Collector of Secrets (2 page)

Lieutenant Endo returned and began to stomp the mud from his boots. Following the noise, the prince turned and stared blankly. “Why are you not supervising the unloading of that truck?”

“My post is to provide guard for Your Highness.”

Smooth voiced, the prince replied, “No, your post is to do as I ask, and my instruction was to get that truck unloaded. We are behind schedule and your boots can wait. I need the bags from that truck placed along the entrance walls. Once you are done, bring it here and load this tent for immediate departure. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Lieutenant Endo turned and splashed toward the cave.

F
rom within the truck’s cab, Benjie peered cautiously over the edge of the driver’s side window. Outside, his father was laboring along with several soldiers, carrying sacks from the truck bed in order to pile them along the inner walls of the rocky entrance. He could feel the ache in his stomach as he turned to look through the front windshield at the tunnel stretching deep into the cave. The lone overhead bulb did little to illuminate the cavernous darkness, yet he could still see the outline of crates stacked deep inside.

Suddenly a green jacket covered the driver’s side window. An officer had leaped onto the sideboard, shouting orders. Benjie slithered quickly onto the floor near the passenger’s door. The memory of soldiers standing over his mother’s lifeless body flooded his mind and his breathing became rapid. He wrapped his arms around his bare knees, shivering involuntarily. The officer’s head moved from side to side and each time it did, Benjie was sure the man would turn and look directly at him. With a groaning whimper, he willed himself to slide up and crack open the passenger’s door. Gripping the seat, he inched out and slipped to the ground before dashing into the tunnel.

Pressing himself against the rock wall, he drew closer to the back of the cave, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Ahead, beyond the crates, a group of more than twenty seated men were bound. He didn’t know if they were alive or dead until one man lifted his head and cried out. A nearby soldier hammered the butt of his rifle, breaking bone, and a shriek of pain rose then faded.

Staying low to the ground, he turned back toward the entrance, his body quivering. Four more men were entering the cave. They were struggling to carry a box the size of a small casket. Swaying in a side-to-side motion, their cargo hung from slings of webbing gathered over their hunched shoulders. As the men entered the darkness, they passed the spot where he lay frozen.

Without warning, one of the men stumbled on a rock and collapsed. The box’s impact on the cave floor sprung the lid open, and the contents tumbled into the dirt. Benjie’s eyes widened, transfixed at the astonishing sight.

Cursing loudly, the men shouted for assistance from the nearby guard.

The commotion provided cover to turn and dart back the way he’d come. As he neared the truck, Benjie watched his father drop the last sack into place while the officer in the green jacket stepped down from the truck’s sideboard and grasped his bare arm. The man waved toward the dark end of the passage, but his words were drowned by the truck’s engine roaring as it backed from the cave.

Benjie watched silently while his protesting father was forced past him, deeper into the cave. He wanted to shout and run into his papa’s arms but fearing a scolding, he remained invisible.

Soon, the soldiers near the entrance moved outside and Benjie followed, cautiously drawing close to the mouth of the cave. The men appeared busy, so with his heart pounding, he raced out, running south along the outer slope of the mountain, stopping only when shielded by the leaves of a low-lying fern. Crouching in the darkness, he watched the entrance, awaiting his father’s return.

Mere moments passed before the green-jacketed man exited the cave―alone. He began rolling lines of wire toward the roadway leading into the jungle. Approaching a man in a white suit, he bowed low before handing over a device attached to the wires’ end. Together, accompanied by the far-off sound of explosions, the two men disappeared behind the truck.

Seconds later the ground shook, and flames roared from the cave’s mouth. A plume of thick dust choked the air as the roof and sides of the opening collapsed into a heap of jagged rubble.

Benjie screamed and stumbled backward, throwing up his arms to protect his head from the debris raining down. He strained to see the cave through the smoke, but only a jumble of rock lay where the entrance had once been. His only thought was that he would be left behind in the frightening jungle.

The noise of revving engines drew his attention. Across the clearing, the truck and a black, six-wheeled touring car began to depart. Benjie sprang from his hiding place. Muddy water splashed his legs and arms. He ran forward, screaming, “Papa . . . 
Papa!
 . . . I’m here! Don’t leave me! PAAAAPAAAA!”

Brakes squealed and canvas flaps flew open as half a dozen soldiers sprang from the truck bed with guns drawn. Desperately trying to stop, Benjie slipped and fell in the mud. The first man caught him easily and pinned his face down before dragging him to his feet. “Prince Takeda will want to speak with you.”

Climbing from the touring car, the prince held a silk scarf to his face and waited while the soldiers returned.

Benjie cowered with his head down, nostrils frothing with mud, tears pouring from his eyes, as Prince Takeda bent slightly forward. “Did your father drive you here in this truck?”

The boy nodded yes as the prince placed a finger under his chin and lifted his grimy head, forcing Benjie to meet his stare. “Do you know where we are?”

“No.” He sniffed, shuddering.

“You are a brave boy—in the jungle all alone.” Prince Takeda addressed the nearest soldier. “Clean him quickly and put him with me in the car.”

“Where’s my papa?” Benjie cried out, afraid to gaze again into the dark, piercing eyes.

The prince stared down with a wry smile on his face. “Guarding the emperor’s things,” he said.

FLAMES OF
brilliant orange daylight burned through the morning haze and came to rest on the timeless sprawl of Tokyo. Reflected beams of light swept across the towering glass skylines of the former sixteenth-century castle town, working their way into the maze of streets and narrow alleyways below. The low nocturnal hum of dawn gave way to the buzz of daytime as the city woke from another brief sleep.

Max Travers cracked open a groggy eye and peered at his Westclox pocket watch. Despite its age, his grandfather’s battered timepiece had proven remarkably reliable. He rolled from his futon before stumbling five steps to the closet-sized bathroom of his dilapidated wooden share house. A handful of cold water smoothed the bed-head hair over his forehead and ears as he hurried back to his room. Pulling on jeans, Skechers, an untucked button-down, and grabbing his briefcase and Hollister hoodie, he charged down creaky stairs and out the front door. Heading for the Sugamo station on foot, he picked up his pace to a near run. Timed to the minute, he would catch the next train, meet his girlfriend, and arrive promptly at his English lesson.

Two schoolgirls walking past him giggled and whispered as they pointed. Even after a year of living in Tokyo, Max was still caught off guard by how shocked some Japanese were to see his sandy blond hair and clear blue eyes. A lean, six-foot frame also made him stand out from the crowd. But being gawked at was still annoying, especially since there were so many foreigners living in the city.

Such status had once seemed amusing, but the unusual treatment wore thin within the first few months. Max heard it best described as Exotic Pet Syndrome—when befriended by someone, you could never be sure of their motivation for wanting to know you. The few people he trusted belonged to the eclectic group in the foreigners’ house he called home.

Known affectionately as the Tokyo Poor House, or TPH, it was a cultural blender of five people, sometimes more, in four cramped bedrooms on a little side street in Kita-Otsuka. The two-story wooden structure was wrapped in unpainted wooden shingles, and its slowly rotting timbers caused it to lean heavily to one side. By all appearances, it was one of the few buildings that had miraculously survived the World War II fire bombings. Inside, the house was no better—the musty smell was overwhelming. But foreigners came and went in rotating cycles, so little care was taken of the place. Most of the furniture had been plucked from the garbage. A spray-painted Christmas tree decorated one of the panel-board walls in the cramped second-floor living room. The closet-sized kitchen was a haven for crawling life. Roach traps left overnight were always filled by morning.

Max paused at a mailbox and deposited an envelope. The international money order addressed to his mother was meant to arrive before the first of the month, the same as always. A bit of frugality was required on his part, but at least he could be sure her rent was covered.

Checking for traffic, he crossed from the side street onto a wider roadway. A stretch of cherry trees, just beginning to show their pink buds, ran down the lane parallel to the train tracks nestled in the concrete ravine below.

Eventually reaching the main street, he dashed across the wide stripes of the intersection crosswalk and entered the brown-tiled Sugamo train station. He fought through the crowd of people inside before nodding to the attendant at the turnstiles. The uniformed man was obviously bored, staring blankly into space.

I know how you feel, buddy. I was headed for a lifetime of boredom myself
.

Max raced down the stairs to the platform of the
Japan Rail Yamanote train line with a full two minutes to spare. Putting on his hoodie against the cool April breeze, he thought back to the day, almost a year before, when he’d made the snap decision to leave his dead-end job. Junior college was meant to ensure a better life, but it hadn’t really worked out. The best accounting jobs went to the CPAs, with their pinstriped suits and smug attitudes. The scraps were thrown to the less educated dogs. Even now, Max liked to savor the memory of “D-Day,” as he called it.

That day, just like so many others, he had navigated a sea of identical beige cubicles, while nameless coworkers stared blankly at glowing screens. Slipping off a corduroy sports jacket, he unconsciously moved to hang it on his chair back. But this time his hand refused, as if it had a will of its own. Instead, he paused to look at the humble brown desk with its neat piles of paper, and a thought rose up, a familiar notion that amplified and thundered and refused to be silenced any longer.
There’s gotta be more to my life than this!

Typing the resignation letter took all of five minutes.

Three weeks later, he was living in Tokyo.

T
he flashing blur of the green railway car snapped Max from his thoughts. As the train slowed to a stop, crowds of people formed on either side of the sliding doors, waiting to pour into the space left behind by those exiting. He lined up behind a half-dozen businessmen and a slender Shinto priest.

Three gangly teenagers cascaded from the train. Dressed in khaki army pants and torn black shirts, they sported a surplus of facial piercings topped with impossibly spiked hair.

Oh man, not these guys again.
The punks seemed to have nothing better to do than loiter aimlessly near the station’s entrance, mocking passersby and dispensing trouble.

The leader of the group veered sharply to the right, hammering Max’s chest, spinning him backward into the side of the train. The youth sneered aloud,
“Ira-ki mu-ru-der!”
and stood defiantly with his snickering entourage.

Max rubbed his aching sternum as adrenaline and anger rushed to his limbs. He stiffened, momentarily bracing for a brawl, but three against one was lousy odds. It was clearly best to back down and turn the other cheek. He wished he could be braver for once and stand up to them. But this wasn’t his country and dealing with them wasn’t his battle.

The punk’s threatening movements were unexpectedly cut short by the billowing robes of the nearby priest who inserted himself with a flourish into the conflict’s center. The man’s sharp voice and raised hands drove the group into a hasty retreat before he turned and vanished into the train. Since nothing other than his pride seemed damaged, Max followed suit, withdrawing to the safety of the car’s interior before exhaling loudly.

Glancing down the length of the car, he noticed all eyes staring at him—the trouble-making foreigner. The only available seat was next to the Shinto priest, and Max took it quickly, squeezing his briefcase between his feet as he sat down.