6

At five, the drizzle stopped. Amid the congestion of rush hour traffic, Savage crossed the George Washington Bridge. He asked his principal if he'd care to enjoy some sake, which having been heated was in a thermos, the temperature not ideal but acceptable.

Kamichi declined.

Savage explained that the Plymouth was equipped with a telephone, if Kamichi-san required it.

Again Kamichi declined.

That was the extent of the conversation.

Until twenty miles west on Interstate 80, where Kamichi and Akira exchanged remarks. In Japanese.

Savage was competent in several European languages, a necessity of his work, but Japanese was too difficult for him, its complex system of suffixes and prefixes bewildering. Because Kamichi spoke English, Savage wondered why his principal had chosen to exclude him from this conversation. How could he do his job when he couldn't understand what the man he'd pledged to protect was saying?

Akira leaned forward. “At the next exit, you'll see a restaurant-hotel complex. I believe you call it a Howard Johnson's. Please stop to the left of the swimming pool.”

Savage frowned for two reasons. First, Akira had remarkably specific knowledge of the road ahead. Second, Akira's English diction was perfect. The Japanese language made no distinction between r and J. Akira, though, didn't say “prease” and “Howald Johnson's.” His accent was flawless.

Savage nodded, obeying instructions, steering off the highway. To the left of the swimming pool, where a sign said CLOSED, a balding man in a jogging suit appeared from behind a maintenance building, considered the two Japanese in the Plymouth's rear seat, and held up a briefcase.

The briefcase-metal, with a combination lock-was identical to the briefcase that Kamichi had carried from the plane.

“Please,” Akira said, “take my master's briefcase, leave the car, and exchange one briefcase for the other.”

Savage did what he was told.

Back in the car, he gave the look-alike briefcase to his employer.

“My master thanks you,” Akira said.

Savage bowed his head, puzzled by the exchange of briefcases. “It's my purpose to serve. Arigato.”

“ ‘Thank you’ in response to his ‘thank you’? My master commends your politeness.”

7

Returning to Interstate 80, Savage checked his rearview mirror to see if he was being followed. The vehicles behind him kept shifting position. Good.

It was dark when he crossed the mountain-flanked border from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. Headlights approaching in the opposite lanes allowed him to study the image of his passengers in his rearview mirror.

The gray-haired principal seemed asleep, his slack-jawed face tilted back, his eyes closed, or perhaps he was meditating.

But Akira sat ramrod straight, on guard. Like his master, his face did not reveal his thoughts. His features were stoic, impassive.

Akira's eyes, though, expressed the greatest sadness Savage had ever seen. To someone familiar with Japanese culture, Savage's conclusion might have seemed naive, for the Japanese by nature tended toward melancholy, Savage knew. Stern obligations imposed on them by complex traditional values made the Japanese watchful and reserved, lest they unwittingly insult someone or place themselves in another's debt. In premodern times, he'd read, a Japanese would hesitate to tell a passerby that he'd dropped his wallet-because the passerby would then feel honorbound to supply a reward much greater than the value of the contents of the wallet. Similarly Savage had read ancient accounts in which someone who'd fallen from a boat and thrashed in a river, in danger of drowning, had been ignored by people on shore-because to rescue the victim would be to inflict upon that victim an obligation to repay the rescuer again and again and again, forever in this ephemeral earthly existence, until the rescued victim was granted the gift of rescuing the rescuer or else had the privileged release from obligation by dying as the gods had intended at the river before the rescuer intervened.

Shame and duty controlled the Japanese personality. Devotion to honor compelled them but often also wearied them. Peace could be elusive, fatigue of the spirit inescapable. Ritual suicide-seppuku-was on occasion the only solution.

Savage's research made him realize that these values applied only to uncorrupted, unwesternized Japanese, those who'd refused to adapt to the cultural infection of America's military occupation after the war. But Akira gave the impression of being both uncorruptible and, despite his knowledge of American ways, an unrelenting patriot of the Land of the Gods. Even so, the emotion in his eyes was more than the usual Japanese melancholy. His sadness was seared to the depths of his soul. So dark, so deep, so black, so profound. An expanding wall of repressive ebony. Savage felt it. The Plymouth was filled with it.

8

At eleven, a country road wound through night-shrouded mountains, leading them to a town called Medford Gap. Kamichi and Akira again exhanged comments in Japanese. Akira leaned forward. “At the town's main intersection, please turn left.”

Savage obeyed. Driving from the lights of Medford Gap, he steered up a narrow, winding road and hoped he wouldn't meet another vehicle coming down. There were very few places to park on the shoulder, and the spring thaw had made them muddy.

Dense trees flanked the car. The road angled higher, veering sharply back and forth. The Plymouth's headlights glinted off banks of lingering snow. Ten minutes later, the road became level, its sharp turns now gentle curves. Ahead, above hulking trees, Savage saw a glow. He passed through an open gate, steered around a clump of boulders, and entered an enormous clearing. Fallow gardens flanked him. Spotlights gleamed, revealing paths, benches, and hedges. But what attracted Savage's attention was the eerie building that loomed before him.

At first, he thought it was several buildings, some made of brick, others of stone, others of wood. They varied in height: five stories, three, four. Each had a different style: a town house, a pagoda, a castle, a chalet. Some had straight walls; others were rounded. Chimneys, turrets, gables, and balconies added to the weird architectural confusion.

But as Savage drove closer, he realized that all of these apparently separate designs were joined to form one enormous baffling structure. My God, he thought. How long must it be? A fifth of a mile? It was huge.

None of the sections had doors, except for one in the middle, where the road led to wide wooden steps and a porch upon which a man in a uniform waited. The uniform, with epaulets and gold braids, reminded Savage of the type that bellmen wore at luxury hotels. Abruptly he saw a sign on the porch-MEDFORD GAP MOUNTAIN RETREAT-and understood that this peculiar building was in fact a hotel.

As Savage stopped at the bottom of the stairs, the man in the uniform came down toward the car.

Savage's muscles hardened.

Why the hell weren't my instructions complete? I should have been told where we'd be staying. This place… on a mountaintop, totally isolated, with just Akira and me to protect Kamichi, no explanation of why we came here, no way to control who comes and goes in a building this huge… it's a security nightmare.

Recalling the mysterious exchange of briefcases, Savage turned to Kamichi to tell him that ura, private thoughts, might be wonderful in Japan, but here they gave a protector a royal pain and what the hell was going on?

Akira intervened. “My master appreciates your concern. He grants that your sense of obligation gives you cause to object to these apparently risky arrangements. But you should understand that except for a few other guests, the hotel will be empty. And those guests, too, have escorts. The road will be watched. No incident is expected.”