Deshi (32 page)

I wondered how much time I had. Whatever the reality of the whole tanren ritual, it was clear that Kita had arranged a special reception for me. That’s why I was on a special trail. I knew too much, the Mongol had said. And it was clear what happened to those who knew. Sakura. Hoddington. Kim. And perhaps Yamashita and Changpa as well.

But was the guilty little secret embedded in the inka something that Kita was willing to kill for? Part of me couldn’t believe it. A forged certificate of mastery seemed like such little thing. It was clear that Kita had skill: his ki projection alone was astounding. And from what I had seen of his students, they seemed competent enough. Why even bother with the inka?

But the need for legitimacy is a powerful thing. Especially among the masters of the martial arts. They are conduits of wisdom, of the experience of master warriors, compiled over centuries. It’s gathered into a curious treasure of insight and technique that they hoard jealously. Possession of a thing like the inka is almost mystical in its bestowal of prestige.

If Kita were building an empire, legitimacy would be an important thing. You’d think this would only be true in Asia, but American students are funny that way. In some ways, they’re even worse. Maybe it’s that most of our roots are so shallow here: we tend to stand in awe of genealogies that stretch back into time. And in the martial arts world students seem to hunger for a connection to the old times, the ancient warrior ways. You can argue that it’s a psychological need and it has nothing to do with technique. Which is true. But the need is a powerful one nonetheless. Everything I saw of the Yamaji told me Kita was working hard to exploit this need. And to be revealed as a fraud would threaten everything he had worked for.

But there was more. Most of my recent energy had been focused on bodywork, but the mind churns on despite us sometimes. And it had been working all night, just below the threshold of consciousness. I had been making connections.

Kim had suspected something about Kita. The kid might have turned out to be a real journalist—he had a good nose and smelled something, even if he couldn’t nail it down. And he’d done his homework as well. The background on Kita’s travels in Tibet. The list of Buddhist masters he’d studied with. And the sad roster of executed or imprisoned lamas. He had collected it all and was probably still trying to make the pieces fit when he somehow got hold of Kita’s inka. When alarm bells went off, Kim had scrambled to what he thought was safety and tried to find people to help him make sense of things. And the killing began.

But I think too much.

I tried to use the streambed as much as I could, vaulting from rock to rock. It was better than winding through the brush along the sides. I’d been torn at enough for one day. But it was tough going in spots, the rocks jagged and tilted at crazy angles. And the sound of water masked any other noises. I looked frequently up to my left, to the ridge line where I knew the trail was. I dreaded seeing him looking down at me, the Mongol, looming there. It made me scramble faster, afraid to be at a disadvantage. But at the same time, part of me was simultaneously worrying about what I would find at the top.

The air was soaked with moisture, and the light was a sickly grayish green. The sun never burned through the cloud cover that morning. If anything, it got thicker and the air only grew stiller. It seemed like the only things moving were the water, tumbling downhill, and me, gasping and scratching my way up.

You set your mind to it. You ignore the pain. It’s going to be with you anyway, so you just try to accept it. My skin burned in spots. But I had burned before. The breath scraped up and down my throat and the sweat stung my eyes and the cuts on my head. I must have had a few broken ribs. At one point, my stomach heaved and I retched painfully. But there wasn’t much in there to come out. It left a thick, bitter taste in my mouth. I leaned down and scooped some water up to my lips at one point. I was moving too fast and whacked my nose accidentally: my eyes teared up again.

On either side of me, my way was bound by rocks and dark, silent trees. It was a hard, unforgiving path that I moved along. To most people, it would not have looked like much of a way to anywhere. It depends, I suppose, on where you’re heading and how badly you want to get there. I struggled through the terrain, accompanied by a jerky interior dialogue.

Again. You’re in one of those weird situations again.
The moss on rock is fragile: my foot slipped and tore the green away. Down I went.
Shuddup.

I hope Sarah called Micky. I hope she’s all right.
A tree trunk three feet thick lay across the stream like a dam. I started to lean my stomach on it so I could pivot my legs up and down onto the other side. The sharp pain reminded me of my ribs.
Yeah, well, she’s tougher than she looks. And it can’t be helped. Gotta deal with things.
There was a hard rationality to the thought. It was almost Yamashita-like. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I knew I didn’t like the tree. Most days I would have simply jumped up on the trunk. I was learning caution, however. And saving my strength.

You better hurry.
I made a misstep and came down hard on my backside, sliding down waist-deep into the current.
Yamashita’s waiting for you.
I surged forward.
You better hope he’s got a plan.
More rocks. Jagged tree limbs set like old weapons. The water, dark and cold and uncaring, moving away from me.

No,
I thought grimly.
Get your own plan.

The forest changed as I climbed. Pines took over, and their needles carpeted the forest floor. I left the stream, heading off to my left to find the trail. I looked down the long chute of the streambed for a minute, feeling a dull sense of accomplishment, then jogged off into the woods. The ground was softer here. Or my feet were simply numb. After a while, the rhythm of movement returned, the well-known cadence of breath and body, spiced with pain. The sensations were at least a bit familiar; a comfort in a strange place.

I pounded along, ragged and muddy. I watched the woods and although my eyes were busy in the here and now, my brain began chanting. It was an odd snippet of prayer, part of an old psalm, written by someone who knew about life’s hard edges:

Blessed be the Lord, my rock,
Who trains my arms for battle,
Who prepares my hands for war.

I thought of what might be laying ahead at the end of the gauntlet. The way to live life is not to let your imagination rob you of courage. You need to prepare for what lies ahead, but you can’t focus on that alone and let fear bleed your spirit away. It’s the same with dwelling on the past. It can serve as an anchor. But you need to be fully present in the here and now. Changpa would like that idea. And Yamashita would support him, but quietly remind me that you also need to plan to endure.

I smiled grimly. I’ve learned that, above all.

24
STEEL RAIN

The flat ceiling of cloud cover had begun to churn. You could sense it growing denser, a restive blanket of water and wind. As the clouds thickened, moving with increased energy, the surface of the sky began to coil and twist, as if huge serpents lurked just beneath the surface. The light, dim and green in the forest, was pink in the clearing on the mountain, as if everything you saw was tinged with blood.

They were clustered around an area nearest the trailhead. Kita was there, dressed in jet-black robes. He seemed to swell in the air’s turbulence, drawing energy from the gathering storm. His retinue of spear-carrying followers was with him. One ceremoniously held a bow and a quiver of arrows. Another held up a long sword. It was the type of formal weapons display common years ago in feudal Japan for individuals of high rank. I thought it was a little over the top, even for the Yamaji. It was a fleeting insight that might have been useful a while ago. But things had spun too far out of control.

Yamashita was there with them as well. I checked my first impulse to go to him and moved stealthily through the under-growth instead, biding my time. Because the Mongol was nowhere in sight.

I circled the clearing, noting that there were other paths leading to the oblong slash in the trees where Kita and Yamashita waited. I glimpsed a gravel access road across the clearing. A few cars parked there explained how the bunch of them got there. There was also the path I was to have completed. And an old logging trail, narrowed so much by the resurgent forest that it appeared like a dark shaft, a tunnel leading down into the woods.

The wind stirred, and leaves hissed like the sound of distant fires. It covered the noise of my movement as I circled warily, just out of sight in the underbrush. I moved closer, watching. There was a certain fascination to Kita. He lifted his head into the wind and his long hair began to dance. His eyes closed, as if he were feeling the currents of pressure and temperature that swirled around us with senses calibrated in a different way from the rest of us. I shuddered: you try not to look too much at someone like that. Even normal people are sometimes sensitized to the energy given off by someone watching you intently. I was afraid that, at any moment, Kita’s eyes would snap open and his head would swivel toward me, pinning me with an invisible force.

Yamashita regarded the sky and then looked down the mountain trail that I was expected to arrive on. It was difficult to hear everything they said—the wind was starting to whip old leaves around the clearing, and it snatched their words as well. But there was concern from Yamashita about the delay in my arrival.

The Mongol slipped into view at the trailhead. One minute the dark hole in the forest was empty, the next it was filled with his presence. He trotted easily to Kita, bowing and reporting to him in a low voice.

“My student shares your concern for your pupil, Yamashita-san,” Kita said. “He fears that perhaps an accident has occurred…”

Yamashita looked around, at Kita and his impassive students. At the woods, where leaves were showing their light undersides and the tops of trees were beginning to whip around. His eyes were narrowed into slits as he measured the situation. He, too, sensed invisible currents.

“I will go,” my teacher said, and turned toward the trail.

I had drawn breath and was beginning to move out into the open when a shout stopped me.

“Don’t!” a voice called.

“Don’t go,” another added. “It’s a trap!”

They must have come on foot along the gravel road. Sarah Klein, Stark, and the Rinpoche. I didn’t know whether to be glad to see her, or just worried that she was now closer than ever to danger. All their faces were dark with concern and effort. And, at their cry, Kita’s students began to move. There were six of them in addition to the Mongol, and there was a smooth, deliberate flow to what they did. The ceremonial bow and sword were dropped and the spears were leveled in a protective ring around Kita, long black shafts tipped with steel that gleamed dully in the weird light. The Mongol stood close to Kita, gripping the shaft of his weapon with huge hands.

Stark hurried across the grass. Changpa laid a restraining hand on Sarah and they remained near the cars at the road’s end. At least he had some sense. But not Stark. “Please, Shihan,” he called as he approached and bowed to his master, “this is not necessary.”

The energy crackled out of Kita. The air was already humming with electricity as the storm approached, but his anger brought it up another notch. Stark flinched as if he had been struck.

“
Bakka
,” Kita hissed. Idiot. “How dare you interfere with the ceremony?” Even at this point, Kita was maintaining a façade. Later, when I thought about it, I realized that I shouldn’t have been surprised. He had labored so long and hard on creating it. And as it began to shatter, he grew defensive.

Stark was clearly afraid, but he held his ground. I’ll give him that. Kita’s arm shot out, a black blur driving into the nerve plexus in Stark’s chest. He collapsed almost silently to the ground.

The sudden, unexpected brutality of it made me move involuntarily. “Sensei!” I called and stepped into view so Yamashita could see me. The Mongol growled at the sight of me and Kita shot a look at him that was filled with equal parts venom and confusion. The ritual was not following the script he had developed.

“It’s over, Kita,” I called to him. “The secret is out. I know, and others will, too.”

His eyes bore into me, his form still despite the force of the wind whipping around us. You could see the effort it took to compose himself, but he pulled it off. “What can you know?” he asked, and he made his voice sound intrigued, not threatened. But his eyes darted around the expectant faces in the clearing.

I gestured at the Mongol, a hulking, angry presence whose mood seemed to be part of the increasingly violent air around us. “He’s a murderer,” I said. “I don’t know whether he did it alone or had help. But he killed Sakura.”

“Ridiculous!” Kita scoffed. “We are seekers of wisdom here. My disciples would never…”

“How nice. All here together.” Another voice broke in as someone else emerged from the undergrowth. He was one of the Chinese coaches, his navy blue tracksuit making him look plain and small in contrast to Kita. But there was an energy to him that was more than a match for the master of the Yamaji. Kita looked at him with something like fear in his eyes. Han relaxed a little: you could see it in the set of his shoulders. The look that passed between the Mongol and the man in the track-suit was enough to spark a memory of where I had seen the face before: in the FBI surveillance photos Charlie Wilcox had given us. It was Wu Tian.

Wu had a small automatic pistol in his hand. One of his eyes was closing and it looked like he had been hit pretty hard on the side of the head. He didn’t seem happy, no matter what he was saying.

“Yes,” he went on, “how nice. All of our concerns tied up in one little package.” He looked at me, then Yamashita. It was like being sized up by a viper. The he turned on Kita and Han. “I am not happy with the sloppiness here, Han. Now we will have to adapt to a new plan.” The Mongol hung his head slightly, a giant, murderous child cowed by some power I couldn’t quite fathom. “And you,” whipping around to let Kita feel the full power of his anger. “I told you I wanted any and all links eliminated!” His English was excellent, but he still had trouble with the “l’s.” “When you are no longer of use, Kita, you merely become a liability.”