By The Sword Part 24

Finally they listened and stepped away from Cooter-san's bullet-riddled body. They began loading fresh magazines into their pistols.

Hideo's mind reeled. Two dead! All because of a broken-down katana. Was it cursed? And then he saw Goro pushing himself up from the floor, with no one behind him.

"The ronin! ronin!"

Kenji clicked a magazine into the grip of his pistol and gave him a puzzled look. "Ronin?" "Ronin?"

Kenji and Ryo had been so intent on killing their attacker that they'd forgotten the ronin ronin.

Hideo pointed toward the bedroom. "The man! He's escaping!"

Goro swung around and charged through the bedroom doorway, Kenji and Ryo on his heels. Hideo followed, but knew what they'd find.

An empty bedroom.

Goro grabbed his pistol from the floor and barreled toward the window, still lit by red and blue flashes.

"No!" Hideo cried. "The police!"

Goro wasn't listening but Kenji and Ryo had enough presence of mind to pull him back.

"We must go," Hideo said. "Now. We cannot be seen."

Goro struggled free of their grasp, then nodded.

"The stairs," Kenji said. "That will be the safest."

They slipped past the two corpses and paused at the door. Kenji peered into the hallway, then gave the signal to follow. The four of them rushed to the stairwell and hurried down.

Hideo brought up the rear thinking about the man in the apartment. He'd looked familiar at once, but he'd been unable to place him until he caught a look at his face from an angle similar to the photo.

Yoshio's mysterious ronin ronin.

His mind whirled. What were the odds of winding up in the same apartment with that man? Astronomical.

And yet...

He said he'd been looking for owed money, but that could have been a lie. He too might have been looking for the sword. If so, he did not have it, for he'd been bargaining to walk out of the apartment without it.

What a strange, strange day this had been.

When they reached the street, Hideo studied the traffic lights at the nearby corner, looking for- There! A traffic security camera, trained on the corner, but pointed his way. Its angle might-he prayed to his ancestors that it be so-include this doorway. Where there was one cam there would be others. He could search them out through the police grid and review their recordings.

If he was lucky, he might see the ronin ronin and gain a clue as to where he could find him. and gain a clue as to where he could find him.

If he was very very lucky he might see a man carrying a katana. But no one could be that lucky. lucky he might see a man carrying a katana. But no one could be that lucky.

17.

Jack swayed and rocked as he rode the mostly empty Manhattan-bound train, but his thoughts remained in Jamaica.

That j.a.panese guy seemed to know him, and Jack had to admit he looked a little familiar. Obviously they'd met at some time. But where? Jack didn't know many Asians and they rarely came to him as customers. They had their own extralegal ways of solving problems. So where-?

He straightened in his seat. The j.a.panese guy in the Catskills-Yoshio. This guy looked like him. But he couldn't be him. He'd been executed by Sam Baker. As cold-blooded an act as Jack had ever seen. One Baker had paid for.

This new guy looked enough like him to be his brother. Maybe he was. But even so, how did he know Jack?

He shook his head. Be glad when this was over. And he had a feeling it would be over soon. Because he had a pretty good idea who had the sword now.

Never would have pegged O'Day as a killer. Just went to show the lengths a collector would go to.

Gollum had found his Precious.

"You're looking for a sword," said a woman's voice behind him. "You should be looking for the baby as well."

He turned and saw a twenty-something girl dressed in black like him, with bright burgundy hair and heavily kohled eyes. She sported a slew of ear, nostril, eyebrow, and lip piercings. A pit bull stared up at him from the end of the leash clutched in her hand.

"You're one of them," he said.

She nodded.

"Prove it."

She lifted the front of her Sandman T-shirt to reveal a deep depression just to the right of her navel.

She smiled. "Need a closer look?"

Jack shook his head. He knew it went clean through and exited in the small of her back.

Women with dogs had been walking in and out of his life, each knowing more than they should about him and what was going on.

"I'd love to find the baby-and its mother. Where's Dawn?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes I know and other times I don't. She appears and disappears. But her baby..."

"What about it?"

"It is important."

"How?"

"I wish I knew. Like the katana you seek-unique among swords-the baby is unique among mortals. It has the potential to be used for immense good or terrible ill. Whoever controls that baby may well control the future." She frowned. "Or not."

"Thanks for clearing that up."

"There's nothing clear about it."

"I promised to protect Dawn, but not her baby. If she wants to get an abortion-and she has every reason to-should I stop her?"

The girl's expression looked almost pained. "I wish I could say. Perhaps it would be for the best. It is a wild card that could provide the Adversary with an unbeatable hand. Then again... it may allow us to trump him."

Jack sighed. "You're a big help."

"I wish I could tell you more. That is all I know. We are in uncharted waters." As the train stopped, she said, "I get off here."

Jack didn't want to see her go. So many questions...

"There's nothing more you can tell me?"

She shook her head. "When I know more, I shall come to you. Until then..."

She stepped out onto the platform and let the dog lead her away. Jack knew better than to follow.

18.

"The hireling has not yet found the katana, sensei. sensei."

Toru, sitting in his darkened room, did not turn at Tadasu's voice, but kept his face to his window, gazing out at the night.

"He is truly searching? You have followed him?"

"He is difficult to follow, but I believe so, sensei sensei."

"You think he is an honorable man, then?"

"I do, sensei sensei."

"Will that make it more difficult for you to do what must be done when the time comes?" Toru sensed an instant's hesitation. "Well... will it?"

"No, sensei sensei. Nothing will deter me from my duty to the Order."

"Good." He waved a hand. "Prepare the shoten shoten for me. We leave within the hour." for me. We leave within the hour."

The door closed, cutting off the light from the hallway and plunging the room into darkness. Toru did not move. He sat and thought, and his thoughts were not happy. Instead of handling this matter on its own, the Order had been forced to depend on a gaijin gaijin mercenary. Humiliating. mercenary. Humiliating.

But the Kakureta Kao would rise again. The Seer had promised.

He went to the small wooden bureau that held his worldly belongings and withdrew a small case of st.u.r.dy ebony, its top inlaid with ivory. He removed the top and examined the doku-ippen doku-ippen within: two dozen slivers of wood, each saturated with a different mix of herbs and extracts, rested in individual grooves. The ones ringed with blue caused mere unconsciousness. The others were soaked with deadly toxins: Those marked with black were employed for instant effect, those marked with varying shades of red conferred a delayed death. All were untraceable. within: two dozen slivers of wood, each saturated with a different mix of herbs and extracts, rested in individual grooves. The ones ringed with blue caused mere unconsciousness. The others were soaked with deadly toxins: Those marked with black were employed for instant effect, those marked with varying shades of red conferred a delayed death. All were untraceable.

He would need one of the reds tonight.

So many needs in his life now...

The Order needed the katana, so that its future might be measured in millennia.

The Order also needed a successful test of the ekisu ekisu tonight so that New York City's future might be measured in days. tonight so that New York City's future might be measured in days.

19.

Hideo's ancestors answered his prayers.

A fair number of traffic cams around the city were fakes, installed on the principle that if one thinks one is being watched, one will behave accordingly. But the cam near Gerrish-san's apartment was of the functioning variety and-bless his ancestors-showed the building's entrance in the far upper left corner of the frame.

Kenji sat with him, absorbing all Hideo was doing. So difficult to reconcile this young, eager-to-learn face now with his cold-blooded expression while pumping round after round into Cooter-san.

Hideo turned to him. "How long do you think Gerrish-san was dead when we found him?"

The answer was important. He needed to know how far back in the recording to go. He had no idea of how to judge a death, but he sensed Kenji had seen his share of corpses.

He answered in English: "From way blood was only part"-he looked to Hideo for help-"thicked?"

"Clotted."

He nodded. "Yes, clotted. I say one hour."

To be safe, Hideo began reviewing at a point ninety minutes before their arrival at the apartment. He showed Kenji how to fast-forward, then leaned back and concentrated on the screen. The entrance was not terribly busy, so he did not have to stop Kenji often.

The onscreen clock read 19:52 when he saw a man step out of the entrance carrying an oblong object.

"Stop."

Kenji did so and Hideo took over the controls. He enhanced and enlarged the image. The object under the man's arm appeared to be a rolle-dup rug. He estimated its length at approximately ninety to one hundred centimeters. Long enough to hide the katana they sought.

The man was moving north. If he walked any faster he would have been trotting. One might even think he was escaping from something. A murder scene, perhaps?