She nodded. “I knew you have an instinct for this kind of work.”

“Maybe so. Anyway, someone comes up with the idea of hiring the eight ball, the wild guy from way outside-”

“Me, actually.”

“I thought so. What an answer to all your prayers I was: I know nothing, ain’t a part of no system, but I got the advantage that I don’t take no for an answer, I don’t mind busting heads, I ain’t afraid of the red stuff, and I knew and loved Philip Yano. That’s how come Al Ino was able to get me such a good phony passport, that’s why someone knew where I was to ship me the Yano autopsy file, that’s why you’ve been so interested in me, and here I thought it was my redneck good looks and my real tight blue jeans.”

“Your jeans are too tight, Swagger,” she said morosely. Then she added, “I don’t see how you breathe. Anyhow, North Korea. Not China, but North Korea. Phil had access to the Japanese networks there, he knew everything about it. He was months ahead of everybody.”

“Yes, and that’s why, two days ago, you pulled the plug. When you found out Phil Yano died because Bob Lee Swagger gave him a sword that, one in a million, turned out to be the one that some old guy used to cut some other old guy’s head off three centuries ago, and that it had nothing to do with the North Koreans. No American national interest. None of our business. It was like a traffic accident, that’s all. Tough, sad, too bad, but not a part of your operation, so it was time to pull the plug. Game over, investigation over, Swagger go home.”

“Swagger, that decision was made at the very top. If it matters, I fought against it. You have no idea how I fought against it, how everybody here fought against it. But we all serve the daimyo.”

“I hear you. I done my time serving the daimyo too. The pay is lousy, the food sucks, but you get shot at a lot. Anyhow, now it’s time for the daimyo to serve us.”

“Where are you going with this, Swagger?”

“I ain’t going nowhere. I’m sitting here and I’m gonna get another one of those mocha frappe things. I think the Japanese add fish oil to ’em; that’s a drink with some kick.”

“Swagger, I can’t-”

“You’re the one that’s going someplace. You’re going to the fourth-floor commo room and getting out your little magical encryptor, the one you got in that cereal box. Here’s what you tell ’ em in Virginia: you got a tip that someone is receiving explosives from North Korea for a terror strike on Tokyo. He’s mounting a mission here to bring down the Hyatt or the Tokyo Tower or the Tokyo Dome. They’ll buy that in Langley. You request a tasked satellite intel mission, flash. You have a bird in the sky zero in on every known Miwa property in Tokyo, and your research people can dig them up for you. I’m guessing that’s the seven mansions, five or six distribution centers, ten warehouses, two or three TV stations, four or five printing plants. Twenty, tops. You put the big sky eye smack cold zero on them and inside of five minutes the bird will uncover unusual, abnormal activity at one of them. Lots of men on the grounds, lots of seemingly aimless milling about, maybe a lot of kendo practice, some judo, that sort of thing. Oh, and an unusual collection of vehicles, perimeter security, maybe even patrols. It’ll look very military op. And I’m guessing it’s near a park, or some wide-open facility with a single entrance they can control without a lot of travel. That’s where they’ll run the exchange, that’s where Kondo will kill Miko before my eyes just to see the hurt on my face, and that’s where he’ll cut me down.”

She just looked at him.

“All right,” she finally said, “so we’ve found them.”

“You want to know who’s on the team we put over the wall?”

“Do you have forty-seven samurai waiting outside?”

“No, outside is where you have your four Korean ex-Special Forces guys, who aren’t Agency contract boys but Okada-san’s bodyguards. Every time I get near you, I gotta play bumper car with them. The kid in the second car is too aggressive. He almost creamed us on the trip back from Kyoto. I hope you reamed his ass for that. He was way too close. But I know the type. They’re all probably in love with you and they like to fight. They’ll go.”

“You’re right, they’ll go. That’s four.”

“Now for the fun part. We call one-eight-hundred-SAMURAI.”

“What’s that?”

“Here’s another surprise. I have regularly been reporting to a Major Albert Fujikawa of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. He’s in the loop and right now he’s in Tokyo with forty of his boys. He was Phil Yano’s exec in Samawah. It was his life Phil saved when the IED went off. The unit is a recon company from the First Airborne Brigade of the Eastern Army, HQ’d at Narashino. They’re paratroopers, but all they do is play sixteenth century all day long and smack each other with wooden swords. I’m betting they’re the best swordsmen in Japan.”

“If we get them involved, we break every law on the books regarding JDF.”

“They’ve figured out the patterns of on. Some things trump others in this country, and loyalty to murdered lords means more than obedience to the shogun’s law. They’re here, all set up and ready to go. You get us the satellite dope and we go in twenty-four hours.”

She just looked at him.

“You are dangerous,” she finally said. “This was your game from the start, right?”

“We hit ’em dead solid cold. They have no idea it’s coming. It’s over in a few minutes because swords leave a mess, but they don’t make no noise. Then we go home. Sometime the day after, someone notices the flies buzzing around the joint. That’s when they make the discovery. Everybody’s home and in bed by that time, and Miko’s fine. Kondo Isami’s head is on a pole. The sword is in Dr. Otowa’s vault, where it belongs. You just made head of station.”

“So, forty JDF paratroopers, plus Major Fujikawa, four ROK Spec Ops guys. I count forty-five.”

“It’s enough,” he said.

“Not quite. You forgot the forty-sixth.”

“Who’s that?”

“Me.”

“Okada-”

“Don’t even start, Redneck. Don’t you dare even start. I’m not sitting home baking cookies while you are destroying my career.”

“You’re too stubborn to argue with.”

“Forty-six,” she said. “Just for the luck factor alone, we should have one more. Who did I forget? Oh, yeah. You. You’re the forty-seventh samurai.”

38

It was well after dark.

Nii was alone with the little girl in the white room. He could hear, vaguely, the sound of other men moving in the large house, loafing outside, yelling and shoving and gambling, playing around. He knew that Kondo was back from whatever errands and that the thing would happen very soon, the day after tomorrow almost certainly.

He could hear traffic, though this house was on a quiet street in a quiet part of Tokyo, far from the major arteries that hummed with life and action.

He could hear the quiet whistle of wind in the trees, and he remembered how surprisingly cold it was, and he realized that the seasons had changed and he’d been so caught up in the drama of his life, he hadn’t noticed it.

He didn’t think of the future or even the past; he didn’t think of his beloved oyabun or of his oyabun’s daimyo, in whose favor they all labored so hard. He didn’t think that it was almost over, that he would be a complete and full-fledged member of the dominant yakuza gang in Tokyo, that his name would be known and that he would be mighty and feared.

That wasn’t what preoccupied him.

He stared at her.

She slept uneasily, her body spilled out. In the low, somber light, his imagination played tricks on him. He imagined she was naked, when he knew she wasn’t. He imagined she wanted him as much as he wanted her, when he knew she didn’t. He imagined, somehow, they could be together forever, when he knew it was impossible because she had to die.