Tengu (36 page)

Mr. Esmeralda
asked, “You have worked out a way for the Tengu to break in?”

Kappa’s mask
nodded on his shrunken shoulders. “The Tengu will walk straight through the
perimeter fence, across the main yard, and break down the doors that lead into
the observation room. It is possible that he may be seen by security guards,
and it is possible that he may be shot several times. But Doctor Gempaku has
promised me that the Tengu he is creating now is his most powerful so far.
Nothing short of utter destruction will be able to stop him; a few bullets
won’t even make him flinch.” Mr. Esmeralda said nothing, but lowered his eyes.
Kappa went on,

“The Tengu will
start the fusion process. He has been trained how to do it. At the critical
moment, he will short-circuit the power supply by ripping out the main control
cables–here, and here–and joining them together with his bare hands. The fusion
reactor will go into wild imbalance, and within thirty seconds it will
explode.”

Mr. Esmeralda
took out his handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead. It was infernally hot and
rancid inside this room; and his equilibrium wasn’t helped by the fact that he
was so hungry and that Kappa was so repulsive to look at. Neither was he
consoled by the thought that Kappa’s wild and malevolent scheme to blow up a
nuclear-power station was only two days away, and very real. When he had first
met Kappa in Japan, all that time ago, it had seemed like a joke; at the very
worst, a nuclear scare like Three Mile Island, with hardly any real damage to
be done to anyone. But here, today, Kappa was talking about blowing up Three
Arch Bay the day after tomorrow, in a 150-megaton nuclear blast, seven thousand
times more powerful than Hiroshima. It was absurd, and unimaginable. He
couldn’t even think what a 150-megaton blast could possibly look like, or sound
like, or do. Yet Kappa fully intended to set one off: not just once, but over
and over again.

“I gather
you’re leaving Los Angeles, then,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “You were afflicted by
one nuclear blast; I’m sure you wouldn’t want to go through another.”

“I want you to
rent me a private boat,” said Kappa. “It should be comfortable, well appointed.
I will take the minimum of crew with me and sail northward to San Francisco, in
order that I may witness the devastation from a safe distance.”

“What time are
you planning on letting the Tengu loose?”

“At nine
o’clock in the evening, the day after tomorrow. It will hinder rescue services
even more if it is dark.”

“When will you
pay me the money that you promised me?”

Kappa was
silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Do you think I should pay you at all?”

‘‘You should,
unless you want me to call a SWAT squad the moment I walk out of the door.”

“You are trying
to say that I must either pay you or kill you?”

Mr. Esmeralda
took a deep breath. “You could put it like that, if you so wish. But, if
nothing else, I have always taken you to be a man of your word.”

‘‘Very well,’’
said Kappa. “You will be paid. All the remaining money that I agree to pay you
will be credited to your bank account by tomorrow morning. But I expect you to
remain in Los Angeles until the Day of Fate to make sure that the Tengu
goes
and that all possible arrangements for the destruction of
the reactor have been completed. If I were you, I would arrange for a private
plane to fly you out of Los Angeles as soon as the mission begins. You can fly
far enough and fast enough in a single hour to avoid the main effects of the
blast.”

“I suppose
there is some comfort in that.”

Kappa said,
“You have no word of Sennett yet?”

“The boy is
still being held at Pacoima Ranch. But, no, his fahter hasn’t responded yet.”

“Gerard Crowley
is supposed to be in charge of capturing Sennett, is he not?”

Mr. Esmeralda
nodded. “He would have succeeded immediately if Sennett had been at home.

He sent in
Yoshino and Toshiro, and they took the boy without anybody noticing. Crowley
was supposed to contact Sennett with instructions for the boy’s release this
morning, but so far I haven’t heard of any developments. Crowley will catch
him, I am sure of that. Sennett isn’t the kind of man who would risk his son’s
life, not for anything.”

“Is that what
you think?” asked Kappa. “Then what if I were to tell you that Sennett has been
to see Nancy Shiranuka?”

Mr. Esmeralda
stared at him, at that hideous, nearly smiling mask. “Sennett has been to see
Nancy Shiranuka?
But how?
He doesn’t even know her.”

“I do not
understand how, I can only surmise,” said Kappa. “Either Sennett knows more
about us than we think; or else somebody in this little group of ours has
betrayed us. According to the Oni who watched Nancy Shiranuka’s apartment last
night, Sennett arrived there late yesterday evening and stayed until the early
hours of the morning.”

“Was Gerard
Crowley there?”

“No, although I
do know who spent the night with Gerard Crowley’s wife.”

Mr. Esmeralda
asked, “You’ve been watching me, too?”

“Of course.
You don’t think that you’re exempt from my
suspicion, do you? Nobody is.”

“But Gerard
Crowley was supposed to go to Nancy Shiranuka’s to brief her about the attack on
Rancho Encino Hospital, and work out new plans for Doctor Gempaku.”

“Crowley didn’t
arrive,” said Kappa. “One of my men went to check Crowley’s apartment, where he
was fortunate enough to see you arriving; then he checked the Bonaventure
Hotel, where Crowley has been keeping a room; and the house on Packard Street,
where Crowley’s-mistress lives. No Crowley. No mistress, either.”

“I’ll check on
it myself,” said Mr. Esmeralda. All the time he was thinking: My God, not
Crowley, too. Crowley had already threatened to go to the police and try to
plea-bargain his way out of trouble. Why hadn’t he gone to Nancy Shiranuka’s,
as he was supposed to? And what had Jerry Sennett been doing there? The
treacherous group that Mr. Esmeralda had assembled to carry out Kappa’s
“bodyguard” project was proving even more treacherous than he had ever
imagined. Kappa was right to bring the Day of Fate forward to the soonest date
he could manage. And even so, Mr. Esmeralda was beginning to wonder if they
could pull it off before the police discovered what they were up to. There was
no honor among entrepreneurs.

Kappa said
harshly, “I want you personally to drive Doctor Gempaku to Rancho Encino so
that he can perform the necessary rituals. Then, I want you personally to make
sure that Sennett is snared, and that both he and his son are killed. You can
leave Crowley and Nancy Shiranuka to me–and Commander Ouvarov, too, when we
find him. They have all been useful in their way.

They have
enabled us to bring into America all the people and all the equipment we
needed. But now, they are growing restless; and restless servants are dangerous
ones.”

Mr. Esmeralda
asked, “I can go now?”

“Yes,”
whispered Kappa. “But don’t think that I have forgiven your mismanagement and
your carelessness. You will only be able to purge your errors by making sure
that the rest of my program is fulfilled without a single mistake. And, to make
certain that you have the necessary incentive, I have already taken your
Chinese chauffeur as a hostage. You will have to drive yourself from now on,
until this mission is successfully accomplished. We will take the girl on the
boat with us when we sail to San Francisco, and we will release her only when
the atomic sun rises in the southern sky.

Otherwise, she
will die. My Oni
have
many diverting ways of killing
women, some of which take several days.”

Mr. Esmeralda
felt as if cold leeches were sliding down his back. There were a dozen angry
things he could have said. If he had been younger, fitter, and more reckless,
he might have tried to seize Kappa and throttle him. But he had been surviving
for too many years, staying alive in cities and situations where more impulsive
men had died violent deaths, and he had lost the instinct to do anything rash.

“Promise me
that you will release her when the power station blows,” was all he said.
“Promise me on your honor.”

“I promise,”
said Kappa, and his eyes glistened behind his mask like the eyes of a hermit
crab peering through the shell of a long-dead host.

D
avid was dreaming about sunbathing on the beach at San Luis Obispo
when the screen door slid back and Doctor Gempaku stepped in. Just behind him
stood one of the black-masked Oni with an oblong lacquered tray, on which there
was a bowl of oshi-zttshi, pressed rice with ham and prawns and cucumber.
Doctor Gempaku bent over David, shook his shoulder, and said, “Breakfast, young
sir.’’

David blinked,
rubbed at his eyes, and then sat up awkwardly. He was naked, covered only with
a thin gray blanket, and there was no sign of his clothes. He said, “Has my
father called yet?”

“You must have
patience,” said Doctor Gempaku. “Your father does not yet know where you are,
or what we are expecting of him.’’

“You’re out of
luck if it’s money you want,” said David. “Dad’s practically bankrupt.”

“Oh, no, we’re
not after money,” smiled Doctor Gempaku. “We’re looking instead for silence.”

“Silence?
What’s that supposed to mean?” David watched out
of the corner of his eye as the Oni adept set down the breakfast tray, and then
retreated to the doorway. The Japanese went no further, though, and it was
obvious that he intended to keep a sharp watch on David until Doctor Gempaku’s
visit was over and the door could be locked again.

Doctor Gempaku
said, “Your father knows about things that ordinary men like him should never
really have had the misfortune to discover.’’

“This is
something to do with Japan?” queried David.
“Something to do
with the war?”

“You’re a
bright young fellow,” said Doctor Gempaku. “If you had been born Japanese, you
would have gone far. But, well, things must be different.
A
very great pity.”

“You’re not
going to harm my father?” asked David.

Doctor Gempaku
reached across to David’s breakfast tray, crumbled off a piece of oshi-zushi,
and began to nibble at it. “Do you know what your father did in the war? Do you
know why he still has to have psychiatric treatment?”

“Sure,” frowned
David. “He was on a mission for Naval Intelligence, and all his friends got
killed by the Japanese, right in front of his eyes.”

“Do you know
what the mission was?”

David shook his
head. “Something to do with–I don’t know–spying out landing sites for American
aircraft to invade the Japanese mainland. That’s what he told me once.”

Doctor Gempaku
took out a clean handkerchief and industriously wiped his hands, and then his
mouth. “Your father has been lying to you; or, at least, not telling you the
whole truth. Under the direction of a special Naval Intelligence task force, a
task force of only fifteen men and yet a task force which was considered so
important by the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that it was put under the direction
of an Admiral–Admiral Knut Thorson–your father was parachuted into Japan to
detect, with a high-powered radio, the exact location of a very special
Japanese military training center.”

“What’s so
special about that?” asked David.

Doctor Gempaku
ruffled David’s hair. “You do not understand at all, do you? That military
training center was devoted to the creation of a special kind of Japanese
soldier; a soldier who would be religiously as well as patriotically inspired,
to the point where he would no longer feel pain, no longer feel fear. It was
one of several attempts to protect thejapanese^homeland.
As
futile as all the rest, perhaps; as futile as arming women and children with
sharp bamboo sticks.

But you cannot
blame any nation, when it is isolated and afraid, for seeking to survive.”

“What
happened?” asked David. He was hungry, but he still hadn’t touched his
oshi-zushi.

Doctor Gempaku
shrugged.
“The usual American over reaction.
A fierce and unreasoning desire to avenge Pearl Harbor, perhaps.
Something like that: who can understand the American psychology? The American
mind is a mixture of cloying sentimentality and hideous brutality.

Who can possibly
reconcile the contradictions of Los Angeles, a city in which nearly eight
hundred people are murdered every year, a city in which there are nearly two
hundred rapes every month, and yet a city which can gleefully produce The Great
Muppet Caper and On Golden Pond. You smile?

Perhaps you
find it amusing that a nation can publicly exalt the human spirit while at the
same time wallowing in the deepest slough of moral degradation in civilized
history.”

David said, “I
don’t really understand what you’re saying.”

“Let me tell
you what your father did in Japan. Then you may grasp what I am trying to get
into your head. Your father located the training center at Hiroshima, and sent
back to the American high command a signal which he knew was the go-ahead for
the dropping of the first atomic bomb. Although he was quite aware that his
signal would lead to the instant and horrible deaths of thousands of civilians,
he said, “Do it”; and they did it. You know that your father goes to a
psychiatrist, of course. Well, now you know why.”

David stared at
Doctor Gempaku in disbelief. “That’s crazy,” he said. “They wouldn’t have
dropped the atomic bomb just to wipe out one training center.’’

“They
considered it necessary,” said Doctor Gempaku. “By their own lights, they
considered it worthwhile.”

“But they
dropped the atomic bomb to shorten the war. Japan was never going to surrender.