The emperor sat on a wooden bench, his eyes still fixed on Fujimi-yagura.
“I am sorry for your suffering,” Ito said. “But as to my question about your view on national defense?”
The old monarch sighed. “The present situation was not what my father intended when he agreed to the terms of surrender. He never imagined the Americans intended to stay forever. And yet given our security situation with the North Koreans and the Chinese, are we not held by golden handcuffs?”
“Just so. Then you agree that we should militarize?”
“Prime Minister, you have missed the point of my story. I fear that your plans to build an army could backfire. We have enjoyed peace for many decades. Pacifism was not our choice, but this – “ he gestured to the grandiose palace grounds around them – “has been our reward.”
Ito sat on the stone bench. “True. But your Majesty, this security we enjoy is an illusion. May I tell you something sensitive? Information that you must not repeat to anyone?”
The prime minister delivered the same intelligence briefing that Ambassador Nakamura had given Julian Speers in Washington. He explained how China was building military bases in the East China Sea and preparing to take the Senkaku islands and other disputed Japanese territories. He told him that China had arranged the destruction of its own embassy in Libya in order to mute the Americans’ response to aggression. Then he further explained that the activity was already negatively impacting Japan’s economy by blocking trade routes.
The shocking news sent the old monarch into a coughing fit. Suddenly, the butler appeared with a glass of water. The emperor took it, drank several sips, and waved him away.
As the emperor’s cough quieted, Ito resumed the conversation. “Surely now, your Majesty, you can see why urgent action is needed.”
“My father always said the Chinese would seek revenge for what we did to them in the Great War. That is one reason he embraced the Americans. But in light of this, Mister Prime Minister, I am afraid I still do not understand the purpose of your visit to the palace.”
“To ask for your help, your Majesty.”
“My help? What could I possibly do?”
Ito smiled. Then he explained his proposal in detail. It was audacious, he knew, but if the emperor would do as he asked, there was little doubt that the nation would fall in line behind him.
Now the emperor silently digested all that had been said. For Ito, the wait was excruciating. His plan to reach this exact moment in time had been years in the making. A refusal would not deter him, of course. But it would simply mean that the country’s transformation would require more risk and blood than he had hoped.
Finally his majesty pointed to a pair of large black birds cruising the pond. “The imperial black swans. Very rare. Gifts from the Prime Minister of Australia to my father decades ago. They nest here on the palace grounds. In captivity, black swans have been known to live more than five decades.”
“Impressive.”
“Yes, but there is one problem. To keep them from escaping the palace, the stable master clipped their wings.”
The monarch’s meaning was not lost on Ito. It was, in fact, a sign of progress. “Under my plan, your Majesty, the imperial throne will once again soar.”
Tokyo
Well after sundown, Eri Sato woke on the futon that Taka had rolled out for her the night before. She sat upright, blowing the hair from her face. Wiping the drool from the corner of her mouth. Fumbling with a burner phone that she had taken from the evidence room at work, one of hundreds seized in a Yakuza sting.
She squinted at the too-bright display. 17:57 hours, or 5:57 p.m. She had slept for nine hours. Nine blissful hours. It had been months since she had gotten even five.
Eri sat up, powered up Age of the Undead Ninjas, and logged into the Fluffy profile. She grinned as she saw Carver’s reply: Banzai!
So Carver was alive. And he was en route. At least one thing had gone right this week.
She made her way to the bathroom to get ready. There, taped to the mirror, was a note written in Taka’s fanciful handwriting, along with a key:
Gone to Autograph. Please stay another night. Or 10,000 nights.
—Taka
A sweet gesture. But time was one of the many things Eri had run out of. She was due to meet Carver at Naked Fish in less than two hours. That was assuming the Kuromaku had not gotten to him first. From there, they would travel south to Kyoto, where she would introduce him to her informant, Sho Kimura.
As she filled the bathtub with intensely hot water, she pondered the weirdness in preparing to see her ex after all these years. Sure, they weren’t completely estranged. She had, in fact, made a habit of pinging him on some professional pretense every so often. Like some fool who kept touching her hand to the stove just to make sure it was hot.
And now, she feared, those misguided attempts to stay connected had put his life in danger.
After a relatively quick soak and scrub, she dried herself with one of Taka’s monogrammed towels. It wasn’t until the act of patting her face dry that she realized that she had no makeup except for a tube of lipstick. The horror of facing Carver like this was too much to bear. She would have to pick something up on the way over.
Twenty-five minutes later, she locked up Taka’s apartment and headed out on foot through the narrow streets of Shinjuku. Soon she was back in the Golden Gai neighborhood. Her muscles tensed as she reached the stairwell leading down to the basement-level bar. The music was booming from Autograph, as it always did at this time of night.
But where was the laughter? Nobody went to Autograph for the drinks, much less his tiny collection of Hollywood memorabilia. They went to see Taka.
She reached into her purse and pulled out her Krazy Kisser. The device looked like an ordinary tube of black lipstick, but with a flick of the wrist, it expanded into an 18-inch stun baton, capable of delivering a 5-million watt jolt. So with the Kisser in hand, she crept down the stairs until, standing on the fourth step from bottom, she could see through the open doorway.
Five bodies were strewn across the floor of the tiny bar. Blood spatter freckled every framed autograph mounted on the opposing wall. They had been hacked to death.
Taka’s body lay atop the counter. His eyes stared up at the ceiling at a t-shirt that had once been signed by George Clooney. He was missing two fingers from his right hand. They didn’t even try to make it look like a suicide, the way they had done with Fujimoto and the others. They had tortured him.
And suddenly Eri was propelled forward. The realization that she had been kicked dawned on her before she hit the floor. Only then did she feel the pain in the square of her back. The Kisser was behind her, the hot end still thrumming with voltage.
She sat up, gasping for air, and turned just in time to see the man who had booted her down the stairs. He wore a blood-spattered Issey Miyake suit. His head was topped with a prickly batch of purple hair above a perfect set of teeth. He held a 14-inch knife with an elaborate handle tipped with a sterling silver panther’s head.
He was not in a hurry as he turned and rolled the metal shudder down behind him. He nodded, satisfied that the rest of his work would go uninterrupted. Then he cleared his throat before making an announcement. “I am not a killer of women.”
It struck Eri as the most ridiculous introduction she had ever heard. “So…you’re not going to kill me?”
“You must die. But I would prefer to preserve our mutual codes of honor. I mean seppuku, of course.” He held the knife before him and turned it, mimicking the traditional Japanese suicide by disembowelment. “Do you agree to my terms? The alternative is far worse for both of us.”
Just who did he think he was dealing with? Suicide was a popular way to go in Japan, but that didn’t mean everyone was into it. Eri wasn’t going down without a fight.
“You’re Kuromaku?” she asked.
“Of course. Were you expecting someone else?”
“No. Well th
en.” She knelt before him. “It seems I have no choice.”
He dropped the knife on the ground and kicked it toward her. He then pulled another blade from a shoulder holster underneath his jacket. Just in case.
She collected herself, fighting tears as she positioned the blade with her left hand a few inches from her abdomen. With her right, she unbuttoned the bottom half of her blouse, exposing her stomach. At this, something shifted in her assailant’s eyes. Was it lust, or bloodlust? Acting on instinct, she undid two more buttons until her bra was exposed. Now her would-be executioner was clearly staring at her cleavage.
His lack of focus wouldn’t last forever. Eri lunged forth with her left hand, swiping at him with a motion that fell intentionally short. She fell back just as his repost came. She used her left hand to grab the Kisser and swing it around her body. The hot end connected with his right nipple. His lips peeled back in agony, revealing just how white, straight and expensive his dental work really was.
She then plunged the knife into his stomach, twisting it clockwise, scrambling his guts. Now it was he who sank to his knees as she stood before him. As he sat dying, she circled behind him, using the second knife to cut open the back of his suit jacket.
He was Kuromaku, just as he had claimed. The Rising Sun branded onto his lower back was proof enough.
All at once, her head was filled with visions of poor old Fujimoto. She looked up at Taka, whose unseeing eyes glared up at the ceiling. And finally she thought of Carver. He had to be warned. And maybe, just maybe, he could help set things right.
Shibuya Crossing
Tokyo
Shibuya Crossing was often called the Times Square of Japan, and it was cruel sensory overload for someone who had just flown in from rural Arizona. Carver reckoned the population density around his father’s ranch was about one person for every 10 square miles. Here at Tokyo’s busiest six-way intersection, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of his fellow human beings.
He had seen all this before, but the massive video screens on the surrounding buildings still awed him. A 50-foot woman in a perfume ad strutted in sapphire stilettos while cartoon birds fawned over her. A tennis star walked on water while swinging a bus-sized racket. Demonic cockroaches were sprayed into submission by watermelon-scented bug spray. When the crossing lights flashed green, 3,000 people stepped off the curb, walking in every possible direction, like disparate armies clashing on some ancient battlefield.
Carver knew it was pointless to check his six. There was simply no way to spot a tail in a crowd like this. He was just a few blocks from Naked Fish now, where he hoped Eri would be waiting. Hope was all he had to work with, unfortunately. He was already 18 minutes late, and Eri wasn’t answering her phone. Had she destroyed and ditched her phone just as he had? The lone communication they had was her cryptic plea for help on Age of the Undead Ninjas, and his coded response.
His bruised ribs were definitely on the mend, but his bullet-pruned ear throbbed. The pain had moved into a new dimension during flight. At the airport, he had cleaned the ear again, changed the bandage, and purchased a gray slouchy knit cap to replace the black beanie he had worn hunting. It was still not Carver’s favorite look, but at least he no longer resembled a dockworker.
Carver’s only luggage consisted of a leather bag just large enough to fit the new laptop he had purchased at the airport. He had deemed his work computer too big of a security risk to take abroad, and had left it stitched into his mattress at his Father’s ranch.
Now he sliced this way and that through the fabric of the crowd until he had reached the other side of the intersection. Then he began navigating via a mental map of Shibuya that had been stored within his mind since he had first explored it years earlier. The sight of this place triggered a torrent of memories, showing at theatres across the landscape of his brain, all at once.
Carver had ended his collegiate foil fencing career ranked 27th nationally, and the idea of learning the Japanese way of the sword held tremendous allure for him. The summer after graduation, he arranged to study Kendo with a renowned club in Tokyo. By then, the CIA had already started recruiting him. They were intrigued with what a straight-A student athlete with hyperthymesia might be able to do for his country. He was on the verge of joining up, but he wanted to log at least three good months training in a real Japanese dojo before making his final decision.
He barely survived the first week in his host country. The Arizona homer found Tokyo’s food, smells and sensory assault almost too much to bear. Simultaneously, his kendo training had been far more physically intense than anything he had ever experienced back home. His kendo sensei had been nothing if not patient and professional, but the club members showed him no mercy. During that first week, he amassed so many welts on his back, shoulders and arms that there was no way to sleep that did not hurt.
On his first Saturday in Tokyo, hurting and homesick, he had a full-on emotional breakdown. He called his father and tearfully informed him that his Japanese adventure was over. “This was a big mistake, Pop. I should have never come here.”
The disappointment in the old man’s voice had been evident. He had, after all, paid for half the cost of the trip as a college graduation present. But he was also reasonable. “All right, son. Go ahead and book your ticket home. But before you board that train to the airport, will you take a moment to get your mother a souvenir from Japan? She’s got her heart set on a little something exotic.”
Carver hung up and went to the train station. The orange line toward Musashi-Koganei ground past on the platform above him. The first available one-way express train ticket out to Narita Airport, where he planned to fly standby, was at seven o'clock that evening. He held the ticket in his hand, reading and rereading the platform and departure time, as if expecting some sense of relief to cleanse the loneliness and remorse he felt inside.
He gathered himself and hobbled down to the Marui department store in Shibuya, where he wandered the futuristic store floor by floor, passing acres of shimmery dresses and expensive perfume. There seemed to be nothing there for a rancher’s wife.
A voice behind him spoke in near-perfect English. “Excuse me. May I help you find something?”
He turned and took in the stunning beauty of a 23-year-old Waseda university art student who, he would later learn, worked the perfume counter on weekends.
He botched an attempt to introduce himself in Japanese.
She giggled good-naturedly and responded in English. “My name is Eri.”
“Blake.”
“Are you looking for a present for your girlfriend, Blake?”
“Uh, no. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Well this is the ladies’ department. Are you lost?”
Hell yes he was. He had never been more lost in his life. But something about the way she asked. Something about the look on her face. It was a bolt out of the blue sky. Suddenly the train ticket in his pocket seemed like yet another colossal mistake.
The next words from his mouth were a surprise even to him. “Eri, would you have dinner with me tonight?”
A complete roll of the dice to a perfect stranger. And to his great surprise – and hers, it seemed – she said yes.
Office of the
Director of National Intelligence
Washington D.C.
Speers’ assistant appeared in the doorway with apologies written all over her face. “FBI Director Fordham is here. I told him you were busy. “
Fordham barged into the office behind her. “It’s urgent, Julian.” The FBI Director folded his tall frame into a mid-century chair that put his rear end just 12 inches off the ground. With his long legs bent at sharp angles before him, and his green tie, he resembled a praying mantis.
“Carver boarded an American Airlines flight to Tokyo,” Fordham said. “It looks bad, Julian. The task force is convening today.”
Inside, Speers was furious. Carver had promised he would return to Washington today. But he
couldn’t let his frustration show with Chad. He had to smooth this over. “Relax. He’s not running from this, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Obviously.”
“Blake took the news hard. I was worried about his state of mind, so I told him to take some time off. I may not have been clear enough about his expected return date.”
Fordham grinned knowingly. “You’re a real piece of work. You’d do just about anything to protect him, wouldn’t you?”
“Protect him from what? As far as I know, he’s done nothing wrong. And listen. If a guy like Carver really wanted to run away, do you think he’d be dumb enough to fly commercial?”
“Well…”
Speers slowly unwrapped a lollipop and slid it into his mouth, letting the quiet seconds drip out like water from a frozen pipe. Chad was a chatterbox. Given enough time, he would reveal anything else he was concealing.
True to form, Fordham continued, unable to stand the silence. “There’s more. Yesterday, Carver called one of your people, Arunus Roth. Of course Roth denied it, but we have the recording of their conversation. Carver asked him to run two passports on the sly.”
So they were monitoring their calls. Speers hadn’t authorized that, which meant the order had to have come from the president. This time she wouldn’t be satisfied until she had Carver’s head on a platter.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Speers said. “But if he did call Roth, then it says something about his work ethic, doesn’t it? Who else is going to keep working for us after being thrown to the wolves?”
Chad stood, buttoned his jacket, and turned to leave. He paused in the doorway and looked back.
Rogue Empire (Blake Carver Series) Page 18