Zero. Part 2

"The answer, I submit, is already only too clear. Hiroshi, my beloved brother, would have provided fine, strong leadership in the tradition of Wataro Taki.

But Hiroshi is dead. Murdered by an a.s.sa.s.sin known to us as Zero. Which one of our enemies hired Zero? Which one stands to gain the most from the Taki-gumi's sudden lack of a central presence?

"I say that our most pressing problem-our only problem- is in denning the future of the Taki-gumi. We can either weaken, be ripped apart by our enemies and eventually die. Or we can strengthen our hold, we can become more aggressive, we can seek to dominate those who would dominate us.

"The crisis is now. These are desperate times. Both for the Yakuza and for j.a.pan. As proud Yakuza, we must seek our rightful place in the world of international business. As citizens of j.a.pan, we must actively fight for the kind of equality we, as natives of these tiny islands, have always been denied. I ask you to join me in seeking a future, glorious and filled with prosperity!

"There can be only one oyabun of the Taki-gumi! It is I, Masashi Taki!"

Joji, stunned and gray-faced, heard the tumultuous roar of applause from the a.s.sembled clan members. He had listened to his brother's words with a sense of mounting disbelief mingled with dread. Now he watched with a kind of paralyzed awe as the men of the Taki-gumi rose to their feet like an army of foot soldiers about to do battle. Then, humiliated and ashamed, Joji hurried from the hall.

Jonas Sammartin was not, strictly speaking, Michael Doss's uncle. At least, not by blood. But the lifelong friendship he had had with Michael's father made him seem more a member of the family than blood relatives from whom Michael's father had drifted away.

Philip Doss had loved Jonas Sammartin like a brother. He had trusted the older man with the safety of his family, with his own life. That was why it had been Uncle Sammy who had made the call to Michael, and not Michael's mother or sister. Or perhaps it was because Jonas was Phih'p Doss's boss.

In any case, the Doss family loved Uncle Sammy.

Philip Doss had rarely been home, and so it had been left to Jonas Sammartin to become a surrogate father to the family. Though Philip Doss, on his sporadic and unannounced homecomings, never failed to bring presents for his children from wherever he happened to have traveled, it was Jonas who had attended Michael's graduations. And since Michael always came home at least once a year when he was studying in j.a.pan, it was Jonas who also had made it a point to be with Michael on his birthday. It was Jonas, too, who had played cowboys and Indians with Michael when Michael was a child. They spent hours tracking one another down, having shoot-outs, and powwows.

It had been that way as far back as Michael could remember. Often, Michael wondered what it was like to have a father who was really there. A father who played ball with you, whom you could talk to.

Now, Michael realized, he would never know.

Washington was gray when Michael arrived at Dulles International. From the air, the public monuments looked soot-encrusted and somehow smaller than he had remembered them. He had not been back here in ten years. It seemed like a lifetime.

He pa.s.sed through Customs and Immigration, retrieved his luggage and picked up his rental car.

Driving again through Washington, he was amazed that its inner geography was still fresh in his mind. He had no trouble finding his way to his parents'

house. Not home, he realized, as Uncle Sammy had said. Just his parents'house.

Dulles was a long way from town. Michael opted for the airport-access highway rather than the more southerly-and direct-Little River Turnpike because that would have taken him directly through Fairfax. That was where his father had worked, where Uncle Sammy sat in his seat of power at the head of a government agency known as BITE, the Bureau of International Trade Exports.

Besides, he told himself, this way he was able to drive along the Potomac, to see the cherry trees in blossom, to think of the countryside of j.a.pan, where he had trained in swordsmanship and in painting.

The Doss family's house was a white clapboard just outside Bellehaven, on the western sh.o.r.e of the Potomac, south of Alexandria. It was typical of Uncle Sammy that he had said, Yes, home. To Washington. Not Bellehaven, but Washington. To him, Washington was the power word.

The house had been far too big for the family, even when both children had been at home. Now its great wraparound porch, supported by Doric-style columns, seemed to echo with sounds from the past, mocking the silence of the present.

The house overlooked the Potomac past a long, sloping back lawn dotted with birch, alder and the enormous pair of weeping willows that Michael had loved to climb when he was young.

The ma.s.sed azaleas in the front were coming up, but it was too early for the mock orange and honeysuckle to be in bloom.

As Michael walked down the red-brick path, the front door opened and he saw his mother. The wan light struck her face, and he could see how pale she was.

She wore a three-piece black linen suit which was, as usual, in impeccable taste. A diamond brooch was at her throat.

Just behind her, Michael could make out the tall, powerful figure of Uncle Sammy, wreathed in shadows. Uncle Sammy stepped into the light, and Michael could see the shock of white hair catch the light. Uncle Sammy's hair had been white ever since Michael could remember.

"Michael," Lillian Doss said. When he bent over to kiss her, she embraced him with a fierceness that surprised him. Before they broke apart, he felt her tears on his face.

"Good of you to come, son," Uncle Sammy said, extending his hand. He had the firm, dry grip of a politician. His leathery, sunburned face had always reminded Michael of Gary Cooper's.

Inside, the vast house was as quiet, as somber, as a funeral parlor. That, too, had not changed since the days of Michael's youth. Even as he began to walk with them into the parlor, Michael felt himself shrink in size and age.

This was an adult's abode; it always had been. He felt out of place, disconnected. Home, Michael thought. This is not home. It never has been.

Home was the rolling hills of Nara prefecture in j.a.pan. Home was Nepal and Thailand. Home was Paris or Provence. Not Bellehaven.

"Drink?" Jonas Sammartin asked at the mahogany wet bar.

"Stolichnaya, if you have it." Michael saw that Jonas was already preparing two martinis. He gave one to Lillian, kept one for himself. He poured Michael's vodka, then held his gla.s.s aloft.

"Your father liked a good, stiff drink," Uncle Sammy observed. "

'Fortification,' he used to say, 'cleanses the system.' Here's to him. He was a h.e.l.luva man."

Uncle Sammy still looked every inch the patriarch. But that was natural, of course. This was his family, even if by proxy, since he had none of his own.

His personality was tailor-made for sailing through emotionally difficult situations. Uncle Sammy was the rock upon which weaker souls, drowning in emotion, could throw themselves with absolute a.s.surance. Michael was glad he was here.

"Lunch will be ready momentarily," Lillian Doss said. She had never been a person of many words, and now, with the death of her husband, her thoughts seemed more recondite than ever. "We're having roast beef hash and eggs."

"Your father's favorite," Uncle Sammy said with a sigh. "A fitting meal, nowthat the family is back together again."

As if on cue, Audrey appeared through the gap in the french doors. Michael had not seen his sister in nearly six years. On that occasion, she had appeared at his doorstep, bruised and two months' pregnant. The German she had been living with for six months in Nice had not reacted well to the news that she was pregnant. He had had no interest in beginning a family and had shown the depth of his displeasure at what he termed Audrey's "stupidity." Against her sister's wishes, Michael had found her former boyfriend and had dispatched his own form of retribution. Oddly, Audrey had hated her brother for it. They had not spoken since the day he had brought her into the clinic to have the abortion. When he had returned to fetch her, she was gone.

Lillian went to her daughter, and Michael took the opportunity to speak to Uncle Sammy.

"You told me that my father died in an automobile accident," he said softly.

"What exactly happened?"

"Not now, son," Uncle Sammy said gently. "This isn't the time or the place.

Let's respect your mother's peace of mind, hm?" He extracted a small notepad, wrote on it with a slim gold pen. He pressed the slip of paper into Michael's hand. "Meet me at this address at nine tomorrow morning. I'll tell you everything I know." He gave Michael a sad smile. "This has been very difficult on your mother."

"It's a shock to all of us," Michael said tightly.

Uncle Sammy nodded. Then he turned toward the women, his voice warm and rich.

"Audrey, my little darling, how are you?"

Lillian Doss was slender, almost willowy, and Audrey was cut from the same mold. Seeing the daughter, one could imagine how striking the mother had once been. However, there was more than a touch of Philip's solid determination in Audrey's face, and this gave her a proud bearing that contrasted sharply with the sadness that seemed to hold her in its spell. Her hair, now cut short for the first time in Michael's memory, was redder than Lillian's golden brown.

As Michael's younger sister-raised in a household where feminine traits were, by and large, shunned-she had done all in her power to compete with him on equal terms. Of course that had been impossible-it was Michael who had gone to j.a.pan, not Audrey, As a consequence, she had become somewhat withdrawn.

Audrey's cool blue eyes regarded him now from across the sparely furnished room, a room that bore Philip Doss's indelible mark. In the study, j.a.panese screens, futon couches that Lillian complained were uncomfortable, contrasted with a futuristic j.a.panese black lacquer desk. Translucent rice-paper shoji across the windows brought intricate patterns of light and shadow into the room, making it appear larger than it was.

The walls were lined with bamboo-and-gla.s.s bookcases, which were filled with an extensive library of books concerned with military histories, a.n.a.lyses and strategies. Philip Doss's facility with foreign languages had been matched only by his endless enthusiasm for the intricacies of the military mind.

The gaps between the bookcases were filled with etchings, paintings or engravings of Philip Doss's heroes: Alexander the Great, leyasu Tokugawa and George Patton.

And there was the small gla.s.s case, empty now, that held the small porcelain teacup when Philip was home. It was by far Philip Doss's most prized possession; it was why he often took it with him when he went abroad. It held a place of honor-clearly a reminder of Philip's time in Tokyo just after the war.

This room, Michael realized now, was filled with his father's presence. Each book, each pillow, each painting, was a part of Philip Doss that abided, impervious either to time or to mortal disease.

For a moment, Michael had an odd sensation. He felt as if he had stumbled upon the atelier of one of the great artists, Matisse or Monet. There was the same sensation of being in the presence of a great legacy-an immortal statement-that transcended human experience.

Stunned, Michael was impelled across the room. In an instant the exaltedfeeling that only comes with privilege had given way to a kind of stultification.

"I'm surprised you came." Audrey's eyes never left him.

"That's not fair," he said.

She regarded him much as a cat might, with the kind of impersonal curiosity that was hard to fathom.

"When I went back to the hospital in Paris to get you, they told me you had gone. Why didn't you wait for me? I didn't want you to be on your own."

"Then you shouldn't have gone after Hans. I begged you not to."

"After what that b.a.s.t.a.r.d did to you-"

"I don't think you have to remind me what he did to me," Audrey said coldly.

"But there were other things. You had no idea how wonderful he could be."

"He beat you," Michael said. "Whatever else he was or did doesn't matter."

"It mattered to me."

"If you still believe that," Michael said, "then you're more of a fool than you were then."

"Michael Doss's morality, is that it?" Her tone had turned bleak. "The world doesn't conform to your rigid idea of morality, Michael. Whatever they taught you in j.a.pan doesn't always work in the real world. We're not all soldiers of inner righteousness or whatever it is you worship. We're human beings. Good and bad. If you can't accept both sides, then you're left with nothing."

He could see her trembling with the effort to control her emotions. This was their father's sacred room, after all. "Like I am now. Do you think it's easy to find a man who is unattached? How many affairs I've had since Hans? And all with married men. Men who made promises it was impossible to keep. At least Hans was willing to stay. We would have worked something out. I know it. He would have missed me in a week or so. He would have come back; he always did. But not after what you did to him. Do you know where I went when I left the hospital? Back to Nice, to find him. But he was gone."

Tears standing in the corners of her eyes, but she would not raise a finger to wipe them away. That would be tantamount to admitting defeat in front of her father; to admitting that she was not Michael's equal. "So now I am alone.

This is what your code of morality has done to me, Michael. Are you proud of it?" One tear sliding down her cheek.

Abruptly, she turned and, squeezing her mother's arm, half ran down the hallway. In a moment, they all heard a door slam.

"What was that about?" Lillian asked.

"I don't know exactly," Michael said sadly.

Lillian looked doubtful. "She's understandably overwrought." She put her hands together. "I wonder if I should go after her." It wasn't much of a question and, in any case, the men were waiting. There was the meal to consider. She nodded her head, trying out a smile. "I expect we'd better go into the dining room. Lunch is ready, and Philip always did abhor cold roast beef hash."

"The shogun is dead! Long live the shogun!"

The old man with a face as weathered as a mountainside said, "He was not that.

Wataro Taki was never the shogun."

Masashi Taki ceased his pacing momentarily. "I don't care what you call it. My father is dead."

The old man, bearded, with a rim of close-cropped snow-white hair surrounding a glossy freckled pate, said, "Hai. Your father is dead. But even more important for you is that your elder brother Hiroshi is also dead."

At that, a third man stirred. Ude had his suit jacket draped over his shoulder. His forearms, visible because of his short-sleeved shirt, were covered from the wrist up with irezumi, the intricate tattooing beloved of the Yakuza. On his left arm a fire-breathing dragon twined; on his right, a phoenix rose from the flames of a pyre.

Masashi Taki said, "Ude here did his work well. It was no secret that this Zero uses the legendary hundred-cut method to kill his victims. Ude had no trouble mimicking that style."Kozo Shiina, the old man, was sitting at a stone table in the center of his garden. It was a place of ten thousand species of moss and was thus filled with every shade of green imaginable. Moss was, by and large, a soft and delicate plant. But somehow this garden was neither. Rather, Masashi thought, it was austere, an altogether intimidating place. This was no doubt because its owner, Kozo Shiina, imbued it with elements of his own personality.

As Masashi watched, Shiina cut into a lemon with a pink pearl-handled folding knife. Swiftly, deftly, the old man turned the whole fruit into translucent slices. As they spoke, he took one slice at a time, dribbled honey on it and popped it into his mouth. He sucked all the juice out of it before chewing and swallowing.

"As I suggested," Shiina said. He had a disconcerting habit of scrutinizing your face as he spoke. "It does no harm to sow confusion. We would not want suspicion for Hiroshi's murder to fall on you."

Masashi shrugged. "That is the joke. I was not even next in line," he said.

"Joji was. But Joji is weak. He is frightened of me. No one loyal to my father would follow him; they have too much sense for that. No. Our plan is perfect.

When I denounced Joji at the clan meeting, all the Taki-gumi lieutenants agreed in one voice. One voice, one mind, neh? No one stood against me when I displaced him."

"And you are not concerned about the repercussions?"

"From whom?" Masashi sneered. "Joji? He'll be too busy fending off the oyabun from rival clans, who wish a piece of whatever remains, even to think of revenge."

Shiina popped another honeyed lemon slice into his mouth. When he was finished chewing, he said, "Joji is one matter. Your stepsister is quite another."

"Michiko." Masashi nodded. "Yes. I agree that she presents a problem. She is smart and she is strong. For many years she was my father's chief a.s.sistant.

Before the rift that tore them apart."

"Do you know what happened between them?"

Masashi shook his head. "My father never spoke of it-to anyone. And my stepsister and I were never on close enough terms for me to ask her." There was a tiny rill that ran through the garden. Masashi was standing on the wooden bridge that spanned it. He put his hand on the railing. "I wouldn't worry about Michiko. I have already put into motion a plan that will effectively neutralize her."

"Then she has a weakness."

"Everyone has a weakness," Masashi said softly. "It is only a matter of finding it."

"And what is hers?" Kozo Shiina asked.

"Her daughter."

"Ah. I hope that you are right," the old man said. He was on the last of his lemon. "To this day I cannot understand why your father adopted Michiko. She was the daughter of Zen G.o.do, my most hated enemy. Though Zen G.o.do died in 1947, I have had to endure the machinations of his progeny. Michiko inherited much of her father's diabolical cleverness. Keep her to the shadows, Masashi-san. We have no room for error now."

"I know the stakes fully as well as you do," Masashi said, sounding irritable.