The Fifth Profession (38 page)

“Since you
think
he hired you to protect him,” Savage said.

Akira agreed. “False memory.”

“And as we found out, his name's not Muto Kamichi. It's Kunio Shirai.”

“A militant neo-nationalist politician. In the months before our nightmare began, when I was still in Japan, or think I was still in Japan, I never heard of him. Granted, there are ultraconservative groups that emphasize anti-Americanism, but they're small, without influence. The man we saw on television, though, was capable of mustering support from thousands of students. The announcer said that Shirai's power base was strong enough to splinter Japan's major party. It doesn't make sense. Who
is
this man? Where did he come from? How did he gain influence so quickly?”

“And what do both of you have to do with him?” Rachel asked. “Who wants you to believe you saw Shirai cut in half six months ago?”

“Tomorrow, we'll find some answers,” Akira said.

Savage squinted. “How?”

“By talking to a wise and holy man.”

Savage didn't understand, but before he could ask Akira to elaborate, Eko came onto the porch, bowed, and spoke.

“She wants to know if you're hungry,” Akira said.

“Lord, no,” Rachel said. “I'm still digesting the ton of food I ate on the airplane.”

“Me neither,” Savage said.

Akira sent Eko away.

“This heat.” Rachel yawned. “The water's so soothing. I could fall asleep right here.”

“We could
all
use some sleep,” Akira said. He climbed from the tub, his wet towel clinging to his muscular hips, and as if on signal, Eko returned with three terry-cloth robes. He put one on and handed the others to Savage and Rachel when they got out. “I'll show you to your rooms.”

Inside, along a narrow corridor, Akira slid open two sections of a wall, revealing adjacent rooms. In each, a lamp on a low table cast a golden glimmer.
A futon
mattress, which Akira had explained was rolled up and stored in a closet during the day, had been unfolded and set upon the
tatami
mats, along with a pillow and quilts. Rachel's travel bag was in the room on the left, Savage's on the right.

“My room is across from yours,” Akira said. “The house has intrusion detectors, as do the walls around the property. I've arranged for Churi to stand watch. He's dependable, with skills to match. Sleep peacefully.
O-yasumi nasai,
or as you say, ‘good night.’ “

Akira bowed, stepped into his room, and shut its sliding door.

After bowing to Akira, Savage turned to Rachel. He felt awkward. “See you in the morning.”

Rachel looked equally awkward. “Right.”

Savage kissed her. Her breasts were soft yet firm beneath her robe. As his body responded, he wanted to ask her to share his room, but the house had the atmosphere of a temple, and because Akira had assigned them separate rooms, it seemed indelicate to change his arrangements. Then, too, the walls were literally paper thin. Akira might be embarrassed by the sounds of their lovemaking.

Rachel's throat squeezed her voice and made it husky. “Good night, love.
O-yasumi nasai.”

Savage stroked her cheek. With a gentle whisper, he repeated the Japanese expression.

They studied each other.

Reluctantly Savage entered his room and slid the wall shut.

Standing motionless, he waited for his breathing to become subdued, his heart to stop racing. A pair of black pajamas had been laid out on the table. Putting them on, he noticed that a toothbrush and a small tube of paste had been set beside a glass of water and an orange and blue ceramic basin on a shelf.

Considerate down to the smallest detail, Savage thought.

Fatigue insisted. Languidly he brushed his teeth. He'd relieved himself before taking his shower. All that remained was to shut off the lamp and slump onto the
futon.
In the dark, he saw faint light through the wall beside him, Rachel's shadow moving. Then the light was extinguished, and he heard her settling onto her mattress.

He stared at the murky ceiling, preoccupied by what had brought them here, what possibly awaited them tomorrow, and what their chances were of surviving.

No option, he thought. We have to take the risk. We're compelled to go forward. And if we do survive, what will happen between Rachel and me? Does she just need to feel secure, to have someone devoted to her protection?

Or is that a definition of love? Doesn't everyone want to feel secure? And don't forget, she had the chance to leave. She's putting herself at risk to be here, to be with you.

So what's your problem? What's bugging you?

I'm afraid if I fall any harder in love … When she realizes her protector's only human, with flaws like anyone else, it might be she'll move on.

He shook his head. Don't think so much. What is it Rachel keeps saying?
Abraham believed by virtue of the absurd. Faith is absurd, and so is love. You've got to trust.

Don't worry about the future. Now is what matters.

On the
futon,
he turned toward the wall that separated him from Rachel. He suddenly realized that Akira had arranged for Rachel's
futon
to be set directly against the other side of the wall just as Savage's was directly against
this
side. If it weren't for the wall, he'd be able to reach over and touch her.

The wall. His pulse quickened as he understood how truly delicate Akira had been. Rather than raise the indiscreet issue of whether they preferred two rooms or one, he'd left the choice for them to make in private. All Savage had to do was …

Reaching over, he slid a section of the wall to one side. He saw the contour of her body beneath the quilt. She was three feet away, and his vision had adjusted to the darkness sufficiently for him to see that she lay on her side, her face to him.

Her eyes were open. She smiled.

His soul ached. He lifted his quilt. She shifted from beneath her own and joined him. When he lowered the quilt to cover their heads, he felt as if they were in a sleeping bag in a tent.

Her mouth found his. His heart pounded faster. They held each other, pressing, squirming. He was on her, then she on him. Their kiss became more insistent. They tugged at each other's pajama bottoms, soft cotton sliding down over thighs, knees, and ankles. He drew his fingers up her leg, stroked her stomach, cupped a breast.

“Please,” she murmured.

With his head beneath the quilt, he raised her pajama top, kissing her nipples, their hardness increasing, swelling between his lips.

“Please,” she whispered.

When he entered her, she gasped. He shuddered, gently stroking, wanting to slide so deeply within her that he'd be one with her. She dug her fingernails into his back. She clutched his hair. At once she kissed him again, mouth open, tongue probing as if she wanted to enter, to be one with, him.

As they climaxed, their kiss became so full that Akira couldn't possibly have heard them, for they swallowed each other's moans.

6

Savage woke in greater darkness. The lamps in the hallway and in other parts of the house had been turned off, their glow no longer penetrating the paper walls of his room. The house was silent. Rachel lay next to him, an arm across his chest, her head against his. He smelled the scent of her hair, the sweetness of her skin. The memory of their lovemaking made him smile. He felt privileged to have her beside him and more than that, fulfilled.

Stretching his legs, enjoying the comfort of the
futon,
he studied the luminous numbers on his watch. Seventeen minutes after three. He'd slept more than six hours. Normally that would have been sufficient for him, but after the exhausting flight from America and the languor he'd experienced after Rachel and he finished making love, he was surprised that he hadn't slept longer. Maybe his body clock hadn't adjusted to the change in time zones, he thought. Maybe he subconsciously felt it was morning in America instead of the middle of the night in Japan.

Rachel sighed in her sleep and nuzzled against him. He smiled again. Go back to sleep, he told himself. Get all the rest you can.
While
you can. Surrendering to the warmth of the quilt, he yawned and closed his eyes.

But at once he reopened them.

To his left, toward the back of the house, possibly
outside
the house, he heard a muffled cough. Tense, he almost sat up. Then he realized that the cough must have come from Churi, who was standing guard outside the house.

Straining to listen, Savage waited five minutes but didn't hear another cough. Relax, he told himself. But he wondered if Churi, who'd been trained by Akira, would have
allowed
himself to cough or if his body absolutely insisted, to cough with sufficient force to be heard inside the house. Akira would have told him, don't do anything to reveal your position.

Still, Akira had mentioned that Churi wasn't fully trained. It could be that Churi's discipline had momentarily failed.

Savage shrugged off his apprehension and snuggled closer to Rachel, absorbing her warmth. Abruptly he jerked his head up.

The faint dry scrape of rice straw, of something applying gradual pressure to the woven fibers of a
tatami
mat, made him stare toward the wall that led to the corridor.

When he heard a second subtle scrape, he had no doubt —they were footsteps. Carefully placed. Slow and cautious. From bare or stockinged feet. If not for the paper-thin wall, they'd have been undetectable.

Akira going to the bathroom?

No, Savage instantly decided. There'd been no sound of a section of wall being opened.

Churi patrolling the corridor?

Why?
The interior was guarded by intrusion sensors. Churi was useful only if he watched from outside.

Eko? Perhaps she'd wakened early, as elderly people often did, and decided to perform some necessary chore, possibly preparations for a special breakfast.

No, Savage thought. Although her room was farther along the corridor, toward the back, he was sure he'd have heard a section of the wall slide open when she entered the corridor.

Besides, the delicate footsteps weren't toward the rear of the house, where the kitchen and the bathroom were, but directly between Akira's room and Savage's.

He almost touched Rachel to wake and warn her. Pulse rushing, he decided not to. Even if he pressed a hand to her mouth, she might make a sound that would alert whoever was in the corridor. Warily, silently, he raised the quilt, doubling it over her. His nervous system quivered. Adrenaline flooded through him. Blood surged from his extremities toward his stomach, burning. He contracted his chest muscles, controlling the reflexive urge to breathe rapidly, and stealthily rose to a crouch.

But he didn't dare move from the
futon.
If he stepped on the mats, he'd make the same subtle noise the intruder had and warn him. He had to stay immobile, his reflexes primed, till circumstances forced him into action.

He didn't have a handgun. Prior to reaching Dulles Airport, Akira and he had thrown their .45s down a sewer because they couldn't hope to get the weapons past the X-ray machines and metal detectors at the airport's security gates. If the intruder entered Savage's room, Savage would have to get close enough to fight with him hand to hand.

His muscles hardened. He stared toward the dark wall, hearing a slight scratch—a section of wall being gingerly opened.

Not Savage's wall. Beyond it. On the other side of the corridor, someone was entering
Akira's
room.

Now. Savage had to act before Akira was taken by surprise.

Stomach on fire, he took a step, and suddenly flinched as the wall to his room burst inward, wood and paper flying, two figures hurtling toward the floor. They landed so hard that the figure on the bottom grunted from the impact, breath knocked out of him.

Two men.

Savage recognized Akira's silhouette on top, chopping the edge of his hand toward the other man's face. The intruder was dressed completely in black, a dark hood over his head. As he grunted again, this time from Akira's blow, he fired a pistol equipped with a silencer. The spitting bullet struck the ceiling, and Savage dove.

But not straight ahead to help Akira. He assumed that Akira could control the threat. Instead he dove to the right, over Rachel, landing beside her, dragging her into the adjacent room. She'd woken, screaming, when the wall burst inward and the men slammed onto the floor. She screamed again as Savage tugged her, desperate to remove her from the intruder's line of fire.

The intruder shot again despite repeated blows from Akira.

The bullet struck the wall near Savage and Rachel.

She was too breathless from shock to scream now. Whimpering, she followed Savage's lead and surged to a running crouch. Desperate, disoriented in the blackness of the unfamiliar house, she reached the next wall before she realized, and unable to control her momentum in time to tug at a section of the wall, she crashed through it, sprawling in a frenzy on the mats of a farther room.

Savage dragged her to her feet and pushed.
“Keep going. Get to the front of the house. Stay low.”

The instant she stumbled away from him, he spun to rush back to Akira. As he did, his temples throbbed when he realized where he was—the room in which Akira had shown Rachel and him the samurai swords. Savage charged toward the wall on which they hung, grabbed one, unsheathed it, and surprised by how long it felt, pointed it toward the ceiling lest he cut himself, and hurried through the gap in the wall.

The intruder's pistol spat again. The bullet punctured a wall as Savage rushed through Rachel's room into his own. Desperate, he saw Akira chop the side of his hand against the intruder's face yet again, and the man lay still.

Savage exhaled.

But at once he shouted, “Akira, behind you!”

Another dark figure loomed, filling the hole in the wall, arm extended, aiming.

Akira rolled.

With a muffled whump, the assassin's bullet missed Akira's back and struck the motionless man on the floor.