The Fifth Profession (53 page)

Humiliated, outraged, Mishima returned to the commander's office, unsheathed the sword he wore—a vestige of the samurai tradition—knelt …

And committed
seppuku,
impaling his bowels.

But not before he commanded his most loyal follower to stand beside him with
another
sword, to complete the ritual and chop off his head.

“The incident created a controversy,” Akira said. “Many Japanese admired Mishima's principles and courage. At the same time, they questioned the futility of his suicidal outrage. What purpose did it serve? Social pressure hadn't forced him to do it. Couldn't he have found an effective, constructive way to express his despair? Or had he truly believed that his suicide would prompt others to take up his cause?”

Savage didn't know what to answer. He thought of his father, not the stranger he'd met in Baltimore, but the man he remembered from his youth, the man he'd so loved, the man who one night had put a bullet through his brain. Oh, yes, indeed, a part of Savage could very much empathize with Mishima's desperation.

But Savage was conditioned by American values. Pragmatism. Survival, even with shame. Endurance, no matter the cost to pride. Don't let the bastards get you down.

Christ.

Akira broke the awkward silence. “Mishima's a perfect example. A symbol. Twenty years after his suicide, he's still remembered. Respected. So maybe he
did
achieve his purpose.” Akira lifted a hand from the steering wheel to gesture. “Not right away, as Mishima hoped. But eventually. You have to understand. In Japan, left-wing demonstrations are squashed. They're equated with communism, and communists are hated. Everyone is equal? No. Japan is based on levels.
Shogun
to
daimyo
to samurai to … This country's a hierarchy. But
right
-wing demonstrations. They're another matter. The authorities tolerate them—because those demonstrations advocate a system of control, of social order, every element in its place, master to servant, husband to wife, parent to child, employer to subordinate.”

“You sound”—Savage frowned—”as if you agree with that.”

“What I'm trying to explain is that the right wing is a minority here, but it's nonetheless powerful, and it forms the base of Shirai's followers. What he needs, of course, is to turn huge numbers of moderates into extremists, and so far he hasn't been able to do that. So the majority of Japanese watch the demonstrations with interest and perhaps with sympathy … but not with sufficient conviction to act.”

“Not yet.”

Akira shrugged. “We can try to learn from history, but it's almost impossible to reverse its trend. As much as I hate Commodore Perry's ‘black ships’ and what they did to my country, I don't believe Shirai can take us back to the cultural purity of the Tokugawa Shogunate. He needs a catalyzing issue, a rallying cry, and he hasn't been able to find it, no more than Mishima could.”

“That's not to say he isn't trying.”

Eyes dark with melancholy, Akira nodded, staring ahead toward Shirai's limousine. The sun had disappeared. In the gloom, passing headlights revealed the motorcade. Only occasionally was traffic so sparse that Akira had to rely on the taillights of the limousine and its Nissan escorts to guide him. He stayed well back.

Savage saw no indication that the motorcade knew it was being followed.

“To reply to your earlier comment,” Akira said, “I condemn Shirai's tactics but respect his values. It disturbs me. A man with whom I'd normally identify … Circumstances force me to treat him as a potential enemy.”

“Or maybe he's a victim. Like us.”

“We'll soon find out.
His
nightmare will perhaps at last explain ours.”

11

The motorcade left the highway. With increased caution, Akira followed, maintaining a greater distance from the limousine. From time to time, cars passed, breaking the pattern of traffic, preventing Shirai's guards from noticing a constant pair of headlights far behind them.

One road led to another, then another, twisting, turning. Like a maze, Savage thought, his sense of direction confused. The glare of cities had given way to glowing lamps in windows of isolated villages. Uneasy, he peered out his passenger window. In the night, huge shapes loomed beside him.

“Are those
mountains?”
Worms of apprehension squirmed through Savage's bowels.

“We're entering a branch of the Japanese Alps,” Akira said.

Savage squinted toward the hulking crests with greater dismay. He tensed as the Toyota crossed a narrow bridge beneath which moonlight glimmered off a rushing river. The gorge veered sharply upward toward dark wooded bluffs.

“Alps?”
Savage asked.

“The term exaggerates. These aren't like the craggy mountains in Europe, more like the high rolling hills in the eastern United States.”

“But don't you … ? I suddenly feel … My God, it's like we're back in Pennsylvania.” Savage shuddered. “Dark. Not April but October. Instead of leaves beginning to appear, they're starting to fall. The trees look as bare as when …”

“We drove Kamichi to the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat.”

“Which we never did.”

“Yes,” Akira said.

Savage shivered.

“I've been sensing it, too.” Akira's voice sounded thick. “The eerie conviction that I've been here before,
though I haven't.”

The Toyota crossed another precipitous gorge. Seized by vertigo, Savage's mind swirled.

But this time, it wasn't
jamais vu
but
déjà vu
that assaulted him. Or a combination, the former triggering the latter. His intestines roiling with fear, with a terrifying sense of unreality, Savage studied Akira, the man he'd seen beheaded.

The road kept winding, rising and dipping through the impossibly familiar wooded mountains.

Japan. Pennsylvania.

Shirai. Kamichi.

False memories.

Ghosts.

Savage's terror worsened. Deep in his soul, he desperately wanted to blurt to Akira to stop, to turn around. Every protective instinct warned him to abandon the search, to go back to Rachel, to retreat, to learn to live with his nightmares.

Because his guts slithered with a horrible foreboding that a much greater nightmare awaited him.

Akira apparently read his thoughts, or maybe felt the same stomach-wrenching terror.

“No,” Akira said. “We've come this far. We've been through too much. We
can't
stop. I need to know.
For the rest of my life, I refuse to be haunted by phantoms.”

As Savage flinched, remembering the flash of the blade that had sliced off Akira's head, another intense emotion erupted within him. The surge overpowered his fright and seized his body, every part of it, his torso, his limbs, his veins, his blood.

Anger. A rage beyond anything he'd ever felt. Astonishing.

He'd never known such fury. Graham would have been appalled. Avoid emotion, his mentor had always said. It's unprofessional. It keeps you from being objective. It leads to mistakes.

Not this time! Savage thought.
It'll keep me from making mistakes.
I'll control it! I'll use it! To cancel fear! To give me strength! To persist!

“That's right,” Savage said. He dug his fingernails into his palms, drawing power from the lancing pain. “Someone messed with my mind, and by God, I want to know who and why. And someone, damn it, is going to pay.”

12

Steering around a curve, Akira abruptly pointed. He stamped a foot on the brake. Disturbingly, the road ahead was totally dark. No taillights glowed in the distance. Savage tingled.

The motorcade had vanished.

Savage drew his Beretta. “A trap. They realized they were being followed.”

“No. I was careful.”

“But for the last ten minutes, we've been the only headlights behind them. Maybe, on principle, they decided to investigate. They pulled off the road, switched their lights off, and now they're waiting. If we drive past, the escort cars will try to flank us, force us onto the shoulder, and find out who we are.”

Akira stared toward the darkness beyond the Toyota's headlights. “Assuming your assessment is correct, they know now for sure that they were followed—because we stopped when we no longer saw their taillights.”

Savage rolled down his window. “Switch off the engine.”

Akira did, not needing to ask what Savage intended.

In the sudden quiet, Savage listened for sounds on the road ahead, for the rumbling of engines, the crunch of footsteps stalking along the gravel shoulder, the scrape of branches in the shrubs that flanked the road.

But all he heard were the natural nightsounds of the forest—crickets screeching, occasional fluttering wings, boughs swaying in a gentle breeze.

“I may as well turn off the headlights, too,” Akira said. “We don't want to be an obvious target.”

A cloud drifted over a three-quarter moon. The darkness ahead became absolute.

Apprehension made Savage's mouth dry. His grasp tightened on the Beretta. “Even without the headlights, they know where we are.”

“If they're waiting,” Akira said.

“We have to assume. And if they've got weapons, they might decide to strafe this section of the road.”

“Imprecise, unprofessional.”

“But an excellent distraction while someone sneaks at us from the forest and empties a pistol through this open window.”

Akira started the engine, put the car in reverse, and backed along the road, around the curve. When he stopped, he couldn't do anything about the glow from his brakelights, but presumably the Toyota was now out of sight from potential hunters, and the brakelights at least served the purpose of allowing Akira to see a space where he could park at the side of the road. He took his foot off the pedal, extinguishing the brakelights, and shut off the engine once more. Darkness again surrounded them.

“We might be overreacting,” Akira said. “I kept a prudent, nonthreatening distance from the motorcade. It's possible that they were far enough ahead of us that they rounded a curve down the road before we rounded
this
curve. That would explain why we don't see their lights.”

“Yes.” Tension squeezed Savage's voice. “It's possible.” His voice became thicker. “The thing is, do you want to take the risk of trying to catch up to them when in fact they might have arranged a trap along the road?”

“Not particularly.” Akira tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Pensive, he nodded, suddenly picked up the walkie-talkie, and spoke in Japanese. A moment later, he received a static-distorted response. The mountains were obviously interfering with the radio waves. Akira concentrated, spoke again, listened to the crackly reply, said one more thing, and set down the walkie-talkie.

He turned to Savage. “They'll let us know.”

“The sooner, the better,” Savage said.

Two hours earlier when Akira had instructed most of Taro's students to drive back to Tokyo, their surveillance duties having been completed, he'd asked that two of them remain in case there were complications in following Shirai.

The tactic they'd agreed upon was that the two men would leave Savage and Akira and drive their motorcycles farther ahead, increasing speed, passing Shirai's limousine and its escorts, then roaring into the distance, staying well ahead of the motorcade, to all appearance just two young Japanese on a late-night expedition in a hurry to reach their destination. Now Akira had told them to stop and double back in an effort to learn if the motorcade was still on the road, to determine if the limousine and its escorts had indeed outdistanced Savage and Akira.

Of course, the two bikers would attract the motorcade's suspicion if they passed it again, this time in the reverse direction. Worse, they might be caught in the trap that Savage suspected was down the road on the shoulder just around this bend.

But Savage subdued his misgivings by reminding himself that motorcycles had the advantage of being small targets, speedy, easy to maneuver. In case of trouble, the two young man had an excellent—be honest, he told himself; what you mean is decent—chance of veering from assailants and darting away, especially if the cyclists turned off their headlights.

He admired their bravery. He acknowledged his debt to them. He prayed for their safety.

And hated the necessity that forced them to risk their lives.

But what's the alternative? Savage thought.

None.

He swallowed sour bile and opened his passenger door. “While we're waiting …”

Akira opened his own door. “The forest is a great deal safer than this car.”

Outside, Akira gently
closed
his door, as did Savage.

Thinking as one, the two men crouched, crept toward a ditch, and disappeared into bushes. Silent, straining to listen, Savage's fingers taut on his pistol, they waited.

13

Beyond the curve, an echo became a drone.

Savage raised his head.

The drone increased to a roar. Motorcycles.

In the night, Savage stiffened, dreading that any moment —now!—he'd hear shots and screams, the squeal of tires, the scrape of metal crashing, flesh and steel skidding on concrete.

But the roar continued, louder, nearer.

The cyclists would soon reach the curve! Bent over, Savage rushed from the woods toward the road. Akira, who'd brought the walkie-talkie from the car, blurted instructions in Japanese.

At the same time, Savage reached the Toyota, yanked open the driver's door, and flicked the headlight lever. Once! Twice!

Satisfying himself that the flashing glare—aimed toward, reflecting off, the trees on the far side of the curve—would be visible to anyone approaching, Savage ducked behind the Toyota, ready with his Beretta in case these motorcycles were a subterfuge, themselves a trap.

Two bikers swerved into view. As the glare of their headlights revealed the Toyota, the bikers abruptly reduced speed and stopped behind the car, their engines rumbling. Savage stayed behind the Toyota, cautious. The bikers turned off their engines but left their lights on, aiming them toward bushes. The reflected illumination was sufficient for Savage to see the two young men on the motorcycles, but their helmets and Plexiglas visors concealed their faces. Not that Savage would have been able to recognize them—they'd been wearing face masks the first and only time he'd met them, the night before at Taro's
dojo.