by Alex Archer
Keep it up, Annja, he told her silently. You might just need it.
And she did keep it up.
Long into the night.
With only her silent, watchful guardians to keep her company.
20
Switzerland, 2003
Shizu entered the room with more than a bit of trepidation. It had been several years since Toshiro had pronounced her ready to take her place in the world and she had used the time as she’d been instructed, traveling and learning. She had grown up considerably in those years, her core toughened and her edge sharpened by what she had seen and done, just like a sword that is tested again and again until it is pronounced ready.
Less than a week earlier she had received a message through the special channels that had been set up just for that purpose, a series of dead drops and hidden Internet communications. The message had asked her to travel to Switzerland. Sensei had a new mission for her. The summons had filled her with excitement, had shaken off the lethargy she’d been feeling for the past few months, and she quickly made the necessary arrangements.
The address turned out to be a small, private chateau in the Alps, hidden at the end of a long road that she would have missed if she hadn’t known what to look for to find the turnoff from the main road. She arrived late at night and had been met at the door by a manservant who led her to her room, stating that Sensei would see her in the morning.
After breakfast she’d been asked to join Sensei in the study. She entered the room to find him seated behind his desk, reading through a report. He pointed at a chair in front of the desk and went on reading without looking up.
Obedient to his wishes, Shizu sat.
After a few minutes he put the report down and looked at her.
“You are well, Shizu?’ Sensei asked, smiling in welcome.
Hearing his voice sent a thrill of delight through her body. It had been years since she had heard him speak to her aloud, but she heard his voice in her dreams each evening and knew she would never forget the sound of it.
“Yes, Sensei,” she replied. She did not ask how he was doing in return, as a Westerner might, for he was the master and she was the servant. He would tell her if he wanted her to know.
“Do you know why I have asked you here today?”
“No, Sensei.”
“I have a mission for you, Shizu.”
She remained silent, patient, content to sit there with him until he chose to tell her more or not. Either one would be okay with her, if that was what he decided to do.
It wasn’t hero worship; it was far beyond that. The man had saved her from slavery. He had given her purpose. Trained her, schooled her. He had made her into who she was today. He’d done it all from a distance, through a menagerie of teachers, but that didn’t matter. He was still the one who made it all happen, and long ago Shizu had pledged her heart and soul to him.
She would die for him.
In fact, she had no doubt that some day she would do just that. She couldn’t think of a more fitting way to end her life.
Sensei stood behind the desk, looming over her in his height. “As you no doubt have guessed, I have been preparing you for a specific purpose. Like clay in the potter’s hands, I have molded and shaped you to fit that purpose, to let you live the life that you were born to live.
“Now the time has come to set you on your way, to make you the light burning in the wilderness, the key for every lock, the whisper behind every door. To set you free so that you can become all that you are destined to become.”
He paused, and she could feel his eyes on her, looking her over. “Are you ready, Shizu?
“Only if you say I am, Sensei.”
“You are a weapon, Shizu, and it is time to point you at a target.”
Shizu’s heart raced and her blood sang. It was finally time to put all she had learned to the test.
“Come,” he said. “Let me show you your purpose.”
He led her across the room and into the next, which was set up like a command center—the walls were covered with charts and photographs and long stretches of dates and names; the tables were littered with boxes of files and computers running massive database searches.
Sensei stepped into the center of the room. Raising his hands, he gestured at the information gathered around him.
“A man died recently. His name is not important. In fact, I doubt we could find three people outside of those who have been in this room who could tell you what it actually was. He acquired a new identity long ago, one that he built into a legend, and it is that legend that I am interested in. Go on, take a look around.”
It soon became apparent that the man, whatever his name, had been an international assassin of no little skill. His long list of targets included ambassadors, government ministers, diplomats, even bankers and prominent businessmen. They were from more than a dozen countries. He had been like a ghost, infiltrating heavily guarded locations to deliver death by his own hand rather than with a bullet or a bomb, and the more she read, the more respect and admiration Shizu felt for this man. The work he had done. The skill with which he had done it.
Sensei must have noted her reaction. He said, “He was known as the Dragon and he elevated killing to an art form. You, Shizu, are going to take his place and be his successor.”
Shizu spun around, shock and surprise flooding her system.
“Successor?” she asked.
Sensei nodded. “The man was unimportant, but the legend he created, the symbol he represented, that is something too precious to be lost. For the past ten years, Shizu, I have been training you to revive the legend, to become the new Dragon.”
He gestured at the information around him again. “Study what is here. Learn who he was. How he killed. What it was that let an ordinary man, a cheap killer, become the myth that the world feared. This chateau will be your home, your base of operations. The staff has been instructed to serve your every need and there is money in an account to cover any expenses you might have.
“And when at last you are ready, I have a very special target for you.”
21
The news the next morning was full of stories about the shoot-out in the subway. Only one of the television stations mentioned the mysterious woman who, they claimed, was at the heart of it all, Annja was relieved. The last thing she needed was to be in the middle of a major news story, never mind have someone recognize her as the host of Chasing History’s Monsters. If they did, she’d have paparazzi camped out up and down her street. The police would certainly want to hear her side of the story as well, to say the least. She was happy to see the majority of the news channels were calling it a gang-related event, which she knew would sink people’s interest in it faster than the Titanic.
Besides, she had more important things to concentrate on. She knew that the sword the Dragon carried was the key to the whole situation. If she could understand the weapon, she could understand its bearer. So as soon as it was late enough the following morning, she made a series of phone calls and arranged to meet with Dr. Matthew Yee, curator of the Asian Hall at the American Museum of Natural History and the closest thing that New York City had to an expert on samurai culture.
He agreed to see her when she mentioned a Japanese sword with a dragon emblem etched into the blade. He had some free time late in the afternoon where he could fit her in, which meant that she had the whole morning to kill while she waited.
She decided to pay a visit to the New York Public Library, specifically the research section, and see if they had any information on the Dragon’s past or present that she might not yet be aware of.
The New York Public Library actually consisted of eighty-nine separate libraries—four nonlending research libraries, four main lending libraries, a library for the blind and physically handicapped and seventy-seven neighborhood branch libraries in the three boroughs it served. But it was the building on Fifth Avenue between Fourtieth and Forty-second streets that most people thought of w
hen the library came to mind. The two stone statues of the lions outside the main entrance, named Fortitude and Patience, seemed to guard the entrance from unwanted troublemakers and were the public face of the library the world over. As Annja walked past them on her way into the building, she gave the closest one a quick pat on the head.
“Good kitty,” she said, and laughed aloud at her own joke.
The library held in excess of fifty million items, from books to periodicals to film and video. She hoped that somewhere, in all that data, she could find something new to help her understand just why the Dragon had taken an interest in her.
She started with the periodicals first. The assassinations had occurred in different countries, but the targets had all been prominent enough that the American media had reported on them, as well. Unfortunately, the reports were dry, devoid of all but the most basic of facts, and Annja gleaned little from them that she didn’t already know. Her fluency in several languages allowed her to check out some of the foreign editions, too, but the end result was the same.
After an hour Annja decided to switch tactics. If she couldn’t find anything specific about the Dragon, maybe she could track down the Dragon’s sword.
Much of what she uncovered in the next hour was material she already knew, such as the fact that Japanese swords were classified by the length of the blade, with the shortest being a tanto and the longest being a katana, and that the majority of them came from five houses, or schools, of craftsmanship. She discovered a catalog of signatures for swordsmiths all the way back to the twelfth century, but none of the images matched the one she had drawn while in her trance. There were a few that were close, and she made a note to ask Dr. Yee about them later.
THE DRAGON HAD NOTED THE watchers of Annja’s apartment the day before. They were good, just not good enough, and sometimes it was that little bit that made all the difference in who came out on top.
Like now.
Dressed as a plumber in a grease-stained coverall and driving a battered old van, the Dragon showed up outside Annja’s apartment building about fifteen minutes after she had departed. The building had a security gate, but getting inside was just a matter of pressing several of the buttons on the directory and waiting for someone to hit the buzzer without bothering to ask who it was.
It didn’t take more than two tries. It rarely did.
Once inside the building, the Dragon went directly to Annja’s apartment on the fourth floor, knocked and pretended to be waiting for someone to answer the door. A long look around showed that the hall was empty, so out of the tool bag the Dragon was carrying came a crowbar. The locks themselves might be sturdy, but the wood around them was as old as the rest of the building. It didn’t take long to pop the locks and gain entry.
The loft was an open floor plan, with a large window occupying one entire side. Thankfully the curtains had been left drawn and the Dragon didn’t have to worry about the observers across the way taking note of what was happening.
At first, the Dragon just stood there in the center of the room, soaking up the atmosphere of the place, trying to get a feeling for the woman who lived there. There was a sense of a life lived in constant motion, of comings and goings without any real time in between. It felt more like a way station than a home to the Dragon—a not-unfamiliar feeling.
After that the loft was searched quickly, efficiently and with the kind of care that would make it nearly impossible to prove that anyone had gone through the place. If cabinets were opened, they were closed again. If objects were moved, they were put back in the exact position as before.
The Dragon wasn’t looking for anything in particular—just the opposite, in fact. The goal was to learn as much about the target as possible and the best place to do that was in the target’s own home. That was where people felt safe, where they were free to let their hair down and be themselves, where all the secrets they kept hidden from the world were revealed. The types of clothing they wore, the magazines they read, the shows they recorded on their DVRs—all these things could reveal important character quirks that might help the Dragon complete the assignment.
There were some interesting facts on display in this apartment. The clothing in the closet and in the wardrobe indicated a woman who was comfortable in her appearance; she didn’t need fancy clothing to make her feel more feminine or attractive. The books scattered throughout the place indicated a curious mind, one that was able to compartmentalize a whole host of topics at the same time, if the number of volumes that held bookmarks were any indication of her current reading habits. The food in the pantry—or rather, the lack thereof—gave mute witness to that fact that this was a woman who rarely cooked for herself.
In one corner of the apartment the Dragon found a padded workout area and a wall covered with a collection of martial-arts weapons—a sai, a pair of bokken, a bo staff, assorted throwing knives of different lengths and weights, even two different sets of samurai swords.
The weapons came from a variety of countries and a mix of styles. Forget being proficient, if she even had a working knowledge of all of them she would be an opponent worth fighting.
The mix of ancient pottery, artifacts and mementos from dig sites across the world supported the Dragon’s view of the woman as being a modern nomad. She was in so many other places that she did not have time to be at home.
Nearly half an hour had passed since the Dragon had entered the apartment and that was pushing it. The target might come back at any moment, so it was time to finish and get out of there.
The final bits of stage dressing didn’t take long. The tool bag was a bit heavier upon exiting than it had been on entry, but that couldn’t be helped.
The Dragon left the building, climbed back inside the van and drove off. The items that had been taken from the apartment would be tossed into various Dumpsters a few blocks away; they were just window dressing, after all.
ANNJA STEPPED AWAY FROM the stairs and noticed the damaged door right away. It hung slightly open and even from this distance she could see the gouges in the frame where a crowbar or tire iron had been used to force the locks.
“Crap!”
Annja considered returning to the street and calling the cops. After all, the thief might still be inside. But she’d faced down much worse than a punk involved in a little breaking and entering, so she decided to have a look around first. If she still needed the cops, then she’d make the call.
She approached her apartment and cautiously pushed the door open the rest of the way. She stood in the doorway, listening for sounds of someone moving about inside, but didn’t hear anything.
Emboldened, she stepped inside the apartment, and closed the door behind her with her foot.
She called forth her sword and, with it in hand, she made a thorough search of the premises. When she was satisfied that she was alone, that the thief had long since fled, she sent the sword away and tried to make a list of what was missing.
It didn’t take long. Her Blu-ray player, her Xbox console and a few other assorted electronics, stuff that could be pawned off easily without too much of a hassle. Her passport and other documentation were still in the desk drawer where she normally left them and none of the artifacts in her collection had been disturbed, which led her to believe that this was a simple smash and grab.
The fact that the thief had chosen her apartment rather than the one on the third floor was pure chance, it seemed.
Or was it? She wondered if there might be a connection between the events of the past few days and the break-in, but after giving it some thought she dismissed the idea as being just a bit too paranoid. Unless the Dragon had suddenly taken a liking to Guitar Hero 4, she couldn’t see any reason for her stuff to be missing.
No, she decided, it had to be a simple B and E.
And the truth was that break-ins like this happened all the time in New York, and Annja had been around long enough to know that the cops wouldn’t be able to do much about it. Maybe her stuff woul
d turn up, maybe it wouldn’t; they weren’t going to go out of their way to track down a petty thief with all the other problems the city had.
A glance at the clock told her it was getting late. She didn’t have much time before she had to get to her meeting with Dr. Yee. The police report could wait, she decided. It was only for insurance purposes, anyway. She had to get the door fixed.
It cost her extra to get the guy to come out immediately, but inside of an hour she had the doorframe fixed and new locks installed. By then it was time for her to leave for her appointment.
AS ANNJA PULLED UP IN a cab in front of the museum’s entrance on Central Park West, with its towering white columns and its bronze statue of President Theodore Roosevelt on horseback, Annja was hopeful that Dr. Yee’s expertise could fill in the missing pieces that her research that morning had not. With his help, maybe she could identify the sword.
The museum was one of the largest in the country, with forty-two permanent exhibits and a handful of temporary ones at any given time. Its massive stone edifice stretched out over several city blocks, attracting tourists just for its architecture alone. Even in midweek it was busy, and Annja stood in the foyer for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action to take in order to find Dr. Yee. As it turned out, he found her, having been waiting in the area and overhearing her tell the guard that she had an appointment.
Dr. Yee turned out to be a good-looking guy in his mid-thirties, with a quick smile and an encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese culture from the early Heian period to the Meijii Restoration and the dismantling of the samurai class.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Creed,” he said, shaking her hand and looking her over with an openly appraising eye. “I must say that you are not quite what I was expecting.”
“Annja, please. And why is that?” she asked, curious.
“While all geeks might dream of meeting a beautiful woman with knowledge about a legendary sword, very few of us actually believe it will ever happen and even fewer get to fulfill that dream. And you can call me Matthew, by the way.” He said it all rather lightly, with a just the right hint of self-deprecation, and Annja couldn’t help but laugh.