Nii had never felt this before. She was everywhere in his mind. That she was four and he twenty-five had no meaning; it was supposed to be. He knew it had to be.

He could make out the soft up and down of her frail chest under the blanket, hear the melody of her breathing. He could see her small, perfect foot, her adorable toes with their flaky coat of the summer’s last toenail polish. He could see the button of her nose, the repose of her face, the quietude of her pale eyelids. He could see her cupid lips, buttercups, rose petals, candy kisses. He could see a flare of tension and relaxation in the perfect oval precision of her baby nostrils.

Nii watched until he could watch no more, then rushed out to masturbate.

The day after tomorrow, he told himself.

39

Bob pulled his bike into the museum parking lot. It was cold, getting on to nightfall. His chilled steel hip throbbed dully, broadcasting its message of deadness. He shook off the unpleasant feeling and its tendrils of memory. Tonight it all happened, he knew. He tried to wipe his mind blank. But he could not. No man could.

He checked his watch. It was 5:45 p.m. Tokyo time. Driving had been hellish, sliding in and out of the busy, mirror-image shunt of the cars, with things coming at him from odd angles. He didn’t enjoy it a bit. It took too much out of him.

Of course all these ill feelings had their source in the immediate few minutes, where he’d have to deliver some very bad news to a man who’d been nothing but good to him. Not a happy prospect. Was it necessary? Yeah, it was. He couldn’t proceed without what lay ahead in an office full of swords.

He thought of the parts assembling. Susan and her four Koreans, Major Fujikawa, the paratroopers, all of them quietly converging on a neighborhood in northwest Tokyo, far off the tourist way, miles from the famous spots like the Ginza and Shinjuku and Ueno and Asakusa, a place without major shrines or nightclubs or department stores. It was near there that the Agency satellites had uncovered intense activity on a Miwa property, a walled mansion in a secluded street next to a parkland called Kiyosumi Garden, once the playground of the Mitsubishi family and now a kind of wonderland of Asian garden themes. The mansion hit all the criteria perfectly: quiet, obscure, close to a park with one gated entrance, easy to command, walled off from society.

They would meet to stage at the close-by hotel banquet room, where, under a guise, Susan had made an emergency rental of the large room, claiming to represent a kendo club headed to an out-of-town meet and needing a rallying point.

Bob shivered. The weather had changed abruptly, the temperature had dropped, and he really didn’t have the clothes for the midthirties, which it threatened to reach tonight. He drew his raincoat tightly about him, for warmth, but it was a thin coat and his black suit was thin cotton, summer weight, unable to stand up to the bite of the sudden gusts of breeze or the generalized bite of the falling temperature.

He approached the museum, feeling its cathedral-like grandeur tower over him. It was a modern building, constructed after the war, of course, but its lines carefully duplicated the harmonies of classical Edo architecture. So in a sense entering it was like being swallowed by Japan, as Jonah was swallowed by a whale. Inside, it was all Japan, only Japan, and no other place was permitted to exist. The somber, gray light lent everything a stoic dignity; in glass cases, kimonoed princesses and armored knights stood nobly, reflecting the grandeur of a past so glorious and bloody and complicated, so full of opera and murder, it almost defied belief. You could see the whole thing play out before your eyes in these vast rooms, from the little men the Chinese had found living in thatched huts to the brilliant men who had invaded China, raped its cities, cut it in half. You could see the Zen priest and the samurai warrior. You could feel the presence of men so mentally tough and sublimely confident, they could fight twenty at a time and win and not think much of it, with their long, curved swords of the most sophisticated metallurgy in the world. But it was all one thing: if you had those brave men, you also had sword testers who went out in the night and cut random strangers down to see how well the blades cut, you had secret diagrams of how to arrange a corpse to perform a cutting test on it, how many times a skull could be cleaved and from what angle. You had the brilliant men who destroyed the Russian fleet in seven minutes in 1905, and their grandsons, who fell from the sky in planes that were bombs, skipping between the blasts of American flak, hunting for a nice large gray superstructure against which to obliterate themselves. It was that same utter commitment that sank the Russian ships, blew up the American fleet off Okinawa, and built the skyscrapers of Shinjuku.

By this time, the security people knew Bob and nodded him through. He took the elevator to the fourth floor.

“Is the doctor in?”

“Yes, yes,” said his secretary. “Dr. Otowa, Swagger-san is here.”

“Oh, do come in. I was just getting ready to leave. Do you think it will freeze?”

“Feels like it in the air.”

“Yes, nippy out. Bracing, I must say. You have some news? Please sit, my friend.”

Bob sat in the familiar chair and faced the old man in his room of swords.

“The good news is, I think this will be concluded very shortly, and if all goes well, I will be free to dispose of the sword as I want. What I want is for the museum to have the blade. You-all would know what to do with it. It shouldn’t be the possession of any one man but of your nation.”

“That is very thoughtful of you. I had hoped for as much.”

“It is my pleasure. But I actually came on another bit of business. I’m sorry to say, this news ain’t good.”

“I am prepared.”

“Are you sure?”

“Speak, please.”

“There’s a man calling himself Kondo Isami. Do you know the name?”

“Of course. Every Japanese does. Kondo Isami was the leader of Shinsengumi in Kyoto in eighteen sixty-seven. He led many raids, was in many fights. A hero or a villain, depending, but surely an extraordinary swordsman in the shogun’s cause. He was executed in eighteen sixty-eight by the emperor’s forces. He died well but dishonorably, by beheading. He was not permitted seppuku.”

“This new Kondo Isami is also an extraordinary swordsman. In his fashion, he works for the shogun, fighting against outside domination. He’s a yakuza contract killer, the very best. You can see by his name he has some kind of vanity for samurai history. He likes to think of himself as one of them old boys. But nothing stops him. He killed Philip Yano and family. The whole business with the sword has been his invention. Now we have the sword. I’m afraid to say he has kidnapped Miko Yano, and tonight, all that gets sorted out.”

“There will be blood?”

“A lot of it, I think.”

“Yours?”

“Possibly.”

“You will fight this Kondo Isami.”

“If I can find him.”

“You are very brave, Swagger-san.”

“No. I just don’t see no other way. He’s too good to fight the others; he’ll kill them quick. So I have to run him down and face him off. That’s what he wants. It’s what I want too. It’s why I came here.”

“I see. And from me you want?”

“I have gotten so much from you, but I must ask for one more thing. It’s the hardest thing and you can be forgiven for not wanting to give it. But I felt I must ask.”

“What?”

“Your blessing.”

“Why would that be such a hard thing?”

“Because this ‘Kondo Isami’ is your son.”

There was a pause.

“I am beseeching the father of a man I must kill for his permission,” Bob said. “I won’t have a chance unless you free me. I can’t see a son. I can only see an enemy.”