Tengu

by Graham Masterton

  Jerry said, “Are you really such a self-centered shit?”

  Gerard got to his feet and smiled. “Yes,” he said. “When it comes down to it, we’re all busy looking after number one, aren’t we? And don’t tell me that sons and wives and lovers don’t count as number one, too. You look after your own. That’s what you ‘re doing here, and that’s what I’m doing here.”

  It was 5:18. Without saying anything else, Gerard tossed away his cigar and made his way down the eastern side of the slope that led toward the ranch. Jerry watched him for a while, with extraordinarily mixed feelings–part anxiety, part confusion–and then cocked his machine gun and slid and skated down the stony slope himself, circling even farther to the east.

  There was no sign of life in the ranch, no clue that it was being used to develop the most brutal warriors that the world had ever known; nor that it was being guarded by armed and fanatical men. It could have been a quiet, normal, Tujunga horse ranch late on a summer afternoon; the kind of place where Roy Rogers might have tethered Trigger, or Rin-Tin-Tin might have returned home for his Gravy Train. Jerry ducked low as he ran through the thorn-bushes toward the outbuilding where David was being held, feeling surprisingly self-conscious with his machine gun. He wondered fleetingly what he would do if someone stopped him and challenged him: how he would explain the fact that he was running around on private property with a very lethal weapon. But then he looked quickly down toward the barn, and saw Gerard Crowley dodging toward the open door with an automatic raised in his right hand, and he knew that what they were doing was not only deadly serious but deadly. Nobody was going to stop him and ask him what he was doing. They would probably shoot first.

  Down in the barn, Gerard stepped quickly and nervously toward the prefabricated building where the Tengus were kept, his pistol held high, his eyes wide, his whole body wired with tension. He ran up the steps to the doorway of the prefabricated building and tried the handle. It was locked, which meant that Doctor Gempaku was not inside. He swung back the two lock covers, and then went back down the steps to scoop up a handful of dirt and gravel from the barn floor. Spitting on the dirt to make it more pliable, he pressed it into the locks, liberally mixed with gravel and grit, so that Doctor Gempaku would never be able to get his key inside–at least, not in a hurry. The Tengus would never be able to get out, either. That door was four solid inches of carbonized steel.

  Once he had jammed up the locks, Gerard ran the length of the prefabricated building until he reached the Tengu far end, where the electric cables ran inside to power the air-conditioning and lights. The ideal conditions for imbuing a man’s soul with the evil kamtofthe Tengu were 55 degrees of cold and an atmosphere low on oxygen. In the ancient magical days of the samurai, warriors had opened up their souls and their minds to the Tengu by sitting on the upper slopes of Shirane-san, overlooking Chuzenji-ko, sometimes nailing one of their hands to a board inscribed with occult characters, to hasten their possession by the most terrible devil known to man. The samurai never climbed Fuji-san, though–despite the fact that it is nearly 1,000 feet higher, and much nearer to the gods. The climb up Fuji-san was, and remains, a recreation for ordinary people, and the upper-class samurai would never deign to go any farther than the Sengen Shrine at the mountain’s base.

  Gerard located the power cables, and didn’t hesitate. With three or four grunting tugs, he pulled them free of the generator, in a shortcircuiting fritz of crackling electricity. From inside the prefabricated building, he heard the air conditioning whir to a stop; and from the generator he heard a cough, and a stutter, and finally silence.

  The Tengus were locked inside, without air or light. Most of them were in a painful and suspensory trance, so they wouldn’t notice. But the few who did notice, and discovered that they were gradually suffocating from lack of oxygen and stiffling with heat, could beat on the door all they wanted. They would never get out alive.

  Gerard ducked out of the barn, raised his automatic high, and fired off three shots. They cracked loudly in the still mountain air and echoed from the distant ridges.

  It took only seconds for five Oni guards to come running from the main ranch building. They caught sight of Gerard as he ran around the back of the barn,. They paused, aimed, and opened up a quick burst of fire with their Uzi submachine guns. Suddenly the afternoon was applauding with echoes.

  One of the Oni called to the others that they should circle the barn and prevent Gerard from running away. But just as he said that, Maurice and Mack, who had been crouching patiently behind their rocks with the M-60E1, opened fire on them from what–to a general-purpose machine gun with a muzzle velocity of 2,800 feet per second and a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute– amounted to point–blank rage.

  All five Oni jumped and danced like marionettes. The ground around them pattered with bullets, and dust rose up in scores of tiny spurts, until they spun and collapsed, awkward, disjointed, and lay dead.

  Gerard appeared from the other side of the barn and shouted, “Okay! There can’t be more than one or two of them left! Let’s get in there!”

  El Krusho hoisted up the machine gun, followed by Mack with his ammunition box, and together they loped down the lower part of the slope and across the ranch compound.

  Meanwhile, Jerry had reached the window of the outbuilding. He flattened himself against the wall and took a quick, darting look inside, the way the Marines had taught him before he had been dropped into Japan. He could see David lying on a cot in there, mercifully and miraculously alive; but he also glimpsed ajapanese guard in a black silk mask standing by the door. Jerry had two distinct advantages, however: surprise, and the fact that he was holding a submachine gun, while the guard appeared to be armed with nothing more than a holstered revolver.

  Jerry thought, I’m too old for this. Too slow, too tired. But all the same, he curled himself backward, like Kent Tekulve winding up for one of his odd submarine pitches, and then he rolled himself, shoulder first, through the window of the outbuilding, with a smash of glass and rotten wood framing, and across the floor.

  The Japanese guard snatched for his revolver, but he was split seconds too late. Jerry slammed off a deafening burst of 9-nun. bullets, al,most a whole magazine, and the guard’s chest and legs and belly turned into pulped tomatoes.

  There was an odd silence. The room was rilled with sharp, gunpowdery smoke. The guard turned, uttered a very Japanese-sounding sigh, and fell to the floor. David said, “Dad–’

  Jerry raised a hand, indicating that David should stay where he was, keep quiet. “Arc there any more of them?” he whispered.

  “Five,” said David, wide-eyed. “Six altogether.”

  It was then that they heard the deep, bronchial rattle of the M-60E1. Jerry stood up, and changed the magazine of his SMG, recocking it, ready for more killing. David had never seen his father like this before. Not cold and ruthless and efficient, handling a machine gun as if he handled one every day. He began to understand at that moment that war was something you never forgot.

  There are bespectacled insurance assessors in Cleveland who can still strip an M-3A1 without hesitation.

  Jerry said, “Are you okay, David? They haven’t hurt you?”

  David, frightened, shook his head.

  “All right,” said Jerry. “Let’s get out of here. Out the window. Then turn sharp right, and run like hell, up the slope, toward the treeline. If you hear any firing at all, dive for the ground and stay there. I’ll be right behind you, but just remember that you can run faster than me.”

  David climbed cautiously out the window. “It’s okay, Dad,” he said. “There’s nobody out here.”

  Jerry climbed after him, stiffly, wondering how the hell he had ever managed to roll through the whole window-frame. Then the two of them ran side by side toward the trees, keeping their heads well down. Within a minute, they were safe in the bushes, behind the rocks. Jerry panted,

  “It’s okay, we can stop here. Stop, we’re all right.�
�

  From the hillside, Jerry saw what happened next from a bird’s-eye view. Mack and El Krusho were still jogging across the ranch compound–Maurice with his machine gun angled across his shoulders–when a silvery-blue Lincoln limousine appeared, speeding toward the ranch with an ocher-colored plume of dust rising up behind it. Almost simultaneously, Gerard came into view from behind the barn, shouting something to Mack and Maurice, and waving his arm toward the Lincoln.

  David said, “What’s happening? What are those guys doing?”

  “Those guys helped me to save you,” said Jerry tersely.

  The Lincoln swerved around in the front yard of the ranch, scoring a wide semicircle in the dirt with its tires. As far as Jerry could see, there were at least four or five people in it, two or three of them women. He faintly heard Gerard Crowley shouting, “Mack–for Christ’s sake, don’t shoot–that’s my wife! Those are my daughters!”

  Then, from the ranch house, a man came running, sprinting toward the Lincoln with his head down. Gerard raised his automatic and fired two sharp shots at him, missing both times. But the man dodged and weaved and stumbled, and only just made it to the limousine as it gunned its engine and began to speed back the way it had come. A door flapped open, and a hand reached out to drag the man inside the car. He almost missed, desperately clawing for the door handle to give himself leverage. But then the Lincoln slowed momentarily, and he managed to scramble in.

  Gerard raised his pistol once more, but as the Lincoln roared away down the drive, he realized that he probably wouldn’t hit it anyway, and pushed his gun back into his pocket.

  Jerry and David stayed where they were for five or ten more minutes, while Maurice and Mack and Gerard searched the ranch. At last, Gerard called, “It’s clear! You can come down now!”

  Stiffly, slowly, Jerry and David came down the slope to the ranch house. Maurice and Mack were already on the veranda, their machine gun propped against the rail, both of them looking scared, a little shocked, but satisfied. Gerard was puffing noisily at a cigar, and pacing up and down with his hands thrust into his pockets.

  “You didn’t see that, man,” said Mack to Jerry. “Five of them, in five seconds. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “My brother’s going to eat shit,” said Maurice.

  Gerard asked, “How’s your boy, Jerry? Okay?”

  “I’m fine, sir, thank you,” said David. He paused, and then he said, “And thank you, for everything you did.”

  “I’m afraid my motives weren’t entirely philanthropic,” said Gerard, his cigar glowing in the twilight. “Apart from which, it looks like the one who actually rescued you was your dear old papa. I saw that guard, Jerry. Squashed canteloupe isn’t in it.”

  ‘‘Who was in that limousine?” asked Jerry. “I thought I heard you say your wife and daughters.”

  Gerard puffed, blew out smoke, and nodded. “That limousine belongs to Mr. Esmeralda, the guy who originally employed me to work out all the finances and building work that this program was going to take. I was also responsible for bringing Japanese workers and recruits in from Kobe. They’re not all here now, although I always had to make sure that they were delivered here.

  “As far as my own personal experience with him goes, Esmeralda is a snake. The kind of guy you’d pay quite a lot of money to have nothing to do with. I don’t know what the hell he’s doing with my wife and daughters. Maybe he’s holding them as hostages. But you may as well know that I’ve been living apart from my wife–well, most of the time–and I don’t get on very well with Kelly or Kathryn. I guess when they’re older, I might. But not right now.”

  ‘‘Who was the man who ran from the ranch and jumped into the limo?” asked Jerry. “He looked Japanese to me.”

  “That,” replied Gerard, “that was the one man we should have captured or wasted. That was the man who’s been running all of this Tengu business, Doctor Gempaku. Gempaku claimed that he’d once discovered a way to make Japanese athletes into the best in the world–faster and stronger and totally tireless.

  Well, they banned him from the Toyko Olympics because he was using weird and unethical training methods. But you can understand what kind of a guy he is: dedicated, peculiar, unethical, very old-style Japanese. He would have gotten on well with Yamamoto, all those guys.”

  Jerry said, “What’s going to happen to the Tengus? How many was he trying to prepare?”

  Gerard smiled. “Six altogether, I believe. But they’re all contained in that prefabricated building now, without air and without cooling. They’re probably feeling pretty damned uncomfortable right about now, and if you ask me, I think they deserve it.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Jerry.

  “Do?” said Gerard. “I’m going to leave them there. They’re shut in behind four inches of reinforced steel, and there’s no way at all that they can get themselves out.”

  Jerry said, and his voice was unsteady, “They’re men. They’re people. You’re just going to let them die?”

  Gerard snapped, “They killed Sherry Cantor, didn’t they? They killed Admiral Thorson. They damned well nearly killed me.”

  “So you’re going to be their judge and executioner?”

  “For fuck’s sake,” said Gerard, “you’ve been watching too many episodes of Kaz.’’

  There was an explosion from the direction of the barn. Glass was knocked out of the ranch-house windows like afternoon sleet, and the ground itself, hard-baked as it was, felt as if it were recoiling from a seismic shock. They rushed to the windows in time to see the huge rolling column of fire that was all that was left of the prefabricated Tengu building, and the flaming chunks of timber and aluminum which turned over and over in the sky.

  “What the hell happened?” said Mack.

  Gerard watched the sparks showering down. His face was blank, far away, the face of a man who has almost managed to achieve what he always wanted. Revenge? Satisfaction? It was impossible to tell.

  He said, “I don’t know for sure. There was an oxygen pump there, designed to take some of the oxygen out of the air in the building, make it thinner, you know? That’s what they asked me for when I arranged to have it built. I disconnected the generator wire; maybe the sparks from the wire ignited the oxygen.”

  Maurice Needs watched him with a frown, as he said, “Anyway, we did what we set out to do, didn’t we? Huh? Those Tengus are broiled burgermeat by now.”

  Gerard said, “That’s not enough. We’ve still got to get Gempaku, and Esmeralda, too, if we can.”

  “I think it’s time we left this to Sergeant Skrolnik,” said Jerry.

  “Are you kidding?” snapped Gerard. “Do you think the police could have pulled off an attack like this one, and still brought your boy out safe? That’s my wife and daughters that man has there, and even if I don’t particularly get on with them, I don’t want to see them hurt, either.

  What’s more, if we let even one of those Japanese bastards live, they’re going to keep after us until they kill us. How would you feel if Gempaku or Esmeralda were caught by the police, and then released on bail? I know how I’d feel. I’d feel like leaving the goddamned country, and fast.”

  David held Jerry’s hand. “Do you think we could go home now?” he asked.

  Jerry ruffled his hair. “Sure. I think we’re finished up here for now. Gerard? Can you guide us back?”

  Gerard nodded and ran his hand through his hair. “Okay,” he said. “I think we did the best we could. Let’s go.”

  They were just about to leave when they heard a telephone ringing. Jerry said, “Leave it. Don’t answer it.” But Gerard opened the front door of the house, listened, and then ran quickly upstairs to Doctor Gempaku’s office. He snatched up the phone and said, “Yuh?”

  A man’s voice said, “Mr. Esmeralda?” Gerard hesitated, and then answered, “Yes. That’s right. Who is this?”

  “You don’t soundx Mr. Esmeralda.”

  Gerard said, in what he hoped was a s
trong Colombian accent, “Of course this is Mr.

  Esmeralda. Who else do you think is going to be sitting out here in this godforsaken ranch at this time of day?”

  “I’m sorry,” the man said. “This is John O’Toole, from the Tahiti Way pier at Marina del Key.

  I’ve fixed up the yacht you wanted. I was lucky, the guy who was renting her this week suffered a heart attack, and had to bring her in early. She’s really neat, you’ll like her. The Paloma. Real luxury through and through. Television, air conditioning , waterbeds.’’

  “Is she going to cost extra?” asked Gerard, taking a blind stab at a businesslike question.

  “Thirty bucks a day, that’s all. And that includes all the paraplegic facilities we’re putting in, the ramps, and the special toilet.”

  ‘‘ Paraplegic facilities?’’

  There was an awkward pause. Then O’Toole said, “You did ask for paraplegic facilities, didn’t you? Don’t tell me I’ve gotten hold of this goddamned special toilet for nothing.”

  “Oh, sure,” said Gerard. “I was distracted. Somebody just came in. Sure, the paraplegic facilities are great. Well done. Terrific.”

  “I got all the Japanese food, too,” said O’Toole, a little uncertainly. “I’m up to my ears in bean curd and haru-same noodles. You’re going to want that? My secretary spent the whole afternoon shopping for it.”

  “Yes, we’ll want all that,” said Gerard. “Now tell me, what time did I say we’d want to sail?”

  There was another pause, longer. “This is Mr. Esmeralda, isn’t it?” O’Toole asked again.

  “You think I’d be asking you all these questions if I wasn’t?” Gerard demanded.

  “You’re not Mr. Esmeralda,” insisted O’Toole, and banged the phone down.

  Gerard sat for a moment in silence. Then he came downstairs to find Jerry Sennett waiting for him inside the house.

  “What was it?” asked Jerry.

  “A call from Marina del Key, of all places. The guy thought I was Esmeralda. Apparently, Esmeralda’s renting a yacht called the Paloma from the Tahiti Way pier–when and why, he didn’t say. But he did confirm that the yacht was stocked with Japanese food, and he also said that it was specially fitted out for a paraplegic.”