Linnear 03 - White Ninja (62 page)

what gave him pleasure? He would never take a mastiff to bed; he was too class-conscious to ever again lie down with dogs.

Perhaps, she thought, it was her triumph over Branding that gave her, at least for now, a position above the dogs, a kind of status with which Howe would wish momentarily to mingle.

Smiling at his hideous masculine fur, Shisei imagined herself back on stage, swathed in the burning spotlights, aflame with the adoration of young Japan, acting the coquette and then, as the powerful lights turned the amphitheatre into a bowl of seething energy, illumined that vast seething throng, their arms outstretched, their faces yearning towards her, towards her, and she drawing from them, like milk from an udder, their innocent ardour.

There was a certain pleasure close to her heart in seeing his response, how he melted and strutted at the same time. But he was such a gross, despicable creature that Shisei's secret triumph was demeaned, made meaningless, and she wanted only to be rid of him, to end as quickly as possible this shameful charade she had been duty bound to play.

He finished off his drink, pulled her to him, swinging her around, pushing his face into hers. His breath stank of liquor and decay. She was dizzy from his baseness, faint from his brutality as if these traits were a kind of radiation he gave off that had begun to affect her in much the same way the atomic radiation at Nagasaki had affected Haha-san.

She gently disengaged herself from his clumsy embrace, said, 'Why don't we save this victory celebration until my job is done?'

Howe stared at her. 'What do you mean? It's over. Branding's in jail.'

'But nothing's been proved yet, and it won't be until I

do my job.' She smiled, thinking of the stage where she had reigned until Senjin had come for her. 'You want me to finish what I started, don't you? It's what you pay me for. You want it all nailed down, so there's no chance of escape, no way that the outcome can be changed, don't you?'

And, Howe nodded, not understanding what he was agreeing to...

One day, Shisei had gone to Kiku's house and found that Kiku was gone - she had not been at dance class for over a week. There was no trace of her mother and father and sisters, and the family of farmers that now inhabited the house had no idea who had lived there before them: the house was empty when they had moved in three days before. It was as if Kiku and her family had never existed, had been, instead, a figment of Shisei's imagination. This was impossible, but what other explanation could there be? Shisei's dancing instructor ignored her questions about where Kiku had gone, and when she asked Haha-san to make enquiries throughout the neighbourhood, Haha-san told her that she could find out nothing of what had happened to the family. But Haha-san had lied...

Howe's sweating palms left dark stains on the bartop as he scrabbled for another drink. He was shaking with elation.

Howe began to laugh. 'He didn't know what he was

up against when I sent you after him. Poor Branding,'

he said thickly. '

Shisei continued to smile at him, the talento again, the perfect icon, as her future, meticulously planned, resolved itself like a reflection in a pool...

How had Haha-san lied? She not only knew where Kiku had gone, it was she who had sent her away. Why? Shisei learnt this many years later, when it was too late, when her life had already taken too many turnings for it to matter.

But it mattered.

How Shisei wept in the silence and the loneliness of

her room, when no one could see, when sensei would

not scold her for being weak, when Haha-san would

not enquire what was troubling her, pulling Shisei to her

pillow-like breast to console her when she did not want

to be consoled. '

She wanted Kiku.

If, as Senjin later surmised, Haha-san survived by pawning her weaknesses off on them, her charges, who she was duty bound to raise, to love and sacrifice everything for, then surely she needed to pull them periodically to her breast? For all human life, even Haha-san's, must wither and die without a reciprocity of emotion, even if that emotion be so savage as hate.

And would it not then be understandable that Haha-san would not wish to share her one source of nourishment with another? For this is what had happened. When Haha-san could no longer bear the threat of the relationship forming between Shisei and Kiku, she dispatched sensei to rid her of her fear. She had no more thought of Shisei's happiness than she ever had. Only her children's welfare was uppermost in her mind, which is why she sacrificed herself as she did to raise them as her sister would have raised them herself if she had had the strength and the courage.

Happiness did not enter into this equation. After all, Haha-san had no clear idea of what happiness might be. Whatever glimmering of this emotion she might have had as a child had been obliterated by the atomic detonation that had overtaken her and her family at Nagasaki.

In a very real sense, life had overtaken Haha-san before she was ready to accept it. No matter. It had overtaken her anyway, twisting her still unformed personality, lashing her to the unyielding mast of her duty. In the process, her heart had turned to glass. And with

each agonizing gale of recollection that blew through her, it was shattered into ten thousand fragments.

Shisei, of course, knew none of this at the time of Kiku's disappearance and, if she had, it would have made no difference. She would not have understood, or been able to forgive Haha-san's selfishness masquerading in the guise of altruism. She would have done what she ended up doing, her path had been set, karma.

She, like Senjin before her, abandoned the nest, the sanctuary, the prison that had been her world virtually since the day she was born.

And Haha-fan and sensei were gone from her life. But not forgotten. Never forgotten...

Shisei, looking down at Howe, said, 'Stay here. I'll get Michael, your driver, to get you out to the car.'

But Howe was already shaking his head. 'It's Michael's night off.' But, of course, Shisei already knew this.

'Well, you can't stay here,' she said, bending to lift him off the floor. Til take you home.'

Nicholas said, 'If Justine's gone back to West Bay Bridge, then I've got to go after her.' He folded the note Justine had hurriedly left for him. Maddeningly, it said nothing of what had happened or how she felt, just where she was going. It was written as if she did not expect ever to see him again.

Nangi and Tomi exchanged glances. 'Until we discover the whereabouts of the dorokusai, I don't think that would be a good idea,' Nangi said. He had already told Nicholas all he knew: the computer virus attack on the company's core computers; the suspicions Kusunda Ikusa and Nami had of Nicholas; Ikusa's order to dissolve the Sphynx joint venture, disassociate Sato International from Tomkin Industries; Nangi's idea to bring in another company in order to salvage the merger, the agreement on the floundering Nakano Industries, the signing of the papers

in Nami's offices; the Pack Rat's information concerning Ikusa and Killan Oroshi, Nakano's chairman's daughter.

'I haven't heard from the Pack Rat in three days,' Nangi concluded. 'We have been trying to find him ever since.'

'But what happened here?' Nicholas said. 'You still haven't told me - '

Nangi gestured. He had already risen. His legs must have been stiff, for he limped more than usual as he led the way outside, around the side of the house. This area among the trees and bushes had been staked off, and was being guarded by more Metropolitan Police officers in riot gear.

Nangi pointed to a dark patch on the ground that had

been carefully outlined in lime. He nodded to Tomi, who

produced a set of black-and-white prints.

Nicholas took them. They were forensic photos. 'Who's

this?' |

'A man named Han Kawado,' Nangi said. 'He was

one of the Pack Rat's men. Very good. At my request,

the Pack Rat had him keep track of Justine - '

Nicholas's head snapped up. 'Guarding her?'

Nangi nodded. 'Even though I did not truly believe she was in any danger, I felt it prudent to - '

'Damnit, what happened here?'

'The dorokusai happened,' Tomi said. 'He was here

with your wife. We don't know what happened, except

that Han Kawado saw them. The dorokusai must have

become aware of Kawado.' She tapped the photos. 'This

is the result.'

'And Justine?'

'Unharmed,' Tomi said. 'As far as we can determine.'

'What do you mean?' Nicholas turned to Nangi. 'Didn't

she call you?'

'No,' Nangi said. "The first thing I knew was when Immigration informed Yazawa-san she had left the country.'

'Immigration had been alerted some time ago when we became aware of what now seems to be the bogus threat on your life from the Red Army,' Tomi explained. 'We wanted as best we could to be able to monitor your and your wife's movements.'

Nicholas handed back the photos. 'Well, that's it then. I'm going after her. I've got to know that she's all right. I've got to be with her.'

Nangi said, 'As much as I sympathize with you, Nicholas, I have to disagree. You know she's heading home to your house in West Bay Bridge. A simple phone call there will ascertain her condition. On the other hand, you're needed here. This is where the dorokusai is. This is where the war is. Obviously he was trying to get to you through Justine. Don't you see it's a blessing that she's gone out of the war zone? Do you really want to bring her back into it? Because that is precisely what you will do if you follow her home.'

Follow her home. Why did that stick in Nicholas's mind? Oh, Jesus!

He broke away from them, headed into his workout room. He pushed aside the post, knelt as he threw the tatami this way and that. Tomi and Nangi came into the room, stared at him.

He dug down, found the box. But when he opened it, he found the six emeralds gone, their blue velvet bed in shreds.

'Jesus God,' Nicholas whispered. 'That's what he wanted. The emeralds. Kansatsu was right. He needs them. But what for?' It was clear that the dorokusai had somehow got Justine to show him where the box was hidden. He did not blame Justine; with the dorokusai's powers, Justine would have been helpless.

Privately, Nicholas thanked whatever forces were looking out for him that he had decided to split up the cache. At least the remaining nine emeralds were safe. For now.

With a dismaying lurch, he remembered that Justine had seen him wrap the package. Could she-have seen the address? Even if she hadn't, she could reason it out. She knew, even if she didn't know she knew, to whom he had sent the emeralds for safekeeping.

Nicholas got up. 'I've got to go,' he said. 'I've got to find Justine.'

'Correction,' Nangi said. 'Your first priority is keeping yourself safe. You won't be able to protect Justine or the company her father willed you if you're dead/

'What does Tomkin Industries have to do with this?'

'Everything,' Nangi said. 'It's part of the war. It's being attacked along with Sato International, as surely as the dorokusai has attacked you.'

Nicholas still looked doubtful, and Nangi said, 'Hear me out, at least, before you decide anything.'

Nicholas nodded.

Tomi glanced at the doorway. Several of the guards were close enough to overhear the conversation. 'I think we should continue this discussion elsewhere,' she said.

Deeper inside the house, in the private areas where not even the police guards were allowed, Umi sat in a six tatami room. When the three of them came in, she rose, made to leave them to their difficult, painful talk, but Nangi stayed her. 'You are needed here,' was all he said, and Umi sat back down.

'Even before you encountered the dorokusai,' Nangi

said to Nicholas when they had settled themselves on the

tatami, 'Umi had intimations of danger. She saw a dark

ness forming beyond the night. She felt the encroachment

of emptiness and an evil so great it threatened the stability

of the world. She heard the voice of the Spider Woman of

the Amerindian Hopi. She felt ice coming.

"The Hopi believe that the Spider Woman raises her voice only at the instigation of inordinate evil. In the Hopi myth of creation, the Spider Woman's voice turned

the second world - the one before this - to ice, in order to destroy its evil inhabitants.'

Tomi was fascinated. 'What does all this mean?'

Umi turned her beautiful unlined face towards her, said, 'The nemesis of the Spider Woman is awake and active. He threatens the fabric of life. I can hear his footsteps; they are the tolling of a bell.'

'Umi feels the dorokusai,' Nangi said. 'She felt him that night; she feels him now. You see, Nicholas, all myth is intertwined like the branches of one tree, old, gnarled, sprung from one source. I suspected then that there was a relationship between the personal attack on you by the dorokusai and the imminent raid on Sato by Nami. If you were Shiro Ninja, then you were rendered helpless, therefore useless in a coming war. I was right.