Kusanagi (24 page)

The old man marched swiftly up the ramp to the palace gatehouse. The immaculate guard stepped out of his cubicle. ‘How can I help you, sir?' he said, addressing the distinguished gentleman in his grey raincoat.

‘I am Captain Nakabashi of the Imperial Bodyguard, retired. I have an urgent matter for the head of the household.'

‘Do you have an appointment, sir?'

‘No,' said Nakabashi, offering him his papers, ‘I do not, but it is an emergency of the highest importance.'

The guard looked at the documents. Sure enough, they were those of an Imperial bodyguard retired ten years before. ‘I will call my captain to advise,' he said.

‘Very good,' said Nakabashi. He put his hand inside his outer suit pocket. The necklace seemed to absorb his body heat and reflect it back to him. His whole side felt warmed by it. Perhaps it was the magic of legend.

A captain was trotting down the slope towards them. He was bowing. ‘Captain Nakabashi, it is an honour,' he said. ‘How may I help you?'

‘I must see the head of the household as I must have audience with the Emperor. It is of national importance.'

‘This way, sir,' said the captain. ‘I am already ordered to admit you.'

‘Very good,' said the old man, bowing with the seniority of age. He felt a wave of relief sweep over him. He might just be able to achieve the impossible and deliver the treasure to the Emperor.

He walked quickly through the halls he had known so well. They had been newly built when he had first worked there and remained seemingly unchanged since he had departed a decade ago. He walked flanked by the Imperial guard to Private Audience Room Four.

Two guards were standing behind the Emperor and his detail of two men stood close by. Two advisers Nakabashi did not recognise flanked him on either side.

Nakabashi bowed as low as he could. ‘Your Imperial Majesty, I must speak with you alone.'

The Emperor nodded and the room emptied.

The door clicked closed. ‘Yoshi,' said the Emperor, beaming now. ‘It has been so long. How are you, old friend?'

‘I am very well, Your Imperial Majesty. I have come to return the Yasakani no Magatama to you.' He put his right hand into his jacket pocket and lifted out the necklace. He took a step forwards and bowed, offering the jewel to the Emperor in his cupped hands.

The Emperor stepped forward and took it, a wide smile crossing his face. ‘So your son is winning the day.'

Captain Nakabashi stood up. ‘I fear he is in great peril.'

The Emperor nodded gravely. ‘So are we all.' He put on the necklace. ‘At least now I can say I am truly crowned. That much danger is now passed.' He clapped his hands and the doors opened. ‘Let us take tea together, for this is surely a moment for celebration.'

The guards' and the advisers' eyes were wide with amazement. The Emperor was wearing the Yasakani no Magatama, a treasure no one other than priests had seen for more than half a millennium. It glowed like wet seaweed.

Danny looked at Akira and at Jim. ‘Are we really taking Yoda with us?'

‘Yes,' said Jim, ‘unless you can suddenly speak Japanese and just happen to be carrying permission to blow up Tokyo.'

‘OK,' said Danny, grinning manically.

Yamamoto was pushing something into Akira's hand. It was an old pistol. ‘Take this, kid. It won't let you down if you need it.'

Akira passed it to his short arm and tried it for size. ‘Thank you.' He smiled. ‘I remember this,' he said, gripping the rubber handle of the snub revolver. ‘It used to be much bigger.'

‘Let's go, guys,' said Reece.

Two black Toyota Crowns were waiting in the office block driveway, three storeys underground. Jim got in with Reece. They slammed the limo doors.

‘Hey there,' said Reece, ‘do you mind if I smoke?'

The driver looked around worriedly. ‘No Engrish, no Engrish,' he said apologetically.

‘Good,' said Reece, not apparently about to smoke. ‘We can probably talk. What the hell was in that gold box we found?' he asked, as the car pulled away towards a ramp heading up to the road above.

‘The Japanese Crown Jewels.'

‘Oh,' said Reece. ‘Is that right?'

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘And that's what this is all about?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Jim.

‘That's kind of crazy.'

‘You can say that again.'

‘And the Colonel is your girlfriend, right?'

‘Right.'

‘That's what Danny thought. He's kind of disappointed.'

‘He's brighter than he looks,' said Jim.

‘And where does Godzilla come into the picture?'

‘Do you mean literally or do you mean Kim?'

‘No, it was kind of a joke.'

‘Got it,' said Jim, with a sinking feeling in his gut. They emerged into the bright Tokyo sunlight. ‘I hate this bit.'

‘You mean the going into action?' said Reece.

‘That's the one.'

‘It's not as bad as getting hit,' said Reece.

‘I'm not sure,' said Jim. ‘I can't remember those bits clearly.'

‘You've been hit before?'

Jim pulled the hair on the crown of his head to one side. ‘That was just a week or so ago.'

Reece could see a thin red scar. ‘It's healed pretty well.'

Jim nodded. ‘How about you?'

‘Not once,' said Reece. ‘All I get is abrasions.'

‘That must be skill,' said Jim.

‘I'd hope so,' said Reece. ‘I like to think that, but you kind of know it's luck.'

‘Luck is good.'

‘I got a question for you.'

‘OK.'

‘How do investment bankers act? I want to walk in there and look credible.'

‘That's easy,' said Jim. ‘Just swagger in like you think you're some death dealing Navy SEAL killing machine in an expensive suit. That's pretty much average investment banker behaviour. If you can come across like an obnoxious jerk at the same time, you'll be completely credible.'

‘I can do that.' He grinned.

‘I hope you didn't mind me calling you Yoda,' said Danny, now remorseful for dissing the professor.

‘No,' said Akira. ‘I took it as a compliment.'

‘That's good,' said Danny, ‘because it was meant to be one.'

‘I think it was meant as an insult,' said Akira, ‘but I chose to take it as a compliment.'

‘Right,' said Danny. ‘I'm sorry about that and I hope we're cool, Professor. Are we?'

Akira scanned him with his inscrutable gaze. ‘We are cool,' he said finally, a smile flickering across his face.

Brandon watched central Tokyo pass his window. A lot of the adverts had American stars promoting booze, cigarettes and mobile phones. They were photographed in such a way it was hard to recognise them. In some cases their eyes appeared to have been touched up and made to look Japanese. ‘My urban warfare skills are pretty shaky,' he said finally to Casey.

‘Mine too,' said Casey. ‘This is going to be real sketchy.'

Jim felt like a terrorist. They entered the office building armed to the teeth, surrounded by innocent unarmed people utterly unprepared for what might happen. They were passing through their normal world set on a course that would probably erupt into extreme violence. Keep walking, he said silently to the people who passed him. Don't look back.

Reece, Brandon, Danny and Casey did look like investment bankers. The sort who went running at five a.m. for an hour before getting to work at seven. Unlike the boozy often corpulent British bankers, there was always a cadre of young American bankers who used their looks and arrogance to navigate around the world of finance. To the casual eye the SEALs perfectly fitted the mould. Only their faces gave them away. Their features hinted at a level of fitness even the most diehard gym patron could never attain. Only people constantly on the move had hard, muscled faces like theirs.

If Jim's heart hadn't been pounding so hard he would have laughed. He could have taken the SEAL team to any investment bank and walked them into million dollar jobs: they were perfect.

Kim had never dealt with an American bank before. He had avoided it. They had a bad reputation. They relied on contracts and pulling tricks. They were paid too much to be easily swayed by favours, like women and booze. They thought that because you did not say no you had said yes. They thought a deal could be done by flying in, making a couple of presentations and emailing over a contract. He wanted nothing to do with such business practices. He relied on the Japanese system of relationships built over years, unwritten and unspoken deals made over dinner, whisky and cigarettes. That was a long, subtle game he was good at, and at which he won. Business was war for the Americans and they never respected an ally, let alone an enemy.

Now he had no choice.

He didn't like the look of the room. The bankers looked like nightclub bouncers and the junior American seemed angry. The translator didn't feel right either. His shrivelled arm repulsed Kim – it made him feel queasy.

‘So, gentlemen, down to business. How can you help me?'

Reece had taken the senior spot and knew it was his role to speak. ‘Well, to kick off, I'd like to bring in my analyst here to give us an overview of the situation. Go ahead, Jimmy.'

Jim's nose flared. His lips pursed and drew back into a rictus smile. ‘Thank you, Reece,' he said, his British accent surprising Kim. ‘The situation is this.' He pulled his pistol. He didn't raise his voice: ‘You've got my girl upstairs in your fucking zoo.' Kim rocked back in his chair and held his hands up. ‘And you're taking us up there right now or I'm going to blow your fucking brains out.'

‘Very good,' said Reece, grinning. He grabbed Kim's shoulder, his other hand on his briefcase of weaponry. ‘Let's go.'

‘No tricks,' said Brandon, quietly, in Kim's ear, ‘or I'll snap your neck.'

Kim said nothing. He had turned the stone on his cufflink and was now regretting it. ‘There is no woman in my zoo,' he said, resetting the stone and switching off the alarm: if his guards intervened now, he would be shot. ‘Who do you think I am?'

‘Just do as you're told,' said Jim, ‘and you might get out of this alive.'

Kim could see they knew where they were going. ‘Open the lift, please,' said Casey, looking at Kim as though a negative response would mean instant death.

Kim placed a cufflink over the call panel, which lit up. In a moment there was a
ding
and the door opened. His secretaries watched them enter the lift, bowing. There was only one floor on the panel and Kim pressed the button, then swiped his cuff over the control. The doors closed and the lift rose.

Down in the control room they watched the screens. Kim had set the alarm, then switched it off. They didn't know what to do. Wherever he went the cameras were strangely blurred and the scene was hard to decipher.

Kim fingered the cufflink. He would set the alarm as soon as the Americans started to leave. His men would intercept them at the lift on his office suite floor and he would have a chance to escape. Before then, he might convince them they had made a big mistake. Thank the gods the woman was gone.

The lift doors opened.

‘Wow,' said Danny, trying not to gawp at the zoo.

‘This way,' said Jim, looking down the aisle.

‘You have made a mistake,' pleaded Kim. ‘Why would you think I keep anything but animals here?'

The animals were making a spectacular din.

Brandon's attention was on the gorilla standing by the bars, staring soulfully at him.

‘Right there,' said Jim. But the cage was empty. ‘Oh, shit. She's gone.'

‘Not gone,' said Kim. ‘Never here.'

‘Where have you taken her?' Jim pulled the gun from his pocket and pressed it against Kim's forehead. ‘Tell me or you have seconds to live.'

In desperation Kim rotated the stone in the cufflink.

The cameras came on in the zoo. Through the distortion the operators could make out that something bad was happening. They hit the security alarm.

‘I don't know what you mean,' cried Kim. ‘I don't know who you are talking about. I don't know where your girlfriend is.' He was sobbing.

‘I'm here,' came a muffled voice. Jim looked into the cage – the voice was coming from the far corner.

Kim made a lunge for Jim's pistol but Danny socked him in the side of the head and knocked him to the ground. ‘Stay there,' he ordered Kim.

A board slid out from between the shelf and the cage bars and a head poked up awkwardly from the gap. ‘This is a freakin' hard manoeuvre,' said Jane, her hands appearing next. She began to squeeze her body through the small space. ‘This is way tight,' she complained. ‘That's better,' she reported, as she worked her butt out. ‘The cage key is in the guy's cufflinks. Take them off and wave them over the lock.'

Jim bent down and took them out of Kim's shirt sleeves. He ran to the cage and waved the cufflinks over the lock. There was a clank. Jane pushed the door open. ‘Didn't expect to see you,' she said, smiling.

‘Thanks,' said Jim.

Jane took a cufflink and walked over to Kim. She pulled him to his feet. ‘Come with me,' she said, dragging him to the gorilla cage.

‘We might need him,' said Jim.

‘No deal,' said Jane, Kim staggering behind.

The monkeys in the cage beyond were screeching at the tops of their voices and the birds further back were hooting and squawking in alarm.

‘Please don't,' he begged.

She unlocked the gorilla cage and slung Kim in. He cried out as he hit the floor. ‘No,' he screamed, scrambling up as the cage slammed shut. The gorilla ambled over to him on its knuckles, took him by the arm and pulled him into its lap. It wrapped its arms around him, crushing him. Kim cried out as he felt a rib crack under the pressure of the embrace.

‘Sorry I can't take you with me,' said Jane, pouting at the gorilla. She turned to Jim and the SEALs. ‘Let's get out of here.'

Reece threw Jane his pistol and took out the compact machine gun from his case. ‘Hi, Professor,' she said, as they trotted to the lift.

‘Hi, Jane-san,' said Akira.

Jim swiped the cufflinks on the lift call panel and the doors opened. The cries of the animals were deafening. The lift descended.

When the doors opened again, men with stun batons were waiting for them. The security guards reeled back at the sight of a lift full of heavily-armed men, machine guns pointing at them. They backed away.

The SEALs exited the lift in tight formation.

The main lift bank was across the atrium. A man with a pistol stepped out of a doorway and aimed. Brandon cut him down with a burst of fire. The men with batons turned to run. Jane was paying one particular attention. She jumped forwards and tripped him as he turned to escape, then wrenched the stun gun from his hand. ‘I remember you,' she said.

She stuck the baton between his legs and pressed the switch. He let out a howl and spun around onto his back. She didn't know whether he was looking at her consciously or was out cold, but she pressed the button again anyway. A spasm twisted and shook his body. She straightened. ‘Let's go.'

Reece was already heading for the main lift.

‘Was that necessary?' asked Jim, as he passed her.

‘No,' she said, ‘but it felt good.'

A lift door opened and they bundled in. A secretary tumbled out, screaming.

They took up a fire formation in the lift as they waited for the door to close. The SEALs didn't press the door close button because it never worked in the US. Akira pressed it and the doors shut immediately.

The express lift would take them down fifty eight floors in two minutes. Then all they had to do was make a fifty-metre dash outside to freedom.

The lift was slowing. It was stopping at the fifty second floor.

They braced to open fire.

The doors opened and they saw a group of men with their backs to them, bowing. Another group of men and women were bowing to them in farewell. They turned to the lift and the men with machine guns. They leapt back and stared agog, frozen to the spot. The lift door closed.

‘Bloody hell,' muttered Jim. It was stopping at the fiftieth floor. They braced themselves. The secretaries outside the lift shrieked and one threw her Starbucks into the air, showering the others with latte. They fled.

‘Stay focused,' said Reece, as the lift slowed to the fortieth floor. As the door opened Brandon, who was crouching, fired through the gap. The other SEALs opened up as the doors slid open. They burst out into the corridor over the two felled armed guards. Reece and Casey took the hallway beyond. ‘Clear,' they shouted, turning and running back.

The doors closed again.

The lift was picking up speed. ‘Maybe this time it'll go the whole way down,' said Brandon.

Jim looked at the TV screen above the doors. It was showing the financial news. The yen was rallying.

The lift started to slow. ‘Here we go,' said Reece.

Jim kissed Jane.

The doors started to open. Brandon was straining to see any movement and as soon as the gap was wide enough he rolled through it. They piled out, scanning around them.

‘Clear,' shouted Reece. They ran in formation for the escalator that would take them down to the main lobby and entrance.

Two security guards were looking up at them. They were armed but made no attempt to pull their guns.

The team raced down the escalators. Then it was only twenty metres to the main doors. Brandon and Danny took position at the bottom of the moving stairway and immediately there was a burst of gunfire from behind. The plate-glass window near the entrance shattered and glass showered to the floor.

The SEALs opened up against the pistol fire with a crackle of machine gun. The fat old security guards threw themselves down and held out their arms in blind surrender to whoever was firing. Reece and Jane shot out more windows directly ahead, opening up an escape route only metres away.

‘Go!' shouted Casey. They ran as he and Danny fired into the space behind the escalators where the attack had originated. There was no returning fire. Casey and Danny were running backwards, covering the rest of the team.

‘Where is Yamamoto?' shouted Jim, hurdling through a shattered window and skidding down a polished granite sill.

‘There!' yelled Akira.

Jim looked across the plaza. Six off-road bikes were parked behind a black Harley, all with helmeted riders, engines running.

They sprinted to the bikers who were revving their engines. Jim jumped onto the pillion of a bike and grabbed the rider around the waist. It was a woman. Fuck me, he had just enough time to think, as the bike lunged forwards from the kerb. She had a red and yellow tattoo on her neck, partly covered with strands of hair that had fallen out of her helmet. He closed his eyes in terror as the bike hurtled recklessly through the traffic. Whose idea was it to hire these maniacs to get them away?

Jane jumped on the back of the Harley. She wondered who the old guy in the half helmet was. ‘Nice bike,' she said.

‘
Domo
.' He coaxed the bike into roaring off sedately.

‘You again,' said Stafford, as he opened the door to Smith.

‘I'm afraid so.'

‘Do come in. Are you planning to become a permanent fixture?'

‘That's not a bad idea,' said Smith. ‘Certainly beats my little pad in Brixton.'

‘Very good,' said Stafford. ‘And what delights are we to expect tonight?'

‘The usual,' said Smith. ‘A Triad raid, perhaps, or maybe a North Korean blitzkrieg – possibly, even, another ninja onslaught.'

‘Jolly good.' Stafford closed the door. ‘And will you be dining?'

‘I've eaten,' said Smith, ‘though a plate of baked beans on toast won't come amiss later.'

‘I'm sure we can stretch to that.'

‘I'll help with the washing up,' said Smith.

‘That won't be necessary. Do you have laundry?'

‘I've got that covered, Bertie.'

‘I really do wish you wouldn't call me that.'

‘Sorry, Stafford, I keep forgetting.'

‘That's much better.'