By the Sword

by F. Paul Wilson

  Acting on his theory that the owner from Hawaii had hired the ronin to find the katana, Hideo had spent all yesterday searching for an urban mercenary. He’d found mercenaries—plenty of them. They advertised in magazines like Soldier of Fortune and on various Web sites, but none of them fit the profile of the man he was looking for.

  And now this flyer. Who but the owner from Hawaii would be offering such a reward? If so, it meant he had not yet reclaimed the katana.

  He had to speak to this man. He was a living link to the sword—the only one within reach—and Hideo needed to learn what he knew. Perhaps he could provide a direction. He needed something, anything. He was floundering about. He felt as if he was drowning.

  He grabbed the receiver from his desk phone and began to punch in the number listed on the sheet.

  Halfway through, he stopped.

  What was he going to say? He would have to choose his words carefully. The last thing he wanted was to raise suspicion, so everything he said had to have a basis in fact. He must assume that this man knew about the deaths of Gerrish and O’Day. He would be on his guard. Hideo did not want to frighten him off. No, he must lure him in and take control of him.

  He sat and began making notes in preparation for his call.

  6

  After Veilleur left for home, Jack lingered at Julio’s, kibitzing with some of the regulars. When he finally headed out he found himself walking behind a scruffy guy carrying a handful of pink sheets—the same shade as the one Veilleur had brought to the table. No doubt one of the guys Naka’s printer had hired for dissemination.

  But to Jack’s surprise, the guy stopped at a pole where one of those pink flyers had been stapled and ripped it off. He added it to the stack in his hand and moved on.

  He didn’t appear to be the civic-minded type to go around decluttering and prettifying the neighborhood. And Jack confirmed this as the guy passed by a pole with one of the HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? flyers with Dawn’s picture. Pretty selective in his cleanup.

  Interesting.

  Jack picked up his pace and closed the distance between them. When the guy stopped at another pole that carried both flyers, he was practically on top of him.

  As the guy ripped off Naka’s poster, Jack noticed the Kicker Man tattoo on his thumb web.

  Even more interesting. Maybe even verging on fascinating.

  Jack reached past him and tugged the Dawn flyer free and crumpled it into a ball.

  The Kicker whirled on him. “Hey! You outta your head? Whatcha think you’re doin?”

  Jack put on a surprised look. “Why, same as you. Cleaning up these un-sightly flyers. Aren’t they just the worst nuisance?”

  “You mind your own goddamn business.”

  “You mean you don’t want help?”

  “Help?” He waved the pink flyers in Jack’s face. “You wanna get rid of these, fine.” He snatched the Dawn flyer from Jack’s hand. “But you leave these alone.”

  “Why? They’re just as ugly.”

  That seemed to stump him, but only for a few seconds.

  “No, they ain’t. And besides, these here are trying to help find a missing girl. These others are trying to find a crummy-looking sword…a…a weapon of death. Yeah, a weapon of death.”

  “Hmmm.” Jack pretended to give this serious consideration. “I see your point. But who is this missing girl and who are the people looking for her? Her family?”

  “Yeah. Her family. That’s it. She ran away from home and nobody knows where she went. They want her back real bad.”

  “How do we know they weren’t abusing her?”

  “Listen up, asshole.” The Kicker’s expression became menacing as he leaned close to Jack. His breath stank. “Stop asking so many questions. If you don’t know where she is, then shuddup and move on. ’Cause if you ain’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Get that? Move on and keep your mitts off the girl flyers.”

  “Did something die in your mouth?”

  The guy’s faced contorted. He half raised a fist, then seemed to think better of it. Instead he pointed his finger in Jack’s face.

  “You just remember what I told you or some bad shit’s gonna come down and you’re gonna be right under it. Unnastand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Good.”

  With that he turned and stomped away. As he passed a trash can he tossed in all the flyers, including Dawn’s.

  So…the Kickers—Hank Thompson, in other words—were encouraging people to look for Dawn, but didn’t want anyone looking for the katana. Because he already had it and didn’t want anyone else looking for it?

  That meant a fourth player was in the mix.

  Naka Slater, the people behind the fake Naka, the yakuza, and now the Kickers.

  This was crazy. What was it about that thing?

  Well, he was out of it. From the start the chances that Slater would get a hit from those flyers had been slim at best. Now, with the Kickers combing the town and removing them, chances approached zero.

  Yeah. Out of it.

  So why didn’t he feel relieved?

  Jack knew the answer. Because the Kickers were interested in the sword. He didn’t know what that meant, but the Kicker-Otherness connection said it couldn’t be a good thing.

  He’d sensed something strange about that sword, but what use could it be to Hank Thompson? Whatever it was, he doubted it was for a good purpose. Maybe he should—

  Stop it, he told himself. You’re out of it. Forget about it.

  And then his cell rang. Slater was on the other end.

  “Jack? I think we’ve got a hit.”

  Swell.

  7

  Naka Slater looked both excited and worried as they sat on a park bench near the center of Madison Square Park. Jack sat next to him, munching on a hot dog with peppers and onions from the Shake Shack on the downtown end near 23rd Street. The bench offered a good view of the ornate wedge of the Flatiron Building. The trees were in full bloom, their branches undulating in a gentle breeze. Schoolkids, old folks, secretaries, suits, hipsters, and bag ladies paraded along the crisscrossing paths.

  Jack remembered when the only folks who’d enter this park were junkies, pushers, and clueless tourists.

  “No one will listen to me,” Slater said.

  “Who-what?”

  “Neither Homeland Security nor the NYPD. I told them about the Kakureta Kao and the Black Wind but I could tell they thought I was nuts.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “You think I’m nuts too, don’t you.”

  “I came here about the call, remember? We’re after the katana, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “The call?”

  He sighed and handed his cell phone to Jack. “Okay, okay. I’ve already entered the service number. Listen to the voice as well as the content.”

  Jack hit the SEND button, punched in the code Slater gave him, and listened.

  “Hello. My name is James and I saw your flyer. I have the sword you seek and I know it’s a Masamune. So I want more than five thousand for it. I’ll need twice that. Call me back if that is acceptable. If not, I will keep it for myself.”

  Jack pressed the 1 button to replay the message.

  Something familiar about that voice…

  “Hear those inflections?” Slater said. “He’s Japanese.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I speak both languages—very well, I might add. I learned them at a very early age, but Japanese came first, and certain rhythms and inflections bleed through to the trained ear. This fellow speaks nearly flawless English, but there’s no question in my mind that Japanese was his first language.”

  And then it clicked: the leader of the yakuza. He’d spoken—at least to Jack’s ear—flawless English.

  Red flags flew up all over his brain.

  Slater said, “Do you think I should meet his demand? I mean, I can afford ten thousand, but—”

  “Agr
ee to it, but let me handle it.”

  Slater’s eyebrows lifted. “You think he’s lying? He knew it was a Masamune. That says a lot, don’t you think?”

  “Doesn’t mean he has it. Might just as easily mean he’s planning to scam you, or he’s looking for it too.”

  “But he must realize I don’t have it. I’d hardly be offering a reward for something I already had.”

  “Might think—correctly, I assume—that you know more about it than he.” He hesitated. He didn’t want to mention the Kickers’ involvement, but he’d already mentioned a third party, so…“I think he’s that other player in this sword quest.”

  Slater’s eyes widened. “The yakuza? Do you think they’ve got it?”

  “Not sure, but I’d lay odds they don’t. I will bet they’ve scoped you out as the original owner. So if they’re looking for the sword and want to know more about it, you da man.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Give me his number and I’ll call him back. I’ll agree to the extra money, and set up a meet ASAP—preferably here, preferably today.”

  Slater looked around. “Do you really think it’s safe to carry that much cash around here?”

  Jack gave him a look. “You kidding? Nobody’s carrying cash anywhere. You’re staying in your hotel room and I’m going to check out whoever shows up.”

  “You think they’ll try something sneaky?”

  Sneaky…how quaint.

  “Yeah. Maybe even…deceitful.”

  8

  “I grieve over Tadasu-san,” Shiro told his sensei, and meant it. He would miss him.

  They sat in the classroom.

  Akechi-sensei nodded gravely. “Yes, the Order is poorer for his passing. But he died serving the Order, something we all must be ready to do at any moment.”

  “I am ready, sensei.”

  He was also ready to ascend from acolyte to temple guard. He hated to think about it, but Tadasu’s passing left an opening in the guard. Perhaps he would be assigned…

  Shiro hesitated to bring up the subject, but he needed confirmation of a rumor.

  “Is it true what I am hearing, sensei?”

  “And what would that be?”

  “That the Order is looking for a pregnant woman?”

  Akechi-sensei said nothing at first. With his teacher’s face forever hidden from him, Shiro had learned to read his eyes. He was relieved to see that they appeared…amused.

  “There are no secrets in the temple, are there.”

  Shiro bowed his head. “Not about what happens in the Sighting room.”

  “It is true, Shiro. The Seer saw a pregnant woman. Just so you won’t have to rely on rumor, I shall tell you his exact words: ‘A woman with child…I see her face everywhere, staring back at me. She is important only for the child she carries. Her child, her child, her child…it will change the world. Who controls the child controls the future. The Order must control the child. It must.’ The elders are working on an interpretation.”

  “There are so many pregnant women, sensei.”

  “Yes, but how many with ‘her face everywhere, staring back’? That is the keystone of the vision. It must be someone famous, some woman on billboards or television or magazine covers.”

  “A pregnant celebrity…” That narrowed it down quite a bit, but still…how would they possess someone so well known? “I have heard there was another vision about the katana.”

  His sensei nodded. He said, ‘The blade is with the woman…the blade and child are together now and will be so again in the future.’”

  The blade is with the woman…the realization struck Shiro like a bo.

  “The katana is in New York, sensei. We know that. So that must mean the woman is in New York!”

  His sensei stared at him a moment in silence, then his eyes crinkled within the mask and he clapped his hands once.

  “Truly, the Face is with you.”

  And then Shiro experienced what he could only call a vision of his own.

  A face…a young blond woman’s face staring back from every flat surface in the city.

  He told Akechi-sensei about the flyers.

  His teacher nodded slowly. “Possibly…possibly.”

  “But if so many are searching for her without success—I assume no success because new flyers go up every day—how are we to find her?”

  His sensei thought a moment. When he spoke, Shiro could sense the excitement in his voice.

  “Because the Seer said she is with the katana, and before he died, Tadasu told me that the katana is with someone who wears a tattoo like this.”

  He grabbed a piece of rice paper and a kanji brush from a nearby desk and began to drawn. He turned the page and showed Shiro.

  “Have you ever seen this figure before?”

  Of course he had—as ubiquitous as the flyers with the girl’s face.

  Members of the Inner Circles rarely if ever left the temple. Errands for food and medical supplies were left to those of the Order who could show their faces to the public. Consequently, the Inner Circles were ignorant—sometimes blissfully so, he imagined—of what was happening on the teeming streets of the city around them.

  “It’s the symbol for a group—a subculture, one might say—growing within the city. They call themselves ‘Kickers,’ sensei.”

  “Who is their leader?”

  Shiro shook his head. “I don’t know, sensei. But I can find out.”

  And then another vision. Akechi-sensei had sent him out with a list of rare herbs and odd ingredients that he was to search out and bring back to the temple. All the acolytes had been given such lists. During his wanderings through the back streets of Lower Manhattan he had seen something he’d paid scant attention to at the time, but now it bloomed in significance.

  He clapped his hands once in respectful imitation of his teacher. “I think I know where to look. Last week I saw a strange banner hanging outside an old, old building…a banner with a giant stick figure like this one.”

  After a moment of silence Akechi-sensei said, “I will speak to the Elders. We must put this building under constant surveillance. Immediately.” He placed a hand on Shiro’s shoulder. “You have done well, my oshiego. I am proud of you.”

  Shiro felt dizzy. He had never seen Akechi-sensei touch anyone, or give praise like this. He thought his heart might burst with pride.

  9

  Dawn leaned against the rear wall of the Milford Plaza elevator. Though she’d showered and scrubbed herself down just half an hour ago, she felt totally scuzzy. Three days now with the same clothes.

  Yuck.

  She’d thought about washing them in the tub but figured they’d never dry, even overnight. She could have sent them out for cleaning, but that meant she’d have to hang around the room totally naked.

  Uh-uh.

  And she was so not risking a trip outside just to buy new stuff.

  Double—no, triple uh-uh. She was almost home free now. She could put up with funky clothes for another day or two before going back to Mr. Osala’s.

  So if she smelled, too bad. Nothing she could do about it. She looked around at the people on the elevator with her and thought, Sorry, folks. You’ll have to deal.

  At least the short hair was easy to care for, and dried so much more quickly than the length she’d arrived with.

  As she stepped out of the elevator she looked around for the time. For a couple of years now she’d totally used her cell phone as her watch, but Mr. Osala had taken that. She spotted a clock behind the registration desk: 2:35. Plenty of time to cab seventeen blocks. She’d be early.

  Dawn felt her insides tense as she approached the front entrance onto Eighth Avenue. Tons of people passing by out there…

  One of whom might be Jerry.

  No, she wouldn’t let herself think like that. No one could snatch her in front of that crowd. She’d done this two days ago. She could do it again today.

  She adjusted her sunglasses, took a breath, a
nd stepped outside. She signaled the doorman, who rushed over. She’d tipped him ten dollars the other day because she wanted him to totally remember her and stay close by.

  “Cab, ma’am?”

  She gave him the address on West 63rd. He signaled for the next taxi waiting in line, opened the door for her, and told the cabbie where she was going. She handed him another ten.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He tipped his hat. “You have a nice day.”

  I will, she thought, locking both rear doors as the cab lurched into motion. I’m going to have a great day.

  Sighing, she leaned back. No, she wasn’t. She was going to kill the life growing within her. A life that hadn’t asked to be conceived. A life that had no control of who had fathered it. An innocent life. How could she…?

  She straightened, crying, “No-no-no-no-NO!” as she pounded on the seat cushion.

  Over his shoulder the driver gave her a concerned look.

  She gave him the okay wave. “Sorry.”

  Leaning back again she told herself not to sentimentalize this. She was doing what had to be done and that was that. No cold feet beforehand, and no looking back afterward.

  Like the Nike ads said: Just do it…

  “We are here, miss.”

  The cabbie’s voice jarred her from a reverie of life regrets, virtually all from just the past year. She looked out the window at the clinic entrance. A man stood by the door with a crude, hand-lettered sign:

  Abortion Kills!

  Well, duh.

  She hesitated getting out, not liking the idea of passing him. But who said she even had to look at him? She paid the driver, gave him a nice tip, then slid out.

  “Are you coming here?” the man said.

  He was clean shaven and neatly dressed in a dark blue golf shirt and jeans. He looked totally harmless. Yet you never knew with these religious nuts. Outside normal, inside a bunch of quotes from the Bible that gave them permission to do just about anything in the name of the Lord.

  Behind her the cab pulled away, leaving her alone on the curb.