Zach left him to his memories. Now that they were safely in the armored vehicle, he could give in to his own preoccupations. He mentally listed all the steps he’d taken to prepare for the coming confrontation at the warehouse tonight. A smile lifted his lips as he visualized Hana’s expression when she saw him. This time, she wouldn’t escape. They safely rounded the drive, turning on to a major street, and for the first time since he awoke that day, Zach relaxed.
* * *
Outside, a stocky male figure in green camo waited, legs crossed, perched in the lowest branch of a huge oak. Like the ninja he revered, he wore the stillness of his ancestors as easily as the camo. At any distance beyond a few feet, he was virtually indistinguishable from the tree. He held a powerful Nikon digital camera and used its zoom to snap close-ups of John Travis and his guard as they got in the armored limo. Calmly, his breathing very even, he waited for all the cops to disperse before he sought his own Kawasaki motorcycle hidden in the thick shrubbery. He replaced the camera in its case and drove away.
* * *
That night at precisely 2:00 a.m., Hana and Ernie, lithe figures in black, clung to the side of the three-story warehouse on Dessau in east Austin. Hana had received a curt text from her contact that would be gibberish to anyone but her. It stated the blade had arrived on a late shipment and was due to be delivered to the Travis household tomorrow morning. She and Ernie had followed their prearranged plan.
They’d circled the entire building, looking for any telltale signs of a stakeout, but the warehouse district looked deserted except for trucks in the transit company lot, all marked with their logo. They felt the hoods . . . good. None of them were warm. No new arrivals.
Ernie then disabled the external security system that controlled the motion detectors and window sensors while Hana rigged up their gear. The climbing gear, complete with wall anchors, would allow them to climb the slick brick exterior and then rappel down. They knew the vault holding the most valuable transit items was on the third floor, and only one window was dimly lit. They also had monitored the building several times, enough to know that only two men were on guard: First, at the entrance; second, outside the vault. Easy pickings for two martial arts experts.
They’d briefly debated as to whether it was too easy, but the Travises would have no way of knowing she had contacts familiar with the building security. They probably thought a supposedly impregnable vault and two armed guards were protection enough for the brief twelve-hour period during which the blade would be stored there until the planned delivery in the morning.
They didn’t know Ernie had studied the same model vault several times. Her contact had given her the model number and Ernie had a friend out in Spicewood on his own land who was a former welder at a safe manufacturer. His hobby was collecting safes—or at least that’s what he told the authorities on the rare occasion he was questioned.
This model was a couple of years old and like many of the newer digital safes, seemed impregnable. It was designed to lock down after two abortive passwords and not open again without a special security code known only to the owner of the company.
Ernie didn’t intend to use a password.
Hovering on the side of the building, Hana held her breath as Ernie soundlessly raised the windowsill. She sighed in relief when no alarm blared, then followed him inside. Carefully, they appraised every corner, using the night-vision goggles inserted in their hoods to appraise the room. Sure enough, a man in a security uniform sat in a desk chair in front of a massive vault door. However, he leaned against the wall with his cap tilted down over his head, looking half asleep. He held a shotgun, but it had fallen down into his lap. The only light in the room was a lamp on a desk on the far wall, too far away to burn their lenses.
Easy-peasy . . . the guard barely startled awake as they pulled a gag around his mouth. He began to struggle to lift his gun, but Hana snatched it away and stuck it against the opposite wall, racking out the shells, while Ernie tied the man up with zip ties.
“Sorry, pal,” Ernie muttered. “We’ll never tell anyone you were asleep.”
The guard was very quiet. Very calm. He didn’t even struggle. Hana was taken aback by his reaction. She’d been uneasy from the moment they’d arrived and the guard’s nonchalance raised her apprehension a notch. This was going far too smoothly.
Ernie took off his backpack, pulling out a reciprocating saw to begin cutting a hole, not in the huge, thick steel-plated door, but into the reinforced Sheetrock it was embedded in. Hana still appraised the room. But she bit her tongue on the concern she wanted to voice to Ernie, not wanting to interrupt or distract. The sooner they got out of here, the better.
Just in case, she went to the desk phone and checked the dial tone: none. It was dead. She put it back in its cradle, a bit reassured. The security-system cut had worked.
Ernie had a huge, neat rectangular hole cut in the Sheetrock quickly enough. Next, he cut through the wall stud to get deeper into the cavity. Over the soft whir made by the muffled drill, he said, “Relax, it’s not a support beam.”
She wasn’t surprised that he’d picked up on her unease, even as busy as he was.
“I’ll watch out the window . . . hurry, please,” she responded. Walking to the window, she kept to the side so her shadow wasn’t visible outside and looked down at the street.
A car passed slowly, but it was a sports car that looked nothing like a security or police vehicle. It soon disappeared around a curve.
Finally, she heard the sound she was waiting for: the bite of a very powerful and fine diamond bit into steel. The door of the vault, as Ernie had explained to her, had a thick layer of glass. The minute it was penetrated, its shattering triggered the secondary locking system that slammed a second lever into place over the door and required the special security code to open.
So Ernie didn’t go through the front; he bypassed it to the side of the vault. From there, after measuring carefully, he made an angled cut that left a wide hole: wide enough for him to slip inside a flexible tube with a tiny video camera and light at the end. Ernie eyed the small-view screen attached to the tube, tweaking it into the premeasured position he’d practiced on the other safe.
He made a satisfied sound somewhere between an ah and a grunt. “Come hold this for a second.”
Hana complied, glancing again at the guard. He was very quiet and watchful, barely moving a muscle. She frowned beneath her hood, thinking again that he reacted strangely. Typically guards in such a position had two emotions: fear or anger, or a blend of both. This guy just watched . . . as if waiting. But there was nothing to do but help Ernie so they could get the heck out of there.
She held the tube steady while he fed another thin, flexible wire down the tube’s length, slowly and carefully, using the viewing screen as his guide. The wire had a hook on the end that popped out and widened once it reached the opening in the tube. Ernie maneuvered the wire slowly, slowly, feeding it to a location mystifying to her but obviously premeasured to him. Finally, he stopped pushing and turned his wrist to a pulling position. The hook caught on a small release lever she could barely make out in the gloom of the safe interior on the tiny view screen.
Ernie pulled, slow and gentle. When the hook was firmly caught on the lever, he tugged harder. With a slight scraping sound, the latch moved. The safe door opened with a soft whish of air, gapping an inch. No alarm, no glass breaking. Lights automatically came on in the interior.
She knew Ernie was smiling behind his hood because she heard it in his voice. “Release mechanism in case someone gets stuck inside. The safer they make these things, the easier they are to break into.”
Ernie took a swaggering step to push the door wide. He froze. Slowly, his hands lifted in the air. He backed up.
Hana was standing to the side, distracted. Her heart was leaping as she visualized holding the katana for the first time, this sword her ancestors had died to protect. But when Ernie raised his hands, she snapped to attentio
n. Her gaze frantically scanned the room, and then she bolted toward the window. She looked out, preparing to grab the nylon rope she’d anchored.
It was gone. She looked up at the anchor bolt she’d shot into the side of the building. She saw a neat inch of rope still tied to the bolt. It had a straight edge—it had been cut. By a very sharp knife.
The little bravado she’d retained deflated instantly. She ducked inside. As she slowly turned toward the safe, she knew whom she’d see. Ernie had backed up until his tall form blocked her view, but she recognized the voice.
“Hello, Hana.” Zachary Travis stepped outside the safe, where he’d obviously been waiting. He held a Glock on them. With his free hand, he used a wicked-looking special forces knife to cut the guard free. “Nice to see you again.” Somehow, despite his pleasant tone, his voice dripped with contempt.
Slipping the knife back into a sheath at his waist, he pressed the mike on the side of his head. “Situation secure. Backup requested.”
Feet stormed up the hallway outside. The door they’d locked lost its bolt as it was rammed to the ground.
Then a SWAT team wearing DPS insignia crowded into the room.
Zach eyed Ernie’s tall form. “And you are?”
Ernie shrugged. “Smart enough not to answer without my lawyer present.”
Then they were both handcuffed, hands in front. One of the men pulled Ernie’s hood off. The head of the SWAT team moved to shove Hana ahead of him out the door, but Zach stopped him.
“Wait a minute.” He disappeared inside the safe and exited, holding a long bundle wrapped in red silk and gold cord. “Is this what you were looking for?” He jerked his head at the SWAT commander. The man pulled off Hana’s hood and stepped back, grinning.
She blinked, her vision adjusting to the dim lighting. Then she focused on the long object. Her eyes filled with tears. She bit her lip rather than give him the satisfaction of her despair.
Snapping on the overhead light, Zach unwrapped the sword, reverently holding it out toward her. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” He turned it this way and that. The many layers of lacquer on the highly glossed black sheath made it gleam. He pulled the sheath off. The elegant sing of the blade as it came free sent a shiver down her spine.
She knew what the Nakatomi katana looked like because she’d seen multiple family pictures taken before the blade was lost to them in the 1940s. This sword was even more beautiful because then the blade had been dull, slightly pockmarked on the edge, its fine silk-woven hilt, in the traditional diamond-shaped pattern, a bit frayed.
It had been totally refurbished by experts. The diamond-shaped triangles were now sharp in that distinctive samurai form, allowing a firm grip on the long hilt designed to be wielded two-handed. The sheath was simple bamboo, she recalled, but it was black as ebony, glossy now with many coats of lacquer. The hilt was a stylized hawk, the heraldry symbol of the Nakatomi family, slight flecks of the original gilding remaining. And the blade . . . It looked as if it had recently been polished. It shone, reflecting every tiny ray of light as Zach moved it from side to side. A slight hazing of the steel made a very faint pattern of feathers. Hana knew if the blade was removed from the fittings, the Nakatomi mon, or crest, would be imprinted on the steel: A crossing hawk in a circle.
The edge was obviously very sharp, which Zach demonstrated on a piece of paper from the desk. With one small stroke, the paper fluttered to the floor in two distinctive pieces.
He turned to Hana with a cold smile. “Sharp, isn’t it? Would you like to test it out yourself on your next victim?”
Zach and the SWAT team leader both watched her expression and body language, but Hana barely heard the taunt, focused only on the katana. Her fingers itched and she had to clench them into fists to avoid the urge to grab it. Which was impossible, considering her hands were cuffed, but for now, she was focused only on the katana.
It was the blade that made the sword so unique and valuable. In fact, samurai swords were sometimes displayed with only the blade showing. Masamune swords, seven centuries after his death, were still strong and flexible, almost invulnerable to breaking. Made by hand in three different consistencies of tempered steel, the Nakatomi katana had been forged, turned, and cooled many times so that the sword was of different tensile strengths depending upon the strike: body blow with the side edge, stab with the tip, or sword-to-sword locked in battle near the hilt. Masamune swords had been hugely prized even in the heyday of the samurai before modern imperial Japan. Now, they were literally priceless . . . but it wasn’t money she and her grandfather wanted.
This blade belonged to them.
Their ancestors had used it in battle, generation after generation. Nakatomi tears had blessed it, forging a bond reaching across the ages as strong as the steel. Automatically, for she felt it her birthright, she reached out without thinking, her hands still cuffed. “Give it to me.”
Zach looked at her as if she were crazy. “I don’t care to be gutted too.” He stuck the sword back in the sheath and rewrapped the blade in its red protective covering.
What was he talking about? Hana knew he was accusing her of something awful, but she had no idea of the specifics. This would be her only chance to get the sword to Jiji in time . . . before he . . .
She gnawed at her lip so hard she tasted blood. “Please, may I borrow it? For just a day?” She debated telling him her family history.
Zach gave her a cold glance before he handed the sword to the armed head of the SWAT team. “My dad is expecting it. You’ll take it in the armored transport?”
The man nodded. He held it reverently as he exited.
Hana swallowed back her tears as yet again, the blade was taken far beyond her reach. She knew it was useless, but still she tried. “I’ve never cut anyone with a sword in my life. I did not kill your friends.”
“Yes, well, you can tell that to the brass. My job is done.” Zach turned on his heel and left her to be shoved down the hallway to the elevator, her hands still cuffed.
Chapter 6
As she sat in her holding cell awaiting interrogation, Hana reflected glumly on all the key concepts of karate she’d violated on the second transgression that landed her in a jail cell: Free the mind; support righteousness; karate begins and ends in respect. And most of all, never attack first.
Yet how could she obtain the sword without attacking? Perhaps she should have just gone to John Travis and thrown herself on his mercy, asking pretty please to borrow the sword. But she suspected his reaction would have been the same as his son’s—scorn and disbelief. And always, Takeo’s stalwart little figure hovered above every karate precept. She’d had no choice but to give Kai the blade if it was the only way to free her son.
With time for nothing but reflection, she stopped in front of the tiny window, looking at the patch of blue above her head. It reminded her of the porthole that had decorated their cabin on the yacht they’d used to sail the Aegean. How many years ago now? Six, at least. One of Kai’s allies had loaned it to them shortly after they became lovers. She usually avoided thinking of that time, for that was when she’d fallen deeply in love with the boy who seemed as wrongly outcast as she felt. She couldn’t reach the window, but she put her palm flat against the wall beneath it, tears coming to her eyes despite her best efforts.
How had they come to this, when she’d loved him so in the beginning? She knew the answer: Because he let his resolve to prove himself better than his father twist him beyond recognition. The Yakuza were not known for paternal excellence, but they drilled the concept of duty and loyalty into their offspring from a very early age. Hana knew that Kai had been lucky to escape with his life when he violated all his oaths to gain control of his father’s empire. He was twenty-two, an illegal immigrant, she a sixteen year old American born and bred, when they became lovers. They’d been sparring in the ring together as Ernie’s two star pupils since she was twelve.
And yet . . . she’d made excuses for him then. He was so st
rong, so smart, and so charming. She understood that he’d felt stifled under his restraints, for her mother continually tried to make her into her image of a proper Japanese girl—complete with kimono and wooden clogs. It was their mutual rebellion that brought them together. Initially, at least. But Kai had been a tender lover, already much more experienced than she because he was six years older and she was a virgin.
On that particular voyage, the world was as limitless and new as the horizon. Kai helped her look past duty to see the possibilities of a life without such restrictions. She had been his sole focus of attention.
She remembered their first morning in the sun-streaked cabin. The scent of their long night of lovemaking still wafted from the silk sheets. Kai was insatiable, and she so enjoyed everything he was teaching her that she ignored her soreness because she wanted only to please him. Afterward, Hana had always suspected Takeo had been conceived on that morning when Kai bent her backward over the side of the bed, tilting her hips up, and took her over and over; not violently, but with his firm stamp of possession.
Only when they were both sweaty and panting did he let her rest. He’d teasingly brushed back a damp tendril of hair from her temple. “A fitting woman for the new leader of the Edo Shihans never tires of her master’s touch.”
Even then, Hana recalled, she’d inwardly balked a bit at his arrogance, but his smile made his face so beautiful that she’d merely circled his strong mouth with her fingertip. “Yes, master; anything you say, master.” And when he lowered his mouth to kiss her, she squirmed free and leaped up, running with a taunting laugh to the tiny head to lock him out and shower. He made a pretense of banging on the door, but she heard him laughing too.
And so it had gone for two glorious weeks. They stopped at island after island, making love in every possible position on the ship, on the islands. Once Kai even bent her over a tree branch. By the time they returned to Austin, he might as well have been her master in deed as he was in name . . . and so she’d violated every lesson her mother and Jiji ever taught her. She let him turn her into a drug mule.
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