The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

Nagano checked the scanner. The red dot blinked steady and still. “He’s in the back. Let’s go.”

They moved down the hall and came upon the body of another priest. He lay in a pool of blood just inside one of the doors. They found three more in the next room. Two more bodies and a pair of ransacked rooms confirmed that Ushi-Oni was on a killing spree.

Nagano paused and made a slashing motion across his neck. All thoughts of taking Ushi-Oni alive had vanished. They would shoot him on sight. If he lived, so be it. If he didn’t . . . he would be getting what he deserved.

Nagano crept forward. They were nearing the end of the hall. The flashing indicator on Nagano’s screen told them Ushi-Oni was in the room on the left.

For the first time, Nagano could hear movement. He braced himself, took a deep breath and then lunged forward, kicking the door open.

He saw a figure dressed in black who was hunched over a desk. He raised his weapon and was about to fire when the figure turned. It wasn’t the face of a killer but another of the elderly priests.

The man was tied to the chair with an electrical cord. On the desk in front of the prisoner, sitting on a folded white garment, was a tiny circular object with a hole in the middle. The tracking coin.

Realization came too late. A shout of pain from behind him confirmed it.

Nagano spun in time to see the flash of a sword decapitate his lieutenant and take the arm off of another of the men.

The third officer was already on the ground, a throwing knife sticking out of his back.

Nagano fired once but missed and the bullet buried itself uselessly in the wall. The flashing sword hit the side of the pistol before Nagano could fire again. It took off the tips of his fingers and knocked the gun across the room.

Nagano dove for the w

eapon, trying to grasp it with his right hand, but Ushi-Oni was faster. A kick to the ribs sent Nagano over onto his side. He wound up against the desk with the point of the ancient sword pressed up against his neck.

He froze as the Demon stared down at him. He expected to be run through at any second, but instead Ushi-Oni laughed and held him there like an insect under a pin.

“Looking for this?” Ushi-Oni said, as he picked up the tracking coin.

Nagano said nothing. He was grasping his hand to stop the bleeding and desperately thinking of a way to reach the pistol. The truth was, any movement would split the skin of his throat.

Ushi-Oni twisted the sword a fraction and blood began to trickle down Nagano’s neck. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you following me? I saw you below me on the switchback road. I waited for you at the gas station and watched as you placed that beacon on my car. I must admit, it made me wonder how you had been tracking me in the first place. Then I found your little coin.”

As Oni spoke, he held the coin is his hand. “Close,” he added. “Very, very close. But it’s not quite as heavy as the real thing.”

He flung it at Nagano, hitting him in the face.

“Go ahead and kill me,” Nagano said. “It won’t save you. You slaughter monks and policemen. You’ll have nowhere to hide after this. Not now that your face is known.”

Instead of killing him, Ushi-Oni crouched and picked up the shock stick, testing its weight in his free hand. “Once they see what you do,” he said, “they’ll forget all about me.”

With that, he jammed the shock stick into Nagano’s chest and sent a powerful wave of electricity through him. A second wave followed and then a third. Nagano couldn’t do anything but spasm with each shock and try to endure the pain.

He lasted several minutes and then his world faded mercifully to black.

29

NAGASAKI

THE CITY OF NAGASAKI was sandwiched between the mountains and the ocean at the western tip of Japan. With limited space to build outward, its neighborhoods rose up into the hills, where they gazed at one another across a narrow bay.

The geography gave Nagasaki a compact, old-world feel, reminiscent of San Francisco. It was a feeling enhanced by the bustling port and the high-decked suspension bridge coated in orange paint that linked the two sides together.

Kurt, Joe and Akiko arrived in the city driving another car from Kenzo’s collection. A 1972 Skyline GT-R. The four-door sedan was one of the first truly collectable cars produced on the island. Still, it was bare-bones compared to the Bentley.

“One might say our vehicular status seems to be trending in the wrong direction,” Joe said from the backseat, “but I think I prefer this to the Bentley.”

Akiko turned to Joe from the passenger seat. “I’m glad you appreciate it,” she said. “This is the first car I restored for Master Kenzo. It was a labor of love.”