The Fifth Profession

by David Morrell

  Savage opened the only closet. Shallow, it exuded must. He stepped toward another door, this one beside the window and the radiator. Peering out, he saw a small balcony. Spotlights at the rear of the building reflected off an oval lake directly below. Cliffs rimmed it to the right. A dock projected from the left. Beyond the water, a shadowy trail led up to pine trees, then a murky bluff. Savage's scalp shrank.

  He left the room.

  “Do my master's quarters meet with your approval?” Akira asked.

  “If he likes to feel he's at summer camp.”

  “Summer camp?”

  “A joke.”

  “Yes. So.” Akira forced a smile.

  “What I meant was, the room's not exactly luxurious. Most of my clients would refuse it.”

  “My master prefers simplicity.”

  “By all means, Kamichi-san's desires are paramount.” Savage bowed toward his employer. “What troubles me is the balcony—and the other balconies. It's too easy for someone to move from one to another and enter the room.”

  “The balconies on either side belong to our rooms, and as I explained, the hotel has few other guests,” Akira said.

  “They and their escorts are trustworthy. The principals are associates of my master. No incident is anticipated.”

  “I'm also troubled by the trees on the opposite side of the lake. I can't see into them, but at night, with the hotel lit, someone would have an excellent view of Kamichi-san at a window.”

  “Someone with a rifle?” Akira shook his head.

  “It's the way I'm trained to think.”

  “My master approves of caution, but he has no reason to fear for his life. Extreme security won't be necessary.”

  “But—”

  “My master will now have his bath.”

  The ritual of bathing was one of the greatest Japanese pleasures, Savage knew. But bathing meant more to them than just cleansing themselves. First Kamichi would fill the tub and scrub his body. Then he would drain the tub, swab it, refill it, and soak, perhaps repeating the process several times.

  “Whatever he wishes,” Savage said, “though he won't find the water as hot as he's used to in Japan.” He referred to the fact that the Japanese preferred a temperature most Westerners found painful.

  Akira shrugged. “One must always allow for the inconvenience of travel. And you must learn to enjoy the solemnity of these peaceful surroundings. While my master bathes, I'll order his meal. When he's ready for bed, I'll return and permit you to rest.”

  Kamichi picked up his bags, thus allowing Akira to keep his hands free. With a bow to Savage, Akira followed his master into the room and shut the door.

  Savage stood watch. Alone, he became more sensitive to the stillness in the hotel. He glanced at his and Akira's suitcases. He turned his gaze toward the silent doors along the corridor, noting photographs on the walls: old, faded images of the cliff-rimmed lake before the hotel had been constructed, of bearded men and bonneted woman in buggies from another century, of long-dead families picnicking beside the lake.

  Again he felt troubled. Pivoting left, he studied the top of the majestic staircase. Farther to the left, the lonely corridor went on for at least a hundred yards. Swinging to the right, he assessed the other section of the corridor. But there the hallway reached an alcove filled with antique rocking chairs, then jutted away.

  Savage cautiously approached the interruption of his vantage point. At the alcove, he saw that the hallway formed a sharp angle toward the hotel's entrance, then formed another sharp angle that continued for a hundred yards along the continuation of the hotel's length. And this part of the hall felt even more lonely, not just due to a smothering accumulation of the past but because of an unnerving sense of having been trapped in a time warp, another dimension. Unreal.

  Savage's shoulders felt cold.

  10

  Two hours later, he lay on a sagging mattress in his room, reading a pamphlet he'd found on his bedside table.

  The Medford Gap Mountain Retreat, he discovered, had a fascinating history that helped explain the unreality of the place. In 1870, a Mennonite couple who owned a farm in the nearby lowlands had hiked up Medford Mountain, amazed to discover that its peak had a hollow at its tip with an oval lake fed by a spring. The place seemed touched by God.

  They built a cabin where the hotel's lobby now stood and invited other Mennonite families to worship this splendor of heaven on earth. Eventually, so many worshipers accepted their request that the cabin required additions, and when outsiders heard of this retreat, the community decided to build another addition and then another to accommodate world-weary visitors who needed a respite and would perhaps find solace in the Mennonite faith.

  In 1910, an unexplained fire destroyed the original cabin and its additions. By then, the couple who'd discovered the lake had gone to their reward. Their daughters and sons, committed to the ministry of their parents, had at once begun to rebuild the retreat. But farmers by training, they realized that they needed help. They advertised for a manager and hired a New York architect, who'd abandoned his profession because he couldn't bear the pressures of the city. The architect converted to the Mennonite faith and committed himself to the mountain.

  But his big-city intuition told him that the retreat had to be so distinctive, so one-of-a-kind that it would compel the unconverted to leave the soot and desperation of their lives, to journey into Pennsylvania's majestic wilderness, to pay to proceed to the top of a mountain and appreciate a lake that reflected God's grandeur.

  He gave each addition a separate design, and as the enterprise prospered, the building lengthened to almost two hundred and fifty yards. Visitors came from as far away as San Francisco, many requesting the same room each year. Only in 1962 had the descendants of the hotel's founders grudgingly permitted a telephone in each room. Otherwise, in keeping with strict Mennonite custom, radios and televisions were still forbidden. God's artistry in nature ought to provide sufficient entertainment. Dancing and card playing were also forbidden, as of course were alcohol and tobacco.

  11

  The latter restriction had inexplicably been waived on this occasion, for the following morning when Savage escorted Kamichi to the hotel's main floor, three men waited in an enormous parlor, and two of them were smoking.

  The parlor had huge wooden columns that supported massive beams. Windows filled the walls to the left, right, and center, revealing porches, the lake, and wooded bluffs. Sunlight gleamed in. Logs blazed in a spacious fireplace, dispelling the morning's chill. A grand piano stood in one corner. Rocking chairs were arranged around the room. But what Savage paid most attention to was a long conference table in the middle, where the three men stood as Kamichi approached them.

  Like Kamichi, the men were in their fifties. They wore expensive suits and had the calculating eyes of upper-echelon businessmen or diplomats. One was American, the others Spanish and Italian. They were either ignorant of Japanese customs or else determined to insist on Western ways, for they shook hands with Kamichi instead of bowing. After a few pleasantries, the group sat, two on each side of the table. Their forced smiles dissolved. They began a sober discussion.

  Savage remained at the entrance to the parlor, too far away for him to hear the substance of what they said, only their muffled voices. He studied the walls to his right and left and saw an Italian escort at one, a Spanish escort at the other, both standing at attention, their backs to their principals, their attention directed toward the windows and porches that flanked the parlor. At the rear of the parlor, an American escort watched the windows that provided a view of the lake.

  Professional.

  Savage, too, turned his back and watched the hotel's deserted lobby, on guard against intruders. He assumed that the three men Kamichi spoke with had other escorts. Some perhaps patrolled the grounds while others slept as Akira now did, having stood watch outside Kamichi's room from two A.M. till dawn when Savage took his place.

  The meeting
began at eight-thirty. At times, the muffled voices were agitated. Then calm tones prevailed, only to be interrupted by impatient remarks and hasty reassurances. At eleven-thirty, the conversation reached a peak of intensity and concluded.

  Kamichi stood and left the parlor, followed by the other men flanked by their escorts. The group looked so dissatisfied that Savage assumed they'd soon be leaving. He hid his surprise when Kamichi told him, “I must go to my room and change clothes now. At noon, my colleagues and I will play tennis.”

  Akira was awake by then and took Savage's place as Kamichi and the Spaniard played doubles against the American and the Italian. The sky was clear, the temperature again sixty degrees. The energetic players soon toweled their sweaty faces.

  Savage decided to stroll the grounds, in need of stretching his muscles. Besides, he was curious to learn if there were additional security arrangements.

  He soon found out. When he reached a trail that led through leafless trees, past boulders, up a slope around the lake, he scanned a bluff and saw a man with a rifle and a walkie-talkie. The guard noticed Savage, seemed aware that he was on the team, and ignored him, returning his eyes to the road that led from the lowlands toward the hotel.

  Savage continued along the upwardly winding path, reaching stretches of ice and snow among the woods, and stopped at the rim of a cliff that provided a stunning view of farmland in a valley surrounded by farther mountains. Wooden steps led partway down the cliff toward a ledge that a sign said was ONLY FOR EXPERT CLIMBERS.

  Turning to go back to the hotel, Savage noticed another man with a rifle and a walkie-talkie hidden among pine trees on the rim of the cliff. The man assessed Savage, nodded, and continued his surveillance.

  The tennis game concluded when Savage reached the hotel. Victorious, Kamichi went to his room, bathed, and ate lunch while Savage stood guard in the hall and Akira shared his master's meal. At two, the meeting continued. At five, it broke up, the principals again dissatisfied, especially the American whose face was flushed with anger.

  The group went to a massive dining room on the second floor, where they sat amid a hundred deserted tables and not only smoked but broke another rule by drinking cocktails. Their previous surliness changed to unexpected conviviality; laughter punctuated raucous remarks. After dinner and cognac, they strolled the grounds, exchanging jokes while their escorts followed. At eight, they returned to their rooms.

  Savage stood watch till midnight. Akira took his place till dawn. At eight-thirty, another intense, angry meeting began, as if the fellowship of the night before had not occurred.

  12

  At the end of the third afternoon, the group stood from the conference table in the parlor, shook hands, and instead of going to the dining room, dispersed to their rooms. They all looked immensely pleased.

  “Akira will pack my bags,” Kamichi said when he and Savage reached the third floor. “We leave tonight.”

  “As you wish, Kamichi-san.”

  A sound froze Savage's heart. The subtle squeak of a doorknob.

  From the room across from Kamichi's, four men surged into the hallway. Muscular. Midthirties. Japanese. Wearing dark suits. Three of the men held swords, but the shafts were made of wood, not steel, the swords called bokken.

  Kamichi gasped.

  Savage thrust him aside, yelling, “Run!”

  Automatically Savage lunged to place himself between his principal and the attackers. There was absolutely no question that he, too, would run. He couldn't allow himself to fear for his own safety.

  The nearest assailant swung his bokken.

  Savage parried with a kick and struck the assailant's wrist, deflecting the wooden sword. He spun, thrust with the side of his hand, and chopped toward the neck of another assailant.

  He never connected.

  A bokken whacked across his elbow. The numbing blow slammed his arm toward his side. Bone cracked. He groaned reflexively.

  Though the arm was useless, he lunged again, dodging a bokken, chopping with his remaining good hand. This time he managed to break the bridge of an assailant's nose.

  At once he felt someone who shouldn't be next to him.

  Kamichi.

  “No!” Savage shouted.

  Kamichi kicked toward an assailant.

  “Run!” Savage shouted.

  A bokken whacked across Savage's other arm. Again he groaned as the blow snapped bone. Four seconds had elapsed.

  A door slammed open, Akira darting from his room.

  Wooden swords swirled.

  Akira chopped and kicked.

  A bokken walloped against Savage's rib cage. He doubled over, unable to breathe. Struggling to raise himself, he saw Akira knock an assailant off balance.

  Kamichi screamed from a wooden sword's impact.

  With both arms useless, Savage had to rely on kicks but managed only one.

  It struck an assailant's groin. Another assailant whacked his bokken across Savage's right knee. That leg collapsed, but even while falling, Savage winced in agony from a blow to his other knee, then his spine, then the back of his skull.

  Savage's face struck the floor, blood spurting from his nose.

  Helpless, he squirmed. He strained to look up and, through pain-blurred eyes, saw Akira pivot with awesomely coordinated kicks and blows.

  Only three of the four assailants had used a bokken. The fourth Japanese had remained behind them, his hands apparently free. But now, his movement too fast to be glimpsed, he reached toward his side and suddenly held a katana, the long curved sword of the samurai. Its polished steel glinted.

  In Japanese, he barked an order. The three men scurried behind him. The fourth man swung his katana. Its razor-sharp blade hissed, struck Kamichi's waist, kept speeding as if through air, and sliced him in half. Kamichi's upper and lower torso fell in opposite directions.

  Blood gushed. Severed organs spilled over the floor.

  Akira wailed in outrage, rushing to chop the man's windpipe before the assassin could swing again.

  Too late. The assassin reversed his aim, both hands gripping the katana.

  From Savage's agonized perspective on the floor, it seemed that Akira jumped backward in time to avoid the blade. But the swordsman didn't swing again. Instead he watched indifferently as Akira's head fell off his shoulders.

  As blood gushed from Akira's severed neck.

  As Akira's torso remained standing for three grotesque seconds before it toppled.

  Akira's head hit the floor with the thunk of a pumpkin, rolled, and stopped in front of Savage. The head rested on its stump, its eyes on a level with Savage's.

  The eyes were open.

  They blinked.

  Savage screamed, barely aware of the footsteps approaching him. At once he felt as if the back of his own head had been split apart.

  His consciousness became red.

  Then white.

  Then nothing.

  13

  Savage's eyelids felt heavy, as if coins had been placed upon them. He struggled to force them open. It seemed the hardest thing he'd ever attempted. At last he managed to raise them. Light made him wince. He scrunched his eyes shut. Even then, the glare stabbed through his lids, and he wanted to lift a hand to shield them, but he couldn't move his arms. He felt as if anvils pressed upon them.

  Not only his arms. His legs. He couldn't move them either!

  He tried to think, to understand, but his mind was filled with swirling mist.

  Helplessness made him panic. Terror scalded his stomach. Unable to move his body, he jerked his head from side to side, only to realize that something soft and thick encased his skull.

  His terror worsened.

  “No,” a voice said. “Keep still.” A man's voice.

  Savage forced himself to reopen his eyes.

  A shadow rose, blocking the stabbing light. A man, who'd been sitting in a chair, turned and twisted a rod that closed slats on a window.

  The mist in Savage's mind began to clear. H
e realized he was on his back. In a bed. He strained to raise himself. Couldn't. Had trouble breathing.

  “Please,” the man said. “Keep still.” He stepped toward the bed. “You've had an accident.”

  Pulse hammering, Savage parted his lips, inhaling to speak. His throat felt filled with concrete. “Accident?” His voice was like gravel grating together.

  “You don't remember?”

  Savage shook his head and suddenly groaned from a searing pain.

  “Please,” the man insisted. “Don't move your head. It's been injured.”

  Savage's eyes widened.

  “You mustn't upset yourself. The accident was serious. You seem to be out of danger, but I don't want to take any chances.” The man wore glasses. His coat was white. A stethoscope hung from his neck. “I know you're confused. That makes you frightened. To be expected, but try to control it. Short-term memory loss sometimes occurs after massive assaults to the body, especially to the skull.” He pressed the stethoscope to Savage's chest. “I'm Dr. Hamilton.”

  What the doctor had said was too much, too fast, too complicated, for Savage to understand. He had to backtrack, to grasp the details of the simplest things first.

  “Where?” Savage murmured.

  The doctor's tone remained reassuring. “In a hospital. Accept your confusion. I know you're disoriented. That'll pass. Meanwhile it's imperative to your recovery that you try your best to stay calm.”

  “Not what I meant.” Savage's lips felt numb. “Where?”

  “I don't understand. Ah, of course. You mean where is the hospital located.”

  “Yes.” Savage exhaled.

  “Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. You were given emergency treatment a hundred miles north of here, but the local clinic didn't have the special equipment you needed, so one of our trauma teams rushed you here in a helicopter.”

  “Yes.” Savage's eyelids fluttered. “Trauma.” The haze returned. “Helicopter.”

  Blackness.

  14

  Pain awoke him. Every nerve in his body quivered with the greatest agony he'd ever known. Something tugged against his right hand. Savage darted his panicked eyes toward a nurse, who removed a hypodermic from a port in an IV tube attached to a vein on the back of his hand.