Disciple of the Wind (20 page)

Halfway down the next page, a line break and then a new list of alphanumerics, these dated
10-09-30
—September 30, 2010. Thursday. Apart from that difference, Thursday’s gibberish was as unintelligible as Wednesday’s.

“Han, what am I supposed to be reading here?”

“Skip to the end.”

She shrugged and flipped to the last page. The very last line read,

10-10-02 CEST 08:00:00 LOC UNSPEC Meet Watanabe Masayori

Mariko dropped the paper like it was on fire. “What the hell?”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Han.

No one in Narcotics called Han by his real name. In fact, most of the guys didn’t even know his real name. Sakakibara had nicknamed him Han years ago and the name just stuck. Mariko might have been the only one who knew that his nickname before that was Masu, short for Masayori. Watanabe Masayori. Who met her at oh eight hundred hours this morning, October 2, just like it said on the page.

There it was, staring up at her. She picked it up again, and with each line she read, she felt her gut tighten. The penultimate entry: the previous night, twenty-one hundred hours,
commence sting operation against Lee Jin Bao
. The entry before that: same day, twelve thirty hours,
intake Yuki Kisho on suspicion of trafficking
. The entry before that: one day earlier, a string of numbers just like the ones that dominated the previous four pages. Except now she remembered why the MX number seemed familiar.

The city of Tokyo bought its traffic cameras from a company called Mobotix. TMPD sourced the same company for its surveillance cameras. MX10-4-137-29 was the location of one particular Mobotix traffic cam. What Mariko held in her hands was a complete list of every traffic cam and surveillance cam whose feed she’d pulled in tracking the woman in white from Tokyo Station all the way back to the Blind Spot.

This wasn’t a pirated file. Mariko had never typed up a list of all the cameras she’d used. Half of them were duds, and even of the best hits, she’d just printed the clearest images and moved on. So no one had hacked her account back at HQ. Someone had been watching her the whole time. They had monitored all of her computer activity related to the woman in white, and they must have done it in real time. Not just Mariko’s searches for camera feed, either; there were e-mails and memos about the Yuki collar too, and more about the raid on the Sour Plum. Hell, even her phone conversations; she and Han had spoken for all of thirty seconds in setting up this morning’s meet. That was the last entry in the log.

“Han, these people were right here, in this room, less than ten hours ago. They listened to us, they packed up all their shit, and they vanished.”

Han took half a step back, and Mariko realized she’d gotten a little animated with her gesticulations. “Sorry,” she said, crossing her arms. “But you see what I’m saying. Ten hours flat, and they go from fully operational to ghost in the machine. Worse yet, they leave the front
door unlocked, just to make sure I’d come down here to see what’s left of their vanishing act.”

“Hm.” He looked at the pages in her hand. “So why’d they leave the log behind? Same reason? Like, just to fuck with your head?”

“Hold on. You don’t think I’m being paranoid, do you? Please tell me you believe me.”

“Are you kidding? Look around.” He stretched his arms out wide, as if to take in the whole room. “Ninja Secret Santa’s workshop. If this wasn’t happening to a good friend of mine, this would be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

That was more than Mariko could take. She sat on the nearest desk and sagged in half. She thought her traffic camera trick was pretty good. She was especially proud of the trick with the high schoolers’ cell phones. All along she’d thought she was flying under the radar, but this printout blew that illusion all to hell. Now, not only had she not found her quarry, but her quarry had only to send this cryptic list to Captain Kusama and that would be the end of Mariko’s career. He’d given her a direct order to work nothing but narcotics cases, and here was a record of all the time she’d spent hunting her assailant instead.

Right from day one, she should have filed an injury report with the department. She should have passed the case to another detective. While she was at it, she could have passed along her idea with the traffic cams too. Cops didn’t take this kind of thing lying down; the woman in white had attacked one of their own, and that meant they’d find her no matter how long it took. Instead she’d passed off her bruises as a
kenjutsu
injury, she’d disobeyed orders, and now she’d dragged Han into the whole mess. In the last five minutes she had committed breaking and entering, destruction of property, and official misconduct. It was enough to put her in prison.

All for nothing. And now she was out of leads. Her courage leaked out of her like water from a sieve. “Han, what the hell am I going to do?”

“Exactly what you’ve been doing. Look, Mariko, whoever these people are, you’ve got them running scared. That list? It’s like a minefield sign on a field without any mines. They’re trying to frighten you away.”

“Yeah, well, it’s working.”

“No. I’m telling you, they’re more afraid of you than you are of them. They thought they were invisible, but now they know they’re not. Not to you. Not anymore.”

Mariko wished she could find that encouraging. If there really was a Wind, and if they really had been lurking in the shadows for the last five hundred years, it would be quite an honor to be the first one to spot them. But how could she know she was the first one? There might have been a hundred by now but the Wind assassinated the other ninety-nine. For all Mariko knew, she could be next on their
list.

BOOK FOUR

AZUCHI-MOMOYAMA PERIOD, THE YEAR 21

(1588
CE
)

17

D
aigoro cradled his stepfather in his arms. He decided he could get used to the feeling of holding a baby.

Lord Yasuda Gorobei was warm and soft and smelled like comfort. His tiny eyes clamped shut against the sunlight and he snuggled his face into Daigoro’s kimono, bound and determined to sleep.

His father, Yasuda Kenkichi, had died just as he lived: drunk and disgraced. He met his end facedown in a puddle of muddy rainwater after a brutal tavern brawl. Kenkichi’s father, Kenbei, had then taken custody of his grandchild, despite his many winters and his obvious disdain for fatherhood. His wife, Azami, was twenty years his junior but evinced the same indifference to motherhood. To judge by her stout arms and beetled brow, she would be more at home in a smithy than a nursery.

They had surrendered their custody when Gorobei married. Daigoro had arranged his mother’s marriage to little Gorobei to protect her from Shichio, who had designs on her hand and then on House Okuma itself. Once Okuma Yumiko became Lady Yasuda Yumiko, she was out of Shichio’s reach.

Now she was recovering from the many blows she’d suffered over the last year—first her husband’s murder, then the death of her eldest son in a duel. As a younger woman she’d miscarried two pregnancies between Ichiro and Daigoro, and now her only remaining son could be executed simply for coming home to her. Her grief had visibly aged
her. Crow’s-feet stretched from the corners of her eyes, lengthening like cracks in ice, and her back had taken a slight but noticeable hunch. Now, after only a few weeks of caring for her newborn husband, she was standing taller. If she grew any new wrinkles, they would be laugh lines.

It helped that she was not alone in raising the child. Akiko was a tremendous help. Also, Yasuda Kenbei and his wife, Azami, had taken residence in the Okuma compound. They occupied the adjoining rooms that had once belonged to Daigoro and his brother, Ichiro. The brothers wouldn’t be needing their rooms any time soon: one was dead and the other was a fugitive
ronin
, legally banned from setting foot on House Okuma’s lands. Shichio had roving patrols enforcing that ban, but they didn’t know the footpaths crisscrossing the estate, while Daigoro had grown up playing hide-and-seek back there.

Thus Daigoro and Katsushima had slipped in unannounced and undetected, using a nigh-invisible postern gate in the orchard. Aki had long since arrived, since she traveled by horse and the main roads were still open to her. Her relief at seeing Daigoro alive was as palpable as the breeze. Daigoro’s mother was delighted to see him too, though her husband was not, since all the fuss made it harder to sleep. The scent of unfamiliar women unsettled him, so he started to cry whenever Aki picked him up. Yet as soon as Daigoro took him, he pinched his eyes shut and nestled in to resume his nap.

“Daigoro, it is so good to have you back,” his mother said. “How are you healing?”

“Better and better by the day.” He curled and opened his fist to prove it. He didn’t mention the stripe of pain in his right thigh. A sword had caught him there at the Green Cliff, and though the wound had healed over, three days of hiking through the backwoods had aggravated the muscle. Before bedding down for the night Daigoro would pay Old Yagyu a visit. His thigh was dreading it already: Yagyu’s massaging fingers would press deeply enough to bring tears to Daigoro’s eyes, but in the morning the leg would feel like new.

“Daigoro-san,” Yasuda Kenbei said. His tone was a little too informal, a little too insistent, almost like a parent chiding his adult child. “We must speak. Alone.”

Kenbei was as grim-faced as his wife. His cold, steely eyes made Daigoro think of storm clouds. He was resplendent in Yasuda green, distinguished and lordly with his graying topknot. In time, perhaps his hair would go as white as his father’s, Lord Yasuda Jinbei. Of all of House Okuma’s allies, Lord Yasuda was Daigoro’s favorite. In truth he was more like an uncle than an ally, though sadly he hadn’t left his sickbed in months. When Daigoro had last seen him, Lord Yasuda’s face seemed as hollow as a skull.

Daigoro did not expect the son of Yasuda Jinbei to speak to him so rudely, but he took it in stride. Bowing to his mother, he passed off the baby, kissed Aki’s hand, and followed Kenbei to the tearoom. He was surprised to see Azami come along.

The three of them sat around a low table. Daigoro and Kenbei batted the necessary pleasantries back and forth: your grandson looks well, will this heat ever end, all the standard fare. Other women would have contributed the occasional
neh
to the conversation, or dropped a compliment here and there, but Azami remained silent. When she finally spoke, she just blurted, “House Okuma is in debt.”

By the gods, Daigoro thought, you might at least have waited for the serving girl to bring some tea. “We are,” he said, then realized he wasn’t a part of that
we
. He had cast himself out. “That is to say, yes, my mother’s house has taken on significant expenses of late. Skimping on a funeral brings bad karma to the deceased, and we buried two of our own. We also feasted the Imperial Regent—”

“With
our
coin,” Azami pointed out.

“That was the wedding. We hosted him once before that, when he first paid us a visit. Food and
sake
for over a hundred men does not come cheaply.”

Neither did poppy’s tears, he chose not to add. His mother had been taking them nightly to help her sleep—and more often than not, a dose or two during the day as well. He’d speak to Old Yagyu later
tonight about how she was holding up now that he’d weaned her off the treacherous stuff.

For now he had more pressing problems. “My lord and lady, may I ask what brings this on? If Lord Yasuda’s medicines have become too expensive, it goes without saying that House Okuma’s stores are open to you.”

“No need,” Kenbei said. His voice was deep and dour. “My father’s care is expensive, yes, but it will not last much longer. After that, rule will pass to me.”

“Oh?” Daigoro did not cloak his surprise. The Okumas and Yasudas had spoken openly with one another for many years. They had also maintained a unified front for that long, fending off all other comers, including Izu’s other lords protector when they got too ambitious. “What of your elder brothers?”

“They maintain homesteads of their own, strategically placed for the defense of Izu.”

“I know. It’s just . . . well, I beg your pardon, Kenbei-san, but I would have thought
you
would assume one of those holds when a brother came home to rule.”

“Home!” Kenbei’s anger was sudden. Though he suppressed it just as quickly, it still lent a certain heat to his words. “
I
am the one who stayed home with Father.
I
am the one who manages House Yasuda—and also the one who must deal with Toyotomi Hideyoshi after you slaughtered so many of his men outside the Green Cliff.”

“I am sorry for that, Kenbei-san. And I am eternally grateful for your family’s support. Any number of soldiers and servants in your house could have betrayed me to my enemy, yet none have done so.”

“We gain nothing by exposing you, and stand to lose much. You have been a useful ally. I do hope that will continue. When my father passes, I intend to make some changes.”