Zero. Part 52

The pain seared through Michael's head like a river of fire. Blasting into every corner of his mind, filling it with a light so brilliant it sucked the air from his lungs.

And the fire spoke. It shouted, screamed, bellowed, as it licked at him, burning in agonizing ribbons, until it was impossible for any one coherent thought to manifest itself. Until the mind began to shut down, to turn inward on itself, retreating from the terrible pain. Find the locus of the battle.

Direct yourself there. A whisper absorbed within the roaring conflagration.

The battle? The battle? He was drowning in a sea of fire, his mind shrinking from the crushing agony. That was the battle.

Until he found himself on the brink. Behind him was quiet. Utter peace. A stillness he could hear as well as sense. It would be so easy to just sink back into that stillness. Wouldn't that be fine? A cessation of the noise, the light, the pain? It would be ...

Stop it! That's just what he wants!

But it's so quiet, so still.

Find the locus of the battle. Direct yourself there.

Just one more step to back up. Then tumbling in blackness, in stillness. In peace. An end to the battle. Forever.

No! The battle is- It was Masashi's strategy to convince Michael that the locus of the battle was inside his mind.

not- But now Michael saw the falseness of this.

here- It was, instead, at the point where Masashi was concentrated. And, truly, it was no different than if he had been wielding a longsword. The spot was in his hands. That was where he was directing his energy, and therefore his mind.

Then Michael's mind was free. It moved. And thus became Kara. The Void.

Used his head, b.u.t.ting it into Masashi's nose. Blood spurted, and Masashi's hold on him faltered. Michael kicked out, missed.

Masashi had retreated. Now wielded the katana. Michael had nothing. Nothing but the Void. His mind did not alight on any one thing. It planned no strategy; it did not seek to operate within the boundaries of any law, even the universal law that all sertsei obey, no matter the school of discipline they were taught.

Michael did not concentrate on any one thing. He did not see and react.

Rather, he moved to the locus of the battle: Masashi's hands. In so doing, he did not consider Masashi's strategy. He did not contemplate the blade of his opponent's katana or the nature of the attack.

Instead, he did what he needed to do. What the Void told him he must do. He reached inward, grabbed Masashi's hands and wrested the sword from him.

Astonished at this prowess, Masashi drew his tanto, his dagger. He slammed thehilt against the side of Michael's head. Michael dropped to his knees. A thousand bees buzzing inside his head stung him as one.

Masashi, holding tightly on to the Katei doc.u.ment, bent to take the weapon out of Michael's hand. When he straightened up, he directed the blade at Michael's heart. He was about to strike when he heard a sound. He turned, startled, to see Kozo Shiina standing no more than a foot from him. Shiina was holding the Jiban's sacred katana.

"What is this?" Masashi said. He laughed to himself, seeing this old man with a katana in his hand-the sacred katana of the Jiban at that-as if he were still a warrior. "I resent this intrusion." He tightened his grip on the Katei doc.u.ment, his power over Shiina. "You have no business here."

"On the contrary," Kozo Shiina said. "Now that you have fulfilled your role and have provided n.o.buo Yamamoto's FAX fighter for the Jiban's cause, I have just one last piece of business here." And he lunged forward, his speed stunning. He drove the ancient katana through the center of Masashi's chest.

Masashi had no time to complete his defense. He was rammed backward, stumbling, in the grip of the enormous force of the attack, and only the steel he had retrieved from Michael kept him on his feet.

The point of the sword had gone all the way through bun, and now it embedded itself in the wall. His breath was like frost, and his lungs seemed to be under water.

"You thought you had it all figured out," Kozo Shiina said. "You were on the top of the world. I heard everything. I don't know how you found out about my deal with General Karsk, but I know that you will agree it hardly matters now." With a grimace, he twisted the blade.

Masashi grunted in pain. He stared into Kozo Shiina's eyes and saw the fool that was himself reflected there. He seemed to see his father laughing at his inadequacies. Or was the old man weeping?

"There is no justice in this," Masashi whispered. He seemed unable to catch his breath. He thought he heard his father's spirit calling to him from across a vast distance, as if they were two suns burning in the heavens. It seemed to Masashi that Wataro Taki told him what to do. And now, with the last of his ebbing strength, he threw the Katei doc.u.ment into the hibachi fire.

Kozo Shiina screamed. He made a lunge for the burning scroll, jerking the sword out of the wall.

Smiling, Masashi watched the scroll turn to cinders in Shiina's burning hands.

Then he turned his gaze away, unable to stand the sight of the other man. Saw light in an otherwise dark, dank night.

It was chilling to be watching and falling at the same time. Watching and falling. The blood ribboning like bunting blown in the wind, the room canting over on edge, the floor becoming the wall, hearing his teeth rattle as his jaw snapped shut.

Masashi was falling, but he felt himself to be in midair. He could see the lights of Tokyo below him, the brightly lit harbor, where merchant ships close to the warehouse were busily being loaded and unloaded.

Through the rain he saw the black square of the window on the second floor of the warehouse. Inside there, he knew, something dark and evil was stalking, but it had nothing to do with him. He was aloft, buoyed by the stormy wind, floating, free of pain or fear.

Remembering a story his father had told him when he was little. About a boy who wandered away from home at night. Lost in the forest, surrounded by snuffling shadows he could not identify, wild cries that made him spin and start, the boy began to cry. Until the moon came out from behind scudding clouds. It was a full moon, its color as rich as gold, for it was late summer and near harvest time. A shower of shimmering light rained down upon the boy, who raised his head as the shimmering light arranged itself into a series of steps floating through the forest.

The boy went up the steps. And with each step he took, he found that he was becoming lighter and lighter. Until he was obliged to hold on to the steps in order not to float away.By then he was up so high that, staring down at the forested countryside from which he had come, he grew frightened and began again to cry. This caused him to lose his hold on the step, and he began to float into the sky.

Just as Masashi was doing now. The sense of elation was so strong that he felt himself to be that boy in the story-or perhaps he was the child he had once been, listening to his father spin magic webs in the air.

"Now," Wataro Taki says, "the boy feels no fear at all."

"Why?" Masashi asks.

"Because," his father says, "the whole world is his now. It curves below him, shining bits and dark patches, and the boy can see it all. He can see the good places and the bad ones, and he knows without anyone telling him that he can go any place he pleases.

"He just looks for the light, and off he goes."

Masashi's body was awash in blood. The rain had ceased, and now the only sound in the room was that of Masashi's blood dripping from the edge of the Jiban's sacred katana. The thick clouds had ripped asunder, and it was afire with light, as if it were a moonbeam.

"I only wanted you to be proud of me," he whispered to the spirit of his father. "Couldn't you have been proud of me just a little?" Masashi's mind, on the edge of death, looked for the light. And off it went.

What Eliane saw first was the blood.

There was a river of blood soaking into the tatami, and Michael's body was sprayed with it. Blood dripped from the snow-covered crown of Mount Fuji.

Terror filled her, and she raced across the room. So focused was she on Michael's form that she failed to see the shadows moving behind the screen, which she had used not an hour before to hide her presence from Michael.

She collapsed onto her knees, cradled Michael's head in her lap. Behind her, Audrey and Joji appeared.

"Michael!" Audrey cried. "Oh G.o.d, no!"

Eliane looked up at her. "He's alive."

Audrey closed her eyes in prayer. Tears slid from beneath her lids. She knelt beside her brother, reaching out to touch him. She needed to feel him breathing, to feel his warmth, perhaps to a.s.sure herself that he was indeed alive.

Joji said, "Masashi is dead." His voice had a curious tone, as if he could not believe that his brother was no longer among the living. He crouched next to Masashi's corpse. He stared into the opaque eyes, fixed on some shining path invisible to anyone else in the room.

"Masashi." Joji was testing out his feelings. Relief, sorrow, remorse, mingled inside him. But no satisfaction. There was, oddly, not even a feeling that justice had been served. He wondered, rather, what he could have done to avert this tragedy. Karma, he thought, finally. This was meant to be.

Michael opened his eyes and saw Eliane's face. He turned his head away.

"Michael," Eliane said.

"I have nothing to say to you," he said, rolling away. He tried to sit up and, in the process, saw his sister.

"Aydee!"

"Oh Michael!" She threw her arms around him, kissing the side of his face and neck. He winced.

"This is where they brought you?"

She nodded. "Masashi tried to convince me that he was on our side. That he was trying to find out who killed Dad."

"That part was true," Eliane said. "Masashi was desperate to find out who had killed your father. Ude, bis personal a.s.sa.s.sin, was close to tracking Philip down. Philip had stolen the Katei doc.u.ment. It was Ude's job to find Philip and torture him until he revealed where he had hidden the doc.u.ment. Then Ude was to kill him. It almost happened that way."

"I thought you were Masashi's a.s.sa.s.sin," Michael said. "You are Zero."

"I told you," Eliane said patiently, "that Masashi had my daughter, Tori. He was threatening to kill her unless I did what he wanted.""I don't believe you," Michael said. "You've told me nothing but lies up until now."

"And what he wanted me to do," Eliane persisted, "was to stay close to you.

When your father was killed, Masashi was convinced that you would lead him to the Katei doc.u.ment."

"Liar."

"But she's telling the truth about her daughter," Audrey said. "Masashi had Tori here. Joji found out about it and brought Michiko here to rescue her."

She looked up. "Joji?"

"It's true," Joji said. "Every word. Masashi was not only using Tori to make Eliane do what he wanted, but also Michiko and her husband, n.o.buo. He and Kozo Shiina have gotten hold of a nuclear device. I've seen it here. Yamamoto Heavy Industries' technicians have already put it into a missile or bomb of some sort. But-"

"Wait a minute," Michael said. Something Joji had said had burst like a flame in his mind. It was the last piece in the puzzle, the piece that had been bothering him tor so long. n.o.buo was being blackmailed. That was the key: to his involvement in the deliberate scuttling of the trade talks, and in something else as well. "The FAX," Michael said now. "The Yamamoto FAX jet fighter is the vehicle Masashi and Shiina are going to use to deliver the nuclear payload! That's why Masashi needed n.o.buo's expertise. And I'll bet you that's the main reason Shiina struck an alliance with Masashi. The Taki-gumi manpower was just gravy. Masashi had the way into the FAX, and the experimental jet was what Shiina needed."

"It makes sense," Joji said. "But you've killed my brother. The threat is over."

"I wish it were," Michael said, struggling to get up. He needed the help of the two women. "I didn't kill Masashi. Kozo Shiina did. Their alliance was an uneasy one at best. It seems clear to me from what I heard that each of them was ready to destroy the other as soon as the nuclear device was detonated.

They were using each other. Shiina for Ma-sashi's ability to gain access to the FAX, Masashi for the added power Shiina gave him."

"But what brought them to each other's throats now?" Joji asked.

"I'm not sure," Michael said. "But I know that somehow Masashi found out that Shiina had made a deal with the Soviet KGB. With a general named Yvgeny Karsk.

Karsk provided them with the nuclear device."

"Yes," Eliane said, nodding. "That kind of knowledge would send Masashi over the edge. He despised the Russians."

"It seems a tremendously lucky stroke indeed that Masashi found out about the KGB involvement," Joji said. "It was like a lethal bomb self-destructing."

"Not quite," Michael said. "There is still Kozo Shiina to contend with. He's here somewhere."

"And he has the Katei doc.u.ment!" Eliane said.

"No." Michael pointed to the hibachi. The copper oven was glowing red.

"Masashi threw the doc.u.ment into the fire. It's gone. Shiina doesn't have it, but neither do I." He thought of General Hadley. What would his grandfather use now to hold over the j.a.panese? "It's a great pity. Other events are already taking their toll. Without the Katei doc.u.ment, I don't know what will happen."

"If Shiina is here right now, our first concern should be the nuclear device,"

Eliane said, "don't you think?"

"I know the way to the catwalk," Joji said. "I'll take you there."

Eliane turned to Michael. "How do you feel?"

"Don't worry about me," he said. "I can make it." But he took two steps and collapsed. He grunted, having fallen on the weighted chain Stick Haruma had given him.

"Michael." Audrey knelt down beside him.

"Eliane," Joji said, "let's go. We can't have much time."

"I'll stay here with him," Audrey said. "Go on. I can't be much help to you anyway."Kozo Shiina's mouth twisted in a semblance of a smile. He had a mental image of the spirit of Wataro Taki. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d must be grieving to see how thoroughly Shiina had corrupted all that Taki had spent years building.

Then a bright lance of pain ripped through him, and his grin turned into a grimace. He had stood over the dead Ma-sashi and had wanted with all his soul to take up the sword of Prince Yamato Takeru, the sacred symbol of the Jiban's strength, and plunge it into Michael Doss's heart. He had waited so long, so patiently for this revenge, his spirit was besotted by its proximity. And yet the pain in his hands, blistered and swollen from trying to retrieve the burning remnants of the Katei doc.u.ment, had made that impossible.

Still, who is to say what is impossible for one so desperate. Gritting his teeth against the agony, Shiina had wrapped his ruined hands around the hilt of the katana. He almost screamed. But he was ready to exact his revenge. Then he had heard approaching footsteps, and he had retreated behind the slashed screen depicting Mount Fuji. Its b.l.o.o.d.y peak had seemed altogether appropriate to him.

He had overheard everything and, despairing, wished he had had that extra minute needed to kill Michael Doss. But now the situation had changed. Now the Jiban was undone, now his plans for a new and glorious j.a.panese empire had turned to ashes. This was karma. But in a flash he saw that his karma had been benevolent as well, for as he peered through the rent in the screen, he saw the hibachi. And not more than a foot away was not only Michael Doss, but his sister, Audrey, as well.

Now only his revenge against Philip Doss, who had murdered his son so long ago, was paramount in Shiina's mind. He was alone in the room with Philip's two children: with Philip's legacy, his future. Shiina grasped the sword and stepped through the rent in the screen.

Michael raised his head. He saw the figure approaching, and though the face was unfamiliar to him, the katana of Prince Yamato Takeru was not. This must be Kozo Shiina, he thought.

"Michael Doss." Kozo Shiina's voice was harsh with the weight of his desire.

After all these years, he was about to exact his revenge for the murder of his own son. Shiina took the attack stance, swung the sword up over his head.

Drove it downward as Michael rolled out of the way.

Shiina swiveled, came at him from another direction. As he did so, he heard a soft sound behind him and turned his head. Saw a shadow moving toward him from the other side of the screen. When it stepped through the torn paper, his heart pounded painfully in his chest.

"Who are you?"

"I am the spirit of Wataro Taki," the voice of the shadow said. "The spirit of Zen G.o.do."

Shiina started. "Zen G.o.do," he whispered. "I have not heard that name in decades. Zen G.o.do is long dead." Shiina's mouth twisted into a snarl of rage.