The Nicholas Linnear Novels (57 page)

The moon was a dim smudge low on the horizon, ready to rest for the night. Whatever remained of it. The Colonel slowly rolled up his side window, preparatory to getting out, but he was abruptly suffused with a curious kind of lethargy that left him incapable for the moment of taking any action no matter how minuscule.

I suppose that is to be expected, he thought.

He looked toward the darkened house and he thought of Cheong asleep on their
futon.
How he cherished her. How he had failed her. And himself. And especially Nicholas. He had done the only possible thing but he knew that it was far from enough. He had bollixed it long ago. Tonight just took some of the sting out of it for him.

What he thought of now was lying to Cheong. He had never done that before and he had no strong desire to do it now. Still, there was no help for it; he understood all too well the consequences of the alternative.

At last he climbed out of the car, shut the door behind him with a soft thunk. The night seemed terribly still.

He went silently around to the side of the house, found the small pile of leaves Ataki had left for the morning’s burning. Kneeling down, he set it to flame, listening meditatively to the crisp crackle, inhaling the pungent odor.

He stared into the fire. Odd what one remembers, he thought, in times like these. Like a submarine suddenly surfacing, the memory came to him of the bright summer afternoon when he had been locked in the crucial meeting with Prime Minister Yoshida, debating the specific consequences of the Korean War with John Foster Dulles, General Bradley and Defense Secretary Johnson. Dulles was in Tokyo because among the first American troops being sent into Korea were those who had been occupying Japan since 1945. But that left the bases and approximately a quarter of a million U.S. dependants left unprotected in Japan. The Americans were, of course, against this and they proposed the commencement of a Japanese military.

It was a bombshell proposal because such a force would be in direct violation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution written in 1947: “Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”

In the best of American traditions, Johnson assailed Dulles’ stance and the P.M. reacted negatively to Dulles’ pleas for Japanese remilitarization. However, it was clear that something had to be done. The Colonel proposed that the existing Japanese police force be expanded to approximately 75,000 men, calling it a National Police Reserve. “We will have an effective army without having to call it that,” the Colonel had said.

For Dulles, of course, this was not enough, but Yoshida, seeing that the Colonel had given him a way out without any loss of face, readily agreed. The plan would have to be, by definition, Top Secret. Even the recruits, Yoshida insisted, must not know the true purpose for which they were being trained.

The P.M. then set up the Annex of Civil Affairs Section within the existing bureaucracy to be responsible for recruitment and training, and an American officer was put in charge.

Afterward, Yoshida had asked the Colonel to remain. Tension still laced the room like rancid fruit and the P.M. suggested they take a walk in his gardens.

“I owe you a great debt of thanks,” he had said after the usual amount of conversational courtesies which, even in such a signal situation, could not be ignored.

“The problem is, sir, that the Americans still do not understand us.” He saw Yoshida glance sideways at him. “Perhaps they never will. They have been here a long time.”

The Prime Minister smiled. “Remember, Colonel, that there was a time when we did not understand the Americans.”

“But there is, I think, in Japan, a greater ability for cultural absorption.”

Yoshida sighed. “Yes. Perhaps that is so. But, in any event, I am most grateful to you. Mr. Dulles was most anxious to back me into a corner. What he was no doubt leading up to was a Japanese involvement in the Korean War. Why else ask for a sudden enormous military buildup here?” He shook his head, his small hands clasped behind his back. “It is unthinkable, Colonel, for us to send troops into Korea.”

Unthinkable, the Colonel thought now, kneeling in the brittle night. That time we avoided the unthinkable, by the grace of God. Now it had happened.

The fire was going strong. He reached the cord out of the pocket of his dark nylon jacket, dropped it into the center of the tiny conflagration.

He was not surprised to see that the knot in its center was the last to blacken and fall into ashes.

Said goodbye to Mount Aso, hello to Mount Fuji.

It rained most of the way back, drops beading the windowpane, streaking in fat rivulets as they combined. The low sky was black, filled with evil fulminating clouds. A stiff wind out of the north quarter plummeted the temperature; winter was here at last.

Nicholas shifted uncomfortably from one buttock to another, finding it painful to sit normally. Someone, farther along the car, kept fiddling with the tuning dial of a transister radio: brief bursts of rock music interspersed with a dry cultured voice announcing the news. Saburō, the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party, was under fire again for his “structural reform” policies which the Party had adopted a little over two years ago. Speculation was that he would be out soon.

Just north of Osaka, the rain turned to hail, pattering against the windows as it tap-danced along the hull of the train.

Nicholas, scrunched down in the seat, shivered slightly despite the adequate heating. Vaguely, as if the feeling belonged to another person and he had, perhaps, gotten his lines crossed, he felt hungry. But he had not left his seat since he had boarded this train at Osaka, had collapsed into it. Any movement at all seemed a chore to him now. Perhaps, before they pulled into the station at Tokyo, he would be obliged to relieve himself. He preferred not to think about that now. But then any kind of thought was difficult at the moment. His mind was a wind tunnel, leaves suctioned by the same currents, creating precisely the same patterns no matter how many times it was replayed.

Hear the groaning, feel the heat on his face: the light—shade off the lamp? Shadows moving, rising, falling, larger than life. Saigō, oddly, making the bed. Yukio, dressed in skirt and blouse, packing rather mechanically. He tried to say something but it was as if his mouth had been packed with dry sand. Was his larynx paralyzed as well?

Saigō took her by the arm, bag in her other hand. They both had to step over him to reach the door. Lay there like a quadriplegic, eyes blinking salt sweat and tears. He strained to see her face but it was in partial shadow, her long hair swinging across her cheek.

Saigō stopped her with a word in her ear, leaned backward and down, his face, shiny with sweat, hovering just over Nicholas’.

“You see how it is now, don’t you? There’s a good boy,” he sneered. “And don’t bother coming after, hm? There’s really no point. Because this is good-bye. No
sayonara
this time. Get it?” He reached out, patted Nicholas’ cheek almost tenderly. “If we ever meet this way again, I’ll kill you.”

Shadows looming—were they really people?—and then gone, just the after-image, dark on his retinas. He closed his eyes at last and concentrated on breathing.

The paralysis began to fade sometime after dawn, he estimated. He could not be certain of the time because he must have fallen asleep at some point. Only knew that when he awoke just before eight, he could move his fingers and toes.

Within the hour he could stand and even walk steadily. He went into his own bathroom and stayed there for a long time.

His first stop was the warehouse. The character of the street was totally different in the daytime. This was near the center of the business district and during the day the area was jammed with traffic and pedestrians.

He tried the front door but it was locked. After two complete circuits of the place, he was convinced that there was no other way in. Picking the lock was out of the question.

He went into a nearby teahouse for breakfast, sitting at a table that gave him an oblique but clear view of the building’s front. He drew a blank and after an hour gave up.

While paying the bill, he asked directions to the local police station. It proved to be a short walk away. He was sent up to the second floor of the wood and brick building. The place smelled of cement and turpentine.

The sergeant on duty sat behind a desk that was as battered and scarred as a war veteran. He was a small man, rather young, with a very yellow complexion and a wide mustache meant to disguise his splay teeth. His uniform was so neat that Nicholas could see the creases in his blouse.

He seemed sympathetic, even helpful. He took down all the particulars, including the address of the warehouse. But his eyebrows shot up when Nicholas told him what was behind the red lacquered door on the third floor.

“A ninjutsu
ryu
? Young man, are you certain this isn’t some sort of prank?—a college hazing, that sort of thing. Because if it is, I under—”

“No,” Nicholas said. “It’s nothing like that.”

“But surely,” the young sergeant said, stroking his mustache lovingly with one forefinger, “you know that the ninja no longer exist. They died out, oh, almost a century ago.”

“Do you have any proof of that?”

“Now see here—”

“Please, Sergeant. All I am asking is that you send some men around to the warehouse to check.”

The sergeant took his hand reluctantly from his upper lip, held it out palm first. “All right, Mr. Linnear. All right. Just leave it to me. You go back to your hotel and wait for my call.”

It wasn’t until after three.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Linnear.” The sergeant’s voice sounded weary.

“Did you go to the warehouse?”

“Yes. I went myself. With two patrolmen. It is owned by Pacific Imports.”

“Did you see the sign on the door?”

“There was no sign. Just a plain door.”

“But there must be—”

“The warehouse was closed today but we were able to scare up the watchman. He was good enough to take us through. It’s a warehouse. Nothing more sinister.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Mr. Linnear, perhaps I should send a man over to take a look at your girl friend’s luggage. Perhaps we might find some clue to her present whereabouts.”

“Luggage?” Nicholas said, somewhat bewildered. “Her luggage is gone, Sergeant. I told you.”

The voice at the other end of the line seemed to contract, become somewhat colder. “No,” the sergeant said, “you didn’t. Mr. Linnear, did you and your girl friend perhaps have a row last night? Did she walk out on you?”

“Now listen—”

“Young man, perhaps I should call your parents. Where did you say you were from?”

He waited until long after dark before setting out. It was colder, with a dankness that hung in the air like a steel curtain. What people remained on the streets at this late hour hurried past him, eager to reach the warmth of their destinations.

He went around the block once just to make certain. He saw no one more than once. He stood in a doorway, staring at the front door, shivering slightly as the wind picked up. A bit of newspaper fluttered across the gutter, lifted, then fell like a mammoth moth searching for a flame.

It took him four minutes to get inside. He was extremely careful. For what seemed a long time he stood with his back against the door, listening for sounds. He needed to pick up and memorize the aural pattern of the place so that, when he began to work, his mind would be attuned to any deviation from the pattern. That kind of thing could mean the difference between making it back out and being trapped in here, the subject of a manhunt. He gave himself ten minutes to be certain; the pattern contained outside traffic sounds and these took the most time to assimilate principally because they were intermittent. Then he went silently up the stairs.

The place appeared deserted but he discounted that, assumed that he was on enemy territory. The sergeant, at the very least, would not be pleased if he was caught trespassing and he had no desire to involve his father’s name in these precincts; the less the Colonel knew of his activities in Kumamoto, the better.

Windowless, the warehouse was just as lightless during the day as it was at night. Time had no meaning here. On the third-floor landing, he reached out a pocket torch, played it on the door.

He stood perfectly still for some moments. Wood creaked somewhere downstairs, a settling rather than from a footstep. Outside, in an alley perhaps, judging by the hollowness of the sound, a dog barked twice and was still. The brief rumble of a truck.

The sergeant had not lied. The door was completely free of any sign.

He went across the landing for a closer look. Rubbed his fingertips over the surface in the light of the torch. Nothing. Had it ever been there? He sprung the padlock.

Fifteen minutes later he was away, walking stiff-legged from the pain down the street. A warehouse. Only a warehouse. And not a sign that it had even been a
ryu. Don’t bother coming after.
Because we won’t be there?

In the railroad car, the radio played a pop song he did not know. Its tempo was fast, its tone optimistic. The passing landscape was blurry with mist and, out of it, the hail, rattling and jumping like Ping-Pong balls.

Nicholas leaned his head against the perspex, glad of the chill it afforded. He tried to make sense of it all. What a superb actress Yukio had been. And what a naive little boy he had proved to be. It was almost amusing. He working so hard to gain her trust when it was she for whom trust was a meaningless word. No, it was far too dispiriting to be in the least amusing.

But ironic, yes. So ironic.

There was a kind of numbness inside him as if Saigō’s cruel intrusion had somehow anesthetized him, shorting out some spark of current. He thought of Yukio’s remark at seeing the bombed-out observatory in Hiroshima.
That is
w
hat I am like inside.
Another part of her lie, but it was all too true now for him.

It began to snow, the sky turning white. The silence seemed appalling and absolute after the long siege of the hail. The radio had been switched off at last.