And for that matter, where was Carver? Was he even alive? Speers noisily crushed what was left of a grape lollipop with his rear molars.
The president looked up. “Your dentist must love you.”
“She loves my money.”
At last, Speers’ phone buzzed. He looked down and saw what he had been waiting for – an email from Nico Gold. The subject line: Prime Minister Ito is a very Naughty Boy (Video)
Holding the phone close to his chest, he donned his headset and watched excitedly as a video begin to load.
Hotel New Otani
Now Carver heard a new anthem over the steady hum of the Hotel New Otani air conditioner - O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free!
He reckoned the Canadian PM had either just arrived or was walking the red carpet.
The American entourage couldn’t be far behind. Nor would the Chinese.
The roar of the crowds 18 floors below him was growing louder.
There was no time for rest. The Eel’s muscle would be back any moment now.
He scanned the room for a weapon.
Had they left the patsy rifle here?
No such luck, it seemed.
His eyes returned to the cantaloupe-sized blowfish mounted over the bed.
Some people might look at it and see just a fish. Or even a porcupine with gills.
Carver saw a homemade medieval chain mace.
He removed his paracord shoelaces and got to work.
Akasaka Palace
The president held a compact, checking her hair as the car pulled through the palace gates. Satisfied, she snapped it shut and turned to Speers. “Any food in my teeth?” she said, smiling broadly so that he could inspect her veneers.
Speers instead offered his phone, which was cued up to play the video Nico Gold had just sent him. “Madam President, wait. You need to see this.”
“Now?”
The car came to a gentle halt before the red carpet. Rows of self-defense forces flanked either side. The palace steps – along with Ito and the leaders of five other countries – loomed at the other end.
Rios tapped the roof twice and opened the president’s door. “Showtime, Madam President!”
“Please,” Speers said. “Eva. I’m begging you. This proves what I was saying before.”
Disappointment darkened the president’s face. “I gave you a chance to get on board. And this is how you repay me? By deliberately shaking my confidence as I’m due to step out in front of the cameras?”
“Of course not. I didn’t plan this. It just – ”
“Don’t bother submitting your resignation. You’re fired.”
The Star Spangled Banner blasted from gigantic speakers on either side of the palace.
On cue, Eva lifted her heels and swiveled her legs to the side. She adopted a perfectly practiced smile as she emerged from the car.
U.S. Embassy
In the two days since Eri’s meeting with the CIA station chief, the television had been her lone contact with the outside world. She had been sequestered in protective guest housing within the embassy compound. Julian Speers had never responded to her warning about the G8, nor had the State Department answered her request for asylum.
The previous evening, she had come to terms with the fact that Carver had been killed or captured at Kyoto Station. She did not know whether she was capable of mourning another loss. Fujimoto. Taka. Carver. At some point, she knew, the emotional heft would all come crashing down on her. But for now, all she could do was keep breathing. She was the last living person outside the Kuromaku itself that knew the truth about Ito. As long as she was alive, and free, there was still a chance to expose him.
Now a guard arrived to escort her back to the conference room where she had had her only meeting with the station chief.
“He’ll be with you shortly,” the guard said. He shut the door and stood just outside.
Eri switched on the TV that was mounted high on the wall. The live broadcast of the G8 opening ceremony was on. The American national anthem played as President Hudson walked the red carpet. Prime Minister Ito, along with the heads of state from Italy, Britain, Germany and Canada, awaited her on the palace steps.
The crowds on the street erupted in a spasm of cheers and jeers. To many of the millions viewing at home, Eri knew, the slickly produced TV special was proof of Japan’s relevancy among the world’s wealthiest nations. She found the broadcasters’ patronizing banter nauseating.
“Ito looks every bit the statesman as he stands on the steps of Akasaka Palace, doesn’t he?”
At last, the conference room door opened. The CIA Station Chief entered. His hair stood on end in places, as if he had been pulling at it.
“Miss Sato,” he said, holding a manila folder. “Please sit down.”
“I have been sitting for two days.” She gestured toward the TV broadcast. Her voice was full of emotion. “Look at that! The President came despite my warning! Did you tell them about the threat to the G8?”
“I sent your message,” the station chief said. “It was read. That much I can tell you. But that’s actually not what I came to talk to you about. I’m afraid we have a wrinkle in your request for asylum. It seems that the Public Security Intelligence Agency knows you are here.”
A wave of panic migrated down Eri’s neck and chest. She could scarcely breathe, much less speak. Her words came out as a whisper. “How?”
“I frankly don’t know. But in the meantime...” He laid the folder on the table, turned it to face her, and opened it. Listed on the page were a number of infractions. “They are apparently bringing charges against you. There are 26 in all, including treason.”
“Don’t you understand? They are trying to silence me!”
The station chief stood and reached for the doorknob. “I’m sorry. I really am. My standing orders are to continue to forge a relationship of mutual cooperation between our two countries. They are due to pick you up in about 30 minutes. Unless I hear from Washington before they arrive, I’ll have no choice but to hand you over.”
Hotel New Otani
Sho Kimura sat cross-legged before the heavy rifle, the brunt of its weight resting on the tripod. His eyes watered as a cool autumn wind blew through the 20 x 20 cm sniper hole he had so expertly carved out of the hotel window glass. The Eel stood behind him, chatting into his phone, quietly orchestrating a broad array of operatives in the hotel and on the palace grounds.
The patsy rifle with Blake Carver’s fingerprints sat on the floor beside him. It was identical in size and make. He had been instructed not to touch it.
The identify of his target, President Kang, had been disclosed to him just three hours earlier, upon his entering the hotel. His previous targets had been ordinary people. A judge. An election official. Kang was anything but ordinary.
Although the practice conditions the Eel had simulated in Fukushima had been surprisingly accurate, he wished he had known about Kang earlier. He would not have backed out, as the Eel had feared. He would have studied Kang’s gait, his build, and his mannerisms.
He leaned back and wiped his eyes. He regarded the patsy rifle. Out in the irradiated zone, he had realized that not getting credit for killing Kang actually bothered him. How sick was that?
It still bothered him. No one would ever know that he had pulled the trigger. No one would ever know that he had changed history.
Sure, he’d had his 15 minutes of fame as an Olympian. But he had finished 27th that year in an obscure sport that was mostly popular in Scandinavia. His name would appear in no records books. For all his years of training, he would never be anything more than a footnote in history. Less than that, in fact.
But this one deed – killing Kang – would actually mean something.
He thought of his mother. And his sister. And his little brother, who even now was at the restaurant, preparing that evening’s courses. All he needed to do was take the Chinese leader’s life, and his en
tire family would live. The inevitable decline of the superpowers would be set in motion and, at least according to the Eel, Japan would emerge a stronger nation.
The fingers of his left hand grazed the muzzle delicately as he watched the ceremony unfolding at Akasaka Palace through his riflescope. The SUV carrying the Chinese president finally came to a stop. Tiny red flags on its hood fluttered in the wind. The passenger side door opened to a magnificently long red carpet that stretched across the grounds and, like a snake, up the steps of Akasaka Palace. Japanese soldiers stood on either side, stiff as boards, saluting, staring at an imaginary place in the distance.
As the Eel had foreseen, Sho had an unobstructed view of the Chinese leader. There was a 10-meter gap of carpet between the limo and the first rows of Japanese defense forces, giving him perhaps three or four seconds to find a clean shot. An eternity.
“It’s time,” the Eel said. He turned and saw his handler stub the cigarette out into an expensive-looking ashtray. The two thugs in the corner stood. “Go untie the American. Don’t bring him in until you hear the shot.”
Hotel New Otani
The deadbolt turned. Carver crouched behind the door with his improvised chain mace and waited.
Three steps into the room, the two invaders stopped in their tracks, tensing as they caught sight of the broken chair where Carver had been tied.
Even from behind the door, Carver recognized the muscle-bound pair as the two who had come to collect him at the sports bar in Kyoto. The one he had taken for a retired sumo wrestler actually looked big and athletic enough to play offensive line for most any Division I college football team. The other was the Rhino - spiky hair, massive head and barrel-shaped gut.
Carver rose up behind them with his weapon – the paracord shoelaces attached to the stuffed blowfish – as convincingly as if it was a real medieval chain mace.
The Rhino turned to look behind him. Carver swung, striking him in the temple. As he had hoped, the spines were sharp and sturdy enough to cut. The painful blow sent the bleeding Rhino wobbling left.
His more athletic accomplice rushed Carver head on. But the American was faster, sidestepping, swinging the mace in a windmill motion so that the fugu spines struck him at the base of the neck.
It was hardly a knockout blow, but his victim was stunned. Carver maneuvered behind the thug, driving the toe of his wingtip up into his ball sack.
Then he leapt sideways again, planted his right foot on the carpet, and drove the heel of his left shoe into the man’s knee. The round, moon-shaped joint bent unnaturally inward with a sickening snap as both meniscus tendons tore away from the kneecap. The thug howled in pain and collapsed to the floor.
As he caught his breath, Carver heard the halting strains of the Chinese national anthem played on the street below. This was it. He was almost out of time.
The Rhino struggled to his feet. Carver wrapped the paracord around his neck – or at least where the neck should have been. As Carver tugged harder, he could see only the man’s beefy shoulders. He even wedged a foot on the Rhino’s back for leverage as he attempted to crush his windpipe.
The move might have finished a smaller opponent, but the dazed hulk seized the paracord with his right hand and yanked, pulling Carver onto his back with ease.
Now Carver felt a sensation he hadn’t experienced since childhood. He was heaved up above the Rhino’s shoulders. The Rhino’s arms were fully outstretched overhead, as if he were performing an overhead press at the local gym.
Carver realized he was going to be tossed just before it happened. He curled up like a cannonball, hoping the walls were still as thin as he remembered.
Hotel New Otani
President Kang emerged from the SUV and stepped onto the red carpet. Sho’s finger grazed the trigger. “There!” came the Eel’s voice from behind him. So close Sho could feel his breath on his neck. “Take him now!”
But the Chinese leader’s movements were nothing like he had imagined. There was no pause, no wave. Now fully unfolded from the vehicle, Kang was taller than expected. He took enormous strides, as if he were gliding along a rail. Sho elevated the rifle slightly and nudged the sights to the right, leading the target.
Suddenly, white dust enveloped his vision. Something crashed into the tripod, jamming the riflescope against Sho’s right eye. Blood pooled around his eye socket.
To his right, a gaping hole in the wall through which the Rhino had thrown Blake Carver. Now Carver and the Eel were struggling for control of the patsy rifle. Carver kneed the older man in the groin and jammed the rifle butt in his jaw, sending Ito’s longtime partner hard into the window overlooking the palace.
He collapsed against the glass, pushing against it in an effort to get to his feet. Spiderwebs spiraled outward from the sniper hole in the center. A triangular wedge as large as a slice of pizza broke away. His hand punched through. He turned, trying to regain his balance as the integrity of the entire window collapsed.
Sho reached out, his hand grazing that of his handler as he fell back. He was too late. The man he had known as the Eel was gone.
Akasaka Palace
Ito’s public face was one of calm composure. Inside, he was a torrent of anxiety.
The Chinese president was already three-quarters of the way across the red carpet.
How was this possible?
His plan had been perfect. He had done everything right.
What was taking so long? Had the shooter been unable to get a clean shot?
Kobayashi had specifically told him not to look up.
And yet he did look. Up and to his left, at the Hotel New Otani. The shooter would be on one of the high floors.
And then he saw it. A man falling to Earth, his suit jacket billowing up behind him like a set of hopelessly broken wings.
Kobayashi. He couldn’t possibly tell from that distance. But somehow, he knew. Kobayashi.
Surely the shooter was still at his post. And surely he would pull the trigger at any moment.
And yet President Kang ascended the steps before him. Hand extended. Oblivious to the unfolding disaster in the adjacent building.
Ito did not take Kang’s hand. He did not bow. Instead, he stepped back, hoping against all odds that the shooter would take the shot.
Hotel New Otani
A storm of broken glass fell. Holding the Sato patsy rifle in one hand, Carver watched the Eel clear the window and plummet to the concrete below. He fought a sudden twinge of vertigo, shifting his focus to Akasaka Palace, where a video of the Chinese flag flapped in the wind on giant video screens. The country’s national anthem played its final bars.
Meanwhile, Sho had gotten to his feet. Despite his blood-rimmed right eye and the several thousand tiny glass beads bedazzling his hair and clothing, he pressed the butt of the real sniper rifle firmly against his shoulder.
“The Eel lied to you,” Carver shouted. “Take that shot, and you’ll start a war that will destroy all of us.”
“Stay back!” came Sho’s reply, swinging the rifle up to find Kang on the palace steps. His right finger tightened over the trigger.
At that moment, Carver realized just what he was holding. The very thing he had been longing for ever since he had arrived in Japan. A firearm.
There was just one wrinkle. He didn’t know if the patsy rifle was loaded.
Now the Rhino was coming for him, charging from his position across the room. Carver lifted the patsy rifle to his beltline – there was simply no time to aim properly – and pulled the trigger.
Such a powerful weapon wasn’t meant to be fired from waist level. Despite the rifle’s muzzle brake, the recoil sent Carver off balance, propelling him backward.
The glass beads under his feet might as well have been marbles. He slid backwards as if on ice, feeling the cool wind at his back.
Oh God. I’m going to –
Akasaka Palace
Ito watched as Kang walked to the end of the row of world leaders, taking his
place beside the Canadian PM, who had volunteered to be the buffer between the Chinese and American presidents. The G8 theme song cranked up again. The eight heads of state smiled as they posed for photographers.
Suddenly, the music stopped. The giant screens went black, then flickered back to life.
The image quality was poor, but the screen was just bright enough so that Ito’s face could be recognized. He was pictured in an office, addressing a small group of his closest aides.
The video paused for a moment as a message written in Japanese and English appeared on screen.
PRIME MINISTER ITO HAS BEEN A NAUGHTY BOY.
...THE ATTACK ON THE CHINESE EMBASSY
...THE ATTACK ON THE AMERICAN DESTROYER
...THE MURDER OF THE EMPEROR
ITO IS GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS!
The crowd gasped. The video restarted. A recording of voice was audible.
A new screen appeared:
THIS WAS RECORDED IN ITO’S PRIVATE RESIDENCE THIS MORNING AS HE ADDRESSED HIS IMMEDIATE STAFF:
“Today at the G8, our hard work will at last pay dividends. The Chinese snake will be beheaded, and more than 1 billion Chinese people will demand payback. Do not worry about reprisals. Should either the Americans or the Chinese turn its sights on Japan, their mutual dependence on a connected military force will be their undoing. The ease with which we controlled the American drone and the Chinese fighter planes is proof of that. As the U.S. and China fall from their lofty perches, the Empire of Japan will once again rise in the east. I will reign over this new era from the imperial palace as the rightful heir to the throne. My lineage is direct and pure. Power will at last be restored as it has been for millennia. “
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