The 47th samurai

“Yes, Oyabun.”

“You can’t go sentimental on me in some appalling way. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“You are kobun. I am oyabun. You understand that. All things flow from that.”

“I stand ready.”

“I can’t imagine that it could happen, but if there’s an attack, you will proceed directly to the child and cut her throat.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Oyabun. Why-why do you ask?”

“Because I am aware that you have some feelings for this child.”

“Oyabun, I-”

“No, I’ve seen you in her presence. You ca

“Oyabun. It’s nothing. I swear to you, she is nothing, it-”

“I understand how comely the child is. I understand how her form can seduce you.”

“She is but an object.”

“Nii, don’t lie to me. I am your oyabun.”

Nii swallowed harshly, caught in his lie.

“Nii, listen to me. I must know that you can kill her. Because if I don’t know it, then they will also sense it. It will embolden them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Oyabun.”

“So listen to me. Before you kill her, fuck her. Once you are done with her, she is no longer a little princess. She is a whore, used by you for momentary pleasure and now defiled, tarnished, made dirty. She is nothing more than that Korean cow we slaughtered in Kabukicho. At that point, you can cut her and walk away.”

Nii saw the logic. He liked the logic.

“Do you hear me, Nii? Before you kill her, fuck her.”

“I hear, Oyabun.”

“Good kobun. Good student. I know I can count on you.”

37

“Here is our best option,” said Susan Okada glumly. They sat at a table at the Roppongi Starbucks, among software designers, clothing salesmen, mothers, teenage girls and boys with pins in their noses and lips. “I have thought this over and it could work. I go to the ambassador. I explain the situation, its urgency, the timing. He goes to the prime minister. They go to the minister of the Interior. We get some sort of dispensation, and we make guarantees. Of no, or at best minimal, collateral damage. If we get their okay-notice I’m bypassing the Tokyo police and the whole infrastructure in which Miwa and Kondo may have influence-we can move a SEAL team in from Okinawa. Most of the teams are in the Middle East, but Seven is in Okinawa and they’re very good. They’ve done stuff you wouldn’t believe in North Korea and on the Chinese coastline. So when you get that call at five thirty a.m., Seven is above you in a helo, they follow you to the location, and we air-insert fast. We have Japanese police cooperation to the point that we’ve got the park or whatever it is cordoned off, so no civilians will get shot. So SEAL Team Seven takes out Kondo and Miwa, if he’s there. Seven prevails. We get the little girl, you are not dead, Kondo and Miwa are dead or behind bars, Seven flies back to Okinawa, and we have our happy ending.”

“All due respects, ma’am, you can’t fight them on their ground when they’ve had time to set up their ground. Lesson number one from Vietnam. When they hear them choppers, they kill the little girl. The SEALs are still at five thousand feet, drinking their coffee. When they land, the only thing there is a dead child. Maybe I’m dead too. Meanwhile, everybody in Tokyo hears the choppers and in two minutes there are fifty TV news crews on the spot. When the Japanese hear Miwa is involved, they go nuts. It ain’t going to work.”

“Swagger, I never said it was perfect. But we have been dealt a crap hand and it’s the best I can do with a crap hand. It controls collateral, it gets the best hostage rescue team on earth in play to save Miko, it takes out the bad guys hard, and it’s over in seconds.”

“It’s full of things that can’t be controlled.”

“There are no other options. Oh, except the one where you go, you give them the sword, they kill you, they kill Miko because she’s a witness, they disappear, and then the whole thing happens as pla

“No, there’s another option. Night raid. Before they move to the site. We go in under cover of darkness and we get the child out. Then, when she’s gone and safe, we settle up. We do it with swords, so there’s no gunfight in downtown Tokyo to make the noon news and the cover of Time.”

She laughed.

“Are you joking? It’s fine, except A, we have no idea where they are, where they’re keeping her, and we have no fast way to find it. If I had a thousand men and a week I could probably find out. I have less than forty-eight hours and we are talking the biggest city in the world. And B, we have no people. I couldn’t get a SEAL team on a mission like that, because nobody above me would approve it. So who goes? You alone? You’re a good operator, I know that. You’re not that good, nobody’s that good. You can’t go alone.”

“No, I’m not that good.”

“I return to point A: even if you find the people to go along, you don’t know where Miko is. You have no idea where they have her.”

“They can be found in ten minutes.”

“Come on.”

“Maybe five.”

“Swagger, are you off the wagon again? How on earth would you-”

“I didn’t say I could find them. I couldn’t find them. But I know somebody who could.”

“Who would that be?”

“You, Okada-san.”

She just looked at him.

“I’m guessing assistant head of station, chief of operations, Central Intelligence Agency, Tokyo Embassy. Code Name: SCREAMING BITCH.”

“Christ,” she said.

“You are so Agency, it’s written all over you. You must think I’m as dumb as I look and sound. I’ve been around you guys all my life. I worked with the Agency to recover a Sov sniper rifle in ’Nam back in ’seventy-three. I helped the Agency with its housekeeping in the matter of a deputy director named Ward Bonson who wasn’t exactly who he said he was six years ago. So I know Agency.”

“My code name isn’t SCREAMING BITCH,” she said.

“I know. I was trying to be fu

“It’s MARTHA STEWART. I hate it, but there you have it.”

“Some jerk at headquarters hung that on you?”

“He did. I’ve made some enemies.”

“You must be good, then. Anyhow, here’s how I figure it. You tell me how close I am. This whole thing has been Agency from the start. The object was to find out who killed Philip Yano and his family. Because Philip Yano was your man and always had been. He was getting you the Japanese stuff on a target like North Korea or China.”

“Something like that.”

“That’s why he had such a good career. That’s why he got all the choice American schools, and he got the big job in Iraq, and got to go into battle finally. They even postponed his retirement for him to lead his men. And he did well, except he lost an eye.”

“He was a very fine man. I had the privilege of ru

“Then, two years into his retirement, he gets whacked, and so does his family. Now, you have a problem, a big problem. Who killed Philip Yano? Has your outfit been penetrated? Did someone outside the need-to-know list figure it out? Did the Chinese kill him? Did the North Koreans? Did a disaffected Japanese group kill him? Or, always a possibility, could it have nothing to do with his career in your business? Could it just be random shit going down, the way it always does in the wicked, wicked world? Things are made more urgent by the fact the Japanese themselves don’t seem too eager to solve the mystery. Why? Who’s pulling strings? What’s going on? What does it mean?”