The Miko - 02 (45 page)

“Impossible!” Tanya exploded, but her ashen face betrayed her own fright. “There are too many points of contention, far too much bad blood between the two.”

“Yes, yes, Tanya, my dear. We’re all well acquainted with that line of thought.” Minck seemed inordinately pleased with himself. “Still I can imagine the attempt being made; I can especially imagine Viktor Protorov spearheading that attempt. He’s got a vicious mind; he’s not a bureaucrat. That’s a particularly noxious combination in an enemy.”

He stirred. “In any case—whether this is all imagination or frightening reality—the time has come for Protorov to die. Mr. Linnear will be my terrible swift sword. I have quite a bit of faith in him even if you do not.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Not in so many words, no.” He contemplated her as if she were an entrée set before him. He rose. “But just in case you’re right in your assessment, I’ll be sending you after him in a few days’ time. Timing’s crucial so you’ll have to be ready immediately. The beeper’ll signal you if you’re out of the building. Tickets will be waiting at Pan Am; the rest’s standard procedure.”

“What about Linnear?”

Minck looked at her cynically. “The first priority—
absolutely the first
—is Protorov. If you and Mr. Linnear can come to terms and team up, so much the better.”

“And if not?”

“If not,” Minck said, moving away, “if Linnear becomes a hindrance, you’ll just have to dispose of him.”

Seiichi Sato possessed big
hara.

Kneeling across the low lacquer table from Nicholas, he had already taken the top off one of the small dishes and with artful dexterity was using his chopsticks to serve his honored guest.

Hara
, strictly speaking, was the Japanese word for stomach, but it was also the symbol of a man being well integrated with all the aspects of life.

One of the primary lessons of all martial arts required the student to find that deep well of reserves of inner strength that resided in everyone just below the navel. It was known as
tan tien
by the Chinese and
tanden
by the Japanese.

Both physical and spiritual power dwelled there. A man with big
hara
was centered within himself, grounded to the elements of nature. Japanese often observed that Westerners “bounced along” as they walked, evidence that they were centered only in their minds and therefore not attuned at all to the world around them. Japanese, on the other hand, walked with a heavier stride, their gait flowing smoothly from hips and pelvis, a certain sign that they possessed
hara.

Nicholas was intrigued by Sato’s big
hara
; it was a great compliment to pay any Japanese. He had flown the trail of “the endless night,” as the Japanese call it, chasing the darkness for twenty-one hours, leaving Washington at night, arriving at Narita the same night, one day later.

Mr. Sabayama, one of Sato’s many minions, had been waiting, bleary-eyed, for hours at the airport. He murmured away Nicholas’ apologies and, taking their bags, led them through the terminal to the waiting car. Nicholas asked Mr. Sabayama if he would take care of Craig Allonge at the Okura. Mr. Sabayama assured Nicholas that there was someone already at the hotel to see to all their needs; he would accompany Nicholas out to Sato-san’s house on the edge of Tokyo.

Outside the hotel Nicholas spoke quietly to Allonge. “I may be out of touch for several days, Craig. Even as much as a week. I want you to stay in touch with New York and keep things running smoothly. We’ve already had enough of a shakeup.”

Now Nicholas could hear the boughs of the boxwood scraping against the side of the wood and tile house. The air outside was clean and clear. On the rain-soaked streets, the pedestrians bowed before the wind, only partially protected by their
ama-gasa.
Briefly he saw the high arc of the Nihon-bashi as they crossed the river that flowed into the wider Sumida. Parasols over the span reminded him of Hiroshige’s prints, the great artist’s images speaking to him from another age.

The summons to Sato’s house came as no surprise to Nicholas considering the high-pitched tone of the Telex he had received from the man. Three murders, unexplained and bizarre, were more than enough reason for this late-night rendezvous. The Japanese were a practical people and in times of emergency even politeness might be bypassed for efficiency’s sake.

But for Nicholas the summons held other echoes, ones that Sato could not know about or understand. Being at the industrialist’s home meant that Nicholas would see Akiko again and if his luck held even get to speak to her.

He remembered the gilt and crimson fan trembling like a flower in that extended split second just before she began to lower it and changed his life forever. For it seemed clear to him now that everything he had done after seeing Akiko’s face, every decision he had made, had been so that he could see her again.

He was drawn to her as a moth is to a flame, without reason or logic, with even some atavistic knowledge that the journey might end in destruction.

Nicholas was no longer the person he had once been when he and Yukio had been so madly in love. Yet there was a piece of that madness still burning within him. And he knew that he could not get on with his life, could not fulfill his
karma,
without first investigating this last blind spot within himself. His entire life had been spent in the pursuit of pushing back the darkness. He had found that he could control the chaos of life through the mastery of the martial arts. Through that powerful conduit he had not only learned how to channel the natural forces which he had hitherto found frightening—for they were the forces which had robbed him of his father and mother—but also the spiritual forces whirling within himself.

Yukio’s power over him was obvious. She had spoken to his spirit before he had even known fully of its existence. Her attraction had bypassed his conscious mind, the rational decisionmaking sector on which he had come to rely so heavily. He was drawn to her and he did not know why. He had become frightened of her and of himself. Oddly, this had served only to deepen his love, to etch it on his heart like a black tattoo that could never be erased.

As he raced through the rain-filled Tokyo night, spangled with pink and orange neon, he was conscious only of nearing Yukio again. Impossible but true. Which was the dream and which reality? His body had quivered with the certain knowledge that soon he would find out.

But to his bitter disappointment Sato had told him in response to his query that Akiko was still away in Kyūshū, visiting her infirm aunt. He saw only Koten, the
sumō
bodyguard, lurking in the background like a well-trained Doberman.

Drinks first, then food. At night tea was subordinate to liquor for the modern Japanese. For this, too, they had the West to thank.

Nicholas thought Suntory Scotch vile but he drank it anyway, grateful that Allonge, half Scotch, was not here to witness firsthand what had been done to his nation’s most treasured asset.

As was the habit of the Japanese, they spoke of everything but what was on their minds. That would come later. Sato mentioned that Nangi-san was on his way to Hong Kong to close an important business deal.

“Would you consider it impolite,” Nicholas inquired, “if I told you that my opinion is that Nangi-san does not see this merger in a favorable light?”

“Certainly not,” Sato said. “We are drinking together, Linnear-san. This makes us friends. This binds us more than our business ever will. Businesses are not like marriages, you know. They rise and fall of their own accord. The whims of the market. Economic factors that have nothing to do with us.”

Sato paused for a moment. “But you must try to understand Nangi-san. The war left its imprint on him like a tiger’s clawing. Each day he wakes he cannot forget that we live with the atomic sunshine. You understand me. The fallout’s effects seem never-ending. He is childless and therefore without any true family but me because of it.”

“I am sorry, Sato-san,” Nicholas said. “Truly.”

Sato eyed him, his wooden chopsticks suspended above the steaming food, three kinds of cooked fish,
sashimi
, glass noodles, steamed rice, cucumber, and sea urchin in sweet rice vinegar.

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” he said at last. “I see quite a bit of your father in you. But then there is the other side. That part I do not know.” He resumed serving his guest.

For a time they ate in silence, with rapid, economical movements. Sato drank more than he ate and he ate quite a bit. It was obvious he wanted to talk openly and without restraint. That was quite impossible to do for a Japanese under normal circumstances. Once drunk, all actions, all words were immediately excusable and allowable. Therefore Nicholas drank with him. There would be no point to the session if only Sato drank and, besides, that would be insulting, as if Nicholas was saying, I don’t want to be friends.

He perceived from the moment Sato himself had met him at the door to the house that the older man needed his friendship and support. Whatever was behind the
Wu-Shing
slayings was far more important to him than holding pat in resisting the merger as originally outlined by Tomkin. Whatever fear had erupted in Sato and Nangi of the ritual punishments overrode their normal caution and preference for hard dealing.

And within this softening of his stance Nicholas, trained to dissect every situation in evaluating the elements which created it, perceived a weakness.

It did not make him feel particularly noble or honorable to use this weakness to gain the advantage, yet he desperately needed an opening into
Tenchi.
He knew quite well that under almost any other circumstance he would have come up against a stone wall where
Tenchi
was concerned. However, in this instance the
keiretsu
’s secret work made them vulnerable to outside scrutiny. Sato had made it clear that no police were to be involved. Nicholas was the only person who could conceivably break the chain of the
Wu-Shing,
thus he had a powerful bargaining point from which to open the negotiations.

“Fah!” Sato exclaimed, focusing Nicholas’ attention. He threw his cup to the floor. He was wearing a kimono composed of the flaming colors of autumn. He had generously offered one of his own—the one with the angular
Nōh
pattern that he had been wearing the night Akiko had brought him his last gift before they were married—and Nicholas was now wearing it. Dregs of the brown liquor flew up the sleeve, lying in beads like decoration. “This Scotch is no true liquor at all.” He turned red-rimmed eyes on his guest. “Linnear-san, you pick our drink for the evening.”

“Thank you, Sato-san.” Nicholas bowed. “I’d very much like some sakē. Hot, if that’s possible.”

“Possible!” Sato exploded. “Why, it’s the only way to drink it!” He lurched heavily to his feet, padded in his low white socks to the bar against the longer of the two inner walls of the room. It was fairly large by Japanese standards, sixteen-
tatami.
The wet bar also contained a black iron-and-boxwood
naga-hibachi
, smaller than the one in the other side of the house. This one was never touched by the women of the household but was reserved expressly for the use of the host.

As he went about heating the rice wine, Sato hummed quietly to himself an ancient folk tune his Obā-chama had crooned to him when he and Gōtarō were children. It seemed to fill the house with a warmth that was not exactly physical, as if he had summoned up the attention of good
kami.

But when he returned to the low lacquer table with the sakē, his face was set into somber lines. “I fear we have fallen on evil times, Linnear-san,” he said as he poured. “This
Wu-Shing…
” He shuddered. “I am
samurai
but this…this is simply barbaric. I am not at all surprised that its origins are Chinese. How very indiscriminate we Japanese are, eh, to take the worst from them along with the best. The Yakuza are nothing more than glorified Triads; and the ninja have their origins there as well.”

His eyes crossed for a moment as if he had just forgotten something important, and then his head went down. “Forgive me, Linnear-san. An old man’s tongue runs on and on late at night.”

Nicholas lifted his left arm as if to make a gesture and in so doing caught the hem of his sleeve on the lip of the delicate porcelain sakē pitcher. It made a tiny sound as it shattered. Clear liquid ran across the table.

Nicholas jumped up. “A thousand pardons, Sato-san. Please forgive my Western clumsiness.”

Sato calmly wiped away the liquor and quickly gathered up the shards of porcelain. “There is nothing to forgive, my friend. Akiko is not here to serve us from the best porcelain. This was an old and timeworn piece that needed throwing out. In fact it is only my laziness which had precluded me from disposing of the pitcher myself.”

Thus did Nicholas cleverly negate his host’s acute embarrassment, gaining enormous face in Sato’s eyes while saving face for his host.

When Sato returned from heating more sakē, there was new respect in his eyes. He bowed as he pushed the filled cup across the table.

“
Domo arigato.
” Nicholas returned the bow.

Sato downed more sakē before he spoke again. “It is my opinion, Linnear-san, that the
Wu-Shing
is being directed at us—that is, Nangi-san and myself—even though the three deaths have seriously undermined the effectiveness of the
konzern.
There is something personal in the manner of the deaths. With each one, Kagami-san, Yoshida-san, Ishii-san, we come closer and closer to the core of the company. The path is indeed terrifying to contemplate.”

He stared down at his empty cup, and Nicholas realized that even with so much alcohol inside him this was a difficult moment. All Nicholas could do was to remain silent.

“I have thought much about these ritual punishments.” Sato’s head came up. “And I now believe that we are being stalked by our past. Can you understand that? Yes, I thought so. You of all people.”

“Have you and Nangi-san discussed the possible…origins of these punishments.”