"What I have to tell you could be nothing more than just another ninja bullshit story," Veil said carefully, looking at my brother.
Garth didn't smile. "This is one I'll listen to very carefully."
"Okay. I mention, and underline, that possibility, because that's what I always considered it to be. Now I'm not so sure. What makes me begin to consider the possibility that it's true, Garth, is, first, Mongo's description of the mark on the back of the gunman at the hotel, and second, what you had to say about Sinclair's family background, his upbringing in Japan, his dissertation on medieval Japanese secret societies, and so on.
"The story I heard concerns a very old, and very secret, Japanese organization that calls itself Black Flame. Supposedly, it dates back more than fifteen hundred years, and it's much more than some antique yakuza outfit. Yakuza gangs operate within carefully delineated territories; Black Flame's turf is the world. They are supposed to have begun like the ninjas, as relatively straightforward mercenaries and assassins, but then their rationale for existence took on a more mystical flavor. Black Flame, so the story goes, became dedicated to the pursuit of power and wealth through the conscious and willing embrace and exercise of evil."
"It sounds like Satanism," Harper said.
Veil shook his head. "No. Satan and Satanism are Christian inventions. Black Flame's devotion to evil would spring from Tao and Shintoism, a sense of the duality of all forces in nature, black and white, good and evil. It isn't the worship of an evil force to gain supernatural power, but a willing eagerness to use evil means to accrue very real power and wealth. By evil means, include the spiritual and physical destruction of innocents."
"It sounds horrible."
Veil smiled without humor. "Probably no more horrible than the goals and methods of your average criminal gang-or a lot of corporations, for that matter. Black Flame, if it really exists, is simply less hypocritical about where it's coming from.
"Over the centuries, Black Flame grew in influence, power, and wealth because its members are very good at what they do. In a way, they can be viewed as just a very successful, overachieving yakuza gang. But what sets them apart from other criminal enterprises, and what they would claim is the fountainhead of their special skills, is the spiritual aspect of the group. The legend goes that they are masters of the so-called dark martial arts-what Westerners might, for want of a better word, call sorcery."
Garth grunted. "Sorcery?"
"Hang on awhile, Garth; I don't want to lose your attention just yet. Let's call it the psychological mastery of others: manipulation, intimidation, domination-either through violent physical means or with drugs." Veil paused, looked at me, and raised his eyebrows slightly. "This isn't what most people think of as the martial arts, but the goal is the same: total mastery of a situation. Mongo and I can tell you that all the kicking, punching, and screaming business will only take you so far, for so long. Age takes its toll on roundhouse high kicks."
I said: "Amen."
"Again, according to legend, Black Flame is comprised of individuals who are masters of psychological warfare. Yes, they can break bones and crack skulls with the best of them, but Black Flame members are more likely to do it with clubs than with their hands or feet. Their primary interest is in the total domination of those who come under their influence by the breaking of minds and souls. Black Flame was the Mafia of its day."
I said: "And maybe still is."
Veil shrugged noncommittally. "I know I'm the one who brought the subject up, but it's a little hard to believe that an organization supposedly as powerful as this one wouldn't show up in FBI, CIA, or Interpol files."
"Maybe it has shown up, but the public just hasn't been told about it. It wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened. What else have you heard about this Black Flame?"
"To be a member-to have 'made one's bones' as it were- was to be guaranteed wealth, and so there was never a shortage of would-be recruits. But only young people who were already far advanced in the physical martial arts were ever accepted."
"Like the young Chant Sinclair," Garth said in a flat voice.
"Yes," Veil replied evenly. "Like the young Chant Sinclair. Once admitted as a novice, the recruit was given training in Black Flame's secrets of the kind of sorcery I mentioned-the properties of various drugs and herbs, the mastery of psychological as well as physical disguise."
"Psychological disguise?"
"Forcing other people to perceive you as you wish to be perceived. If you want to be loved, you're loved; if you want to be feared, you're feared. If you want to make yourself invisible, which is to say that you want to be ignored by everyone around you, that's what you proceed to do. Among other things, you learn to be an outstanding actor and mime in the service of your greater goal, which is to manipulate your enemies into doing what you want them to do. If you've mastered the arts of physical and psychological disguise, you can sneak up on your enemy and kill him; you can move in the world as you want."
"Again," Garth said in the same flat tone, "just like Chant Sinclair."
"Perhaps," Veil replied, looking directly at my brother. "Again, it was what you mentioned earlier about Sinclair's youth and upbringing, combined with Mongo's description of the mark on the gunman's back, that made me consider the possibility Black Flame might somehow be involved. But there are many ways in which Sinclair doesn't fit the profile of a Black Flame initiate. The story goes that there was a price to be paid for membership that few understood."
"Explain."
"The price for membership in Black Flame was the loss of personality, of individuality. That was the trap. Centuries ago, supposedly, lots of poverty-stricken families wished for a son to be accepted into Black Flame, in the belief that the family would then share in the resulting wealth and power of the son. If the father had the right connections, and the son the necessary martial arts skills, the father might get the son what amounted to a tryout. But once the son was fully accepted into the society, and the final trial was the gratuitous assassination of some innocent person, that new Black Flame member would no longer be recognizable to his family. Black Flame members were said to have been like zombies; having dedicated themselves to evil, they lost their souls, their personalities. Having been stripped of compassion, they lost the ability to love. They became colorless killing machines with no past they cared to remember. And there was no turning back once a person had been accepted as a novitiate. Another trap: any novitiate who did not live up to expectations, or who was reluctant to carry out the killing that led to full membership, or who displayed any second thoughts whatsoever about joining, was summarily executed."
Garth thought about it, shook his head. "Well, that doesn't sound like Sinclair. He may be a lot of things, but you certainly can't accuse him of being colorless, or of not projecting a very powerful personality over the course of the past twenty years."
"Maybe part of it does fit," Harper said quietly. "We know a different side to him after learning about what he did on Torture Island. The personality he's been projecting for twenty years may not be his real one. He may be a merciless vigilante, but he's not a terrorist in the way he's always depicted in the media; he's very selective about who he goes after, and he doesn't kill innocent people. He's not, it seems, quite what he appears to be."
"A real possibility," Garth said with a nod to Harper.
"Look," I said, "let's stop dancing around the issue. Veil, what do you think is the possibility that this Black Flame outfit exists today?"
By way of an answer, Veil took a pen out of his pocket, drew something on a napkin, shoved the napkin in front of me. "According to the legend, novitiates who were accepted into the society were branded, and the scar tissue embellished by a tattoo. Does that drawing look anything like the mark you saw on the gunman's back?"