Kusanagi (25 page)

Jim felt uncomfortably powerless on the back of the bike as it wove in and out of the traffic. It was as if the riders had entered their own private race and were cutting through the traffic to win a bet. There didn't seem to be anyone in pursuit.

What was the point of attracting attention to yourself once you had got a certain distance away? Holding on to the rider with one hand while clutching a heavy briefcase with the other was tough physical exercise, which he was finding hard to manage. He thought about jumping off at a red light but it was never clear whether a red light was going to be obeyed or not.

Jim had no idea where they were or where they were going but he was hoping devoutly that the trip would end soon.

The biker's jacket said ‘Happy Foxes' and sported a cheeky babyish face of a
manga
fox grinning mischievously. The bike reared up on its forks and he gripped the girl's midriff with all his might. If he came off the back his brains would splatter over the pristine Tokyo tarmac.

Jane was admiring the Tokyo landscape as it floated by. The friendly old guy had given her a half helmet. She sat back in the seat, her feet up on the fold out rests, one hand on the grip. It was good to be free. The other bikes were long gone.

She hadn't expected to see Jim with a bunch of SEALs or, for that matter, the professor. It felt strange to be rescued. She considered herself as always out on her own. It didn't matter if she was part of a team, or even an army: she was no one's responsibility but her own.

Jim was the guy with everything and he was stupid to stick his neck out for her. If anyone was going to spring themselves from a fix like that, it was her. Jim could have easily got them all killed. She realised it was dumb for her to be angry with him. He hadn't complained when she had fished him out of the Congo jungle, so why should she be angry with him for getting her out of trouble? Yet she was and that was that.

They were riding beside the moat of the palace. It was an enormous entrenchment and she marvelled at it as they rolled by. She grinned to herself as the wind blew on her face. The sky was blue: it was a perfect day in Japan.

Yamamoto read the sign as they passed it: ‘One person killed on the road today in Tokyo.' He wondered how many people would be born in Tokyo that day, how many boys would kiss a girl for the first time, how many would fall in love. They should build a sign that told everyone that too.

Jim jumped off the bike the moment it screeched to a halt at the underground entrance to Yamamoto Towers. His body was trembling and his feet were happy to be on the ground. The rider pulled off her helmet. She was a tall, beautiful woman, whose long black hair fell onto her delicate leather padded shoulders. ‘Couldn't you have gone any faster?' he exclaimed. He put the briefcase down and forced a smile. ‘You scared the shit out of me.'

The girl laughed. ‘You're funny,' she said, and looked away from him as the other bikes drew up.

The last of the Happy Foxes came down the ramp with Danny. ‘Woo hoo,' he yelled.

Brandon's biker had somehow got onto his shoulders. She was waving her arms around and shouting.

Where the fuck is Yamamoto? Jim wondered.

Akira closed his eyes and opened them again. His rider was still looking at him through her visor. She took her helmet off. She had red hair, big eyes and a long, thin face. She was a beauty. ‘Fox with five tails,' she said, cocking her head. ‘Your hair is turning white.'

‘Turning white?'

She touched his head with her slender fingers and ruffled his hair. ‘Yes, the roots of your hair have turned white as snow.' She pointed at her wing mirrors. ‘See?' He bent down to peer at himself. Sure enough, the first millimetre of his jet black hair was white. The stress had turned him into an old man.

He straightened as he heard the engine of the Harley fill the underground space. ‘Quickly,' he said. ‘You must take me to my father.'

‘Jump on, Kitsune.'

‘Kitsune?' he asked. ‘Me?' He clambered on.

‘Never hurt me,' she said, peeping at him over her shoulder.

‘I will never hurt you,' he said. ‘Never go away.'

She set off with a jump and a high toned clatter.

‘Thank fuck for that,' exclaimed, Jim striding over to the SEALs and their riders, who whooped and hollered as Yamamoto and Jane drove down the ramp. The engine of the Harley filled the cavern with its roar. ‘Where the hell is the professor going?' shouted Jim, waving his arms at the bike as it passed.

Jane had jumped off the Harley and was high fiving the SEALs.

‘I was wondering where you'd got to,' he said to her as she clapped with Reece.

‘Traffic.' She offered Jim her palm.

Jim fancied a kiss, but he high fived her clumsily and everyone clapped.

She turned back to the SEALs. ‘Guys, we've got to get straight to the embassy.'

‘What?' protested Jim.

‘Jim, we've just been in a first class diplomatic incident. We've got to get onto US soil right away.'

He took her by the waist and kissed her. She didn't resist, but neither did she reciprocate much. He let her go. ‘Later,' she said giving him a look. ‘American Embassy,' she told her rider.

Jim's biker had obviously understood the conversation because she shouted something to them all. They saddled up and, in a deafening storm of engine noise, took off.

The sound of the engines died away, leaving behind nothing but the ambient hum of the equipment that pulsed and rattled in the depths of the building. His rider was standing by her bike, sucking a mint. ‘What's your name?' he asked her.

‘Kuda.'

‘Hi, Kuda,' he said. ‘Seems we're the only ones left.'

‘Want to play?' she said.

Jim looked twice at the willowy girl in metal encrusted knee high boots with black and red leathers. She was holding a Sony PSP in her hand. He realised his pistol was not on safety. He took it from his pocket, flipped the catch and put it back.

Kuda didn't blink.

‘Let's go inside.' He smiled at her. ‘What games you got?'

‘Final Fantasy XX, Bubble Trouble Extreme Five.'

‘Great!'

‘We could go to Akiharbara and shoot zombies.' She held up her helmet as if to put it on.

‘Got one of those for me?'

‘Yes.'

‘Let's go, then.'

The last of the creatures were coming at them. Kuda was wielding her pump action shotgun with precision and expertise. Jim had caught on slowly and finally got up to speed in the time it had taken to pump ten thousand yen into the machine.

The robot dragon human combo super-baddie was suddenly on the game screen. He was saying something in Japanese that was clearly a final challenge. He was carrying some limp girl in his gigantic talons. ‘Shoot at his middle eye when it opens,' said Kuda, blasting at the floating lightning bolts that cascaded towards them.

The eye opened. Jim shot and missed. Kuda shot and the monster shook backwards. A small amount of energy left its power bar.

Jim's phone rang. ‘Bugger,' he muttered, putting the red plastic shotgun into its holster. He fed the machine some more hundred yen coins.

‘I've got this,' said Kuda, blasting away.

Jim answered the sat phone.

‘Are you OK, Evans-san?' said a worried Akira.

He must be able to hear the gunfire down the phone, Jim thought. ‘Yeah,' he said.

‘The guns?'

‘Just zombies. I'm in an arcade.'

‘Yamamoto-san and I were concerned. Are you returning?'

‘Yes,' said Jim, ‘just keeping myself busy.'

‘So, so, so,' said Akira, ‘when?'

‘As soon as I've killed the superboss.'

‘
Gambatte
, Kudasi.'

‘Thanks,' said Jim, wondering what it meant. He hung up and picked up his gun. The eye of the superboss opened. He shot. He missed.

The restaurant's wooden door slid open. Jim stood outside as Yamamoto, Akira and the Happy Foxes filed in. Kuda stayed with him. There was a chorus of shouting from within as the staff greeted the party in a ritualistic way.

‘We're leaving in the morning, Stafford,' said Jim. ‘Everything's fine here. You?'

‘Pacific.'

Jim thought for a moment. ‘Is that a code word?'

‘Calm,' said Stafford.

‘Right,' said Jim. ‘It's not been calm here but we're cool now.'

‘What is the plan?'

‘Can't say on the phone,' said Jim. ‘But there is one and it's short and sweet.'

‘Good,' said Stafford. ‘Because Smith seems intent on camping here until he gets an explanation.' He threw a glance at Smith, who was grinning laconically at him. ‘The blasted man has installed a television in the lounge.'

‘Say hi to him from me,' said Jim, smiling, one finger in his other ear to cut out the noise coming from the restaurant. ‘Any messages?'

‘No, sir,' said Stafford.

‘Nothing from Jane?'

‘I can check your email again if you wish.'

Jim sighed. ‘No, that's OK.'

Jim had drunk quite a lot of cold sake out of the square wooden box in front of him. He had also eaten quite a few odd things that the professor had explained to him. The chefs sat on a raised dais with charcoal fires, meat and vegetables in front of them. The diners sat around them like an audience and picked out things to eat from the display.

Yamamoto and Akira were choosing the dishes and the waiters were constantly shouting orders to punctuate the proceedings. It was an enjoyable if rather confusing spectacle.

Jim had started off with a sheet of roasted baby fish and a couple of oddly-shaped mushrooms. That was followed by a red fish on a skewer that, even dead, looked pretty surprised. Next up was a plate of weird tasting grilled pine nuts, which had the distinct but not unpleasant flavour of floor polish. They went down great with the sake.

The professor and his Happy Fox seemed to have hit it off rather well.

‘Where did you disappear off to?' Jim asked Akira, as the chef handed them a selection of what looked like potatoes on the end of a long wooden paddle.

‘I went to see if my father had successfully returned the Yasakani no Magatama.'

‘And?'

‘He had handed it to the Emperor himself.'

‘Great,' said Jim. ‘I bet you're relieved.'

‘Very.'

‘I've got a question for you,' he said, sipping more of the delicious sake. ‘Who are the Happy Foxes?'

‘Very famous,' he said. ‘They are celebrity bodyguards. They give protection to pop stars at events and nightclubs. Japanese fans are famously obsessive.'

‘I could have told you that,' whispered Kuda, in his ear.

He turned to her. ‘I'm sorry, I suppose you could have,' he said. ‘So you're a bodyguard to the stars?'

‘It's just showbiz,' she said,. ‘It's not enough to be good at your job. You have to look good too.' She smiled. ‘So what is your story, Englishman?'

‘The standard one. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl.'

‘I know that story well. I like the beginning part very much.'

Jim wondered where Jane was. She was probably forty thousand feet up in the air on her way back to Virginia, or in a bar somewhere with one of the SEALs, laughing about blowing stuff up.

‘What about the boy loses girl part?' he said.

‘That bit can be fun too.'

Jim picked up a roasted giant sea snail. It tasted like a grilled action figure but he could kind of imagine it might be really tasty to a starving person. ‘So what did you think about today's bit of action?'

She seemed to consider a couple of different replies. ‘If we don't get thrown in jail, we will definitely be able to put our fees up.' She swished her hair. Jim wondered what the tattoos appearing from under her outfit did below the line.

He took out his sat phone. There was still no message from Jane. He switched it off.

The professor was talking animatedly to his Happy Fox. They seemed very close.

Kuda threw him a talk to me look.

‘So you don't mind unhappy endings?' he said.

‘The end of one story is the beginning of another,' she said.

The waiter was topping up Jim's box of sake. He wondered why Jane couldn't at least ping him an SMS. The simplest explanation was that she didn't give a damn. ‘Do you believe that the simplest answer to a tricky question is the right one?' he asked Kuda.

She batted her beautiful eyes at him. ‘No,' she said.

‘That's good,' he said, switching the phone back on in the hope that when it synched up a delayed message might suddenly beam down to him. The phone was running on its 3G circuit, or so it told him, so it was acting like a normal phone. The signal bars pulsed.

Nothing.

‘You're sad,' she said, taking his hand.

‘Jetlag.'

‘Let's go for a drink after dinner,' said Kuda. ‘My favourite bar is at the top of the Park Hyatt.'

‘I'm staying there.'

‘Wow,' she said. ‘That is very convenient.'

A huddle of wealthy young Tokyoites were waiting to be seated at the bar's reception desk and a long line snaked back to the elevators. Kuda, with Jim in tow, waltzed past it and they were ushered straight to a table. The bar was a giant glasshouse suspended in the clouds, an uplit cavernous space with interesting shadows. Jim liked the sciencefiction film-set atmosphere. Rain ran down the panes, sparkling like diamonds rolling over a mirror.

They were assailed by a bevy of waiters who fawned on her and, by reflection, him. She took off her tiny jacket, revealing a crazy sleeve tattoo of psychedelic undergrowth on her right arm. It was beautifully drawn, not the clumsy scribbling of the normal tattooist.

A bottle of Dom Pérignon Enotica appeared and was poured. She leant forwards so that her long soft hair touched the side of his face. ‘So what do you do when you are not having shoot-outs in Tokyo?'

‘I save the world.' He smiled cheekily. ‘You know the kind of thing.'

‘To saving the world!' She raised her glass. ‘
Campai!
'

There was still light in the love-hotel bedroom. Akira's eyes were accustoming fast and he could see more than her shape. They had stopped kissing and now she was taking his shirt off. He stood frozen. She would see his stunted arm in its awful naked state, the full horror of a hand reaching out where an arm ought to be. The dream would end. With every move she made to undress him he felt as if his skin was being flayed.

As she pulled the shirt off him she was kissing his neck. He was rigid with tension as he waited for the inevitable signal of revulsion. His shirt was on the ground. She was kissing the fingers of his short hand. A shiver streamed through his whole body. No one had ever kissed it before, and from her lips he experienced hot shocks of pain and pleasure.

He took her around the waist and lowered her onto the bed. He was enveloped in sensation and his reason had left him. All he could feel was her; all he could hear was her breath.

‘No,' said Jim, swaying down the corridor. ‘You can't come in. I've got to be up in four hours and heading for Narita.'

Kuda didn't reply, just giggled in the way Japanese women did to please their men. She stopped him and they kissed. ‘I won't stay long,' she said.

She felt so good in his arms. Her perfume lured him; her lips made love to his. She was pressing herself against him, and he could feel himself heading quickly to the point at which he would be unable to resist. ‘Look,' he said, ‘that's my room down the hall and I'm very sad to say I'm going in there on my own. I have my reasons and you can probably guess them.' He smiled sheepishly. ‘They don't make much sense to me right now, but I have to do the right thing. You understand?'

She flicked his nose. ‘OK,' she said. ‘Your loss.'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘I'm sure of that.' He made for the door, hoping for a clean getaway. He was having trouble finding his room key. When he looked back, she was gone.

Idiot, he thought. We were thirty seconds away from a mind-blowing fuck.

His fingers registered the old-style metal key. He slotted it into the lock. There was a click. He pushed in against the strong door spring, struggling to extract the key.

The lights were on. No doubt the bed was turned back and a little chocolate was waiting for him on his pillow.

He started.

Jane was in the bed, reading a book. She looked up. ‘What kept you?'

Jim took a moment to collect his thoughts. He suddenly felt a bit too drunk to think straight. ‘I was drowning my sorrows.'

‘What sorrows?'

‘My baby left me high and dry.'

‘Too bad,' she said.

‘What are you doing here?'

‘I'm not here – I'm at the embassy. Coming here would be a dumb-ass thing to do.'

‘Right.' He focused. ‘I'm having a shower.'

‘Good idea.'