by Barry Lancet
“Ah, we’re here,” Casey said.
The van ground to a halt in front of a fifteen-foot tower of wrought-iron grillwork bristling with security cameras and razor wire. Ornate yet impenetrable, the gate was the construct of a moneyed owner who valued his privacy.
The driver punched a code into a control panel below an intercom and the structure swung open. We rolled through. Ten-foot-high stone walls with more razor wire encircled the compound. Inside, the grounds were densely wooded and encompassed ten or fifteen acres, maybe more. We crawled along a twisting single lane of paved drive for nearly half a mile. Around the fourth bend, the trees broke and a three-story French manor with maybe twenty-five rooms swung into view. Flaunting an immaculate brick façade, the manor also boasted four chimneys, a large undulating lawn, and white wooden shutters on all the fifteen upper-story windows that I could see. Partially obscured by trees, what appeared to be guest cottages sat off to the right, and farther on, the shadowy forms of larger outbuildings loomed.
It took a moment before I got it. And only because I’d been there—to the village. A sharp stab of fear rippled my stomach muscles. I sat very still and drank in what passed in front of me. What very few, if any, outsiders had ever seen.
They were building the modern equivalent of a Soga village.
On American soil.
CHAPTER 65
BEYOND the immediate grounds, everywhere I looked I saw pine and oak and dense undergrowth. Beyond the house, I saw more trees and, between them, slivers of moonlight flickering on water. The Sound.
That was the giveaway. We were on Long Island, at the house Noda had unearthed. Only it wasn’t a house but a budding Soga community. A Japanese export of unique and horrifying proportions.
When Dermott released me, I wobbled unsteadily to my feet, my vision blurred, my head muddled. Floodlights bathed the manor in an icy blue brilliance. In the shadowy darkness beyond the illumination, men and women milled about in Soga black, their voices soft, ghostly whispers reverberating in my ear with drug-enhanced clarity.
We’d been outmaneuvered on every level.
With Casey leading the way and Dermott serving as rear guard, I was paraded across a gravel driveway, up the entry steps into a large marble foyer, then to a vast study with a baby grand piano on one end and a large colonial desk and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at the other. Gleefully, Dermott prodded me from behind with a steady stream of shoves. Once in the study, he thrust me into a chair near the desk and tied my hands behind my back, weaving the rope through the chair spindles exactly as he had done in my shop with the handcuffs.
Casey whispered into the ear of a tall, limber man in his mid-seventies. He had skin the color of marmalade from a bad indoor tanning experience and a severe face: thin lips, a sharp chin, and smoky brown eyes that moved incessantly and missed nothing. He wore a black Japanese samue with the usual roomy pants and truncated kimono-style top belted at the waist.
When Dermott had finished his handiwork, he stepped to the side and bowed.
“Well done, Casey. Dermott.”
They bowed deeply. Somewhere along the line, they had picked up flesh-colored earpieces, no doubt with the prerequisite wireless transmitters hidden somewhere on their persons.
In a deferential tone, I said, “You must be an Ogi.”
Dermott stepped forward and slapped my face. “Speak when you’re spoken to.”
“Fourteenth generation,” the older man said in accentless English, his chest expanding in pleasure. “And Mr. Summers is right to caution you about your manners.”
Ogi threatened with the same regal bearing as Casey, and moved with the same lightness. The final luster of Soga’s training, I imagined, something that had not rubbed off on Dermott, though the lack of polish made him no less deadly.
“It was merely an observation,” I said.
Dermott raised his hand but the Soga patriarch shook him off. The ploy didn’t fool me. From the outset my manner had been modest, but their game was submission and terror. The first time around, Dermott would have slapped me no matter what I said, a variation of the routine at my shop that culminated in the shooting of Abers.
I would need to choose my words carefully.
“Your attitude was inappropriate,” Ogi said without humor.
Dermott resumed his position alongside Casey, a pace behind his master. No one stood behind me or could see my back. I slipped the metal tab from its hiding place next to my thumb and began to rub the sharp edge against the rope.
“I apologize. The slight was unintended.”
“Accepted,” Ogi said too quickly, already bored. “I only regret your visit had to be an unwilling one.”
“You left your signature in Japantown. That’s nearly an invitation.”
Ogi frowned. “The kanji was meant as a warning. One you chose to ignore.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“Hara did.”
“He didn’t share the information.”
“The fee Brodie Security received suggests otherwise.”
“I thought I was dealing with a distraught grandfather.”
Ogi’s eyes became slits. Then he gave a spiteful laugh. “You know what? I believe you.”
As a direct descendent of General Ogi, he carried himself as grandly as his noble ancestor must have. A steely condescension inflated him. No doubt commanding your own private army could enlarge your sense of self-worth. Or maybe he was simply proud of coming from a long line of blue-blooded butchers.
“It’s a pity you’ve been so resourceful, Mr. Brodie. Had this been a social call, we might have discussed art,” he said. “I have two Klees, three Brancusis, and a half dozen Diebenkorns.”
I was silent. Ogi examined my face in brief, predatory flicks. His skin gave him a sickly gleam but he was fit, his muscles taut. I wondered about his coloring.
“Over the years,” the Soga leader said, “there have been three or four who have come as close to our core operation as you have. Others have survived a visit to Soga. But until now no one has managed both. It is a feat to be applauded. We respect such accomplishments, especially since we work so hard to be, ah, self-effacing. It is essential to following our Way. Our tradition goes back three hundred years and requires perfection. When we meet superb execution in another, we feel honor bound to applaud it. Unfortunately, your skills failed you in the end. In our eyes, yours will be an honorable death, as were those of your predecessors.”
There it was again. So matter-of-factly laid out. Given the risk they took to kidnap Jenny from under the nose of the police, it made no sense whatsoever. But, illogical or not, this time I heard the truth in the firmness of Ogi’s tone, saw the finality in the austerity of his look.
The stillness I’d rediscovered late at night after Abers’s shooting settled low in my stomach. I could die if it came to that. If I were alone. But I wasn’t. I had Jenny to think about. Was my daughter’s life to be cut short because of callous men like Ogi and his crew?
I continued to saw at the bindings, my progress slow but steady.
“What about my daughter?”
“We told you. Nedayashi.”
“You told me to back off.”
“But you didn’t, did you? You took a risk and were caught. Face it like a man.”
“There’s Noda and George,” I said.
The fingers of Ogi’s right hand lingered at the left cuff of his samue. From the angle I had, seated and lower, I could see a glint of metal inside his sleeve.
Ogi’s look was stern. “Who, you would have us believe, are on flights to Shanghai for a new assignment, as we demanded. We intercepted emails to your Tokyo office and checked the flight manifests. They bought tickets, and indeed men with their passports boarded their flights. Yet they are here in New York.”
How early had they caught on to our double fake? It had been my idea to use the tapped computer terminal in Tokyo against Soga—to let them “intercept” the email—but that plan
too had failed.
I sighed. “You’ve been thorough.”
“We always are.”
I didn’t know how, but Soga had penetrated every aspect of our operation. Their efficiency gave rise to an unbearable arrogance. But keyhole peepers were always paranoid about missing the bigger picture.
I said, “Good habit, that.”
“Pardon?”
“Being thorough.”
Ogi narrowed his eyes at me. “What are you saying?”
“Maybe you’re not the only one who thinks ahead.”
“If you’re stalling for time, you’re wasting your breath.”
“We know all about Teq QX, for example.”
Ogi’s head swiveled toward me, his eyes pooling with curiosity, the first spark of life I’d seen in them since my arrival. “What do you know?”
“It’s the plum. The prize.”
A grin spread across his face with the languid ease of a rattlesnake slithering silently over cool desert sand toward its prey, and I knew I’d guessed wrong. Again. I waved Teq QX around in an attempt to show him I knew too much to be silenced. His grin told me the ploy had backfired.
It told him how much I didn’t know.
“That’s why,” Ogi said with relish, “it makes the perfect camouflage. Hara angered too many people with his aggressiveness.”
So Japantown was an attack on the renegade mogul, but not because of Teq QX. I said, “Camouflage or not, Teq QX is going to generate billions going forward.”
“In Japan, money is secondary to power. You know that. Once you have control, you can squeeze the money out anytime you want.”
Damn if he wasn’t right. On both counts.
“Teq QX was a decoy, then. That your idea too?”
“Yes.” Ogi beamed with an unequivocal pride, and I drew back, repelled at his uninhibited display and what it implied.
He shared his secrets far too freely, which served to confirm what Dermott and Ogi had told me: my death warrant had been sealed.
CHAPTER 66
I SCRAMBLED desperately for a new foothold. The problem was this: Ogi could no more share his creative genius with the world at large than an S&M aficionado could display his whips and chains at a neighborhood block party. The Soga leader could, however, reveal his mastery in front of someone who wouldn’t be taking the secret far. Think, Brodie, think.
“Sharp,” I said, hoping my voice sounded assured, “but you killed a whole family in Japantown. Which must have fetched a hefty price tag. Not too many people have that kind of money to toss around. Either one of Hara’s bigger rivals or someone in the government with a solid slush fund. I’m banking on the government.”
Ogi’s eyes sparkled. I’d regained some ground, and time. “Very good. But why?”
“Government means the ministries, right?”
“Right.”
I drew a long breath, collecting my thoughts. “Hara’s case is different, isn’t it? Japantown says that. Hara’s always been clever. They couldn’t quietly chip away at his empire with audits or by changing some statutes like they usually do, because Hara would fight, and win sympathy from the people for his struggle. So they needed a new way to take him down.”
Ogi was motionless against the edge of the desk, listening closely, enjoying himself.
Think. A ministry gofer shows up and prods Hara about Teq QX, then threatens him. The performance is repeated. After the shock of Japantown, Hara starts hunting for the culprit. There are too many possibilities and it’s driving him mad. He’s lost his family, he can’t nail down their killer, and slowly, inevitably, the tenacious rebel begins to unravel. I saw clear signs of his disintegration in Tokyo, and now I saw how it was meant to end. When Hara’s downfall was complete, stories about the once great, now broken, man would begin to circulate.
Japantown was a face-off between the entrenched powers and a rebellious upstart.
I took the logic to the next level and the answer slotted home. “The killings in San Francisco will be remembered for a long time. They’re a warning to Hara, as well as to others not to follow in his footsteps. That’s why you left your calling card.”
Ogi brought his hands together in silent applause. “That was quite a show, Mr. Brodie. Your talent’s wasted in antiques. Hara is a part of a new breed of Japanese business leader who forsakes the clannishness of tradition for more selfish Western ways. He’s outspoken, independent. He acts without considering the greater good of Japan, and Japan Inc.”
“Which is directed by the ministries.”
“Of course. Japan is a small country. The bureaucrats control the economy, the laws, the politicians, the people. All facets of life. They control who does business in Japan, and with Japan. They control your dealings. Do you deny it?”
“No. I’m very aware of their meddling.”
Ogi said, “Hara’s growing profile signaled a trend the ministries didn’t like. Should it continue, they foresaw control slipping away. That is when they called us.”
Keep him talking. “How high does it go?”
“The top.”
“Yuda, then?”
His eyes flinty, Ogi brought his hands together once more in silent accolade.
My breathing grew ragged, my insides burning with rage. Shingo Yuda, as head of the Ministry of Finance, was the most powerful bureaucrat in the land. Famously, he had railed against what he called the “selfish, unpatriotic new business ethic.” His was the rallying cry of the Iron Triangle, the old crony system.
“There’s one other thing,” I said.
“What might that be?”
Older man . . . sixties or seventies . . . arrogant and brutal . . .
“You wrote the kanji found in Japantown, didn’t you?”
Ogi grew unnaturally quiet, and for the first time I glimpsed anger behind his haughty bearing. I’d made a grave mistake. The force of his displeasure pressed in on me.
Ogi glared. “I should have listened to Dermott from the first, when he begged me to dispose of you. A major blunder we’ll repair tonight. But you asked about the kanji. Consider my answer a parting gift. Yes, I wrote it and Casey delivered it.”
Casey delivered it. The man in question reddened, gratified to be singled out for praise by his superior. Jesus.
I shook off my disgust. “The kanji was for Japanese eyes only, wasn’t it?”
“Correct. A reminder to any others who might consider following Hara’s footsteps once he self-destructed. Leaving our trademark in Japantown was a low-risk proposition since channels to Tokyo had been shuttered. Until you showed up. Now, if that is all, we have other items on our agenda tonight.”
This time the finality of his tone was undeniable. But I had one more question.
“What about Jenny?”
“We’ve already discussed that. She’s to die.”
“Can I see her?”
“I could arrange a brief reunion, but I’m not inclined to do so.”
Jenny is alive . . .
I felt relief, though it was a false relief. We had lost. Utterly. I was penned in behind enemy lines while Renna and the task force were miles away, dreaming about a tomorrow I’d never see.
“Good-bye, Mr. Brodie.”
Ogi’s fingers crab-walked up his sleeve. I heard a whizzing sound of metal over cloth, and watched in alarm as a length of wire wormed its way from the patriarch’s clothing. His fingers curled around wooden pegs at both ends of the wire and pulled it taut.
Wire . . . handles . . .
It came in a flash of understanding, the old powerbroker mourning his loss: Three years ago, my adopted son—the man I’d handpicked to carry on after my retirement—was found dead on the streets of Karuizawa, his neck sliced clean to the spine. Garroted.
All at once, I understood how my life would end. Mumbling a silent good-bye to Jenny, I closed my eyes. Behind the dense blackness of my eyelids, I grasped the stillness. The thief stood before me, but I was anchored in a calm he couldn’t take.
I was ready.
CHAPTER 67
JUST then a distant explosion rocked the manor, and a fine spray of dust sifted down from the exposed beams overhead.
Ogi shot a frown at his two soldiers. “Find out what that was.”
After hurried bows, Casey and Dermott bolted from the room.
Ogi turned burning eyes on me. “You want to tell me about that?”
Explosives? Had to be Luke. McCann’s reach wouldn’t stretch that far. Neither would Renna’s. Noda’s background was limited to guns, knives, and hand-to-hand. That raised a troubling thought I had no time to consider but found extremely disturbing: if Luke willingly rigged something as destructive as a bomb, he wasn’t the traitor.
“It’s beyond me,” I said.
Ogi scowled. “No, it isn’t. And you’re going to tell me.”
Taking a step forward, Ogi raised the garrote. I pressed myself back in my chair, putting maybe four more inches of distance between us, for all the good it would do me.
Hurried footfalls approached and the next instant a young recruit in Soga black, his hood pushed up, dashed into the room, halted abruptly, and bowed deeply before speaking in a breathless but controlled voice. “Ogi-sensei, they destroyed the boats.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes, sir.” The messenger bowed and retreated. For some reason his superior did not want to broadcast the news via their headsets.
Smart, I thought. Retreat by sea had just been eliminated.
Ogi glared at me. “Bringing you here was a costly indulgence.”
My time was up.
Another pair of footsteps echoed in the corridor, then a second soldier appeared in the doorway. “Ogi-sensei, Naito-sensei wishes to see you immediately.”
Sensei. Another commander was present in the field. Soga was out in full force.
“What is it?” Ogi asked.
The fighter glanced my way. “He requests a word in private, Sensei.”