The Brotherhood of the Rose Page 21

  When Chris and Saul entered with Eliot, they noticed several gaming tables between the dressing room and mat area. At one of these tables, they found Lee and Ishiguro using black and white stones to play an oriental game that Eliot explained was called Go. Both instructors wore suits, Ishiguro’s made of blue silk, Lee’s of gray sharkskin. Both men were shoeless. Their socks were clean and white, their shirts heavily starched, their striped ties carefully knotted and pressed.

  With no hair on his head and his belly protruding, Ishiguro looked like an oversized Buddha. But when he stood, his six-foot-three-inch height and two hundred and ninety pounds presented an awesome figure. In contrast, Lee stood five feet four inches tall on a small frame and still had his shiny ebony hair as well as a black thin mustache. His musculature suggested springy steel.

  The game stopped at once. The two Orientals gave short bows of respect to Eliot, then shook hands with the boys.

  “I do hope our mutual friend, Mr. Eliot, has explained that we are not here to teach you a sport,” Ishiguro said in flawless English. “Sensei Lee and I hope you will accept our service. If you do, we promise you will learn to perceive rapid movement as if it were slow. That much alone will place you above most men. Here, everything you learn will become second nature, as it must, for you will not have time to think if death approaches—instead you will have only a moment to prove that you should live. You may tell your school friends what you learn, but you will soon discover they don’t understand. What you must never do is show them. Since you can’t predict a future enemy, isn’t it better if no one else has the knowledge you do?”

  Lee said nothing, neither smiled nor frowned. While Ishiguro went to boil water for tea, Eliot broke the silence by asking Lee about the game of Go. Lee immediately came to attention.

  “Appearance is deception,” he said with a smile. “As you see, the board is made up of half-inch squares. The spaces are not important. The lines mean everything. By placing a stone on the board and building a pattern from there, I hope to enclose as much territory as possible. The object is simple—to offset my opponent with the suspicion that I’m establishing a network to entrap him. Which of course I am.” Lee laughed. He demonstrated how to handle a stone using two fingers like a claw. Ishiguro returned with the tea, and eventually the meeting concluded with the Orientals admonishing the boys to consider the proposition and decide in private.

  It was all too brief. Puzzled, they listened to Eliot’s explanation as the creaky elevator descended.

  “When you were little, you were interested in sports. As you got older, you idolized heroes in war movies. You’ve just met two middle-aged men in a sleazy Philadelphia warehouse. Two men who are recognized as great, as having superior skill, by over two-thirds of the world. Perhaps humility is the only visible sign of wisdom. I don’t know. But they’ve accepted the responsibility of training men in specific areas of security for our government. Both are paid well, but I don’t think they’re interested in money. I believe their interest involves the opportunity to teach young men to become the best fighters in the world. Today was just an introduction, a chance for you to see what’s involved. If you decide to participate, the program must be carried out to its conclusion. Never break a promise. They accept you as men. They won’t appreciate little kids who stand around with their mouths open in wonderment or who give up. So make your choice wisely and call me collect before next Sunday. Oh, and by the way, if you do decide to join, there’ll be no more evening meals at Franklin. But don’t expect to be eating hoagies and steak sandwiches. They’ve got a special diet for you: flank steak, heart, fish for protein, rice to fill you up, tea occasionally, grapefruit juice always. No more Baby Ruths for a while, I’m afraid. Keep to their menu, it’ll do you good. But if you tire of the food, you mustn’t stop drinking the juice. Lee and Ishiguro swear by it. They say it takes all the cramps and stiffness away. This isn’t the Marine Corps—you’re gonna have to work your ass off for these guys.”

  When the boys phoned Eliot to say they wanted to join, he told them he’d pick them up on Sunday. “Dress up, wear clean underwear, be prepared for a ceremony. Think along the lines of a Bar Mitzvah or a confirmation.”

  On their second visit to the dojo, Chris and Saul were initiated into manhood through a ritual called gempuku. Instead of the traditional short sword and long sword, they were given a judo gi and a karate gi. The uniforms caught their attention. The first was heavily woven cotton, the second lightweight serge. Called haori, the coats reached down to the knees. The pants were hakama, and the purpose of their wide flaring sides was to give no suggestion of the build of the wearer.

  Ishiguro noticed the boys’ curiosity. “Mr. Lee and I have decided to accept you as shizoku, which means descendants of samurai. It has special meaning to us and to your friend Mr. Eliot. It places the added responsibility on you to protect yourself against humiliation. If you accept that duty, you may need to dispose of yourself some day. That is why this ceremony of manhood tells you how to use the sword. True manhood is challenged when a decision of this type is needed. I must tell you of jijin, the proper use of the sword to end one’s life.”

  Ishiguro sat down on the floor with his legs crossed before him. He took the small sword whose blade was only fourteen inches long and moved it from right to left horizontally across his abdomen.

  “The pain will be intense. Your final act will be to rise above the pain by remaining still with your head bowed. Your assistant will finish the procedure.”

  Standing beside him, Lee took a sword whose blade was forty inches long and dramatized the final act of beheading. “Be careful not to cut completely through the neck but instead to leave a flap so the head will remain attached to the body.”

  Ishiguro looked up and smiled. “That is seppuku, and it means disembowelment—death with honor. Anything by other means is jisai or mere self-disposal. It is all a part of an honorable tradition, the initiation into a divine way of manhood we no longer have in this century. The instruction you receive will have no mystery, no glamour. It will train you to kill or, if you fail, to die with honor.”

  The boys were stunned.

  “There is no longer time in your life to idolize others,” Ishiguro continued. “Now there is only the self—without the approval of others. That is important, for to fascinate others with your skill places your personality in their stereotype of you, a stereotype at one time accepted, at another time unaccepted, depending on current fashion. You will rise above this. When you are through with us, your black belt will tell everyone only that you are a serious student. You will never officially pass beyond shodan or the first degree, though you’ll go far beyond that. To reveal the true extent of your training would expose you to national and international competition. But the way of the samurai makes you more than a mere technician of swordplay or a specialist with the knife for the amusement of others. Your destiny is profound.”

  The boys learned how to sit properly, to bow, to show respect, and to release an opponent in distress. Ishiguro took Chris aside; Lee worked with Saul. The next day, the instructors switched partners. The first two weeks were devoted to learning proper falls, the katas or dance steps, and the means to unbalance an opponent. Once these basics were understood, the boys began the advanced training commonly reserved for black belts. They learned to choke an opponent, to lock his arms, to break his extremities.

  “For men with instincts as quick as your own,” Lee explained, “you will see a kick coming as if it were suspended. All you must do is step back or to the side and watch your assailant lose his balance. Never allow yourself to be cornered. Instead keep moving forward to corner your man. At the same time, wait for him to attack. Defend yourself so surely that your one and only blow serves its purpose. Never square off with him within the length of his legs. Never allow him to grab you from the front. To do so is merely to wrestle with him, to create a sport with him. I will show you how to protect yourself against an attacker who grabs you
from the rear, who clutches your neck, your arms. You will learn to bend at the knee, to use the fulcrum of your hip. These tactics must be automatic.”

  They came to understand profoundly that the ability to overpower an opponent did not belong to the young or the athletic but to those with secret knowledge. The skills they learned gave them the confidence to relax and recognize danger. Their power made them humble.

  Lee told them stories. “I went to missionary school. I learned your Bible—both books. I will tell you something that has always interested me. In the old book, Isaiah, your God said, ‘I created day; I created night. I created good; I created evil. I, the Lord, did all these things.’ I have always wondered how a Westerner can judge evil as wrong when his own God created it and permitted Lucifer to protect it. Strange how the warrior who has seen death and miracles either remains in the military or else joins a monastery—for the sake of the discipline. Meanwhile, those safe at home, who know nothing, talk of the bad, the wrong, the sinful. How wonderful that the history of the warrior does not allow the contemplation of good and evil but only of duty, honor, and loyalty.”

  Ishiguro allowed the boys to make a game of shinigurai. In Japanese, the word meant being crazy to die. He hoped that someday this horseplay would allow the boys to leap into the jaws of death with no hesitation. The game involved jumping over each other and objects, falling from heights and landing flatly on their chests.

  Lee said, “There is nothing more exciting than to know that a friend is somewhere in the dark facing death. Such exhilaration!”

  Ishiguro said, “I will read to you from the Hagakure. The title means ‘hidden among leaves.’ It explains the classic code of ethics for the samurai. The way of the samurai is death. In a fifty-fifty life-or-death crisis, simply approach the crisis, prepared to die if necessary. There is nothing complicated about it. Merely brace yourself and proceed. One who fails in a mission and chooses to continue living will be despised as a coward and a bungler. To be a perfect samurai, you must prepare yourself for death morning and evening, day in, day out. Hell is to live in uneventful times when you have no choice except to wait for valor.”

  On the day they finished their training, Ishiguro gave them their final lesson. “For many years in Japanese history, a commander held respect from his people. He was called a shogun, something like your president. Beneath him were his masters of skill, such as your Pentagon and CIA. Under the care and command of these masters were the hatamoto, who as samurai served their masters in the shogun’s camp. The masters were intermediaries—they guaranteed honor to the chief and justice to the men. In turn, the samurai promised gratitude, bravery, and obligation. Their responsibility was known as giri. If a samurai developed a monastic conviction or sustained a crippling blow, he was dismissed from the service of the shogun. When a master died, the shogun released the master’s samurai from service. These samurai would travel the country alone—they showed no allegiance to a wife—but because their skills were so precise and deadly, they were often hunted, certainly challenged often. Many formed teams. A few became bandits, but most became monks. Isn’t it strange how the power to kill often makes a warrior monastic? But in your case, the shogun is not your president. Such a man passes in and out of favor by the whim of popular opinion. No, your shogun is Eliot. He may retire you, or he may die. But without him, you are only wanderers.”

  14

  The rain kept drumming on the cabin’s roof. Outside, the morning was as bleak as dusk.

  Erika blinked in dismay. Taking turns, Chris and Saul had explained. “How long did you say you received instruction?” she asked.

  “Three years,” Saul answered. “Three hours every day.”

  She inhaled. “But you were only kids.”

  “You mean we were young,” Chris said. “The way we were raised, I’m not sure we were ever kids.”

  “We enjoyed those classes. We like making Eliot proud of us,” Saul said. “All we wanted was his approval.”

  Chris pointed to the computer printouts on the table. “Given the other parallels, my guess is the men on this list grew up in the same kind of atmosphere we did.”

  “Conditioned,” Erika said.

  Saul’s eyes were grim. “It worked. The spring we graduated from high school, Special Forces and the Eighty-Second Airborne each sent recruiters to the school. They spent a week competing to convince our class which unit had more to offer.” His voice became bitter. “The same way IBM and Xerox recruit at a college. The boys in our class chose one military unit or the other, but as a group, they enlisted one hundred percent. In doing so, they continued a tradition. No boy ever graduated from Franklin without joining the military. They wanted to prove their courage so much that six years later, in ’68, by the time of the Tet Offensive in Nam, eighty percent of our class had been killed in combat.”

  “Jesus,” Erika said.

  “But for us, the process still wasn’t finished,” Chris continued. “Eliot called it layering. After the school and the dojo, after Special Forces and Nam, we went through Rothberg’s killer-instinct training. Then we went to the agency’s farm in Virginia. Eliot had long since recruited us. In a sense, our training had begun when we were five. But after the farm, we were finally ready to work for him.”

  “He made you the best.”

  “He made us. Yes.” Chris pursed his lips in anger. “And these other men as well. He programmed us to be absolutely dedicated to him.”

  “Never to question anything. Like the Paradigm job,” Saul said. “I never dreamed of asking him why he wanted it done. If he ordered something, that was good enough.”

  “We were so naive he must have been tempted to laugh. When we snuck from school that night and the gang beat us up…” Chris glared. “I only now realized. Something about them always bothered me. They looked too neat. Their leather jackets were new. They drove an expensive car.” He shivered. “They must have been operatives. He sent them to work us over, to make us angry so we’d grab the chance to learn at the dojo. God knows how many other ways he manipulated us.”

  “Those Baby Ruth candy bars. He gave me one in Denver when he set me up to be killed.”

  “The same when he asked me to hunt for you,” Chris added. “We’re Pavlov’s dogs. Those candy bars are the symbol of his relationship with us. He used them to make us love him. It was easy. No one else ever showed us kindness. An old man giving candy to kids.”

  The rain drummed harder on the roof.

  “And now we find out everything he said was wrong. A trick. A lie,” Saul said. “He never loved us. He used us.”

  “Not only us.” Chris seethed. “These other men must have felt he loved them too. He lied to everyone. We were all just part of a group. I could almost forgive his lies—the things he made me do!—if I thought we were special to him. But we’re not.” He listened to the storm, his words like thunder. “And for that, I’ll see him die.”

  NEMESIS

  1

  Two minutes after the bootlegger opened, Hardy stepped back on the street, clutching two bottles of Jim Beam in a paper sack. He prided himself on his choice of brand. His government pension allowed him few frills, but he’d never debased himself by drinking unaged, bottom-of-the-price-list whiskey. Nor had he ever been tempted to try the cheap pop wines or the sick-sweet fruity rum concoctions preferred by the other drunks in his building. He had standards. He ate once a day, whether hungry or not. He washed and shaved daily and wore fresh clothes. He had to. In the Miami humidity, he sweated constantly, the alcohol oozing from his pores as fast as he tossed it down. Even now, at five after eight in the morning, the heat was obscene. His sunglasses shielded the glare and hid his bloodshot eyes. His flower-patterned shirt stuck to him, soaking the paper bag he held against his chest. He glanced toward his stomach, appalled by the pale puffy skin protruding from an open button on his shirt. With dignity, he closed it. Soon, in two more blocks, he’d be back in the dark security of his room, the blinds shut, the fa
n on, watching the last half-hour of Good Morning America, toasting David Hartman.

  The thought of the day’s first drink made him shake. He glanced around in case a cop was watching, then veered toward an alley, feeling sheltered beneath a fire escape. As traffic roared past the entrance, he reached in the paper bag, twisted the cap off one of the bottles, and pulled the neck out, raising it to his lips. He closed his eyes, luxuriating in the warmth of the bourbon trickling down his throat. His body relaxed. His tremors stopped.

  Abruptly he stiffened, hearing the blare of music throbbing, coming closer. Puzzled, he opened his eyes and gaped at the tallest Cuban he’d ever seen, wearing a shiny purple shirt and mirrored glasses, gyrating to the raucous beat of the ghetto box strapped around his shoulders. Husky, cruel-lipped, the Cuban crowded him against the wall beneath the fire escape.

  Hardy shook again—from fear this time. “Please. I’ve got ten bucks in my wallet. Just don’t hurt me. Don’t take the whiskey.”

  The Cuban only frowned. “What’re you talking about? A dude said to give you this.” He stuffed an envelope in the paper bag and walked away.

  “What? Hey, wait a minute. Who? What’d he look like?”

  The Cuban shrugged. “Just a dude. What difference does it make? You all look alike. He gave me twenty bucks. That’s all I cared about.”

  As Hardy blinked, the Cuban disappeared from the alley, the music from his ghetto box fading. Hardy licked his lips and tasted a residue of bourbon. Nervous, he reached for the envelope in the bag. He felt a long thin object sealed inside. Awkwardly tearing the envelope, he dumped a key in the palm of his hand.

  It looked like the key to a safety-deposit box. It had a number: 113. And letters: USPS. Groggy, he tried to concentrate, finally guessing what the letters referred to. United States Postal Service. A mail drop.