Sawatari had fallen silent.
“Why are you telling me this?” Narazaki asked in a whisper. He was sitting in front of a monster, but he couldn’t help but ask.
“You look like him.”
“Who?”
“My assistant,” Sawatari said vaguely. He seemed to have lost interest in what he had been talking about. “My assistant who watched me kill Nayirah. He was simple, but passionate. A hilariously incompetent man. Back then he bothered me just very slightly. He couldn’t do anything, and he didn’t have the courage to criticize me publicly, but he always seemed like he wanted to say something.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When Ryoko Tachibana set her eyes on not that detective, but you, I saw your photo in her papers, and thought it would be kind of interesting to see that soft-hearted assistant ultimately begin to devour women, too. And now we will be engulfed in flames.”
“What?”
“You still don’t understand?” Sawatari spoke as though even speaking was a burden to him. “This has all been arranged for my destruction. I don’t have any beliefs to prove. This is nothing more than a terribly selfish act to celebrate the final moments of my life.”
“That’s . . .”
“That’s all. There’s nothing else.”
Narazaki stared blankly at Sawatari. His mind raced through everything he had heard was happening—the riot-police raid, the terror attack on the television station, the unexploded bombs, the two Self-Defense Force planes that had gone missing. “You set this all up?”
“That’s right.”
“How many people—”
“They never expected that I’d attack China. Isn’t it spectacular? I found some Self-Defense Force officers who were interested in certain kinds of radical thought. I encouraged them for a long time, fermented their anger at the government. I don’t have any political beliefs. I don’t care about politics at all . . . The riot police will be here soon. They will probably open up holes in the bottom of this building and enter through the sewers.”
Sawatari leaned back in his chair.
“When the riot police enter, I will kill myself amid the raging flames. That will be my last moment. Fitting. I can’t have Matsuo at my side, but I thought I should at least have you, the assistant who assisted me in taking my first life, Nayirah’s. The good, pure man I ruined with women. You’re here as a little art piece, part of my tired performance. Just like these flames . . . This is all being recorded.”
Narazaki couldn’t move.
“By now this live recording should have been brought to the attention of Sasahara and the others who have taken over JBA . . . To those who thought I was going to send my final orders.”
Smoke began to rise from behind Sawatari’s furniture.
“Those men who have been abandoned by the world will be abandoned again—by me . . . That’s a bit amusing.”
“I . . .”
“Won’t let me? You, who devoured my women?”
Sawatari was watching Narazaki. Narazaki couldn’t say anything. Flames rose higher. Sawatari stood.
“All the believers here should be sleeping by now. They took drugs as part of the ceremony . . . What will become of those people abandoned by the world, and then abandoned by me? It would be interesting if they go on to do even more evil. I think they could probably use a bit of a shock. But it doesn’t really matter. The weapons downstairs are all toys, anyway. They couldn’t kill anyone with them if they tried. If you want them to live, let them live. Do what you want. I don’t care about that sort of thing anymore . . . Go.”
The flames rising behind Sawatari grew larger. Smoke billowed, and Narazaki tried to speak. “I . . .”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Sawatari said idly, as if he were brushing away a bug. “I don’t care about you.”
The world was crumbling away. Narazaki realized he had exited Sawatari’s room. What didn’t crumble away was the fact that he had tried to believe in this man’s power, that he was surprised by how hurt he was, and that he had lost Tachibana by losing himself to the women this man had provided him with.
Narazaki’s legs were carrying him toward the stairs, but his uncertainty overwhelmed him and he froze. What should I do? What? What should someone as pathetic as me to do at a time like this?
Sawatari stood among the flames and smoke. He showed no sign of discomfort.
The color of the fire shone faintly on his white clothes. He took a gun from his pocket. Even that action seemed like a chore to him. He was slightly disappointed by how slowly the fire was spreading; he’d hoped to be more thoroughly engulfed by the flames. He stared at the gun. He pulled back the hammer. He paused, seemed to remember something, then pointed the gun at his genitals.
Sawatari put his finger on the trigger.
But he didn’t move. He stared blankly at his crotch and then at the muzzle of the gun.
He moved the gun suddenly up to his temple and pulled the trigger. There was a dry noise, and then he collapsed.
The door behind him opened. Mineno approached Sawatari. He was on the ground, surrounded by flames, with the gun in his hand. His hand had slipped, and the bullet had passed only partially through his skull. He was dying, but not dead. Mineno crouched down next to Sawatari and tugged him into her arms.
“Aren’t you surprised I’m still here?” she whispered. Sawatari looked up at her strangely. “I was listening the whole time, although I only heard about half of what you said. Does it hurt? But that pain won’t give you the destruction you desired, will it?”
Mineno smiled. She stared into Sawatari’s face and kissed him.
Sawatari looked shocked. The flames rose behind them.
“You’ve been repelled by everything, and now you’re a little pathetic . . .” Mineno smiled. “What if your whole plan was arranged by god?”
The furniture of the room began to collapse into the fire. “If this was the will of god, it might be wrong for me to interfere . . . Goodbye.”
Mineno kissed Sawatari again. It was a long kiss. He didn’t move. Mineno wasn’t sure when he died, since his eyes never stopped staring up blankly.
“. . . Mineno-san.”
Narazaki wasn’t sure why he’d returned, but the moment he heard the gun fire, he was back in the room. The flames and smoke were growing more intense. Sawatari was already dead.
“It’s dangerous. Let’s get out of here.” Narazaki pulled on Mineno’s arm. She was just sitting there.
“Why?” Mineno whispered. “Why do we have to live? Why do we need life?”
Narazaki couldn’t answer. He was just overcome with rage. Rage at this world. Rage at his own insignificance.
Narazaki pulled Mineno away, leaving her question unanswered. Behind them, Sawatari’s body was engulfed by flames. Sawatari burned just like the floor and chairs around him. There was nothing at all special about the fire that consumed him.
27
This isn’t Takahara-kun, Tachibana realized.
It wasn’t just the voice that was wrong. She also sensed an odd energy emanating from the other end of the line. Someone had taken Takahara’s phone.
Her fingers grew damp with sweat. “Where is Takahara?” She spoke impulsively—later she would wonder how the words escaped her mouth. “I speak in the name of R.”
It was risky—whoever was on the other end might be related to R, or impersonating members of R. There was also a chance that they were with the police. It might also have been someone from the cult.
The fifty-something man also had to think. Were there really members of R out there? If this person was connected to R, would it be expedient to just tell her where Takahara was? Briefly, the man ran through all the possibilities. Takahara still seemed to be a long way from making a decision. He might get scared. In which case, R might give him a fin
al push.
He could not ignore the possibility that this person had nothing to do with R. Yet that was just what he decided to do. He smiled weakly. He felt as though he were part of some great flow. Why not just move along with the current? Sawatari’s image floated up momentarily in the back of his mind.
When he’d first seen Sawatari, this man was still in his twenties and had just joined the Public Security Bureau. He was investigating a new cult that was fomenting public unrest. The man impersonated a member and followed along on a supposed charity trip Sawatari took to the Philippines. He trailed Sawatari as he walked lazily through Manila. Sawatari hadn’t turned and looked at him even once. But suddenly, he changed directions and approached him. The man was uneasy. Had he been made?
Sawatari closed in on him in the open-air market, noisy with locals. It would be dangerous to run now. The man waited. Maybe a path would open up. He still hoped Sawatari might not suspect him.
Sawatari walked right up to him, then suddenly grabbed his chin. It felt as if his body were floating in the air. He couldn’t speak. He was more than surprised. He was genuinely scared.
“You’ve got some time, I see,” Sawatari said. “To come all this way.”
His cover was blown. It was over. Would he be killed? He had heard that several people close to Sawatari had died mysteriously.
But Sawatari didn’t move. He looked straight into the man’s eyes. He stared so long that the man thought he had stop breathing.
“Mm . . . I see,” Sawatari whispered. “You’re a monster yourself.”
Sawatari turned his back and walked away as though he’d already forgotten him. The man sat there, his heart still racing, his breathing wild, unable to move. Sawatari had seen through him. He couldn’t stop sweating. Is that the sort of person it takes to found a religion? Or is this man just special? The man felt as though his own hopes and his dark passions had been stripped bare. Sawatari had reached inside him and seen the filth buried so deep that to acknowledge it would be to acknowledge that nothing could save him.
There was nothing else that had ever reached so deep inside him.
“I’m sorry. I am holding on to this phone for Takahara-sama,” the man said.
“Where is he?” the woman on the line asked.
The fifty-something man let out a silent sigh. This can’t be right, he thought. If she were impersonating a member of R to find Takahara’s location, she would have asked who we are, and why we have his cell phone. Was this Ryoko Tachibana? Regardless, he admired her intuition and bravery.
“According to the GPS in the phone he’s carrying now, he is in downtown Nishigamori-chō. Under the clock tower.”
The fifty-something man was telling the truth. He was smiling. He didn’t know how this would end, but he genuinely wanted her to know that much.
“I see. I’ll head there now.”
She hung up too fast, the man thought. She forgot to feel out the situation. The man leaned back deep into the sofa, still smiling. He placed the cell phone on the table and reached for his tea.
“Who was that?” the thirty-something man asked.
All the older man said was, “It’s almost ten. Time for the explosions.”
The room was dark. The thirty-something man stood up. “I’m going to pay him a visit. If he gets cold feet, I’ll exert some pressure. I’ll get the numbers from him and dial them myself if it comes to that.”
“He won’t tell you anything,” the older man whispered. He didn’t seem to enjoy his tea, but he drank it anyway.
“In any case . . . He’s seen our faces.”
The fifty-something man looked at him closely as the younger man gathered his things. “Do you know who Karl Eichmann is?”
“Not in detail.”
The hands of the clock moved steadily.
“He was a Nazi official, integrally involved in the Holocaust. He’s remembered as cold-blooded, but sometimes he would pull a flask of liquor out of his breast pocket and drink. It took liquor for Eichmann to be able to do that kind of killing. But for you . . .” The fifty-something man put his cup back on the table. “You don’t need anything.”
The younger man didn’t understand. He headed toward the door.
“I’ve decided to retire,” the older man said, stopping the younger in his tracks. “You take care of the rest, Child-Rearing Samurai.”
Narazaki and Mineno walked down the stairs and got in the elevator.
Narazaki had always thought the top of the building was set up strangely. The 21st floor where Sawatari lived was only connected to the lower floors by stairs. Was that by design, so that the flames wouldn’t spread to the rest of the building? If that were the case, Sawatari had already thought about this ending when he moved the cult here.
They got out of the elevator and headed to the great hall. It was just as Sawatari had said: believers collapsed, empty cups scattered among them.
In the middle of them was a giant vat and the charred remains of a small fire. Maybe it had all been part of the ceremony.
“They’re not dead. Then why knock them all out?” Maybe Sawatari hadn’t wanted them to interfere with his suicide. But he could have killed them. “Was he trying to save them?”
“There’s no way,” Mineno whispered.
“Maybe he felt bad for getting them so riled up.”
“Even though he made them that way?” Narazaki and Mineno looked down on the sleeping believers. When they woke up, they would have to face the truth. “I don’t think anything mattered to that man. Even killing himself seemed like a chore to him . . . He didn’t have any use for them anymore, and they’d started to annoy him, so he put them to sleep. If he’d had poison, he probably would have killed them instead. That’s just the kind of person he was.”
Narazaki picked up a gun from the ground. It looked like the real thing, but what if what Sawatari had said was true? Narazaki thought through the possibilities.
“The whole country freaking out about a cult of passed-out idiots with toy guns . . . What a nightmare for Japan.” He picked up a fallen megaphone. “Let’s tell the riot police that everyone is asleep. We can let in one camera so the police don’t go wild. There are probably some idiots out there dying to cut loose in the name of national defense.”
Lying on the floor by Mineno was the Cupro girl who had taken her USB drive. But Mineno didn’t notice her. Narazaki looked at the bodies spread around them, thought of all the lives to be saved. His eyes paused on Komaki, lying still. He thought about her body. Sexual thoughts tried to take him over again, but he chased them away. Ryoko Tachibana was not lying in the great hall. She must have escaped, Narazaki thought. He’d worry about her later. “First we have to save these lives,” he said out loud. Even if there was nothing he could do to save their spirits.
“They all wanted to die together with their leader,” Mineno said. “Once they learn of his true intentions, will they be able to go on living? What’s the point in trying to save them?”
The believers looked like babies lying asleep there. Children, each wounded in their own way. Maybe they were only safe in their dreams. On the top floor, Sawatari was burning.
“I don’t know,” Narazaki answered honestly.
Matsuo would do this, Narazaki thought. Matsuo would do whatever he could to stop these people from leaving this world, even if it was against their will, even if they shouted him down for getting in the way. Narazaki would follow the voice of Matsuo inside him. He believed that was his calling.
Narazaki picked up the megaphone. Outside was the vast expanse of reality. He had to calm their rage. He fought to steady his ragged breathing and faced the window.
28
“That can’t be,” Sasahara finally managed to whisper. He stared at the video playing on the computer. All the color had drained from his face. He had expected the video would be his
final orders from the leader. If the leader had said to kill all the hostages, Sasahara would have. If the leader said to attack the riot police, Sasahara would have fired his gun with wild rapture. And when he was shot down, his last thought would have been of the leader, and he would have died happy. But Sasahara was just part of the leader’s plan to destroy himself? Was that man on the video even really the leader? That man who’d shot himself? Sasahara felt a primal scream bubbling up inside him. If he didn’t let it out, he’d go mad. The members and hostages were staring at him. Why? He realized he was already screaming. His consciousness stuttered. The image of the leader collapsing lingered in his mind. The shocked, staring members knew nothing. He took the headphones from his ears. He was still screaming. The leader. The leader. No. Tears were streaming from his eyes.
The leader he had adored.
The leader had ordered him to let Takahara plan the attack. He said that Takahara was very talented when it came to those sorts of things. When the time comes, take over, the leader said. It had been good advice. Takahara had even scripted what Sasahara should say on TV. When Yoshioka, who was in charge of weapons, suddenly got scared and said he wanted out, Sasahara had killed him without a second thought. The leader had not so much as batted an eye. The leader is not attached to anything, Sasahara realized. That’s right. That’s the leader. The leader manipulates everyone around him like they’re children.
Cult X Page 35
