The Thieves of Legend

by Richard Doetsch

  It was a January night, and she was on her way home from basketball practice, the coach keeping them for an extra session after Wednesday’s 45–20 loss. She was tired and knew that with all of the homework she still had to deal with she would be tired until the weekend arrived. Running up the stairs from the locker room, she bumped into Mr. Tanaka. She knew him as the quiet janitor, emotionless and silent, and she smiled as she passed him mopping the floors of the school at this late hour. She raced out of the school, walking briskly through the cold night, and arrived home to an empty house; her parents were still at her younger sister Carol’s swim meet. Herkamer rolled around on the floor, belly up, begging to be petted, and as she rubbed the golden retriever, and looked into his tired eyes, at the graying fur about his mouth, her nerves calmed. He was fifteen, had been part of her life since she could remember, and while he had grown slow in his old age, their bond would never diminish.

  Jane made herself a grilled cheese sandwich, grabbed a glass of milk, and took it to her room, where she changed into her favorite sweats, settled in, and began her homework.

  THE MAN SAT in his car, watching the house. The girl had entered more than an hour ago, the parents a half-hour later with another daughter. There was no mistaking their Han heritage; it was in their faces, eyes, and builds. He wrapped his hand around his pistol, sliding it into the holster at his waist. He reached into the rear of the car and picked up the katana, the lethal sword his father had passed to him ceremonially at the age of eighteen before he went off to join the military.

  Ichero Tanaka had tried to control his anger at the teenager since he had started his janitorial job a month earlier. They lived in this large home while he rotted in anonymity, in a one-room hovel on the far side of town, thousands of miles from the country he had sacrificed so much for only to have it turn its back on him. How had his life slid so drastically? How had this family achieved so much despite their inferiority?

  He waited until after midnight, as the last of the house’s lights was extinguished. He found the rear door unlocked, smiling at their false sense of security. He silently slipped in and found the dog asleep on the floor, and as he took a step, the dog raised his head, snarling, growling, his hair hackled, but before he could let out a bark, the katana split the air and severed the dog’s head.

  Tanaka walked about the home, looking at the Chinese paintings, at the porcelain figurines on the mantel. While the exterior of the house was American colonial, the interior was provincial Chinese, everything he hated in life. Nausea rose in him as his past came rushing in.

  Less than twenty-four hours after Pearl Harbor, Japan began its assault on Hong Kong. Hailing from Nagasaki, where his family worked building ships for the Imperial Navy, Tanaka was part of the Japanese invasion forces on December 8, 1942. Seventeen days later, on Christmas morning, he and his fellow soldiers attacked St. Stephen’s Hospital, torturing and killing the wounded British soldiers and medical staff, the final step in their capture of the city. Later that day, he and his garrison were present when Governor Mark Young surrendered to the Japanese at their headquarters in the Peninsula Hotel. The day became forever known as Black Christmas.

  For the next two years, Tanaka was a member of a team known as the Kin no yuri, or “Golden Lily,” a select group that raided museums, temples, homes of the wealthy, banks, and industry, confiscating any and all valuables, with a particular emphasis on gold. He traveled throughout Southeast Asia under the direction of General Yamashita and assisted in the amassing of treasure, helping to deposit it in caves and tunnels in the Philippines to await shipment to Japan. Two and a half years later, on August 14, 1945, a Japanese warship was loaded with thousands of crates with a purported value in the billions of dollars. Most of the Kin no yuri team were assassinated, along with all of the workers involved with loading the ship, in order to protect the empire’s secret. The ship and the treasure, what became known as Yamashita’s gold, headed out to sea, its destination Japan.

  The following day, the Japanese surrendered. Tanaka, having somehow avoided assassination, at first didn’t understand what had happened, but quickly learned that six days earlier, much of his home city of Nagasaki had been destroyed by a plutonium bomb that someone had crassly named “Fat Man.”

  With his parents, aunts and uncles, and younger brothers all dead, he was taken into custody, tried, and thrown into prison for war crimes. Ten years later, his rage at China and America festering in his marrow, he was released, a broken, bitter man.

  And as he looked now at the young girl sound asleep in her bed, a child embodying the culmination of his hate, he thought of something far worse than killing her, than removing her head, than sliding the blade into her young belly.

  JANE WOKE FROM her dream into a nightmare. She felt the cold steel against her neck, her eyes following the glow off the blade up to the man with malevolent eyes, his hand suddenly clamping over her mouth.

  “If you scream,” he whispered, “if you make a single sound, I will cut off your head.”

  Frozen in terror, she watched as the man pulled back the covers, exposing her nightgown, her bare legs and arms. She could smell the garlic on his breath and the rot of his teeth as he leaned in. And in that moment of terror, she realized she knew him. Mr. Tanaka, the quiet janitor from school.

  And he raped her, all of his hate directed at this girl of Chinese descent. His loathing at this American child, at the country that had incinerated his parents, at the Chinese who had imprisoned him, the two cultures manifested in this lowly creature.

  “If you tell anyone of this,” Tanaka whispered in her ear, “I will come back and kill your sister in front of your eyes.”

  AS TANAKA STEPPED back into the hall, he saw the parents standing there in their nightclothes in shock at the sight of the man brandishing a sword. Without hesitation, he swung the blade, severing the mother’s head. But he stayed his hand against the father, the Chinaman. He had done far worse than killing him. He had imprisoned him in grief, a grief that would haunt him for the remaining days of his life, just as he himself had been haunted by the imagined vision of his own incinerated family.

  Tanaka was never caught. No leads were found; the papers screamed of a madman who had decapitated his victims running loose in the city. But Jane and her father told the police nothing. They feared for Jane’s sister, for their own lives, as they knew the ruthless man would live up to his promise if the police came calling.

  Nine months later, Jon was born. His teenage mother was cold and distant. He didn’t realize that he lacked a mother’s love, because he’d never been loved. He never understood that she saw his Japanese father every time she looked at him, never understood that Tanaka had not only raped her physically, but raped her soul for eternity.

  When Jon was ten, his mother finally took her own life.

  His grandfather took him and his aunt Carol back to China, to Hong Kong, and raised him, teaching him of his heritage and history. He schooled Jon in language, philosophy, and mathematics. He taught him of China’s myths and legends, tales of princes and emperors, admirals who sailed enormous dragon ships to mystical lands; stories of talismans, swords, and death. He taught him about balance and the Eastern mind, schooling him in wushu, writing, and art.

  As Jon entered his teen years, he pressed his grandfather for information about his father: who he was, why he was never around, where he might be. But his father remained a mystery, as if his grandfather had forgotten all about him, as if his existence had been wiped from memory.

  Jon finally learned the truth two days after his seventeenth birthday. His grandfather was on his deathbed when he told Jon what had happened, of how loving and strong his mother had been for sixteen years, and how it had all been stolen from her by Tanaka. He pled with Jon not to seek vengeance, to understand that out of something so evil could come something as special as himself.

  With his grandfather’s passing, Jon and his aunt were left a modest inheritance, one that would
allow Jon to attend college, to educate himself and build a life. His aunt thought it best that they return to the United States, and made arrangements to move to Colorado, far from L.A., a city filled with too many harsh memories. And while Jon railed against her, she was his guardian; he had no choice.

  With his head filled with such confusion, such tragedy, such thoughts of revenge, Jon grabbed his passport, several thousand dollars in cash, and walked out of his grandfather’s house, disappearing into the night.

  But Jon did not race back to Los Angeles to seek vengeance. Instead he went to Japan, finding work as a cook, in construction, as a gardener, earning enough money to live in a one-room apartment. And he began to study Japan, everything about it, absorbing the culture, learning the people’s ways, studying life from their Nipponese perspective, understanding why they had invaded China, their expansionist views in World War II, their financial strength in the eighties. He studied and mastered kenjutsu, ninjutsu, and aikido; he mastered their language and culture and ways. He never told his aunt where he was, only sending an occasional letter informing her that he was alive and on his own, and that some day he would return to her.

  He stayed in Japan for four years, then boarded a jet for Los Angeles on November 12.

  IT TOOK JON a month to track down Tanaka. He was amazed that his father was still alive. He had researched the man, everything about him: his war record, his involvement with Kin no yuri and Yamashita’s gold, and his criminal record in Japan, where, after his release from prison, he was a thief, a gang member, a thug, convicted three times, and imprisoned once again for ten years. Jon discovered he had immigrated to the United States in the 1960s, occasionally falling off the grid. He worked at Jon’s mother’s high school for six years after her murder, with no one ever realizing that a monster lurked on the school grounds among the children. Living off welfare for the last few years, Tanaka was found in a third-floor apartment in a run-down section of Los Angeles.

  Standing in the center of the three-room unit, Jon looked at the small shrine in the corner, a table covered in candles. There was the Japanese imperial war flag on the wall, its red rising sun with sixteen sun rays as offensive to the Chinese as the Nazi swastika flag was to the world. Jon’s eyes fell upon the display that hung to the right of the shrine, the two items resting there upon a wooden rack. He drew down the katana and its scabbard; the sword was magnificent, with a craftsmanship that exceeded anything he had trained with or even seen in Japan. As he examined it closely, there was no mistaking its vintage, the blade folded thousands of times by a craftsman centuries earlier.

  Silently stepping into the bedroom, he saw a figure asleep in bed. Tanaka was nearly seventy, decrepit and old beyond his years, an oxygen tank at his bedside, its plastic hose running to the tube strapped beneath his nose. The rhythmic sound of his labored breaths was the only sound in the dark night.

  Jon studied the man, the creature who had raped his mother, killed his grandmother, mentally tortured his grandfather and aunt for all these years. Jon’s self-loathing swelled; that he shared this man’s blood, his DNA, filled him with shame. That he was the product of an innocent’s torture, his mother’s torture, set his mind on fire.

  Jon removed the tube from Tanaka’s nose; he refused to ever think of him as his father again. He watched as the man’s chest rose in distress, watching as he began to gasp.

  And Tanaka’s eyes snapped open, staring up at Jon, who stood there with his ancient katana in hand.

  “Who are you?” Tanaka wheezed.

  “I am your son,” Jon said in Japanese as he pressed the katana to the man’s throat. Then switching to Mandarin, “the embodiment of everything you hate.” Switching to English, “A child of America, of China, of my mother, whose soul you stole when she was just a child.”

  Tanaka looked up at Jon, his face filling with confusion as he realized who this man was, his eyes registering the fact that he had created his own killer. Pain and anger overwhelmed him as he struggled to breathe, as he attempted to focus on his son.

  In a slow ritual, Jon raised the katana above his head, ensuring that this man saw and digested his every move. That he understood death was seconds away, brought down on him in revenge for the heinous acts he had committed twenty-one years ago. And with a flick of his wrist, the blade screamed down through the air, shards of light exploding off its honed edge, severing Tanaka’s head from his neck with surgical precision.

  JON LEI MOVED into his aunt’s small apartment in Colorado, attended Colorado State, then entered the Navy at the age of twenty-six.

  While American, Jon acknowledged his heritage for what it truly was. From his grandfather’s upbringing, he thought like a man from the East though he was from the West, a dichotomy that allowed him to walk in two worlds. He had mastered the languages, cultures, and martial arts of China and Japan, countries that had been enemies; enemies that had fathered him.

  His language skills and modality of thought were immediately embraced by the Navy. He spent three years as a lieutenant in the SEALs and left to be stationed as an Asian liaison in Japan. He left six months later for the Tridiem Group, the allure of the pay and the challenge too great to pass up. He was still military, still loyal to the U.S., only on a pay scale more commensurate with his abilities.

  He had denied himself the modest luxuries he had grown up with: the nice home, the nice car, the never wanting for anything. Living on his own in a one-room apartment in Japan helped to shape him, to teach him to distinguish between wants and needs; continuing that lifestyle through college and the military gave him an appreciation for what was important in life. But all that aside, he much preferred having money in his pocket, having the means to taste life, so Tridiem allowed him to walk in both worlds. He was paid handsomely yet still performed the job he loved.

  He had performed eleven jobs in the four years he’d been working for the Tridiem Group, and had built up a substantial bank account. Unlike the old mercenary model, he never had to perform tasks that ran counter to his morals. Tridiem allowed him to accept or decline any job that was offered to him, and none held more allure for him than the one offered only days earlier. For what was in the box they had to steal, and what it revealed, held far more allure than a paycheck or saving lives. His grandfather had spoken of it as a fairy tale, as a legend. But as far as Colonel Lucas and the U.S. government were concerned, it was very real.

  CHAPTER 14

  PRESENT DAY MACAU

  The world was awash in light. An artificial day that never ended. The Cotai strip was Asia’s answer to Las Vegas, a gambling mecca that provided a vast array of entertainment, shopping, amenities, and decadence. Built over the last five years, it had become the destination of millions, the flow of money surpassing that of its U.S. counterpart, making it the number-one gambling destination in the world. Whereas oil-rich sheikhs used to race to Vegas, they now headed to Macau with heavy purses, charging into the Venetian with dreams of winning.

  Heading down Estrada do Istmo, the driver turned into the large circular drive and pulled up to the portico entrance, where smiling valets greeted Michael, Jon, and Busch with smiles of welcome.

  Enormous doors were held open by nodding doorman as the three walked into a world Busch had never imagined existed. He had been to Vegas on more than one occasion, and while he had always had an exceptionally good time, he did possess a pretty detailed memory of the Wynn, the Mirage, the MGM, and the Bellagio, grand palaces where no expense had been spared.

  But the Venetian Macau dwarfed them all, wrapping the senses in pure luxury. The soaring entrance included hand-painted ceilings in the lobby and along the colonnade, seemingly rendered by Michelangelo after he’d warmed up on the Sistine Chapel.

  The staff was enormous but unobtrusive, blending into the background only to arrive at your side when they read your mind’s questions or divined your unfulfilled desires. Gaming tables numbered more than 750, though nothing seemed crowded.

  There were
actually four casinos within the Venetian: the Phoenix, the Golden Fish, the Imperial House, and the Red Dragon. The four enormous spaces were located around the Great Hall.

  The crowd was surprisingly upscale, men and women of all races and nationalities dressed in their finest clothes as if attending the opera or a presidential dinner. It was unlike Vegas, where people arrived in shorts and T-shirts. There was a sense of class here, as there had been in the Casino at Monte Carlo in the sixties, where tuxedoed men stoically lost fortunes while their gowned wives and mistresses stood behind them ready to offer consolation sex.

  They stopped at the hotel desk, where Jon engaged a strikingly beautiful woman with black hair and almond eyes.

  “Welcome to the Venetian,” the woman said.

  “Thank you,” Jon said as he handed over a credit card and ID.

  “This place has never been robbed, never had an incident,” Busch said to Michael as they stood off to the side, watching the groups of people at the various gaming tables. “Every place has incidents: casinos, delis, car washes. You can’t tell me nothing of a criminal nature has occurred here in four years.”

  “They must have a great PR rep who shuts it all down, keeps it out of the press,” Michael said.

  “Or some kind of ‘special’ help that is a great deterrent,” Busch responded ominously.

  THE THREE SUITES were adjacent to each other. More than eighteen hundred square feet, with a living room, a separate bedroom, and an Italian marble bath, each suite had a full complement of office equipment, a fully stocked bar, and a balcony overlooking the artificial canals.