Yorgi slipped the Jeep into gear and gazed through the windshield. Drake rested a hand on his arm.
“I think you should let our guide go first.”
“Ah, yes. It is good that one of us is on the ball, yes?”
“A nice football reference, mate. We’ll turn you into a passable Englishman yet.”
“Oh please, no.”
Jenny eased forward, aiming her vehicle toward through the gates and toward the road. Yorgi followed slowly. Drake’s mind became focused on the utter silence that emanated from the back seat. Karin Blake was more than a physical passenger back there, she was a blunt force, commuting through life vacantly, indifferently, showing no indication that she might know the way back from the sharp turns her consciousness had taken.
Drake wished that he could help. As of now, he didn’t want to make it worse but as with Alicia, a crunch of some kind was inevitable.
The desert opened out on both sides, as deadly and barren and lonely as the worst kind of grief.
Drake waited for the onrushing storms.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Mai Kitano prepared for the greatest battle of her life.
A Yakuza communication turned up before sunrise that morning. It conveyed that their warrior had arrived near Tokyo and suggested a time and a place for their engagement. Mai liked the simplicity of the words — it inferred nor assumed anything. It was plain. And there could be no misunderstanding.
It gave her time to reflect, to prepare her mind and body for what was to come. There were no outcomes in her mental arrangements, only designs. She allowed Dai Hibiki to be her second, the one who would accompany and observe, the one who would be forced to deal with the aftermath.
Before departure, she spent a few final moments with Grace.
“I will be back soon.”
The young girl stared at the floor, her new, now natural bounciness depleted. “Will you?”
“If I do not do this a war will begin. It is a credit to my enemies that they even make such an offering.”
“A credit?” Grace looked over, her brow creased in confusion. “You’re crediting your enemies? I don’t get it.”
“There is nothing to ‘get’.” Mai didn’t explain how she was doing this to keep Grace and the entire SPEAR team safe. How much the safety of her sister and Hibiki mattered. How much she loved the new emerging woman that Grace was becoming and wanted to protect her at any cost. It wasn’t something she felt she could explain succinctly.
“Please. Be careful.” Grace’s eyes watered.
“I know of no other way to be.”
“I don’t know what I would do now if you… you…”
Mai struggled to hold onto her composure. Grace’s words raised in sharp detail Mai’s foremost concern. The young girl was doing so well, growing and developing in mind and body every day. The healing process was as well advanced as anybody could expect. If she suddenly hit a hairpin curve the terrible regression might be even worse than before.
There was no way out. This Yakuza sword was well and truly double-edged. But it also gives me the greatest reason in the world to fight hard. To win.
The actual departure was even worse, Grace clinging as long as she could and Mai struggling to keep the tears from her eyes. I have made you my ward, my conscience, my life, and now I am leaving you.
The congested road through Tokyo was almost as hard. Hibiki drove, taking the journey slowly. He knew by heart the place they sought. It was an old mountain monastery situated at the end of a steep winding road. Above the monastery was a flat plateau rarely visited, sealed off from tourists and where the resident monks occasionally worshipped.
Tonight, at sunset, it would be the unhallowed ground for Mai’s conclusive rite of passage. Mai watched Hibiki from the corner of her eye but saw no emotion there. It put her in mind of how Drake and the others would almost certainly deal with the same difficult problem — it was a soldier’s reaction minus the camaraderie and leg-pulling that came naturally to most Europeans.
Time slipped by and the roads grew less busy. The sun passed its zenith and began to wane, turning a burnished gold for what were possibly her final few hours on earth. She was thankful for it, and spent the time contemplating the events that had led her to this appointed moment.
Finally, she cleared her mind as all roads led to the monastery, with its plateau at the very top. Beyond a certain point they had to park up and walk, the twisting path passing under overhanging trees and growing narrower by the second. A cool breeze caressed Mai’s countenance as, finally, Dai Hibiki turned his overwrought face toward her.
“It’s just beyond that bend in the path. Mai, there is no point of no return. It does not have to be this way.”
Mai touched the Japanese man’s fair face with the back of her hand, looking infinitely sad. “Tell Chika I will always love her,” she paused, “and that I am sorry.”
“For not saying goodbye?”
“We did that last night. It did not need to happen again. I am just sorry it all ended up this way. Violence and death have been my mentors from a very young age.”
“The Yakuza can be beaten in other ways.”
“But not without further bloodshed. Let mine be the last drop spilt in the name of all this madness.”
Mai eased past Hibiki and negotiated the final bend in the path. Beyond, a flat paved area bordered with wooden benches extended into a wide, circular grassy expanse. Its borders were cobblestones, its boundary a sheer two-hundred-foot drop. A small contingent of Japanese men stood silently at the center of the clearing, but only one man mattered to Mai.
The Yakuza warrior, the very best of the very best, the unbeaten devil, stood with both arms crossed. More than a showdown, this truly was a battle to the death and the warrior looked more than ready. A scarred face topped an almost naked, absurdly muscled body. He did not speak but regarded her as though she were already dead.
Mai stepped out, leaving her coat on a bench as she passed. Without even a backwards glance at Hibiki, she approached the clearing. “I am here.”
“Then it is time to settle this matter.” One of the Yakuza leaders moved aside, gesturing at her. “In combat we seek justness. In death, an impartial outcome. Let it begin.”
Mai waited until the Yakuza men departed before approaching the great warrior. His name, they told her, was Aoki and he bore no arrogance, no pretentiousness and no rage. She stood in silence before him and waited for the signal. If everything she was came down to this then it was an ignominious, inglorious end and one quite befitting.
No further thoughts entered her mind in that final moment of contemplation. In absolute silence and total emptiness there was a kind of cleansing.
“Fight.”
Mai sidestepped twice as the powerful figure loosened himself up. The head rocked from side to side, slackening neck muscles. The fingers flexed in anticipation. Aoki locked gazes with her.
And struck. The act had been mere misdirection. Mai deflected his clenched fist with an upraised arm, his rising knee with one of her own. They came together briefly, breath intermingled, before stepping apart once more. Mai tested the ground. The grass and soil beneath was firm, not slippery. The air was thin. The extremities of their battleground were always going to be precarious. The pack of men to her right constituted a point of reference, Hibiki another.
Aoki’s knee rose, but it was his fist that drove at her, glancing off her temple as she ducked aside. Instantly, the Yakuza warrior spun and planted a turning heel into her abdomen. Mai felt the impact and tensed her muscles but still she staggered. Pain exploded around the partially healed bullet wound. The blow was no accident. Incensed at such trickery, Mai ignored the pain and pounced before Aoki had a chance to right himself. Delving her right hand into his ribs she also chopped her left down on the back of his neck. Aoki’s muscles were large enough to absorb both blows but he certainly felt them.