F. Paul Wilson - By the Sword

Nearly a dozen rings before someone picked up.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, I know who raided your place and I know where you can find them."

"The fuck is this?"

"The guy who's gonna help you get even with those ninja pricks. I'm gonna tell you zackly where they are, so listen up."

Jack heard the guy yelling away from the phone. "Hey, everybody shut the fuck up! This could be important." Then he came back to Jack. "Whatcha got?"

"Write this down: They're hiding on Staten Island and I can give you the exact coordinates of where they are."

"Coordinates?"

Jeez.

"Yeah. Numbers you can plug into a car's GPS and it'll take you to their front door. Got a pen and paper?"

Jack heard the guy yelling for paper. After a few seconds he came back. "Okay. Shoot."

Jack gave him the coordinates and made him repeat them.

"How do I know you ain't pullin my chain?"

"If I'm lyin I'm dyin. Check with Hank. Suggest he send one guy out there. If he finds a buncha Japs in a two-story building, that's the place. Then you can send out a raiding party for some payback—and Hank's sword."

"The sword's there?"

"Guaranteed."

Jack hung up, then started dialing again.

Might as well make it a party.

Hideo awoke with a start. Someone was knocking on his door. He leaped from his bed and opened it to find one of the night security men standing there.

"Sorry to bother you, Takita-san, but someone is on one of the specialuse phones asking for the man who wants the katana. I wasn't sure—"

Hideo pushed past him and ran for the stairs. He'd used one of Kaze's pay-as-you-go phones to call the number on the flyer; whoever it was had used that number to call back.

This could be important.

He found the phone sitting apart from the others. He snatched it up.

"Hello?"

"Hi. Are you still interested in that ugly, beat-up old katana?"

He recognized the voice. The same as yesterday, the one who set up the meeting in that park. Hideo had suspected he might be the ronin, working for the previous owner, but had no way to tell. The voice sounded similar to the man he'd faced in the Gerrish apartment, but not so easy to tell over a cell phone. When no one approached the clerk they had set up with a decoy katana, Hideo suspected that the ronin had spied the trap and stayed away.

"It is possible, yes."

"I know where you can find it."

"Why would you wish to tell me? You no longer want it?"

"Let's just say priorities have changed, and maybe I'd rather see you with the blade than the Kakureta Kao."

The unexpected Japanese words stunned Hideo into silence.

Kakureta Kao… he hadn't heard them mentioned in a long, long time. How did this gaijin know about them?

"The Kakureta Kao no longer exist."

"Wrong. They've got a temple on Staten Island, and in that temple is the crudded-up katana you want so badly. Here are the exact coordinates of the building."

The man read them off twice and Hideo wrote them twice.

"You are sure this—hello? Hello?"

The connection had been cut.

Hideo stared at the coordinates, seeing them as either a gift from Heaven or a trap. He'd set a trap for the ronin —and he was now sure that was he on the phone. So was the ronin returning the favor with a trap of his own?

And his mention of Kakureta Kao… could that be true? The sect reportedly had been wiped out in World War II. But it served no purpose for the ronin to lie about such a thing. In fact, how could he even know about them unless…

… unless they were back.

He turned to his computer and opened Google Earth. He punched in the coordinates and found himself looking down at the roof of an isolated rectangular building.

Could it be?

Assuming the ronin had told the truth, what was Kakureta Kao doing here in New York? But more importantly, did the sect have any connection to Kaze? It seemed unlikely, but Kaze Group's tentacles were pervasive, and had a long reach.

The safe and sensible thing to do was to gather information before he and the yakuza paid a visit to this building.

He glanced at the clocks on the wall—one for New York and one for Japan. It was still midafternoon in Tokyo. He should call the home office just to be sure.

Dawn shrank back against the wall. She'd have totally pushed herself through it if possible.

"Wh-who are you? What do you want with me?"

The ninja types had removed their scarves or headpieces or whatever and now they looked like young Asian goths. Three of them remained in the room with her. They could have been NYU grad students at some East Village club, except they didn't seem to speak English, or were pretending they didn't. Each was taking a turn swinging the cruddy sword she'd seen with Hank. Why they'd be so happy with a piece of junk was beyond her.

She remembered the growing horror of the ride through Brooklyn and then across to Staten Island as she realized that these men hadn't been sent by Mr. Osala—they had no idea who he was.

They'd brought her to this strange building out near the landfill and stuck her in this candlelit room on the second floor. She didn't know how long she'd been here, but she hadn't had a second alone. She had to go to the bathroom but didn't have the nerve to ask.

"Tell me— please ! What am I doing here?"

One of them glanced at her, then went back to chattering in Japanese with his friends.

Back still against the wall, she slid-sank to a squat and buried her face in her trembling hands.

What had happened to her life? She couldn't call it a nightmare—more like a series of nightmares, each more terrifying than the last. She'd been scared at that Kicker place, but this was downright terrifying.

And then she sensed movement in the room and heard the guys saying something like, "Akechi- sensei ."

She looked up and saw a tall, thin figure at the door, wrapped in a hooded blue robe with a red silk mask over its face. The young ones bowed and scraped as he glided into the room. He stopped before her and stood with his hands folded inside his long sleeves as he stared at her. The black eyes through the holes of his mask were the only sign that she faced a human. Otherwise he could have been some sort of alien monk.

She tried to rise but her legs wouldn't support her.

Why was all this happening to her? She hadn't been the best person, but she hadn't been bad. Certainly hadn't been evil.

Why me?

The monk spoke in a high-pitched voice. His English was heavily accented but she understood him.

"You are with child?"

Was that what this was all about? The baby? The baby again? Was everybody crazy? Had the whole world gone insane? What was it with this baby?

She'd show them.

"Me? Pregnant? No way. I'm a virgin. I'm saving myself for the right man."

The monk whirled and machine-gunned some gibberish at the younger ones. Their bland expressions turned concerned—especially the tallish one who stepped forward. He looked like he'd just been told his dog was dead.

He bowed and the two of them exchanged a few words, then the monk pointed a long finger at the doorway and gave an order. The other two hurried out while the tall one stayed behind.

They spoke in low voices, as if afraid she might eavesdrop. Fat chance. Arigato and konichiwa —picked up at a hibachi restaurant—were the extent of her Japanese.

And then one of the other young ones returned, yammering away. Everyone stepped aside as some sort of high-sided, wooden, wheelbarrowlike cart rolled through the door, propelled from behind by the third young one.