The Fifth Profession Read online

  Early boarding was a plus. Getting quickly through a possible danger in the crowd. But exiting early, facing a crowd and its unstudied risks, was a liability. A professional escort would insist that his principal wait until most passengers left the plane.

  Avoid commotion. Maintain maximum order.

  So Savage felt encouraged when he saw no Orientals among the Rolex-and-gold-bracelet, dressed-to-impress, first-class travelers, who marched past the crowd, their power briefcases clutched severely, their chins thrust high. Many wore expensive cowboy boots and Stetsons, to be expected since this DC-10 came from Dallas where an earlier 747 from Japan had landed. Evidently the Japanese passengers on the trans-Pacific 747 had either stayed in Dallas or taken connecting flights to cities other than New York.

  Savage waited.

  More Caucasians. More exuberant reunions.

  The surge of passengers became a trickle.

  An American Airlines attendant pushed an aged woman in a wheelchair through the arrival door. In theory the DC-10 was empty.

  In theory.

  Savage glanced behind him. The waiting crowd had dispersed. At the same time, another crowd—impatient—had boarded several departing planes.

  This section of the concourse was almost empty. An airport custodian emptied ashtrays. A young couple looked dejected because they'd been too low on a waiting list for openings due to canceled reservations.

  No threat.

  Savage turned again toward the exit door.

  A Japanese man appeared, dressed in dark slacks, a dark turtleneck sweater, a dark windbreaker.

  Midthirties. Trim but not slight. No suggestion of muscles, but a definite suggestion of strength. Wiry. Supple. His movements smooth. Graceful. Controlled. Economical. No needless gesture. Like a dancer—who knew martial arts, for the tips and the sides of his hands had calluses typical of someone with karate training. Equally telling, his hands were unencumbered. No briefcase. No carry-on bag. Just a handsome Japanese, five feet ten inches tall, with brown skin, short black hair, strong jaw and cheekbones that framed his rectangular face, and laserlike eyes that assessed every aspect of what he approached.

  This would be Akira, and Savage was impressed. On equal terms, an enemy would be foolish to confront this man. Even on terms to the enemy's advantage. Savage was so accustomed to dealing with inferior protectors that he almost smiled at the thought of working with an expert.

  Behind Akira, another Japanese emerged from the ramp. Late fifties. Slightly stooped. Carrying a briefcase. Blue suit. Protruding stomach. Streaks of gray in his black hair. Sagging brown cheeks. A weary executive.

  But Savage wasn't fooled. The second Japanese could probably straighten his shoulders and tuck in his stomach at will. This man would be Muto Kamichi, Savage's principal, and evidently he too had martial arts training, for like Akira (but unlike any other principal Savage had ever worked for), the tips and sides of Kamichi's hands had calluses.

  Savage had been instructed to wear a brown suit and paisley tie to identify him. As Kamichi and Akira approached, he didn't offer to shake hands. The gesture would have compromised his ability to defend. Instead he chose the Japanese custom and bowed slightly.

  The two Japanese maintained impassive expressions, but their eyes flickered with surprise that this Westerner was familiar with Japanese etiquette. Savage hadn't intended to obligate them. Still, he suddenly realized that the dictates of their culture forced them to respond, though their bows were less than Savage's, Akira's just a bob of the head as he continued to survey the concourse.

  Savage gestured politely for them to follow. Proceeding down the concourse, he watched travelers ahead while Kamichi stayed behind him, and Akira followed, no doubt glancing frequently around.

  The moment Savage had seen his principal, he'd raised his right hand to the outside of his suitcoat pocket and pressed a button on a battery-powered transmitter. A radio signal had been sent to a receiver in a vehicle that one of Savage's associates had parked in the airport's ramp. As soon as the associate heard the beep, he'd drive from the ramp to rendezvous with Savage.

  The group reached the end of the concourse and descended stairs toward the commotion of the baggage area. Weary ex-passengers hefted suitcases off a conveyor belt, impatient to get outside and into taxis.

  Savage assessed the harried crowd but didn't go near its risky confusion. Instead he gestured again, this time toward a sliding door. Kamichi and Akira went with him, unconcerned about their luggage.

  Good, Savage thought. His initial impression had been accurate. These two understood correct procedure.

  They emerged on a busy sidewalk beneath a concrete canopy. Beyond, the drizzle persisted. The temperature, high for April, was sixty degrees. A moist breeze felt tepid.

  Savage glanced to the left toward approaching traffic, reassured to see a dark blue Plymouth sedan veering toward the curb. A red-haired man got out, came quickly around to the curb, and opened the rear passenger door. Just before Kamichi got in, he handed the red-haired man several luggage receipts. Savage approved that the principal was experienced enough to perform this menial service rather than requiring Akira to relax surveillance by reaching into his windbreaker pocket to get the receipts.

  Savage slid behind the steering wheel, pressed a button that locked all the doors, then fastened his seat belt. Meanwhile the red-haired man went for the luggage. Because Kamichi and Akira had taken a prudent length of time to get off the plane, their suitcases would almost certainly be on the conveyor belt by now. A safe, efficient arrival.

  One minute later, the red-haired man finished placing three suitcases in the Plymouth's trunk and shut the lid. Instantly Savage drove from the curb, checking his rearview mirror, noticing his associate walk toward a taxi. Savage had paid him earlier. The man would take for granted that Savage couldn't permit distraction by saying “thanks.”

  Savage himself took for granted that since the two Japanese had behaved so knowledgeably about security, they understood why he'd chosen a car that wasn't ostentatious and wouldn't be easy to follow. Not that Savage expected to be followed. As Graham had said, the risk level on this assignment was low. Nonetheless Savage never varied his basic procedure, and the Plymouth—seemingly no different from others—had modifications: bulletproof glass, armor paneling, reinforced suspension, and a supercharged V-8 engine.

  As windshield wipers flapped and tires hissed along the wet pavement, Savage steered smoothly through traffic, left the airport complex, and headed west on the Grand Central Parkway. The envelope Graham had given him was in his suitcoat, but he didn't refer to its contents, having memorized his instructions. He couldn't help wondering why Kamichi had rejected Newark's airport in favor of LaGuardia. The drive would have been shorter, less complicated, because although Savage's immediate route was toward Manhattan, his ultimate destination forced him across the northern tip of the island, then west through New Jersey into Pennsylvania. Kamichi's logic, the purpose of the mazelike itinerary, eluded him.

  6

  At five, the drizzle stopped. Amid the congestion of rush hour traffic, Savage crossed the George Washington Bridge. He asked his principal if he'd care to enjoy some sake, which having been heated was in a thermos, the temperature not ideal but acceptable.

  Kamichi declined.

  Savage explained that the Plymouth was equipped with a telephone, if Kamichi-san required it.

  Again Kamichi declined.

  That was the extent of the conversation.

  Until twenty miles west on Interstate 80, where Kamichi and Akira exchanged remarks. In Japanese.

  Savage was competent in several European languages, a necessity of his work, but Japanese was too difficult for him, its complex system of suffixes and prefixes bewildering. Because Kamichi spoke English, Savage wondered why his principal had chosen to exclude him from this conversation. How could he do his job when he couldn't understand what the man he'd pledged to protect was saying?

  Akira leaned
forward. “At the next exit, you'll see a restaurant-hotel complex. I believe you call it a Howard Johnson's. Please stop to the left of the swimming pool.”

  Savage frowned for two reasons. First, Akira had remarkably specific knowledge of the road ahead. Second, Akira's English diction was perfect. The Japanese language made no distinction between r and J. Akira, though, didn't say “prease” and “Howald Johnson's.” His accent was flawless.

  Savage nodded, obeying instructions, steering off the highway. To the left of the swimming pool, where a sign said CLOSED, a balding man in a jogging suit appeared from behind a maintenance building, considered the two Japanese in the Plymouth's rear seat, and held up a briefcase.

  The briefcase—metal, with a combination lock—was identical to the briefcase that Kamichi had carried from the plane.

  “Please,” Akira said, “take my master's briefcase, leave the car, and exchange one briefcase for the other.”

  Savage did what he was told.

  Back in the car, he gave the look-alike briefcase to his employer.

  “My master thanks you,” Akira said.

  Savage bowed his head, puzzled by the exchange of briefcases. “It's my purpose to serve. Arigato.”

  “ ‘Thank you’ in response to his ‘thank you’? My master commends your politeness.”

  7

  Returning to Interstate 80, Savage checked his rearview mirror to see if he was being followed. The vehicles behind him kept shifting position. Good.

  It was dark when he crossed the mountain-flanked border from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. Headlights approaching in the opposite lanes allowed him to study the image of his passengers in his rearview mirror.

  The gray-haired principal seemed asleep, his slack-jawed face tilted back, his eyes closed, or perhaps he was meditating.

  But Akira sat ramrod straight, on guard. Like his master, his face did not reveal his thoughts. His features were stoic, impassive.

  Akira's eyes, though, expressed the greatest sadness Savage had ever seen. To someone familiar with Japanese culture, Savage's conclusion might have seemed naive, for the Japanese by nature tended toward melancholy, Savage knew. Stern obligations imposed on them by complex traditional values made the Japanese watchful and reserved, lest they unwittingly insult someone or place themselves in another's debt. In premodern times, he'd read, a Japanese would hesitate to tell a passerby that he'd dropped his wallet—because the passerby would then feel honorbound to supply a reward much greater than the value of the contents of the wallet. Similarly Savage had read ancient accounts in which someone who'd fallen from a boat and thrashed in a river, in danger of drowning, had been ignored by people on shore—because to rescue the victim would be to inflict upon that victim an obligation to repay the rescuer again and again and again, forever in this ephemeral earthly existence, until the rescued victim was granted the gift of rescuing the rescuer or else had the privileged release from obligation by dying as the gods had intended at the river before the rescuer intervened.

  Shame and duty controlled the Japanese personality. Devotion to honor compelled them but often also wearied them. Peace could be elusive, fatigue of the spirit inescapable. Ritual suicide—seppuku—was on occasion the only solution.

  Savage's research made him realize that these values applied only to uncorrupted, unwesternized Japanese, those who'd refused to adapt to the cultural infection of America's military occupation after the war. But Akira gave the impression of being both uncorruptible and, despite his knowledge of American ways, an unrelenting patriot of the Land of the Gods. Even so, the emotion in his eyes was more than the usual Japanese melancholy. His sadness was seared to the depths of his soul. So dark, so deep, so black, so profound. An expanding wall of repressive ebony. Savage felt it. The Plymouth was filled with it.

  8

  At eleven, a country road wound through night-shrouded mountains, leading them to a town called Medford Gap. Kamichi and Akira again exhanged comments in Japanese. Akira leaned forward. “At the town's main intersection, please turn left.”

  Savage obeyed. Driving from the lights of Medford Gap, he steered up a narrow, winding road and hoped he wouldn't meet another vehicle coming down. There were very few places to park on the shoulder, and the spring thaw had made them muddy.

  Dense trees flanked the car. The road angled higher, veering sharply back and forth. The Plymouth's headlights glinted off banks of lingering snow. Ten minutes later, the road became level, its sharp turns now gentle curves. Ahead, above hulking trees, Savage saw a glow. He passed through an open gate, steered around a clump of boulders, and entered an enormous clearing. Fallow gardens flanked him. Spotlights gleamed, revealing paths, benches, and hedges. But what attracted Savage's attention was the eerie building that loomed before him.

  At first, he thought it was several buildings, some made of brick, others of stone, others of wood. They varied in height: five stories, three, four. Each had a different style: a town house, a pagoda, a castle, a chalet. Some had straight walls; others were rounded. Chimneys, turrets, gables, and balconies added to the weird architectural confusion.

  But as Savage drove closer, he realized that all of these apparently separate designs were joined to form one enormous baffling structure. My God, he thought. How long must it be? A fifth of a mile? It was huge.

  None of the sections had doors, except for one in the middle, where the road led to wide wooden steps and a porch upon which a man in a uniform waited. The uniform, with epaulets and gold braids, reminded Savage of the type that bellmen wore at luxury hotels. Abruptly he saw a sign on the porch—MEDFORD GAP MOUNTAIN RETREAT—and understood that this peculiar building was in fact a hotel.

  As Savage stopped at the bottom of the stairs, the man in the uniform came down toward the car.

  Savage's muscles hardened.

  Why the hell weren't my instructions complete? I should have been told where we'd be staying. This place … on a mountaintop, totally isolated, with just Akira and me to protect Kamichi, no explanation of why we came here, no way to control who comes and goes in a building this huge … it's a security nightmare.

  Recalling the mysterious exchange of briefcases, Savage turned to Kamichi to tell him that ura, private thoughts, might be wonderful in Japan, but here they gave a protector a royal pain and what the hell was going on?

  Akira intervened. “My master appreciates your concern. He grants that your sense of obligation gives you cause to object to these apparently risky arrangements. But you should understand that except for a few other guests, the hotel will be empty. And those guests, too, have escorts. The road will be watched. No incident is expected.”

  “I'm not the primary escort,” Savage said. “You are. With respect, though, yes, I'm disturbed. Do you agree with these arrangements?”

  Akira bowed his head, darting his profoundly sad eyes toward Kamichi. “I do what my master wills.”

  “As must I. But for the record, I don't like it.”

  “Your objection is noted. My master absolves you from responsibility.”

  “You know better. As long as I've pledged myself, I'm never absolved.”

  Akira bowed again. “Of course. I've studied your credentials. With approval. That's why I agreed when my master decided to hire you.”

  “Then you know this conversation's pointless. I'll do what's necessary,” Savage said. “Totally. But I will not work with you and your master again.”

  “Once is all that's required.”

  “Then let's get on with it.”

  Outside the car, the man in uniform waited. Savage pressed buttons that released the doors and the trunk. He stepped from the car and told the man to carry the bags inside. Nerves tingling, he glanced around at the looming darkness, then preceded Kamichi and Akira up the steps.

  9

  The lobby looked like a vestige from the 1890s. Antique pine lined the walls. Wagon wheels were chandeliers. A single primitive elevator stood next to an impressive old staircase
that crisscrossed upward. But for all its historical charm, the place smelled moldy and stank of decay. A hotel for ghosts.

  Savage kept his back to Kamichi, watching the deserted lobby, Akira doing the same, while their principal murmured to an elderly spiderweb-haired woman behind a counter.

  “We won't use the elevator,” Akira said.

  “I advise my principals to avoid them whenever possible.”

  “In this instance, it's just that my master prefers the incomparable staircase.”

  As if Kamichi had been here before.

  Third floor. And with every upward movement, Savage heard the attendant struggle with the bags. Too bad, Savage thought. The elevator would have been easier for you. But an elevator's a trap, and anyway I've got the feeling other rules apply here.

  The man in the uniform stopped at a door.

  “Thank you. Leave the bags out here,” Savage said.

  “If that is your preference, sir.”

  “Your tip—”

  “Has been arranged, sir.”

  The man handed three keys not to Savage or Akira but Kamichi. Savage watched as the man disappeared down the stairs. Did the man have security training? He knew not to compromise the hands of the escorts.

  Kamichi unlocked the door and stepped back, allowing Akira to inspect the room.

  When Akira returned, he nodded to Kamichi, faced Savage, and raised his eyebrows. “Would you care to … ?”

  “Yes.”

  By the standards of hotels that catered to the wealthy, by any standard, the room was primitive. An unpainted radiator. A dim light bulb in the ceiling. The single window had simple draperies. The floor was bare worn pine. The bed was narrow, concave, covered with a very old, homemade quilt. The bathroom had a hand-held shower attachment on a clip above dingy faucets. The moldy smell persisted. No television, though there was a telephone, old-fashioned, black and bulky, with a dial instead of buttons.