The Gatekeeper's Son (37 page)

“Junya,” Lin whispered, “I didn’t know it was you.”

I let go. “A little paranoid, aren’t you?”

“I’m scared.”

I walked toward the bed. Grandpa was pale, his eyes sunk deep into the sockets.

“They say he’s stable, but … I feel him slipping away.”

I turned to find tears running down Lin’s cheeks and I fought a wave of shame. Ms. Lin had been my personal porn star since I hit puberty. Now I knew her as a friend, and I began to understand all the things she’d given up, or had had taken from her.

“Lin …”

She grabbed me and buried her face in my neck. Her sobbing made her whole body shake, and for the first time in days I let my own emotions go. My tears began to drop onto her hair. The only sounds were our sobbing, the hum of the machines, and Grandpa’s breath going in and out.

Lin finally let me go and I wiped my face with my sleeve.

“I’ll go get us some tea,” she said.

I waited until the door closed behind her and sat on the edge of the bed. I felt exhausted, overwhelmed as I took his cold hand in mine. I couldn’t feel anything from him, no energy at all. I closed my eyes and tried to focus, but I grew colder and felt myself begin to drift.

I found myself in a meadow, warm and full of life and color. A small hut, its walls glowing bright in the sun, sat at the far edge against a backdrop of lush vegetation. A warm breeze touched my face and dried my cheeks.

“This is where it all began,” Grandpa said in a low voice, standing at the doorway of the hut. He turned to look at me. “I’m sorry, James, … but I can’t stay.”

My eyes snapped open. Grandpa lay on the bed beside me. I squeezed his hand.

“Don’t—you can’t leave me!”

“Edward!” Lin ran toward me, two steaming cups of tea nearly falling from her hands. “No, no, no—”

I grabbed the cups, my hands over hers to steady them.

“He’s alive.” I kept my voice steady, hoping it would calm me as much as her. “Nothing’s changed.”

“Then why …”

I gently pushed her backward to a chair, took one of the cups, and knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry I scared you,” I whispered. “I don’t know what happened. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, but the shock was still evident on her face and in her shaking hands. I moved into the chair beside her and we sat in silence, lost in thought.

After a while I turned to her. “You’re pretty good with a knife. Lucky it wasn’t the nurse.”

She sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve. “I knew your mom when I was a little girl, did you know that?”

I shook my head.

“She helped inspire me to follow my own path, in a way.” She took a sip of tea. “But no one told me what she was until later.”

“So you know she’s a Gatekeeper?”

She nodded.

“Does Grandpa know?”

“I don’t think so.”

I studied her face. “I guess being on Grandpa’s flight that day was no accident.”

She nodded. “I was sent to assist another who grows older.” Then she laughed. “And we all knew he’d fall for my
bait
.”

I laughed. “Who doesn’t?” Then my mouth dropped open. “Wait! Are you telling me Mr. Sugimoto is a ninja, too?”

“Gardeners have been the disguise for ninja bodyguards since the Edo period.”

I tried to absorb that. “Why’d they send a kunoichi this time?”

She frowned. “I consider kunoichi to be a rather insulting term.”

I cringed. “Sorry.”

She took a sip of tea. “They wanted someone close to him, to his business.” She shrugged. “They didn’t ask me to seduce him—becoming his executive assistant was enough … but he was so lonely and it did make things easier.”

I smiled. “You know you’re not fooling me, right?”

She managed a weak smile. “I do love him.” She looked down at her lap, and neither of us spoke for a while. I was about to stand up when she cleared her throat.

“Junya?” She was staring intently at the floor when I turned to her. “Do you … do you think he’d marry me? If I suggested it?”

“Marry you?”

Her cheeks turned pink. “Never mind … I could never be a wife. I’m sure I couldn’t stand it.”

“Lin.” I put my hand on her arm. “He’d be a fool to say no.”

There was an awkward pause.

“You know what happened today?” I finally said.

She nodded. “Walter threatened to fire me, too, if I don’t go back to the office, but the bodyguards are gone. Sugimoto-san is guarding the house, so I stayed here. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Walter shouldn’t be a problem much longer. I started to fight back last night. He’s reacting, but he’s not thinking straight. We’re going to win.”

“How do you figure that?” She sounded skeptical.

I told her about the money missing from the company accounts and about the Turks and Caicos accounts.

“When his men find out he’s broke, they won’t stick around.”

“Damn,” she said. “I never liked him.”

“And I had a visit from Mr. Müller this morning.”

Her hand rose to cover her mouth. “What?”

“Bartholomew’s supporting Walter, or at least he was. Now he’s offered to return everything to normal, except he’d prefer that Grandpa isn’t around.” I decided not to mention the map just yet.

She looked horrified.

“I don’t know what to do about Bartholomew right now, but I know I can save the company from Walter. Will you help me?”

She sat up straighter. “What do you want me to do?”

I pulled her out of the chair and headed for the door, but before we could get there, there was a tap and Mr. Barrymore peered in. He looked embarrassed when he saw us.

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I thought I’d check in on him before I left.”

“There’s no change,” Lin said.

He nodded.

“Let’s go talk in the meeting room down the hall,” I said to him.

Mr. Barrymore didn’t move. “If the Chairman’s still unconscious, then there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Please come,” I said as I pushed past him.

I took the seat at the head of the table and waited. Lin strode in a moment later, her heels clicking, and sat down and opened a notebook in front of her.

“He’ll come,” she said.

Mr. Barrymore walked in a few minutes later. He stood against the wall opposite me with his arms crossed.

I leaned back in the chair. “I’m not going to let this happen.”

“It already has. No one’s going to stick around, not even John,” Mr. Barrymore said.

“Not even you?”

“Damn it, James, I’ve been fired! I know when to give up.”

Lin clicked her pen. “I never thought of you as a man who’d give up so easily, Maurice.” She turned back to me. “Where do we start?”

“First of all, Barrymore, you’re rehired, and ‘no’ isn’t an option. Second, rehire everyone.”

“But—”

“Lin,” I said, “I know this isn’t your area, but can you do payroll?”

She smiled. “Of course. We need to get paychecks out … but where’s the money coming from if Walter cleaned us out?”

I slid her a piece of paper with an account number on it.

She pulled a laptop out of her bag and flipped it open. “I’ll get started.”

“Good.” I looked up at Mr. Barrymore. “Did you start that audit we talked about?”

He nodded. “It was the first thing I did this morning, before I got fired—ex-IRS auditors.” He adjusted his jacket and stood up straighter. “Started their own business a few years back. They’re working from their office, nothing official, as you wanted.” He paused. “I forgot to tell them I was fired.”

“They’ll never even notice.”

He looked thoughtful. “I wasn’t able to take Walter’s computer access away, though. The IT department won’t do it without an order from the Chairman—”

“Screw them!” I shouted. “Take him offline now!”

“I can do it,” Lin said, her fingers tapping the keyboard. “I have Edward’s codes. No one can override them.”

I leveled my gaze at Mr. Barrymore, who was studying me with interest. “I want a full team here in an hour,” I said. “Then you go and escort Walter out of the office.”

He glanced at Lin. “You can pay my guys?”

She tapped a few keys and looked up. “Auto deposits just went out.” She looked at me. “And Walter’s account is locked. What’s next?”

“You call and speak to the people in charge of every department of our company—top people, the ones who report directly to Grandpa. Tell them that any orders they’ve received from Walter since my birthday are canceled.” I paused, trying to remember how far back that was. “Any layoffs, any accounting changes, anything Walter told them to do is to be reversed.” I looked her in the eye. “Will they listen to you?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, they’ll listen.”

I nodded. “Transfer cash from that account to any of them that need it to stay afloat.”

“What about the Bayview Project? We’re in default.”

I sighed. “I don’t know what to do about that.” I ran a hand over my face. “When are Mark and my dad due back?”

“Not until tomorrow at the earliest. The papers aren’t even signed yet.”

“Well, after what Mr. Müller said, I don’t think we should bother with the Bayview right now.”

Mr. Barrymore hadn’t moved yet. He was standing there, watching us.

“Are you with me, Mr. Barrymore?”

He nodded.

“Well, then what are you waiting for? Get on it!”

CHAPTER

36

I met Mack later that afternoon at a coffee house not far from his place, a funky little joint with an eclectic mix of mismatched tables and chairs and old sofas. They had wraps and salads, the usual espresso, and a few treats under the glass. Their pumpkin pie was the best I’d ever tasted.

I showed up fifteen minutes late—I wanted to make sure I wasn’t followed. Mack was sitting alone at a table near the washrooms, his backpack at his feet and his back to the door. I ordered a vanilla steamed milk and a piece of pumpkin pie and sat across from him, grinning like a goof. I gave him a quick once-over but saw only a few light bruises near one eye. “Man, is it good to see you!”

“Been a long time.” He frowned at me before he took a bite of his chicken-Caesar wrap.

I cringed. “I know … I’m sorry. I didn’t even check to see if you were OK.”

“I was freaking out when I didn’t hear anything.” He looked serious, not a normal thing for Mack. “And I was pretty pissed when you took off without a word.”

“I’m really sorry. Everything was so crazy.”

“Yeah, I called your house. Your dad told me you went to Japan.” He put his wrap down. “I don’t blame you for having other things on your mind. I saw the news the next day. The guys that jumped us—you really did that?”

I dropped my eyes to the table. “They were trying to kill me. I thought my grandpa sent them—accused him of it … Turns out he didn’t.”

Then I told him—at least the parts I could. I told him about my grandpa’s heart attack and that Walter was trying to take over the company. I left out the part about Izumo and the ninja and the map. I did tell him a bit about Shoko, though.

Mack mulled it over and leaned back in his chair. “This is nuts,” he said.

I was about to reply when I felt a disruption in the energy outside, like a leaf dropping into a stream. Men were gathering outside, and they were here for me.