The Company of the Dead (29 page)

Newcombe activated his radio again. “I’m getting multiple signatures here, but I can’t get a friend-or-foe ID. I make at least three wings. You see that, Rose?”

“Affirmative. Low and to the west, low observables. No wonder we didn’t spot ’em on radar. Friend or foe, my ass, look at that formation. They’re Krauts alright. Carrier-based.”

“They’re coming in low,” Newcombe replied. “Making a silent run.”

“They’re headed for Manhattan,” Hardas said.

“Need some quiet here, boys.” It was Tucker again. “The major’s going to try something.”

Kennedy’s German was flawless. The response, when it came, was lukewarm by any standard.

Hardas turned to Morgan, peering at him expectantly.

“The major gave them a head’s up on the jap interceptors. He told them who we are,” Morgan explained. “He asked for sanctuary. They’re thinking about it.”

The German formation broke. One by one, the lights ahead flickered, then vanished. The Japanese interceptors wouldn’t know what hit them.

Newcombe tapped his phones and turned to Hardas, saying, “We’ve got the green light from the Germans. I’ve got their coordinates.”

“Scout Two, Scout Three, this is Kennedy. We’re not going to reach that flotilla, so we’re using this cover to head back. We’re making for the ranch. You find a faster way to the Rock, you take it. You don’t hear from us by the twenty-seventh, you keep on going, and God speed you. Over and out.”

Morgan watched as Kennedy’s plane began its turn, wondering if he would ever see them again.

“What’s the ranch?” Newcombe asked.

“It’s a ranch,” Hardas replied.

“What’s the Rock?”

“It’s a goddamned rock.”

“How am I supposed to get paid if your boss is hightailing it back to the mainland?”

“I’ve got your share.”

“I didn’t count on hooking up with the German fleet.”

“I can get you more, once we’re down south.”

“God bless the CBI,” Newcombe said. He leaned back hard on the control column, easing out the throttle. “Let’s see what this crate can do.”

Morgan turned in his seat to face the rear of the cockpit. There was no sign of the
Shenandoah
now. No sign of the other scouts either. There was a bright flash in the distance. Then another.

“Air-to-air missiles,” Hardas said.

Twin pinpricks of bright flame blinked on and off in a rapid sequence across the sky.

“After-burners,” Hardas said.

The night exploded in streaks of fire. The clash of distant thunder and cottonwool bursts of yellow hung in the air like newly formed constellations. Ten minutes later, a final broadcast from Kennedy rattled through the transceiver.

“Looks like they’re going to make it,” Hardas said with a grunt.

It was two hours before Morgan made out the luminescent V of a carrier’s wake.

Scout Three had been climbing for ten minutes. Threads of yellow fire cobwebbed across the night sky below.

“We need to turn around,” Shine said. “Escort the major back to the mainland.”

“One scout might make it in all this heat,” Rose replied. “Two is just too damn risky.”

Shine considered coercing the pilot. He said, “I need to go south.”

“Where’s this ranch supposed to be?”

Shine envisioned the lake’s edge, the dense forests, the hot springs where the steam rose in a veil of fine mist. “It’s in Arkansas,” he replied.

“I’ll get you there, but for now the safest place is neutral ground.”

“What about the carrier group?”

“No arrester hook, no deck landings. I’m thinking of taking the
Shenandoah
’s advice.”

“Meaning?”

“Ever been to Quebec?”

They were flying so low that Lightholler could see the whitecaps form and fade on the ocean’s surface. A nor’westerly whipped the choppy swell below them. In the distance a lone lighthouse swept the waters with bright glances. Beyond, the coast rose formless and black on the horizon.

No words had been exchanged since they’d sighted land, and that was twenty minutes ago.

“I’m going to find us a nice patch of highway and set us down,” Tucker announced. “I don’t much like our chances of getting clearance to land on the Jersey turnpike, and I don’t know how much further this bird is going to fly.”

Lightholler leaned back in his seat. The shore ahead, jagged and glistening, transformed into an icy glacier beckoning them on.

Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,

The lady of situations.

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,

Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find

The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.

Prince Sada-Omi, Imperial Ambassador to the German Empire and second son of Emperor Ryuichi, sat on a raised platform, a sheet of red felt cloth beneath his crossed legs. He wore a blue
kamishimo
that hung loosely on his thin body. Before him lay the ornamented dagger that had accompanied the Imperial orders.

Morishita, his household administrator, sat directly across from him, freshly tonsured. The thinning remains of his grey hair were tied back in a topknot. That morning Sada-Omi had found the old man’s new appearance amusing, the two swords rattling clumsily against his bony waist as he made his way down the aisle of the gondola to present himself to his master. Sada-Omi had managed to restrict his mirth to a thin smile as he had accepted the old man’s thanks for this honourable appointment. The promotion to samurai must have come from the Emperor. Sada-Omi would need to have a samurai present in order to fulfil the mission.

Beside Morishita sat Norimitsu, Colonel of the Kempei-Tai, the Special Police. He was looking past the Prince, his stare lost somewhere beyond the confines of the
Kamikaze
and her cabins. The only other occupants of the gondola were two swordsmen of the Imperial Watch, who stood by the entrance to the pilot’s cabin, and the German minister for defence.

The minister’s mottled face tilted to one side and blankly returned Sada-Omi’s stare. As the
Kamikaze
slowly gained altitude, passing through gentle buffets of thermal currents, the minister’s head lolled back and forth, accompanied by the clink of the poisoned
cha
glass that sat on its saucer. A trail of spittle had worked its way down from the corner of his mouth to the high lapels of his crumpled dress uniform.

Sada-Omi addressed him in a whisper. “Where you go, I shall follow.”

“My Lord?” Morishita enquired, eyes still downcast.

“I find the minister for defence an attentive audience.”

The colonel snorted gruffly. “Finally, he accords you honour.”

“The first of many,” the Prince replied softly.

He returned to the letter. His father’s calligraphy stark and heavy on the rice paper that was so light in his hands.

On the tenth day of the tenth month in the twentieth year of Kanei, Master Shinmen Musashi took up his brush and began a work that you will complete. I speak of the
Go Rin No Sho
, the Book of Five Rings. I read to you from this book as you lay at your mother’s breast, as I did to your brother, the Crown Prince, before you. I never understood the true meaning of Musashi’s words, even though the priests now assure me that I must have had some glimpse of them when I named you Sada-Omi, Noble Destiny.

The Book is of five parts: Ground, Water, Fire, Wind and, finally, Void
.
It was written as the total distillation of Master Musashi’s thoughts on strategy in war. Often it has steered my course. Time and again it has lit a pathway for me through trails of bewilderment and indecision. And now, in this dark time, it brings me some small comfort.

That which I ask you to do, as a Knight of Bushido, and a Prince of the Empire, I do not request. I would not insult you by suggesting that you have a choice in this matter. For I offer you the greatest of gifts. Immortality.

I sent you into the camp of our enemies as an envoy of Peace. In order to make our deception complete I had to deceive you, and for this I am sorry. It was my belief that were you to approach the Kaiser and his men with the full knowledge of Victory, you would have been unable, in your youth, to conceal your pride.

There can be no peace with the Germans, no truce with barbarians.

They looked at our history and attributed our victories to the weakness of our foes. They believed that any success we had was by the grace of our fortune. And now they are wondering, what has happened? These funny yellow people who love to bow and live in houses of paper and wood, how have they become so powerful? So ignorance breeds fear.

They talk of Peace and they summon us to their parleys while their warships plough our waters and their soldiers march towards our borders.
They desire war and they desire it on their own terms.

Let me tell you about war, my son, for though you are to be my instrument and weapon, you have always been the poet rather than the warrior. War is the resolution of confusion and the definition of power. When there is peace it is because nations perceive the strengths of their neighbours. They know when to take what they want and they know when to back down. It is the same when two men encounter each other walking down a street, the weak bowing before the strong.

You have heard the phrase “fog of war”, describing the smoke that comes from gunpowder and cannon and obstructs a view of battle. To me, no phrase is more apt. War is two men approaching each other on a narrow mountain path, lost in the mist. To each, the other is obscured. To each, the other looms in shadow. At times they appear larger, then smaller, as the fog swirls in and out. Footsteps ring heavily on stone, then soft on patches of soil and grass. Each must ask himself, do I continue or stand aside? An inner conflict is waged. In some form or another it must be manifested.

So it is with nations.

The Germans ask us to back down because they cannot conceive of us carrying the fight to them. They cannot perceive our strengths and believe that we will quietly return to our “villages” like good little natives. If they knew our strengths, then as brothers we could rule. But how to prove it to them, my son? Only through war. To prove ourselves their equal, we must become their masters.

So why have I sent you?

Though you go resolutely, you do not have to go in ignorance. There will be time enough later for you to understand all, as you sit alongside the throne of Jimmu, our first Emperor, and look down at our victories. But for now, know this. You are my son.

The Germans believe that I value you and your brother beyond all things. They are correct, for it is the greatest gift I bestow on you. You will be permitted where others are banned. You will be courted where others would be despised. For though you are an enemy, you are the son of an Emperor.

I sent you with few men, for I wished your humility to make the Germans haughty. You may go unmolested where others will be carefully searched. You carry with you a vast weapon that is beyond our enemy’s conception, and you bring it to their very doorstep.

I have heard of military operations that were clumsy but swift. I have
never seen one that was skilful and protracted. A prolonged military action against so strong an enemy can never be beneficial. You shall be as swift as the thunder that peals before you have an opportunity to cover your ears, as fast as the lightning that flashes before you can blink your eyes. You are the final chapter of Musashi’s book. You will level the earth and dry the waters. Flames will ride before you and a great blast of wind shall flatten all who remain.

Sada-Omi, you are the bringer of the void to our enemy.

Now that you know what exists, you can know that which does not exist. That is the void. In the void there is virtue, and no evil. Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence. Spirit is nothingness.

Sada-Omi placed the letter on his lap.

“Is it time?”

“Soon, my Prince,” the colonel replied. “Your father has planned this to the exact moment.”

The Prince turned to look at Morishita, the man who had borne him on his back when he was a child, who had taken him to classes, who had served him and his family faithfully since his grandfather had ruled.

“You are to be my
kaishaku
, my second.”

Morishita nodded solemnly.

The Prince repositioned himself for comfort on the thin cloth, closed his eyes and waited. In no time at all an eternity elapsed. It was all so clear to him.

Earth, water, fire, wind.

Void.

“My Lord, it is time.”

Sada-Omi opened his eyes.

Morishita nodded almost imperceptibly in the direction of the German minister’s corpse. “Shall I have him removed?”

“That won’t be necessary.” The Prince glanced out of the gondola window. A sliver of moon hung in the distance on a sea of cloud.

“My Prince,” the colonel said, “the Germans have been trying to contact us. They want to know why we have ascended. They suggest that we moor the dirigible as a storm is approaching.”

“They are correct. What is the time, Colonel?”

“It is nine o’clock.”

Sada-Omi turned towards the small altar near the front of the gondola and bowed. Morishita slowly rose to his feet and shuffled towards the Prince. He held a briefcase before him and placed it gently in the Prince’s lap. A braid of wiring trailed behind it. The Prince took it up in both hands, raised it to his forehead, then laid it down again upon his knees.

Morishita picked up the dagger from the edge of the red cloth and walked around the small dais to stand behind the Prince’s left shoulder. He held the blade close to the Prince’s throat.