Girl Takes Up Her Sword (7 page)

Over the next year, George put his share in two safe deposit boxes in a West Virginia bank. The rest of the team probably did something similar. Except, of course, for David. He spent his money like water, mainly on high living, but also on his new hobby: antique swords. He scoured Okinawa and the main islands, looking in every junk shop, following up every rumor about some black market dealer. It became an obsession.

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Chapter
9

An Unexpected Visit

“She’s here, nearby,” the younger man said. That he knew this so clearly surprised him. Perhaps it was even a little unsettling.

“Where? Can you see her?”

“No. Not yet. But I imagine she’ll seek us out before we leave. She’s strong, much stronger than you thought.”

“Stronger than you?” the older man asked.

What an irritating question. Walker rubbed his chin and tamped down his annoyance. Meacham had hunted her for the better part of a year. How could he understand so little about her? And about
him
, after all these years?

The limo rumbled up the winding gravel drive. Security let it pass, just as Cardano had agreed. No one inquired about the men sitting in back behind tinted glass.

“The only question is how much of her strength she’s aware of.”

“What about the plan?” Meacham asked. “Can we still kill him?”

“I think it’s too late for that. She’s the master now. He’s taught her too well. Killing Oda won’t accomplish anything. It certainly won’t make her easier to handle. Probably just piss her off.”

At the front of the house, several of Cardano’s security people took charge of the limo driver and the bodyguards. Walker knew the old man didn’t care. They were just along for show. He was the real protection, the only one Meacham ever completely relied on. A large man with an Israeli accent escorted the two of them inside.

“They’re watching us, you know. But they won’t come out, the women of the house. I don’t think they trust you.”

“Michael doesn’t want me to see Dr. Kagami,” Meacham replied. “As if I didn’t already know he has her here. We’ll play along.”

As they passed through the entry hall, Walker thought he sensed something else, someone else. It was faint, distant, but still distinctive. Had Cardano found another one? “Why not?” he thought. After all, Meacham found him and his cousin all those years ago. Why couldn’t there be more like them? If he had, it might even put an end to the old man’s idiotic preoccupation with genetic experiments.

They found Cardano sitting at one end of a long couch in his study. In the absence of a desk to dominate the center, the room had a convivial atmosphere. A couple of smaller sofas, a few occasional tables and several caned chairs supplied the rest of the furnishings.

“Well, Robert, you’re here. Now what was important enough to bring you out of your lair?”

Andie slipped in behind them, trailing Ethan and two more men from the security staff. She sat in a chair across the room, obviously simmering with anger.

“It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Cardano, after all these years,” Meacham said stiffly. “Allow me to introduce my... ‘son’ David.”

Walker nodded. Andie gave no indication of hearing a word he’d said.

“Is that what we’re calling him now?” Michael asked.

“He’s my right hand man, Michael. I trust him implicitly. After you left, I had to....”

Meacham’s voice trailed off. Even he had lost interest in whatever story he was intending to tell. Michael obliged by interrupting.

“Can we dispense with the formalities and get to the part where you tell me what you want?”

“Fine,” Meacham began again. “I’ll be blunt. After Taipei... well, my resources are much diminished. I can’t keep Burzynski in check anymore. I think you know how dangerous he can be.”

Michael’s eyes contracted at these words. Walker heard a low growl coming from the general vicinity of where Andie was sitting.

“I have an idea how he might be taken down a peg or two, but I’ll need your help to put my plan into effect.”

Walker listened distractedly as the old man spun out his web, which he knew to be a mixture of truths and half-truths. He didn’t expect Cardano to be fooled by it. But to avoid giving anything away, he focused on the movement of air in and out of his lungs. His breath echoed within his chest like wind in a cool, dark cave. It reached beyond him, filled the room, pressed against the windows and the door. He felt the bustle of activity in the other rooms of the house, the distant buzz of the staff.

The darkness of his mind gave way to a faint light he’d not encountered there before. It grew brighter, warmer, until eventually it was barely to be endured. Out of instinct, he squeezed his eyes shut, even though the light was already inside him. His eyes, so to speak, eventually bore the intensity. In the depths of the fire, he could just make out two dark spots. They seemed to be staring at him.

He opened his eyes with a start to see her across the room, standing behind Andie. The sun in the window lit her up brightly from behind. He squinted. Meacham noticed her, too.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, Michael,” Meacham said with a gracious gesture toward Emily. “Won’t you introduce us?”

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but a subtle shake of the head from Michael stopped her. Walker noticed, even though he couldn’t take his eyes off her, now that he could look at her more or less comfortably.

“Robert, this is Miss Tenno. She’s been staying with us these last few months.”

Meacham smiled at that subtle bit of obfuscation.

“Oh, Michael. I think this young lady has been staying with you a lot longer than that. In fact, I think she’s been living with you her entire life.”

“Fine,” Emily said, inserting herself into the conversation. “Have it your way. I’m Emily Kane. Who might you be?”

“Robert Meacham. I’m so pleased finally to make your acquaintance. And this is...”

Walker sensed a change in her demeanor as soon as the old man spoke his name. What had been composed before was now hot. Anger to be sure, but something more. Sadness, too. The depth of sentiment was stunning, as was his apparent ability to feel it along with her. A heart so open, this was a new experience. He stepped between them as a precaution, in case she couldn’t keep herself from acting on the fire within.

“I’m David Walker,” he said. “Your father and I go way back.”

In an apparently innocent gesture, he reached out to touch her hand. She made no move to rebuff him, though her eyes looked as impassive as two bits of coal. A strange contrast, a face so composed, even inscrutable, but such turmoil within. Her control was formidable. A touch might allow him to take her measure, maybe even understand her. But her skin felt like fire. He pulled away as if he’d been burned. Words echoed in his head. Her words? Or just an artifact of his imagination? They seemed so urgent, though in a language he didn’t understand, maybe Japanese.

He stumbled backwards and lost his footing. As he fell to the floor, he glanced up at her. It must have been a trick of the sunlight playing around her head, but for an instant she seemed to be brandishing... what... it’s ridiculous, but it looked like a flaming sword. A shake of the head, a blink, and everything seemed normal again.

“You okay down there?” Meacham asked with a smile. “I guess he doesn’t get to see many pretty girls,” he said, turning to Emily.

“If you and my father are such good friends, maybe you can tell me where he is,” she said, ignoring the old man.

The question was somehow false, a misdirection, he felt it, but with all the turbulence he couldn’t quite see what was false about it.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t know,” he said. “How long has he been gone?”

She ignored him and turned toward Cardano, as if to signal that it was time for his guests to leave.

“I don’t have an army of assassins, Robert. The security here is just to protect my family. I can’t really help you.”

“I think you’ve already seen how dangerous inaction can be, Michael. What exactly did it take to get your boy back from the Koreans?”

Michael remained impassive, but Walker sensed a red rage coming from Andie and Emily at the mention of the kidnapping. The maternal fire smelled like burnt flesh, as if Andie would rend her enemies with her teeth. But the other sentiments, the ones in Emily’s heart, they were subtler, more complex. Fierce, violent, certainly, but also exultation, as well as an unexpected sympathy. She had not merely endured the catastrophe. She had triumphed. And forgiven? A paradoxical combination, it made no sense to him.

“I have my little secrets, just as you have yours.”

In the end, Michael agreed to give Meacham’s scheme further consideration, even though both men knew he would not change his mind.

~~~~~~~

“He’s got nerve, I’ll give him that,” Meacham said, as they rolled down the driveway.

They could just see Michael’s son, playing with a couple of smaller children by a pond at the bottom of the hill. The puzzle of George’s daughter preoccupied Walker. To be so open, to let him see so much of her heart, it seemed foolhardy. An opponent could exploit it. As confounding as that may have been, the brightness of the light, the fire he felt in her skin, the apparition of the sword, all these were troubling in their own way.

“So, David, can you handle her?”

“Do you mean, can I kill her? Yes. But that would be a mistake.”

“Let me worry about the mistakes. If it comes down to it, we need her dead before we can let anyone else take her alive.”

“What a waste that would be.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you react to anyone like this before. You tripped over your own feet, like a lovesick schoolboy. What exactly did you see in her?”

The old man seemed to forget who she is. George’s daughter. “Does he expect me to forget it, too?” Walker thought. “He may be a distant cousin, but I still feel the connection. She’s family. He wants to know what I saw in her?” Walker turned to face him.

“Fire.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean.”

“You asked what I saw. People are strong or weak because of what’s in their hearts. That’s what’s in her heart.”

“But in terms of her skills, her training...”

“She’s good. You saw the tournament videos. I’m better. But a real fight isn’t about skills. It’s about heart. And her heart is made of fire.”

“But you can handle her, right?”

“It would be a shame to waste that kind of intensity.”

“Well, we’re gonna have to do something about Cardano,” Meacham finally said, unable to hide his exasperation. “We may have to storm his compound.”

“His security won’t be much of an obstacle, judging from what we saw today. But last time you tried that, he managed to slip through your fingers. What makes you think he won’t get away again?”

“He’s very crafty, always has been. Unless you can think of another way to get the girl and her mother, we may not have a choice.”

“What did she mean about George being missing? Do you know anything about that?”

“We know they scattered last fall, before the initial attack’” Meacham said. “We weren’t able to track any of them. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s either on an errand for Michael, or Burzynski’s killed him. This business with the Koreans must have gotten pretty hairy. Anything could have happened over there.”

Walker hardly found this story satisfying, but he had no better notion of how Cardano got his son back. Sure, there were rumors of a genetics program, and some sort of deal between Burzynski, the Chinese and the Koreans. But that was all conjecture, and it came wrapped in the old man’s fantasy about genetic experiments. It all sounded too neatly packaged.

“There was no sign of Connie,” he said to change the subject.

“She’s your protegé. If she’s been turned, who’s she working for now? What does Burzynski have to offer her? Or Cardano for that matter?”

“I thought she was killed in the ambush in Taipei. Do we have any solid evidence she’s still alive?”

Of course, Walker didn’t believe for a second that she was dead. And he knew the darkness in her heart too well: she couldn’t have been turned by Burzynski or Cardano. She’d turn up sooner or later, and when she did, he knew she’d answer his call. If she didn’t, the old man would have him terminate her.

~~~~~~~

“Now, exactly who is that guy?” Emily asked, once they were alone. “I mean, the resemblance was striking. How weird was that?”

Andie and Michael shrugged.

“What do you mean?” Andie asked.

“You mean Walker?” Michael asked. “It was pretty strange the way he fell. I’ve never seen him act that way.”

“Well, that was a little odd. But that’s not what I mean. You guys really didn’t see it?”

Just then, Yuki came running in to the room.

“I can’t believe he brought him here. Are you okay, Chi-chan?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Your father told me about him. That is one evil man, by George’s account.”

“Did you see the resemblance, Mom?”

“I couldn’t see his face all that clearly on the security feed. What did he look like?”

Emily frowned at her. When she turned to the others, they shrugged again.

“I can’t believe no one else saw it. He looks just like my father.”

She was trembling, even a little teary.

“Oh, no, sweetheart,” Andie said. “Your father was so kind and wonderful. Walker looks nothing like him.”