He found himself admiring the tranquility of the place—the calmness of the lake waters, the gentle cascade of the landscape. Even the soft breeze that wafted over the garden seemed to have been designed to enhance its very features.
Several times he saw solitary figures showing interest in the lake and the viewing pavilion. One even took the time to pace off the inside of the structure, but when the bride and groom showed up fifteen minutes later for the picture-taking ceremony, Henshaw knew the photographer was just that, a photographer, and not a threat.
Around noon two men in a small boat paddled out across the surface of the lake to where an odd-looking wooden gatelike structure floated. Henshaw had noted it when he’d first caught sight of the lake and the brochure he’d been given with his entrance ticket had told him that it was known as a torii. It had been painted such a brilliant shade of red that the eye couldn’t help but be drawn to it amid the deep emerald green of the surrounding trees.
The men in the boat seemed to be checking something at the base of the torii. Probably a pair of maintenance men, he thought, and after growing tired of watching them eventually dismissed them as unimportant. He barely noticed when they left a few minutes later.
He made sure to shift positions occasionally so that his limbs didn’t go to sleep, and when he needed to relieve himself he did so with a bottle he had brought along for just that purpose.
Not once during the long afternoon did anyone glance in his direction, never mind leave the path and climb up toward the ridge where he might have been in danger of being seen. Nor did he see anything suspicious. If the Dragon or her people were out there, they were doing one hell of a job of staying hidden.
Eventually the sun began to set and the time for Annja’s arrival drew near. Confident that the shadows now hid him sufficiently well that he wouldn’t be seen even if he stood, Henshaw reached for his backpack. He removed what he needed and then assembled it carefully. When he was finished he took the spotting scope out of the pocket of his shirt where he had been carrying it all day and clamped it on to the barrel of the now-reassembled rifle.
He was ready.
“Hang in there, sir,” he whispered to the wind. “We’re coming.”
28
When the time had come, Annja dressed in a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved jersey and her usual low-cut hiking boots. She put the receiver in her ear and attached the microphone to the space between her breasts, just below her collarbone. Then she caught a cab over to the garden.
Founded in 1910 on the site for a former ash dump, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden occupied fifty-two acres between Washington and Flatbush avenues near the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn. It held more than ten thousand varieties of plants and welcomed more than seven hundred thousand visitors per year.
At least, that’s what the sign near the ticket booth read. In all the years Annja had lived in Brooklyn, she’d never been to the gardens.
I have to get out more, she told herself sternly.
She paid for her ticket and passed through the gates, examining the little map they handed out in the process. She found the section of the park containing the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden and headed in that direction. Wandering down the path a short way from the entrance she found an isolated spot and, pretending she needed to retie her shoe, she squatted and tried to reach Henshaw.
She knew the microphones were sensitive, that they could pretty much pick up anything, even a whisper, so Annja kept her voice low and her head turned away so no one could see her seemingly talking to herself.
“Henshaw, you out there?”
There was a long moment of silence and then, “Right here, Ms. Creed.”
Annja breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realized until just that moment how much she was depending on the radio system to keep her in touch with Henshaw. Or how much his presence helped calm her nerves. She’d already faced off against the Dragon and lost; the idea of doing so a second time was in the forefront of her mind. But this time, her life and Roux’s depended on her success.
It was a heavy burden to bear.
“All right, I’m inside the park. I’ll make my way around to the pavilion and we’ll see what’s what,” Annja said.
It took her fifteen minutes to reach the Japanese garden. This particular one was the first Japanese garden built within an American public garden, and its creator, Takeo Shiota, had done the city proud. It blended the ancient hill-and-pond style with the more modern stroll-garden style and managed to carry it off wonderfully. Annja thought the beauty of the place was amazing. Evergreen trees and bushes dominated the landscape, and here and there bright splashes of color from flowering plants were used with restraint. Annja could see a wooden bridge extending out to a small hump of an island that reminded her of a turtle’s back, but it was the building standing right at the water’s edge that drew her like iron to a magnet.
The viewing pavilion was a large, wooden pagoda-like structure made in typical Japanese fashion. The wood had been stained a deep brown and stood out against the trees without being conspicuous or seeming to be out of place. A vermilion-colored torii, or floating gateway, could be seen in the middle of the lake. Annja knew that the torii indicated the presence of a shrine somewhere nearby, but when she looked around for it she couldn’t see it.
She walked over to the pavilion and entered. It appeared to be empty, just one large room without furniture but which offered several places from which one could look out upon the lake.
“Still with me?” she whispered.
“I’m here. Looks like you’re about to get company. Someone is approaching from the opposite entrance.”
Annja waited a moment, then turned to face that direction just in time to see Shizu enter the Pavilion
HENSHAW BROUGHT THE RIFLE to his shoulder and centered the sights on the Dragon as she approached Annja.
A twig snapped behind him.
Henshaw whirled around, thinking he’d find a stray hiker or a runaway dog. Instead, he saw a figure standing in the shadows not half a dozen yards away. The gun in his hand was a dead giveaway that he didn’t have Henshaw’s best interests at heart. Henshaw couldn’t believe what he was seeing; he’d been so careful all day long, so intent on making certain he wasn’t seen, that his mind just couldn’t accept that someone else had gotten the drop on him. He made an effort to get his gun up and around in the right direction, but the other man fired before he made it.
Henshaw was close enough to see both muzzle flashes as the pistol in the man’s hand went off. What a sledgehammer slammed into his chest, followed immediately by another one, and as he went over backward, the darkness already closing in, Henshaw had a moment to wonder about the lack of the sound of the gunshots.
Then the darkness closed in and he knew no more.
ANNJA WATCHED AS THE Dragon seemed to step right out of the shadows as she entered the building. Shizu glanced around, saw Annja and began walking toward her.
“Here she comes, be ready,” Annja whispered into her microphone.
But she didn’t get the reply she expected. Instead, from her receiver, came a harsh grunt, then nothing else.
“Henshaw?” she asked, doing what she could to keep the look of concern off her face. She was supposed to be alone and didn’t want to jeopardize the meeting.