Evil Ascending, Page 8

  Mong nodded solemnly. "The painting is of our Yidam. He is called Vajrabhairava, and he protects us from all harmful creatures. The monks warding our gates chant his name again and again and again to keep us safe."

  He nodded toward the east and the heart of the mountain. "The gate is the only way you will leave here. If you have learned enough that you can travel through it to the outside world, you will have command of the skills you have come here to learn."

  "And if I don't?"

  Mong's expression darkened. "Pray you do. Being reborn into this world is not something I would wish on even the most malignant Dark Lord."

  Putter resting on his shoulder, Sinclair MacNeal waited for the Proteus green to reshape itself into a clone of the 17th hole at the Tournament of Players Club in Scottsdale. The machinery beneath the AstroTurf carpet pulled the left edge in until it achieved a perfect kidney shape. Pistons rose and fell to provide the rolling terrain and the gentle hump in the middle of the green. At the farthest possible point of the green, a dark hole opened up and a man placed a pin and flag in it.

  Takeshi Takagi tugged at the wrist of his golfing glove. "I selected this last hole in honor of your visit, Sinclair."

  "I am honored, oyabun." Sinclair squatted down as his 'caddy' moved his ball from the fairway simulator and spotted it on the green at the end of the kidney farthest from the pin. You old fox, you did this because you know I blew this hole in the Build-more Pro-Am three months ago. Had there been no hump through the middle of the kidney, he would have rolled his putt up and around the lip and just tried to get it near the cup. He'd par the hole, but that would leave him one stroke ahead of Takeshi and Kazuo. Unfortunately, he knew from recent and painful experience, hitting the ball hard enough to get it over the hump would also roll it right off the green.

  The other two caddies—also Yakuza soldiers who looked uneasy in short-sleeved jumpsuits and carrying huge golf bags—placed the other balls on the green. Kazuo had not tried to play the hole safe and was rewarded with a five-foot putt on a very slight down slope. Takeshi, the slender, white-haired oyabun of the Ya-maguchi-gumi, ended up 15 feet away from the hole, on Sin's side of the hump, but all he had to do was putt across it and run parallel to it right to the hole.

  Kazuo grinned like a cat lapping up cream. "You are away, Sin."

  Sin closed his eyes for a half-second. Here, in the basement of the Takagi mansion, he was playing golf on a series of simulators with the two most powerful men in the Japanese underworld. The oyabun had selected an 18-hole course made up of some of the most difficult holes available in the world. They started on the tee simulator and had a computer analyze their shots. It then decided where they would be placed on the fairway simulator and, from that, where they would end up on the green.

  The simulators themselves, as well as the whole game room, were a masterpiece of environmental duplication. AstroTurf fibers grew and shrank to replicate conditions from roughs to the best of greens. Terrain features filled themselves in and, while no part of the simulators flooded to produce water hazards, a spaghetti-like overgrowth of carpet made for excellent sand traps. Projected video of the area surrounding the individual holes and a subtle soundtrack made it possible for Sinclair to believe he was actually playing the holes depicted.

  Though it was a game of a game, the pressure felt as great to him as it did during the Build-more tournament. He recognized, however, that in many ways, it should have seemed far more heavy. These men could kill me, and no one would ever know. In Phoenix all I did was disgrace myself in front of a television audience of millions. Same position, same shot I played it safe then and lost. Time to go for broke.

  Sin stood and extended his putter to his caddy. "Kusabi."

  The man stared at him blankly, then looked at the oyabun.

  "Give him his wedge, as he has asked." Takeshi smiled. "The board would have your membership for using a sand wedge on a green."

  "But you are more forgiving?"

  "It depends upon the results of your gamble."

  Doesn't it always? Sin shifted his stance and carefully gripped the club. Left index finger linked through right little finger and right hand covered left thumb. His ball stood just off the toe of his left shoe. Easy . . . easy . . . concentrate. Smooth swing, gentle touch. He brought the club back to waist height and swung down through the ball.

  The sand wedge's flatly pitched head popped the ball up like an undercut cue ball on a billiards table. It shot from point to point on the kidney like a spaceplane going suborbital. It reached its apex above the hump, then fell to the ground again with a barely audible thump. Rolling toward the hole, it looked on target, but swung around the lip of the cup and ended up a foot downhill from its goal.

  "Well played, Sinclair." The oyabun stepped up to his own putt and clearly found standing on the side of the hump a bit awkward. He shifted his stance, and his caddy exchanged one putter for another. Lining up for a left-handed putt, the oyabun kept his club steady, watched the ball and, with a gentle click, sent it at the cup.

  "Left-handed. I'm impressed."

  The ball rolled up the hump and looked as if it might stall, but the oyabun knew exactly what he was doing. He gave the ball enough power to make it over the top, then it picked up speed rolling down the other side. It hit a small bump that popped it back out on to the wider part of the green, then followed the path Kazuo's ball would have to use right on into the cup.

  Sinclair applauded appreciatively. "With your off-hand. You should be on the tour. This puts you one down for this hole."

  "And makes us even, if you make your putt."

  Sinclair nodded silently as Kazuo stepped onto the green. The Yakuza addressed the ball confidently and hit it toward the hole. His putt rolled true, but slowed and stopped right on the edge of the cup. He waited a full 10 seconds for it to drop, then stepped forward and poked it into the hole. "Par."

  Sin walked over to where his ball waited and accepted his putter from his caddy. Sink this, and I win. Miss, and the oyabun wins. Sin looked up and watched the oyabun watch him. Sin settled himself over the ball, lined up the shot and took one practice stroke with his putter. One foot. Easy.

  He stroked the ball, and it sank into the cup with ease. "Par."

  "Well done, Sinclair." The oyabun handed his putter to his caddy, then waved his guest toward the spiral staircase up and out of the Sim Country Club. Sin relinquished his putter to his caddy and kicked his golf shoes off onto the mat at the base of the stairs. He followed the oyabun's ascension into the upper room. The transition from the TPC's 17th hole in Scottsdale to a traditional wood and shoji room felt a bit abrupt, but the oyabun had furnished the room like a country club's clubhouse to help ease the shift.

  Takeshi seated himself on a wide, white leather couch and directed Sin to a similar chair across a low table with his dark eyes. "I have not lost in a long time. My associates are not as skillful as you."

  Take away their little fingers, and I'm not surprised. "Thank you, Takeshi-sama. Unlike your people, my job is not so demanding that I cannot get sufficient practice on my game." Sin sat and immediately felt as if his chair was a giant marshmallow trying to eat him.

  Kazuo sank into the chair across from his. "And now, with your new job, you should have even more time, eh?"

  "That depends, my friend, on a number of things."

  Sin accepted a glass of amber liquid from the silver tray carried by a butler. The two Yakuza likewise took glasses from the tray, then the oyabun leaned forward on the edge of the couch. He sipped the drink, then nodded a salute to Sin. "Thank you for this scotch. It is excellent."

  "Do itashimashite, Takeshi-sama."

  The oyabun held the crystal glass cupped in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. "My nephew has told me that you are no longer with your father's firm. He also said you believed that success in your current job depended upon receiving our help. I would have met with you sooner except for some business in Hong Kong, but you sh
ould not take my tardiness in seeing you as a rejection of your friendship."

  "I did not, oyabun. I understand very well the difficulties of the tasks thrust upon you." Sin drank some of the scotch and let himself relax into the chair. "Your invitation to play here, in your home, was a very pleasant surprise."

  "It was the least I could do to repay your kindness for hosting Kazuo on his visits to Phoenix, and to applaud your courage in returning to our island again." The oyabun's dark eyes glittered. "Your new employer must be very powerful indeed."

  Sin sensed a mixture of curiosity and confidence in the oyabun's comment. Fishing for information, or confirmation of what you already know? "I have only been working for him over the past week but, yes, he does seem very well connected. Even so, there are things he does not know, and assistance he requires. He personally sent me here to Japan, fully knowledgeable of my past difficulties and my allies."

  Takeshi Takagi leaned back in the couch. "I still recall how you accepted blame for us in that stock manipulation affair three years ago. I know your exile back to the United States forced a reconciliation with your father on his terms. I respect you more than you could know for performing this duty for us. How can I help you?"

  "I need information on an institution that is likely to be very private or oddly disguised. It will be the sort of thing that will attract no notice among us, but the burakumin and minor merchants might find it odd. I need your ears to listen closely, for the collection of data should be passive. If what I am searching for does exist, I do not want to alert its people to the fact that I am looking for them."

  He drank a bit more, then continued. "Somewhere, here, there is an institution or training center. Its resources would be nearly limitless, yet it would seem very stingy to those outside. It would seem, on the surface, to be more normal than anything else in terms of daily administration. It would never seek the limelight, but would not draw attention to itself by trying to hide, either."

  Kazuo smiled easily. "You mean, if it were a warehouse, it would look like one and function like one, but never become too successful, yet never so security-conscious that it would become noticed."

  "Exactly. It would have loading-dock workers who moved crates in and out, but never had cause to visit the executive offices. It might be a school that offers basic and advanced courses, but a part of the student body never interacts with those from the general public. It might sponsor a Little League baseball team and even display trophies it had won, but never tour the team through the whole facility."

  Takeshi nodded as his eyes narrowed. "It would be hiding in plain sight, as with Poe's purloined letter."

  "Hai!" Sin set his drink on the arm of his chair and pulled himself forward. "Even so, there will be things that they cannot hide. For example, they might successfully clean up a shooting range so no brass could be found and shred all bullet boxes and targets into pulp so fine it could never be reconstructed. On the other hand, the chances are excellent that the laundry women would be able to smell cordite on the clothes used in the shooting exercise. A delivery person might never see what is in the packages he drops off, but he would notice if the firm only worked with certain companies or, more significantly, seemed to change suppliers on an almost random basis."

  The oyabun ran a hand over his smooth chin. "You want information about a firm that is so ordinary that it seems unremarkable, and you want us to gather this in a passive manner." He shook his head. "You want us to find the firms about which no one is talking, in essence."

  "You have it precisely, which is why I need help." Sin sighed heavily. "There are some things you can look for. This place will have a number of non-natives as long-term clients or residents. One of those residents vanished six weeks or more ago and did not return as anticipated. Guns of every variety are available here, and there is a prodigious amount of ammo used. Gun drills will also take place in odd ways, so rumors of an accidental shooting are possible. Weapons and equipment will have to be smuggled in and out without notice, so access to a private airfield or shipping could be a factor. It will require a lot of power, so independent or high-power demands are likely. It will have communications needs that suggest its own satellite facility."

  Uncle and nephew exchanged a glance that Sin knew was significant, but he could not decipher it. "What?"

  Kazuo shrugged uneasily, "There is one place where all the things you mention could be placed, and it would go unnoticed. Unfortunately, that is also the one place in all of Tokyo where our influence is the weakest: Kimpunshima."

  "The reservation? I hadn't thought about that." Golddust Island. Makes sense for all the wrong reasons. "This could make my job very easy or absolutely impossible."

  Sin knew that, because of the clash of cultures in the 1980s and 1990s, tension had risen between the Japanese and foreigners. A diet full of nationalists forced a number of laws that severely restricted the accepted habitation zones for resident aliens in Japan. The laws served to protect the contamination and dissolution of the Japanese culture, as well as isolating the foreigners so they could only really deal with those the Japanese wished to have represent them.

  The largest of the reservations was Kimpunshima. Built as a floating island in Tokyo harbor, a typhoon had devastated it in the mid-'90s. It had been rebuilt and improved and enlarged until some people began to think of it as the fifth island in the Japanese chain. Various parts of it had been segregated so the streets and neighborhood distribution amounted to an economic map of the world, with the whole of Japan right in scale with Kimpunshima.

  Sin had enjoyed living there for his first two years in Japan, but mainly because he could leave the American sector and find himself in France or Italy or Mexico by taking a tram from one tower to another. Soon, however, he realized that he could not successfully maintain corporate security in Japan while living apart from the Japanese. With the Yamaguchi-gumi's covert help, he obtained one of the rare Imperial Invitations to live wherever he wanted.

  "If you can check to make certain there are no suitable sites outside Kimpunshima, I will try to cover it."

  Takeshi Takagi nodded. "We will do this, Sinclair. We will make our search methodical and precise." The oyabun downed the last of his scotch. "And I think, my friend, that we will need to consult each other at least weekly, on our investigations. To aid you, I even volunteer use of my Simcenter for these meetings."

  As Sinclair rode the private elevator up to his suite, he chuckled again at the way the oyabun had trapped him into golfing each week. He will beat me, there is no doubt about it. He will select a course so difficult that both of us will be forced to play our best. It will be interesting.

  The door opened, and he flicked the lights on with the switch beside the doorway. The huge living room had been decorated with standard Western furnishings, but everything had been carved in a way or upholstered with cloth that was in keeping with Japanese mythology. The suite seemed to him like a halfway house between the West and the East. He found the combination annoying because it suggested a contempt for him by his hosts.

  That was not really surprising to him. The same fierce nationalism that had created the reservations was the fire in the belly of Japan's economy. While Emperor Akihito still headed up the government, Japan had really reentered the days of the shogunate. In this case, though, the shogun waged economic power, not military might, and he sought to dominate the world, not just Japan.

  In the 1800s, Japan had tried to reject the gun and return to the days of the samurai, complete with total isolation. That had been a mistake and, in some ways, was blamed for Japan's defeat in World War Two. Having been rebuilt in a Western image, traditionalists fought against that warping of Japanese society. They sought to preserve what they had by sucking the rest of the world dry of the things Japan needed to sustain itself.

  That created a number of paradoxes for those who would be shogun. They had to maintain the emperor because he was the soul of Japan, yet his inherent influence over the
people could make him a very dangerous person if he spoke out against their plans. The corporators also had to tolerate the Yakuza, because they were the staunchest nationalists of all and were more than capable of doing the things necessary to keep the lower classes in line. They had to accept contact and trade with the West while studiously avoiding its seduction. It was a walk across a tightrope with both ends burning and alligators waiting below.

  Dangerous, yes, but the view from up there is unequalled.

  Smiling, Sin hit the glowing red button on the hardwood cabinet to the right of the elevator. From its hidden recess, the message printer dropped two sheets of paper into a wire basket. Picking them up, he saw the first was from Erika inviting him to a party over on Kimpunshima in the American sector. The second was from Lilith Acres telling him her departure for Japan would be delayed a week.

  Sin deposited Lilith's message in the shredder slot and heard the gears grind it down into micro-fine confetti. He reread Erika's note and smiled. Good timing, Erika. I think I will accept your invitation. If Kimpunshima is tied into this whole thing, going in as your guest is probably a better cover than even Coyote could arrange.

  During the entire journey from Nevada to Flagstaff, Rajani had assumed that finding Dorothy and Mickey's father would be the easiest part of the operation. In the early 1980s, before she had entered stasis, she had come to know enough of the world to be able to plot out a course of action that would result in reuniting the children with their father. While she had been kept apart from the normal world outside Area 51, or a half-dozen other secret facilities where she was studied and educated, the outside world had come to her in rich color and stereo sound.

  At first she had been dead set against returning the two children to the man who had sold them, but the love for him that both kids showed puzzled her. Dorothy appeared very reluctant to discuss her father, and Rajani could tell being sold had hurt her deeply, but more because of the separation it caused than of the betrayal of the bond between them. Dorothy explained it had been a hard time because it was the anniversary of her mother's death, and her father's girlfriend was brutally murdered by a co-worker who had pushed her into a pulping mill.