A Bob Lee Swagger Boxed Set

by Stephen Hunter

  “You’re not representing certain American adult-entertainment industry groups? You’re not a professional?”

  “I would have nothing to do with that business. I don’t care for teacher-blowing-Johnny. But I’m professional enough to handle you.”

  “You don’t represent government or any such official entity?”

  “Nope. Did some work for ’em once, didn’t like it.”

  “Who taught you the sword?”

  “Toshiro Mifune.”

  “Who’s the woman?”

  “Pal, I ain’t here to play twenty questions.”

  “What was Philip Yano to you?”

  “A good man with a good family who never deserved what he got.”

  “He was nothing. There are more important things than one obscure family living on a government pension and investments.”

  “I would say, He was everything. I would say, Cut the shit, let’s get cracking. The longer I stand here, the more I feel like breaking your neck.”

  “I spent some time in America. You remind me of a football team captain who ended up a fireman. Stupid, loud, aggressive, but brave. He died on nine/eleven when the tower went down on him.”

  “It makes me sick that a creep like you even knew him.”

  “Yes, he was a hero, as you are. But in a different way. His was samurai’s courage, rash and emotional and caught up in the moment. That I understand. You’ve had weeks to think this over, to consider, to find reasons not to act. Yet you persevere. What drives you on this bizarre personal mission that can end in nothing but disaster for you? I suppose you’ve rationalized it elaborately. Really, I’m curious. Why? Why?”

  “On,” said Bob.

  “On,” scoffed the man. “You can know nothing of on. Obligation. It’s a Japanese concept, endlessly convoluted and twisted. It’s meaningless to any American.”

  “I think I get it pretty well.”

  “Impossible,” he said. “I went to an American high school. I had a year at an American university. I know America. No American could feel on.”

  “Ask your pals at the polisher’s how serious I am. They’d know.”

  “You had the advantage of complete surprise. So possibly the feat is less impressive than you imagine.”

  “Sir, I really don’t give a fuck whether you’re impressed or not. I want the child.”

  “I want the sword.”

  “You can see that I don’t have it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “When I get the child in one hand, I’ll cut your head off with it with the other, and that’s when you’ll know where it is.”

  Kondo reached in his pocket and pulled out a cellular phone.

  “Two days from now, at five thirty a.m., you will receive a phone call on that phone. You will be given a route. You will proceed. I believe you have a motorcycle? I’d wait for the call near the Imperial Palace. That’s centrally located. At five forty a.m. you will get another call. It will direct you to turn. This will continue for a bit until you arrive at a certain destination at around six a.m., though you will have to run some stoplights. But you’d better run those stoplights. If you are late I will cut one of the child’s fingers off. Each minute, one finger. When I run out of fingers, toes. Then there’ll be nothing trivial to cut, so I’ll cut limbs. She’ll probably bleed to death before I get all four off, but if not, I’ll take out each eye, her nose, and her tongue. It means nothing to me. So you had better be on time.”

  “I am really going to enjoy taking your head.”

  “You bring the sword. I will release the child when I have the sword. The initiative is mine, I control the transaction. You may leave with the child. Later I’ll call you on the cellular and set up another appointment. We will settle our business.”

  “It sucks, of course. You could have sixty men there with AKs.”

  “I could. But if you don’t agree, I’ll start cutting the child right now. You doubt it? Look over there.” He indicated and Bob saw, fifty yards away, a large man with a bruised, bandaged face—Bob remembered clocking him hard, twice, at the polisher’s—and Bob saw Miko. The big man had his hands on her shoulders. She looked scared and wan. Her controller turned his hand, and the light caught the blade of a tanto held intimately against her delicate throat. There was also something about his hand, some sexual electricity. You could see he enjoyed the closeness, her smell, her helplessness.

  “That boy will cut her in a second. He is true yakuza, living for obedience to his oyabun.”

  The obscenity of the large, strong young man holding the bright blade against the terrified little girl and enjoying it so much filled Swagger with rage. But rage was not helpful.

  “I’m impressed with how strong you are against little girls,” he said. “That’s quite a trick, but we’ll see how you do with someone with a sharper sword and faster reflexes. My guess is I’ll see fear in your eyes before I cut you down.”

  “We’ll see you in a while, gaijin. Bring Beheader of Kira.”

  “I’ll be there. And when I’m done with you, I’ll donate Beheader of Kondo to a museum.”

  36

  THE WHITE ROOM

  They drove back across Tokyo in a giant black car. Miko sat in the back—on the floor, actually—between the two giant monsters. The two men said nothing to each other or to her. She just sat there, feeling the start and stop of the car in traffic.

  She had recognized the Tin Man, the man from the good memories even if she wasn’t sure what they were, what they meant. This time, he looked at her with such sadness in his eyes, and as she watched, the sadness flashed to rage, then went calm again. But she had caught it, that moment of rage, and somehow from that she took some hope. He knew, somehow. He was on her side. He would save her. But then the two giant monsters roughly returned her to the car, calling her only “Little Girl,” never her name, as if she was the unwanted stepchild. And she drove back to the house, the room.

  The giant monster dragged her out of the vehicle. In a kind of courtyard, she caught a brief flash of fresh air. The courtyard was walled, somewhere in the city, and she could hear the sounds of traffic, see apartment buildings off in one direction. She had the impression of many men. They seemed to lounge everywhere, young men without women, all in black suits, all somehow tough or ready to fight. They scared her, as they gambled or joked or looked at magazines, or boisterously shoved each other around. She knew they were some kind of army.

  The giant monster took her upstairs to a white room. She knew it well. It contained a bed and a television set. There were no toys or books or dolls. The windows were painted white. There was a bathroom attached. Three times a day, she was brought food, usually by one of the angry young men or by the giant monster with the swollen face who was her primary keeper. It was always takeout food, hamburger from McDonald’s or fish cakes, or pork cutlets wrapped in paper bags, or some such, a Coke in a cardboard cup. An hour later, wordlessly, someone would return, unlock the door, and take the garbage out. Meanwhile, she just sat and watched the television, or sat in the whiteness thinking and remembering, or sat in the whiteness crying.

  “Little Girl,” said the Monster, “you know the rules. You stay here. You obey. If you do not obey, I will punish you. I believe in punishment. Your parents did not punish you hard enough. I will punish you severely. Do you understand?”

  “How long—”

  “Be quiet! Little Girl, ask no questions. You need to know nothing. Be a good little girl or we will have to punish you.”

  Then he locked her in her room.

  “Nii, come here,” said Kondo.

  “Yes, Oyabun.”

  “How’s the eye?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “What did you think of him this time?”

  “Without a sword, he’s just another man, Oyabun.”

  “He seemed calm. That impressed me. He had a moment when he saw the child and his eyes flared. He felt rage. But then he controlled it. He knew that if he
tried anything, you would have cut the child’s throat.”

  “Yes, Oyabun.”

  “Nii, you would have cut the child’s throat, right?”

  “Yes, Oyabun.”

  “Sometimes I worry, Nii. Of them all, I trust you the most. These fellows are hard and tough and will obey and fight, even the new ones. But your job, Nii, that is the hardest. I cannot believe the gaijin won’t try something. And it may be that you will have to kill the child. You must be samurai. You must be Shinsengumi. You must be Eight-Nine-Three. You must be all will and no heart.”

  “Yes, Oyabun.”

  “You can’t go sentimental on me in some appalling way. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are kobun. I am oyabun. You understand that. All things flow from that.”

  “I stand ready.”

  “I can’t imagine that it could happen, but if there’s an attack, you will proceed directly to the child and cut her throat.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Oyabun. Why—why do you ask?”

  “Because I am aware that you have some feelings for this child.”

  “Oyabun, I—”

  “No, I’ve seen you in her presence. You cannot tear your eyes away. You look back. On the drive over, you kept looking down at her. When you hold her, I see a certain passion in your limbs. You enjoy holding her.”

  “Oyabun. It’s nothing. I swear to you, she is nothing, it—”

  “I understand how comely the child is. I understand how her form can seduce you.”

  “She is but an object.”

  “Nii, don’t lie to me. I am your oyabun.”

  Nii swallowed harshly, caught in his lie.

  “Nii, listen to me. I must know that you can kill her. Because if I don’t know it, then they will also sense it. It will embolden them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Oyabun.”

  “So listen to me. Before you kill her, fuck her. Once you are done with her, she is no longer a little princess. She is a whore, used by you for momentary pleasure and now defiled, tarnished, made dirty. She is nothing more than that Korean cow we slaughtered in Kabukicho. At that point, you can cut her and walk away.”

  Nii saw the logic. He liked the logic.

  “Do you hear me, Nii? Before you kill her, fuck her.”

  “I hear, Oyabun.”

  “Good kobun. Good student. I know I can count on you.”

  37

  STRATEGY

  “Here is our best option,” said Susan Okada glumly. They sat at a table at the Roppongi Starbucks, among software designers, clothing salesmen, mothers, teenage girls and boys with pins in their noses and lips. “I have thought this over and it could work. I go to the ambassador. I explain the situation, its urgency, the timing. He goes to the prime minister. They go to the minister of the Interior. We get some sort of dispensation, and we make guarantees. Of no, or at best minimal, collateral damage. If we get their okay—notice I’m bypassing the Tokyo police and the whole infrastructure in which Miwa and Kondo may have influence—we can move a SEAL team in from Okinawa. Most of the teams are in the Middle East, but Seven is in Okinawa and they’re very good. They’ve done stuff you wouldn’t believe in North Korea and on the Chinese coastline. So when you get that call at five thirty a.m., Seven is above you in a helo, they follow you to the location, and we air-insert fast. We have Japanese police cooperation to the point that we’ve got the park or whatever it is cordoned off, so no civilians will get shot. So SEAL Team Seven takes out Kondo and Miwa, if he’s there. Seven prevails. We get the little girl, you are not dead, Kondo and Miwa are dead or behind bars, Seven flies back to Okinawa, and we have our happy ending.”

  “All due respects, ma’am, you can’t fight them on their ground when they’ve had time to set up their ground. Lesson number one from Vietnam. When they hear them choppers, they kill the little girl. The SEALs are still at five thousand feet, drinking their coffee. When they land, the only thing there is a dead child. Maybe I’m dead too. Meanwhile, everybody in Tokyo hears the choppers and in two minutes there are fifty TV news crews on the spot. When the Japanese hear Miwa is involved, they go nuts. It ain’t going to work.”

  “Swagger, I never said it was perfect. But we have been dealt a crap hand and it’s the best I can do with a crap hand. It controls collateral, it gets the best hostage rescue team on earth in play to save Miko, it takes out the bad guys hard, and it’s over in seconds.”

  “It’s full of things that can’t be controlled.”

  “There are no other options. Oh, except the one where you go, you give them the sword, they kill you, they kill Miko because she’s a witness, they disappear, and then the whole thing happens as planned and Yuichi Miwa is reelected head of that Japanese porno association, drives out the Americans, and convinces himself he’s a great patriot because he’s kept Japanese blow jobs Japanese.”

  “No, there’s another option. Night raid. Before they move to the site. We go in under cover of darkness and we get the child out. Then, when she’s gone and safe, we settle up. We do it with swords, so there’s no gunfight in downtown Tokyo to make the noon news and the cover of Time.”

  She laughed.

  “Are you joking? It’s fine, except A, we have no idea where they are, where they’re keeping her, and we have no fast way to find it. If I had a thousand men and a week I could probably find out. I have less than forty-eight hours and we are talking the biggest city in the world. And B, we have no people. I couldn’t get a SEAL team on a mission like that, because nobody above me would approve it. So who goes? You alone? You’re a good operator, I know that. You’re not that good, nobody’s that good. You can’t go alone.”

  “No, I’m not that good.”

  “I return to point A: even if you find the people to go along, you don’t know where Miko is. You have no idea where they have her.”

  “They can be found in ten minutes.”

  “Come on.”

  “Maybe five.”

  “Swagger, are you off the wagon again? How on earth would you—”

  “I didn’t say I could find them. I couldn’t find them. But I know somebody who could.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “You, Okada-san.”

  She just looked at him.

  “I’m guessing assistant head of station, chief of operations, Central Intelligence Agency, Tokyo Embassy. Code Name: SCREAMING BITCH.”

  “Christ,” she said.

  “You are so Agency, it’s written all over you. You must think I’m as dumb as I look and sound. I’ve been around you guys all my life. I worked with the Agency to recover a Sov sniper rifle in ’Nam back in ’seventy-three. I helped the Agency with its housekeeping in the matter of a deputy director named Ward Bonson who wasn’t exactly who he said he was six years ago. So I know Agency.”

  “My code name isn’t SCREAMING BITCH,” she said.

  “I know. I was trying to be funny.”

  “It’s MARTHA STEWART. I hate it, but there you have it.”

  “Some jerk at headquarters hung that on you?”

  “He did. I’ve made some enemies.”

  “You must be good, then. Anyhow, here’s how I figure it. You tell me how close I am. This whole thing has been Agency from the start. The object was to find out who killed Philip Yano and his family. Because Philip Yano was your man and always had been. He was getting you the Japanese stuff on a target like North Korea or China.”

  “Something like that.”

  “That’s why he had such a good career. That’s why he got all the choice American schools, and he got the big job in Iraq, and got to go into battle finally. They even postponed his retirement for him to lead his men. And he did well, except he lost an eye.”

  “He was a very fine man. I had the privilege of running him during his last three operational years. He never betrayed his country, and he served ours brilliantly. We were very lucky to have him
on the team.”

  “Then, two years into his retirement, he gets whacked, and so does his family. Now, you have a problem, a big problem. Who killed Philip Yano? Has your outfit been penetrated? Did someone outside the need-to-know list figure it out? Did the Chinese kill him? Did the North Koreans? Did a disaffected Japanese group kill him? Or, always a possibility, could it have nothing to do with his career in your business? Could it just be random shit going down, the way it always does in the wicked, wicked world? Things are made more urgent by the fact the Japanese themselves don’t seem too eager to solve the mystery. Why? Who’s pulling strings? What’s going on? What does it mean?”

  She nodded. “I knew you have an instinct for this kind of work.”

  “Maybe so. Anyway, someone comes up with the idea of hiring the eight ball, the wild guy from way outside—”

  “Me, actually.”

  “I thought so. What an answer to all your prayers I was: I know nothing, ain’t a part of no system, but I got the advantage that I don’t take no for an answer, I don’t mind busting heads, I ain’t afraid of the red stuff, and I knew and loved Philip Yano. That’s how come Al Ino was able to get me such a good phony passport, that’s why someone knew where I was to ship me the Yano autopsy file, that’s why you’ve been so interested in me, and here I thought it was my redneck good looks and my real tight blue jeans.”

  “Your jeans are too tight, Swagger,” she said morosely. Then she added, “I don’t see how you breathe. Anyhow, North Korea. Not China, but North Korea. Phil had access to the Japanese networks there, he knew everything about it. He was months ahead of everybody.”

  “Yes, and that’s why, two days ago, you pulled the plug. When you found out Phil Yano died because Bob Lee Swagger gave him a sword that, one in a million, turned out to be the one that some old guy used to cut some other old guy’s head off three centuries ago, and that it had nothing to do with the North Koreans. No American national interest. None of our business. It was like a traffic accident, that’s all. Tough, sad, too bad, but not a part of your operation, so it was time to pull the plug. Game over, investigation over, Swagger go home.”