Fitzduane 02 - Rules of The Hunt

by O'Reilly-Victor

  "I thought you were dead, gaijin," she said, smiling.

  "I nearly was when you fired that 40mm grenade, Tanabu-san," said Fitzduane cheerfully. "Fortunately, my friend here" — he pointed at Goto in his shattered armor — "took the blast and he was equipped for it, though it did not make him happy."

  Chifune's cheeks were wet with tears. I want you, Hugo, she mouthed silently in Japanese.

  Fitzduane looked up at her and then blew her a kiss.

  * * * * *

  Outside Tokyo, Japan

  June 28

  Fitzduane felt too languorous and relaxed to open his eyes.

  He did not know where he was and he did not much care. All he knew was that he was warm and comfortable and safe; and tomorrow, whenever that was, could take care of itself.

  Eyes closed, he daydreamed. Images and thoughts floated in and out of his mind: Chifune looking at him in a very particular way, her face smoke-blackened, her neat business suit torn and grimy, a high-tech assault rifle hanging from her shoulder; police helicopters and heavily armed riot police; bright lights and police video cameras; body bags and uniforms in surgical masks; an angry police officer and Chifune's calm insistence that they make statements later; a calm authoritative voice on the radio and the policeman backing away and saluting; a helicopter ride in the darkness; a long, low house with a verandah and overhanging roof and shoji screen in the traditional style; a long, hot shower and water tinged with blood as the last traces of those he had killed were washed from his body, and the nausea he had felt; the steam rising from the hot tub as he climbed in and Chifune telling him not to move and that it would be fine and it was. And then nothing except a delicious sense of peace as he slipped into sleep.

  He stretched. He felt weightless in the water and greatly refreshed. It was a delicious sensation, this sense of half-floating — free of cares and responsibilities.

  Hot tubs were an invention of the gods. The Romans had used them and they had done pretty well. The Japanese were fanatical about them, and that probably accounted for most of their economic miracle. Hot tubs had not made it in Ireland, which explained a great deal.

  In Fitzduane's opinion a that moment, hot tubs were the solution to most of the world's problems, and you could even float a plastic duck in one. This was excellent. He was a great believer in yellow plastic ducks. Boots adored his, though he liked to sink them and then watch them bob up again. Curiously, someone had once told him, ducks seemed to be a male thing. Was this really so? Was there some deep-rooted sexual significance to bath ducks? Was there a Freudian thesis lurking somewhere which might explain the whole thing? Well, what did it matter, anyway? If ducks were sexy, good for ducks. You couldn’t really do very much if you were plastic. Personally, he liked ducks, but he preferred women.

  Women were soft and warm and caring and interesting and fun to talk to and they made nice babies like Boots and it had taken him a long tie to really learn it but he really loved babies and children and he missed Boots greatly and he wanted to go home and give him the biggest hug in the world and then another.

  But, of course, women were also dangerous sometimes, and complex always, and that did make for difficulties. Still, anything or anyone worthwhile was difficult.

  That's really what life was about: babies, hot tubs, plastic bath ducks, women, and difficulties. People searched endlessly for the meaning of life, and here he had discovered it by floating in a hot tub for a couple of hours — or was it days? He really had not the faintest idea.

  He opened his eyes. He could see stars in a glowing night sky and the air felt fresh and cool on his face and there was the smell of the sea. Everywhere in Ireland was near the sea, and in Duncleeve you could hear the sound of the waves on all but the calmest days and it was a sound that he greatly loved, that made him feel at peace. But here he could not quite hear the sea. It was close, but not close enough. The house and grounds were set back and, he now seemed to recall, built into the side of a hill. There would be a magnificent view of the sea and the bay below. He was sure of it, but it was impossible to check.

  The hot tub was in an inner courtyard that was laid out as a traditional Japanese garden, and the house surrounded the space on all four sides. There was total privacy and silence except for the normal sounds of the night air. There was no traffic noise, so they could not be in or very near Tokyo, a city of relentless energy that never rested.

  The setting was so extraordinarily beautiful and a miniature world unto itself. There was something about the proportions of traditional Japanese architecture that was particularly pleasing and restful. It was a combination of lien and texture and balance that in the most unostentatious way conveyed a feeling of harmony with life and with nature.

  The secret of a Japanese garden, he had been told, was restraint, simplicity, and integration with what was most natural. Instead of flower beds bursting with artificially reared hybrids and the general excess of a Western garden, there appeared to be only simple features of mainly natural materials, such as sand and rocks and gravel and a few carefully selected bushes and some wildflowers. Of course, the naturalness was an illusion, but even though you knew that every natural item had been meticulously selected and arranged, it was an illusion that worked. Tatemae and honne. The way of Japan.

  He felt gentle hands on his shoulders, and then his neck and shoulders were being massaged slowly and tenderly. Her touch was exquisite, and he closed his eyes and let waves of pleasure wash over him. From time to time, her hands left his back and caressed slowly down his body to his loins, stroking him in the most intimate of places.

  After some minutes, he took her hands in his and kissed them one by one, running his tongue across the palm of each hand. She was wearing only a thin silk yukata, and through the thin material he could feel her breasts where they rested against the back of his head and her nipples hard and firm.

  "Come with me," she said into his ear, her tongue licking it. Naked, he rose from the hot water into the cool night air and stepped from the tub onto the tile surround. His penis was erect and hard. The faintest lightening of the sky indicated the promise of dawn.

  She draped his shoulders in a thick towel to dry him and to shield him from the night air, and took another towel and knelt down to dry his lower body. Again, she touched him without restraint, as if they had been lovers without secrets for some time.

  Her beautiful hair, thick and glossy and normally worn up on a chignon or some other restrained style, now cascaded around her shoulders. He let the sensations wash over him until he could scarcely bear it, and then he bent over and lifted he up and took her in his arms.

  She smelled of an exotic perfume he could not identify, but which was intensely stimulating. It was a subtle, sexual fragrance, and it blended with the clean, musky odor of her own arousal. Her arms around his neck, lips gently stroking, tongues intermingling, he carried her from the courtyard through the open shoji screens to where he cold see the golden flickering light of a dozen candles.

  The floor was of fresh tatami, but instead of the futon he had expected there was a low-slung, king-size bed. He lowered her feet to the floor and, still kissing her, stripped the gossamer-thin yukata from her body and placed her on the bed.

  * * * * *

  It was dark when Fitzduane awoke, and then he realized that he must have slept right through.

  It was not surprising. The Namaka Steel business had been exhausting enough, but Chifune had been a marathon of exquisitely sensual endurance.

  He fumbled for his watch and then tried opening his eyes. It mad the process a whole lot easier. He noticed the candles were fresh and Chifune was leaning over him. She bent down and kissed him. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and she was wearing a toweling robe.

  "Fourteen hours," she said. "More or less."

  "So much for the sex," he said sleepily. "How long did we rest for?"

  Chifune laughed. "There is a razor in the bathroom," she said. "I'll have some food ready i
n fifteen minutes. Are you hungry?"

  Fitzduane undid her robe.

  * * * * *

  "Pillow speak," she said.

  She was naked and lying with her back to him, staring unfocused at the candles, enjoying the constant pattern as the flames flickered in the night breeze off the sea.

  Fitzduane smiled, but did not correct her. Chifune had excellent English, but just occasionally would make a slip. He drank some more champagne. He was not quite sure whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner, but it tasted good anyway.

  He felt recharged after the long sleep and the lovemaking and a shower and a shave and food and more lovemaking, and now that he thought of it, there were few things more pleasant in the world than lying in bed in a postcoital glow talking to a beautiful woman — unless it was doing exactly that with a bottle of decent wine to hand. Fitzduane liked the company of women. Women had good minds; a much-neglected resource in his opinion. And based on what he had seen and heard, a particularly neglected resource in Japan.

  Chifune turned to look at him. "Pillow speak?" she said. "I could hear you smiling, gaijin."

  Fitzduane laughed. "Pillow talk," he said.

  Chifune pulled back the covers and kissed his dormant penis quickly and then covered him up again. "Thank you," she said. "English is such a quirky language."

  Fitzduane did not want to spoil the mood, but there were matters he was curious about and Chifune seemed to want to speak. "What about this pillow business?" he said quietly.

  Chifune smiled without looking at him. ‘To pillow’ was a euphemism for lovemaking in Japanese.

  "You don't say anything explicitly, Hugo," she said, "but you're a man who invites confidences, an easy person to talk to. I think it is because you have values and you care. So many people go through the motions, but they don't really care and in their hearts there is nothing. They take up space but they do not contribute. To contribute, you have to care. And caring is about risk. You have something to lose. It exposes you. It makes you vulnerable. It is dangerous."

  Fitzduane put down his wineglass and turned toward her. Her back was still to him, but he put his left arm around her and drew her to him. She snuggled up to him and pressed his hand against her breasts.

  "Don't speak, Chifune," he said, "unless you must. It is not necessary."

  "‘Don't say anything you'll regret afterwards,’" she quoted. "Relax, Hugo. I know the disciplines, the way it should be done in Koancho. I've been well-trained for this game, and I live it. But sometimes I need to breathe, to talk freely, as if I were not part of a world of paranoia, corruption, and deception. Security may be necessary, but it's stifling. Sometimes I wish I could live a normal life and have children and become an education mother and be married to a sarariman. And then complain because he is never at home — always out working or drinking with his colleagues or stuck on some commuter train."

  "Who are you, Chifune?" said Fitzduane. "What's your background? How did you get into this business?"

  Chifune was silent, and at first Fitzduane thought she was not going to answer, but then she spoke. "My father was a politician and the son of a politician. This makes a joke of democracy, but it is not so unusual. More and more political posts are handed down father to son, like some aristocratic birthright, and that happened in this case even though my father was estranged from my grandfather. Some alliances endure regardless. Like my grandfather, my father was a member of the Hodama faction, but something of a maverick nonetheless. He had been brought up in a world of money politics and at first regarded this as normal, but then started to think for himself. He had ideas, there were policies he wanted to pursue, but everywhere he turned he was frustrated by the system. Special interests ruled the day, and the amount of money going through the political system was such that they were not going to allow anyone to stand in their way. I'm talking about billions of yen here, millions of dollars. The bribe paid to one provincial governor, for example, to win construction contracts came to nearly twenty million dollars."

  "Just one bribe?" said Fitzduane.

  "Just one single backhander," said Chifune. "Politicians, certain senior civil servants, key businessmen, and the yakuza — the four pillars of power and corruption in Japan. Not everyone is corrupt, by any stretch of the imagination, but enough at the center of power is rotten for the tentacles of corruption to stretch far and wide."

  "So what happened?" said Fitzduane.

  "My father tried to change things. He and some younger faction members got together and set up a study group, and for a while they made some progress, but then the group started to fall apart. Some were simply bought, others were arrested on trumped-up corruption charges, and a few were simply scared away. It was an orchestrated campaign of intimidation conducted with ruthless brilliance, and the man behind it was my grandfather. He had power and he was not going to relinquish it to anyone — even his own blood — except on his own terms and in his own good time. And that was not yet, if ever. He was a kuromaku of genius and an evil corrupt old man, but no one was better at the power game than he, and no one was going to oust him."

  Fitzduane gave a start as the full significance of her words hit home. "Hodama?" he said. "Your grandfather was Hodama?"

  Chifune turned toward him. "There are other kuromakus," she said. She was leaning on one arm facing him, only inches from him. He could feel her breath as she spoke. The candles were behind her, so her face was in shadow. He could see her breasts and the dark outline of her nipples and the taut flesh of her stomach and the curve of her hip. He had to remind himself that this was a woman who was trained to kill and who could put that training into action with ease. This was a woman who had risked her life for him and whose body he had shared. This was a woman with blood on her hands. As he had. Theirs was a shared world.

  "You're Hodama's granddaughter," said Fitzduane, ignoring her denial. "My God, who else knows this? What are you doing on this case? Doesn't conflict of interest mean anything around here, or is that just another difference between Japan and us gaijins."

  Chifune leaned across and kissed him hard on the lips. "That evil old man killed his own son," she said. "He killed my father to preserve his rotten regime. When almost all his group had been destroyed or dispersed, my father was found in his office with his throat cut and a razor in his hand. Money and other incriminating material was subsequently found in his safe. The suicide verdict was automatic. A disgraced politician kills himself. It's not so uncommon."

  "How do you know it wasn't suicide?" said Fitzduane. "How do you know all this?"

  Chifune smiled sadly. "Believe me, I know," she said. "My father and I were very close. I did secretarial work for his group and worked with him on the reforms they planned. I kept his records and knew what was in his safe and what was in his mind on the day he died. It was a setup and it was murder. Of that, I have no doubt. I confronted my grandfather with this and he virtually admitted it, and then he laughed at me. He despised women. We were instruments in his eyes, not people. We were there to serve and to be used."

  "And so you worked the system," said Fitzduane. "You used your connections to get into Koancho and worked there under a false name. The security service was the best place to get to know the dirt on the people you hated. And sooner or later an opportunity would come up for you to strike back."

  Chifune nodded. "My father had made the initial contact with Koancho. They were the people who fully understood the extent of the corruption, and the Director-General was a friend of his. If he had lived, the security service was to supply the information which would enable my father to push through his reforms."

  "Your father was a clever man," said Fitzduane, "and dangerous. I can see why he had to be stopped. His plan might have worked."

  "No," said Chifune. "He never had a chance and he was too trusting. The rot ran too deep."

  "Hodama's death," said Fitzduane. "The strike team knew all the security precautions, the kind of things only an insider would kno
w."

  Chifune was silent. "He deserved to die," she said. "It had to be done and I'm glad it was done — but I wasn't involved..."

  "Directly?" said Fitzduane.

  Chifune sighed. "Very well," she said. "I supplied information. I knew about Katsuda and his plans and that the Namakas had stepped out of line. We had them under surveillance because of their suspected terrorist connection, and that in turn led us to hear about this weapon they were making. At last Hodama and the Namakas became vulnerable. The Americans were not happy and Katsuda was let off the leash. I just eased the process, and I've no regrets."

  "Adachi?" said Fitzduane. "He damn near got killed."

  "I love that man, in my way," said Chifune, "and I got myself assigned to the case to keep an eye on things and keep him out of trouble. I never thought Katsuda would go so far, and I never suspected that the prosecutor and Sergeant Fujiwara were his men. But it just goes to show how widespread is the cancer."

  "Are you working with Yoshokawa's clean-government group?" said Fitzduane.

  Chifune nodded. "It was my father's death which convinced them that Gamma must be kept secret. Eventually, the money politics of the government will be exposed, but meanwhile it's safer to fight them in secret."

  Fitzduane poured Chifune and himself more champagne. "So now Hodama had done and one Namaka has gone, so you are making progress. And doubtless you have a whole lot on Katsuda to bring him into line when he thinks he's the new kuromaku. What a web you people do weave. No wonder Adachi-san blew a fuse. Which leaves our terrorist friends, Yaibo: what about them? The Namakas may have planned it, but they are the people who tried to terminate my worries once and for all."