Year of the Demon

by Steve Bein

  Then he stormed away, and it was as if the sun had come out from behind heavy clouds. The mood was instantly lighter; a cool breeze returned where once the air was still.

  A chuckling Hideyoshi waddled over to Daigoro, looking for all the world like a shaved chimp in armor. “Nice ploy,” he said under his breath.

  “Whatever do you mean, my lord regent?” Daigoro kept his voice low too.

  “I reckon I’d have drawn on you.”

  Daigoro inclined his head. “Perhaps my lord has a keener eye than some of his generals.”

  “Perhaps!” Hideyoshi laughed, baring his sharp, mismatched teeth. “What would have happened if I’d drawn?”

  “There are so many uncertainties in combat, my lord regent.”

  “Meaning you’re wondering about the reach of my blade, neh? I’ll tell you this, boy: you look worn down to me. You’d better have killed me on the first exchange. I don’t foresee you holding your ground after that.”

  “A keen eye indeed, my lord regent.”

  Hideyoshi laughed again. “The balls on this kid! I swear, give me ten generals like you and I’d invade Korea right this minute. Damn, it’s hot this morning. Come on, walk me through the formalities so we can get down to some drinking.”

  Daigoro bowed deeply. “Forgive me, my lord regent. Not a month since I became a ronin and already I’ve got the manners of a barbarian.”

  He introduced his mother first, then Akiko, then the grandparents of the little groom, Yasuda Kenbei and his wife, Azami. Daigoro had known them for less than an hour, but his immediate impression was of unwavering seriousness. That was only natural, he supposed; they were wards of their grandson because little Gorobei’s father was a disgrace to the family, killed in a drunken brawl before the baby was even born. Kenbei’s hair was graying, though not nearly so white as his father’s; it looked more like storm clouds than snow, and he had stormy, steely eyes to match. He had twenty years on Azami, yet she was twice as stern, a stout pillar of a woman with forearms as thick as any blacksmith’s. She looked strong enough to punch holes in a wooden barrel.

  Perhaps their severity had something to do with the fact that Daigoro had forced them to drag themselves out of bed and ride half the night to marry off their departed son’s newborn. For all of that they looked remarkably genteel, both of them immaculate in twenty shades of green, and they did an admirable job of concealing their ire. When Daigoro saw how awed they were by his conversational tone with the most powerful warlord in Japan, he thought they might even forgive him someday for so thoroughly disturbing their morning.

  Everyone in attendance walked through the requisite pleasantries—praise heaped upon House Yasuda’s newest son for the strength of his grip, compliments on the surpassing beauty of the bride, kudos to both houses for choosing such an auspicious day under such auspicious signs and stars—and at last it came to the drinking Hideyoshi longed for so fervently. Daigoro, cheered at the prospect of relaxation for the first time in weeks, treated himself to three nicely chilled flasks within the first hour. He could not decide which pleased him more, the thought of Shichio sulking in some dark, stifled cabin of the regent’s flagship or the promise of a few uninterrupted hours of sitting with no other obligations calling on his time. By the time he finished the third flask he decided it did not matter, and happily ordered a fourth.

  Even so, he could not match pace with Hideyoshi, who despite his small stature could drink like a demon. Before the noon meal was halfway finished, the regent was singing boisterously. Daigoro was surprised at how gifted a singer he was, at least as far as drunken warlords went.

  When Hideyoshi was drunk enough not to notice, Daigoro took his leave. He and Akiko never made it as far as their bedchamber, opting instead for the top of a sake cask in the cool shady recesses of a storehouse. When they’d reassembled themselves, they marched off quietly and with great decorum to the residence, where they flung each other’s clothes off for a repeat performance.

  Afterward, Daigoro could not bring himself to say what he must.

  It did not matter; Akiko read his silence as if he’d shouted from a mountaintop. “I know your enemy will kill you if you stay here,” she said. She nestled her naked back against his chest and hugged his arms around her belly. “And me too, and the little one that quickens inside me. But tell me you’ll stay close.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d have me back. I thought you would be angry with me.”

  “I am. I was. The next time you plan on sacrificing our marriage, I’d prefer if you asked me about it first.”

  “Aki, I had no choice—”

  “Yes, you did.” She reached back and pressed a warm fingertip against his lips. She did not need to look back to do it; she knew his body as well as she knew her own. “You could have accepted defeat,” she said. “You could have strayed from your path, from your father’s path; you could have kept our family whole. And perhaps in time I might have learned to respect you again. Don’t mistake me, Daigoro: I’m proud of what you did.”

  Daigoro blinked. He could hardly believe his ears. “You are?”

  “Of course. My parents are samurai too; I know the path as well as you do.”

  Daigoro’s skin prickled; an ice-cold wave rippled over him despite the midday summer air. He hugged Akiko tight, ignoring the pain in his hands, his arms, his legs, pressing his cheek against her ear. For the second time he found himself dumbstruck. He wished for a word that expressed thanks and love and longing, all in the overwhelming measures he felt in that moment.

  And for the second time, Akiko heard his silence as if she could read his very thoughts. “Wherever the path leads you, stay close to me, neh? Never leave me again.”

  She pressed her back against him like a stretching cat, a kind of reverse hug, and Daigoro held her close. For the first time in what seemed like years, he felt truly at home.

  BOOK TEN

  HEISEI ERA, THE YEAR 22

  (2010 CE)

  59

  “Mariko!”

  Han had her in a half nelson before she knew it. She still had two fistfuls of long black beard. One of her officers came out of nowhere, holding Joko Daishi by the armpits so that Mariko didn’t have the whole of his body weight hanging from her two hands. Someone else assisted Han and locked down Mariko’s right arm. Mariko was so angry she hardly felt them.

  “Easy,” Han said. “Let him go, Mariko. I did enough damage to this case already. We don’t need you drawing police brutality charges to boot.”

  That snapped her out of her rage. She released her grip and stepped back, palms outspread in a peacemaking gesture, or at least an I-won’t-press-the-fight gesture. The other two cops lowered Joko Daishi back to a seated position against the wall. Han didn’t loosen his grip. “I’m serious,” he said, whispering in her ear. “That shit I pulled before, ignoring probable cause, it’s going to make it hard enough to land a conviction. You just ripped this dude off a motorcycle, Mariko. If he’s got short-term injuries, okay, he was assaulting you. But if jerking him around like that causes—”

  “Long-term injuries. It’ll sink our case. I know, Han. I’m cool.”

  Cautiously, he relaxed his hold. She could tell she’d taken him by surprise, pouncing on their suspect like that. In truth, she’d surprised herself. She hadn’t realized the affection she felt for her city—a city that would never run short on garbage to heap on a female police detective. COs who treated her like a girl, subordinates who treated her like an equal, newspapers that hungered to make her an item, slavering for every exploit, spoiling any chance she’d ever have for doing undercover work, all to boost their sales for a couple of hours. How many times had she asked herself why she didn’t go take a job in some Canadian police department, or an American one? Someplace where the pay was better, where the rent wasn’t so high, where she might find a boyfriend who wasn’t intimidated by her profession? And yet the mere mention of a bomb threat in her city was enough to bring her blood to a boil. Jok
o Daishi had threatened her home. She hadn’t felt at home in a long time, maybe not since she was a little girl. No wonder she’d reacted so violently; no wonder she’d surprised herself.

  “Okay,” Han said, and she could see his wariness recede. “Tell me what you got from him.”

  “A bunch of crazy cult bullshit.”

  “Come on, Mariko. Get your head in the game.”

  “Nothing, okay? He says his goal is to destroy order and harmony, whatever the hell that means. The guy’s out of his mind, Han, and that means we’re out of leads.”

  “That sounds like quitting,” Han said, “and you don’t quit.” He took her by the elbow and turned her around, leading her on a slow march away from their suspect. He was right to do it; just having Joko Daishi out of her field of vision was enough to slow her pulse a little. “Come on, now. Help me think.”

  Mariko frowned, ashamed of herself. Han was right: she needed to get her head together. But it was hard when her whole investigation had just been one frustration after another. First they had an upside-down drug buy. It got even loopier with the introduction of top-quality Daishi. Following up on that led to a pair of thefts that could have been drug related, except for the tiny little detail that the thief had no interest in selling the sword or the mask to buy drugs. Tie in a yakuza connection, a needless murder in the suburbs, and a domestic gas chamber and what did she have? Only the weirdest narcotics case she’d ever heard of—and that was before anyone mentioned the word cult.

  In three days they’d uncovered more arcane secrets than Mariko would ever have thought possible, and every last one of them raised more questions than it answered. Mariko didn’t want to give up. She wanted to push harder, but she didn’t have anything solid to push against. Her whole case was made of smoke.

  “What if we got everything wrong from the beginning?” she said. “What if the whole crazy cult thing is just a con?”

  “Seriously? We’re in midgame here, Mariko. You want to forfeit and go back to batting practice?”

  “No, I’m just asking if he’s playing the same game we are. What if we’ve got it all wrong? What if the Divine Wind is just a front operation for the Kamaguchi-gumi?”

  Han gave her a quizzical frown. “Where is this coming from?”

  “I don’t know. Desperation. Just work with me. Who gained the most from that dumb-ass drug buy with the Kamaguchis?”

  “The Kamaguchis.”

  “Exactly. They corner the market on the Daishi, and all they have to give up is a stupid mask.”

  Han shook his head. “How does that explain everything with the Bulldog? Every speed freak in town wants what he’s selling; what’s he got to be pissed about?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. I’m just spitballing—”

  “And I’m all in favor, so long as it gets us closer to figuring out where those bombs are going to go off. So? Does it?”

  Mariko didn’t have to think about that for long. She didn’t even have to answer; a resigned sigh was enough.

  “Look, maybe you’re right. Maybe he’s been throwing us curveballs all along. But maybe you had it right from the start. You profiled him as a whack-job cult leader, neh? So let’s stick with whack-job cult leader. What does that tell us?”

  Mariko nodded. Han had a point. “If he’s not playing us—if—then he really believes he’s preaching the truth of the Divine Wind.”

  “And that is?”

  She put her hands on her hips and looked at the ceiling. “Something about structure and order suffocating the mind. He wants chaos. He wants to shake people up.”

  “Finally something that actually makes sense.”

  “Huh?”

  “The Daishi deal. If you look at it as a narc, the whole thing is a fiasco. World’s dumbest dealer delivers top-quality product and forgets to call ahead to see if anyone wants to pay him for it.”

  Mariko nodded. “And walks right into a sting too.”

  “Exactly. But what if we look at it like a loony-tune cult leader?”

  “Then kicking hornet’s nests is some kind of spiritual exercise. Who cares about giving away a fortune in Daishi if you can flip the whole speed market on its head? It knocks the balance of power out of whack.”

  “That’s it,” Han said, giddy with the discovery. “It’s got to be.”

  Mariko felt something relax in her mind, the way her body would relax if she peeled herself out of a skirt and slid into some old jeans. She and Han were back to their old repartee, the shooting back and forth, bouncing ideas off each other, the ideas getting clearer, not breaking apart.

  “But then what?” she said. “Economic chaos? Collapse the black market and see how many legitimate businesses fall with it?”

  “Why not? Let’s face it, yakuzas run a lot more front companies in this city than we like to admit.”

  Mariko waved him off. “I don’t buy it. Take one look at that guy and tell me if the words mad bomber economist spring to mind.”

  Both of them looked at their perp. They’d been pacing back and forth as they talked, working out nervous energy, but even from a distance Joko Daishi’s mask was creepy as hell—all the more so because the guy wearing it was sitting contentedly on the floor, a childlike grin playing at the corners of his mouth. Somehow Mariko thought he’d look more natural with a bloody ax in his hand.

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, he looked at her. Locking eyes with him gave Mariko chills; her mind automatically conjured an image of him standing over her bed while she slept, watching her from behind that mask.

  Han noticed it when she flinched. “Okay,” he said, “we’ve got to change things up. All of this speculating isn’t getting us any closer to finding those bombs.”

  Mariko noticed he’d changed too. His gait was different. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet. Jittery. She’d seen him like this in the SWAT van too, right before go time.

  “Han, don’t even think it.”

  “I don’t want to, but we’re desperate. Give me two minutes alone with him and I’m telling you, I can get him to tell us where the bombs are.”

  “Two minutes? Two minutes ago you were the one talking me down. What happened to not sinking our case?”

  “What happened is this asshole is going to murder hundreds of innocent people. Sakakibara said it himself: who cares if we don’t get a single conviction, so long as we save lives?”

  “He wasn’t talking about beating information out of a suspect, Han.”

  “Look, I’ll be the one to take that hit, okay? My career is fucked anyway. We need to know where Akahata’s going with those bombs.”

  “We’re not crossing that line. Period.”

  Han’s eyes were pleading and pained and frightened and angry, all at once. “Mariko, he took off a long time ago. On a fast fucking bike. What makes you think we’re going to find him in time?”

  “Because we’ve got his boss, and because I think our speculating actually did us some good. Joko Daishi’s a strategist, not a mental patient. It’s like you said: from his perspective, everything he’s doing makes sense. All that Wind imagery—scattering, randomizing, blowing what’s orderly into disarray—that’s the real mask. He’s not following some divine hallucination. He’s got a plan. He’s got a timeline. He’s got—holy shit.”

  “What?”

  Mariko punched him in the arm. “The dope deals. Buying his hexamine with speed instead of cash. He was conning us, right from the beginning.”

  “Slow down, Mariko. What are you seeing that I’m not?”

  “As soon as we got onto the hexamine, what did we assume?”

  “MDA. . . .” Mariko could almost see the shift in his thinking, a deft little slide away from desperation and back to their old give-and-take. “No way. You think he decided to cook his bombs with hexamine just to throw us off his scent? To make us think he was just another random speed freak?”

  “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Come on. You’re saying he
knew we’d get onto the hexamine before we got onto the cyanide?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And he knew we’d leap to the conclusion that he was cooking MDA?”

  “We didn’t leap, Han; he pushed us. He’s not just making bombs, is he? He’s cooking boutique uppers with rare ingredients, and he knows exactly what any narc who runs across those ingredients is going to assume.”

  “And you and I never thought to question that assumption until we saw that.” Han jabbed a finger at the cluttered folding tables lined along the right-hand wall—the explosives assembly line. He shook his head, flabbergasted. He couldn’t even bring himself to look Mariko in the eye; he was too embarrassed by the idea that Joko Daishi had so thoroughly duped them. “This dude is thinking way farther ahead than we are.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like, months ahead. Maybe years ahead.” He snorted a self-conscious laugh. “You don’t suppose he writes it all down in a day planner, do you?”

  “Years ahead. . . .” Mariko didn’t even mean to say it aloud. She looked at the tables too, and at the hodgepodge collection scattered across them. Nails and screws: shrapnel. SIM cards, rubber-coated wire, outdated cell phones: remote detonators. Right beside them, gutted flashlights: handheld detonators. Any one of those items was totally innocuous. The only way to see them as dangerous was to take a much longer view.

  And then she saw it. The Year of the Demon. Right above those tables. “Holy shit, Han, it’s right in front of our faces. He’s got a calendar!”

  She turned and broke into a run. The cops watching over Joko Daishi instantly formed a defensive barrier, just in case Mariko was ready for round two. But Mariko was headed for the explosives assembly line, and specifically for the astrological calendar hung above it.

  Only one day was circled, smack in the middle. Mariko could make no sense of the rest of it—too many months, too many weird astrological squiggles—but she knew for a fact that Joko Daishi had been hurrying things along lately. Preparing for the Year of the Demon. The appointed hour. It was a good bet that the circled day was today. Tomorrow if she was lucky, but there was no point in assuming her luck would suddenly improve.