Akira straightened, muscles primed. “Hurry. We don't know how long he'll continue speaking.”
With painful effort, they retreated in the direction from which they'd come. Savage glimpsed a photographer and ducked. He avoided a policeman and suddenly flinched, pushed by the crowd, his shoulder banging hard against a wall. A few tortured steps farther, he strained to resist another push that nearly slammed him through a huge window.
Sweating, he imagined his body spewing blood, impaled by shards of glass. He squeezed and thrust, squirming past what felt like a tidal wave of protestors. Six months ago, he knew, before the onslaught of his nightmare, he wouldn't have felt this close to panicking, but then six months ago, he had to admit, he would never have allowed himself to be trapped in such an uncontrollable situation. His sickening sense of jamais vu had changed him, impaired his judgment. He'd become a victim, less a protector than someone in need of a protector.
Damn it, I have to get out of here. With a final frantic thrust, he stumbled from the crowd, gulping air, concentrating to control his trembling muscles.
2
He barely had a moment to allow himself to recover. Ahead, Akira glanced back to make sure that Savage was with him, then broke into a run, crossing the street. Sweat trickling off his forehead, Savage rushed to follow. They darted through traffic that was stalled by the demonstrators. With everyone's attention directed toward the protest, no one seemed to notice Savage and Akira's frenzied effort. They reached a side street, charging along it, desperate to get to the street that paralleled the street upon which Shirai harangued his followers.
At a corner, Savage swung frantically toward the right, relieved to discover that this street had only the normal congestion of cars and pedestrians, not another threatening impervious mass of demonstrators. Even here, though, the chant of “Gaijin out!” bellowed distinctly from the other street, rumbling off buildings.
Urgency strengthened Savage's legs. His long, quick strides brought him next to Akira. As one, the comitatus and samurai glanced at each other, nodded, tightened their lips in what might have been a smile. Increasing speed, they dodged pedestrians and raced along one block, then another, quickly approaching the building from which they expected Shirai to emerge.
Akira pointed. A half-block before them, a long black limousine was parked at the curb. Muscular Japanese men, wearing sunglasses, double-breasted blue suits, and white ties, clustered on the sidewalk, some watching the exit from the building, others surveying passing cars and pedestrians approaching the limousine.
Savage didn't need to debate with Akira about their next move. He felt as if he'd swallowed ice and abruptly slowed.
Akira imitated, suddenly strolling, just another pedestrian, glancing toward merchandise in windows, blending with the pattern of the street.
“It doesn't look like they saw us coming,” Savage said. “Or if they did, they're too well trained to react and warn us we were spotted.”
“That family ahead of us shielded us,” Akira said. “Nonetheless, for all the guards know, we're merely two businessmen late for an appointment. They don't have cause for concern.”
“Except that I'm an American,” Savage said. “Conspicuous.”
“There's no way to solve that problem. As long as we don't seem a threat, they'll leave us alone. All we want to do is get a close look at Shirai. If we arrange to stroll up at the appropriate time, it shouldn't be difficult. Provided the guards aren't on edge, we might even be able to speak with him.”
“Their blue suits look like a uniform,” Savage said.
“Double-breasted. And the white ties and the sunglasses. Very much a uniform,” Akira said. “Yakuza.“
“What? But isn't that … ?”
“What you'd call the Japanese mafia. In America, you're used to mobsters being outside the system. Here it's common practice for politicians and businessmen to hire gangsters as protectors.”
Savage stared. “And the public doesn't object?”
Akira shrugged. “A give-and-take tradition. Even prime ministers have hired yakuza as escorts, and at stockholders’ meetings for major corporations, gangsters are often employed to discourage questions. They shout. They throw chairs. It's accepted procedure. The authorities tolerate gangsters, and in return, the yakuza avoid drug trafficking and crimes involving firearms.”
Savage shook his head, off balance. Like so much he'd learned about Japan, this symbiosis between the establishment and the underworld was bewildering. More, that these yakuza protectors would choose to wear what amounted to uniforms was also bewildering, an inversion of one of the most basic rules Graham had taught him—dress to be a chameleon.
At the moment, though, Savage was most disturbed by Akira's reference to firearms. It reminded him that he'd felt compelled, uneasily, to leave his Beretta at Taro's. He couldn't take the risk that, in case of an incident, the police would stop him and discover him carrying a pistol, a major offense at any time in Japan but much more severe and suspicious if someone were found to have a handgun at a political demonstration. “Does that mean Shirai's guards won't be carrying weapons?”
“Perhaps. Indeed it's highly possible, although Shirai has created such a controversy—become so conspicuous—that they might decide to bend the rules.”
“In other words, we don't know what we're facing.”
“Of course,” Akira said. “This, after all, is Japan.”
Approaching the guards, frowning toward the roar of the protestors that echoed from the other street, Savage and Akira responded as one. As if sensing each other's thoughts, they veered to step into a flower shop, needing somewhere to linger until Shirai left the demonstration. While Akira pretended to browse along a row of chrysanthemums, Savage stayed close to the door. But even through its glass, the rumbling shouts were easily heard. He listened for a difference in the chant, a change in rhythm or volume, anything to indicate that Shirai was leaving.
Hands tingling, he tensed with the realization that he'd already heard it. Or hadn't heard it. For the last thirty seconds, Shirai had failed to interrupt the crowd to continue his tirade. Savage's nerves felt jolted.
He motioned to Akira and hurriedly went outside. As Akira joined him, they swung to the right toward the barrel-chested guards thirty yards away and saw the gangsters adjust their sunglasses, straighten their suitcoats, and come to attention. Most directed their gaze toward the door to the building, two men holding it open, flanking it. Two others opened doors on the limousine. Only a few continued to scan the street.
Unprofessional, Savage thought with relief. The confused situation reminded him of the lack of discipline that had allowed John Hinckley, Jr., to get close enough to shoot and wound President Reagan, his press secretary, a Secret Service agent, and a Washington policeman in 1981. Reagan had been in a downtown D.C. hotel, giving a speech. A cordon of guards had waited to protect him as he left the hotel to get into his car. But as the President stepped into view, his guards had been unable to resist the impulse to turn and look at their movie-star leader. While their attention wavered, Hinckley had made his move, firing repeatedly.
Savage flashed back nervously to the intensive training Graham had given him after Savage had left the SEALs. Graham had ordered Savage to study the films of that attempted assassination and other attacks—tragically successful—on major politicians, to study them again and again. “Keep your eyes away from your principal!” Graham had insisted. “You know what your principal looks like! No matter how famous that principal is, your job is not to be a tourist, not to admire someone famous! A protector's job is to watch the crowd!”
Which the men in the white ties and double-breasted blue suits weren't doing.
Maybe we've got a chance, Savage thought, aware of the irony that he as a protector was using the tactics of an assassin.
3
Savage's neck muscles thickened, arteries swelling, blood soaring through them.
A group of guards exited the building, wit
h Shirai at their center. All the protectors on the sidewalk swung to face him, giving Savage and Akira the chance to approach within a few feet.
Savage inhaled, straining to free the imaginary hands that squeezed his aching throat. He thought he'd prepared himself for this desperately needed confrontation. But recognition startled him. Reality fought with illusion.
Dismayed, he relived the slaughter, the wide-awake soul-destroying nightmare at the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat. He had no doubt now. Though cameras could lie and the newspaper photographs and television footage of Shirai might have made the politician only seem to be Kamichi, the man Savage now stared at was unquestionably the principal he'd seen sliced in half in the hotel's corridor. Even surrounded by a commotion of guards, the face was vividly close. Shirai was Kamichi. Kamichi was Shirai!
But Kamichi was dead! How could he … ? Reality rippled. Memory, like a camera, could be a liar.
Shirai—gray-haired, droop-jowled, fiftyish, somewhat short and overweight, but for all that, astonishingly charismatic—sweated from the exertion of his energetic, impassioned speech. Striding rapidly but with effort toward his limousine, using a handkerchief to wipe moisture from the back of his neck, he darted his eyes toward the crowd beyond his guards.
And stiffened, his brown complexion turning pale, riveting his startled gaze on Savage and Akira.
He shouted, blurting staccato Japanese phrases of terror. He stumbled back, pointing in horror.
His bodyguards whirled.
“No!” Savage said.
Shirai kept wailing, stumbling back, pointing.
Spotting their quarry, the bodyguards snapped to attention.
“No, we've got to talk to you!” Savage said. “Do you know us? Do you recognize us? We know you! We need to talk, to ask you some questions! We have to find out what happened at—?”
Shirai barked a command.
The bodyguards lunged.
“Listen!” Savage yelled. “Please! We—”
A bodyguard struck.
Savage dodged. “We don't want trouble! We just want to talk to—”
The bodyguard chopped with a callused hand.
Leaping backward, Savage escaped the blow. The guards attacked in a wedge, making Savage feel as if the Dallas Cowboys, dressed incongruously in sunglasses and double-breasted suits, were about to crush him. He scurried a dozen steps farther backward, seeing Shirai's terrified face as the man Savage knew as Kamichi scrambled into his limousine.
“No! Just let us talk to you!” Savage said.
Jabbing with his elbow, Savage struck the solar plexus of his nearest assailant. The impact was shocking, as if Savage had hit a sack of cement. But the force of the blow was sufficient to make the assailant grunt, bend forward gasping, and stagger back, colliding with another guard.
Shirai's limousine sped from the curb, rubber smoking, tires squealing.
The guards continued rushing Savage, some of them pulling out blackjacks. Akira spun, kicking.
A guard's leg buckled. Another guard's wrist bent, the blackjack falling from his broken hand.
In a frenzy, Savage bolted, escaping, flanked by Akira, hearing urgent footfalls and angry voices behind him. As they sped through an intersection, Savage's pulse skipped. To his left, he saw demonstrators disbanding from the protest on the parallel street swarm into view.
Jesus! Savage thought, racing harder. A blackjack, flung in desperation, whistled past his head. It walloped onto the sidewalk, the leather-sheathed lead core making a brutal thunk that caused Savage to flinch at the thought of what the blackjack would have done to his skull.
His lungs burned. His legs strained. Heart pounding, he could only hope that the guards would be professional enough to stop soon, having accomplished their task of protecting their principal. For all the guards know, Savage thought, we're a diversion and the real threat's supposed to come from another direction, farther down the street.
But we injured three of them. Maybe the guards are pissed off enough to want to catch us and pound our skulls to get even.
Or maybe they want to find out who we are! A protector ought to know who's after his client!
But how can we make them understand? We don't want to hurt Shirai! We only want to talk to him!
The guards roared closer. As Savage dodged confused pedestrians, a heavy object whacked his shoulder. Another blackjack, hurled in desperation. The impact made Savage stagger forward, wincing. Repressing a groan, he managed to regain his balance, correct his stride, and lunge faster, the footsteps behind him thundering nearer.
Akira charged across the street, through dense stalled traffic toward another side street, away from the site of the demonstration. Savage kept pace, chest heaving, legs stretching, pounding. Sweat drenched his shirt. His shoulder throbbed.
But all he cared about was the sudden realization that he and Akira had a better chance of maneuvering through the congested pedestrians they faced than did the herd of angry guards, whose solid mass would impede their rush.
He was wrong. As he darted around pedestrians, a hand reached to grab his sleeve. He twisted away. But at once another hand grabbed, and his stomach plummeted. Dear God, he'd been thinking like a Westerner, as if this were New York! In Manhattan, pedestrians would scramble to avoid two men being chased. But not here. Savage had forgotten what Akira had told him! The Japanese were among the most compliant, law-abiding people on earth. Tribal. The group against the individual. Status quo, harmony, order, meant everything. Two men being chased by a mob, especially when one of the men was American, had to be at fault, a threat to society, because the majority by definition was in the right.
A third hand grabbed for Savage. Akira turned and grabbed Savage, yanking him through a doorway. They found themselves in a brightly lit department store. Outside, the guards slammed against pedestrians, the chaos of their impact blocking the entrance. Racing past counters and astonished clerks, Savage saw an exit on his left. It led to another street. So out of breath he could barely speak, Savage blurted to Akira, running, “We've got to separate.”
“But …”
“You can disappear among the crowd! They're after a Japanese and an American! If you drop out of sight, they'll keep chasing me because I'm conspicuous.”
They reached the side exit, scrambling through, hearing the guards burst into the store through the entrance Savage and Akira had used.
“There's no way I'm leaving you,” Akira said.
“Do it! I'll meet you at Taro's!”
“No! I won't abandon you!”
Spotting a uniformed messenger about to get onto a Honda motorcycle, Savage lunged, thrust the messenger aside, grabbed the motorcycle, and leapt onto it.
“Give me room!” Akira leapt on after Savage, clasping his arms around Savage's chest.
Putting the motorcycle into gear, twisting the throttle, Savage sped onto the street, veering past cars. He no longer heard the guards pursuing him. As his chest swelled, all he heard was the suddenly reassuring din of traffic, the roar of the motorcycle, the deafening clamor—so unexpectedly normal—of Tokyo.
“We'll have to get rid of the bike soon,” Akira said as Savage rounded a corner and increased speed. “Before it's reported stolen and the police come after us.”
“Right now, what I'm worried about are those guards.”
“I thank you for offering to be a decoy so I could escape,” Akira said behind him.
“It seemed a friendly thing to do.”
“Yes,” Akira said, his voice strange. “Friendly.” He sounded puzzled.
Three blocks later, they left the motorcycle on the sidewalk outside a subway entrance, hoping the authorities would assume that Savage and Akira had hurried below to escape on a train. Strolling tensely through an intersection, they hailed a taxi and didn't need to discuss that this would be the first of many taxis they'd use in their zigzagging evasive tactics that would hide their trail back to Taro's.
“That messenger will probab
ly never see his bike again,” Savage said.
“Not true,” Akira replied. “Someone might move it so it doesn't interfere with pedestrians. But no one would dare to steal it. This is Japan.”
4
“I don't understand. What did Shirai say?” Savage asked.
He sat on a chair in a small infirmary on the fourth floor of Taro's building. His shirt was off, the old man examining the back of his shoulder. Akira and Rachel stood to the side, and Rachel's narrowed eyes made clear to Savage that the bruise the thrown blackjack had caused was considerable.
“Raise your arm,” Taro said.
Savage did, biting his lip.
“Move it back and forth.”
He managed to do so but not to its full extent and not without effort.
“Describe the pain.”
“Deep. It aches. At the same time, it throbs.”
“Nothing feels sharp?” Taro asked.
“No. I don't think anything's broken.”
“All the same, you ought to consider going to a hospital and requesting an X ray.”
Savage shook his head. “I've attracted enough attention today already.”
“Hai,” Taro said. “I'll give you something to reduce the swelling. Your shoulder's too stiff to be of use in a crisis.”
“If I have to, believe me, I can use it.”
Taro's wizened lips formed a smile. He rubbed a cotton ball soaked in alcohol against Savage's shoulder.
Savage felt a sting. Taro removed a needle.
“Novocaine, epinephrine, and a steroid,” the old man said. “Sit with your hand on your thigh and give the arm a rest.”
The shoulder began to feel numb. Savage exhaled and glanced at Akira. “But what did Shirai say? It was all in Japanese. I didn't understand a word, although I did get the message. He was terrified by the sight of us.”
Akira scowled. “Yes … Terrified. And not because he feared we might be anonymous assailants. And not because after delivering his anti-American speech, he found an American close to him. Clearly he recognized us. ‘You. No,’ he shouted. ‘It can't be. You're … It's impossible. Keep them away from me.’ “
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