The oyabun, mindful of the consequences of killing a policeman, had felled his victim with the blow of a gun barrel behind the ear. Unfortunately, his kobun had not been thinking, and Detective Reido lay on the wet pavement with his eyes glassy and his head split in two. His arm, still clutching his revolver, lay several paces away. He had turned as his attacker had run up, and his arm had taken the full force of the kobun's first blow.
The oyabun looked at the dead policeman for perhaps fifteen seconds, as if somehow he could piece the man together again. This was a terrible development. The Tokyo MPD were implacable when one of their own was killed. Life for the yakuza — for all yakuza — would be hell until the murderer and his associates were caught and punished. And it would mean the death penalty. The oyabun realized that he now had nothing to lose. If he was to have any negotiation power at all with the boss of the Insuji-gumi, he would have to complete his current mission successfully. He drew his gun. The gaijin was still standing, apparently unharmed.
Fitzduane glanced up the slope and was surprised to see both his guardians lying motionless. He was now facing three attackers alone. One was nearby and the remaining two were perhaps twenty yards away. The rain had increased in intensity and was now a wall of water. Through it, he could distinguish the oyabun's unmistakable movement as he drew his automatic. And this was a land where the criminals did not have guns. Fuck! He drew his remaining throwing knife and threw it hard at his nearest assailant. The blade missed, but the man skidded onto his knee as he jumped back to avoid it.
Fitzduane turned and ran for all he was worth to the police box some fifty yards downhill. There were two cracks, and splinters from the pavement jumped up in front of him. He ran on, ducking and weaving on the slippery pavement. Spray splashed in the air only to be beaten back again by the rain. The sky was black.
He skidded to a halt at the police box, and with his right hand on an upright, whirled around to face the policeman inside. The young man, immaculately uniformed, looked as if he had stepped straight out of a recruiting poster. A neatly holstered revolver was at his hip. Though he projected all the social concern of the Tokyo MPD, it was clear that there was no way he was going to react in time. The inexperience and lack of comprehension that shone from his face had an almost incandescent quality. He was going to do the right thing, and Fitzduane was going to die.
"Oh, shit!" said Fitzduane, who was imaging the consequences of what he was about to do even as he did it. He hit the policeman very hard in the stomach, then gave him a roundhouse to the jaw..
The policeman made an odd sound as he collapsed, and Fitzduane reached across and removed his revolver. He flicked open the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, then turned just in time to shoot the oyabun twice in the face at point-blank range. The man's nose and forehead vanished out through the back of his skull, and he shot backwards off the pavement and onto the road, to vanish five seconds later under the wheels of a tour bus.
The remaining two yakuza stood there frozen, with swords upraised, as Fitzduane pointed the revolver at them. He was just deciding which one to shoot first when a voice spoke behind him in American-accented English.
"Fitzduane-san, I presume? Please drop your weapon."
Fitzduane kept his gun on the yakuza. A uniformed sergeant with the look of someone who knew his way around came into his peripheral vision, his gun also pointed at the yakuza.
"There are two of your guys up the hill who need attention," said Fitzduane, "and I mean NOW! Get an ambulance. I'm going back up to see what I can do."
Adachi was speechless for a moment. Then he lowered his gun and picked up the telephone. Three minutes later, he found Fitzduane on his knees ministering to Sergeant Oga. The Irishman seemed to know exactly what to do.
15
Tokyo, Japan
June 8
The Deputy Superintendent-General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police looked down at the open file on his desk and then up at Superintendent Adachi so many times before he spoke that Adachi, who was standing at attention in front of the DSG's desk, started to feel disoriented. He felt he was facing one of those nodding birds.
Between glances, the DSG flipped through the reports and stared at the photographs. In the time Adachi had known the Spider, nothing had caused the DSG to react to any perceptible extent, but the slaughter on Yasukini-dori made a decided impact.
The Spider's eyebrows seemed to have been raised permanently by half an inch, and his voice was up an octave. Occasionally, it squeaked. This reaction gave Adachi a certain inner satisfaction. After all, bringing this Irishman in on the Namaka case had been the Spider's idea, and, fortunately, everyone knew it.
"This is incredible," the DSG squeaked. "This man is here only three days and he turns Tokyo into Chicago. In thirty-five years on the force, I have never seen anything like it. Five dead, including a policeman, and one policeman injured. And all of this only yards from the ImperialPalace and the War Memorial. The press are going to eat this up. If this was fifty years earlier, I'd be committing seppuku, and as to you, Adachi-san, I hate to think. You'd probably be enlisted as a kamikaze pilot, if they were feeling generous. You were there, after all, and senior police officers are supposed to stop this kind of behavior."
He shook his head. "Incredible, incredible. And not just swords, but guns, too. Guns in my city. What is Tokyo coming to!"
The fruits of economic progress, Adachi felt like saying, but this was not a time for jokes. He also did not point out that the Emperor was not actually living in the ImperialPalace at the moment, since it was being repaired. He remained silent, as was appropriate, and waited for a signal to speak.
In truth, he was nearly as stunned as the DSG, perhaps more so. He had actually been there and seen the gaijin in action. He had not witnessed the sword-fighting, but he had glimpsed Fitzduane as he was checking the young policeman's revolver before turning and shooting the oyabun in the face.
It was his speed and the way he had acted without any hesitation that stuck in Adachi's mind. This was a truly dangerous man; but also decent. He also remembered seeing Fitzduane attend to the injured Sergeant Oga. The sergeant, lucky man, looked like he'd be coming out of the affair with nothing worse than surface lacerations on his scalp and a rather sore head.
The DSG seemed to realize for the first time that his subordinate was still standing at attention. He gestured toward a chair. "Oh, sit down, Superintendent-san. Thankfully, this is not a half a century ago."
Adachi sat down.
"To be factual about this," said the DSG in a more normal voice, "the core issue here is that the Tokyo MPD failed to protect an invited guest. But for his own initiative, Fitzduane-san would have been cut down only a short distance from his hotel. And to make matters worse, he was forbidden to carry a firearm, even though I knew he was at risk." He sighed. "Frankly, I underestimated the forces we are up against."