Rules of the Hunt (46 page)
Fitzduane deflected the
katana
blade upward and away, and in the same movement slid his epee into Mikami's
body.
His attacker's eyes rolled and he
stared in surprise as Fitzduane immediately withdrew his blade and blood spurted
from his wound.
A bloody froth burst
from his lips, and he collapsed.
Blood
and rainwater cascaded down the pavement.
A second figure, holding a sword in two hands low, as if to thrust, ran
at Fitzduane from the same direction as his first attacker.
Fitzduane extended his sword, and this
assailant came to a halt.
Two other
attackers, the men who had been in front of him, Fitzduane realized, also
approached.
All three now surrounded
Fitzduane in a semicircle, as he stood on guard with his back to the railings.
Fitzduane feinted, parried, and thrust at the attacker on his right,
knowing that the attacker on his left would be hindered by the man in the
middle.
His intended victim gave ground
as the epee flickered at him, giving Fitzduane just enough time to remove a
throwing knife from his wrist, but not enough time or space to throw it.
He now faced his attackers with a blade in
either hand.
It was a style with which
his ancestors in the sixteenth century would have been very familiar.
The man in the center gave a cry and ran forward in a slashing
attack.
Fitzduane stepped forward,
seemingly into the blow, as he moved and deflected the glittering steel so that
it crashed into the railings, drawing sparks.
Shock, and then agonizing pain, ran through the
yakuza
and he slumped against the barrier with Fitzduane's knife
protruding from his kidneys.
Fitzduane slashed at the
yakuza
on his left, and the man, appalled at the ferocity and skill of his intended
victim, staggered back, his cheek laid open, slipped on the wet ground, and
fell hard on his back, his sword clattering away from his hand.
He turned on his side and reached for it as
Fitzduane stepped forward swiftly, and without hesitation, thrust his sword into
the man's throat and turned.
The fallen
yakuza
made a gurgling sound as he
died.
Nearby, a pedestrian, too frozen
with fear to move, screamed and kept on screaming.
The
oyabun
had been taken aback
when he had seen what he had taken for two ordinary citizens draw weapons.
He immediately made the connection and was
furious with himself for not having anticipated bodyguards.
Just as quickly, he had shouted at his
kobun
and the two
yakuza
had run at the policemen from behind.
The
oyabun
, mindful of the
consequences of killing a policeman, had felled his victim with the blow of a
gun barrel behind the ear.
Unfortunately, his
kobun
had
not been thinking, and Detective Reido lay on the wet pavement with his eyes
glassy and his head split in two.
His
arm, still clutching his revolver,
lay
several paces
away.
He had turned as his attacker had
run up, and his arm had taken the full force of the
kobun
's first blow.
The
oyabun
looked at the dead
policeman for perhaps fifteen seconds, as if somehow he could piece the man
together again.
This was a terrible
development.
The Tokyo MPD
were
implacable when one of their own was killed.
Life for the
yakuza
— for all
yakuza
—
would be hell until the murderer and his associates were caught and
punished.
And it would mean the death
penalty.
The
oyabun
realized that he now had nothing to lose.
If he was to have any negotiation power at
all with the boss of the
Insuji-gumi
,
he would have to complete his current mission successfully.
He drew his gun.
The
gaijin
was still standing, apparently unharmed.
Fitzduane glanced up the slope and was surprised to see both his
guardians lying motionless.
He was now
facing three attackers alone.
One was
nearby and the remaining two were perhaps twenty yards away.
The rain had increased in intensity and was
now a wall of water.
Through it, he
could distinguish the
oyabun
's
unmistakable movement as he drew his automatic.
And this was a land where the criminals did not have guns.
Fuck!
He drew his remaining throwing knife and threw it hard at his nearest
assailant.
The blade missed, but the man
skidded onto his knee as he jumped back to avoid it.
Fitzduane turned and ran for all he was worth to the police box some
fifty yards downhill.
There were two
cracks, and splinters from the pavement jumped up in front of him.
He ran on, ducking and weaving on the
slippery pavement.
Spray splashed in the
air only to be beaten back again by the rain.
The sky was black.
He skidded to a halt at the police box, and with his right hand on an
upright, whirled around to face the policeman inside.
The young man, immaculately uniformed, looked
as if he had stepped straight out of a recruiting poster.
A neatly holstered revolver was at his hip.
Though he projected all the social concern of
the Tokyo MPD, it was clear that there was no way he was going to react in
time.
The inexperience and lack of
comprehension that shone from his face had an almost incandescent quality.
He was going to do the right thing, and
Fitzduane was going to die.
"Oh, shit!" said Fitzduane, who was imaging the consequences of
what he was about to do even as he did it.
He hit the policeman very hard in the stomach, then gave him a
roundhouse to the jaw
..
The policeman made an odd sound as he collapsed, and Fitzduane reached
across and removed his revolver.
He
flicked open the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, then turned just in time
to shoot the
oyabun
twice in the face
at point-blank range.
The man's nose and
forehead vanished out through the back of his skull, and he shot backwards off
the pavement and onto the road, to vanish five seconds later under the wheels
of a tour bus.
The remaining two
yakuza
stood
there frozen, with swords upraised, as Fitzduane pointed the revolver at
them.
He was just deciding which one to
shoot first when a voice spoke behind him in American-accented English.
"Fitzduane-
san
, I
presume?
Please drop your weapon."
Fitzduane kept his gun on the
yakuza
.
A uniformed sergeant with the look of someone
who knew his way around came into his peripheral vision, his gun also pointed
at the
yakuza
.
"There are two of your guys up the hill who need attention,"
said Fitzduane, "and I mean NOW!
Get an ambulance.
I'm going back
up to see what I can do."
Adachi was speechless for a moment.
Then he lowered his gun and picked up the telephone.
Three minutes later, he found Fitzduane on
his knees ministering to Sergeant Oga.
The Irishman seemed to know exactly what to do.
15
June 8
The Deputy Superintendent-General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police looked
down at the open file on his desk and then up at Superintendent Adachi so many
times before he spoke that Adachi, who was standing at attention in front of
the DSG's desk, started to feel disoriented.
He felt he was facing one of those nodding birds.
Between glances, the DSG flipped through the reports and stared at the
photographs.
In the time Adachi had
known the Spider, nothing had caused the DSG to react to any perceptible
extent, but the slaughter on Yasukini-dori made a decided impact.
The Spider's eyebrows seemed to have been raised permanently by half an
inch, and his voice was up an octave.
Occasionally, it squeaked.
This
reaction gave Adachi a certain inner satisfaction.
After all, bringing this Irishman in on the
Namaka case had been the Spider's idea, and, fortunately, everyone knew it.
"This is incredible," the DSG squeaked.
"This man is here only three days and he
turns
In thirty-five years on the force, I have never seen anything like
it.
Five dead, including a policeman,
and one policeman injured.
And all of
this only yards from the
Memorial.
The
press
are
going to eat this up.
If this
was fifty years earlier, I'd be committing
seppuku
,
and as to you, Adachi-
san
, I hate to
think.
You'd probably be enlisted as a
kamikaze pilot, if they were feeling generous.
You were there, after all, and senior police officers are supposed to
stop this kind of behavior."
He shook his head.
"Incredible, incredible.
And not just swords, but
guns, too.
Guns
in
my
city.
What is
to!
"
The fruits of economic progress, Adachi felt like saying, but this was
not a time for jokes.
He also did not
point out that the Emperor was not actually living in the
He remained silent, as was appropriate, and waited for a signal to
speak.
In truth, he was nearly as stunned as the DSG, perhaps more so.
He had actually been there and seen the
gaijin
in action.
He had not witnessed the sword-fighting, but
he had glimpsed Fitzduane as he was checking the young policeman's revolver
before turning and shooting the
oyabun
in the face.
It was his speed and the way he had acted without any hesitation that
stuck in Adachi's mind.
This was a truly
dangerous man; but also decent.
He also
remembered seeing Fitzduane attend to the injured Sergeant Oga.
The sergeant, lucky man, looked like he'd be
coming out of the affair with nothing worse than surface lacerations on his
scalp and a rather sore head.
The DSG seemed to realize for the first time that his subordinate was
still standing at attention.
He gestured
toward a chair.
"Oh, sit down,
Superintendent-
san
.
Thankfully, this is not a half a century
ago."
Adachi sat down.
"To be factual about this," said the DSG in a more normal
voice, "the core issue here is that the Tokyo MPD failed to protect an
invited guest.
But for
his own
initiative, Fitzduane-
san
would have been cut down only a short distance from his
hotel.
And to make matters worse, he was
forbidden to carry a firearm, even though I knew he was at risk."
He sighed.
"Frankly, I underestimated the forces we are up against."
Adachi cleared his throat.
The
Spider now seemed almost human.
He had
displayed more emotion in the last ten minutes than over the previous decade.
It was almost impossible to imagine the DSG
as a normal person with a home life and a family.
The DSG looked directly at him.
"You are not in any way to blame for this, Adachi-
san
," he said.
You behaved entirely appropriately and your
report is excellent.
The fault is mine,
but I would appreciate your input as to what we should do now.
Our immediate priority is to make a statement
to the press.
Then we can consider our
next move with this Irishman.
Adachi removed his notebook and consulted it.
"Fitzduane-
san
has made a number of suggestions," he said.
The DSG nodded.
"He has said that he is aware that this incident may be
embarrassing, but that he personally does not blame the MPD in any way, and
indeed regrets — very deeply regrets — the inconvenience caused."
The DSG looked extremely interested.
"Fitzduane-
san
suggests," Adachi continued, "that the whole business be dismissed in
the press release as a clash between rival
yakuza
gangs which was stopped thanks to the prompt actions of the police.
Further, he suggests that the hero of the
hour be the young policeman he was forced to knock unconscious.
The
yakuza
oyabun
was shot with Policeman
Teramura's revolver, so it would seem appropriate.
Fitzduane-
san
also respectfully recommends that Teramura-
san
be given a medal."
