The Fifth Profession

by David Morrell

  Savage straightened sharply. “What are we talking about? Imperialism? Is Shirai trying to recreate what happened in the nineteen thirties? A mix of religion, patriotism, and might to justify trying to dominate the Pacific Rim and … ?”

  “No,” Taro said. “The opposite. He wants Japan to become secluded.”

  The statement was so astonishing that Savage leaned forward, trying to repress the force in his voice. “That goes against everything that …”

  “Japan has accomplished since the end of the American occupation.” Taro gestured in agreement. “The economic miracle. Japan has become the most financially powerful nation on earth. What it failed to do militarily in the thirties and forties, it achieved industrially in the seventies and eighties. It subdues other countries economically. We bombed Hawaii in nineteen forty-one but failed to capture it. Now we're buying it. And huge chunks of mainland America and other nations as well. But at a cost beyond money, a terrible penalty, the increasing destruction of our culture.”

  “I still don't…” Savage squeezed his thighs, frustrated. “What does Shirai want?”

  “I mentioned that his ancestors date back to sixteen hundred, the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Did Akira explain what happened then?” Taro asked.

  “Only briefly. There was too much to know, too little time for him to … You tell me.”

  “I hope you appreciate the value of history.”

  “I was trained to believe it's imperative to learn from mistakes, if that's what you mean,” Savage said.

  “Not only mistakes but successes.” Taro braced his shoulders. Despite his frail body, he seemed to grow in stature. His eyes again assumed a faraway gaze. “History … During the middle ages, Japan was inundated by foreign cultures. The Chinese, the Koreans, the Portuguese, the English, the Spanish, the Dutch. To be sure, not all of these influences were bad. The Chinese gave us Buddhism and Confucianism, for example, as well as a system of writing and an administrative system. On the negative side, the Portuguese introduced firearms, which quickly spread throughout Japan and almost destroyed bushido, the ancient noble Way of the warrior and the sword. The Spaniards introduced Christianity, which attempted to displace the gods, to deny that Japanese were divinely descended from Amaterasu.

  “In sixteen hundred, Tokugawa Iyeyasu defeated various Japanese warlords and gained control of Japan. He and his descendants returned Japan to the Japanese. One by one, he banned foreigners. The English, the Spanish, the Portuguese … all were expelled. The only exception was a small Dutch trading post on a southwestern island near Nagasaki. Christianity was exterminated. Travel to foreign countries was forbidden. Ships capable of reaching the Asian mainland were destroyed. Only small fishing boats, their designs restricting them to hugging the coast, were allowed to be built. And the consequence?” Taro smiled. “For more than two hundred years, Japan was shut off from the rest of the world. We experienced—enjoyed—continuous peace and the greatest blossoming of Japanese culture. Paradise.”

  At once the old man's face darkened. “But all of that ended in eighteen fifty-three when your countryman, Commodore Perry, anchored his squadron of American warships in Yokohama Bay. They are still known by their bleak prophetic color. Perry's black ships. He demanded that Japan reopen its borders to foreign trade. Soon the Shogunate fell. The emperor, formerly kept in seclusion in Kyoto, was moved to Edo, which soon changed its name to Tokyo, where the emperor became the figurehead ruler for politicians eager to exercise power. It's called the Meiji Restoration. I believe in the emperor, but because of that restoration, the gaijin contamination resumed … increased … worsened.”

  Taro paused, assessing the effect on his audience.

  Rachel breathed. “And Kunio Shirai wants to return Japan to the quarantine established in the Tokugawa Shogunate?”

  “It's easy to understand his intention,” Taro replied. “As a tribe, we no longer abide by the ancient ways. Our young people disrespect their elders and treat tradition with irreverence. Abominations surround us. Western clothes. Western music. Western food. Hamburgers. Fried chicken. Heavy metal.” Taro pursed his lips in disgust. “Eventually Japan, like a sponge, will absorb the worst of other cultures, and money—not Amaterasu—will be our only god.”

  “You sound like you agree with Shirai,” Savage said.

  “With his motive, not his method. This building, the four years of isolation that each of my students submits to … they are my version of the Tokugawa quarantine. I despise what I see outside these walls.”

  “You've joined him?”

  Taro squinted. “As a samurai, a protector, I must be objective. I follow events. I don't create them. My destiny is to be distant, to serve present masters without involvement —and without judgment. The Tokugawa Shogunate insisted on that relationship between retainer and principal. But I hope he succeeds. He probably won't, however. The thrust of history moves stronger forward than backward. Shirai can use his wealth, his influence and power, to bribe, to coerce, and entice multitudes of demonstrators. But on television, I've seen the faces, the eyes, of those demonstrators. They're not devoted to the glory of their past. They're consumed by hate for outsiders in the present, for those who don't belong to the tribe. Make no mistake. Pride controls them. Longrepressed anger. Because America won the Pacific War. Because atomic bombs were dropped on our cities.”

  Chilled, Savage noticed that Akira's eyes had become more melancholy. In despair, with compassion, Savage recalled that Akira's father had lost his first wife … and his parents … and his brothers and sisters … because of the A-bomb that hit Hiroshima. And the father's second wife, Akira's mother, had died from cancer caused by radiation from the blast.

  Taro's brittle voice rasped. “Make no error. Whenever you speak to a Japanese, no matter his reserve and feigned politeness, he remembers the bombs called Fat Man and Little Boy. And this long-repressed rage is the power behind the multitudes Shirai has gathered. He wants retreat, a return to the glorious sacred past. But they want a too-long-postponed attack, to the land-of-gods destiny. Domination.”

  “It'll never happen,” Savage said flatly.

  “Not under present circumstances. Greed insists, and if Shirai misjudges, the multitudes he incites will outreach his control. Land, possessions, money. That's what they want. Not peace and balance. Not harmony. Shirai was right to protest America's presence in Japan. Away with you! All of you! But in the vacuum of your absence, the Force of Amaterasu could become not a blessing but a curse.”

  Savage's muscles felt drained. Sitting cross-legged on the cushions at the low cypress table, he leaned back on his hips and tried to diffuse his tension. “How do you know this?” His voice was strained, a whisper.

  “I seclude myself. But my many former students remain in contact. And they have reliable sources. Kunio Shirai … for motives I admire … has the potential to cause a disaster. Aggression, not consolidation. All I want is peace. But if Shirai pushes harder, if he finds a way to attract even larger and more zealous followers …”

  Savage spun toward Akira. “Does what happened … or didn't happen … at the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat have something to do with this?”

  Akira raised his increasingly melancholy eyes. “Tarosensei referred to seclusion. At my father's home, which I maintain, I preserve a piece of the past, though I'm seldom there to enjoy it. I wish now I had enjoyed it. Because after everything that's happened I no longer believe in protecting others. I want to protect myself. To retreat. Like Taro-sensei. Like the Tokugawa Shogunate.”

  “Then I guess we'd damned well better talk to Shirai,” Savage said. “I'm tired of being manipulated.” He glanced toward Rachel and put an arm around her. “And I'm tired,” he added, “of being a follower, a servant, a watchdog, a shield. It's time I took care of what I want.” Again he glanced with undisguised love toward Rachel.

  “In that case, you'll lose your soul,” Taro said. “The Way of the protector, the fifth profession, is the no
blest—”

  “Enough,” Savage said. “All I want to do is … Akira, what do you say? Are you ready to help me finish this?”

  BLACK SHIPS

  1

  “What are they shouting?” Savage asked.

  The seething crowd roared louder, some jerking placards, others shaking their fists. Their furious movements reminded Savage of a roiling river. It was ten A.M. Despite smog, the sun was blinding, and Savage raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare as he studied the enormous mob that filled the street for blocks, their fury directed toward the U.S. embassy. How many? Savage thought. He found it impossible to count. An estimate? Perhaps as many as twenty thousand demonstrators. They chanted rhythmically, repeating the same brief slogan with greater intensity until the din—amplified echoing off buildings—made Savage's temples throb.

  “They're shouting ‘Black ships,’ ” Akira said.

  In a moment, the translation became needless, the demonstrators changing to English. From last night's conversation with Taro, Savage understood the reference. Black ships. The armada that America's Commodore Perry had anchored in Yokohama Bay in 1853. As a symbol of the demonstrators’ antipathy to America's presence in Japan, the image was fraught with emotion. Succinct. Effective.

  But lest the message nonetheless fail to make its point, the mob chanted something new. “America out! Gaijin out!” The roar became overwhelming. Savage's ears rang, and although he stood with Akira in a doorway at the fringe of the furious demonstrators, he hugged his chest, suffocated, threatened. The self-consciousness he'd felt when he arrived at Narita Airport, one of very few Caucasians among thousands of Japanese, was magnified to the point that his lungs and stomach felt seared by adrenaline.

  Jesus, he thought. The TV newscasts show the magnitude of the demonstrations, but they don't communicate the feeling, the raw anger, the sense of a critical mass about to explode. Rage radiated from the crowd, redolent of sweat, of ozone before a tornado.

  “With this many people, we'll never get close to him,” Savage said. Him referred to Kunio Shirai, far down the street, on a makeshift platform haranguing the protestors in front of the embassy. Periodically the mob stopped chanting, and Shirai exhorted them to greater outbursts.

  “If we keep to the fringes, we can try for a better look,” Akira said.

  “I just hope they don't turn around. If this crowd sees an American behind them …”

  “It's all we can do for now. Unless you feel like going back to Taro-sense’s and waiting.”

  Grim, Savage shook his head. “I've had my fill of waiting. I want to see this guy.”

  During the night, on a futon in a dormitory room on the third floor of Taro's building, Savage had tried unsuccessfully to sleep. His brief naps had been shattered by nightmares. Of multiple versions of Kamichi's body being sliced in half, organs spilling knee-deep onto the blood-pooled floor, writhing like snakes. Of a sword repeatedly cutting Akira's head off, his torso standing while the skull rolled across the floor, many skulls superimposed upon one another, a hideous multiple exposure, one skull after the other stopping in front of Savage and blinking.

  Rachel's sleep had been equally disturbed. Shocked awake, whispering hoarsely in the dark, she'd described the relentless nightmare of her husband persistently beating and raping her. As she and Savage held each other for comfort, Savage had brooded. Apprehensive, he'd worried about how Taro's students were proceeding in their attempt to get Eko away from the men at Akira's home. He'd asked Taro to send a messenger to rouse him when the rescue team returned, but by dawn the team had failed to report, and Taro's gloom during breakfast was manifest, for once his private thoughts intruding on his public thoughts.

  “I cannot believe that they were caught,” Taro said. “They wouldn't go in unless they knew they'd be successful. So they must be …

  “Waiting,” Taro decided, just as he, Savage, Akira, and Rachel had waited anxiously throughout the early part of the morning.

  “This is pointless,” Akira had said. “Those men know their job. When they can, they'll do it. In the meantime, we must do ours.”

  “Locate Kunio Shirai.” His stomach rebelling against a supposedly soothing breakfast of noodles and soy sauce, Savage had set down his chopsticks. “Find a way to meet him. Confront him. Question him. Alone. Did he see us die just as we saw him die?”

  But contacting Shirai had proved a frustrating near-impossibility. His home had an unlisted number. A call to his corporation—a conglomerate of real estate and publishing enterprises—had revealed that Shirai was supposed to be at his political headquarters, and a call there had produced the cryptic response that Shirai would not be hard to locate if the caller would go to a certain address. The address, they soon discovered, was near the U.S. embassy.

  “Another demonstration?” Akira's features had hardened in an anguished scowl.

  “Rachel, stay here.” Savage had stood, gesturing for Akira to follow him toward the door.

  “But …”

  “No. The situation's changed. You can't come with me,” Savage had insisted. “Till now, my obligation was twofold. To find out what happened to Akira and me … and at the same time to protect you.” He'd breathed. “But finally you're safe. Here, with Taro-sensei, with the students who remained, no one can get to you in this fortress. My attention isn't divided. I can do my work. I won't be distracted.”

  She'd looked hurt, shut out, abandoned.

  “Rachel, I'm doing this for you. All I want are two things. To cancel my nightmare.” He'd come back and kissed her, lovingly, tenderly. He'd stroked her chin. “And to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  Akira and Taro had glanced away, embarrassed by this undisguised show of emotion.

  “But I need to do it alone,” Savage had said. “No, not exactly alone. What I mean is, with Akira.”

  Her blue eyes had flashed. With jealousy? Savage had wondered. No. That's crazy.

  But Rachel's next statement had made Savage wonder if she was in fact jealous.

  “I've helped you so far,” she'd said. “I've made suggestions … at Graham's … at the Harrisburg hospital that …”

  “Rachel, yes. There's no question. You've helped. But what Akira and I are about to do could get us killed … and you killed if you're with us. I want you alive, so if—when —I come back, we …”

  “Go. God damn it,” she'd fumed. “But if you come back dead, I'll never speak to you again.” She gestured, as if toward the gods. “Listen to what I'm saying. I'm as nuts as you are. Get out of here.”

  One hour later, as the mob kept chanting, “Americans out. Gaijin out,” Savage felt hollow, accustomed to having Rachel with him during stress. But Akira was with him, and in this unfamiliar land, the Japanese demonstrators shouting, Savage felt oddly secure, comitatus and samurai together, skirting the fringe of the crowd, cautiously approaching Kunio Shirai, two professionals determined to do their work so they could ultimately abandon their work and be themselves, not followers, not servants.

  The crush of bodies was overwhelming, the backs of protestors pressing hard against Savage, squeezing him against a wall. He squirmed sideways and freed himself, only to be caught by the backward force of other demonstrators. The effect was like waves thrusting him against rocks. Human waves, and the pressure thrust air from his lungs. Though he'd never suffered from claustrophobia, his skin became clammy from his effort to breathe and his sudden feeling of helplessness.

  He reached Akira, who'd managed to find space in a doorway a few feet ahead of him. “This was a mistake,” Savage said.

  The nearest protestors, hearing an American, turned angrily.

  Akira held up a hand to them, as if to signify he had the American under control.

  The rest of the demonstrators continued shouting ‘ ‘Gaijin out!” as Kunio Shirai chopped the air with his karate-callused hands. His voice boomed, raucous with fury, louder than their shouts, urging them to a greater fervor.

  “We'll
never get near him this way,” Savage continued. “And if this crowd starts to riot, there's a good chance we'll be crushed.”

  “Agreed,” Akira said. “But we need to have a close look at him. I don't trust newspaper photographs or the shots they show on television. Cameras lie. We must see him face-to-face. We have to be sure he is Kamichi.”

  “Not this way. How?”

  Down the street, loudspeakers blared, their shrill reverberation intensifying Shirai's impassioned outbursts.

  “He certainly sounds like Kamichi. If we can make our way through the crowd for just another block,” Akira said, “we might be near enough to—”

  “Wait,” Savage said. “I think I … There might be an easier route.”

  Akira waited.

  “Shirai's taking an enormous risk, exposing himself like this,” Savage said. “I assume he has bodyguards in front of the platform, and I've noticed police among the crowd. But he'd need an army to protect him if all these people got out of control and rushed him. Sure, they worship him. But that's a threat. If everyone wanted to touch him or lift him onto their shoulders, he'd be crushed. He couldn't possibly survive.”

  “So how does he plan to leave?” Akira asked. “I don't see a limousine, but supposing there is one near the platform, he can't be certain he could get inside or that the crowd would part to let the car drive away. What's his escape plan?”

  “Exactly,” Savage said. “Look at the way the platform's constructed. A railing all around it. No stairs. How did he get up there? And the platform's on the sidewalk, not the street, with the rear against a building.”

  Eyes gleaming, Akira understood. “That must be where the stairs are, leading up from a door in the building. That's how Shirai got here. That's how he plans to leave, down the stairs, into the building and …”

  “Through the building?” Savage asked, heart racing with excitement. “If he planned this properly, if he didn't draw attention to himself when he arrived on the other street, there won't be a crowd back there waiting for him. He'll be able to hurry out the opposite door of the building, get into his car while his guards form a cordon, and be gone before these demonstrators realize where he went.”