By The Sword Part 41

Sounded perfect. The only problem he could see was the pervasiveness of Kickers. The most visible members hailed from the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, but they existed at all levels. Undoubtedly some were in the criminal justice system. And somewhere along the tortuous course of obtaining a search warrant on a building owned by a group as connected as the Septimus Lodge, someone might very well raise a warning flag.

And then Dawn would disappear and Jack would be back to square one.

A one-man a.s.sault was out of the question. He needed help-willing or unwilling, witting or unwitting-and had an idea where he might find some.

He peeked over the edge of the roof and saw the watcher step onto the sidewalk below and start toward Allen Street.

Jack jumped up and ran for the roof door. He blasted through, pounded down six flights of stairs and burst onto the sidewalk at a run. He reached Allen Street in time to see the watcher hop into a cab. He spotted another a dozen feet away discharging a fare. He hopped in.

"Hate to say it, but follow that cab."

He expected a remark from the driver, a grizzled fellow with s.h.i.+ny black skin and a curly, gray beard, but he merely turned on the meter and s.h.i.+fted into drive.

The watcher led them to the southbound FDR all the way down to the ferry docks. There he got out and boarded a waiting ferry. Jack followed. It left promptly at ten thirty.

Staten Island, he thought. What the h.e.l.l's on Staten Island?

The watcher stayed up front, as if urging the boat to go faster, so Jack hung around the stern, watching Lower Manhattan's bright skyline recede in the wake. Two tall, thin structures were missing from the view. Jack had always hated the Twin Towers, considering them irksome, unimaginative, incongruous eyesores. But now that they were gone, he missed them.

Twenty-five minutes later the ferry was nudging into the Staten Island docks. As soon as the gates opened, the watcher hopped off and trotted to one of the waiting cabs. Jack followed to another, and tried a variation on the dreaded phrase.

"See that cab? Follow it."

The driver looked over his shoulder. He was some kind of squat little Asian. His name on the license looked Thai-Prasopchai Narkhirunkanok. No way would Jack try to p.r.o.nounce it. He'd never heard of anyone dislocating his tongue, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen.

"Follow that cab?" he said in accented English. "This is true?"

"That's what I said."

He laughed. "Okay. We follow that cab."

The ferry had landed at the northernmost tip of the island. They followed the watcher's cab along Victory Boulevard to the Staten Island Expressway, which was anything but express, even at this hour. They traveled east to the West Sh.o.r.e Expressway and then south to the landfill where the first cab exited.

The Fresh Kills landfill?

Jack didn't know much about it except that sometime in the middle of the last century New York City declared a couple of thousand acres of Staten Island its dumping ground. Over the ensuing decades it piled up huge mounds of garbage. The landfill closed around the turn of the century, but reopened long enough to accept World Trade Center debris.

"Any idea where he's going?"

The driver nodded. "I saw him. He look j.a.panese. I fear he is going to bad place."

"Bad place?"

"A temple where Kakureta Kao dwell."

"You've heard of them?"

Another nod. "They once known all over Asia. My grandmother used to scare me by saying she call the Kakureta Kao in Tokyo and they come and take me back to their temple and cut me up. After the war everyone thought they dead, but then they show up here."

"In a landfill?"

"No one want land where they stay. They can be alone there to perform foul rites."

Foul rites... he had to mean the self-mutilation Slater had mentioned. But why here? Why in the U.S.?

"There, you see?" he said, pointing ahead. "Kakureta Kao."

Jack saw the watcher's cab stop outside an oblong, two-story box of a building. Not exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd heard the word temple temple.

Someone who looked like a guard let him through the gate in the six-foot stone wall running the perimeter.

Guard?

"Slow down," Jack said. "Let the other cab pull away, then drive by-slowly."

The driver did as he was told. As they pa.s.sed Jack got a glimpse of the guard in the glow of the single bulb over the gate. He was wearing a kimono and a hakama, like someone out of a chop-socky movie.

"Stop here and turn out your lights," Jack said as they reached the top of a rise.

"I drive you back now, yes?"

Jack dropped a couple of twenties on the front seat.

"Just park here a few minutes. I want to watch the place."

"I do not like it here," he said, but parked and doused his lights.

Jack looked around and could see why. To the west the Hidden Face building stood alone, isolated on a marshy flat. Half a mile or more away in the opposite direction he could see what looked like house lights. Down at the building he spotted a couple of commuter vans parked along the southern flank. Beyond and to the right of the temple rose the dirt-covered hills of the landfill. Like cyclopean burial mounds. In a way they were were burial mounds-the final resting place of a half century's worth of debris from the urban civilization a few miles to the north. burial mounds-the final resting place of a half century's worth of debris from the urban civilization a few miles to the north.

He pointed to the biggest mound. "How tall do you think that is?"

"As tall as the Statue of Liberty. The Fresh Kills landfill is one of largest man-made structures on Earth. It can be seen from s.p.a.ce."

It sounded rehea.r.s.ed.

"You give tours?"

The driver shrugged. "I learn if I give interesting fact to fares, they give to me bigger tip."

Jack turned his attention back to the temple, trying to imagine what was going on in there. He hoped they were planning a raid on Kicker HQ.

15.

s.h.i.+ro tried to rein in his excitement as he approached the front entrance of the temple. He placed his cell phone in the galvanized, foam-lined, waterproof milk box outside the door. There it would rest among watches and flashlights and other phones.

He found the phone invaluable in the outside world-without it he would not have been able to call Yukio and tell him to maintain surveillance on the Kicker house while he returned to the temple-but useless when he needed to contact the temple. No technology from beyond the sixteenth century-the time of the Order's defeat of the n.o.bunaga Shogunate-was allowed inside. No radios or TVs or watches or guns. And worst of all, no air conditioners in the summer when the heat and humidity suffused the landfill area with the reek of old garbage and methane.

But no sacrifice was too great for the Order.

Minutes later s.h.i.+ro was kneeling in his teacher's spa.r.s.ely furnished quarters, bowing before him. He raised his head to speak.

"I saw them both, sensei sensei-the woman and the sword!"

Akechi-sensei's eyes narrowed to slits within the eyeholes of his mask as he studied s.h.i.+ro. "You are sure of this? Absolutely sure?"

"She has changed her appearance, but I studied her through my field gla.s.ses and I have no doubt that her face is the same as in the photograph on the flyers."

His sensei sensei closed his eyes and remained silent for what seemed like an eternity. closed his eyes and remained silent for what seemed like an eternity.

"But that does not mean she is the same woman whose face the Seer saw 'everywhere.' "

"But her face is is everywhere, and she is with the katana-in the same room! The katana and the baby together! Just as the Seer said." everywhere, and she is with the katana-in the same room! The katana and the baby together! Just as the Seer said."

The eyes opened and fixed on s.h.i.+ro. "Yes. It is indeed as the Seer said. You have done well, s.h.i.+ro."

The praise warmed him. "Thank you, sensei sensei."

"Remember the Seer's words: 'Who controls the child controls the future.' And, 'Her child and the katana are linked to the destiny of the world.' The katana and the baby are together now, but elsewhere. We must keep them together. Here Here."

s.h.i.+ro thought about the old stone building and all the men milling around outside it.

"Sensei, it will be extremely difficult to steal the sword and make off with the woman." it will be extremely difficult to steal the sword and make off with the woman."

Akechi-sensei nodded. "I am aware of that. If we had only the sword to worry about, we could start a Kuroikaze atop the building, then stand back and wait until everyone inside was dead. When it was safe we could simply walk in and take it." nodded. "I am aware of that. If we had only the sword to worry about, we could start a Kuroikaze atop the building, then stand back and wait until everyone inside was dead. When it was safe we could simply walk in and take it."

s.h.i.+ro thought of the many innocents in the neighborhood who would be dead as well, but didn't mention it. His sensei sensei was not the sort to worry about collateral damage. was not the sort to worry about collateral damage.

"But the Kuroikaze would kill the woman and child as well."

"Exactly. So I see no alternative to invasion. Tell me what you know of this place. We shall make a plan and strike."

"When, sensei sensei?"

"Why, tonight, of course. You have seen both her and the katana there tonight. Tomorrow it might not be so. We must strike as soon as possible."

s.h.i.+ro leaped to his feet. "I'll call Yukio and ask him what he sees. I had only one angle on the place. He'll have another."

His sensei sensei's eyes narrowed. "You do not bring the phone in here, I trust."

"No, sensei sensei. It is outside."

"Use it then. Ask Yukio if he can find another entrance besides the front door."

"Yes, sensei sensei."

s.h.i.+ro hurried off with his heart pounding. At last! Tonight he would finally be able to put to use all of those years of martial arts training.

He couldn't wait.

16.

The driver remained antsy while Jack became bored.

He glanced at his watch: 11:39. He wasn't quite sure what he'd been hoping for. Ideally, the watcher would make his report, and soon after a mob of monks would come charging out, pile into the vans, and head for Kicker HQ.

Jack's plan was to follow and let them launch whatever plan they'd cooked up. And while they were busy trying to retrieve the sword, and the Kickers were engaged trying to keep it, Jack would snoop around during the fracas, find Dawn, and spirit her away. If he had to damage or kill a few Kickers along the way, so be it. They'd kidnapped her, and if they wanted to get in his way, they'd pay the price.

He hadn't forgotten what Veilleur had said about keeping the katana out of the wrong hands. But the katana was a thing, Dawn was an eighteen-year-old girl. That set the priorities.

But the temple remained quiet-at least that he could see. The piddly security lighting gave him an idea.

"Listen," he said to the cabby. "I'm going down for a look-see. I-"

"No-no! You mustn't!"

"I'll be fine."

"I take you back to ferry now."

Jack pulled a bill from his wallet and tore it in half. He'd seen this in a movie and it seemed like a cool move. He handed one half through the part.i.tion.

"Here."

The driver took it and stared at it. "What is this?"

"Half of a fifty. I'm going down for a look. You wait here. If you're still here when I get back, I'll give you the other half. Sound fair?"

"Yes-yes. Most fair."

Jack opened the door and stepped out. "I won't be long."

He circled around through the dark to the north end of the property, then made his way down a slope dotted with clumps of rank gra.s.s and skunk cabbage. When he reached the wall he crouched and waited for any sign that he'd been seen.