“Nope.”
“I think we’ve outstayed our welcome.”
“Like a mother on a wedding night.”
“Back door’s through the kitchen.”
“Grab the luggage,” Noda said. “We’ll change outside. You did good.”
“How do you figure?”
“Didn’t get yourself killed.”
I shouldered the pair of duffel bags, thinking that our lives had hinged on instinct, a sliver of advance knowledge, and four pulls of a trigger.
What had we stumbled into?
I still had no answer as to
who
or
why
, but I now knew
what
—and wished I didn’t.
Any way I sized up the scene before me, I had no doubt more of the same—or worse—waited for us beyond these walls.
CHAPTER 35
W
HEN
a board underfoot creaked as we descended the stairs, the mistress of the inn cracked open her door and stared at us in astonishment. She took in the duffel bags and asked, “You’re leaving?”
“We had visitors,” Noda said. He held the gun by his side, out of sight.
Wonder filled her eyes. Then fear. “But you’re alive?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
“That’s not important.”
As if to confirm something to herself, the okami-san nodded. “We call them the invisible ones. Mostly guests just disappear. Sometimes, when I clean up, there is a spot of blood on the futon. Like a feeding mosquito had been swatted.”
“Is that what happened to Mori?” I asked.
Her lips trembled. “Yes. During an afternoon nap. I was out shopping.”
Her words struck me like a physical blow. I stumbled back half a step and felt a wave of nausea roll over me. “You told us he went for a walk.”
“What else
could
I say?”
Noda said, “You don’t mind, we’ll use your back door.”
A determined look firmed the lines of her mouth. “No, not the back door.”
“Why not?”
“They’ll be watching. Go through the delivery entrance on the opposite side, away from the parking lot.”
“Is the car usable?” I asked, dreading the answer.
The innkeeper shook her head. “No, it’ll be booby-trapped. You’ll have to leave it behind.” She took a step toward the front door.
“Where you going?” Noda said, his gun rising and tracking her movement.
“Shoes.”
The gun slipped from sight.
After scooping up our footwear, she led us down a dark corridor toward the rear of the inn. We turned several times, our way lit by moonlight seeping through the occasional transom window. She turned on no lights. In a passage beyond the bathing quarters, she set down our footwear and reached for the side door.
Noda grabbed her wrist and twisted hard. A muffled a cry of pain. I felt a stab of guilt, but it needed doing.
In a brusque whisper Noda said, “Why are you doing this?
Hayaku!
” Quick!
His tone was sharp and accusing. If he didn’t believe her answer, or detected a false note, he would shoot her. Blind trust in our newfound guide was not an option. Why should she befriend us at this late stage when earlier she had been so evasive? Why couldn’t this be a fallback trap? We were certain of only one thing: a single wrong move and we would be slaughtered like pigs.
Alarm flickered across the okami-san’s features, but it was nearly impossible to determine the origin of her fear. Was she frightened of Noda or afraid of
them
if she didn’t lead us into their trap?
“Answer plainly,” I said. “Now.”
Nervously, eyes darted to her captured wrist, then to the gun in Noda’s other hand. “They have my son.”
“His name?”
“Ryo Nagayama. He’s my
only
son. There are some of us—mothers mostly—who fight them in our own fashion. Centuries ago, we were a poor farming community. Samurai ruled the country, and the Ogi clan ruled our town.”
I recalled the well-attended monument to General Ogi in the center of the village.
“They found a way out,” she said, “but not a good way. There was a
great demand for people willing to do dirty work. It always came from the authorities. That was the clan’s genius, and our village has been caught up in their scheming ever since. Even today the Ogis are revered. We live better, but not freely. We are cared for, but watched. And they entice our children with money and games we can’t compete with.”
Noda scrutinized the innkeeper closely, as did I. Her expression was dark and solemn, her tone sincere. I could detect no false flicker. She was either trustworthy or an actress of immense talent.
Noda released her.
The innkeeper said, “Who
are
you?”
I said, “Doesn’t matter.”
“No one survives an attack.”
“Things change.”
“Not here. Not for three hundred years.” She hesitated. “May I ask if you have an escape route?”
Noda and I were silent.
“You are right not to tell me. They could force me. But I guess you have prepared one.”
We remained silent.
“No matter. Go,” she said, giving me a gentle shove toward the door. “They will come, and when they do they’ll find me sleeping soundly. They’ll have no reason to disturb me or suspect me. But I will tell you this: the river is the best way out. You cannot be seen in the shallows along the left shore because of the high bank and the trees overhead. Stay in the water. It is not deep this time of year and there are many nocturnal snakes in the rocks along the banks. Even
they
fear the snakes. Now go. Quickly.”
CHAPTER 36
N
ODA
crouched in the doorway for a long beat, scanning the darkness before us, then dashed across three yards of open ground and vanished into the bamboo thicket. Attentive to every sound and shadow, I waited for a response to the chief detective’s foray into the night.
Registering no movement, I left the safety of the inn and sprinted in Noda’s wake, hauling our gear, wondering if unseen eyes tracked me, visualizing a bullet zipping toward my back. I entered the foliage without incident.
“Change farther in,” Noda whispered. “You first, I’ll watch.”
“Got it.”
I pushed deeper into the stand of giant bamboo. The stalks were taller than houses and fatter than summer squash. In the grove, the air was damp but cool despite the heat that hung over the valley. Noda’s call to slip into street clothes outdoors was a shrewd one. The bamboo provided more options than the confining walls of the inn room.
Screened by the stalks, I stripped off the yukata. Crickets chirped nearby. “Think we can get out of here in one piece?”
“That’s the plan.”
Noda was tense and attuned to every shade of the darkness around us, as was I. He sounded confident but I didn’t share his conviction. For one thing, we were too deep in their territory. For another, only an orderly and silent retreat could save us. A headlong rush through the mountains assured a quick death. By rigging the Viper, Soga had cut off our main escape route and limited our options.
I pulled on jeans and a dark blue T-shirt, laced up black Reeboks,
then spelled Noda on watch while he changed. After he finished, the chief detective came to the edge of the grove, squatted by my side, and said, “We follow the river out.”
“That’s it? Your whole plan?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me you’re going on more than the innkeeper’s word.”
“Am.”
Great. I couldn’t push the master of laconic without irritating him, and I didn’t want to irritate the man who held my life in his hands.
On the roof of a three-story farmhouse some hundred fifty yards away, I caught a glimpse of an incongruent shadow that didn’t follow the contours of the roofline. I kept an eye on it. The shadow moved and glided on to the neighboring two-story, then slid down the steep slope of ceramic tile, taking the drop to the ground noiselessly before turning away.
I said, “You see that?”
“Yeah. Stay alert.”
We plunged into the forest and travelled at an even clip, our advance swift but silent. I left the reassuring shelter of the bamboo with reluctance, an adrenaline charge propelling me forward as I calculated our chances for survival. The sky, glimpsed through a canopy of pine and cedar, was coal black and distant. Stars were icy blue points that shimmered and blinked and seemed to shift if you tried too hard to get a fix on them.
Noda pointed to a path in the distance. “You see the left fork? Two hundred yards down is a ravine, maybe twenty or thirty feet deep, river at the bottom. Go down. Wait five minutes, out of sight. If I don’t show, go on without me. Two miles, the river bends to the right. Climb the far embankment. George is there.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Make sure we’re not being followed.”
“You sure about the route?”
Noda gave me a look. “Walked it today.”
“While I was at the festival?”
Scanning the forest, Noda nodded, and I heaved a silent sigh of relief. We weren’t traveling blind.
I said, “You never expected to get any information, did you?”
“Only what we’ve got.”
“They knew who we were, didn’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t matter that we used false names.”
“No.”
“Which means they were involved in Japantown and now we know it. And they know we know it.” The sudden realization sent a chill through me.
“Sorry. It was the only way.”
“They’ll be looking to get even.”
“No, they’re pros. They’ll regroup and watch.”
“If we get out of Soga.”
“Yeah. If. We get to Tokyo, they’ll pull back.”
“Why?”
“Because they know we don’t have squat.”
“So they regroup and kill us in Tokyo.”
“Not there.”
“Why not?”
“City’s off-limits. Don’t know why.”
We heard the sound of a scurrying animal and listened intently for a moment.
I said, “You sure they weren’t watching you this afternoon?”
“I’m sure.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“We’ll be dead shortly.”
I shut my eyes to steady my nerves. Sometimes I wished the chief detective were a little less forthright.
Noda whispered, “Time to go,” and we split up, Noda reminding me to wait five minutes, no more. I followed the left fork. Underfoot the deadfall was brown and spongy. Ferns and moss edged the path. Cedars with trunks as wide as small cars formed the canopy overhead. Cricket and frog song erupted from all sides.
I was edgy. I didn’t like leaving Noda alone. Not one bit. It went against every instinct of self-preservation I possessed. You never split up. In South Central there was safety in numbers. It wouldn’t be any
different out here. Noda was good, but the terrain was theirs. The home advantage was too great.
Keeping to the trail for two minutes until it turned, I took advantage of the bend to leave the path and circle back. I made good time on my return trip and spotted Noda a dozen yards away, crouched behind a tree. I followed his lead, stepping behind a tall cedar for cover.
Noda’s gun was drawn and tracking a target I couldn’t see. The next instant he fired and missed, but the flash of the muzzle illuminated a dark silhouette fleeing into the thicket without a sound. Seconds later, a knife smacked into the tree trunk above Noda’s left shoulder. He inched around to the other side of the tree for protection. He listened and looked, and I did the same.
A minute passed, then two more.
There was no sign of the attacker, but we remained alert. With the gunfire, silencer notwithstanding, cricket and frog song had ceased, and had yet to resume.
A moment later Noda let out a muffled yelp and I stared in astonishment as his feet were wrenched off the ground, a jet-black noose looped around his neck.
Jesus.
Without looking up, Noda sighted along the line and unleashed three shots.
A body plunged from the tree, but the rope had been secured and Noda dangled ten inches above solid ground. An insignificant height in the larger scheme of things, but plenty to die from. Dropping his weapon, Noda clawed at the cord. His body flailed about as he tried to wedge his fingers between noose and skin.
Before I could move from my hiding place, a black figure wearing night-vision goggles separated from the trees and regarded Noda’s thrusting legs and twisting torso with fascination. Noda pumped the air with his legs and leveraged the strength of his powerful shoulders to pull down on the line and gain some space under his chin, then wedged his fingers between the noose and his jaw and sucked in air noisily.
“Impressive muscle, old man,” the figure said. “I’ll give you that. But it’s wasted effort. I’ll take you now and your partner when I catch him. It was dumb to separate.”
The speaker pulled a gun from his equipment belt.
With an abrupt burst, I charged over the remaining few yards in a rush that gave me away.
Noda’s assailant wheeled, weapon swinging around.
The scrimmage took only seconds but played out before my eyes in the elastic time of a stop-motion replay. Frame by frame. Instant by instant. I sprang, then brought my foot up. Saw that the trajectory was accurate, then heard jawbone snap as the heel of my foot connected just before the gun barrel flared. A flash, then I watched my adversary fall backward. The sting of a bullet grazed my ribs, then I saw the shooter’s head bounce off the cushioned ground of the forest floor. Then I found myself hoping the bullet was untreated, and
just
a bullet. And in a disengaged place in my mind, I marveled at the Soga mystique that had me wishing I’d
only
been shot.
The shooter’s spine hit a fist-size stone and I heard a sharp crack of bone. His body arched in pain, then fell back, limp.
I landed on the forward padding of my feet and was on him in one bound. He tried to rise but couldn’t. His spine had snapped. I ripped off his night-vision goggles and tossed them aside. No wonder they had found Noda so easily. Underneath a black hood, watchful eyes glittered.
“The linguist,” I said, “where is he?”
“Our farmhouse,” he whispered.
“Brodie, keep your distance,” Noda called in a choked voice.