When he kicked the bag with the side of his foot in the yoko geri move, his long form making an L shape, the thump echoed throughout the cavern. The heavy bag went almost perpendicular. Panting slightly, he looked out at the two men sitting quietly, watching him.
Watching him with AK-47s held at the ready.
One of them gave him a head nod in salutation. Ernie put his hands together and bowed deeply in return. Then he tightened his obi a bit as he climbed out of the ring, using a towel to wipe away his sweat. He approached the man who seemed to be head guard. “Kai said I could see Takeo when I was finished.”
The man jerked his head back toward the circular staircase. “Back into the house. You are to have dinner with him.”
Ernie climbed back up the stairs, well aware that he was tailed with a machine gun, not quite pointed at his back but at the ready at the slightest provocation. Ernie scowled, hating his helplessness, but he couldn’t even protest.
Suck it up, stay subservient. Right now, Takeo was the priority.
Ernie was allowed to shower and change, and then he was escorted into a dining room with oak floors, ogee molding, and a sleek inlaid Japanese table centered on a gorgeous silk Oriental rug. Two places were set, smaller dishes and chopsticks at the head of the table. Takeo was to sit in the place of authority. Ernie wondered if the boy would even know what that meant. Or care. He hoped not, but if Kai had the raising of him, he’d soon enough have the same sense of privilege and superiority as his father.
Takeo came into the room, wearing thonged clogs, white socks, loose trousers, and a shirt tucked into an intricately tied cloth belt. He seemed a bit awkward in the clogs, but when he saw Ernie he ran forward easily enough.
His round little face lit up. “Uncle Ernie!”
A catch in his throat, Ernie bent to Takeo’s level and hugged the stocky little figure. “How you doing, bud? Your mom misses you.”
“When is she coming? My papa says I’ll be seeing her soon.”
Ernie helped get Takeo situated on a couple of cushions before taking his own seat, set at Takeo’s right. He knew the same two guards were both watching and listening, so he had to be very careful what he said. “So do you take your other lessons, Takeo, reading and writing?”
Takeo nodded, manipulating his chopsticks expertly to bring bits of rice and steak to his mouth. His mouth full, he said, “My papa trains me. I rise, have breakfast, exercise, study, practice my kanji characters, have lunch, go into the ring with my papa, bathe, read, and after supper I learn about my samurai ancestors. Sometimes Papa reads to me before I sleep.”
Inwardly cursing Kai’s strict regimen, Ernie said gently, “When do you get to have fun?”
Takeo tilted his head as if he’d not thought lately of the concept. “I don’t have any friends here, but sometimes my papa lets me play with the dogs.” He finished his food, wiping his mouth politely. For the first time, he looked sad. “But I miss Mama.”
“She misses you too, bud. Tons.” Ernie hesitated, wondering if he could get in a whispered comment that his mother would be coming for him, but he felt their hovering company and repressed the urge. He was glad of that because in the next moment Kai entered with his usual leashed power and silence.
Ernie wondered when Kai would start training Takeo in the darkest ninja arts. That would probably be next.
Kai looked between them, his face unreadable as he asked, “Takeo, are you happy to see your new teacher?”
Takeo looked curiously at his “uncle.” “I’ve seen Mama practice with Uncle Ernie. She told me it was too soon for me to take such lessons. She wanted me to concentrate on my painting and reading and writing.”
Kai waved a dismissive hand. “You are a much bigger boy than she thought. I was in the ring at three.”
Yeah, and look how that turned out, Ernie wanted to butt in, but held his tongue.
Kai bestowed a rare smile on his son. His severity relaxed, making his face very handsome, almost as if, before he perfected the art of killing, he’d been a charming young man of fitting temperament for Hana. “You have worked hard, Takeo. Your uncle Ernie will train you, as he trained me, and you will be a fitting leader of men to take my place when I am gone.”
Takeo frowned. “Are you going somewhere, Otosan?”
Kai shook his head, his smile fading. “Don’t be obtuse. Do as you are told and tomorrow, I may let you have an hour with your Legos.”
Takeo beamed. When his father gave him a perfunctory hug, he clung to Kai’s neck. Kai patted his back awkwardly, but Ernie saw the look on his face.
How was it possible to be so tough on a child you obviously loved as Kai loved Takeo? Ernie knew the answer: when you’re the rebellious only son of a Yakuza boss. In Kai’s twisted logic, he wasn’t warping his son. He was teaching him to be strong.
Resolving to do all he could to keep the boy away from his father, Ernie wiped his mouth to hide his disgust as Kai lifted his head to smile his pride at his old teacher.
* * *
The next afternoon, when Ernie didn’t make his meeting with Abigail, she waited a full hour in the dusty stacks of the Perry-Casteñeda Library at the University of Texas. He’d suggested the meeting place because he knew it was a locale neither Kai nor his men ever frequented.
For the umpteenth time, she checked both texts and e-mails on her encrypted smart phone, looking for a message from him. Of course, he could have skipped. They hadn’t dared to put an ankle tracker on him since he was becoming a confidential informant. But on some level she didn’t want to acknowledge, she knew Ernie wouldn’t desert Hana and Takeo. His love for both had shined through too brightly in the interrogation to be a lie.
She waited a few more moments, then—her long face drawn with concern—she rose and sought out the elevator. Tonight had been planned to duplicate Hana’s transport to Kai’s compound, right down to a similar van and blindfold. But if Ernie was missing, the mission had changed. Locate the compound, yes, but should they also raid it? Or delay?
She pulled out her phone and requested an urgent meeting with John Travis. A few minutes later, she was driving toward Tarrytown.
* * *
After the gate guards checked her ID and noted a text from John allowing her entry, she parked in front of the mansion. For the first time, she saw that John Travis, as she’d heard, had plenty of money. He really was a dedicated lawman by choice.
She’d barely rung the doorbell before a portly woman, short and smelling of flour and onions, let her in. She smiled, her pudgy cheeks dented with dimples. “Señora Doyle, I have heard much about you. Come in, come in.”
Abby was clueless, but soon enough Zach came into the foyer from a side door, obviously having heard Abby’s voice. He hugged the little woman. “Consuela, what are we having for dinner tonight? Something delicious, as usual.” He winked at Abby over her head. “Can you stay for dinner? We’re eating at six tonight. I have to leave by eight, as you know, so I can be in the van when—” He broke off at Abby’s expression.
Consuela looked between the two, her merry expression falling, and left them without another word.
Abby said simply, “We may have to delay the mission. Ernie Thibodeaux missed our meeting and I haven’t heard a word from him.”
Zach showed her into the study.
They found John at his desk trying to dent his pile of ever-growing paperwork. Abby sat in the chair before his desk. Zach remained standing, watching uneasily as his father clicked on the desk light, illuminating him against the dark wallpaper.
John divided his time between the desk phone he propped on his shoulder so he could talk, and the requisition list his men had given him for the planned incursion into Kai’s stronghold. After listening, John said calmly, “I know, Jimmy, I don’t like having the sword out of our control either, but without this girl we’d have even more operational holes to plug. You know I can’t give you details, but it could also offer greater security to both my men and my informants to
allow her to borrow the blade, and that’s all it is. A loan. Remember, we have plenty of insurance to cover the value.”
He listened again, watching Zach go to the window shade. But when he reached to pull it down, John glared at him so fiercely that Zach’s hand fell. He took to pacing.
Abigail watched this byplay; then she looked sympathetically at poor Zachary William Barrett Travis, the chief of executive Ranger security. Guarding John Travis would not be an easy task. Especially if you were his son.
“Look, I have to go for now,” John finished. “I promise you, we’ll get the blade back when the operation is over. Worst case, I’ll make good on any balance myself to cover the full cost if it goes missing. Good enough?”
When he got the answer he wanted, John put the phone down, making a mock swipe of his brow. “A disgruntled LLC member, the only one of the five that voted no on letting the girl borrow the blade. But I think I convinced him to wait rather than sue me.” He smiled at Abby. “You said you needed to see me right away?”
Abby said without embroidering, “I think Kai has probably imprisoned Ernie Thibodeaux.”
John scowled. “How do you know he didn’t skip?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I think Ernie really cares about Hana. I don’t believe he’d desert her. After all, he’s the one who offered to take her place.”
Zach stopped pacing long enough to say, “For what it’s worth, Dad, I agree.”
John frowned for a moment longer, then said, “Okay, if he’s being held, we have to be even more careful. What if they torture him? I’m sure they know we arrested him, and they also know we often recruit informers. If he talks, even Takeo could be in danger.”
The three exchanged an uncertain look.
But Zach’s expression cleared as he said, “I know one person who can help us figure out what’s happening. I’m going to pick up Ms. Nakatomi.”
“I don’t want her brought here,” John said sternly.
“Under the circumstances, we need to regroup before we start planning the op,” Zach argued. “She’s expecting us to pick her up anyway to do the van reenactment, but I think we should wait a night or two on that. We need to reassess. This changes everything. Instead of reliable intel on what we’re getting into, we have another hostage.”
John groused, “You can question her at headquarters if you want, not here.”
Zach argued, “But she’s been here before. I think she’ll be more open if we question her here.”
John made an impatient gesture, but when he did, the stack of invoices he was initialing fluttered to the floor. As he bent down to pick it up, a slight ping! sounded and then a bullet embedded itself in the wall behind where his head had been a second before.
Chapter 10
John had been around firearms all his life and he knew what a silenced long-range weapon sounded like. He went flat on the floor behind his desk.
Zach swept Abby out of her chair. “Stay down!” Then to his father, “You okay, Dad?” Zach’s heart was racing so fast, he heard his own breathless tone. Good God, he knew the guys behind the murders had to be bold, but this went beyond bold to crazy. Still, time enough to put together all the whys later.
Even the imperturbable John sounded a bit shaken. “Yes, son of a bitch, I can’t believe they took a potshot at me in my own study!”
“Both of you stay put!” Zach crawled to the window, stood to the side and pulled the shade down. “Where’s the radio?” he demanded.
“On the desk. To reach it I’ll have to sit up.”
“Don’t move!”
“Why the hell haven’t the guards reacted outside?”
“I don’t think they heard anything. Can you reach the desk light without sitting up?” Zach inquired.
John fumbled with one long arm, but managed to reach the light and yank the little brass chain. As he did so, another shot pinged, going through windowpane, shade—and John’s hand if he’d been one inch to the left. John shied away, going totally flat on the floor. But the light was out and the room was almost pitch-dark except for the dim light from a wall sconce.
“Holy shit, they must have some kind of imaging equipment,” Zach warned. “Stay there until I get the window covered.”
Still keeping to the side wall, Zach pulled a decorative escritoire out from the paneling. It had long, slender legs and a tall pediment of solid wood that would cover most of the window. Without ceremony, Zach dumped everything in it, including some of his mother’s prized Steuben glass vases and Lladró figurines, onto the floor, oblivious to the shattering of thousands of dollars’ worth of décor. Then he picked the heavy mahogany escritoire up and heaved it against the window. It teetered but stabilized.
“We should be shielded now.” Zach felt secure enough to dash for the radio. With no time for niceties, he muttered, “Take Abigail to the pantry off the kitchen. Wait for me. Get Mom and Consuela too. Take your piece.”
For once, John Travis obeyed someone else’s order.
Running into the hallway to check the door, Zach growled into the radio at their very expensive security detail, “What the hell is wrong with you guys? Don’t you know what a long-range silenced rifle sounds like? They just took two shots at us. Get to the trees outside the wall now. That’s the only place they could be. Now, dammit, before they get away!” Zach went from room to room to check that all was secure, but he didn’t find any broken windows or smashed door locks.
As he passed the pantry on his way to the back door, he rapped on the heavy portal. “Y’all okay in there?”
“Yes. We’re fine,” his father groused. “I don’t like hiding here like a coward, Zach. I want to come out and help catch these bastards.”
“Yes, well, as chief of executive Ranger security I’m telling you to stay put until I get a site rep from the guards. I radioed them to check the trees and I’ve confirmed we’re secure on ingress and egress in the house for now, but I’d rather y’all stay there until I know more. Just a few more minutes.”
Without waiting for his father’s response—for he knew he wouldn’t like it—Zach raced out the door, his own pistol at the ready.
* * *
Inside Ernie’s kitchen, trying to calm herself with peppermint tea, Hana checked her watch for the umpteenth time. Ernie should have been back before now. He’d intended to go with Hana on the route, having just gone through the same routine with the hood and van, except his journey was in daylight. Surely, between the two of them they could find the compound. But it was only an hour before they were supposed to be picked up by the security guys and Ernie still wasn’t back from his earlier meeting with Kai.
To distract herself, Hana pulled the sword out from the secret cupboard where she’d hidden it. Being an expert safecracker gave Ernie unusual perspective on how to secure his most valued possessions. He’d showed her the stash spot when he’d asked her to stay with him. She’d been touched then at his trust of her, but when she pushed and pulled the succession of levers and handles that swung out a side cupboard, she’d found it empty.
She’d looked at him strangely. “I don’t own anything worth going through all these maneuvers.”
Ernie had smiled. “Just in case.”
Now, in his practice ring, as she went through the old moves that were as natural to her as breathing, she wondered if somehow—with that amazing sixth sense of his that made him such an expert sensei—he’d hoped they’d let her borrow the sword.
Both arms raised high above her head, she exhaled on “hai!” simultaneously bringing the sword down. The move was designed to cleave the enemy, clavicle to hip, in a downward left diagonal. As she moved into the upward opposite diagonal, Hana for the first time began to understand why the ancient samurai called exquisite weapons like this five body blades. Merely practicing the moves with Masamune’s masterpiece made her wonder what it would be like to use it on its intended target: human flesh. Would it slice through flesh and bone as cleanly as it had Ernie’s s
traw target?
The sword sang in her hands as it whistled through the air, and then a thought came to her that so upset her, she froze mid-move. Dear heaven, if she felt this way wielding this deadly weapon, how would Kai react? Did she dare let him have the blade, even briefly, as a ploy to get her inside the compound? What if the raid failed and he kept the blade?
She still struggled against the pit-of-her-stomach certainty he was behind the grisly killings. But she also knew if he’d committed such mayhem with an ordinary katana, he’d feel like a shogun with complete dominance once he held this weapon.
She was so upset at that thought that she didn’t hear the first knock. The second one came as a bang, really. At the door.
She wasn’t sure what to do with the sword and finally stuck it in the sheath strapped to her back. It was safest with her because she’d die protecting it.
She unlocked all the heavy door locks and swung the huge hunk of metal open. On the stoop she found two uniformed DPS troopers. Immediately her hackles rose. “Yes?” Just in case this was an unannounced visit, as her immunity agreement stated they could perform until she’d located the compound, she held up her ankle. The blinking light was vivid against her black nylon jumpsuit. She’d put it on to practice while she awaited Ernie.
The older trooper, who looked much more seasoned than his younger partner, said curtly, “Very good, but that’s not why we’re here, ma’am. If you’ll come with us for questioning.”
Hana scowled. Now what? “Why? That’s not part of my immunity agreement.”
“There have been . . . recent developments. I’ve been tasked with bringing you to Deputy Director John Travis at the direct request of his chief of security.”
That was Zachary Travis, Hana knew. Sighing, she stuffed her driver’s license, some cash, and a credit card into an inside zippered compartment in her form-fitting tuck-in blouse. Locking Ernie’s door and pocketing the key he’d given her, she meekly followed the deputies to the cruiser waiting for her, lights blinking. “But the security detail was going to pick me up in about thirty minutes—”
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