The Moving Blade

by Michael Pronko

  Hiroshi kicked a stack of beer crates at him and lunged for the door. Dusty bottles shattered as Hiroshi looked around for something, anything, to defend himself with. Takamatsu made him swear he’d always carry a telescoping baton outside the office, but he never did. He’d have been happy for the pepper spray Shibata gave Jamie.

  From a pile of scrap beside a vending machine, he yanked out a length of old lead pipe and spun around holding it with two hands in proper kendo stance, chūdan-no-kamae, attack and defense, ready for Trey’s next strike.

  Trey gripped his tanto sword in two hands. In one motion, he rose up and struck with all his force.

  Hiroshi parried, staggering back.

  Trey struck again.

  Hiroshi angled the pipe to deflect the blade, but it landed closer.

  He stepped back and moved his feet under himself, resetting his shoulders with the pipe over his head. He lowered the pipe at Trey’s throat, gauging the distance. His pipe was longer than the tanto but Trey had longer arms. The kick to his gut made it hard to breathe, his guts retching with the pain.

  Trey moved his tanto sword into the same position, mocking him. “Is this how you kendo guys do it?”

  “Where are the computers?” Hiroshi said, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

  Trey chuckled. “Safe. Or almost.”

  “You can’t get away.”

  “I think I can.”

  Trey leapt forward with a straight downward blow. Hiroshi swung the pipe in a hard half-circle to keep Trey’s blade from burying into him. The force propelled him forward past Trey as the sharp blade passed to the side. Hiroshi spun around with a quick swing with the pipe, which Trey sidestepped.

  Trey laughed, ready to cut Hiroshi in two, circling him, his laugh turning to a steady, focused sneer. He dominated the crossing of two alleys, giving himself space to work in, maneuvering Hiroshi into the narrower alley.

  Hiroshi blinked to clear his eyes, tears streaming out to wash away the dust. He watched Trey’s shoulders and the top of his head, the right direction and body position coming back to him as if his old kendo instructor was resetting him at practice. Hiroshi slowed his breathing and gauged where he was. He could see what looked like the stolen laptops and materials on top of a junked-out freezer along the alleyway.

  A patter of footfalls, soft and faraway, sounded—suddenly—closer. From the side alley, Hiroshi saw a bulky blur dive straight into Trey, flattening him. The sword clattered down the alley out of reach. It was Sakaguchi. He was mashing Trey’s head and neck with two hands, his body clamping Trey to the concrete.

  Hiroshi dropped the pipe and wobbled over, stamping down hard on Trey’s free wrist.

  Hearing the commotion, a few sailors from the next alley ran over to watch the fight. They shouted in English and a few doors opened, spilling more servicemen into the alley. One sailor looked down at the sword lying on the ground, confused by what was clearly not the usual Honch punch-up.

  Sakaguchi twisted Trey’s arm behind him and reached for his handcuffs, but the slight shift in weight gave just enough opening for Trey to twist the other way, swing a punch onto Sakaguchi’s ear, and slip out from under him. Back on his feet, Trey kneed Sakaguchi in the temple and stiff-armed Hiroshi, who reeled backwards. Trey grabbed the bags from on top of the freezer and took off.

  The American soldiers were not sure who was who. One stepped forward to slow Trey down but could not even get a hand on him. The others looked back and forth between Sakaguchi’s massive body and Hiroshi covered in plaster dust.

  Sakaguchi clutched his head as he pulled himself up and lumbered after Trey. Hiroshi followed, willing his legs to move, leaving behind the sound of the sailors shouting confused questions and yelling for him to stop.

  Alley after alley, corner after corner, he thought he heard Trey just ahead or to the side. Each time he lost the sound of his feet, until he lost him altogether. Hiroshi nearly tumbled over when he emerged onto the wide street along the highway separating the bars from the base. He leaned over to catch his breath as Ueno ran up, shaking his head.

  “Where’s Akiko?” Hiroshi asked, bending over for breath. Righting himself, he saw Trey, bag in hand, on the other side of the highway, sauntering through the turnstile into Yokosuka Naval Base.

  “There he is!” Hiroshi shouted. “I’ve got him,” he yelled at Ueno. “Go find Akiko.”

  Ueno ducked back into the alleys of the Honch. Sakaguchi, standing at the exit of the next alley down, saw Hiroshi lurching across the highway towards the naval base. By the time they got to the bulwarks, tire spikes and metal gate, Trey was already inside.

  Hiroshi knocked on the window of the squat guardhouse. Behind the bulletproof glass and thick concrete walls, a marine guard in dress uniform stared out at them in surprise.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the guard asked into the microphone.

  “Where did that guy go?” Hiroshi asked, in English. “Tall guy running with computer bags.”

  “Sir, could I ask who you are?”

  “I’m Detective Hiroshi Shimizu.” He held up his badge to the window. With the dust, blood and sweat, torn shirt and scuffed pants, haggard and angry face, the badge was the only evidence of being a detective. “The man who just came through here is a suspect. Theft, assault and murder.”

  The guard pressed the talk button. “I’ll call the liaison officer.”

  “Open the gate, will you?” Hiroshi shouted.

  “I’m not authorized. Please wait patiently, sir. We’ll be right with you,” the guard said.

  Hiroshi jammed the call button with his thumb, holding it down.

  The guard pressed his talk button without looking at Hiroshi. “Let go of the button, sir. The liaison officer is on his way.”

  Inside the protective glass, an older man in a badge-speckled uniform listened to the guard’s explanation, looking out at the plaster-covered mess claiming to be a detective.

  Osaki and Sugamo pulled up and parked the car outside the protective bulwarks of the entry zone a hundred meters away and hurried over to join Hiroshi and Sakaguchi.

  “He’s getting away,” Hiroshi said, straining to look past the gate into the naval base. He held his badge up again. Sakaguchi flashed his.

  The uniformed liaison officer buzzed himself out from a side door and stood at ease, looking down from the curb at Hiroshi and Sakaguchi. He was tall but appeared less so with the background of the huge security gate and wall framing him from behind.

  “Konbanwa. What can I do for you today?” he asked.

  “We’re detectives, homicide division, in pursuit of a suspect who just went in through this gate. He’s wanted for theft, assault and murder,” Hiroshi explained.

  “We do not allow police onto the base without proper procedures. This is a secure area. You can file a request through the usual channels. We always cooperate with local authorities. You’re from Yokosuka?”

  “No, Tokyo. Homicide.”

  The American officer, his uniform spotlessly clean, shook his head at the ragged Japanese detectives. “The request for information must go through the local Yokosuka police station where our application procedures are set up. The chief’s named Hirano.”

  Sakaguchi pulled himself up to his full size, his round, featureless face dripping sweat, and walked up to the officer, staring at the few medals on his chest, his eyes thin lines of intensity. Sugamo and Osaki stood right beside him.

  The officer was tall and square-shouldered, and appeared used to being in difficult situations, but just the same he took a prudent step back. He cleared his throat and said, “Sir, I must remind you that this is the border of Yokosuka Naval Base. Different laws apply inside the base. Out there, it’s yours. Inside, it’s America.”

  Hiroshi held Sakaguchi back and looked the American officer in the eyes. “What’s your name?” Hiroshi pulled out a ploy Takamatsu used at dead ends.

  He held out his name pin from his shirt. “Bigston, Colonel Bigston.”
r />   Hiroshi said, “Colonel Bigston, you’re going to find out you made a serious mistake today.”

  Colonel Bigston glanced behind him at the soldiers inside. “If I don’t follow protocol, it’s my ass in a sling.”

  “Fucking protocol,” Hiroshi shouted in English and turned away, pushing Sakaguchi back towards the street.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Bigston shouted after their dusty backs. “After you route your request through Chief Hirano at the Yokosuka police station, I’ll ensure the request is expedited.”

  Sakaguchi’s phone rang. He looked at Hiroshi and hung up. “That was Ueno. It’s Akiko. And Eto Sensei’s wife.”

  Chapter 38

  Hiroshi flashed his badge at the reception desk, strode through a hallway, a nurse chasing him and burst through the swinging doors of the emergency room. He looked under the bottom of the curtains of the triage exam area until he saw the feet of doctors and nurses in the last space. He batted the curtain back to the surprised faces of a doctor, two nurses and a highly intoxicated Japanese man who wobbled uncontrollably on the exam chair.

  “Where is she?” Hiroshi demanded. The nurse pulled the curtain back. Why did he let Akiko go alone? How could he have been so stupid? Hiroshi looked around the emergency room, desperate.

  Sakaguchi caught up with him and dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder to pull him away. Sakaguchi bellied him into one of the exam areas and onto a table. “Sit here. I’m used to taking falls, but I don’t think you’re used to being swung at with a sword. Don’t move until these doctors give you the OK.”

  Hiroshi pushed himself up but Ueno stepped forward and blocked him. Hiroshi sat back down and stared dully at the curtain, taking stock of his pains. His clothes were grimy and scuffed, his knees, elbows and palms scraped rough. Blood dappled his torn, sweat-soaked shirt and bruises were already coloring here and there. Except where he’d wiped it from his eyes, powder from the collapsed shacks dusted his face and hair, and splinters of old wood clung to his clothes.

  The nurse and emergency room doctor came in and the two of them forced Hiroshi to sit still as they checked him. His scratches and cuts were not deep, but still in need of bandaging. Akiko pulled back the curtain, and Hiroshi got up despite the nurse’s complaints. “Are you OK?” Hiroshi asked. He ignored the nurse and went to Akiko, lightly touching her arm wrapped in gauze and looking her over to be sure there were no other injuries.

  “I caught up with him,” Akiko said. “And Eto Sensei’s wife caught up with me.”

  “I told you to stay back,” Hiroshi said. “You didn’t answer—”

  “He grabbed us too quickly. He slammed me against the wall and held the sword to my neck. He taped both of us to a pole in an abandoned bar.”

  “Taped?” Hiroshi leaned forward. “What kind of tape?”

  “I don’t know, thick grey, no, green, strong. I wasn’t paying attention to that.”

  Eto Sensei’s wife, Yoko, bowed as she came into the exam area. Her arm was in a sling, the lower arm velcro-wrapped in place over a hard splint.

  “Are you OK?” Hiroshi asked her, shaking his head at getting them into this. “Your arm?”

  Yoko wriggled her fingers at the end of the splint. “It was rather exciting, though I’m glad this young man found us when he did.” She bowed politely to Ueno, who bowed back. “A few bruises here and there, but the doctor said I need this for a while. Nothing broken.”

  “Did you call Eto Sensei to tell him you’re OK? Is he OK?”

  “He’s fine. Just startled. He never thought his politics would become so, well, real.” Yoko laughed. “He said you’re his most exciting student.”

  “Not the right kind of exciting. If I’d had any idea—”

  “Everyone’s fine. You were doing your job.”

  “Not—”

  “I’ve got to get back and cook dinner,” Yoko said.

  “You can’t go home yet,” Hiroshi said. “You should stay and—”

  “You’re going right back to work, aren’t you?” Yoko asked. “Well so am I.”

  “I’m—”

  “And I could do with a bath. With my arm like this, it will give Sensei a chance to learn how to cook.” She smiled.

  Ueno said, “I’ll drive you home.”

  “I should go with you,” Hiroshi said.

  “You’re busy here.” Yoko looked at him. “But, I do have something for you at the house.”

  Hiroshi looked confused.

  “I saved the USB flash drive. In the tea caddy.” She laughed and Akiko giggled.

  Hiroshi looked more confused. “Tea caddy?”

  “I’ll drive her home and bring it back,” Ueno said.

  Hiroshi bowed to her. “I’m so—”

  Yoko patted his arm, gently. “I know, but this is what happens.”

  “I’ll have the local police come by.”

  Yoko smiled at him one last time and left, Ueno following her out.

  Hiroshi turned to Akiko. “I never should have—”

  Akiko patted his leg. “Now, at least, we know for sure.”

  Hiroshi thanked the doctor and nurse and walked out into the hall, trying not to limp from the pain. Akiko, right beside him, looked fine, if ruffled. As they walked, they checked each other’s bandages, pointing out each other’s injuries, both denying anything was serious.

  They walked out the front door of the clinic, across the parking lot and a sealed-off area to the nondescript building housing the Yokosuka Police Station. Hiroshi showed his badge to the duty clerk at the front desk.

  They found Sakaguchi hunched over a desk filling in a form in the office of Chief Hirano, the head of the Yokosuka police station. Sakaguchi grunted an introduction and Chief Hirano bowed, but didn’t get up. The brown liver spots on his bald head looked like an antique map of unknown islands. His eyelids hung in layers of puffy bluish flesh.

  “If you had called me, we could have caught him at the gate. I have men posted near there all the time,” Chief Hirano growled.

  Hiroshi shook his head at his own thoughtlessness.

  “It’s good Sakaguchi called ahead. I got the forms ready for him.” Chief Hirano showed no sympathy as Sakaguchi sighed at the stack of forms in front of him.

  “Let me do that,” Akiko said. Sakaguchi made a pretense of waving her away, but gave in, got up—slowly—from the chair and let Akiko sit down to work. She realigned the triplicate forms and started filling in the application for access to a suspect on the American base.

  Two young, long-haired guys in sukajan silk jackets embroidered with silver and gold phoenixes breezed into Hirano’s office and shook their heads. One said, simply, “No sword.”

  “Where could it go? Could have cut us both in half.” Sakaguchi looked puzzled by what the undercover cops in their sukajan jackets told him. “Did he pick it up as he ran?”

  Hirano said, “Sword cuts are bad. I had one once in Kudanshita, right-wing guy we had cornered. A dozen guys surrounding him but his sword managed to nick me. Shallow, but took a long time to heal. Back when Takamatsu and I were coming up.”

  “How long will it take?” Hiroshi asked. “We should be back there by now.”

  The two detectives in their sukajan jackets chuckled and shuffled their feet, looking down. Hirano pointed his finger at Hiroshi and one of the detectives went out.

  “Pen might be mightier than the sword, but it’s a lot, lot slower,” Hirano said, pulling open his top drawer for a pill and washing it down with tea from a small cup. “Reason for my high blood pressure. We ask permission. They delay. We wait.”

  “We won’t get on the base today?” Hiroshi asked. “But, that’s—”

  “You put in your special request,” Hirano spoke as if reciting from a written list. “Then you wait for the answer, reassure the American military police that you have evidence, and then wait for one of the military lawyers to answer, and then find one of our lawyers who speaks English, and at long last arrange a sit-down.
Then, and only then, can you see the suspect.”

  “So, impossible.” Hiroshi sighed. The undercover detective who had left came back in with a clean white shirt in plastic dry-cleaning wrap for Hiroshi. He took it, but didn’t put it on.

  “Sometimes they inform us if they prosecute in a military court. Sometimes not.” Hirano leaned forward. The liver spots on his bald head stretched and wrinkled as he spoke. “Better bet is to trail him when he comes out. You have a photo, right? When he goes out, we drag him in here and grill him until the military lawyers come.”

  “This guy is not that stupid,” Hiroshi said.

  “They’re all that stupid,” Hirano said.

  Hiroshi patted himself down to find his cellphone, worried he lost it in the fight. He winced at the pain of just moving his arms. He held out the photo of Trey and sent it to one of the young undercover detectives.

  “Do you watch the entrance to the base all the time?” Hiroshi asked.

  “We would if we could. We were told to stand down after the earthquake,” Hirano explained.

  “By who?”

  “American ambassador and a couple of Diet members.” Hirano shook his head. “I had to put on my good suit and go up to Tokyo to receive their ‘special request.’ Someone from the base found a camera we put up across the street to watch the entrance.”

  “Should have hidden it better,” Sakaguchi said.

  “We did after that. And, we got a better camera, so we can see faces. The tech guys are amazing.”

  “Why were you watching after the Tohoku earthquake?” Hiroshi asked.

  “We noticed a big increase in the number of American trucks. We thought it was just an increase in Americans sending supplies to Fukushima.”

  Hiroshi leaned forward. “But the trucks coming back from up north were full?”

  Hirano nodded. “Very full. Strange, right? We couldn’t figure out what they were bringing back. But after the earthquake, everything was chaotic, everyone pulling double shifts. We were too busy, and too tired to follow up on it.”