The Fifth Profession (50 page)

“So how does he plan to leave?” Akira asked. “I don't see a limousine, but supposing there is one near the platform, he can't be certain he could get inside or that the crowd would part to let the car drive away. What's his escape plan?”

“Exactly,” Savage said. “Look at the way the platform's constructed. A railing all around it. No stairs. How did he get up there? And the platform's on the sidewalk, not the street, with the rear against a building.”

Eyes gleaming, Akira understood. “That must be where the stairs are, leading up from a door in the building.
That's
how Shirai got here.
That's
how he plans to leave, down the stairs, into the building and …”

“
Through
the building?” Savage asked, heart racing with excitement. “If he planned this properly, if he didn't draw attention to himself when he arrived on the other street, there won't be a crowd back there waiting for him. He'll be able to hurry out the opposite door of the building, get into his car while his guards form a cordon, and be gone before these demonstrators realize where he went.”

Akira straightened, muscles primed. “Hurry. We don't know how long he'll continue speaking.”

With painful effort, they retreated in the direction from which they'd come. Savage glimpsed a photographer and ducked. He avoided a policeman and suddenly flinched, pushed by the crowd, his shoulder banging hard against a wall. A few tortured steps farther, he strained to resist another push that nearly slammed him through a huge window.

Sweating, he imagined his body spewing blood, impaled by shards of glass. He squeezed and thrust, squirming past what felt like a tidal wave of protestors. Six months ago, he knew, before the onslaught of his nightmare, he wouldn't have felt this close to panicking, but then six months ago, he had to admit, he would never have allowed himself to be trapped in such an uncontrollable situation. His sickening sense of
jamais vu
had changed him, impaired his judgment. He'd become a victim, less a protector than someone in
need
of a protector.

Damn it, I have to get out of here. With a final frantic thrust, he stumbled from the crowd, gulping air, concentrating to control his trembling muscles.

2

He barely had a moment to allow himself to recover. Ahead, Akira glanced back to make sure that Savage was with him, then broke into a run, crossing the street. Sweat trickling off his forehead, Savage rushed to follow. They darted through traffic that was stalled by the demonstrators. With everyone's attention directed toward the protest, no one seemed to notice Savage and Akira's frenzied effort. They reached a side street, charging along it, desperate to get to the street that paralleled the street upon which Shirai harangued his followers.

At a corner, Savage swung frantically toward the right, relieved to discover that
this
street had only the normal congestion of cars and pedestrians, not another threatening impervious mass of demonstrators. Even here, though, the chant of “
Gaijin
out!” bellowed distinctly from the other street, rumbling off buildings.

Urgency strengthened Savage's legs. His long, quick strides brought him next to Akira. As one, the
comitatus
and samurai glanced at each other, nodded, tightened their lips in what might have been a smile. Increasing speed, they dodged pedestrians and raced along one block, then another, quickly approaching the building from which they expected Shirai to emerge.

Akira pointed. A half-block before them, a long black limousine was parked at the curb. Muscular Japanese men, wearing sunglasses, double-breasted blue suits, and white ties, clustered on the sidewalk, some watching the exit from the building, others surveying passing cars and pedestrians approaching the limousine.

Savage didn't need to debate with Akira about their next move. He felt as if he'd swallowed ice and abruptly slowed.

Akira imitated, suddenly strolling, just another pedestrian, glancing toward merchandise in windows, blending with the pattern of the street.

“It doesn't look like they saw us coming,” Savage said. “Or if they did, they're too well trained to react and warn us we were spotted.”

“That family ahead of us shielded us,” Akira said. “Nonetheless, for all the guards know, we're merely two businessmen late for an appointment. They don't have cause for concern.”

“Except that I'm an American,” Savage said. “Conspicuous.”

“There's no way to solve that problem. As long as we don't seem a threat, they'll leave us alone. All we want to do is get a close look at Shirai. If we arrange to stroll up at the appropriate time, it shouldn't be difficult. Provided the guards aren't on edge, we might even be able to speak with him.”

“Their blue suits look like a uniform,” Savage said.

“Double-breasted. And the white ties and the sunglasses. Very much a uniform,” Akira said. “
Yakuza.
“

“
What?
But isn't that … ?”

“What you'd call the Japanese mafia. In America, you're used to mobsters being outside the system. Here it's common practice for politicians and businessmen to hire gangsters as protectors.”

Savage stared. “And the public doesn't object?”

Akira shrugged. “A give-and-take tradition. Even prime ministers have hired
yakuza
as escorts, and at stockholders’ meetings for major corporations, gangsters are often employed to discourage questions. They shout. They throw chairs. It's accepted procedure. The authorities tolerate gangsters, and in return, the
yakuza
avoid drug trafficking and crimes involving firearms.”

Savage shook his head, off balance. Like so much he'd learned about Japan, this symbiosis between the establishment and the underworld was bewildering. More, that these
yakuza
protectors would choose to wear what amounted to uniforms was also bewildering, an inversion of one of the most basic rules Graham had taught him—dress to be a chameleon.

At the moment, though, Savage was most disturbed by Akira's reference to firearms. It reminded him that he'd felt compelled, uneasily, to leave his Beretta at Taro's. He couldn't take the risk that, in case of an incident, the police would stop him and discover him carrying a pistol, a major offense at any time in Japan but much more severe and suspicious if someone were found to have a handgun at a political demonstration. “Does that mean Shirai's guards won't be carrying weapons?”

“Perhaps. Indeed it's highly possible, although Shirai has created such a controversy—become so conspicuous—that they might decide to bend the rules.”

“In other words, we don't know what we're facing.”

“Of course,” Akira said. “This, after all,
is
Japan.”

Approaching the guards, frowning toward the roar of the protestors that echoed from the other street, Savage and Akira responded as one. As if sensing each other's thoughts, they veered to step into a flower shop, needing somewhere to linger until Shirai left the demonstration. While Akira pretended to browse along a row of chrysanthemums, Savage stayed close to the door. But even through its glass, the rumbling shouts were easily heard. He listened for a difference in the chant, a change in rhythm or volume, anything to indicate that Shirai was leaving.

Hands tingling, he tensed with the realization that he'd already heard it. Or
hadn't
heard it. For the last thirty seconds, Shirai had failed to interrupt the crowd to continue his tirade. Savage's nerves felt jolted.

He motioned to Akira and hurriedly went outside. As Akira joined him, they swung to the right toward the barrel-chested guards thirty yards away and saw the gangsters adjust their sunglasses, straighten their suitcoats, and
come to attention.
Most directed their gaze toward the door to the building, two men holding it open, flanking it. Two others opened doors on the limousine. Only a few continued to scan the street.

Unprofessional, Savage thought with relief. The confused situation reminded him of the lack of discipline that had allowed John Hinckley, Jr., to get close enough to shoot and wound President Reagan, his press secretary, a Secret Service agent, and a Washington policeman in 1981. Reagan had been in a downtown D.C. hotel, giving a speech. A cordon of guards had waited to protect him as he left the hotel to get into his car. But as the President stepped into view, his guards had been unable to resist the impulse to turn and look at their movie-star leader. While their attention wavered, Hinckley had made his move, firing repeatedly.

Savage flashed back nervously to the intensive training Graham had given him after Savage had left the SEALs. Graham had ordered Savage to study the films of that attempted assassination and other attacks—tragically successful—on major politicians, to study them again and again. “Keep your eyes away from your principal!” Graham had insisted. “You know what your principal looks like! No matter how famous that principal is, your job is
not
to be a tourist, not to admire someone famous! A protector's job is to watch the crowd!”

Which the men in the white ties and double-breasted blue suits weren't doing.

Maybe we've got a chance, Savage thought, aware of the irony that he as a protector was using the tactics of an assassin.

3

Savage's neck muscles thickened, arteries swelling, blood soaring through them.

A group of guards exited the building, with Shirai at their center. All the protectors on the sidewalk swung to face him, giving Savage and Akira the chance to approach within a few feet.

Savage inhaled, straining to free the imaginary hands that squeezed his aching throat. He thought he'd prepared himself for this desperately needed confrontation. But recognition startled him. Reality fought with illusion.

Dismayed, he relived the slaughter, the wide-awake soul-destroying nightmare at the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat. He had no doubt now. Though cameras could lie and the newspaper photographs and television footage of Shirai might have made the politician only
seem
to be Kamichi, the man Savage now stared at was unquestionably the principal he'd seen sliced in half in the hotel's corridor. Even surrounded by a commotion of guards, the
face
was vividly close. Shirai
was
Kamichi. Kamichi was Shirai!

But Kamichi was dead! How could he … ? Reality rippled. Memory, like a camera, could be a liar.

Shirai—gray-haired, droop-jowled, fiftyish, somewhat short and overweight, but for all that, astonishingly charismatic—sweated from the exertion of his energetic, impassioned speech. Striding rapidly but with effort toward his limousine, using a handkerchief to wipe moisture from the back of his neck, he darted his eyes toward the crowd beyond his guards.

And stiffened, his brown complexion turning pale, riveting his startled gaze on Savage and Akira.

He shouted, blurting staccato Japanese phrases of terror. He stumbled back, pointing in horror.

His bodyguards whirled.

“No!” Savage said.

Shirai kept wailing, stumbling back, pointing.

Spotting their quarry, the bodyguards snapped to attention.

“No, we've got to talk to you!” Savage said. “
Do you know us? Do you recognize us?
We know you! We need to talk, to ask you some questions! We have to find out what happened at—?”

Shirai barked a command.

The bodyguards lunged.

“Listen!” Savage yelled. “Please! We—”

A bodyguard struck.

Savage dodged. “We don't want trouble! We just want to talk to—”

The bodyguard chopped with a callused hand.

Leaping backward, Savage escaped the blow. The guards attacked in a wedge, making Savage feel as if the Dallas Cowboys, dressed incongruously in sunglasses and double-breasted suits, were about to crush him. He scurried a dozen steps farther backward, seeing Shirai's terrified face as the man Savage knew as Kamichi scrambled into his limousine.

“No! Just let us talk to you!” Savage said.

Jabbing with his elbow, Savage struck the solar plexus of his nearest assailant. The impact was shocking, as if Savage had hit a sack of cement. But the force of the blow was sufficient to make the assailant grunt, bend forward gasping, and stagger back, colliding with another guard.

Shirai's limousine sped from the curb, rubber smoking, tires squealing.

The guards continued rushing Savage, some of them pulling out blackjacks. Akira spun, kicking.

A guard's leg buckled. Another guard's wrist bent, the blackjack falling from his broken hand.

In a frenzy, Savage bolted, escaping, flanked by Akira, hearing urgent footfalls and angry voices behind him. As they sped through an intersection, Savage's pulse skipped. To his left, he saw demonstrators disbanding from the protest on the parallel street swarm into view.

Jesus! Savage thought, racing harder. A blackjack, flung in desperation, whistled past his head. It walloped onto the sidewalk, the leather-sheathed lead core making a brutal thunk that caused Savage to flinch at the thought of what the blackjack would have done to his skull.

His lungs burned. His legs strained. Heart pounding, he could only hope that the guards would be professional enough to stop soon, having accomplished their task of protecting their principal. For all the guards know, Savage thought, we're a diversion and the real threat's supposed to come from another direction, farther down the street.

But we injured three of them. Maybe the guards are pissed off enough to want to catch us and pound our skulls to get even.

Or maybe they want to find out who we are! A protector ought to know who's after his client!

But how can we make them understand? We don't want to hurt Shirai! We only want to talk to him!

The guards roared closer. As Savage dodged confused pedestrians, a heavy object whacked his shoulder. Another blackjack, hurled in desperation. The impact made Savage stagger forward, wincing. Repressing a groan, he managed to regain his balance, correct his stride, and lunge faster, the footsteps behind him thundering nearer.

Akira charged across the street, through dense stalled traffic toward another side street, away from the site of the demonstration. Savage kept pace, chest heaving, legs stretching, pounding. Sweat drenched his shirt. His shoulder throbbed.