He did not speak to them about the warrior’s code. Instead, he made them into weapons themselves. This, at least, was a thing they understood, these young men from the hot, dry places of the world. It was their strength. They knew that the West searched for weapons in the hands, not in the eyes. It was a weakness in their enemy that they appreciated. And the old man helped them cultivate fragments of an ancient wisdom that would give them strength.
After a time, the young men grew to respect him, drawn by the bond between
sensei
and student. But their leaders watched with suspicion, their eyes bright and their hands fluttering as they murmured to each other in the throaty language of their home.
He was still an outsider, and while some of them trained with him, the group elders never fully trusted him. They demanded proof, a test of his effectiveness. It was a tradition from the isolated desert camps where so many had gotten their early training. The old teacher thought them foolish—such tests were wasteful. A good test was a dangerous thing, not to be undertaken lightly. And in an art that dealt with life and death, a flaw in technique would be disastrous. He felt contempt for the leaders—they were like impatient children eager to try new toys. They ran risks for no good reason. For men who sang the glories of an ancient way of life, they seemed to have forgotten patience. He shrugged inwardly, knowing it could not be helped. Their cause was not his. He was using them as surely as they were using him. The test would go forward as they wished, but he would shape it to ultimately serve his purpose, not theirs.
He had smiled grimly at their request. His face was a round one, although lined with age. His teeth were uneven and pointy, and his face was almost comical until you looked in his eyes. The more gifted of his students could feel the invisible energy roiling out of him as his anger flared in a brief eruption.
“You wish to see proof?” he had said, his eyes narrowing. “So. It is easily done.” He had selected his best students, pointing them out one by one with the iron-ribbed fan he habitually carried. They were solemn-faced, these young fighters, under the dual gaze of the
sensei
and the senior member of the brotherhood.
“To defeat an enemy,” the old man taught, “is not just to shatter his body. You must destroy his pride as well.” It was a dictum he had thought long and hard on. So he told them how they would go about the attack to prove themselves to the senior men.
In a crowded city, a kidnapping is strikingly easy to effect. And some of the men he trained had financed themselves in the lean years through just this means. When the targets had appeared, it was relatively simple. Their route was known beforehand. The panel truck pulled up and the targets were snatched away like so much walking laundry. The smothered cries and flurry of arms were swallowed up in the jostling noise of the streets.
But he had not come all this way merely to refine their approach to abduction. The targets—two U.S. servicemen—were delivered to an empty warehouse. A video camera recorded what followed. As their captors cut their bonds, the victims assessed their surroundings, rubbing wrists and eyes. The Americans scanned the ring of expectant faces. Their eyes widened as the fighters approached them—they were soldiers and sensed the approach of battle. The realization that they had been kidnapped for a purpose more sinister than ransom dawned on them and they set themselves for what was to come.
The council of elders reran the video to watch it again. Things of this nature should not take long, and the old
sensei
was glad to see that his students had learned at least that much. The attack against the soldiers had been unleashed with maximum force, like the great winds of his home islands that swept upon the unwary, churning the sea and sky into a maw hungry for destruction.
In the video footage, after the bodies lay broken and still on the ground, the old man saw himself approach. It looked as if he were checking for a pulse. The camera’s angle could not detect the paper he had slipped beneath one body. Which was as he planned. The footage ended and he left them to their self-congratulations and returned to his quarters.
The moon shone on him. His eyes captured sparks of light and glittered there in the shadows. He moved silently, drifting across the floor like the fog that gathered in the mountain hollows. He approached the sword rack. His
daito
, the paired long and short swords of the samurai, rested in their stands. The scabbards were dark and highly polished, but they felt warm as he touched them. The blades gave off an energy of their own. He could feel it. His ancestors told tales of weapons so inherently evil that they drove their owners mad. The old man knew of this ancient force, but he believed that it could be bent to a will that was powerful enough. His will.
His muscles were warm with the comforting ache of good use. But he knew his time was short, that the days burned away with finality. He needed to goad his victims into the trap while his strength was still with him. The video killings were the first step. Before he made the long trek to a strange land, the old master had pondered strategy for countless nights. His rage burned like an ember smoldering in the ashes. And, finally, a plan had crystallized, like some occult jewel emerging from a furnace.
The old man bowed before the wooden rack that held his swords. He lifted the
katana
, the long sword, and drew it from its scabbard. The blade was a milky white in the moonlight. The men he now trained had no use for the old techniques, and that was fine. The old man still had much to teach them. He made them into weapons of a different design. But he still held onto the old ways, and the discipline of his ancestors was both a challenge and a comfort in this strange place. He worked the blade through the darkness in exercises that were centuries old. The sword cut through the air again and again as his spirit fed on a new certainty. And, as that insight came, the sword sang a new song in the growing darkness.
With a final swoop, the katana was returned to its scabbard. Night spread like spilt ink and the camp grew quiet. The only noise was the rustle of leaves and the static-like chorus of insects. It had begun. He would test himself one last time. To revenge what had been lost. The old man closed his eyes and, motionless, could feel the silent weaving of his plan as it came together.
Yamashita says we’re surrounded by subtle vibrations—the energy the Japanese call
ki
that fills the world like an electric charge. If you’re adept, you can feel it buzzing in your head and playing along your skin. I’ve seen my
sensei
, a being alive to an invisible world, stop in mid-technique and let his eyes gaze inward as the surge of
ki
washes over him. And I’ve felt it, too, but not as intensely. The experience of
ki
is tactile and aural and inexplicable, all at the same time. But it’s elusive: for many of us, the sensitivity comes and goes. It’s just as well. Everyone needs a break.
I sat in a corner desk in the reading room of the Dharma House, logging in books. The air is still here. Not much aggressive energy. There was the low level hum of chanting from a distant meditation room. The scent of old incense drifted through the air, soft, diffuse and almost undetectable. For me, the press of
ki
is a thing most often associated with danger. And the Dharma House is a refuge of sorts, so I was off my guard.
A wealthy and eccentric Manhattan socialite had created the place as a center for the study of Tibetan Buddhism. I knew the head
lama
, a remarkable teacher and mystic named Changpa. Not too long ago, we had shared an experience that still troubled him—even holy men have nightmares. He had given me a job when the university let me go, letting me serve as a type of librarian for the center’s expanding reading room. It was a good deal for all concerned: Changpa was able to follow the Buddha’s admonition to be compassionate. I got to pay my rent.
Those who came to the Dharma House were different from the people I worked with in the
dojo
. Here, they were often fragile and frightened: thin, pale young men with scraggly beards; women with wet, wide eyes and drab, formless clothes. Changpa stretched his arms out in welcome to them and there was an almost chemical reaction when he did so. The tension in their shoulders melted away, their faces grew calm, and their movements less jerky. It was an amazing thing to see: the spectacle of human unfolding under the guidance of a master teacher. It was part of what I enjoyed about working there.
I was a seeker, too, but of a different sort. If Changpa was like a soft breeze, a nurturing wind to his disciples, my teacher Yamashita was like a furnace. He forged the human spirit through hard effort and remorseless training. Changpa turned his pupils’ eyes inward, the better to see the world within themselves. Yamashita had us focus instead on the world around us, believing that the experience of the flashing strike of an opponent’s sword, a moment white hot with urgency, made you one with everything.
Over the years, I had come to experience some of what Yamashita had promised. It was a revelation that was as breathtaking as it was terrifying. And it held a fascination of its own. By the time you were capable of the insight he sought for you, Yamashita’s training had changed you in subtle ways. It wasn’t just skill or endurance. It was an appalling realization that you were most alive listening to the whirr of the blade’s edge as it razored through the air toward you.
I didn’t think I really fit in too well at the Dharma House. It was another place where I was present, but not connected. We were all walking paths toward the same goal, of course. But my path winds through some rough territory and it leaves marks. Perhaps that intimidates people. Some of Changpa’s more advanced students knew about me. I could see their troubled facial expressions when they thought I wasn’t aware of the scrutiny. They murmured occasionally to each other about me as well. Maybe all that meditation had made them more sensitive to inner states and they sensed my turmoil. More likely, they’d read the stories about me in the papers. Occasionally, I’d catch them looking at my hands, as if there would still be blood on them.
I log the books in and out of the reading room, trying not to let them bug me, enjoying the quiet. I’m grateful for the work. Or maybe it’s that I like the fact that the flow of
ki
is slowed here, the air so thick with prayer that little can intrude. Sometimes I need a break from the
dojo
. In the Dharma House’s reading room, the work was monotonous, but your hands stayed clean.
The reading room is tucked away toward the back of the first floor, but you can still hear quite a bit of the comings and goings in the building. People are in and out all day to attend classes or prayer sessions and to use the meditation room. At night, there is even the group of archers training in the Japanese art of
kyudo
on the lower level, the beauty of the art enhanced by a woman named Sarah Klein.
The sound of footsteps was clear and sharp on the wood floor of the hallway leading back to the reading room. In the Dharma House, people tend to walk softly in a reverent shuffle. It’s the combination of sandals and noodly muscles that does it. But whoever was coming my way was striding, not shuffling, down the hall. I looked up, curious to see who it was.
I thought I was out of place.
He wore what I later learned was the new blue Army service uniform. His black shoes were so highly polished they looked as if they were wet. The left chest of his jacket was crowded with ribbons. They didn’t mean much to me, but I did recognize jump wings and a Combat Infantryman’s Badge pinned to the top of the display. In his military splendor, he looked as out of place in that room as I felt. Their monks wear colored robes, but other than that American Buddhists are a pretty subdued group when it comes to clothing.
“Hello Dr. Burke,” the soldier said to me. He had a pleasant voice, which was a bit of a surprise. I’m a victim of childhood stereotypes created by B movies. I expected him to sound like Aldo Ray.
I stood up from the desk and watched him approach. He wore the silver oak leaves of a lieutenant colonel. His hair was flecked with gray and freshly cut—you could see the white line of skin around the edges of his hairline. His eyes were brown and he had the look of someone who spent a lot of time outside. His cheeks had been scoured by the wind and the skin around his eyes was seamed from squinting into the sun. He smiled as he extended a hand and the lines at the corner of his eyes became creases. “I’m Randall Baker.”
“Hello, Colonel,” I said, shaking his hand. “Art told me that you might drop by.”
He took a step back and looked at me, as if trying to mesh what he’d been told about me with my appearance. Then he glanced around at the reading room. “My understanding is that you’re working until three today.” He looked at his watch—a stainless steel affair with a black face and luminous dial. When I was a kid, we called them skin diver watches. Every man of action had one. “If you’re free, I was wondering whether you’d like to come with me.”
“Sure,” I shrugged. “Where to?”
“A martial arts demonstration,” Baker said.
“Right up my alley,” I told him.
Baker had a car waiting on the street. It was a late model Chevy sedan with white government plates. It looked like it had just been washed. My tax dollars at work. A sergeant opened the back door for us without a word and then got in behind the wheel. We took off.
“This is Sergeant Hanrahan,” Baker told me.
“Hi,” I told the back of Hanrahan’s head.
“Pleasure, sir,” the driver said. But he didn’t turn around. Hanrahan’s hair was cut so close as to be almost invisible. He had a neck, thick with muscle, that bunched up where it met the base of his skull. He kept his hat on in the car.
The Saturday afternoon traffic was manageable. Hanrahan took us up the East Side to the 59
th
Street Bridge and into Queens.
I looked at Baker.
“You’ve been told a little bit about me, Dr. Burke?” he asked, and then continued before I could answer. “I’m involved with the development of unarmed combat systems for the Army. There’s a big martial arts tournament at a local high school today. As part of our recruitment activities, a demo team is going to be participating.” He looked out the window at the passing cars, the buildings. You got the impression that he was a man who watched things carefully. Then he turned to look at me. “I thought it would be a nice way for us to meet and for you to see some of what I’ve been up to.”