmth, but it was a thin coat and his black suit was thin cotton, summer weight, unable to stand up to the bite of the sudden gusts of breeze or the generalized bite of the falling temperature.

  He approached the museum, feeling its cathedral-like grandeur tower over him. It was a modern building, constructed after the war, of course, but its lines carefully duplicated the harmonies of classical Edo architecture. So in a sense entering it was like being swallowed by Japan, as Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Inside, it was all Japan, only Japan, and no other place was permitted to exist. The somber, gray light lent everything a stoic dignity; in glass cases, kimonoed princesses and armored knights stood nobly, reflecting the grandeur of a past so glorious and bloody and complicated, so full of opera and murder, it almost defied belief. You could see the whole thing play out before your eyes in these vast rooms, from the little men the Chinese had found living in thatched huts to the brilliant men who had invaded China, raped its cities, cut it in half. You could see the Zen priest and the samurai warrior. You could feel the presence of men so mentally tough and sublimely confident, they could fight twenty at a time and win and not think much of it, with their long, curved swords of the most sophisticated metallurgy in the world. But it was all one thing: if you had those brave men, you also had sword testers who went out in the night and cut random strangers down to see how well the blades cut, you had secret diagrams of how to arrange a corpse to perform a cutting test on it, how many times a skull could be cleaved and from what angle. You had the brilliant men who destroyed the Russian fleet in seven minutes in 1905, and their grandsons, who fell from the sky in planes that were bombs, skipping between the blasts of American flak, hunting for a nice large gray superstructure against which to obliterate themselves. It was that same utter commitment that sank the Russian ships, blew up the American fleet off Okinawa, and built the skyscrapers of Shinjuku.

  By this time, the security people knew Bob and nodded him through. He took the elevator to the fourth floor.

  “Is the doctor in?”

  “Yes, yes,” said his secretary. “Dr. Otowa, Swagger-san is here.”

  “Oh, do come in. I was just getting ready to leave. Do you think it will freeze?”

  “Feels like it in the air.”

  “Yes, nippy out. Bracing, I must say. You have some news? Please sit, my friend.”

  Bob sat in the familiar chair and faced the old man in his room of swords.

  “The good news is, I think this will be concluded very shortly, and if all goes well, I will be free to dispose of the sword as I want. What I want is for the museum to have the blade. You-all would know what to do with it. It shouldn’t be the possession of any one man but of your nation.”

  “That is very thoughtful of you. I had hoped for as much.”

  “It is my pleasure. But I actually came on another bit of business. I’m sorry to say, this news ain’t good.”

  “I am prepared.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Speak, please.”

  “There’s a man calling himself Kondo Isami. Do you know the name?”

  “Of course. Every Japanese does. Kondo Isami was the leader of Shinsengumi in Kyoto in eighteen sixty-seven. He led many raids, was in many fights. A hero or a villain, depending, but surely an extraordinary swordsman in the shogun’s cause. He was executed in eighteen sixty-eight by the emperor’s forces. He died well but dishonorably, by beheading. He was not permitted seppuku.”

  “This new Kondo Isami is also an extraordinary swordsman. In
his fashion, he works for the shogun, fighting against outside domination. He’s a yakuza contract killer, the very best. You can see by his name he has some kind of vanity for samurai history. He likes to think of himself as one of them old boys. But nothing stops him. He killed Philip Yano and family. The whole business with the sword has been his invention. Now we have the sword. I’m afraid to say he has kidnapped Miko Yano, and tonight, all that gets sorted out.”

  “There will be blood?”

  “A lot of it, I think.”

  “Yours?”

  “Possibly.”

  “You will fight this Kondo Isami.”

  “If I can find him.”

  “You are very brave, Swagger-san.”

  “No. I just don’t see no other way. He’s too good to fight the others; he’ll kill them quick. So I have to run him down and face him off. That’s what he wants. It’s what I want too. It’s why I came here.”

  “I see. And from me you want?”

  “I have gotten so much from you, but I must ask for one more thing. It’s the hardest thing and you can be forgiven for not wanting to give it. But I felt I must ask.”

  “What?”

  “Your blessing.”

  “Why would that be such a hard thing?”

  “Because this ‘Kondo Isami’ is your son.”

  There was a pause.

  “I am beseeching the father of a man I must kill for his permission,” Bob said. “I won’t have a chance unless you free me. I can’t see a son. I can only see an enemy.”

  Dr. Otowa looked at him dully.

  Then he said, “I have no son.”

  “Then he is your brother’s son or your sister’s son.”

  “I have no brother or sister.”

  He met Swagger’s gaze steadily.

  “It is said of the new Kondo,” Swagger said, “that some people he meets normally, that he goes clubbing, that he has a regular life. But sometimes he retreats into some kind of artifice. If he has to meet certain people he wears a mask. Or he designs some theatrical lighting setup so his face can’t be seen. What’s behind that? When I saw him, I knew. He can’t meet people who know you. He met me because he doesn’t know I’ve been in contact with you. But anyone who’s seen him and you would see in a second the extreme facial similarity. It’s all there: the eyes, the shape of the nose, the shape of the mouth, the texture and color of the skin, the width of the face, the hairline. It’s a face I had seen before, sir. I saw it in a photo at Doshu’s dojo in Kyoto. You, Doshu, and the boy, then possibly fourteen, and some big trophy.”

  “My son died,” said Otowa.

  Bob saw no point in adding a thing. In any case, he had nothing to add.

  Finally, Dr. Otowa spoke.

  “I suppose I always feared such a thing. No one can hurt a father like a son, and no revenge is sweeter than the son’s upon the father.”

  “You should not blame yourself.”

  “There is no one else to blame. That picture was taken in nineteen seventy-seven when the boy was sixteen. He had just won the eighteen-under all-Japan kendo championship open division, under Doshu’s coaching. His life was set. He would win it at seventeen, and at eighteen; then he would enter the men’s division and win that for five years running. Then he would be a national hero, a celebrity. He could go anywhere and do anything. Japan would be before him. He could be a politician, a CEO, an admiral.”

  “What happened?”

  “An appointment came up. It was an extraordinary opportunity. I supposed it would turn me into a national hero, a celebrity. I chose myself over him. I took him to America with me for three years. He had two years of American education at Scarsdale High and a year at Columbia. I don’t think he ever really forgave me for taking him out of his competitive kendo for the three most important years of his life. But to this day I don’t know how I could have turned it down. In any event, America changed him in some basic ways. It confused him.”

  “It’ll do that.”

  “He came back in ’eighty at nineteen and we knew he was too far behind to score well in the eighteen-overs, that is, the national championship. But he competed valiantly. It was astonishing. He made it to the finals. He was so heroic. But he lost, a close match. So it goes. But then in a split second, he threw it all away. Samurai pride, samurai rage. The helmets were off, the two opponents bowed, and my son went berserk for one second. He struck the man in the neck with his shinai, hurt him quite badly. Broke his collarbone. I had not been father enough to save him from his greediest hungers. The scandal was shattering. There was no hope. His gi and slippers were found on the beach at Enoshima. He had walked into the sea. No body was ever found.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Bob said.

  “You have no need to apologize. The shame is mine to bear, and mine alone. I love what my son was, I hate myself for my agency in his corruption, and I loathe what he has become. I can see the psychology, though. He did become the best swordsman in Japan, though not in a surrogate format with bamboo weapons. As a calculated affront to me and to the elders of the kendo world, he became a champion in the real world of the gutter, where the blades are sharp and the blood is real.”

  Bob said nothing.

  “Come with me,” said the old man.

  He led Bob to the blank dark wall of the vault, cranked the handle, and slid the massive door open. He ducked in, gesturing Bob to follow, and Bob found himself amid yet more swords, even more beautiful, more valuable.

  “There are many great collections,” Otowa said, “but none so great as this.”

  “I am privileged,” said Bob.

  The doctor leaned and plucked one off the wall.

  “Here,” he said, handing it to Bob.

  Bob felt the electricity of the thing, the perfection of its balance, the hunger of its blade, the stunning artistry of its fabrication.

  “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Bob turned the blade upward and cleanly drew it from the saya. The koshirae—blood red sago of black sharkskin, a gold-tinted tsuba—were magnificent, but even that magnificence was diminished by the blade.

  “That may be the most perfect blade in all Japan. It is certainly the sharpest, the strongest, the most deadly.”

  “Sir, it’s priceless.”

  “Take it. Use it. Fight with it. Possibly it gives you a slight edge. My son will recognize it. He will know its power. It is one thing that may give him pause. It is your only chance. He had a superb natural skill set, and if he’s worked hard for the past twenty years, he is indeed transcendent.”

  “I couldn’t risk losing it.”

  “Swagger-san, it was built for this purpose and no other. It is fulfilling its destiny. Were it sentient, it would petition for permission to defend you. Think nothing of its value. Think nothing of its rarity. Think only of it as your weapon.”

  “Yes, sir. A Muramasa, I take it?”

  “It is indeed. The ‘evil’ swordsmith. His was the blade—maybe even that one—in the stream in the famous story about Masamune. The leaves and twigs avoided the great Masamune’s. Muramasa’s attracted them, and it cut them flawlessly. Muramasa took pride in this when he should have felt shame. Thus his blades had a reputation for blood. They yearned to cut. They also had a penchant for seeking out members of the shogun’s family, and killing or maiming them. They were banned, rounded up, and destroyed by the shogunate, which is why they are so rare today, and that is one of the survivors. My son will know this, and know that he works for a kind of shogun. That will cloud his mind. Again, a small thing, but victory is won on small things.”

  “I thank you. I will return—”

  “No. If you kill him, then the sword will have served its purpose. Maybe that is why it came to me so many years ago. Destroy it, that’s all. Get it off the earth. Send it to hell. It came from hell, it represents hell. Use it and destroy it without a second thought.”

  “I will, Dr. Otowa.”

  “That sword is my
blessing. Now please go. I wish to be alone.”

  40

  THE BIG SHOTS

  “You’re sure,” said the Shogun.

  “As sure as I can be. I told you, Lord, this is a determined and creative adversary. But now we have him.”

  “I worry that at the park, it will be difficult to control. It will spill into a mess, and the news stations and the—”

  “I will have ten men concealed. They are experts at camouflage. Ninja, almost. Not really, but close. I myself will be there. It’s early, we control access to the park. No one will interfere. Certain suggestions have been made to the police to stay away. It’s very, very early, barely dawn. We control the terrain. He has no choice but to come, if he loves the child, and he loves the child. I saw it in his eyes. At a signal I can get forty more men in the park almost instantly. He has some skill, I admit. But not enough to overcome me and certainly not enough to overcome fifty men. That only happens in movies.”

  “Suppose he brings—”

  “He can’t. He won’t have time. He cannot locate us until we call him. He will have to travel at extreme speed across Tokyo. We will be watching all the roads as he approaches and will know if he has allies. But he can’t get allies close enough in time. It’s a very solid plan.”

  “The child—”

  “The child must die. She’s seen too much. It is a small matter. It means nothing.”

  “It’s just that I—”

  “Lord, it means nothing.”

  “Yes, Kondo-san.”

  They sat in the living room of the mansion next to Kiyosumi Gardens. It was nearly midnight. Kondo had spent the day going over his preparations. He had his own trained men; he had his kobun Nii, his most trusted fellow, virtually connected by tether to the child; he had forty toughened soldiers from Boss Otani, ready to die for him. No, they weren’t the best and they preferred to fight with Kalashnikov and Makarov than katana and wakizashi, but they would still rather die than yield, and would kill at the drop of a hand. And, if necessary, he had plenty of Kalashnikovs and Makarovs.