Zero Sum (A John Rain Novel)

by Barry Eisler

  I flung away the camera and gripped the tripod case, pulling it hard and clearing the sword as I spun, my left hand coming in for a two-handed grip—

  And saw Victor, moving in not ten feet away, a gardener’s clothes and hat obscuring his identity, a small blade held discreetly at his right side. He pulled up short at the sight of the long length of steel suddenly in my hands, the fading evening light glinting along the hamon.

  “Typical Spetsnaz asshole,” I said with a combat smile. “Bringing a knife to a sword fight.”

  I glanced right and left. I was reasonably sure that, for reasons both logistical and psychological, he would have no one with him. But Doveryai, no proveryai. We were far from the entrance and the pathways, and the area was clear. It was just the two of us.

  Soon to be just one.

  My insult had been calculated. I wanted him to rush me, ideally in a rage, which would be my best chance of exploiting the greater range afforded by the sword. But he didn’t. I’d seen before that Victor’s self-control could sometimes suppress his insanity. For the moment, it seemed, self-control had the upper hand.

  But not entirely. Because a fully sane person, armed only with a knife, would have instantly fled from the sight of that deadly katana, hoping to live to fight another day. It seemed Victor had other priorities. He was going to kill me tonight. Or die trying.

  Which meant his self-control was only barely in charge. If I could goad him just a little, his demons could easily get the upper hand.

  In fact, I had no choice. His willingness to risk suicide gave him an advantage—it would enable him to take chances, to accept even lethal injuries, as the price of killing me. I, on the other hand, determined to live, would be forced to adopt more conservative tactics. Suicidal determination coupled with a measure of control was a daunting combination. There was nothing I could do about the first element. The second, though, I might be able to break.

  “What’s the problem?” I said. “Oleg couldn’t make it? Is he still sick?”

  He pulled off the hat and tossed it aside. “You’re going to die, fuckup guy. You know this, yes?”

  “If I’m fuckup guy, asshole, what does that make Oleg?”

  Even in the dim light, I could see his face darken. I pressed the advantage. “Did you know he shit himself as I was strangling him? It’s true. The hardest thing about killing your buddy was avoiding stepping in his shit.”

  I could see his jaw clench, his nostrils flaring. He knew he shouldn’t rush me. But he wanted to so much.

  “Is that how Spetsnaz tough guys usually check out? Shitting themselves?”

  But it wasn’t enough. He knew what I was doing, and no matter how much the insults must have enraged him, they weren’t putting him over the edge. I realized I needed something else—something even more central to his psychology than his military past. I thought of Tatsu’s briefing, of the note from the orphanage.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I’m sure you’re tougher than he was. After all, your father was a Soviet general, right?”

  He looked at me, a ripple of uncertainty passing across his features, and I went on. “Except he wasn’t,” I said. “Your father was just some nobody Russian grunt, captured by the Japanese after losing a battle, who raped your peasant-girl mother and filled her belly with you.”

  “You fucking lying shit piece,” he said, his voice practically a hiss.

  “Your mother was the liar, Victor. Not that I blame her. She knew the truth would crush you. So she made up a story so you’d think your loser father was a hero.” I felt a flash of inspiration. “And Wilson confirmed it, didn’t he? Told you he was using his CIA contacts to find your father, the great general?”

  He bared his teeth, his eyes burning with hate, and I knew I was onto something. “Does that even make any sense to you?” I said. “How hard is it for the CIA to find a Soviet general? He played you, you dumb shit. Just like your mother. Like everyone. Your whole life is built on a lie so obvious the only one stupid enough to believe it is you. You, Hikaru Yamada. That’s your real name, isn’t it? Victor Karkov, my ass. What a farce.”

  He watched me, everything about him feeling like a volcano about to erupt. “And the best part?” I went on. “The best part is, you knew. Deep down, you always knew. It’s why you’re so desperate for everyone to be afraid of you.” I started laughing. “Isn’t that right? It’s because you’re so afraid yourself. Look at you, all it took was the sight of a little sword and you’re about to piss your—”

  He bellowed something in Russian and rushed me, whether by instinct or some residue of tactical acumen making the move while I was still talking, and therefore inhibited from switching gears to intercept him. But I’d been ready regardless, and as he lunged with the knife, I sidestepped to the left and parried him at the shoulder, raking the katana all the way from triceps to wrist like a chef carving off a slice of meat from a shawarma rotisserie.

  Blood spurted from the long cut, and he snarled and spun in to me, too enraged by my insults even for a tactical retreat. I brought the sword higher, slashing at his neck, but he parried with his knife hand, enduring another deep gash on the forearm, at the same instant reaching around with his free hand and actually managing to grab the blade of the sword.

  I reacted instinctively, jerking the blade from his grasp. Through my adrenalized slow-motion vision, I saw bloody fingers tumbling through the air like spent cartridges from a machine gun, but I realized it didn’t matter, he didn’t care about his fingers, all he cared about was closing at any cost, and before I could bring the blade in again he screamed and slashed at my belly with the knife. The blade scored across the Kevlar plates, and for an instant I saw his eyes flash with animal triumph at the knowledge he had gutted me. But the look changed to fear as he realized something was wrong, I hadn’t grimaced or cried out, the knife hadn’t penetrated. Before he could figure out what had gone wrong and regroup for a more effective attack, I sidestepped left again and brought the sword in low across his right wrist. I traded speed for accuracy, and the blow wasn’t enough to take off his hand. But it sliced him open to the bone. He lost his grip on the knife, and as he instinctively raised his bloody arms to protect his head and neck, I slashed the sword around low, right to left, connecting with his left knee and nearly severing his leg.

  For one weird second, he kept his footing, like a cartoon character racing off a precipice and floating in the instant before gravity asserts itself. Then his leg folded, and he went down. He managed to get out what remained of his left hand and prevent himself from going flat on his face. But there was no question he was done. He struggled to rise, and succeeded only in falling to his back.

  I glanced around, ensuring we were still alone. Then I returned my gaze to Victor. I could have moved in and finished him, but for some reason I didn’t. I watched for a moment as he continued to struggle to get to his feet. Despite everything, I couldn’t help feeling some surprising, reluctant respect for this man, who was so clearly beaten but who refused to die on his back.

  After a moment, he managed to roll to his side, get one leg out, and rise to the knee I had just cut through, his good leg extended before him. He shuddered, then somehow stabilized himself, his ruined hands held out in front of him for balance, blood pouring from his wounds.

  He looked at me, his breathing ragged but his head defiantly high. For an instant, in his eyes and his posture, I saw that long-ago little boy, who every day had stood with his palms pressed against an orphanage window, hoping and waiting for the mother who never returned for him.

  The killing fervor I’d felt so furiously just a moment before was gone. In its absence, I felt the strangest kinship for him. An intimacy. Almost a tenderness.

  He nodded at me—just once, down and then up again.

  I was suddenly aware of how quiet it was on this part of the museum grounds. There was no one around. No one else who could understand what he was asking. Or do it.

  He nodded agai
n, the gesture quicker than the one before, more urgent. This time, I nodded back.

  I stepped behind him. He straightened, still on the knee, and tilted back his head, perhaps so that he might have one last look at the sky. I braced myself, left leg forward, right back, and retracted the sword to my shoulder. For a second, he wobbled, and, before he could suffer the indignity of falling, I swung full force into his neck, cutting clean through from one side to the other.

  His head toppled to the right and his body to the left, blood jetting from the top of his torso, his limbs twitching. It went on for a few seconds. Then the flow of blood began to ebb, and his limbs settled. A single shiver passed through his body, and then was gone, as he was.

  I stood for a moment, my breathing labored, looking down at him in the twilight, that feeling of some strange, poignant bond deepening. It wasn’t something I thought I would ever be able to explain to anyone else. I didn’t understand it myself. It was as though I had done something that was right, but that was also fraught in ways I could sense but not articulate. Something that felt . . . aligned, somehow, congruent, foreordained by fate or some other force for which I had no name. But whatever that force was, I was aware of its weight. Its consequence. Its irrevocability.

  I wanted to wipe the blade on his clothes, but there was too much blood. So I pulled off my jacket, flipped it inside out, and used that instead. Then I turned the jacket right-side out and pulled it back on. Despite the coolness of the evening, I was sweating intensely, and I would have preferred to leave the jacket off. But that would have looked odd. And besides, there was blood spray on my shirt, which the jacket would help cover.

  I retrieved the tripod case, removed the scabbard, sheathed the sword, and laid it next to Victor. In this remote, shadowy spot on the grounds, this late in the day, I doubted the body would be discovered until the next morning. I picked up the camera and slipped the strap over my neck, pausing to confirm I had everything I’d arrived with—camera, case . . . wait, the gloves. The temperature was cool—even cooler on the grounds than it had been on the street—but not that cool. I scrubbed my face in case any blood had hit it, then pulled off the gloves and shoved them into the case.

  I needed to go. But I lingered for just a moment longer, watching Victor. I wasn’t sure why. It just seemed wrong to leave him lying there like that, so unceremoniously, and butchered, and alone. Still, it had been a good death. The one he’d wanted, when he’d seen there was no alternative. The kind I would hope an enemy might bestow upon me under similar circumstances.

  I headed toward the visitors’ gate, trying to shake off whatever it was I was feeling. I kept my head down, reminding myself I was just a salaryman returning from a bit of amateur photography. But I was having trouble performing the role. I felt like something else now. I didn’t know what.

  chapter twenty

  I took a series of cabs to Shinbashi, then walked the rest of the distance to the hotel. I’d stopped at an Ueno Park public restroom to check my appearance on the way out of the museum grounds. The blood on my face and shirt wasn’t too bad, and I was able to rinse off the worst of it at the sink, and obscure the rest with the camera and tripod case.

  Back in my room at the Imperial, I bagged all the potentially contaminated clothes and gear, showered, changed into my street clothes, and went out, dumping everything that might have incriminated me in a series of storm drains. Thinking of the meeting Miyamoto’s boss had instructed him to request for later that night, which I knew was a pretext for the next ambush, I’d decided to keep my homemade armor and Oleg’s knife.

  The evidence of the crime safely discarded, I felt a little more relaxed. I walked east, toward the waterfront.

  It was nearly eight o’clock. Maria’s event would be beginning soon. I had told her I would call. But I needed to clear my head first.

  I reminded myself that she was all right. The only one who had wanted to hurt her was Victor, and he was dead now. And Sugihara would be safe, too, at least for the time being. If Wilson were still intent on killing him even after losing Victor, he was going to need new cutouts. And that would take time.

  I imagined Victor, his body cooling at the dim edge of the museum grounds. I doubted anyone would have found him yet. Or the sword. Or noticed the sword was missing from the storage room, for that matter. But it wasn’t impossible. And it would happen eventually, regardless—if not tonight, then certainly tomorrow—at which point Maria would connect the sword to me. I had considered this in advance, of course, and even toyed with the idea of returning the sword to the storage room, or of keeping it. But going back to the museum with the sword following Victor’s death felt too risky, and keeping it, though tempting, felt worse than risky—it felt wrong. Besides, if it had been discovered missing, rather than found alongside Victor, Maria still would have connected it with me.

  No matter what, though, I was reasonably confident she would say nothing to the authorities, lest our affair come to light. And even if she did, I’d have Tatsu to run interference. But knowing that she would suspect, and might confront me, was sobering. It was one thing to consider it all before the fact. But now . . . I realized I didn’t feel the way I’d expected. After killing Wilson’s man on the train platform, I’d been half-crazed with postcombat lust, to the point where I was ready to take extreme risks just for an hour with Maria. But now, though I still badly wanted to see her, the feeling was tinged with a sadness I didn’t fully understand. I wondered if it was connected to whatever had passed between Victor and me in the moments before I killed him.

  It didn’t matter. She’d told me she would be angry if I didn’t call, and, once Victor’s body and the sword were discovered, my failure to do so would have looked suspicious, as well. So I found a payphone off the warren of streets surrounding the Tsukiji fish market, and dialed her number.

  She picked up after a single ring. “Hello,” she said in English, a certain coolness in her tone. I felt a little adrenaline hit. Had they found Victor’s body sooner than I’d expected?

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s me.”

  “Yes, I thought it might be. Were you going to make me wait until the start of the reception? In another minute, I’ll be late for my own opening.”

  I felt a surge of relief. “No, of course not. I just thought this would be the best time to catch you in your office. I didn’t want to leave word with someone else.”

  There was a pause. “Ah, I suppose maybe I should have thought of that, and planned a time rather than just a day. You know, I’ve been sitting here and getting more and more furious at you. I still am.”

  Imagining her, alone in her office, gorgeous in whatever she was wearing for the reception, and stewing over me instead of thinking about the event, was suddenly an incredibly sexy thought. “What are you wearing?” I said.

  She laughed. “Do you not know it’s dangerous to trifle with an Italian woman when she’s angry?”

  “Is it something I can tear off?”

  I heard her breathe deeply for a moment. Then she said, “No. But I brought something to change into. For later.”

  I felt myself stiffening. “Then you can make it tonight?”

  “Yes. Probably around eleven. And not for terribly long. My husband has to go out with some work people after the reception. I can come then.”

  “I’m at the Imperial.”

  “Good. If you told me another love hotel, I think I would have stood you up.”

  “You’ll like this one. I’ll wait for you in the bar, okay? Just come in as though you’re looking for someone, then leave. I’ll get up and you can follow me up on the elevator.”

  “Ah, you’ve thought about this. Very discreet.”

  “Oh, I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “Mmm, good. So have I. I have to go. I should be there around eleven.”

  She hung up. I blew out a long breath, then waited for my condition to subside before putting the receiver back in the cradle, and rejoining the pedestria
n traffic around me.

  I found another payphone. I thought about calling Miyamoto, but I didn’t need any intel from him, and besides, I didn’t want to do anything that might interrupt the meeting at which I was expected later that night. He’d hear about Victor soon enough, and know what had happened.

  I did call Tatsu, though. He’d been worried about me, even if it wasn’t in his nature to express it with much more than droll asides about my nervousness, and the odd sympathetic grunt.

  “Are you all right?” he asked as soon as I’d let him know it was me.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the concern in his tone. He really had been worried.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Though I’m guessing you’re going to have another homicide investigation on your hands tomorrow.”

  “Victor?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  There was a pause. I knew he wanted to know more, but would know not to say too much over the phone. “Would you like to get together?” he said.

  “I can’t right now, I have something going on. Nothing to worry about. Not that you’d worry about me.”

  He grunted, returning to form.

  “Really,” I said. “It’s nothing dangerous.”

  “I’m not sure you’re the best judge of such things.”

  I laughed. “You might be right. How about tomorrow? Same place, six o’clock? I’ll have more to tell you then, anyway.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. And whatever it is you’re doing tonight, and I’m afraid I can imagine, please be careful. You know the moment following a great victory is when you’re most vulnerable to a new attack.”

  I smiled, feeling good. “I’ll be fine.”

  Yeah. Stupid to the bitter end.

  chapter twenty-one

  Stores were open late because it was Friday night, so I went back to Mitsukoshi in Ginza, where Employee Ito helped me select some new Italian clothes—another sweater, slacks, belt, and shoes, and a brown suede jacket. I told myself the right look would help me blend better at the upscale Imperial. But the truth was more that I wanted to look good for Maria. And hell, I had money to burn now. With Victor dead, I had fifty thousand bucks coming from Miyamoto. And steady work to look forward to after that.