Tengu (45 page)

It had been
essential, however, for him to rescue the Tengu’s body before the police and
ambulance arrived. This was the last Tengu who was anything near to readiness,
and, as it was, Doctor Gempaku was going to have to perform the Hour of Fire
again to revive him.

Considering
they were supposed to attack the nuclear-power station at Three Arch Bay at
eight o’clock tomorrow night, that didn’t leave Doctor Gempaku very much time.
Mr. Esmeralda silently cursed Kappa and his penchant for hiring the weak and
corrupt and dispensable. But then he thought: Kappa hired me for the same
virtues, or lack of them. Perhaps there is some method in his madness, after
all. It was doubtful whether anyone who wasn’t weak and corrupt and constantly
live in fear of his life would ever contemplate helping Kappa to destabilize a
nuclear-power station and extinguish half of California. To perform such
actions needed a particular kind of personality deficiency; and while Gerard Crowley
and Nancy Shiranuka and Commander Ouvarov might all be dangerously inefficient
and unreliable, at least when the moment came to set off the final explosion,
they would none of them have serious moral qualms. Nor did Mr. Esmeralda have
any qualms about killing them.

He was unsure
what had happened to Gerard Crowley. Perhaps the Tengu had killed Crowley
before he fell from the twenty-seventh floor, perhaps he hadn’t. In any event,
there was no time to find out. It had been difficult enough taking the Tengu
into the building and
up
in the elevator, draped in a
long Mexican blanket to conceal his No mask and his scarred body, an insane
pantomime. Now all Mr. Esmeralda wanted to do was get the Tengu back to Pacoima
Ranch. There was only one stop he had to make, now that things were heating up
so much, and that was to Eva Crowley’s, to collect his living insurance policy.
He pulled into the front driveway of the Crowleys’ apartment building and said
to the Oni, “Keep your head down. I won’t be longer than five minutes.”

Eva was still
wrapped in a towel, fresh out of the shower, when Mr. Esmeralda rang the
doorbell. Kelly and Kathryn were home, too, playing backgammon.

“Carlos,” said
Eva, surprised. “I didn’t think I was going to see you until tomorrow.”

“Well,” said
Mr. Esmeralda with an elasticated little smile, “you see me now. How soon can
you get dressed?”

“Carlos, I’m
sorry I can’t go out–I have to meet some friends of mine for a bridal shower
this afternoon, and the girls are coming with me.”

Mr. Esmeralda
glanced down at his gold wristwatch. “You have three minutes to put something
on.
Anything, a dress, a pair of slacks.”

“Carlos, I’ve
told you. I’m going out. Now, it’s very good to see you. I’m delighted you
came.

Girls, Carlos
is here, if you want to say hello. But really, Carlos...”

Mr. Esmeralda
raised both his hands to silence her. “Please, Eva, listen to me. You have no
choice. You have to come with me, right away; and the girls too.”

Eva blinked in
astonishment. She said, “How many times do I have to...”

Mr. Esmeralda
reached to the waistband of his white tropical pants and brought out a small

.32-caliber automatic.
It was like a gesture out of a 1940’s
gangster movie.

“Put that
away,” Eva told him, shocked. “Carlos, how can you–?”

Mr. Esmeralda
said, “Eva, my dear lady, you have two minutes to put on some clothes. If you
are not dressed and ready to come with me by then, I will shoot you and kill
you. Now, move.”

Behind Eva,
Kelly and Kathryn had now stood up, and were staring at Mr. Esmeralda and his
gun with undis-Tengu guised alarm. Mr. Esmeralda said, “If you do what I tell
you, there is no personal danger. But, please, for your own sakes, be quick.”

Kelly reached
for the telephone, but Mr. Esmeralda swung his pistol around so that it was
pointing directly at her. She froze.

“This is going
to be my first and only warning,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “I have killed people
before, for being far less troublesome, and if you cause me any problems, I
will not hesitate to kill you. Believe me. I also have to tell you that I am
not going to explain why I am taking you with me, or for how long. So do not
trouble to ask me; I will not answer you. All that I require from you is
silence and obedience and calmness. Those three things are all that will
protect you in some trying times.”

Eva said, “I
suppose it’s no good appealing to your better nature.”

“You are
right,” said Mr. Esmeralda. “I do not have a better nature.”

T
hey reached the perimeter fence of Pacoima Ranch shortly before
four o’clock in the afternoon. It was warm and breezy in the hills, one of
those golden California afternoons when the sun turns the grass to sparkling
fire, and the mountains lie wrinkled and dry and orange as terra cotta under a
dense blue sky. They had left the Little Tujunga Road, and driven out over
rough country to the southeast side of the ranch, down a narrow and stony
arrayo secco, and then up through a sloping grove of white firs. At last they
halted beside a split-rail fence, and Gerard stopped his Buick and climbed out.
His first move was to light a fresh cigar.

“Well,” he
said, as Jerry and Mack and El Krusho got out of the white Grand Prix, and
walked up the slope to join him, “this is the boundary. From here, it’s going
to be all on foot.”

“How far are
the ranch buildings from here?” asked Jerry.

“A mile, no
more,” said Gerard. “But they don’t have any defenses at all on this side. It’s
steep, and it’s difficult going, and in any case they’re not looking for
anybody to hit them. They may be nervous about the police, but the police have
a way of storming right up to the front door. They certainly won’t be expecting
anybody to come creeping in from the side.”

“If you say
so,” said Mack, who had taken a sharp dislike to Gerard Crowley from the moment
he had first met him. Mack was not at all enthralled by men who smoked large
cigars and dressed like loan sharks.

Gerard ignored
him and turned to Maurice. “Do you think you can carry that M-60?” he asked.

“It doesn’t
weigh more than twenty-five pounds. Mr. Holt, if you don’t mind carrying the
belt box.”

Maurice, his
muscles bulging under his tight white T-shirt, lifted the long-barreled M-60E1 machine
gun out of the trunk of the Grand Prix and hoisted it over one shoulder,
complete with its bipod. Mack reluctantly took the box of 7.62-mm. ammunition,
while Jerry carried the Canadian SMG, a very light submachine gun rather like
the old British Sterling, and three magazines of 9-mm. Parabellum bullets.
Gerard stuffed the two Browning high-power automatics into the pockets of his
suit.

They climbed
over the split-rail fence and began to scale the hillside at an angle of 45
degrees.

The mountain
air, as they walked, became gradually cooler. Gerard at last drew up close to
Jerry and said, “They tried to finish me off this afternoon. They sent a Tengu
around to my office.”

“What does that
mean?” asked Jerry, wiping the sweat from his face with his hand. “You’ve
outgrown your usefulness to them?”

“I guess. I
didn’t stop to find out.”

“You got away
from the Tengu?”

“I shoved him
out a twenty-seven-story window.”

Jerry raised
his eyebrows, but said, “That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve seen the last of
him.”

Gerard looked
at Jerry without any expression on his face. “A couple of weeks ago, I would
have said you were pulling my leg. Now I know you’re telling me the truth.
Those damned Tengus are indestructible.”

“Not totally
indestructible,” said Jerry. “That was why we dropped an A-bomb on them in the
war.”

Gerard took his
cigar out of his mouth, and spat. “That’s all we need, then?
An
A-bomb?
You should have told me. I would have stocked up.”

It was nearly
five o’clock by the time they crested the ridge which overlooked Pacoima Ranch
from the southeast. They sat among the scrub, sharing the water bottle Jerry
had brought along, the same one he had used in the mountains of Japan, while
Gerard briefly outlined the ranch buildings to them and pointed out the
dilapidated barn where the Tengus were concealed.

“In my
judgment,” Gerard said, “someone has to go in there and lock all those
reinforced doors, so that the Tengus can’t be released. That will give us half
“a chance of storming the place successfully, at least. Now, Doctor Gempaku’s
quarters are over there, in the main farmhouse; while your son, Jerry, is being
held at the back of that outbuilding. My feeling is that you should take the
SMG and go straight in there on your own, with the sole purpose of getting your
son out. Leave the rest to us.”

“How many
Japanese guards are there?” asked Made.

“It varies.
Never fewer than five, often as many as seven.
Then there’s
a cook and a housemaid. It would make life more pleasant if we didn’t wipe them
out as well, but for God’s sake don’t risk anything on their behalf. He who
cooks for the devil should use a damn long J ladle.”

They discussed
the attack for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then Maurice and Mack carried the
M-60 down toward the southern side of the ranch, keeping as close as they could
to the scrubline, and positioned themselves behind an outcropping of rock about
a hundred yards away from the main ranch buildings, well within the range of
their machine gun, which could fire effectively for over three-quarters of a
mile. Once they had settled, they waved back up the hill to Jerry and Gerard to
show they were ready.

“I’ll go down
and see if I can lock the Tengus in,” said Gerard. “You skirt around the back
and see what you can do to get your son out of there. The signal for the attack
to start will be three quick pistol shots, one after the other. Then we just go
in there, giving them everything we’ve got.” Jerry said, “You didn’t have to do
this, did you?”

“What do you
mean?” asked Gerard.

“You didn’t
have to help me rescue my son.”

Gerard took out
one of his automatics and checked the clip. “I’m doing this for myself,” he
said.

“If I don’t
waste these people now, they’re going to be after me for the rest of my life. I
don’t know who they are, or what they’re into, but they’re the kind of people
who never let go.”

Jerry said,
“Are you really such a self-centered shit?”

Gerard got to
his feet and smiled. “Yes,” he said. “When it comes down to it, we’re all busy
looking after number one, aren’t we? And don’t tell me that sons and wives and
lovers don’t count as number one, too. You look after your own. That’s what you
‘re doing here, and that’s what I’m doing here.”

It was 5:18.
Without saying anything else, Gerard tossed away his cigar and made his way
down the eastern side of the slope that led toward the ranch. Jerry watched him
for a while, with extraordinarily mixed feelings–part anxiety, part
confusion–and then cocked his machine gun and slid and skated down the stony
slope himself, circling even farther to the east.

There was no
sign of life in the ranch, no clue that it was being used to develop the most
brutal warriors that the world had ever known;
nor
that it was being guarded by armed and fanatical men. It could have been a
quiet, normal, Tujunga horse ranch late on a summer afternoon; the kind of
place where Roy Rogers might have tethered
Trigger,
or
Rin-Tin-Tin might have returned home for his Gravy Train. Jerry ducked low as
he ran through the thorn-bushes toward the outbuilding where David was being
held, feeling surprisingly self-conscious with his machine gun. He wondered
fleetingly what he would do if someone stopped him and challenged him: how he
would explain the fact that he was running around on private property with a
very lethal weapon. But then he looked quickly down toward the barn, and saw
Gerard Crowley dodging toward the open door with an automatic raised in his
right hand, and he knew that what they were doing was not only deadly serious
but deadly. Nobody was going to stop him and ask him what he was doing. They
would probably shoot first.

Down in the
barn, Gerard stepped quickly and nervously toward the prefabricated building
where the Tengus were kept, his pistol held high, his eyes wide, his whole body
wired with tension. He ran up the steps to the doorway of the prefabricated
building and tried the handle. It was locked, which meant that Doctor Gempaku
was not inside. He swung back the two lock covers, and then went back down the
steps to scoop up a handful of dirt and gravel from the barn floor. Spitting on
the dirt to make it more pliable, he pressed it into the locks, liberally mixed
with gravel and grit, so that Doctor Gempaku would never be able to get his key
inside–at least, not in a hurry. The Tengus would never be able to get out,
either. That door was four solid inches of carbonized steel.

Once he had
jammed up the locks, Gerard ran the length of the prefabricated building until
he reached the Tengu far end, where the electric cables ran inside to power the
air-conditioning and lights. The ideal conditions for imbuing a man’s soul with
the evil kamtofthe Tengu were 55 degrees of cold and an atmosphere low on
oxygen. In the ancient magical days of the samurai, warriors had opened up
their souls and their minds to the Tengu by sitting on the upper slopes of
Shirane-san, overlooking Chuzenji-ko, sometimes nailing one of their hands to a
board inscribed with occult characters, to hasten their possession by the most
terrible devil known to man. The samurai never climbed Fuji-san, though–despite
the fact that it is nearly 1,000 feet higher, and much nearer to the gods. The
climb up Fuji-san was, and remains, a recreation for ordinary people, and the
upper-class samurai would never deign to go any farther than the Sengen Shrine
at the mountain’s base.