by Steve Bein
It took her a long time to find car 1304. The cars were linked together in huge parallel lines, five or six rows deep, each one hundreds of meters long. Boxcars, mostly, but there were passenger cars and tankers too. She had assumed 1304 would be in the middle of the middle, well out of public view, but it wasn’t. It was close to the end—hiding in plain sight—one of a string of rust-brown boxcars that had all seen their day. The cars could have been identical octuplets, and unlike the rest of the cars on this end of the rail yard, they were coupled to a locomotive. It rumbled restively, a massive noise compared to the wimpy electric purring of Mariko’s cart.
She overshot 1304 the first time, and a guard had to whistle at her to draw her back. Like the last one, he was dressed as a JR worker. No, Mariko thought—they are JR workers. Cultists have day jobs too. And Joko Daishi needed insiders, people who wouldn’t seem out of place if they were seen here day after day. An operation of this scale hinged on having the right people in all the right places. It was just the Wind’s style to put sleeper agents in key positions months before they were needed. Mariko figured the Divine Wind followed suit.
She stopped the little cart and twisted around to face the man waving her toward car 1304. “Where’s everyone else?” she asked.
“At the new church, with the first ones.”
First ones? Was that a religious term, like Daishi or Purging Fire? Furukawa would probably know. Mariko cursed herself for not asking; she should have demanded a full briefing on the Divine Wind. Whoever the first ones were, it was a bad sign that they’d left only one man behind. This guy couldn’t manage hundreds of children by himself—not live ones, anyway. And there was no noise coming from within the car.
She wanted to break into a run, to rip the huge sliding door aside and look inside the boxcar. She had to press her body into the seat just to keep herself inside the cart. She wheeled around and came to a stop at the foot of the cultist, who stood on a little platform above the couplers.
“I can’t believe they left you here alone with all the kids.”
The cultist shrugged. “These ones aren’t going anywhere. And Daishi-sama needs as many as possible to help with the purification.”
First ones. New church. Purification. All of it sounded ominous. At least he’d done one favor: he’d confirmed that he was alone out here. “I want to look inside,” she said.
“Not a good idea.”
Why? Because opening the door would release a cloud of cyanide? Mariko sniffed but couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Did that mean anything? A boxcar wasn’t airtight, but what if the kids had been gassed with something odorless?
“Good idea or not, I’m looking.” A quick glance at the space between the cars confirmed what she expected to see: no doors there. A rusty ladder ran up to the top of the car, but Mariko didn’t expect to find openings up there either. The point of a boxcar was to protect its cargo, not to give curious detectives easy access. She looked at the big sliding doors and saw they were padlocked. “Give me the key.”
“No,” he said.
So you do have the key. She thought it was quite gentlemanly of him to confirm this for her before she drew the Pikachu.
It was still in its cigarette case, so for him the first sign of trouble only came when Mariko hooked the back of his heel with her free hand. He had the high ground, so she had to reach up to hit him in the inner thigh. With his heel hooked, the Pikachu worked just like a takedown. It slammed him to the metal platform, knocking him cold as soon as his head made impact.
She hopped up on the platform, patted him down, and found a phone, a Makarov semiautomatic, two sets of keys, and a radio on a belt clip. She took all of it. One of the key rings was obviously apartment keys and such, so she started on the padlock with the other one. The last key was a match, but once the lock popped open, she wasn’t sure what to do. If the car was full of gas, opening this door might kill her. It might also set off a booby trap or an alarm. On the other hand, it might free hundreds of children—and then what? She hadn’t thought of that. It wasn’t safe to set them loose in a rail yard.
The doors already sat a centimeter or two apart. It wouldn’t hurt anything to take a peek.
She pressed her eye to the narrow gap and found herself face-to-face with a sleeping child. Sleeping, not dead. The girl’s lips fluttered softly with each exhalation.
Relief swelled in Mariko’s chest, so strong it made her want to cry. She realized belatedly that she’d been holding her breath.
She put her ear to the gap and heard snoring. These kids weren’t dead—or not yet, anyway. Her best guess was that they’d all been dosed with some kind of sleeping agent as soon as they were taken. They’d be safe enough until the cops came—and if they weren’t, if they’d been poisoned with something that put its victims to sleep before it killed them, it wasn’t as if Mariko could do anything more to help. She’d already called in the cavalry. She’d leave it to the bomb squad to figure out how best to open the boxcar, and they’d leave it to the medics to figure out what to do next.
Mariko couldn’t wait that long. She’d be in deep shit if Kusama ever found out she was here. Besides, she still had a couple of cultists to deal with. She took one last look at the little girl inside the car, to confirm that the girl really was just sleeping. Then she went back to the cultist she’d knocked out.
It wasn’t his lucky day. The padlock’s shackle was just long enough to accommodate a thumb and a ladder rung. She had to force it a bit to snap it shut. He grunted, but the pain wasn’t sharp enough to bring him back around. His thumb would be pretty numb by the time Han arrived with SWAT, but if he sat still he wouldn’t hurt himself. She tucked one hand up inside the sleeve of her blouse, and used the blouse to wipe the fingerprints off everything she’d touched. Then she jumped back in the electric cart, tossing the padlock keys well out of the cultist’s reach but still in plain view. Adopting her deepest man’s voice, she clicked on the radio and said, “One coming out.” Then she turned it off, wiped it clean, and tossed it by the keys. The cell phone went alongside it, and after some consideration, the Makarov too. She couldn’t help but think that this was fate once again, trying to put a lethal weapon in her hand.
Speeding away in the cart, she felt more than ever that she was on a collision course with Joko Daishi. The words first ones and purification still hadn’t left her mind. They didn’t bode well. Wherever this new church was, she’d find Joko Daishi there, ready to do the purifying. She could only hope she got there before the bodies were piled high—
“Oh no. No, no, no.”
She jammed on the brakes. The last of 1304’s octuplet siblings stood silently next to her, locked up tight. She jumped out of the cart, ran to the boxcar door, and looked inside. It was empty. So was the next one in line.
How many kids could fit in one of these cars? Two hundred? Three? Not thirteen hundred, that was for sure—not unless they were dead and stacked to the ceiling. She had been so relieved to find the kids alive that it didn’t even occur to her to do a head count.
She couldn’t go back now. The cops would be here any minute. Sliding back into the cart, she mashed the accelerator to the floor. Its puny engine whined in response, drawing a barrage of filthy invective from Mariko that on any other day would have made her blush. She wanted to call Furukawa, to get a magical Q-Branchy calculation of how many first graders could sleep in a standard boxcar. She wanted to call Han, to ask him … ask him what? To find the rest of the kids for her? Thousands of cops were already on it, with no success. Han couldn’t help her. She was on her own.
She parked the cart, traded up for the Beemer, and looked herself over in the mirror. She was sweating. The guard in the gatehouse would notice. She cranked the AC to full blast and sat there for as long as she could stand to sit still. That lasted less than a minute. Then she dabbed herself dry with a tissue and drove up to the gatehouse.
“Everything’s in order,” she said. “I want to speak w
ith Joko Daishi. Do you think he’ll be with the first ones?”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Of course. But you’ll never get there in time. Once the purification starts, you can’t interrupt him. His sermon must be heard.”
Sermon? The last time she’d heard a sermon from Joko Daishi, it was about blowing up the Korakuen subway station—
Oh no.
The first ones weren’t First Ones, like his first disciples or first rank of priests or something. They were the first batch, the first kids to receive purification.
And Joko Daishi had already collected them in whatever passed for a church in the Divine Wind. Mariko and Han had shut down one of his “churches” already, back when they first brought him into custody. That was just an empty mattress store, which he’d converted into a bomb-making workshop. It was abandoned now. She’d find no leads there.
Her phone buzzed. She glimpsed at it and saw a text from Han. It said get out NOW. Even via text, they shared a thought pattern that verged on telepathy. He wasn’t one of those people who said now when they meant soon. If he was texting, not calling, it was because unwelcome ears were nearby. That meant he had a bunch of cops in tow and they were right around the corner. Even as she peered down at the phone, she heard the first of the helicopters.
She wanted to squeeze the gate guard for more information, but there just wasn’t time. She peeled away, hit the street, and made her first turn just as the armored SWAT van rounded the corner. She was safe.
But the kids weren’t. They’d never heard of the three-hour rule. They had no way of knowing their three hours were up. Wherever this new church was, hundreds of children were waiting like lambs for the sacrificial knife. Joko Daishi was heading straight for them, and Mariko didn’t have a damn clue where to find him.
BOOK TEN
AZUCHI-MOMOYAMA PERIOD, THE YEAR 21
(1588 CE)
44
Just as he expected, Shichio found the teahouse far more beautiful than the waterfall behind it. Yes, the cascade and its pool were picturesque, but that only accentuated the artistry of the carpenter who built the teahouse. His first masterstroke was the choice of location. Like the largest stones in a rock garden, the teahouse could not be placed just anywhere—or rather, it could be, but only by a witless cretin with no appreciation for composition. Finding just the right setting, and then just the right size, the right shape, the right facing, then choosing the angle of the roof, the thickness of the beams and joists, even the age of the wood—there were a hundred decisions to be made before anyone ever picked up a saw.
Shichio had stopped in the hamlet at the mouth of the narrow valley to make inquiries about the teahouse. If the villagers had it right, it was built over a century ago by the Zen master Ikkyu. If so, then the tiny house was a testament to his satori. A hundred decisions, a hundred perfect choices made by an enlightened mind. Constant spray from the falls might have led to mildew, but instead the interior smelled only of the red cedar planking. The wood had grayed with age, but Shichio suspected fall colors would bring out the red. He vowed to come back and see for himself—perhaps on his triumphant return to Kyoto, after Nene and the Bear Cub were dead and he could put all of his nightmares behind him.
Perhaps he could even rid himself of his dreaded, beloved mask. At the moment he held it in one hand, stroking it with his thumb. The better part of him wanted to throw it in the pool and never think of it again. But it was the smaller voice that held sway, the one that said appetite and lust were nothing compared to the need of the mask. Satisfying that glorious need was better than the most soul-shuddering orgasm. What higher pleasure could there possibly be than wearing the mask while stripping the Bear Cub of his pelt? Even Nene’s death would pale in comparison.
The thought of Nene made him recall the image of fighting mantises locked in a cage. This teahouse was the most exquisite cage imaginable, but Shichio had no doubt that he was boxed in. Obyo Falls might just as well have been the end of the world. The cliff face was too brittle to climb. Recent rockfall was in evidence right in the middle of the pool, where sharp-edged slabs lurked like sharks just under the surface. The largest of them lay directly under the cascade, sending white spittle hissing in every direction. To the right of the falls, a line of thick, spray-spattered bushes seemed to cling to the cliff face with thick-fingered roots. Shichio knew this to be a trick of the eye. In fact, they grew on the lip of a rocky shelf, the only level surface between the base of the cliff and the crest. Behind the greenery, a host of Shichio’s archers lay in wait.
The walls of the valley were not quite as steep as Obyo’s cliff, but there were still places where even the most tenacious tree roots could not find purchase. Naked rock peered out here and there from the bamboo like slate gray islands in a sea of green. Shichio had contemplated deploying some of his bear hunters there, with orders so simple that even the most feckless of them could obey: remain hidden from any who enter the valley, and kill all who attempt to flee. Shichio’s own people would not run, and that left only Nene, her retinue, and the Bear Cub. But in the end he decided the bear hunters could only spoil the ambush at the falls. They’d failed him at every turn thus far; he would not rely on them now.
Shichio could not deny feeling vulnerable here. He’d intended to encamp with an entire platoon, but once he reached the waterfall he saw that would be impossible. The only place for them to stand was in the pool. That was part of the genius of the teahouse: it was tiny, just large enough to seat a tea master and three or four participants in the ceremony. It took up what little horizontal ground there was, yet it was not obtrusive; it seemed to have fallen there, just like the giant slabs that nature had strewn around the water.
So Shichio hid six of his samurai behind the shuttered fusuma of the teahouse, and had no other choice but to send the rest of his platoon in single file back up the trail. Their orders were to stand guard in the nameless hamlet at the valley’s mouth, to offer Nene an escort to the teahouse if she allowed it, and to kill the Bear Cub on sight if he happened to show his face.
Shichio knew he would not. The whelp had been careful so far. Shichio did not expect to see Nene either. Quite to the contrary: it was her man Nezumi who chose this place for their meeting, and he would have told her there was no escape. Nene would send a trusted envoy in her stead.
That was all right. The Bear Cub only needed to see someone waiting for him. Shichio hoped Nene sent a woman—one of her handmaids, perhaps, some delicate flower whom the Bear Cub could not possibly find threatening. And a bodyguard or two, maybe even that vile Nezumi. That would be delicious, to see him die in the ambush as well. Nene wouldn’t send many; she would not trust Shichio not to kill them.
Shichio intended to do just that. As soon as the Bear Cub showed his face, Shichio planned to fall back behind the six in the teahouse, with Oda Tomonosuke at his side. He did not count Oda as a bodyguard per se—he hadn’t known the man long enough to place that much trust in him—but the aging lord had already proved himself an able sensei and a deadly sword hand. He had provided helpful intelligence about Nene as well—quite accidentally, of course, but Shichio did not count that as a mark against him. As a sword master he did not approve of Shichio’s mask, but neither did he mock it, and he begrudgingly allowed his student to wear it while training. As well he should, Shichio thought, since I am his only income. Oda hadn’t yet given him cause to mention this aloud, another testament to his new sensei’s wisdom.
“She is here,” said Oda, nodding toward a twittering flock of sparrows startled from their roost. Once again the man proved his usefulness. Since he was Nene’s confidant, Shichio decided to keep him at his side; if she sent archers or arquebusiers, fear of hitting her friend might make them reluctant to let fly.
“What do you think?” Shichio asked. “Will she come herself, or will she send an envoy?”
Oda gave him a puzzled look. “Her messenger said she had to see this gift with her own eyes. Isn’t that what y
ou told me?”
“Yes, it is.” And you believe every single thing you hear, Shichio thought. Poor man. “Soon enough we’ll see if she is as good as her word, won’t we? Yes, we will.”
Soon enough, her horse came into view—but not with Nene. The woman in the saddle was chubby, almost barrel-chested. A huge parasol rested on her shoulder, and a silken veil shielded her against the armies of biting insects that made the valley their home. She wore lilac and lavender, not Nene’s finest colors, though Shichio recalled seeing her ladies-in-waiting dressed that way. The man walking ahead of her horse, leading it by the rein, was flailing at a cloud of mosquitoes. Shichio recognized him by his black hachimaki. Nezumi. He wore a sword on one hip and a quiver on the other, and swatted uselessly at the mosquitoes with a long, black bow.
“I do not think that is Lady Nene,” Oda said.
No, Shichio thought, and perhaps you might also like to announce whether you think that bright disc in the sky is the sun or the moon. “Well, what do you know? She broke her word to us. Later we’ll have to talk about how often she does that.”
“This one must be a trusted handmaiden.”
Yes, Shichio thought, and it’s the sun, by the way; the moon comes later.
“Lord Kumanai,” Nezumi called. “My lady sends her greetings. And I bring you tidings: the Bear Cub still lives.”
Shichio bit back a frustrated growl. “You know this because you found him? Or because you are wasting my time with an idle guess?”
“Heh heh. I found him right enough. I meant to kill him too, and collect your bounty, but your bear hunters botched it. Don’t you worry, though. When he shows up here, I’ll be the first to put an arrow in him—and then I’ll expect the rest of the reward you promised.”
Expect a few arrows of your own, Shichio thought. Nezumi’s eyes flicked down to the mask, and Shichio realized that imagining those piercing arrows must have heightened his ardor for it. Now he cradled the mask in one hand and stroked it with the other, just like a pet. One finger traced the rim of an eyehole, running around and around and around.
