By the Sword

    He glanced at the katana, then back at her.

    "You're telling me it's evil?"

    "Good and evil are difficult to apply to weapons. They can be a means to either end. But this blade… I sense something significant, something of great import about it… that it will be a means to a momentous end."

    "A good end or a bad end?"

    "I wish I could say."

    "Didn't we have this conversation about a certain unborn baby?"

    She nodded. "They are somehow linked. The baby is all potential with no history. But this…" She pointed to the katana. "It has been used for both good and ill throughout its existence. Its last act before the fire was fratricide—a terrible thing, yet done for good reason for a good end. Immediately after that came the fire."

    Before the fire…

    "The bomb?"

    She nodded. "The nuclear fire changed it. It is now something less, in that it has lost some of the steel its fashioner gave it. But it is also something more."

    "More how?"

    "I wish I knew. It might now be a weapon only for good, or only for evil. Or, like any blade, it might cut either way, depending on who wields it. But it will be used for something momentous."

    "So you'd rather have it used for nothing at all."

    She shrugged. "Just an instinct. No one can tell the future."

    "Trouble is, it's not my decision. Maybe you can talk to Slater, convince him to give it to you or drop it in the ocean off Maui. I'll introduce you…" Her stare stopped him. "What?"

    "You're going to return it to him."

    "Yeah. We have a deal."

    "Even after what I said about its momentous potential."

    "Look, he paid me. I said I'd look for his katana and if I found it I'd return it to him. We shook hands on it. I gave my word."

    She nodded. "Your code. Is that more important?"

    Jack sighed. He didn't like to get all philosophical and look too deeply into these things. He tended to follow his gut. He'd learned to trust it.

    He shrugged. "My word is my word."

    "And you've never broken it?"

    Yes, he had. He thought of his final facedown with Kusum. But Vicky's life had been at stake there. Where Gia and Vicky were concerned, he also listened to his gut, and in that situation his gut had said, Fuck the code, waste him.

    And he had.

    But the odd thing was, despite the unquestionable necessity, it had bothered him for a long time after. Still bothered him.

    "It's like being the little kid with his finger in the leak in the dike. If he pulls it out because it starts to feel a little uncomfortable, he may not be able to get it back in. And then more and more of the sea will flow through, widening the hole until the dike fails and drowns him." He hated verbalizing this stuff. He shrugged. "Am I making any sense? Do you see what I'm saying?"

    "You're saying you're going to return the blade."

    "Well, given a choice between my word and a big fat maybe, yeah, I'm returning the blade."

    "I hope it's the right decision."

    "As far as I can see, it's the only decision."

    But he'd rather someone else be making it.

    A smiling Naka Slater opened the door and stepped back, his eyes on the package in Jack's hand.

    "At last. The prodigal sword returns to the fold."

    Jack figured that mix of metaphors beat his own from the park yesterday, but didn't congratulate him. Instead he added to the mix.

    "Wrapped in a coat of many colors." Closing the door behind him, Jack handed it over. "All yours."

    And good riddance.

    But the Lady's words haunted him.

    … it will be used for something momentous…

    Was this chubby sixty-something plantation owner going to be the one to wield it? Hard to believe.

    "How did you ever track it down?"

    "Crack detective work."

    "And you didn't have to buy it back? Because I'll reimburse—"

    "No need. Reasoned discourse carried the day."

    He carried it to the bed where he began to unwind the drop cloth.

    "Would you believe this is the first time I've ever handled it? At least that I recall."

    "You mean it was sitting in your house and you were never tempted to play samurai with it?"

    "Tempted like crazy. But it was displayed in a sealed glass case for just that reason."

    The grip end came free first.

    "You've added a handle and a hilt."

    "Not me. Someone along the way."

    When he revealed the rest he gri

    "A scabbard too!"

    As Slater grabbed the scabbard and pulled the blade free, Jack stepped back and slipped his hand to the Glock under the back of his loose T-shirt. He'd already played this scene once and had come away with a sliced-up shoulder. Not taking any chances this time.

    Slater stayed bedside, however, swinging the blade back and forth. But as he swung it his smile faded to a frown, and then a grimace of distaste. He stopped swinging it and dropped it on the bed.

    Jack stared at him. "This isn't where you try to tell me that isn't the right sword, is it?"

    He shook his head. "No. I'd recognize those defects anywhere. But there's something wrong with that thing."

    "Maybe the handle changes the balance or—"

    "No-no. I mean something wrong inside it. The legends say that Masamune put a little of his gentle soul into each of his katana so that it would not be used for indiscriminate killing. It would sever an evil man's head but not cut a passing butterfly."

    Buuuullshit… buuuullshit…

    "So you're saying it's not a true Masamune?"

    "I'm not enough of an expert to tell. Maybe it is, and maybe the Hiroshima bomb burned away whatever of Masamune was in there. I don't know. But I do know I don't want that thing in my house."

    "You kidding me? It's been in your house all your life."

    "Yes, two houses and two countries. Maybe I touched the katana when I was little. Maybe a part of me recognizes the difference. I don't like what it's become. I don't want it." He sheathed the blade and held out the katana to Jack. "Here. You take it."

    "Hell no. What am I going to do with—?"

    He grabbed the drop cloth, shoved it and the katana into Jack's hands, then hurried to the dresser. He returned with an envelope and gave that to Jack as well.

    "Here—the rest of your fee." He then stepped to the door and opened it. "Please. Take it. Do whatever you want with it."

    Nonplussed, Jack stepped back into the hall. "You're sure?"

    "Absolutely. You did a wonderful job, but I've changed my mind. Are we square?"

    "If you say so."

    "Then it's a done deal. Thank you. Good-bye."

    He closed the door.

    "Yeah. Good-bye."

    Jack looked down at the katana. Now what?

    1:06.

    Dawn blinked at the display on her bedside clock radio: P.M.? Couldn't be.

    Clad only in panties, she dragged herself from under the covers and stepped to her bedroom window. She pulled aside the heavy drapes and cringed in the bright light. The sun was high, and Fifth Avenue and Central Park bustled below.

    Right back where I started.

    Or had she ever left? The events of the past few days seemed too totally fantastic to be real.

    Shadowed around the city, abducted in broad daylight, Kickers, Jerry's brother swinging some weird sword, then kidnapped by ninjas, drugged by Japanese monks, rescued by Mr. Osala—who, it seems, likes to stand on the roof of his car during a storm—and now back to the penthouse.