"The last Section Eight member passed his test. He's on his way back to Okinawa."
"Good."
"Why'd you pick Section Eight as the name for the team?" Royce asked.
"Ever watch MASH?" David asked.
"We need to keep our sense of humor."
Silence settled over the clearing once more. The two were used to their roundabout discussions. But in a world where secrecy ruled supreme, they both enjoyed their time together. It was as close to a real conversation about the job they had devoted their life to that either man was ever going to have with someone they wouldn't immediately kill afterward.
Royce finally got down to business.
"Why am I here?"
"To run the op," David said.
"I'm the field agent. You run the ops."
"Not anymore."
David reached into the pocket of his khaki shirt and pulled out a postcard. It showed a tropical beach with a beautiful woman in a skimpy bikini.
"No shit?" Royce had known this day was coming, but he'd never dwelt on it.
"No shit," David echoed.
"When?"
"In a couple of days. Which is why you're here. This is your op. One hundred percent from this moment on out."
"Where is this?" Royce asked, pointing at the card.
"Well, that beach is Kaui," David said, "and I don't happen to know the young lady's name."
He put the card away and became serious.
"Of course, I'm not going to Kaui. Symbolism is what I was shooting for.
"I'd heard about this place. Where they send people like me. Out of the way. In the western Pacific.
Isolated but nice. Out of harm's way, able to enjoy our last years, courtesy of the Organization, for our years of service."
"You've still got plenty of work in you," Royce protested.
"You – " David shook his head.
"I'm tired, Royce. Bone tired."
He grabbed the ladder and slid down to the ground. Royce followed.
David pointed to the north, where they could still see the ocean.
"They came from that direction so many years ago. My brother was on this hill that morning. Eighteen years old."
David had never mentioned a brother to Royce, who had always assumed they met up here because it was remote and safe.
"Pearl Harbor?" Royce asked.
David nodded.
"December seventh, 1941. We got hit hard and were surprised. Same as 9/11."
David sighed.
"Makes you wonder."
"About?" Royce asked.
As he expected, David changed the subject.
"Everything's compartmentalized in our Organization," he said.
"I know who I answer to but I don't know who he answers to. You answer to me, but I don't know who you have working for you most of the time. It's been the key to our success. Someone takes out a link, they can only go so far in either direction before they hit a dead end. It's kept me alive and it's kept you alive."
"I'm going to miss you," Royce said.
David smiled.
"Thanks. You know, us meeting here – it should have never happened. I was wrong to meet you here that first time so many years ago."
"I know."
Royce paused.
"Then why did you?"
David looked at his friend.
"Honestly? Because I was lonely. I'd been alone for thirty years running ops. I went through two wives. They thought I worked for the Department of Defense inspecting food service at military bases. Real exciting stuff. I lived a lie with them and it ended both marriages."
He put his hand on Royce's shoulder.
"I never lied to you. I withheld the truth a lot, but I never told you a lie."
"I know," Royce repeated. Ever since being recruited, he'd relied on David, his only contact with the Organization. In fact, the term "Organization" was what they had come up with to call the group they worked for – they had never been given an official name. Section 8 was the term that David had given him for the team for this mission, since people seemed to want to hang a label on things.
"Who do I – "
"Don't worry," David said, before he could finish the question.
"The Organization will be in contact with you. Finish this mission. You know what needs to be done."
"But with you gone – "
"You'll be all right. Just do what you're ordered."
David pulled his car keys out, indicating that the meeting was over. Royce walked with his mentor to the Defender, stood by the door as David got in and started the engine.
David rolled down the window.
"I'll leave this – " he tapped the steering wheel – "in the parking lot at Kaneohe Air Station. You've got your keys. Take good care of her."
"I'll…" Royce wasn't sure what to say.
David reached out the window and gripped his forearm.
"Be careful. There are always wheels turning within wheels."
With that, he let go and drove off, leaving Royce standing alone in the clearing.
The Black Wind Society of the Yakuza was controlled by a middle-age man who looked like he would be comfortable standing behind the counter of the local pharmacy, smiling at customers and dispensing medicines to make them feel better. Atio Kasama had a slight smile almost permanently entrenched on his face, a look that had disarmed many he'd come in contact with over the years – to their great disadvantage, for Kasama was anything but a happy or pleasant man.
He harbored dark thoughts and ambitions, and had ever since watching his father, a strict disciplinarian who ran the family with an iron hand, butcher his mother with a knife, and then commit suicide – after tying him to a tree in their small backyard in suburban Tokyo many years ago. Kasama spent eight hours getting himself free of his father's knots, all the while watching the bodies of his parents go into rigor mortis in front of him and their blood coagulate in the mud that had formed underneath.
Even at that age, traumatized by what he'd witnessed, he knew he did not want what was going to come next if he stayed. His parents had been only children in their families, so he would become a ward of the state, an institution he saw as simply a much larger version of his father. As he worked his way free of the bonds, he decided that for the rest of his life he would make his own rules and live his life his own way.
He'd escaped from the knots and the dead household and disappeared into the Tokyo underworld. Subsequently, he learned the reason for his father's despair – he had owed a large debt to a bookie who worked for the Yakuza. Kasama went to visit the bookie – not to wreak vengeance, as one might suppose, but rather, to learn. He considered his father weak for giving up to a force outside of himself, and he wanted to understand such power. So he learned the trade of exploiting the weakness of gambling in others – others like his father. He also learned how to exploit other weaknesses in people, in the form of running prostitutes, lending money, and dealing illegal drugs.
By the time he was eighteen, Kasama had already made his mark in the criminal underworld. Then the Black Wind had come calling. It brought him into its fold and gave him the security he had never known within his own family. His determination never to give in to any of the vices he helped ply made him different from most of those around him and allowed him to rise quickly in the ranks. Added to that was a ruthlessness that had no boundaries. He would do whatever his superiors demanded of him, because he knew it was the quickest way to get to the point where he would be the one giving the orders.
He became the right-hand man to the head of the Black Wind over six years ago, and when his boss passed away in his sleep from a heart attack, Kasama assumed power, just one year ago. There had been a few squeaks of protest from others high in the organization, but he'd crushed those squeaks with direct and violent action, brooking no dissent to his rule. There were even rumors that the heart attack had not occurred naturally. Kasama knew the truth, which was that he had nothing to do with the death, but he allowed the rumor to circulate unchecked, since fear was the most effective tool for keeping his people in line.