Kusanagi Page 3

  Akira picked up the weapon. It was a shiny, stubby chrome revolver with a black rubber handle and no hammer. It was heavy and felt large in his hand. He stuffed it into his outer pocket. He put the book inside his blazer. He swung off his satchel and filled it with the cash. James Dean’s stash amounted to many millions of yen. To Akira it was a fortune of neatly bundled ten thousand yen notes, perhaps twenty thousand dollars, a good proportion of the proceeds of James Dean Yamamoto’s life’s work.

  The satchel was heavy on Akira’s back. He went to the den window and tried to look out. There was nothing to be seen from this restricted vantage-point. He put his ear to the front door and listened. He heard nothing. He opened the door slowly and looked out. The corridor was empty. He closed the door behind him and walked down the stairs.

  On the ground floor, two figures were slouched in the hallway, dressed in leathers. They were smoking and talking gangster-style. The hallway by the front door was a tight space with mailboxes and barely enough room for two people to pass. Akira put his hand into his jacket pocket and gripped the pistol handle.

  One of the figures cast a glance at him, but he kept walking, hurrying as he normally would. He scuttled past them to the door and trotted out into the street. He ran up the lane and back through the alleys to James Dean, who kick-started his engine as soon as he saw him.

  ‘Did you get the stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was the coast clear?’

  ‘No.’

  The bike surged off.

  Akira was taking notes in the history class. No one had noticed he had been gone for nearly three hours. The school simply didn’t have truancy and was not equipped to spot it. If he wasn’t there, it must be for a good reason, like a trip to the optician. There were no guards in this prison camp, no tripwires to snare transgressors. He had slipped between the sunlit world of children to his dark adventure playground unnoticed, like a student between a lecture and a daydream.

  On the first Wednesday of every month, he would travel to the coffee shop in Roppongi where, from five until six, he would drink and smoke and wait. He had visited James Dean’s flat on several occasions but it had been empty. The last time a woman had answered, and through the gap between her and the door, he had glimpsed new furniture and family life, which had to mean that this was no longer James Dean Yamamoto’s home.

  His fourteenth birthday had come and gone.

  He passed the cigarette from his short hand to the good one and stubbed it out. He would leave soon and not return for another month.

  Perhaps James Dean was in prison – or dead, even.

  A figure came through the door, a salary man in from the rain of a dark, blustery Tokyo evening. Akira started. With a quiff, sideburns and a little less weight, he could almost have been James Dean.

  The figure was coming towards him. Akira tried to focus in the dim brown light of the coffee-shop shack. He found himself standing up.

  ‘Sit down, kid,’ said James Dean, plonking himself on the bench across from him.

  ‘James Dean! It’s you – at last.’

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ he said, lighting a Lucky Strike. A pot of coffee and a refined cup and saucer were delivered to the table without reference to an order. James Dean acknowledged the café owner with a nod. ‘I’ve been busy lying low.’

  ‘I’m glad you came. Have you a job for me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said James Dean, ‘but first I have to tell you I’m going to disappear. Maybe for good.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s right for me and it will be right for you.’ James Dean looked around as someone came into the café. He looked back to Akira. ‘I’ve got an idea and it could be big. I’ve got to cut myself free of the past and take a shot at the moon. This town is going to go crazy and I’m going to ride the madness. But first the old James Dean has to die so the new one can be born.’ He pushed his little black book across the table. ‘I want you to keep this safe for me.’

  Akira took it. ‘Sure.’

  ‘And I’ve got you a present.’ James Dean took out his flick-knife and pushed it across the table. ‘This is for you.’

  Akira picked it up and passed it to his short hand. He pressed the silver button halfway down the handle and the blade clicked open. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He twisted the blade lock with his thumb and folded the blade shut.

  ‘Well, this is it kid.’ James Dean stood up. ‘Remember, don’t be a little prick.’

  ‘Will I ever see you again?’

  James Dean smiled and patted his own hair, as if the quiff was still there. ‘You never know, kid.’

  7

  Tokyo March 2013

  Akira looked from the palace rampart to the far wall of the moat. He squinted. If he could focus his eyes just so, he thought, he would see himself thirty years before, clinging to the far wall.

  ‘And what of the mirror, Sensei Nakabashi?’

  Akira snapped out of his dream. ‘The mirror? Oh, that’s very difficult. Not even the Emperor can see the sacred mirror.’

  ‘So does it – or for that matter does any of the Imperial Regalia – actually exist? After all, as curator of the royal treasure you must be one of the few to know for sure.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Of course it exists. Every piece has been at every coronation, as you surely know, since the beginning of history.’

  The two American professors were looking smugly at him.

  The tall stork-like woman from the New York Metropolitan Museum tilted forwards as if she was going to peck the top of his head. ‘Do you think you might be able to arrange for me to see the sword Kusanagi no Tsurugi?’

  ‘Very difficult,’ said Akira. ‘The priests at Atsuta allow access to it only for a coronation.’

  ‘And what of the Yasakani no Magatama?’ asked the relaxed, informally dressed young man from the Getty in California.

  ‘It is very beautiful and also very difficult to examine. The priests at Kashikodokoro guard it with their every sinew. But I can tell you a secret about it. It is not a jewel, but many jewels of the most exquisite jade, a necklace held together by a golden chain.’

  ‘And you’ve seen it,’ said the improperly dressed curator from California.

  Professor Akira Nakabashi, keeper of the Sacred Imperial Treasures, waved his short hand at the honoured guests. ‘Please, let me show you the view further along.’

  The two Americans smirked at each other.

  ‘I am very sorry to disappoint you,’ said Akira. ‘The Imperial Regalia are sacred items, drawn from the dawn of our history. They represent the very soul of the Japanese nation. They encapsulate the Imperial rights and status, its authority, continuity and legitimacy. They are not items to be examined and tested. Not even by the Emperor himself.’ He smiled cheerily. ‘Please, come this way – there is much else to see.’

  8

  Brandon hated heights so today’s exercise was going to be a misery. Dropping down the line from the chopper was bad enough, but after the four kilometre swim there would be a cliff to climb and he would hate every second of it. Not that the sickness or the fear was going to slow him down, let alone stop him. His face stayed as set and determined as it always did. His doubt and fear were locked inside him and throbbed deep below his impassive exterior.

  In a few seconds he would hit the water, detach and form up with the three other SEALs in their squad. Danny, Reece and Casey were his spiritual brothers. The exercise was simple. They would be injected offshore from the chopper, swim in formation to the beach, scale the cliffs, quick march ten K to the RV and return to base.

  It was the climb that spoilt his day. He simply didn’t feel comfortable scaling things. He could be deep under water, totally reliant on his equipment for life, and yet be as relaxed as if he was in his childhood bed. Climbing up a wall, fixed by even the sturdiest of lines, set all his senses on fire. There was something overwhelmingly hostile abo
ut a vertical drop. A fall from even thirty feet up was likely to bust you up for life. It didn’t matter that the stats were bad, it was just something visceral for him. There was no rescue if you fell.

  The water enveloped him as he penetrated the other-worldliness of the sea. The movement and muffled sound soothed the churning inside him. The sea was his friend, the blue water a comforting blanket. The sea off Okinawa was dazzlingly clear. He could see down thousands of feet through the azure ether of the world’s clearest waters. Shafts of light twisted and turned, sparkling like the facets of a sapphire. The tension of the descent melted away as he fell in at the rear of the four-swimmer formation.

  Reece led the squad. He was an experienced petty officer who always seemed to know the right thing to do. He would be going up the wall first. Casey and Danny were as solid as they came. Brandon was proud and happy to be part of such a first-rate squad. He often felt he was struggling to keep up with their incredibly high standards. He copied their stone-cold courage and taciturn demeanour, but felt somehow junior to them. He wished everything could be as easy for him as it seemed to them. Nothing fazed his comrades, and while to the outside world nothing seemed to sway him either, he knew that his blood would boil and fizz like that of a diver explosively decompressing.

  There were no streams of bubbles trailing behind the others. The re-breathing aqualungs they carried did not exhaust air into the water but recycled it, scrubbing the carbon dioxide from the exhaled gas and reusing the oxygen. A diver only took 25 per cent of the oxygen with each breath, and re-breather technology allowed for longer, deeper dives. It also gave them a stealthy advantage when bubbles floating to the surface would have given them away. Not that bubbles mattered on this trip.

  Some SEALs liked the skydiving, others the sheer physicality of long marches on land; some liked the equipment, be it transport or munitions, but Brandon loved the sea, whether he was diving, swimming or operating out of boats. At some point he was going to leave the military and had determined to get into the sports fishing business. When he was swimming he had those kinds of dreams. Floating in the friendly blue void, he would make plans between the cross-talk of the radio, which crackled intermittently with chatter.

  They were coming up on the shore.

  ‘That’s one hell of a lot of hammerheads,’ he found himself reporting into his mic, as he watched a swarm of sharks far below cruising in long lazy loops.

  ‘It’s the season,’ replied Reece.

  ‘Is it shark humping season?’ asked Danny, rhetorically.

  The reef reared up from the abyssal plain, a sealife-encrusted face rising vertically out of the void. They would be no more than half a kilometre from the beach and the dreaded climb up the 150-foot cliff.

  The seabed appeared below him, covered with coral and flecked with fish. When he had first gone diving he had seen everything around him as either a trophy to be taken or prey to be speared, but it hadn’t been long before he’d realised that a reef was like a jewel, a fabulous opal you could swim through rather than look into from the outside.

  Something glistened on the white sand forty feet below. On the sand a thousand golden coins winked up at him. He did a double take. He checked his tanks, everything was fine: he wasn’t narked up. He didn’t say anything into his mic, but flipped down and swam hard for the bottom. As he approached, the glinting coins didn’t fade away or resolve into a different object. They got clearer. They were oval, like golden fingernails, and in the instant it took him to scoop up a handful, he saw they had writing on them.

  Brandon wasn’t going to admit to breaking formation or go on record by saying anything. He pushed the sandy handful into the rubberised pocket on his right thigh. He recorded the position and swam back to the group.

  Casey’s head flicked round as he caught up but nothing was said over the radio link.

  The climb was only minutes away and trepidation suddenly overwhelmed him. He was biting hard on the mouthpiece of the regulator.

  Brandon climbed out of the water and put his mask up. The wall looked awfully sheer. How the hell were they going to get up that?

  Reece looked around at them grinning. ‘Aha,’ he drawled. ‘What a tiny rock – it’s hardly worth the journey.’

  Brandon smiled confidently like the others. ‘Want me to lead us up?’

  ‘Danny’s turn,’ said Reece.

  Danny grinned.

  ‘The fast way,’ said Casey, wading forwards. ‘I want to get back early.’

  ‘Ah, hell, Casey, you’re no fun,’ joked Danny.

  ‘Just this one time, brother,’ said Casey.

  Inside Brandon sighed with relief. Danny just loved a gnarly route and this time he would be spared it. Though he trusted Danny with his life, as he trusted Casey and Reece, he was glad that today the need to do so was minimised.

  9

  Brandon put the beer bottles down with a clunk. The boys were looking at him questioningly. They would have seemed huge around any bar table but in a cramped Japanese watering-hole, they were outlandish. He was smiling. He had kept the lid on his discovery against all his impulses to come right out with it.

  The team were holding their beers and waiting, twitching with anticipation. Why was Brandon acting up? Why was the meet off base? What had got into him?

  Brandon put his hand into his shirt pocket, like he was reaching for a pack of smokes. ‘Well, guys, I want to show you something.’ He put a coin in front of each of his comrades and two in front of himself. ‘These are for you.’

  ‘What’s this?’ Casey picked up the shiny oval.

  ‘Gold coins,’ said Brandon, watching their faces as they studied his gifts.

  ‘You found these today?’ said Reece.

  ‘When we were coming onshore,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Don’t bite that,’ said Reece, as Danny was about to put his coin between his teeth. ‘It’s gold all right. You can tell by the weight. You don’t want to spoil the piece or, for that matter, your teeth.’

  ‘There’s a whole hill of these down there,’ said Brandon. ‘Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.’

  ‘I saw you,’ said Casey. ‘Saw you come back up.’

  ‘You’re too sharp for me,’ said Brandon, acknowledging him. ‘We’ve got to go back – we could clean up.’

  Reece was holding his to the light. ‘Brandon, I want you to think for a minute, then tell me how many you saw.’

  ‘Buddy, they were all over the bottom – so many I could see them from forty feet up.’

  ‘And for every one you can see, there might be ten more buried,’ added Casey.

  They looked at each other.

  Brandon was sucking at his beer as he watched Danny compare his coin with the others.

  ‘We’re going to need a boat and we are going to need to sync up our furlough. I got plenty,’ Reece went on.

  ‘Me too,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Copy,’ said Casey.

  ‘In two weeks I get mine,’ said Danny.

  ‘Two weeks!’ sighed Brandon.

  ‘Don’t sweat it,’ said Reece. ‘It’ll take a bit of arranging to get us a boat we can crew ourselves and it’ll cost plenty.’

  ‘How much?’ asked Danny.

  ‘Fifteen to twenty thousand for a week. That’s five thousand each,’ said Reece.

  ‘I’m in,’ said Brandon.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Danny, ‘my fucking Visa’s already maxed.’

  ‘Who cares? I’m in,’ said Casey.

  ‘Of course I’m in too,’ added Danny. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m fucked.’ He laughed into the neck of his beer bottle.

  ‘Brandon,’ said Reece, ‘I’ll go to Tokyo this weekend and see if I can pawn the coins. Get an idea what they’re worth. No good finding out they’ll only fetch a hundred yen.’

  ‘Do you think that’s likely?’ Casey enquired.

  ‘No,’ said Reece, ‘but let’s do this properly.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Casey clinked his bottle
with Reece’s.

  Reece collected all the coins. He looked suddenly very serious, and his cheek muscles flared. ‘Now, guys, there’s to be no mention of this. One leak and I’ll turn it in to the CO and let it go through the channels. If it gets out we’re up to party games, they’ll drum us out.’ His colleagues knew he was right – and their faces reflected their horror at the idea. Then they relaxed: a grin had crept up the right side of Reece’s face.

  Reece’s Japanese was pretty much non-existent, and travelling through Tokyo taxed him more than any day of physical effort. He had spent the previous night researching the best place to take the coins for valuation and what they might be worth. The coins, if they were coins, seemed like Tokugawa currency, the first Japanese system to replace the Chinese coins that until the 1600s had been used in that part of Asia. However, he could find nothing like them on the Internet.

  There was a store near the Tokyo Tower that seemed like a good place to start. He told the middle-aged taxi driver where to go: ‘Tokyo Tower, kudasi.’ He suspected it meant ‘Give me the Tokyo Tower.’ It seemed to do the trick because about twenty-five minutes later he could see the massive orange and white structure in the distance.

  Reece squinted up at the Japanese equivalent of France’s Eiffel Tower and chuckled to himself. The tower was typical Japanese thinking. Copy a great European idea but make it with superior technology and expertise, in this case steel rather than iron. Then show the Frenchies how to make a tower that weighs only 25 per cent of their cast-iron monster but is thirty feet higher.

  He marched up the hill, then down an anonymous main road filled with modern offices, and stopped in his tracks: between two looming grey office blocks there were three low wooden buildings, grimy and worn. The middle structure was spotlessly clean, but to his eyes broken and old, like a shack in the country that needed tearing down for something, new and painted, to be put in its place.

  He checked his Google printout. It was the same door. There was a warm light coming from inside and it looked open. There were two plates on the stoop, loaded with salt. Apparently that was for good luck. Reece kind of understood that salt was pure and that pure was good, but it still struck him as odd to keep plates of salt on your front doorstep.