By the Sword rj-12

by F. Paul Wilson

  At three stories this particular building matched the height of the Lodge across the street. The guy was all in black and his interest seemed particularly focused on one lit window on the second floor. It must have opened into a high-ceilinged room because it was half again as high as a regular window. Still, Jack couldn't see inside from his angle.

  Hank had said that the Scientologists and Dormentalists had it in for him because so many of their suckers were defecting to the Kickers. Could this guy be—?

  Without warning the watcher leaped to his feet and turned. Jack ducked back and held his breath. Had he made a sound and given himself away? He snaked his hand back and pulled his Glock. A rooftop fight was the last thing he wanted, but if this guy wanted to rumble…

  But no, he swept on by toward the rooftop entry, yammering on his cell phone as he passed. Light from within bathed him as he opened the door, and Jack got a good look at his face: Japanese.

  One of the faux Naka's cult buddies?

  When he was gone, Jack moved to the roof edge and looked down to see what was so interesting. He recognized Hank talking to a young woman with short brown hair. He wished he had his Leica along. Then he noticed something long and slim in Hank's hand.

  A katana.

  Again, binocs would have come in handy to confirm what Jack had already guessed, but this pretty much clinched it: Hank had the Gaijin Masamune.

  And that was what had put the watcher on the move. He'd seen the sword and had gone running to tell his boss.

  Question was, who was his boss? The suit with the yakuza, or this Order of the Hidden Face Slater had talked about? The answer mattered. One had been ready to kill him and the other had already tried. He knew the location of the yakuzas but not the Hidden Face. If the watcher was one of those crazy, self-mutilating monks, Jack wanted to know where they hung out.

  As he was turning away he saw a flurry of motion from within. The woman was diving toward the window. Hank tackled her and brought her down. After a brief struggle, two men came in and hauled her to her feet. Her mouth was open as if she was screaming, but Jack heard nothing. For an instant her face turned his way, giving him a dead-on look. He stiffened as recognition bolted through him. The long blond hair was gone, replaced by short, choppy brown, but no question about who she was.

  Dawn Pickering.

  All those flyers must have paid off. Someone had spotted her and dropped a dime for the reward.

  He leaned back on his haunches, thinking.

  He'd found Dawn and the katana in the same place. What were the odds of that? High. High enough to make him uncomfortable. He'd come looking for the katana, but that took a backseat now that he'd found Dawn.

  Now he knew why the lower-level Kickers had been kicked out onto the street. Hank and his inner circle had an unwilling guest that they didn't want the hoi polloi to know about.

  Despite what Glaeken had said about keeping the katana out of the wrong hands, Jack had made a promise to Christy Pickering to separate her daughter from the man she knew as Jerry Bethlehem.

  Okay, not a promise, but he'd taken her money and said he'd do the job. And he had done it. But now she was in Hank's clutches, and that was pretty much like being in Jerry's. So in a way, the fix-it wasn't finished. He felt a duty to Christy to free her daughter.

  So the katana could wait. He knew where it was and had a feeling it would never be too far from Hank Thompson. A glance back showed him standing near the window, swinging it in flashing loops.

  No, that blade wasn't going anywhere—at least not tonight.

  But what about Dawn? He doubted she'd be going anywhere tonight either. He needed a way to get her out of there without endangering her.

  His first thought was to call the cops. He could tell them that Dawn Pickering, a person of interest in a Forest Hills murder, was hiding in the Lodge. A warrant, a search, Dawn is discovered, tells the cops she'd been kidnapped and held prisoner: hot water for Hank and company.

  Sounded perfect. The only problem he could see was the pervasiveness of Kickers. The most visible members hailed from the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, but they existed at all levels. Undoubtedly some were in the criminal justice system. And somewhere along the tortuous course of obtaining a search warrant on a building owned by a group as connected as the Septimus Lodge, someone might very well raise a warning flag.

  And then Dawn would disappear and Jack would be back to square one.

  A one-man assault was out of the question. He needed help—willing or unwilling, witting or unwitting—and had an idea where he might find some.

  He peeked over the edge of the roof and saw the watcher step onto the sidewalk below and start toward Allen Street.

  Jack jumped up and ran for the roof door. He blasted through, pounded down six flights of stairs and burst onto the sidewalk at a run. He reached Allen Street in time to see the watcher hop into a cab. He spotted another a dozen feet away discharging a fare. He hopped in.

  "Hate to say it, but follow that cab."

  He expected a remark from the driver, a grizzled fellow with shiny black skin and a curly, gray beard, but he merely turned on the meter and shifted into drive.

  The watcher led them to the southbound FDR all the way down to the ferry docks. There he got out and boarded a waiting ferry. Jack followed. It left promptly at ten thirty.

  Staten Island, he thought. What the hell's on Staten Island?

  The watcher stayed up front, as if urging the boat to go faster, so Jack hung around the stern, watching Lower Manhattan's bright skyline recede in the wake. Two tall, thin structures were missing from the view. Jack had always hated the Twin Towers, considering them irksome, unimaginative, incongruous eyesores. But now that they were gone, he missed them.

  Twenty-five minutes later the ferry was nudging into the Staten Island docks. As soon as the gates opened, the watcher hopped off and trotted to one of the waiting cabs. Jack followed to another, and tried a variation on the dreaded phrase.

  "See that cab? Follow it."

  The driver looked over his shoulder. He was some kind of squat little Asian. His name on the license looked Thai—Prasopchai Narkhirunkanok. No way would Jack try to pronounce it. He'd never heard of anyone dislocating his tongue, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen.

  "Follow that cab?" he said in accented English. "This is true?"

  "That's what I said."

  He laughed. "Okay. We follow that cab."

  The ferry had landed at the northernmost tip of the island. They followed the watcher's cab along Victory Boulevard to the Staten Island Expressway, which was anything but express, even at this hour. They traveled east to the West Shore Expressway and then south to the landfill where the first cab exited.

  The Fresh Kills landfill?

  Jack didn't know much about it except that sometime in the middle of the last century New York City declared a couple of thousand acres of Staten Island its dumping ground. Over the ensuing decades it piled up huge mounds of garbage. The landfill closed around the turn of the century, but reopened long enough to accept World Trade Center debris.

  "Any idea where he's going?"

  The driver nodded. "I saw him. He look Japanese. I fear he is going to bad place."

  "Bad place?"

  "A temple where Kakureta Kao dwell."

  "You've heard of them?"

  Another nod. "They once known all over Asia. My grandmother used to scare me by saying she call the Kakureta Kao in Tokyo and they come and take me back to their temple and cut me up. After the war everyone thought they dead, but then they show up here."

  "In a landfill?"

  "No one want land where they stay. They can be alone there to perform foul rites."

  Foul rites… he had to mean the self-mutilation Slater had mentioned. But why here? Why in the U.S.?

  "There, you see?" he said, pointing ahead. "Kakureta Kao."

  Jack saw the watcher's cab stop outside an oblong, two-story box of a building. Not e
xactly what he'd had in mind when he'd heard the word temple.

  Someone who looked like a guard let him through the gate in the six-foot stone wall running the perimeter.

  Guard?

  "Slow down," Jack said. "Let the other cab pull away, then drive by—slowly."

  The driver did as he was told. As they passed Jack got a glimpse of the guard in the glow of the single bulb over the gate. He was wearing a kimono and a hakama, like someone out of a chop-socky movie.

  "Stop here and turn out your lights," Jack said as they reached the top of a rise.

  "I drive you back now, yes?"

  Jack dropped a couple of twenties on the front seat.

  "Just park here a few minutes. I want to watch the place."

  "I do not like it here," he said, but parked and doused his lights.

  Jack looked around and could see why. To the west the Hidden Face building stood alone, isolated on a marshy flat. Half a mile or more away in the opposite direction he could see what looked like house lights. Down at the building he spotted a couple of commuter vans parked along the southern flank. Beyond and to the right of the temple rose the dirt-covered hills of the landfill. Like cyclopean burial mounds. In a way they were burial mounds—the final resting place of a half century's worth of debris from the urban civilization a few miles to the north.

  He pointed to the biggest mound. "How tall do you think that is?"

  "As tall as the Statue of Liberty. The Fresh Kills landfill is one of largest man-made structures on Earth. It can be seen from space."

  It sounded rehearsed.

  "You give tours?"

  The driver shrugged. "I learn if I give interesting fact to fares, they give to me bigger tip."

  Jack turned his attention back to the temple, trying to imagine what was going on in there. He hoped they were planning a raid on Kicker HQ.

  15

  Shiro tried to rein in his excitement as he approached the front entrance of the temple. He placed his cell phone in the galvanized, foam-lined, waterproof milk box outside the door. There it would rest among watches and flashlights and other phones.

  He found the phone invaluable in the outside world—without it he would not have been able to call Yukio and tell him to maintain surveillance on the Kicker house while he returned to the temple—but useless when he needed to contact the temple. No technology from beyond the sixteenth century—the time of the Order's defeat of the Nobunaga Shogunate—was allowed inside. No radios or TVs or watches or guns. And worst of all, no air conditioners in the summer when the heat and humidity suffused the landfill area with the reek of old garbage and methane.

  But no sacrifice was too great for the Order.

  Minutes later Shiro was kneeling in his teacher's sparsely furnished quarters, bowing before him. He raised his head to speak.

  "I saw them both, sensei—the woman and the sword!"

  Akechi-sensei's eyes narrowed to slits within the eyeholes of his mask as he studied Shiro. "You are sure of this? Absolutely sure?"

  "She has changed her appearance, but I studied her through my field glasses and I have no doubt that her face is the same as in the photograph on the flyers."

  His sensei closed his eyes and remained silent for what seemed like an eternity.

  "But that does not mean she is the same woman whose face the Seer saw 'everywhere.' "

  "But her face is everywhere, and she is with the katana—in the same room! The katana and the baby together! Just as the Seer said."

  The eyes opened and fixed on Shiro. "Yes. It is indeed as the Seer said. You have done well, Shiro."

  The praise warmed him. "Thank you, sensei."

  "Remember the Seer's words: 'Who controls the child controls the future.' And, 'Her child and the katana are linked to the destiny of the world.' The katana and the baby are together now, but elsewhere. We must keep them together. Here."

  Shiro thought about the old stone building and all the men milling around outside it.

  "Sensei, it will be extremely difficult to steal the sword and make off with the woman."

  Akechi-sensei nodded. "I am aware of that. If we had only the sword to worry about, we could start a Kuroikaze atop the building, then stand back and wait until everyone inside was dead. When it was safe we could simply walk in and take it."

  Shiro thought of the many innocents in the neighborhood who would be dead as well, but didn't mention it. His sensei was not the sort to worry about collateral damage.

  "But the Kuroikaze would kill the woman and child as well."

  "Exactly. So I see no alternative to invasion. Tell me what you know of this place. We shall make a plan and strike."

  "When, sensei?"

  "Why, tonight, of course. You have seen both her and the katana there tonight. Tomorrow it might not be so. We must strike as soon as possible."

  Shiro leaped to his feet. "I'll call Yukio and ask him what he sees. I had only one angle on the place. He'll have another."

  His sensei's eyes narrowed. "You do not bring the phone in here, I trust."

  "No, sensei. It is outside."

  "Use it then. Ask Yukio if he can find another entrance besides the front door."

  "Yes, sensei."

  Shiro hurried off with his heart pounding. At last! Tonight he would finally be able to put to use all of those years of martial arts training.

  He couldn't wait.

  16

  The driver remained antsy while Jack became bored.

  He glanced at his watch: 11:39. He wasn't quite sure what he'd been hoping for. Ideally, the watcher would make his report, and soon after a mob of monks would come charging out, pile into the vans, and head for Kicker HQ.

  Jack's plan was to follow and let them launch whatever plan they'd cooked up. And while they were busy trying to retrieve the sword, and the Kickers were engaged trying to keep it, Jack would snoop around during the fracas, find Dawn, and spirit her away. If he had to damage or kill a few Kickers along the way, so be it. They'd kidnapped her, and if they wanted to get in his way, they'd pay the price.

  He hadn't forgotten what Veilleur had said about keeping the katana out of the wrong hands. But the katana was a thing, Dawn was an eighteen-year-old girl. That set the priorities.

  But the temple remained quiet—at least that he could see. The piddly security lighting gave him an idea.

  "Listen," he said to the cabby. "I'm going down for a look-see. I—"

  "No-no! You mustn't!"

  "I'll be fine."

  "I take you back to ferry now."

  Jack pulled a bill from his wallet and tore it in half. He'd seen this in a movie and it seemed like a cool move. He handed one half through the partition.

  "Here."

  The driver took it and stared at it. "What is this?"

  "Half of a fifty. I'm going down for a look. You wait here. If you're still here when I get back, I'll give you the other half. Sound fair?"

  "Yes-yes. Most fair."

  Jack opened the door and stepped out. "I won't be long."

  He circled around through the dark to the north end of the property, then made his way down a slope dotted with clumps of rank grass and skunk cabbage. When he reached the wall he crouched and waited for any sign that he'd been seen.

  When none came, he rose and carefully felt along the near edge of the top of the wall. Finding only smooth brick, he did an overhand pull-up and—clenching his teeth against the howl of pain from his left deltoid—scanned the top. No razor wire or broken glass. He checked the walls for security lights. If he found any, he'd head back to the cab. They'd probably be motion activated and would light up as soon as he went over the wall.

  But no… no lights. No sign of a dog or anyone patrolling the yard. Just that one guard at the gate.

  Great.

  He hurried around to the west side of the wall where he could put the temple between him and the front gate. He was ready for the pain this time when he levered himself up and over. Landing on the
other side he froze in a crouch, listening. A growl or a bark would send him back over that wall in a heartbeat.

  All quiet.

  Maintaining his crouch, he hurried over to the side of the building and began inching along beneath the windows, listening. He didn't expect anyone to be speaking English, and knew he'd never understand a word. But he was searching for a certain tone of excitement, or the sound of guys gearing up for battle.

  He found it near the southwest corner. Loud chatter flowing from an open window, then what sounded like someone giving a pep talk, then cheers and the sound of trampling feet.

  As the sound faded he dared a peek over the sill into what looked like some sort of classroom. He spotted the last three guys of the group that had been gathered here, scrambling out through a door. All wore black from head to toe and held knives and nunchaku. They looked like ninjas without hoods.

  Jack allowed himself a little smile. He didn't need to understand a word they'd said to know they were on their way to the Lodge to kick some Kicker ass and grab that sword.

  And Jack would be right behind them.

  He noticed with a start that the room hadn't completely emptied. A lone figure in a hooded blue robe sat statue-still behind a desk, staring into space. At least Jack thought he was staring. Maybe he was meditating. Jack couldn't see his features through the red silk drawn across his face. The mask had eyeholes but Jack's angle didn't allow him to see through.

  Definitely creepy. Slater hadn't exaggerated. These were weird dudes.

  The head started to swivel toward him so he ducked and moved away from the window. As he heard the van engines rumble to life on the far side of the building, he swung back over the wall and started making his way up the incline. But as he neared the spot where he'd left the cab, he didn't see it. He ran up onto the crumbling pavement and looked around. He was sure—

  And then he saw a little piece of paper weighted by a stone at the side of the road where the cab had been. He picked it up.

  Half of a fifty-dollar bill.