Zero. Part 49

"Where Tsuyo is buried."

Until it was clear that it was the sound of the echoes, rather than of the bell being rung, which possessed significance here.

Eliane breathed: "The Katei doc.u.ment."

Yes, the Katei doc.u.ment: the end of one enigma. Michael was thinking, Where Tsuyo is buried: Ask my son if he remembers the shintai? The guiding spirit of a shrine. The guiding spirit of this particular shrine was Tsuyo's.

The scent of cedar was very strong; somewhere, incense was burning. They were waiting for the priest to come.

"I think that this is the heart of the fight my father sent me to j.a.pan to train for," Michael said, the idea surprising him as he said it. "This was why I was sent to study under Tsuyo." But it was true; it must be true, Michael thought with a shiver of both recognition and antic.i.p.ation. He was momentarilydazed by this revelation. What was my father involved in, he wondered, that he was preparing for his own death so early on? For the first time, Michael began to consider the scope of the quest he was involved in-his father's quest. What could be so important that a man would devote his entire life-and the life of his child-to it?

Whatever the mystery was, Michael found himself more determined than ever to unravel it.

The sound of footsteps, growing louder, until it took precedence over even the echoes of the tolling bell. Those reverberations were gone when the priest appeared before them.

He was a thin man, with a bald head and the face of an ascetic. Clearly, he was a man used to a life of prayer-and of denial. He was neither young nor old. In the dim light of the temple it was impossible to determine his age.

He peered into Michael's face. "You are the student," he said. "The sensei's last student."

It was a polite way of saying that Michael had been Tsuyo's only Caucasian pupil. And, therefore, an object of intense scrutiny by the priests of this Shinto temple. Tsuyo had worshiped here. But more, he had been one of them.

"Hai." Michael bowed, and the priest returned the gesture.

Michael handed him the length of red cord. "I believe this belongs to you."

The priest was not surprised to see the cord. He nodded as he took it. "Will you come with me, please?"

The priest led the way through the main section of the temple. This was a holy place. Shintoism differs from most other religions in that its shrines are built specifically to house kami-spirits-and to worship them, rather than to proselytize or to teach the faith.

With every step they took, evidence of the presence of the kami could be discerned: in the banners that floated from the walls, in the shintai, the sacred spirit of the shrine-in this case, the burled center of one of the hallowed trees near which Tsuyo was buried, in the mirrors-in which was reflected only pure light, in the gohei stand of paper offerings and in the haraigushi, the wand used by priests to purify an object or an individual.

They were led past the inner compartment inhabited by this temple's kami. In a side pavilion, the priest left them for a moment. But not before extending his arm to the lead-framed windows. "From here," he said softly, "it is possible to see the place where the sensei is buried."

Michael knew the spot well. Within the stand of sacred trees. He could see the one riven so long ago by lightning. From its stump, the shintai had been extracted. The shintai, the divine body of the kami, the spirit, of Tsuyo. He watched the rain slide down the slim white stone block that marked the place where Tsuyo was buried.

He remembered the morning he had been summoned here. For the funeral, and then the burial. The litany of the chanting filled the air so completely it was possible to believe that one was breathing something other than air.

The cancer that had taken Tsuyo's voice box had at last claimed his entire body. He had not rested even one day. He had lived the life he always had-the life that made him happy-until the last night, when he had gone to sleep and had never awoken.

"Is it sad," Eliane asked, "coming back here?"

"Sad?" Michael shook his head. "This is a holy place. I can feel Tsuyo here.

Perhaps it is my own imagining, but I believe that he was descended from the kami that resides here. There is too much love in this place for me to be sad."

The priest returned. He was carrying an object shrouded in a white cloth.

Without a word, he placed it on a scarred wooden table.

Michael and Eliane looked at each other.

"Can it be?" she asked, breathless.

Michael drew the shroud off the object.

"My G.o.d!" she gasped.

A box of kyoki wood. It was superbly crafted, and very old. But somethingquite modern had been etched into its top: double phoenixes.

The kamon-the crest-of the Taki-gumi.

The priest's eyes bored into Michael's. "Your father stole this. I cannot comment on the justness of his cause. But he sent this here for safekeeping. I have done as he wished."

He left them there alone with the box. For a time they did not move. They were held in thrall by what lay within the kyoki wood box. A piece of paper that had caused so many deaths, that might now change the world.

"Open it," Eliane said. She seemed almost desperate. "You must open the box."

This was it, Michael thought. The Katei doc.u.ment would tell him everything.

Who was arrayed on what side, what the Jiban was all about, why everyone was seeking possession of the doc.u.ment. And last, perhaps most important to Michael, it would reveal what his father's life had been all about. Finally, he thought, I will understand what my father was. He felt his heart beating fast. He wanted so much to know, to understand.

With a convulsive gesture, he opened the box. Inside was a scroll.

''Now," Masashi said slowly and carefully, "I want you to tell me what your father wrote to you just before he died."

Audrey stared at him. "Before he was killed, you mean," she said. "Someone murdered him. Was it you?"

"No, my dear," Masashi said, using all his charm. "I swear to you that I have been searching for the person or persons responsible for your father's death.

I want very much to bring them to justice." It was difficult to be clever and charming in English. There were so many words, phrases and idioms he did not know; others he was unsure of, and this was no time to take chances.

Audrey was taking her time in a.s.sessing him. She had been in this vast building for some hours now-perhaps even a day, since she was certain that she had slept a little after she had eaten.

She had awoken to find herself in a room with two j.a.panese women. The swooshing of their kimonos was soothing.

"Where am I?" she had asked, fighting down panic. But the women had just giggled and ducked their heads as they helped her out of her filthy, sweaty clothes. She could hardly have still been in Hawaii, she reasoned as she allowed them to disrobe her; it was far too cold.

Wrapping her in a soft cotton robe, the women had escorted her down a hallway that was devoid of all ornamentation. Audrey was aware only of a heavy humming such as ma.s.sive machinery makes. She knew she could not be in a private home or a hotel. That left a commercial building of some sort, an office or a warehouse.

The women pushed her through a door, and she was enwrapped by steam. She found herself walking on wooden slats slick with warm water. The women took her robe, helped her into a wooden tub of hot water. For the next ten minutes Audrey was scrubbed clean in the most gentle, thorough and pleasurable manner that she had ever experienced.

Then she was led to a second tub, where the water was even hotter. Here she stretched out and relaxed. The women sat by, giggling to themselves. Audrey closed her eyes and breathed deeply. There was a delicious herbal scent to the steam.

She thought of the room in which she had awakened. It was small, almost cramped and, again, devoid of decoration. It had a wooden floor that was in need of polishing, a futon on which she had found herself and a lamp, which was on. There was no window.

The women had been kneeling, talking in low tones when she had opened her eyes. They noticed that she was awake, and immediately offered her tea, which she had drunk greedily. Even though she was dehydrated, she was embarra.s.sed by her smell. As if divining her thoughts, they had taken her to the baths.

All in all, Audrey decided, she must be in a warehouse. She thought of the windowless room. There was also a sense of timelessness here, whereas an office building would have a different feel at night than it would when it wasfully occupied during the daylight hours.

In time, she was dried, her hair combed, and she was dressed in a silk underkimono of a deep blue, then an exquisitely patterned peac.o.c.k-blue kimono.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked, forgetting that they did not speak English. More giggles.

Back in the windowless room, she was served food. She ate, ravenous, unmindful of what was put before her. Everything tasted delectable. She was not sure what happened next, but afterward, her sense was that she had fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes, the plates were gone. Her body felt stiff, as if it had been in the same position for some time.

It was at this point that she was taken to Masashi. He sat behind a low lacquered table in a s.p.a.cious room hung with scrolls covered with calligraphy.

Shoji, translucent rice-paper screens, allowed light in from a small window.

He had introduced himself, had told her where she was and how long she had been there. Audrey knew what a Yakuza was, although this was the first time she had ever met one face to face.

"I know that you are frightened," Masashi said. "And you must be confused. You will, I know, be reluctant to answer my question. This is understandable. Let me try to explain. You were kidnapped from your home by enemies of your father, possibly the same people who had him killed. By a stroke of fortune, my people discovered you on Hawaii. I had sent them there to find out who had murdered your father." He smiled ruefully. "Unfortunately, in this they were unsuccessful." His smile brightened. "But you see how fortune shines on us both. They discovered you and brought you to me. You are quite safe here, my dear. I have made special arrangements. The people who want you cannot get to you here."

Audrey shivered. "That man in Hawaii," she said. "The one who tied me to a chair-"

"Which man, my dear?" Masashi asked.

Audrey described him. "Did he work for you?"

"No," Masashi lied. "He was the one who kidnapped you. My people were forced to kill him at the airport on Maui. They had to, you see, in order to get you here."

"I must thank you, then," Audrey said. She still felt cold inside. "I owe you a great deal. I wonder if I could use your phone. I'd like to call my family.

They must be frantic, worrying what's happened to me."

"You will be pleased to know that my people have already spoken to your mother," Masashi said, improvising. "She was greatly relieved to hear that you are well."

"Thank you so much," Audrey said. "But I'd very much like to talk with her myself."

Masashi nodded. "Of course. But first, if you would indulge me a moment and answer my question as to what it was your father wrote to you. It's very important."

Audrey frowned. "I don't understand. Why would it be important to you?"

"Because it might hold a clue as to who killed him."

"Well, I don't know if it will do you any good," Audrey said. "What he wrote made no sense to me."

Masashi, on the brink of this discovery, held himself back from trembling with antic.i.p.ation. "Perhaps it will mean something to me," he said.

"All right," she said. "I'll tell you."

"The Katei doc.u.ment!" Eliane said from just behind him. Michael lifted it out, opened it. It was handwritten in j.a.panese kanji. Michael scanned it quickly.

The heart of the Jiban was revealed to him. He could feel his blood congealing. This is the manifesto of madmen, he thought as he digested the long-range plan to create a new, more powerful, greatly expanded j.a.pan from the ashes of the old. How could the Jiban hope to achieve its goal of expansion into China? It was not only insane-it was impossible.

Michael was reading Kozo Shiina's manifesto against the phoenix of American capitalism, which threatened to destroy the traditions of ancient j.a.pan,traditions that had made j.a.pan great, that were, in essence, the very soul of j.a.pan. And he heard again Eliane's voice, The Jiban wants independence for j.a.pan; freedom from the oil-producing countries, but most of all freedom from American dominance. The warning bell went off in his head again as he continued to read the Katei doc.u.ment. Wasn't there something he was missing, some link that would push this into the realm of possibility?

But then a paragraph near the end stopped him cold.

"My G.o.d!" he murmured.

"Michael," Eliane said, "what is it?"

Michael hurriedly rewrapped the scroll. "The Katei doc.u.ment is much more than the Jiban's manifesto," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "It's a living diary, updated constantly as circ.u.mstance warrants." He looked at her. "According to this, the Jiban has made a deal with the Soviet Union whereby the KGB will be providing it with a nuclear device."

"But that's insane," she whispered.

Michael nodded. "That's what they are. Shiina, and the rest of the Jiban are madmen."

"Does it say when the delivery is?"

"No," Michael said. "For all we know, the Jiban could already have it."

The priest emerged into the shocked silence of the tiny chamber. He looked from Michael to Eliane. "A thousand pardons for this interruption," he said, "but men have come who have not rung the bell." By that he meant that the men were dangerous.

"Do you know who they are?" Michael asked him.

"Their faces are not familiar to me," the priest said. He was obviously agitated. "But I can tell you that there are four of them."

Michael had already put the scroll back in the box. He rewrapped the box in the white cloth. "These men are Yakuza?" Eliane asked the priest.

Yakuza have no dominion here," he said. "Please hurry. Ihere can be no violence within the sanctuary." Michael picked up the box and they hastened from the room. Out in the main oratory of the temple the immutable silence of the temple, which allowed the small sounds of nature dominance, had been intruded upon. They could hear the echoes of clipped and urgent voices.

"My brothers will attempt to dissuade the men from entering," the priest said.

"We are not in the habit of refusing anyone sanctuary. But these men have hearts of lead."

He led them through the main oratory, past the place where the sacred rope denned the holy places, where only the kami could exist. It was hung with the traditional sets of zigzag strips of paper and cloth. Beyond, Michael knew, there was a small pavilion, hidden from here by curtains.

The priest took them down a narrow hallway. He stopped at a door. Pulling it open, he was about to point the way to one of the outbuildings when he caught sight of two men running through the rain. Immediately, he shut the door and said, "That way is already too dangerous. Come with me."

He took them back the way they had come. They had returned to the main oratory. The voices were louder, more insistent. The priest looked anxiously in that direction. They were in front of the sacred rope. The priest glanced behind him, then back to where the querulous voices were coming from.

"That way," he urged, indicating the pavilion beyond the sacred rope.

"But this is where the kami dwells," Michael said. "It is sacred."

The priest looked at him, not unkindly. "As is life," he said softly. "Now, go. Hide yourselves while I endeavor to give my brothers aid."

Behind the curtain, it was cool and dark. There was a sense of vast s.p.a.ce-even more than in the oratory-although this was, of course, impossible.

"Maybe one of us should try for the car." Eliane whispered. "Your sword is-"

Michael put a finger across her lips, and the silence crept over them again.

There was a peculiar quality here, as if they were performers antic.i.p.ating the rise of the curtain on opening night; a kind of electricity that had nothing to do with the performers themselves but, rather, emanated from therustling of the unseen audience, and which jumped like a spark to where they stood in the twilight.

"Michael," she said in his ear, "let me go."