The Nicholas Linnear Novels (68 page)

The duffel bag was where he had stowed it, between piles of plastic-wrapped garbage. He checked his watch. Thirty seconds. He unzipped the duffel bag for the last time. He took off his light-colored suit, flipped the hat into the gutter. Then he stooped and threw the contents of the bag over his shoulder in a version of a fireman’s lift.

The small but powerful incendiary device he had dropped under a car at the end of the north face of the building in his guise as the old man erupted with a white and green flash into the night. Even a full block away, he could feel the slight concussion as the force of the explosion shot the hot air away from the epicenter. There was a pattering of metal and powdered glass as bright as diamonds in the streetlights. Flame licked skyward.

Crouching, he ran directly toward the building’s facade and, within its dense shadows, he went along its south face, through the first-class cover of the dormant machinery—the double shifts had ceased two days ago, after they had discovered he had infiltrated the place as a construction worker. Within four seconds he had disappeared entirely.

Now he went from thick stanchion to thick stanchion, feeling under his fingers the rough texture of the rust-retardant undercoat. Concrete dust still hung in the air and, as he dropped down from the height, free of his heavy burden, he saw the sharp shadows cast by the huge machines gave the place the rather disconsolate air of a deserted carnival. There had been a carnival once, at Shimonoseki. The thought of it, and the sea slowly closing over, caused him to reach into a side pocket. He put a rough-textured square into his mouth and swallowed.

He squatted, perched like a bird of prey, waiting for the drug to hit. He had been forced to leave the Kuji-kiri when he had become careless enough to drop the stuff during practice. Not stupid, he reminded himself. He could not help it; he had been driven to it. By the rocking boat and the howling wind and the heavy splash as the sea closed over—

Hit! In bright light. Form and line became stark, almost two-dimensional, like the backdrop on a theater stage. It seemed to him that he could see in all directions at once. He became at once more intensely aware of the driving dust in the air. This, too, this little thing could be turned into an advantage. Because of the pollutant, his adversaries’ eyes would be forced to blink more rapidly to avoid irritation. That minuscule amount of time would be the difference between life and death for some of them.

He raised his gaze. He hoped that he would not have to use the thing on the ledge, but if he did…

He saw the first one. He was dressed differently than the ones in Pell Street. Too, he carried himself more confidently.

Saigō spent several minutes studying the policeman. He wanted to know several things before he made a move. Did he have a specific territory assigned to him? And, if so, did it intersect with someone else’s?

When he was satisfied, he lifted the double curve from the side and screwed the two pieces together. It became a bow of high-tension plastic with a light aluminum center and sight.

Interesting, he thought. The explosion had not caused as much havoc as he had thought it might. It had, however, given him enough time to infiltrate the tower’s perimeter. But not much more. Now he could hear the piercing wail of the fire engine as it approached. The policemen here, having at once determined that no person was inside the car or had been hurt while passing by, had left the mop-up to the fire department.

From this vantage point he could see the slight clandestine movement of the sniper. He waited until the policeman on his level was at the extreme edge of his patrol. Fitting a steel-tipped arrow to the bow, he drew back and aimed. These were not normal hunting arrows. Their points were made by the careful layering of steel in precisely the same manner
katana
were forged. In ancient times, they were known as armor-piercing arrows. They could get through anything short of a two-inch steel block.

He let the arrow fly. There was a quiet humming as of an inquisitive bee and a soft
thunk.
The glint of the rifle’s barrel was no longer visible, but the unruffled feathers protruded darkly from the sniper’s neck.

The policeman on his level had turned around and was coming back. He stopped directly in front of Saigō and lifted his head. Something dark and wet dripped down onto his shoulder. He shifted his submachine gun to his left arm, preparatory to phoning in via walkie-talkie.

Saigō leaped at him, an animated shadow. His left arm was lifted high in an arc; it made a hissing sound as it descended. His hand was encased in a thin steel network, running from wrist out past the fingertips in what amounted to a set of claws, curved and razor-sharp. Articulated steel tendons across the back of the hand, along each finger.

The policeman had time but to open his mouth before the claws ripped viciously through his throat, embedding themselves in his chest, piercing cloth, bullet-proof vest, skin, flesh and internal organs.

There was a great gout of black blood and the body convulsed as if charged with electricity. Strips of flesh as if flayed flew through the air and the stench of death was abruptly as strong as jasmine in some far-off and peaceful clime.

He left the corpse, laughing silently at the ineffectual addition of the vest, and retrieved his bow from the dense shadows.

First the vast atrium, he thought. He was in no hurry. Upstairs, they could well wait for him. He visualized Tomkin’s broad face slick with sweat in the tense period of not knowing what was happening below.

He moved with no more sound than the passing of the warm night wind through the pillars of the tower. In the next sector he came upon another of the plainclothesmen. He moved up behind him and, slipping the black nylon cord with its center knot around his neck, he pulled tight, whipping his wrists powerfully so that the knot bit cruelly into the man’s Adam’s apple. The back arched as the man fought for breath.

Saigō was momentarily taken by surprise. The man whirled and went for him instead of the encircling cord. He was monstrously strong and Saigō felt his balance going in these close quarters. He felt the arms, as thick as beams, around his waist squeezing as he squeezed. He stamped with his shoe onto the man’s instep and he let go. Saigō hurtled to one side, the momentum too strong to compensate for.

The policeman was on him at once, gasping, his bulk nevertheless stultifying. He used kite and sword strikes which were only partially successful but his enormous weight made proper leverage impossible for Saigō.

He fought for the reverse, giving up all but token defense, taking massive punishment, struggling, sweat running down the sides of his neck, staining his black suit.

He cursed himself for the sin of overconfidence and, struggling to free his right hand, he let go a spring blade. It pierced the other’s shoulder just center of the collarbone. The man grunted and, disconcertingly, applied even more force. Saigō heard a sharp
crack
in his right ear, knew his bow was now useless.

The policeman put all of his weight into his knees, which were on Saigō’s chest, in an attempt to force all air out. This was a mistake. But how could he know that Saigō could last for at least seven minutes without any air at all?

Saigō now concentrated on the man’s upper torso. He lacked the space to effectively use the claws. He stiffened the fingers on his right hand, using them as one would the point of a knife. He rammed them into the man’s side just under the rib cage. This time, the protective vest did its work and the killing blow, though painful, was deflected.

In desperation, Saigō used the
tettsui
against the sternum. It cracked and all breath went out of the massive body above him.

Saigō got the reverse at last and now, sitting astride the policeman, rewrapped the cord about his throat, heaving with his arms and shoulders.

He heard it, escalating up the register until the decibels were so high they passed beyond human hearing. He moved at the same time. Felt the white-hot blast along his right temple and, half stunned, began to roll along the atrium floor. Scrambled for the shadows as the deadly sound followed him, whining away in ricochet.

Another sniper! He crouched in the shadow of a thick pillar, hearing the night erupt into sound and motion all around him. Blood seeped from the wound and he automatically put a hand up. Just a crease. Still, he had become careless.
We cannot advocate the use of drugs
—
any drugs whatsoever
—he heard his
sensei
say.
Drugs tend to narrow consciousness, intensifying the narrow-beam awareness while, at the same time, giving the impression of just the opposite. A false reality set is therefore presented. Narrow-beam consciousness becomes a tendency in any form of combat, especially during the latter stages. Even veterans must guard against it. You must effect the
Rat’s Head, Ox’s Neck
when this occurs. If preoccupied by minute points, step back and review the combat from a distant stance.

This was precisely the trap he had set for himself and one into which he had neatly fallen. Otherwise he never would have been grazed by that bullet.

Hearing was still a problem and he scrambled away from the epicenter of the commotion. He needed some time to recover.

Movement to the left and in front of him as he lay at an oblique angle within the building’s interior. Above him, the partially completed atrium swept away in a narrowing pattern of dim light and deep shadow, the dark air hovering above him like a column of water, heavy and oppressive.

For the first time he considered the depressing possibility that he had seriously underestimated his foes. He felt helpless and terribly alone as he had that night of the howling winds upon the straits, carving out a part of him into the deep with dry eyes and trembling hands; as he had the moment he looked down on the face of his dead father. With the only person in the world who understood him now gone, there was room left only for Satsugai’s last wishes. Nothing else had seemed to matter. It was as if he had relinquished all control of his life into the grasping hands of some powerful
kami
: a
jikininki
—the man-eating demon. Perhaps that was all his father had ever been. He had recognized this unassailable monomania even while feeling more respect for him than anyone else in the world—except perhaps for his namesake. It had occurred to him on first reading that earlier Saigō’s history that the
kami
of that great patriot must surely reside within Satsugai. In Buddhist lore this was far from impossible.

Satsugai had taken him over completely from a very early stage. His life had been an extension of his father’s and there had been, it seemed, no time at all to discover what it was about life that Saigō himself could come to enjoy. Now he knew that there was nothing about life he enjoyed: merely the knowledge of unfinished business which drove him onward toward its inevitable conclusion.

He no longer felt alone and afraid. The drug coursed through his system, heightening his senses. His muscles tingled with suppressed energy. It was time to move.

Out from the shadows, he encountered another policeman with a submachine gun at the ready. They saw each other at the same time. The muzzle of the submachine gun swung up, centering on Saigō’s chest. His finger began to squeeze on the trigger; he stared into Saigō’s eyes; his finger froze in place.

Still as a statue, he made no reaction as Saigō raised a blunt black stick from waist level. The man’s eyes seemed blank. Saigō depressed a hidden stud and with a whisper of sound a steel spike four inches long shot into the plainclothesman’s gaping mouth, through the roof, puncturing the brain. He spun around, his finger convulsed on the trigger of his weapon so that it erupted in a short burst, a brief deadly arc.

Saigō was already moving away from the area as the man fell heavily to the patterned tiles of the atrium floor. He could hear the pounding of running feet, the hoarse shouts of the remaining policeman, the static of a walkie-talkie.

He skirted the area overseen by the second long gun, though this was one element which still made him somewhat uneasy. The sniper was potentially as mobile as he was.
Haragei
would protect him from direct assault and, in near-silence, it could negate much of the long gun’s threat. But in this commotion he felt cut off from many of his unnatural senses and
haragei
was useless for the kind of distances involved.

He wanted to get upstairs now, but he knew he could not until he had nullified that last threat.

In a leap, he gained the catwalk halfway up to the mezzanine. Two shots in rapid succession spun off the metal close by his left side and had he not been moving he would certainly have been hit at least once.

He ran along the catwalk, his forebrain concentrating on what was directly before him as he let his subconscious work out the location of the sniper from the double flashes that had registered on the periphery of his vision.

He ceded conscious control of his body to this part of him, quartering in on the location. All the while, he watched for any movement.

Up ahead were two patches of light with a length of deep shadow in between. To circumvent them would mean to return to ground level. This he did not wish to do, for to do so he would relinquish his growing advantage over the sniper.

He paused six feet from the first patch of light and, standing perfectly still, surveyed the topography directly in front of him.

He took three deep breaths and sprang forward. One step, two and he was in the air, his legs jackknifed into a diver’s tuck so that he passed through the first patch of light as a rotating ball.

He was already arcing downward when he heard the report of the long gun. In the midst of tumbling, he could not tell how close the sniper had come to him but he took no chances. Barely had his feet touched the metal catwalk then he had relaunched himself through the air. But now the atmosphere around him seemed thick and humid, as turbulent as cloud turned to smoke.

Automatically he ceased to inhale. Briefly, as he turned over in midair, he saw the dull flash of the metal canister rolling along the catwalk in the pool of light. He counted the
spang
and whine of four bullets, a quick heat sear along one calf, and then he was in darkness again, on his feet, hurtling down the catwalk toward the sniper. He ignored the pain in his right leg, compartmentalizing and thus trivializing the nerve shock, the disruption to his thirstily questing senses.