Enzan: The Far Mountain (25 page)

I waited and outside the stars wheeled in cold formation.

In that state there was little sensation of time passing. But eventually I rose, working my stiff legs and glancing at my teacher.
Something
. Yamashita’s head swiveled slowly in my direction and our eyes locked. I made a gesture and he nodded.

I slipped out into the hallway, through the hondo and into the main entrance hall. I paused, straining to catch a repetition of the sound I had just heard. I eased the front door open and peered down the wide irregular pathway that cut through the snow like a trench. Nothing moved. No lights, no sound. The cold was a jagged thing and I closed my mouth to breathe, feeling the air cutting at my nostrils.

I watched for a time, then headed through the first floor of the right-hand wing of the building toward the kitchen. One path to the woodpile began at Yamashita’s room; the other began at the kitchen. Yamashita had the one covered. It was my job to secure the second. The kitchen had a long drying rack piled with clothing: hats and gloves and scarves, as wet and limp as their owners sleeping upstairs. I pulled my boots on, shrugged into a coat.

The drifts from the path we had shoveled closed in on either side of me, higher than my head. I moved slowly down the trench and everything around me was the ghostly grey-blue of nighttime snow. I swiveled my head back and forth, scanning for sound. But whatever I had heard—if I had heard it—was gone. I reached the broad lean-to that sheltered the firewood. The stacks stretched out on either side of me. I knew the left-hand path that led to Yamashita’s door was there somewhere, but I couldn’t see it for the drifts. I paused in the shadows under the lean-to roof, waiting. I caught a sense of something—a muffled thump, the sibilance of displaced snow—and crouched down.

He dropped down into the trench and a small cascade of snow slid down with him. A dark figure, muffled against the cold, wearing a facemask and goggles. He was wearing snowshoes and had a rifle strapped across his back.

He paused, still crouched, and peered up and down the trench. I looked away as his head turned in my direction. The old sensei say people can sometimes feel another’s gaze on them. I wasn’t too sure, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I held my breath, just one shadow among many in the woodshed.

He took another slow look around, then started to undo his snowshoes.

I came churning out of the woodshed at him, drawing my knife, my feet digging for purchase in the snow. He heard me coming and stood up, kicking the snowshoes away and reaching around for his rifle. But there was no time. I was moving too fast. He must have realized it at the last moment because he brought his arms out in front of him and threw himself to the other side of the trench. The slight change in trajectory I had to make threw me off. My boots slipped in the snow. I hit him, but not as hard as I wanted to. He slammed down at my forearm. My nerves buzzed and he slammed me again and the knife was gone from my hand.

We hit the sidewall of snow and he struggled free, backing up toward the woodpile. He needed the space to bring his gun to bear, I knew that. I had to stay close, to keep on him. He backpedaled furiously and stumbled across the floor of the lean-to. I heard the dull ring of dried wood as logs rolled off a stack. I peered into the shadows looking for my target.

He came out with an ax in his hand.

He knew what he was doing with that thing; I’ll give him that. A single-bladed ax, a woodcutter’s ax, has got a heavy poll so it can bite deep. It’s meant to be swung hard at stationary objects. A heavy head and a long handle don’t make it the most nimble of weapons. He was a big guy, but not big enough to fight gravity and mass and turn the ax into a rapier.

So he used it as a bludgeon. He came at me, thrusting the top of the ax head at me, using the tool like a battering ram. I dodged him and circled to my right. He came at me again, driving me back against the stacked cords of wood. He feinted at my face, and when my hands came up, he reared back and took a swing.

I pushed in toward him, desperate to get inside the blade’s arc. I headbutted him, slamming up against his chin. It hurt me, but probably hurt him more: I heard the chill click of his teeth snapping together. The ax buried itself in the wood behind me and I slipped away.

There was a hatchet hanging on a peg on the wall. I had used it for chopping kindling earlier in the day. It was an old tool, the wooden handle worn smooth over decades, the metal head old and dark. But it was sharp enough. I knew that.

I fell against a post and snow spilled down from the roof above us. My hands scrabbled desperately, closing around the hatchet just as he reached me. I could hear the whoosh of the ax blade coming at me. I sank down under the attack.

There’s a real danger of emotional paralysis in these conditions—the desperate alarm that someone is coming at you to snuff your life out, the urge to somehow stall and play for time:
Maybe he’ll change his mind
. It’s one illusion I’ve set behind me. If anything, the little voice inside me was shrill and insistent
:
Finish it! Finish it now!

Because here’s the thing about fighting in general and fighting in the snow in particular: Time is your enemy. Your heart is racing and you’re panting. The lactic acid is building up in your muscles, slowing you down. And in the snow your footing is never certain, all the cold-weather gear protects the targets, and the cold stiffens the fingers and makes your grip weak. I knew it had to end soon. We could flail around for a while, hacking at each other like inept Vikings, but sooner or later one of us was going to drop a weapon and then it would be over.

There was no time for finesse, no big swing leading to a final payoff. It was all going to be short, furious, and brutal. It had to be.

I was moving down and to my right and the ax tore a chunk out of the pole where I had been just a moment before. He loomed up next to me, dark and thick, swaddled in some sort of insulated jumpsuit with heavy boots. There were only so many good target options, places where a blow would do some damage. I scrambled to get to one side of him and as I did I backhanded the hatchet against his knee using the blunt end.

He grunted and one of his hands left the ax handle to reach for his leg. It was a reflex move, but the type of opening I needed. I straightened up and slammed the head of my weapon down on the ax handle. I could hear the buzzing resonance of the blow along the wooden shaft of his weapon. The ax pinwheeled out of his reach.
It’s the cold, buddy. Makes it hard to hang on
. He backpedaled as I swiped at him with another backhanded blow, abandoning the ax that lay there in the churned-up snow. His goggles had somehow gotten pulled down and I could see his eyes glinting at me. They flicked toward the corner—where the ax lay. In the clear cold air, my world slowed down for me in the odd, languid unspooling of time some sensei say you can experience in a fight. I saw him reach back and fling a piece of wood at my head. It arced lazily toward me and I pivoted away from it with ease. He feinted to my right, but I knew what he was doing. Time dragged across the world and I stood there, in the still space between one of life’s pulses and the next, and waited as he dodged one way, then the other, driving left toward the ax.

And then in a flash, I stepped in, bringing the blade down on his exposed neck. Time resumed its normal pace.

He collapsed with a sigh and I smelled the blood, hot spray in the frigid air, and heard my own desperate and labored breathing.

Off to my right, there was the flash and boom as a shotgun lit up the night in Yamashita’s room.

Chapter 25

It was like one of those nightmares where you are running and don’t seem to be getting anywhere. The long snowy trench hemmed me in on either side as I scrambled toward Yamashita’s room. There had been more than one shot, a scream, and crashing noises. I worried I wouldn’t get to them in time.

I scrambled and slid along the snow-covered path, the high drifts throwing the sound of my breathing back at me. Lights were coming on in the monastery and I could hear far-off voices shouting in alarm. The sky was slowly bluing above me and dawn was creeping into the world. When I skidded to a stop, the French doors to Yamashita’s room were wide open. There was a form crumpled on the floor in the dark. Apprehension rippled its way along my gut. My fingers played along the smooth wood of the hatchet and I realized with some surprise I was still holding it.

Lights came on inside. I glimpsed shattered glass and wood, smelled the acrid sting of gunpowder, and saw a body on the floor, covered in a thermal jumpsuit. Yamashita slipped into view, the ax handle gripped casually by his side.

Our eyes met. “You good?” I gasped. He nodded. “Chie?”

“Fine.”

I gestured at the broken glass on the floor. My hand was still holding the hatchet. In the strengthening light, I saw the blood on the blade and dropped it in the snow. “I see your little trick worked.”

Yamashita had set the dressing room mirror up to reflect his seated image through the doorway. The two of us had worked to make sure the angles were correct, that the line between mirror and chair and mirror and doors created the illusion my sensei wanted. When we were done, anyone coming up the entrance in the dim light would see Yamashita sitting in a chair, facing out through the doors. Now he nodded to me in satisfaction.

“I can’t believe it worked,” I told him.

He squatted down to examine the body in front of him. “In moments of stress, people see what they want to see.” He tugged a shotgun out from underneath the body. It was a lethal-looking black pump model with combat grips and no shoulder stock. Later I learned it was a Remington Model 870 MCS and the company’s website said it was “the ultimate choice for virtually any close-range scenario.” But not this one, obviously.

“How’d you do it?”

Yamashita straightened up and handed me the weapon. “I left the door open. He came through and shot at the reflection in the mirror.” My teacher held up the ax handle, a shaft of wood about as long as the wooden bokken we use to train. “The rest was fairly straightforward.”

“I heard at least one other shot.”

“True. He was swinging toward me and I could strike at his left arm only. I knocked the barrel down but he managed to jerk the trigger.” Yamashita gestured into the room where there was a chewed-up spot on a rug. “He was not a particularly good assassin. More dangerous to the floor than to people.”

By this time the roshi had arrived, his face pale and appalled. The guy from the Tenth came up behind him and squatted, checking the body for a pulse. After a time, he looked up at us.

“There’s another one out by the woodshed,” I told him.

He swallowed. “Like this?”

“A little messier.” It was callous and I saw the roshi blanch.

Yamashita took my arm and led me outside. “This is but the first wave, Burke. We can expect …” his words were cut off by a loud crash and all the lights in the building suddenly went out.

“Get Chie,” I urged. “Move her into another location.”

He nodded and handed me the shotgun. “Work the perimeter, Burke. They will be focused inward.” He reached into his robe and brought out a handful of shells. He saw my look and shrugged. “I went through his pockets before the roshi arrived.” Then he disappeared into the dark building.

I moved down the trench, thankful that the snowdrifts blocked the ability of anyone on the first floor to spot me. I saw the small cascade of snow that marked the spot where the man with the shotgun had dropped onto the path. Like the other man, he had been wearing snowshoes. I put them on, fumbling with the unfamiliar bindings, my fingers stiff with cold. Then I climbed up into the snow and rolled away from the building.

The sun was rising but the long row of hills to the east meant the sunlight was just touching the higher parts of the trees, a warm rose color in that world of white and frigid blue. Much of the monastery’s grounds were still in shadow. I followed the tracks into the tree line and found the snowmobile that the two of them had ridden in on. I realized it was the sound of the approaching four-stroke engine that had alerted me to the attack in the first place.

I left the snowmobile huddled in the woods and worked my way around the building’s perimeter, crouching low and searching for signs of anyone else. It was slow going, but hard work nonetheless. I could feel sweat dripping down my spine even though the icy air was burning my face.

I looped around the kitchen wing toward the front entrance. If they had used the two paths dug in the rear, chances were good that they would also send people in by the front trench. When I brought the front of the building into view, my heart sank. There was a cluster of four big black snowmobiles near the main entrance.

I stumped along the monastery wall, scanning for any activity outside: a sentry or rear guard. But the entrance was deserted, the wide door standing ajar. I got as close to the steps leading into the building as possible, then tore off my snowshoes, wading through the deep snow until I got to the cleared area. From inside I heard voices raised in alarm, then two quick shots. A woman screamed.

I tumbled down a snowdrift and crouched low, moving for the doorway. I was worried about the silhouette I would present as I came through the entrance. Even though the light was still faint, the white backdrop of snow would isolate my silhouette. I hoped Yamashita had it right and all the attackers’ energies would be focused inward. I pressed myself against the wall and slowly moved into the building. I ghosted through the dim foyer and then froze.

Twenty feet away and directly across from me, the roshi was sprawled on the floor with a stunned look on his face. Blood flowed across his shaven head and he seemed like a man for whom the world had ceased to make sense. To my left, Yamashita was standing, his face immobile but his eyes glittering with anger. A dark figure in a bulky jumpsuit stood guard beside him, covering him with a pistol. You rarely see my sensei visibly angry. Part of me measured the space between him and the man with the gun, calibrated both the distance and my teacher’s fury, and came up with the certainty that once things started, Yamashita would be all over the gunman.

This is what a lifetime of training does to you. However hard the hammering of my heart, the dry acrid feel in my mouth, my brain was calculating options. It’s all angle and distance, the math of force, size, and the physics of velocity and impact. I needed to be sure how many targets there were and where they were. A tiny voice way down inside me was keening about impending disaster, but if you listen to the whine of the rational too much, you’d never pick up a sword to begin with. I went back to identifying targets.

With Yamashita:
one
. Just out of the foyer directly in front of me, a bulky form partially obstructed my view—someone facing inward by the door.
Two
. There were four snowmobiles parked outside, so there had to be at least four people—maybe as many as eight. I gripped the shotgun and considered. Five shells. And once things started, there would be no time to reload. The hysterical little voice inside me was screeching that numbers don’t lie. But I kept scanning, trying to work out a plan of action, knowing that there was no avoiding it, that whatever situation had knocked the roshi to the floor was going to escalate, that any minute someone was going to sense my presence, that I was going to have to act no matter the odds and then the whole place was going to explode.

To my right, near the staircase to the second floor and the hallway that led to the roshi’s office, a man stood with a gun.
Three
. His head was turned away toward the main meditation room and he was calling out to someone just out of my sight.
Four
. But when the man by the stairs turned back my way, I recognized him immediately.
Goro
.

I had a fleeting experience of the fabric of time snagging on an unexpected, jagged surface. I had been anticipating the Koreans. The Miyazaki knew I had Chie and she was out of Lim’s clutches. All they had to do was wait it out. It was the Koreans who were desperate. Or so I had thought.

“Where is she?” Goro demanded. He pointed a pistol at Yamashita, who stood there without saying a word. Now the roshi’s condition made some sense: they were interrogating people to find Chie. The presence of the monk as a hostage was the only way I could imagine they would have taken Yamashita without a fight. My master glared at Goro, almost daring him to shoot. A memory stabbed at me: the strange way Yamashita had described the situation.
What a great gift to know when an attack will come … the last opportunity to make amends
. My stomach clenched and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I thought of the sadness in my teacher’s voice earlier in the night. His desire to make up for the lost years with his granddaughter. The crazy Japanese conviction about the bittersweet inevitability of life. Of closure. Sacrifice.
He’ll die trying to save her
.
To save us
. Like the ax fight in the snow, I had the sensation of actions oozing across space, their direction and speed as predictable as that of the planets. And I was afraid.

“I’ve got her,” someone called. A familiar voice, but what it was saying was so incongruous that for a minute I couldn’t make the mental connection with a face. Then Chie shuffled into view. Behind her, Sue the kitchen lady pointed the elongated snout of a silenced automatic pistol at the back of Chie’s head. Weapons with noise suppressors are heavy and awkward, but the pistol was rock steady in Sue’s hand. Must have been the centering effect of all that meditation.

“Where is Burke?” Goro demanded. Sue shrugged and shoved Chie toward Yamashita, who reached out for his granddaughter. “He’ll know,” she told Goro. “The old Japanese guy.” She stood by Goro, as if looking for approval.
Five
, I counted.

Goro called toward the hondo, and a man carrying an assault rifle came into view. Goro looked at him with a silent question and the man shook his head. No. They must have been sweeping the other wing of the building, looking for me. Probably looking for their missing friends too. He was walking right toward me, and if the man directly in front of me shifted even a little, I’d be spotted. The light outside was getting stronger and the darkness in the foyer was disappearing fast. The man across the room gestured with his rifle to Goro. “Come on, let’s do these two and then go look for the last one. Simple, no?”

“No!” Goro sounded alarmed. “We agreed. The girl comes with me.”

The man with the long gun stopped moving. He looked flatly at Goro. “Your people aren’t paying me, man. I mean, we agreed to join forces. But it was supposed to be in and out.”

As the man with the rifle moved, my body began to jangle with the sudden certainty that this was not going to end well.

Goro’s expression was rock-hard. He was careful not to point his pistol directly at the man, but it wasn’t too far from that. “Your friends at the rear of the building?”

The guy shook his head in a negative gesture. He didn’t seem too broken up about it. Goro grimaced in satisfaction. “So. You once were four. Now, you are two. I think we have the upper hand.” Sue and the man near Yamashita were watching, eyes bright. I had seen the same look in Ito’s eyes when he had come to the dojo. It seemed like ages ago. But I couldn’t forget the look, and I was seeing it now: the anticipation of a predator. The man in front of me tensed his shoulders and his head swiveled from side to side.
Another one, figuring angles. Weighing options
.

It struck me. The man with the rifle had a Spanish accent. I thought of Alejandro and his wolf pack of hard, quiet men. His comment that knowledge of things hidden can be turned to profit.
Had Alejandro and Osorio figured out where I was? Did they sell me out for a price?

The Miyazaki had known Yamashita was at the zendo from day one. It was only logical they’d have someone in place to watch out for Chie and me. But they’d need some assistance if they were determined to take Chie away from us. Goro would not have been enough, and I noticed that Ito was nowhere in sight.
Smart man
.

The Koreans may have been penned up in Manhattan, but they obviously had some people on the outside they could count on. Maybe Osorio’s hired guns. And the old lizard Miyazaki was a businessman. At the end, he cut a deal: he’d provide some intelligence and limited assistance. He’d promise that Chie would disappear. Osorio would make some money. The Koreans would get the chance to take me out and their concerns would be alleviated. Any other collateral damage was inconsequential.

But then it struck me:
Yamashita was part of the deal as well. Miyazaki would use this opportunity to take his revenge
.

It was still a tangle of possibilities but it really didn’t matter. Some of it was clear enough, and time, for all its slow oozing, was running out.

The man with the rifle listened to Goro and narrowed his eyes in thought, doing the calculations. He shrugged in acquiescence, but didn’t seem happy about it. “OK. We find the other guy, do him and the old man. But we do it together. Then you can take the woman. And let’s make it quick, yes? Otherwise, you and me, we gonna have words.”

Despite the bluster, some of the tension among the gunmen seemed to bleed off. This was the type of exchange they were used to, and now the parameters of action were clear. Everyone had been briefly frozen as each person waited to see who would be shooting who, but now, they started moving around, relieved.

It was then that Goro spotted me. I saw the flash of awareness in Yamashita’s eyes as well, and there was something like relief flooding through me as I moved in to attack.