Collector of Secrets (44 page)

Jeff throttled down the bike, pulled into the slow lane, and edged up his visor. “Don’t be nervous, bro,” he yelled. “Just relax.”

“It’s not that,” Max shouted back. “We’re being followed.” The motorcycle wobbled slightly and he gripped even tighter before Jeff steadied the course. “It’s a couple cars back—maroon with tinted windows. Drove past your house twice last night.”

Jeff peered in the rearview mirror. “Okay, let me try something. Hang on.”

The bike pulled back into the fast lane before accelerating hard. Max tried not to stare at the stream of pavement flying past his feet. Instead, he watched over Jeff’s shoulder as the speedometer increased from fifty-five miles per hour to sixty-five, then finally nudged seventy-five.

The distance between them and the car widened to a quarter mile before the maroon car pulled into the fast lane and accelerated in pursuit.

Dexterity was on their side, or so Max hoped, trying to remain calm while the anxious voice in his head agreed with Jeff—they were in big trouble.

Weaving through an increasing volume of Sunday afternoon traffic, the bike entered the city on the north side. Traffic jams were usually an annoyance at best, but Max found himself hoping for one now. The bike could slip along the roadside while the pursuers were stuck in a sea of crawling vehicles. He leaned forward to speak. “Can we find someplace with a lot of congestion?”

“Exactly what I’m thinking, bro.”

They sped onward, charging past delivery trucks and slow-moving cars. Their route took them past the city wharf and onto the high-flying bridge on the west side of downtown.

“At least they haven’t started shooting.” Max yelled into the wind. He racked his brain trying to figure out who was following them. Surely the police would be in a marked vehicle—which left only the mysterious Lloyd Elgin or possibly the
Yakuza
. It was impossible to know.

Cresting the bridge’s lofty arch, the motorcycle raced forward and slipped between two semi-trucks traveling in tandem. Max said a prayer under his breath; he could feel the swirling ocean air buffeting them while they rode the line between the two hefty vehicles. The pursuit car, blocked from squeezing through, blasted its horn in frustration.

The bike quickly exited the seaside road, taking a path that crossed beneath the monorail. Row after row of streets flew by as congestion increased before they finally turned onto the west end of Kokusai Street. It had the look of a parade in full regalia, except that nothing was moving.

Cars, buses, and jaywalking tourists clogged the road ahead. An orchestra of rumbling engines blended with the rhythmic musical beats coming from the shop fronts. Farther down the block, a police officer strolled through the shoppers overflowing the crowded sidewalk.

The bike came to a halt behind a row of taxis strung bumper to bumper. Jeff edged his visor up and cursed as he bounced on the seat. “That next street—I want to turn there, ahead on the right. But there’s a cop standing just before the turn.” Jeff glanced into the rearview mirror. “That damned car just turned the corner. Cop or not, I’m going anyway.”

“You sure it’s a good idea?”

The reply was prickled with frustration. “Got any better ones?”

Max recalled the Yao Airport and bullets ripping into the ground. “Go for it.”

“Hang on, bro. This may be bumpy.”

The bike revved and growled, following the solid line down the road’s center. Dodging car mirrors on both sides, they covered the distance in short order. The intersection ahead was snarled with traffic. Jeff blew the squeaky horn as he veered in front of a car crawling toward them in the opposite lane. The motorcycle bounced up onto the sidewalk and shot into the crowd.

Like parting waters, people screamed and scattered, opening a pathway forward. A flurry of shopping bags and footsteps mixed with the shriek of a police whistle.

From the side, the beat cop came racing to intercept. Instinctively, Max’s leg kicked out, knocking over a passing café table, catching the man in the shins. The motion sent him tumbling to the ground, just feet from their spinning tires.

The motorcycle wobbled precariously as it flew off the far curb onto the side street. Max craned his neck to see the carnage behind as the crowd surged back into the path they’d cut, but the bike picked up speed and he lost the view within moments. The wail of sirens in the distance told him the chase was only beginning.

Jeff continued on a southern course using a jagged, broken route on side streets and alleyways. Managing to avoid the circling sirens, they crossed a bridge connecting Naha to Tomishiro City. Within minutes, they had skirted the mangrove forests of Lake Manko. Jeff turned onto a narrow road and climbed through a series of switchbacks leading up a steep hillside. Nearing the top, he pulled to the side, in front of a derelict house, and announced their arrival. “We’re here, and it looks like we lost the chase car.”

Max climbed from the bike and pulled off his silver helmet. “I thought my heart was gonna stop when you drove onto that sidewalk. Thank God nobody was hurt.”

Jeff shook his head while he undid his chinstrap. “Yeah, but that cop you knocked over probably isn’t very happy.”

“Damn! No kidding. I can’t believe I did that.”

“Me neither. What happened to the law-abiding guy I knew?” Jeff laughed.

Max grinned and then looked around puzzled. “Where exactly are we? This just looks like residential houses.”

Jeff pointed up the road. “Those coordinates on the back of the
Hanjie
puzzle pointed here. This also ties into the first image of the puzzle—the boat.”

“Even I can see we’re nowhere near any water.”

“This was the Navy’s underground headquarters during World War Two. Japanese troops dug tunnels into the rock below this hill—by hand—when they were preparing for attack by the Allies. It’s been open to the public since the seventies.”

“So you’ve been here before?”

“I brought some friends here once, although I wasn’t feeling my best—a bit of the twenty-six-ounce flu—so I just hung out in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. But we can’t leave the bike there, it’s too public. “Should be okay here for a while. Let’s go have a look underground.”

“So if the puzzle is right, we’re looking for a tomb or a cross inside the tunnels?” Max asked.

They both paused, listening to the distant wail of police sirens as Jeff’s normally laid-back style grew serious. “I don’t know, man, but whatever it is, I hope we find it fast.”

Entering a modernist glass structure at the hill’s peak, they purchased tickets in the hushed marble lobby and descended the ninety-foot whitewashed staircase into the heart of the tunnels.

“So, Yamashita’s Gold? What’s that all about?”

Jeff’s voice echoed up the stairwell as they approached the bottom. “From what I read, conspiracy theorists have been talking about it for decades. Golden Lily was the project that buried all the stolen goods during the war, and Yamashita’s Gold is the name given to the same loot by the treasure hunters who’ve been trying to find it. They’re opposite ends of the same story, bro.”

With the
Hanjie
puzzle in hand, they traced a path through the catacombs, along every intersecting corridor and passage, hunching now and then to make it through low archways. The few tourists they encountered spoke in whispered tones.

Max glanced up and down the main tunnel and finally threw up his hands in frustration. “This can’t be right. There’s nothing that matches any of the shapes from the puzzle. All the walls are blank. There must be something we’re overlooking.”

Jeff’s fingers brushed the pick-axe cut surface. “Maybe I made a mistake.” He crouched down, concentrating on the puzzle and its odd images, while a raucous group of children descended into the tunnel and thundered past, their shrill voices echoing and bouncing.

An inquisitive boy stopped. He looked to be about six or seven years old. Max wanted to shoo him away, but the pensive face was filled with youthful anticipation as he said hello in English.

Jeff returned the greeting without looking up or breaking his focus.

The boy pointed at the first puzzle, pronouncing “boat,” before pointing at the second, grimacing. He seemed to be struggling for the English word, and when it didn’t come, he resorted to Japanese:
“Soto.”

Jeff’s head snapped up, “Outside! Did you just say outside?” He sprang to his feet. “Of course!”

The child’s eyes inflated with surprise and he dashed away into the next chamber.

“Nice work. Scaring the little kids . . .”

But Jeff wasn’t listening, charging away up the long, sloping tunnel toward the exit. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,” he shouted. “Thousands of people died in here at the end of the war. If there’s no graveyard inside, then there must be one nearby.”

Max raced to catch up. Reaching the outside world, they exited onto a columned and tiled patio. A thin layer of clouds drifted overhead, muting the noontime sun. They turned to the right and crossed the winding length of a promenade, quickly reaching the staircase descending to the visitors’ parking area far below.

Jeff pointed excitedly to the hillside next to where they stood. Four enormous tombs were inset into the rock. Surrounded by flowering trees, the paint-chipped monuments were camped together, shoulder to shoulder. Each was fronted with a ballroom-sized concrete plaza that needed to be crossed in order to reach the mustache-shaped awning capping the tomb’s front wall. Set within the smooth faces were recessed waist-high stones, each one marking a burial chamber’s entrance.

Max took hold of the
Hanjie
puzzle as Jeff spoke. “Look, the second image shows the tomb’s curving roofline and the entranceway.”

“But which one is the right one?”

“The puzzle’s third picture—look for a tomb with a cross on it.” Jeff was already jogging away before he finished his thought. He waved back. “You start on the right one, and I’ll start on the far left.”

“Sounds good.” Max scanned the waist-high concrete pony wall while crossing the first tomb’s plaza. Time had worn most of the paint off the exterior, leaving only splotchy gray and black patches on the surface. Faded flowers lay near the entrance to the tomb, next to a porcelain dish filled with the ashes of burned incense. He ran his fingers along the marble wall, scrutinizing it. Names of the deceased were engraved on a stone slab near the tomb’s front. Otherwise, the surfaces were flat and smooth, with no noticeable markings. Moving on, he glanced around surreptitiously before scaling the pony wall into the next tomb’s plaza; there was no time to go around the proper way. Then his eye caught movement in the parking lot below, and he watched in astonishment as the maroon car cruised out from behind a parked school bus.

Shit!
Max dropped to a crouch.
How’d they find us?
He rose up enough to peer over the pony wall’s top, waving first with one arm, then with both, but to no avail. Two gravesites over, Jeff was oblivious, absorbed in his own search.

Half hunched, Max raced to the front of the next tomb where a hasty search revealed nothing. Finally, vaulting over another pony wall, he scurried toward the third marble exterior.

Seeing Max stooped over, Jeff stopped what he was doing. “What’s going on, bro?”

“Get down!
Get down!
” Jeff dropped just as Max reached him. “That car is in the parking lot!”

“Impossible! Man, there’s no way they could have followed us.”

“Yeah, well, they did. I don’t get how, but we have to go. I haven’t found anything. You?”

Jeff shook his head. “No. Nothing even remotely resembling a cross. But it’s a Christian symbol. I wouldn’t expect to find it in a Japanese graveyard.”

“Let’s leave.”

“No.” Jeff’s ponytail shook as he swung his head from side to side. “We’ve come this far. Let’s go around the other side of the tunnel’s exit. If there’s nothing, then we leave.”

Max felt locked in place by fear.
That’s three dead now―how many more will it be?
Every time he had tried to escape, he’d been found. Maybe it was time to stop running and instead walk calmly down to the parking lot and hope for the best.

Jeff rose to a half stance and snapped his fingers for attention. “Listen—I know this whole thing has been rough, but you have to do it for Tomoko―and for yourself.”

“If she’s still alive.” Max took a deep breath before finally nodded agreement.

Regaining the promenade, they took shelter behind a pillar overlooking the parking lot. The maroon car had pulled to a stop and they watched as a single man climbed out the passenger’s side. A blue military cap hid his downturned face. It was impossible to get a good look at him.

Jeff flicked his head, indicating a desire to get moving. Crouching in a half run, they returned back the way they had come. Reaching the promenade’s opposite end, he pointed down a lengthy staircase that made a ninety-degree left turn beneath the decking of an overhead bridge. “Let’s try here.” They sprang down the stairs and around the corner.

Emerging from the trees under the bridge, they slowed. Max could see a laneway twenty feet below, and off to the far left, in the distance, was an open amphitheater. To their immediate left was a small grassy plateau. The remains of a decaying, moss-covered tomb stood half swallowed by the hillside. Jeff leaped onto the grass and moved along the wall. “Keep an eye out.”