Vulcan's forge m-1

by Jack Du Brul

  “I have only seen that letter once, I swear.” Takamora quickly realized the danger he was in. “I would never take it from you.”

  “I want to believe you, David. I really do, but I find that I can’t. I don’t know what you wished to gain from your action, but I assure you that I know its results.”

  “I swear I didn’t take the letter.” Sweat beaded against Takamora’s waxen skin.

  “You are the only person to have any access to this room and to know the location of my safe. I must congratulate you on your safecracking abilities. Most impressive.” There was no admiration in Ohnishi’s voice. “If you think your act will cripple my efforts in any way, you are very wrong.

  “As we speak, arms are being readied for transit here. I have made arrangements for a highly motivated mercenary army. Of course, it would be easier to use your National Guard troops, but I will manage without them.

  “David, you could have been the President of the newest and possibly most wealthy nation on the planet if you hadn’t become greedy and crossed me.”

  “I didn’t.” Desperation edged Takamora’s voice up an octave.

  “I find it admirable that you retain your innocence even to the end,” Ohnishi said sadly.

  With those words, Kenji struck.

  He whipped a thin nylon cord around David Takamora’s neck in a lightning-quick maneuver. With amazing strength, he torqued the cord into the mayor’s throat. Takamora clawed at the garrote as it bit deeper and deeper, his tongue thickening as it thrust between his tobacco-stained teeth. His chokes came as thin reedy gasps as the life was pulled from him.

  Ohnishi sat neutrally as the grisly murder took place, his wrinkled fingers laced perfectly on the cool desktop.

  Kenji pulled tighter as Takamora’s struggles diminished. After a few moments all movement ceased. Mayor David Takamora was dead.

  Kenji slipped the cord from around the corpse’s neck, revealing a razor-thin line of blood where the skin had parted under relentless pressure. He cleaned his garrote on Takamora’s suit coat, coiled the weapon, and slipped it into the pocket of his baggy black pants.

  “I’m relieved that his bowels didn’t void,” Ohnishi remarked, sniffing delicately. “Feed the body to the dogs and return to me.”

  Kenji returned from his gruesome task after nearly thirty minutes. Despite a change of clothing, Ohnishi noted that the stench of death still clung to his assistant, as always.

  “It is done,” Kenji said.

  “What is it?” Ohnishi asked, knowing something was bothering this man whom he considered a son. “Don’t let Takamora’s ambition upset you.”

  “It is not his ambition that upset me. It is yours.”

  “Don’t start that again, Kenji,” Ohnishi warned, but his assistant continued.

  “I have followed your orders concerning this operation, but I do not agree with them. What you planned with Takamora was only a sideshow for our true aims, yet you treat it with your full attention. Our priority lies elsewhere. Takamora’s betrayal should be a sign to stop this foolish coup, which was meant as a contingency plan in the first place. It cannot succeed; you must realize that. And it puts into jeopardy what we are really working for.”

  “Has our Russian friend so intimidated you, Kenji, that you no longer trust in me?”

  “No, Ohnishi-San,” Kenji replied. “But we must first concentrate on our obligations to him.”

  “Let me tell you something about our Russian ally. He will cross us just as quickly as we do him. We are merely tools to him. Our first loyalty must be with the people of Hawaii, not some white taskmaster bent on our control.”

  “But we made promises…”

  “They mean nothing now. Takamora’s ambition has changed everything. When I first wrote that letter declaring our independence, I knew that it would be sent whether Kerikov ordered it or not. What we are doing must proceed. Takamora’s betrayal has merely pushed up our deadline. I’m certain that the President is planning some sort of reprisal. That is why we must strike now. The coup can be successful without Takamora. We can control his people.”

  Kenji was silent for a moment, his dark eyes downcast. “And the arms you spoke of?”

  “I dealt directly with an old friend for those, an Egyptian named Suleiman el-aziz Suleiman.”

  “And the mercenary army?”

  “Suleiman is also arranging for them. Hard currency is a powerful tool in such matters. The mercenaries will augment Takamora’s National Guard troops — or replace them if they refuse to follow me.”

  “I did not realize,” Kenji said dejectedly.

  “You are like my son, but even a father must do things without his son’s awareness. It changes nothing between us, Kenji. Do not be hurt.”

  “I am not.”

  “Good,” Ohnishi said with a thin smile. “I wish to celebrate tonight. Are you in the mood?”

  “Yes, of course,” Kenji answered the rhetorical question.

  Ohnishi wheeled out from behind the desk and toward his bedroom on the top floor of the glass mansion. Once there, Kenji helped him undress and reclothe himself for bed. Kenji easily lifted his frail form into the wide four-poster, propping several pillows behind his back. Ohnishi laid a withered hand on Kenji’s cheek and thanked him with a smile, his eyes shining as if in fever.

  “You are like a son to me, you must know that.”

  “I do,” Kenji replied, stroking the old hand gently. “Please allow me a few minutes to prepare.”

  As Kenji strode from the room, Ohnishi turned to a control panel near his bed and pressed several buttons in quick succession. The electrochromic panels in the glass ceiling of his bedroom darkened, blocking out the rich tropical moonlight. Throughout the house, the walls and roof also darkened, enclosing the mansion in a blackened cocoon.

  On the far wall, past the foot of the bed, heavy velvet drapes parted, revealing a two-way glass wall and a small bedroom beyond. A nude woman lay supine on the bedspread, her small breasts peaked with long erect nipples.

  Because of his age, Takahiro Ohnishi could no longer enjoy intercourse, but his sexual drive had diminished little over the years. Rather than give in to his body’s inability to respond, he had devised a method of voyeurism that partly slaked his still healthy urges. He was incapable of erections let alone emission, but he could still enjoy the act in his own way.

  He patiently waited for Kenji to make his entrance, enjoying the lithe body of the sleeping girl. When Kenji finally entered the room, his muscled body was bare and his arousal was plainly evident. He crossed to the sleeping woman — girl, really, since she was not yet fifteen — and woke her by rubbing his erection against her parted lips. She had been well schooled in her responses according to the script that Ohnishi had provided.

  Pretending to be still asleep, she took Kenji into her mouth and began a gentle fellatio. Ohnishi pressed a button on the console and the sensitive microphones in the other room broadcast the subtle noises of the girl’s lips and mouth. She moved a hand up from her side and began massaging one of her nipples softly, quickly picking up the rhythm as if coming awake.

  Ohnishi leaned forward in his bed as the Japanese girl’s eyes fluttered open and she began sucking in earnest. He could feel a slight tightening near his prostate muscles and smiled. Kenji reached down and toyed roughly with her other breast, and the speakers in Ohnishi’s bedroom sounded with her moans of building passion. Ohnishi resisted the temptation to touch himself, knowing he would be disappointed at his body’s lack of response.

  Kenji spread the girl’s legs, revealing her still hairless mons. Slipping one thick finger into her body, he thrust through her virginity so that blood slicked his hand and her inner thighs. The girl winced but did not cry out. He crawled onto the bed and positioned her so Ohnishi would have the best possible view before he entered her.

  He mounted her roughly, thrusting sharply into her still undeveloped pelvis. Despite the pain she must have felt, the girl writhed an
d moaned, clenching Kenji’s torso with her coltish legs and lifting her firm buttocks from the bed, arching her back higher and higher. Ohnishi could not resist the temptation; his hand snaked under his blankets to find himself semierect. He grasped it and began pumping in time with Kenji.

  His erection lasted only a few moments and there was no emission, but it was more than he’d had in years. As soon as he lost it, he lost all interest in the performance still being played out behind the glass. He pressed the button to close the curtains and lay back on his bed. The sounds of Kenji’s lovemaking still filled the room. He made a mental note, as he settled into sleep, to use this girl again.

  She had been in the room for only twenty-four hours, but already Jill felt as if she’d been imprisoned for a year. She had gone through the classic steps taken by nearly every person who is locked up against their will. First she had raged at her captors, screaming and pounding against the solid steel door that kept her from freedom. When she had exhausted herself, she spent the next several hours going over her cell in minute detail, exploring the cement block walls, the ceiling that was too far over her head to reach, the empty pegboard rack with the outlines of tools still painted on its brown glossy surface. The twenty-square-foot room smelled of fertilizer, old gasoline, and oil — Jill assumed it had once been a gardener’s supply shed.

  After she’d paced her cell for another hour, Jill had finally settled on the concrete floor next to the dripping spigot. She’d watched dully as the tiny drops pooled, then snaked to the rusted drain in the middle of the room. Eventually she slept, her body overriding her mind’s racing questions.

  When she woke a tray of food rested next to the door. There were a couple of oranges, half a loaf of crusty french bread, and a quarter stick of butter, along with a waxed paper cup of cool coffee. Jill noticed immediately that nothing on the tray could provide her with a weapon, no glass or tin cans, no utensils that could be sharpened by scraping them against the floor.

  The waste bucket in the far corner of the room had been removed during the night and replaced with a fresh one, much to her relief.

  Now Jill sat quietly, stoically, like a twenty-year veteran of prison, taking the time as it came, with neither expectations nor hope. For a while she’d tried to understand why someone had kidnapped her, but she realized that knowing the truth wouldn’t do her any good. She suspected that Takahiro Ohnishi was behind her abduction, but the knowledge was worthless to her in her present circumstances. Her only interests were in survival.

  Since Ohnishi had gone through the trouble of snatching her from her home, he must not want to kill her. He wanted something from her, something that only she could give.

  It had to be her credibility as a reporter. If she was correct about Ohnishi and Mayor Takamora’s attempt to break Hawaii away from the rest of the Union, then they would need the legitimacy that only the media could give, the soothing voice and face on the television assuring the people that everything was all right and under control. It would be simple to coerce her into giving false reports and no one who’d placed their trust in her as a reporter would ever know that they were being deceived.

  It was the same question of ethics and integrity that she’d faced before storming out of the studio, but this time the stakes were much higher. Yesterday it had been a question about her job, her career. Today it was her life at risk. Jill had thought about all of this throughout the long morning, but by late afternoon and into the evening her mind dulled and lost focus. She had settled into a torpor. She was just thinking about falling back asleep, her back was already pressed against the wall, her head held only limply by her slender neck.

  The door opened without warning. Jill jerked out of her lethargy, edging along the wall to gain distance between herself and the dark figure that entered her cell. She noted idly that night had fallen once again, though she didn’t know the time since she’d been stripped of her watch and shoes when she’d been left in the cell.

  “I did not mean to startle you, Miss Tzu, my apologies.” The man’s voice was flat and lifeless, echoing inside him like a distant whisper.

  “I know you, don’t I?” Jill had gotten to her feet.

  “We have not formally met, but we have spoken on the phone several times. I am Kenji.”

  “I knew Ohnishi was behind this.” There was little triumph in her voice.

  Kenji slid further into the room, his feet gliding on the floor with the ease of quicksilver. There was a dangerous elegance about him. It was the charm of the serpent, slow, seductive, evil. He eased himself to the floor, hunching down in the very place where Jill had been a moment earlier.

  “You are a very perceptive woman and an excellent reporter. I watched your latest piece, and I must say you made a bold and accurate assessment of my employer and his involvement with Mayor Takamora. You are correct in assuming that they both want Hawaii to be an independent nation, albeit one with strong ties to Japan. However, you are wrong in guessing that Ohnishi is behind your abduction.”

  “You?” Kenji nodded. “Why?”

  “You are intelligent enough to know why you were kidnapped.”

  “You want me to report some sort of propaganda,” Jill said accusingly.

  “Correct. In fact, the propaganda, as you call it, will not be that far from the truth. You can even air that piece you just finished.”

  Jill was startled and confused. “Why would you want that? It fully exposes your little plot.”

  “Not my plot, Miss Tzu, Ohnishi’s plot.”

  “I don’t understand.” Despite herself, Jill couldn’t help slipping back into her comfortable role as a reporter, digging for facts.

  Kenji gazed off into the middle distance for a moment as if he could see the words he was thinking, watch them ricochet around like billiard balls after a strong break. “I have worked for Takahiro Ohnishi almost my entire life. I owe him everything. He is my master and I am his slave. I have killed for him and I have raped little girls for him. In fact, I did both again tonight. There is nothing I would not do if he asked.

  “But there is something about me that he does not know, something that I myself didn’t acknowledge for many years.” He paused for a moment, then chuckled quietly. “Given his concept of honor, I actually believe he would understand my betrayal.

  “My parents met only twice in their lives. The first time was when my father raped my mother, when he was stationed in Korea during the Second World War. She was a comfort girl, an unwilling prostitute like so many other young women who had the misfortune of being poor and attractive during the Japanese occupation. Her own father had sold her into prostitution so the family could survive.

  “The second time my parents met was six years later, when my father returned to Korea to buy me from her. An injury during the war had left him impotent so I was to be his legacy, his only chance at immortality. Until his death, he worked for Ohnishi-San. I inherited his position.

  “For most of my life, I saw myself as pure Japanese. I hid my Korean side in shame. But something has happened in the last few months — something that has given me reason to feel proud of my Korean heritage. Surely you understand this. You are half Japanese and half Chinese.”

  “I am an American,” Jill stated firmly.

  Kenji turned to her, his face both handsome and cruel. “Let us hope that you can see beyond that, or our relationship and your life will end very quickly. Very soon it will become necessary for Ohnishi’s coup attempt to fail. Mayor Takamora is dead and soon Ohnishi will follow him. When this happens, we will need you to use your influence to calm the people and put an end to the violence.”

  “I’m a reporter. I report the news, I don’t make it.” Even as Jill spoke she remembered the words of her former colleague.

  Kenji said, “A journalist can sway more opinion and change more policies than every politician alive today. You have a power that most people don’t even recognize they have given to you. When the time comes, a few days from now, a w
eek at most, you will divulge everything you know about Ohnishi and Takamora. Since they will be dead, whatever you say will not be refuted. I will provide you with many more details. People must be focused on the coup attempt; it must remain the top story for several weeks.” At Jill’s questioning look, Kenji shook his head. “The reasons for this do not concern you. Once this is done, I promise that you will never be bothered again, and your complicity never revealed.”

  “And if I refuse?” Jill asked with more bravery than she felt.

  “Refuse now and I will kill you immediately,” Kenji said matter of factly. “But I don’t need an answer yet. I want you to think about it.”

  As he left, he added, “I chose you because I believe you will actually have a hard time making your decision. Do not disappoint me.”

  Arlington, Virginia

  Tiny’s Bar was, of course, named after its owner. On his first visit to the pub four blocks from his house, Mercer had expected to see a huge man behind the bar. Yet Tiny, Paul Gordon, was tiny, no more than four foot eight, about ninety pounds with his pockets full of bricks.

  The bar was small, only eight stools and six four-person booths. The linoleum floor looked as though it hadn’t been swept in years. The walls were decorated with horse racing pictures and trophies from Saratoga, Belmont Park, and Yonkers Raceway, just a few of the tracks where Paul had raced as a professional jockey. He had never reached the status of Willy Shoemaker, but he was a consistent rider with proven ability. But he gambled, and went on a particularly long losing streak. To pay back the debt, his loan shark ordered him to throw a certain race.

  Explaining it once to Mercer, Tiny had said that the horse was too much of a true winner to allow any other to beat her. He didn’t have the heart to rein her back and come in second. That night he was treated to a sumptuous victory banquet by the horse’s owner. The next morning the loan shark’s enforcers broke both of Tiny’s kneecaps with a steel wrecking bar. During the following months of painful rehabilitation, Tiny cursed the stupid nag for being so swift. He finally forgave Dandy Maid only after he opened a bar in his native Washington.