by Ryder Stacy
Rock stooped over.
“The stoop is convincing.” Chimura’s wife smiled. “Keep the paper parasol up—and direct it at the KGB sandbag installations.”
Rockson hobbled past his first KGB checkpoint ten minutes later. He was unbothered, except with jibes that he didn’t have to pretend not to understand.
The Japanese population was re-emerging into the streets. They didn’t make fun of his passing. The people loved their vagrant poets in New Tokyo. Rock was assisted across the intersections and greeted with bows everywhere. He didn’t know much Japanese, but he had memorized several of the great Basho’s seventeenth-century haikus, which he shouted out, as if half-batty, at odd moments while he hobbled along:
“With each puff of wind
the butterfly is alighting
differently.”
He alternated that poem with:
“By the light of new moon,
the land is inundated
with buckwheat!”
Finally, he had managed to get to a spot right across from the tower. He made mental notes of all he saw but wanted more; he wanted in. But how could he get past the sandbags and elite guards? If he ever was scared in his life, this should be the time, despite the shotpistol hidden in his robe. The place was crawling with sullen-looking Reds eager to use their weapons.
Almost forgetting to stoop, Rock started across the still-wet pavement, between slow-moving trucks painted with crude KGB symbols. He was stepping onto the curb in front of the first checkpoint when he heard a click. Out of nowhere, a KGBer had appeared, and Rock now felt the cold steel of a Tokarev pistol barrel on his left temple.
“Old man,” the soldier said, “recite a poem to amuse me—or die!” He used English—everyone’s second language worldwide since the twentieth century.
Rock giggled and nodded. He hoped the few raindrops still dropping weren’t smearing his face-job. This time Rock spat out a verse of the poet Shiki:
“Oh red carnations,
whiteness of butterflies,
who gave them souls?”
When the pistol was removed, Rockson, leaning heavily on his gnarled poet’s staff, limped on across the plaza of cut slate.
He was under the grid-work of the Tokyo Tower now, just fifty feet from the ornate gold-leafed double doors of the marble-walled core building, and he didn’t have a single idea on what to do now. Except wing it. A truck crawled across the plaza, and at the same time Rock saw a pair of dirty-coveralled workers roll a dumpster out of a service door, spill its contents into a wide pit and roll the thing back toward the entrance. He walked toward them, shouting out poetry, jesturing with his staff. They stopped in their tracks. He was counting on the workers being Japanese, not Reds. Trusting his life on that fact. The truck cut him and the workers off from the view of the guards at the tower’s west leg for a second.
“Quick,” he whispered to the workers, “I am sent by Chimura-san and the council. I must get into the building. Let me get in the dumpster.”
They bowed at the mention of the council. Rock slipped in the dumpster. They kept walking the dumpster—with Rockson in it—back to the service door.
Rock peeked through a hole in the filthy metal cannister. The guards, distracted by checking the I.D. of the truck driver, who they had halted, didn’t notice Rock had disappeared. Luck!
Once inside the tower building, he climbed from the dumpster and asked, “Which way to the lobby?”
The pair of stoic workers pointed left toward a door and bowed again.
“Thanks and sayonara,” Rock muttered, wiping his grimy kimono off. He must look a mess.
Just as Rock had hoped, once he was in the lobby, people assumed it was okay for him to be there.
Maintaining his crazed-poet persona, Rock limped around, slipping the ten listening devices he had in his robe under tables, in the floral displays and inside the sand ashtray next to the elevators.
He heard a snippet of conversation of two strolling majors: “The colonel will be not pleased that the work crew was blown off the tower. Still, the final switches were put in place.”
“Are you serious? Killov will live with a few deaths—as long as the weapon is operational. There’s more than enough power to operate the crystal laser now. Tomorrow we rule the world.” The officers, using a key, got in a silver elevator, and the door closed.
Rock, muttering koans and haikus, headed toward the silver-doored elevator with the death’s head and swords symbol. That would be Killov’s private elevator—why not go for the kill now? He was on a roll and should capitalize on it.
As uniformed men passed him in both directions, he pressed his lock pick in the keyhole and twisted. The elevator descended, the door opened and he stepped in. That raised a few eyebrows.
“What the hell is an aged, filthy Japanese doing in Killov’s lift?” a startled young lieutenant asked his companion.
“Not our business,” the other replied. They walked on, eager not to question the holder of one of Killov’s elevator keys.
Rockson’s heart pounded as the elevator closed and accelerated smoothly upward. His ears popped at 21, and again at 55. The elevator stopped, and the door opened on 71. Killov’s Lair!
Nakashima was busy dusting off the dials in Killov’s personal control room. Killov had gone to personally inspect the pagoda disaster site, still uneasy about the “freak” natural occurence there, leaving Nakashima in charge.
Nakashima lovingly worked. He’d scrape and bow, even caress his death-master’s boots! He had learned so much about negative energy, about death and darkness from Killov already. And there was so much more to learn from the skull.
WHAT? The elevator door was opening. Was his great master back already? Nakashima sensed not and dove to hide in the clothes’ wardrobe.
Through the half-shut louver doors, the chauffeur saw a tan muscular man standing over six feet tall and dressed incongruously in tatters of a kimono robe. The man was very strange. He had a mane of grey hair and heavy white eyebrows. But it was makeup. He wasn’t old at all. Nor was he Japanese! The intruder’s mismatched light and dark-blue eyes scanned the room. Nakashima watched as he went directly toward the control panel. The intruder looked around and raised the heavy wooden staff he carried. He raised it over his head, intending, Nakashima realized, to smash it down on Killov’s precious instruments.
“Banzai!” the chauffeur shouted, snapping his knife from its belt scabbard and throwing aside the louver doors. He lept for the strangely costumed, would-be destroyer. Nakashima was fast, and he hit the man at his waist, toppling him. But the man deflected his knife-blow to the side. He had not reckoned on the intruder’s speed, agility—and strength.
The intruder rolled, and as Nakashima drove his knife down at the man’s neck, a mighty hand stayed his effort. Had he but known he was attacking the Doomsday Warrior, the chauffeur would not have been so hasty.
Rockson spun to his feet and hit the defender with a head butt. But it was Nakashima’s chance now to show his battle skills, and the hefty Japanese took the butt and twisted to the side, smashing his locked fists onto the back of Rockson’s neck.
The Doomsday Warrior, seeing stars, nevertheless recovered and snapped into a crouch. He picked up his fallen oak staff and swung at Nakashima’s knees. But the man jumped, and the blow swished through empty air.
Who the hell was this ferocious Japanese opponent, Rock wondered. But there was no time to speculate!
Nakashima again lunged with the big knife, and it was Rock’s turn to be gone!
They faced off in a crouch, the Doomsday Warrior holding the club, the Japanese with the knife. Rockson didn’t want to draw this out; any second now someone else could join the party.
Nakashima backed off toward a display case that held an ancient ball-and-chain mauler—a relic of the samurai knights. “I, Nakashima, diciple of Master Killov, will destroy you,” the Japanese servant yelled.
The glass case was shattered by his elbo
w, and quick as a flash, he picked up the chain weapon. Swinging it mightily in his left hand, he rushed to attack the intruder once more.
Rockson again rolled to the side and snapped back into a crouch. He grabbed his shotpistol but thought better of it! No. A sound like that given off by the pistol would rouse the whole damned tower. He had to defeat this swarthy killman silently.
Nakashima, his chain-and-iron-ball samurai weapon swinging with a whoosh, came at Rock again, intending to deliver the heavy spiked ball into his skull, then jab the knife into his gut for good measure.
Rockson lifted the oak staff suddenly, snagging the chain, and then, before Nakashima could let go of the chain end, Rock pulled the staff with all his might. The Japanese fell forward, and Rockson smashed the barrel of the shotpistol on his left temple.
There was a crack and a spurt of blood. Nakashima, his eyes rolling upward, fell like a lead-filled sack at Rocks’ feet. And stayed down. Rock went over to him. Hesitantly, he felt for his pulse at his jugular and found no throb. He was dead, whoever he was. Time to go back and smash the panel.
No. The panel could just be repaired. If Killov wasn’t here to die, better to just plant the last of the listening devices. Damn, if he had realized he could actually get into Killov’s lair, he’d have brought plastique! Especially since there were structural faults here because of the unsupported large south windows. He would return with explosives—sixty pounds would do. It would have to be placed one flight up, to put downward pressure on the window area; then Goodbye tower!
But to do that, he’d have to first cover up that he’d ever been here.
Rockson did a quick floor search and found no other occupants. Then, Rockson dragged the body to the window. He opened the window and lifted the dead man into the opening, and letting him roll out into empty air. He left the window open and glanced around quickly: broken glass, a few drops of blood—nothing a distraught man wouldn’t commit if he was intending to end it all by suicide.
There was a loud thump outside—the body hitting. Well, it would have to do, Rock thought grimly. Time to leave!
Rock made his way down to the lobby via the same elevator. He managed to just get out the lobby door when a pair of KGB guards grabbed him. “What are you doing in a restricted area?” one asked. “Don’t you see that bloody body lying there old man? Don’t we have enough problems?”
“Excuse please!” Rock answered. “Winter sunset coats hills with—”
“Not so fast!” The guard that spoke grabbed him by his robe and said, “We’ve had about enough of you old silly poets roaming around the city at all hours. Semenov! Take this geriatric case to the looney bin! That will teach him to walk in a restricted area!”
Rock almost smiled. The jerkoff didn’t realize he was holding onto the Doomsday Warrior! He let himself be led away—muttering poetry—into a police van. Surely, this was an opportune way to escape the immediate area!
Twenty
Being in the insane asylum was like being in hell. Rockson couldn’t believe all this was happening to him. He had been injected with a strong drug the second he stepped out of the police van, just as he was about to dart away.
The first few hours were a dream, a hazy nightmare. All he remembered was being taken into the cell and again injected—this time with some drug that immediately made him feel paranoid, as if he were at the bottom of a deep pit, staring up at the menacing world above. Two hulking attendants had strapped him down on a dirty stretcher and wheeled him through long underground tunnels with steam rising out of pipes and past dark rooms that seemed to disappear into eternal blackness. He was taken to a small room with another patient already in it, a man who kept yelling something about the devil coming out of the sidewalk and eating all the Russians. I guess they put all the paranoid loonies in the same place, he thought, as he fell into unconsciousness.
When he awoke, two Japanese men in long white coats walked in and introduced themselves. “Good morning, Mr. Noname. I am Dr. Nisai, and this is Dr. Hakamisha. We are here to help you.”
“The only help you can give me,” Rock said groggily, struggling against the straps that held him down, “is to get me out of here. I’m not insane—I’m the Doomsday Warrior!”
“Of course, of course. But first we would like to talk with you a little. Listen to what you say, too. Now, apparently you have been going around causing a lot of trouble for other people and yourself. Shouting some stupid old poetry at our Russian friends.” The two doctors, one tall and thin, the other, short and nearly bald, stared at him. They smiled warm false smiles.
“Not stupid poems, you idiots,” Rock yelled. “Basho!”
“Ah yes, Basho—the great,” the tall one, Dr. Hakamisha said. “But why are you speaking English, Mr. Noname? Forgotten your Japanese?”
“I just can’t believe that this is all happening. I thought it was just Russians that put people in mental hospitals for opposing them. I am a friend of the Japanese.”
“Ah, a friend, Mr. Noname? What is a friend?”
Rock decided he had to risk it. He proceeded to tell them his story. About how he was part of an American attack team intent on destroying the tower’s crystal weapon and Killov’s occupying army. “Surely,” he said, “you are Japanese. You are against Killov!”
When he had finished, the two doctors looked meaningfully at one another. Dr. Nisai—the short bald one—took out a black notebook and said to Rock, “Mr. Noname, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps you are afraid of what the tower represents?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rockson asked, moving uncomfortably within his bindings.
“Well the tower is large and stands erect. Very big. Tell me . . . do you feel inferior to it in any way? Sexually perhaps?”
Rock burst out laughing. “You mean you think I’m jealous of the potency of the Tokyo Tower? Well let me assure you, gentlemen, I’ve had no trouble in that department! Women have always found me completely satisfactory. In fact, I’ve been quite a ladies man in my day. Now let me go! I must destroy the crystal!”
The doctors looked happy. “Tell us about this, Mr.—Warrior?” Dr. Hakamisha said. “In great detail.”
The questioning went on for almost an hour, then the two psychiatrists turned to leave.
“So now you know I’m all right. Right? Now let me out!”
“Oh yes, Mr. Noname,” said Nisai. “All in due time. There’s so much more to talk about.” They both left, an amused sparkle in their beady eyes.
Rockson screamed, “Goddamn crazy bastards,” as the two closed the door and locked it. He lurched and heaved against the bindings until his shoulders and arms were raw and red. The other patient in the room soon joined him, and the two men howled like wolves until a nurse came in and gave them each a shot of something. Rock suddenly felt very confused again. And the other man, who had the bed behind his, started screaming again about the devil coming up through the sidewalk to eat the Reds.
Maybe he’s right, Rock thought, dizzily. Maybe the devil is coming up through the sidewalks. Maybe they’re right, these crazy docs. Or else—would I be shut up in a straight jacket just like this. I must really be crazy!
He laughed. That was it! It was just an hallucination. He really wasn’t Ted Rockson; the Doomsday Warrior.
He didn’t know who he was. He was Mr. Noname!
He slowly fell asleep, seeing dim forms that looked like mixtures of his doctors and the devil about his bed. They were rising from the sidewalks, flying right up through the concrete and high up into the sky. They circled the Tokyo Tower like vultures, drifting slowly, looking down on Mr. Noname, who ran like a frightened rabbit through the tunnels and dark basements of the mental hospital.
“Coming out of it now,” a kindly female voice said. “My, what an unusual specimen. What did they say he was brought in for?”
“Shouting and being in a restricted area. He’s Caucasian beneath the makeup. He must be a Russian gone mad,” the Japanes
e doctor concluded.
Dr. Nisai scratched his bald head, “Well, in that case—if he’s not Japanese he will only be trouble! We’d better release him.”
The grey-haired woman doctor started unsnapping Rockson’s straight jacket, but Hakashima grabbed her arm. “Don’t do that! If he’s Russian, we’ve already condemned ourselves to death for the way we’ve treated him so far! We must continue to list him as Mr. Noname and keep him here!”
The woman nodded. “I see your point.”
They all left the room.
Rockson passed out again. When he awoke, he sat up. It was hard to do because he was still in a straight jacket. But his head felt clearer than it had since he arrived. He would have to use the time before he got another injection to try to escape. Or be here forever.
The other patient in the room—also in a straight jacket—spoke up.
“Ah, my weird friend,” said the middle-aged, squat Japanese patient. “And just who might you be?” There was derision in his voice.
Rockson decided to tell the truth. If the truth confused the sane doctors, perhaps it would be clear to this insane man!
“I’m an American. I’m in town to destroy the Soviet weapon. Who are you?”
“Ah me? The name’s Morimoto!”
Rock said, “Not The Morimoto, leader of the Bushido fighting clan?”
The man bowed his head. “Same as you state, my friend.”
“You’re just the man I’m looking for to help me,” Rock said eagerly.
“Really?” Morimoto laughed. “Well, I think that might be difficult. I can’t help anyone in a straight jacket!”
Rock said, “I see what you mean . . . It looks grim. But a Freefighter never says die.” Rock wished he believed what he had just said.
He explained why he had come. Rock told all, either because the mind drug was still working or an instinctive need prompted him to trust Morimoto.
“I will help you, sir,” Morimoto said. “We can escape if you have some ability. And it is imperative that we get out of here within the hour!”