Jake Maroc - Shan Part 36

"You mean they were on a joint DEA-SNIT mission together?"

"No, man. Nothin' like that."

Simbal tried to discern from the Cuban's expression what he did mean. Whatever it was, wasn't good, that much was clear. "Don't tell me they were in business together?"

"No business," the Cuban said, downing the rest of his rum and c.o.ke. "Pleasure."

"Oh, Jesus." Simbal thought for a minute. "You're not telling me that all of thiss.h.i.thappened over a lovers' spat."

The Cuban fiddled with his empty bottle. He seemed to want another. "I believe it began that way, yes. See, they couldn't live together, be seen in public together, none of that s.h.i.t, man. It was very bad for them. Once that kind of thing gets into your file, Madonna, there'snothing more you can do in our line of work. The field's out and forget about handling any cla.s.sified s.h.i.t. They send you off to the Leper Colony. That's what Eddie used to call it. Learn to be a clerk, pushing papers, real important stuff like promotions, raises, requisitions, s.h.i.t like that."

"You said n.o.body knew about them," Simbal said. "You know."

"Sure I know. Eddie and I worked together more than a couple of times. You know that much from his file. But like I said before, that file, at least in Eddie's case, ain't worth p.i.s.s."

"To know Eddie Bennett is to love him," Simbal said. "That it?"

The Cuban screwed up his face. "You think you're pretty cute, uh? Work for the Quarry, you got power up the yin-yang, look down your nose at us country folk now, that it?"

"It was my only way in, Martine," Simbal said. "This was a closed shop, I was quick enough to spot that. I didn't have time to finesse my way to see you. Don't get your nose out of joint, it's nothing personal."

"That's where you're wrong, hombre. This whole boatload of fish is personal from the bottom to the top."

*Then you'd best tell me about it."

The Cuban nodded. "For Eddie, there was n.o.body else on the beach besides Peter Curran. They were in school together."

"Yeah, I know. Yale. Same frat, same club."

"h.e.l.lfire Club," the Cuban said. "Some heavy s.h.i.t going down there. Same drunken night Eddie told me about Curran, he told me about the initiation into the h.e.l.lfire Club. He and Curran pledged together." The Cuban shrugged. "I guess men can fall in love, too." He signaled the waitress for another round. "Can fall outta love just the same."

"Is that what happened to them?"

"It was like any marriage that falls apart," the Cuban said. "That's the funny part. One of them changed, the other didn't."

"That must've been Curran," Simbal said. "Curran'd been floating around with a female operative at the DEA."

"Yeah, that seemed to p.i.s.s Eddie off all right," the Cuban admitted, "but the cut came because of Eddie. He was sent out into deep water." That was SNIT-speak for long-duration undercover work.

"Let me guess," Simbal said. "Diqui?"

"Right." The Cuban took his drink off the girl's tray. He seemed inordinately thirsty and Simbal remembered that feeling of fear he exuded. "He's been out a long time. A very long time."

Simbal picked up the undercurrent. "Meaning?"

The Cuban made a face. "See, that's the reason I'm here. That's the reason I got so bent when you showed up on my doorstep. Eddie's not coming back. He's gone over to the other side."

And in the shocked silence, Simbal thought, Dear G.o.d, what we're dealing with is a voodoo spook.

Sun Tzu said that the most effective manner for a general to deploy his troops was to ensure that they had no identifiable shape to the enemy. In that way, no defense against them was possible even from the most brilliant military tactician.

That was written in 500 B.C. but such was the incisiveness of Sun Tzu's strategy it was as true today.

This is what flitted through Jake's mind as he and Mikio turned the corner of the scriptures hall. They had begun their run along the temple's vast veranda. The two sungla.s.sed Yakuza had guns; there was no point in heading toward them or even in holding their ground. Jake and Mikio were unarmed; any form of weapon was strictly forbidden within the temple's grounds. Besides, Mikio had "died" the day before in Tokyo. There was no reason to expect any form of pursuit here.

But they had their superbly trained bodies and Sun Tzu had counseled to find the proper battleground. So Jake and Mikio took off along the edge of the veranda. They hurried down a flight of stone steps, brushing past a long line of women supplicants.

Pa.s.sing the open doorway to the scriptures hall they could hear the rhythmic pok, pok, pok of the hollow wooden fish being struck to keep the tempo of the priests' chanting.

They skidded to a halt. "Oh, Buddha," Jake said softly. Sun Tzu's strategy became uppermost in his mind as he saw four more Yakuza making their way toward them. Then he knew. The first two with the guns had been stalking horses. Cursed himself mightily. He should have suspected something of the sort when he saw the pair draw their guns. In a place like this where much of the structure had been designated a National Treasure by the government of j.a.pan, there would be no question of gunplay. Other, more silentand discreet methods would have to be used.

"Into the garden," Mikio hissed and, bent almost double, they scuttled into the large forested area between the scriptures hall and the bell paG.o.da. They stepped off the wooden walkway onto a large flat river rock. Stepping stones led a way through pebbles, haircap moss, moss bamboo. On their right they pa.s.sed a gigantic rock rounded by centuries of rushing water. It was the Benevolence stone, one of five such enormous rocks that studded the garden. Each one represented one of the five Confucian Virtues.

Aspidistra and ostrich fern floated in the breeze of their pa.s.sage. Jake already felt a shortness of breath, a pounding behind his eyes.

It was very still. They could hear the whisper of water somewhere close at hand, hidden by the bands of meticulously barbered greenery, even now and again the chanting, the pok, pok, pok invoking the rhythm from the scriptures hall.

They both became aware of the men at the same time. Mikio touched the edge of Jake's sleeve and the two of them moved off. Deeper into the garden, moving along a narrow, serpentine path of moss-encrusted stepping stones artfully arranged to suggest to the stroller a rushing stream.

They crouched down beneath a cryptomeria whispering ancient secrets of the timeless place. To their left twined the red-gold leaves of a dwarf cut-leaf maple. Directly ahead reared the Justice stone, its enormous body a series of roughly concentric plateaus built one upon the other like the rings of a rent redwood. Confronting it, one was thus inexorably reminded of the pa.s.sing eons, slabs of time that dwarfed any human's lifetime.

This was the stunning effect of the stonesaid to have taken the garden's designer ten years to findto place the viewer in perspective, to remind him or her of the timelessness of this place, the immutability transmitted to and from the Confucian Virtue of Justice, itself an extension of nature.

"I do not understand this," Mikio said in a whisper. "To the Kisan clan I am dead. Yet they have picked up my trail so quickly."

"A traitor?"

Mikio shrugged his heavily muscled shoulders. "Anything is possible, my friend. But I prefer to look for another explanation."

A whistling brought Jake's head around just in time to see the beginnings of shohatsu. He kicked out reflexively, deflecting the weighted end of the Yakuza's chain. The manrikigusariwhich meant literally "chain with the strength of ten thousand"rattled as the sungla.s.sed man brought it back toward him.

Jake extended his hand in a feint. This brought the expected response, the uchiotoshi, a striking drop attack which missed as he drew back his wrist at the last instant.

Grabbed hold of the chain and twisted. They both lost their footing and crashed into a carefully manicured bed of spidery ferns.

The man was not big but he was unusually powerful. As he sprang back to the b.a.l.l.s of his feet, Jake saw that he seemed to have all his energy concentrated in his upper arms and torso, which was unusual in a j.a.panese, who prized big hara so highlythe centralization of intrinsic energies in the lower belly. That was why sumo wrestlers were so heavy.

Used a tenkan, bringing both their bodies around to his left, making it the low turn because the Yakuza's hands were reaching for his wrist to free the manrikigusari and Jake thought, This is what happens when your mind relies on weapons: they become more important than your own body.

By grabbing for Jake's wrist the Yakuza had sacrificed position in order to regain full control of his chain. This allowed Jake to flow his own body with the Yakuza's momentum, bringing both his arms up and out while Jake's free hand pulled downward at his neck.

In a moment, the Yakuza had arched backward, crashing onto the mossy stones. Flicked the manrikigusari and it curled around Jake's extended left ankle. The Yakuza pulled hard and Jake lost his balance.

The breath went out of him as he hit on his side. Turned in time to see Mikio apply a liver kite with vicious accuracy. The Yakuza's lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of agony. He let go the chain, clutching at himself as Mikio repeated the blow. Jake smashed the heel of his hand flush on into the Yakuza's face and his sungla.s.ses burst apart. He went limp.

Jake took a deep breath and Mikio extended a hand, grunted heavily. The whites of his eyes showed all around and his mouth opened silently. He collapsed onto one knee and Jake leapt to catch him, pulled out the shuriken, the honed steel throwing spike.

Blood gushed and Mikio put a palm over the wound. Jake heard a whirring and, simultaneously, felt Mikio crash into him. A second shuriken embedded itself with a thwok in the trunk of the cryptomeria.

Jake crawled on his elbows and knees through a low copse of boxwood, pulled up behind a swaying ma.s.s of azalea. He glanced back, saw Mikio ripping his shirt with his teeth, applying a tourniquet to his arm, grunting with the effort. In a moment the white cotton was dark and wet with blood.

Jake returned his attention to the shuriken thrower. Tried to ignore the bees moving busily through the field of flowers beside his head.

He kept himself very still. When he decided to move he did so with extreme caution and slowness.

The garden had about it a certain tempo as the light breeze took leaves, certain small branches and set them to moving. Any deviation in that tempo would, he knew, bring instant attention to himself. The idea was to sink in to his surroundings, chahm hai, as Fo Saan had taught him. Yet all his training revolved around ba-mahk. If Jake could no longer reach out and be in touch with the eternal cosmic pulse of things then all avenues were closed to him.

Still, he did what he could to blend in with his surroundings. It wasn't enough. The slither of the chain caused him to turn his head but the manrikigusari was already around his neck in makiotoshi, the terminal strangle attack.

The first thing was to keep the hands down, away from his neck. The organism's first jibbering response would be to get its hands up to free the neck. This would be a mistake because there was no way for bare hands to break the drop-forged steel chain. Precious seconds would be wasted while the attacker applied even more pressure. Death would surely follow.

Took a deep breath. Used the boar, a rib atemi, an edge-of-the-hand percussion blow that required him to perform a quarter-turn twist to his left. This severely restricted his windpipe. But the breath was already inside him and he used his full strength, aided by the organism's knowledge that death was near. Used the animal fear, rearing its head like a spur, as he had been taught, letting it pump excessive amounts of adrenaline into the system.

Twisted now to his right, delivering a boar to that side, and quickly, again, feeling three ribs give as the heat on his face became almost unbearable, the chain beginning to stop the blood flow to the brain and Jake knew that this was strictly shunt-ended, very little time before the sparkling lights sprang up before his eyes and the lack of oxygen clouded his judgment or, worse, affected his coordination.

The Yakuza slipped to his knees, bringing Jake down with him. But his training was extraordinary and even with three ribs shattered he would not let go, he was still positioned directly behind Jake where it was very difficult to get anything done against him.

Time was critical now. Lungs burning and he was experiencing consciousness slippage, aware of the sunlight filtered onto one leaf, suprareal; the sighing of the breeze like the chattering of animated spirits, playing hide and seek amid the trees; cloud, blue-gray, in the shape of a samurai at the charge and a I'm not getting any air!

Stop daydreaming and get on with it! he berated himself. Tried four different types of leg atemi but the Yakuza slipped away each time, doggedly keeping his strength in the tautness of the manrikigusari. Jake suspected that he was slowly drowning in his own blood. But that would be little consolation if he was able to hold on long enough to keep the air out of Jake's bursting lungs.

Seconds now rather than minutes and Jake did the only thing he could, arching backward, putting all his weight excruciatingly on his neck for the instant when it became the fulcrum for the back somersault.

Used an elbow atemi with both fists clenched together, consciousness wavering in and out of focus, jamming down, down in a sharp motion that shattered the Yakuza's sternum.

The man arched up, his fingers white as bone as they slid along the wet links of the chain and Jake, slamming his left elbow at the side of his neck, smashed the flat of his right hand against his adversary's cheek. Heard the sharp snap of the cervical vertibrae as they gave way beneath the enormous pressure.

A nacreous blackness and he saw the ant making its laborious way through a field of stalks.

Then he became aware that the field of stalks was the hairs on the back of his hand. Head hanging down, the manrikigusari hanging around his shoulders like the weight held aloft by Atlas.

"Jake-san!"

Mikio by his side. "Are you all right?"

It hurt too much to nod his head and his tongue was so dry it felt swollen enough to fill his mouth.

At Mikio's silent urging, they moved off, edging around to the far side of the Justice stone. Surrounded by box tree and silver juniper.

"There are four more," Mikio said. He kept looking at his watch as if he were late for an appointment. "We must hold them off."

Jake noticed that he had taken the manrikigusari. "How good are you with that?" He was testing the raw flesh around his neck.

Mikio gave a grim laugh. "It depends on whom you speak to." He gave Jake a look, "Don't worry, kyujutsu ka, we'll be drinking Kirins at my favorite bar in the old quarter of Kyoto an hour from now."

Jake said nothing but he wondered if that was going to be so. He badly needed some rest and there was no telling how badly Mikio was wounded. He watched their immediate environment. He listened.

He heard a sharp clack and jump slightly. Mikio put a hand on his knee. "It is only the shishi odoshi."

Jake looked around, saw the bamboo and stone "deer scare" not twenty meters away. Originally created by farmers to keep their crops from being eaten by animals, the shishi odoshi was now a common element in the modern j.a.panese garden. A wide length of bamboo filled part way with water and as the liquid's weight tipped it over, its end would strike a stone, making the loud clacking noise. Emptied of water it would rise back up again to be refilled and strike the stone once more.

In the changeless harmony of the eternal garden, the shishi odoshi's metronomic sound might be the only outward manifestation of the pa.s.sage of time.

To Jake, every clack that reverberated through the foliage brought them that much closer to the end of the overwhelming peace of the garden. Here beneath the willowy branches of the evergreens, the Chinese Judas, amid the aspidistra and plantain lily, the lacy ostrich fern, the okame bamboo gra.s.s, he was never more acutely aware of the beauty of the world. Wiping the sweat from his face, he was determined that they would not die here, not today, not for a long while.

Clack, clack, the shishi odoshi spewing out the water on the back of the striking stone. The changeless western face of the Justice stone, bulging out toward them, then running away in a wide arc down toward the j.a.panese maple and the cryptomeria.

Glimpse of black, pin stripe, a suit sleeve? and Jake saying, "Brace yourself, Mikio-san, here they come."

Mikio used the manrikigusari on the leading man, tumbling him so that the shuriken he was about to release clattered to the stone path.

At the same time, Jake was up and running toward the breadth of the Justice stone. It was imperative to split these four up. In a bunch, Jake knew, they'd have little chance against a ma.s.sed a.s.sault.

Took three with himobviously with Mikio wounded they figured Jake was the most dangerous. They came at him from three different directions at once. Expected him to run but he stood his ground. Deliberately made himself appear confused; he was careful not to move so that when he did it would come as a shock, gaining him a fraction more time.

And when the one on the left was close enough, he began his attack, a flat-handed atemi that Jake watched come at his face. At the lastinstant, he dropped to one knee, swiveling his body to his left as he did so. With his right hand he reached up, caught the cuff on the man's extended right sleeve and, using his own forward momentum, pulled hard across his own body and down, throwing the Yakuza into his companion, rushing Jake from the right.

Now, as Jake rose to his feet, the man in the center grabbed him from behind over Jake's shoulders. Jake kept his body moving to his right, jamming his left hand upward under the Yakuza's armpit, and threw him off.

The first man was on him again and Jake, seeing the shuriken in his hand, allowed him to stab forward with it. His left hand flashed out to meet the blade, bypa.s.sed it, locked around the Yakuza's wrist, pulling toward him using his own momentum combined with his strength to pitch him forward.

As the Yakuza stretched out, bending, Jake's right hand came up, slashed down onto the back of the man's exposed neck. He collapsed into a heap.

Jake kicked out at the third man, rocking him back, while eying the short sword the second man had unsheathed. He rushed at Jake, the sword extended in front of him. He began to kiai shout but Jake slammed the heel of his hand into the Yakuza's chin. His other hand blurred up, deflecting the blade away and down.

But the Yakuza had kicked out and Jake felt a searing pain along his hip. His left leg went numb and he collapsed against the curving face of the Justice stone.

The Yakuza slashed down and Jake rolled. Heard the sc.r.a.ping crash as blade encountered rock, saw the bright blue sparks.

Jake reached out, curling his fingers into the front of his adversary's jacket. In close quarters the sword was no good at all, neither would be the man's potentially lethal foot atemi.

Surprising Jake, the Yakuza immediately dropped his weapon, landed a double kite just above Jake's heart. Jake doubled over, had the presence of mind to roll out of the way of the atemi he knew would be aimed at the back of his neck.

The Yakuza followed closely, sensing victory. The edges of his hand were extended and Jake could see that his karate training had been extensive. He struck and Jake used a tenkan, jamming the heel of his hand against the Yakuza's elbow. At the same time Jake twisted his torso, giving him the added leverage, swinging himself and the other man around, slamming him to the ground.

The Yakuza, half-stunned, nevertheless grabbed up the hilt of the short sword and, in the same motion, slashed upward. The blade came within a hair's-breadth of severing Jake's neck.

Used his feet to take the Yakuza down but his position was bad and the man was wielding the sword with deadly force. So Jake did the only thing he could. Using irimi to bring the man toward him down and, at just the right angle, smashed the top of his head against the immutable face of the Justice stone.

He was staring at the limp form when the blow landed on the side of his face. Jake reeled, sliding down the side of the stone. He blinked several times, trying to clear his vision, but nothing would quite come into focus. His depth perception was gone. His arms felt weighed down with lead, his leg was burning with the pain inflicted by the foot atemi.

The last of the Yakuza stood over him with his fallen compatriot's sword in his hand. He lifted the gleaming blade and Jake knew there was nothing he could do to stop him. He saw his own death reflected in the shining perfect blade of the wakizashi, felt the cold pressage of the flat, arcing blow that would sever his head from his neck.

The blade began to blur, picking up momentum. At the moment it struck through his skin, flesh and bone, he knew, it would be at the height of its speed.

It was so close now that Jake could see the meeting of the two planes of the blade or thought he coulda hairline so intensely white as to be blinding. it was like looking into the face of G.o.d.

Then something funny happened to the Yakuza's body. It ballooned outward at its center, perhaps six centimeters above the heart, and Jake was covered with a heavy, wet heat. A stench like that of a charnel house suffused him sothat he began to gag.