Chapter 6

6

Bowing is an expression of gratitude and respect. In effect, you are thanking your opponent for giving you an opportunity to improve your technique.

—Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo

Prague

Five Years Ago

I cup my hands to my mouth and blow into them. Should have brought gloves. The snow is coming down heavy and the awning I’m tucked underneath is barely keeping it off. It’s beautiful, really, the way the snow, illuminated in the yellow sodium-vapor lights, transforms a quiet industrial park into something luminous. I breathe the cold air into my lungs and try to enjoy the tranquility of this moment.

Which will, very shortly, be interrupted by mayhem.

I pull the tablet out of my coat and check the feeds I placed around the inside of the dilapidated warehouse this morning. Still only a handful of thugs, smoking cigarettes and playing cards. No sign of the target: Daisuke Sakai, a kumicho—or supreme boss—in the Yakuza.

Sakai is here to sell a shipment of weapons to the Nationalist Social Club, a neo-Nazi group that’s mostly based in the United States but has recently been stirring up shit in France, Hungary, and Germany. Agency intel says they’re planning something big and violent, and NATO back-channeling has determined that, given the NSC is a homegrown group, this is America’s problem to clean up. In more ways than one, because the weapons were procured from an Afghani dealer and, of course, were originally sold by the United States.

What a tangled web of bullshit we weave.

And I’m the one who has to untangle it.

Sakai, along with a group of his men, plus about a dozen neo-Nazis, should have been here by now, but there wasn’t snow in the forecast this morning.

My phone buzzes with a message from Ravi.

Ravi: Sitrep?

Me: Our friends are running late.

Ravi: Probably the weather.

Me: Thought so. Hey, where should I eat after this?

Ravi: La Degustation. Michelin-starred. Classic Czech cooking. Unbelievable.

Me: Thanks, bud. Hey, do you get your meals expensed?

Ravi: No, but I’m not married and don’t have kids. What else am I going to spend it on?

Ravi: Your flight leaves tomorrow but I can push it back a day.

Me: Think it’s safe?

Ravi: You worried?

Me: Nah. I’ll try to book a table. You want to join?

Ravi: I went yesterday but I’d happily go again.

I click through to the restaurant’s website. Nothing open for dinner tomorrow, but there’s a table free at one thirty p.m. I book it under the name George Joubert and pass that information along to Ravi.

That’ll be fun. Ravi will tell me what a good job I did here and then he’ll pick up the tab. That’s never a bad way to end an assignment.

Then I wait.

A lot of this job is waiting.

The snow continues to fall. I pull out the tablet again, quadruple-checking the status of the kill switches that’ll put out the lights, the triggers on the flash-bangs, and the relay on the gas canisters that’ll pump the space with BZ. I can barely contain my excitement about that.

Also known as 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate, it’s a gas that induces cognitive dysfunction, delirium, and hallucinations. It’s usually a little tough to track down, but we’re in Eastern Europe, where it’s a buyer’s market for shit like this. I’ve been wanting to try it forever. Intel suggests there could be up to twenty men, and I’m not too worried, but my job gets a lot easier if they’re all tripping and disoriented.

Satisfied that everything is set up and ready, I check the cameras again—still no sign of the rest of these idiots—and go back to blowing in my hands. The air is still, that quiet so loud you can hear the snow hitting the ground. All that quiet, almost turning into its own layer of sound, so I nearly miss it: the soft crunch of snow underfoot.

It came from my left. I pull my trusty SIG Sauer P365 from my hip and swing around the side of the stairwell enclosure I’ve been tucked behind, where I find a dark figure crouched and waiting. I notice him a moment before I notice the long silver katana he has pressed to the side of my neck.

“Anatahadare?” the man says.

Who are you?

He’s dressed head to toe in black, a balaclava wrapped around his head. He’s older, fit, left-handed, obviously Japanese. I don’t think he’s part of this crew. First, because he’s sneaking around on the roof. The guys downstairs are sloppy—I did a pretty good job hiding all my gear, but they didn’t sweep the space like they should have.

But also, I recognize the look in his eyes.

It’s the same look I see in the mirror.

He’s a professional.

So I gamble a little. It’s a hell of a gamble because he’s positioned himself so that even if I get the shot off, the drag and weight of his body will take the katana clean across my carotid artery, which I suspect will give like wet tissue paper.

“Watashi…wa karera…to issho ni imasen?” I respond.

I’m not with them.

I hope that’s what I say. My Japanese isn’t great.

“American,” he says.

“I’m here for Sakai.”

The man pauses and I wonder if this is the moment. I tense my finger on the trigger a little—not so much as to alarm him, but enough maybe it’ll give me an edge. If I step back and…

The sword comes off my throat. He’s still holding it up, but it’s lower now. I bring my gun down in response.

“I am also here for Sakai,” he says.

“I don’t know if that makes this a lot more complicated, or a whole lot easier.”

The man looks around the roof, making sure we’re still alone. I’ve been listening for the telltale sounds of cars and voices that would indicate we have company. Nothing.

“Who do you work for?” he asks.

“An interested party,” I tell him. “That’s the best I can tell you. How about you?”

“I am here to settle a debt,” he says.

I want to laugh, but he’s still holding a sword in my general direction. “Look, buddy, I don’t care which one of us kills Sakai. All I have to do is make sure he’s dead before I leave. You can have him. But I spent a better part of my morning setting up some cool traps and shit, and I’d hate to see them go to waste.”

The man leaves his fighting stance, drawing himself to full height, still a head shorter than me, and sheathes his sword.

“I must be the one to deliver the killing blow,” he says.

“You don’t have to negotiate for anything,” I tell him. “I agree to your terms.”

We both look around the roof, unsure of what to say next. I’ve never worked with anyone who wasn’t Agency before, and never with another professional. Usually I just get a bunch of dummies for backup who can’t spell their last names without peeking in their underwear.

“So what do I call you?” I ask.

He stares at me for a few moments. This is like talking to a cat. Is he going to nuzzle me or scratch at my eyes? I get it, I’m on guard, too. Then he peels up the bottom half of his mask to show me his face. He’s older than I would have expected.

“Kenji,” he says.

“You got a stage name?” I ask.

He squints his eyes and tilts his head. “Stage name?”

“Yeah, like a nickname. Code name. Whatever.”

He nods. “The Baku.”

“Oh, man,” I say, bursting into a smile, and then feeling a little sheepish for it. “I’ve heard of you. Baku is a demon that devours nightmares, right? That’s cool. Wasn’t there this big Yakuza dustup in Osaka two years ago? You walked into a room of thirty men, unarmed, and walked out without a scratch?”

He gives a small smile. “There were a few scratches. And it was twenty-four.”

“Well, these things always get bigger in the retelling.”

“What about you?” he asks.

I almost don’t say it.

Almost.

But the truth is, I don’t get to indulge in this very often.

“Mark,” I tell him. “But I go by the Pale Horse.”

Kenji’s body freezes. Then he drops to his knees, bows his head, and presents his katana to me.

“Jihiwokou,” he says.

Mercy.

“I did not know it was you,” he says.

Well, this is a little embarrassing, actually.

“C’mon, man, we’re good,” I tell him.

He looks up from where he’s kneeling, confused. My head just grew a few sizes. It’s hard not to feel a certain type of way about this.

But as good as I am, this guy nearly got the drop on me and I have to respect that, so I try to play it off a little and put him at ease. “Starting to wonder if we should find a place to wait inside or something. My fingers are going to break off when I start pulling the trigger.”

He gets to his feet and leads me to the other edge of the roof, where there’s an alcove better blocked from the wind. There’s a smattering of footprints in the snow. This is where he must have been waiting. Which is a little funny. I wonder how long the two of us have both been up here.

There’s a black sack on the ground. He reaches in and pulls out a small gel pack, cracks it, and tosses it to me. A hand warmer. I hold it between my palms and he takes out a thermos and offers it to me.

“Kanpai,” he says.

Steaming-hot green tea snakes through my body and immediately warms me. I hand it back to him and as a show of respect he doesn’t wipe the rim before he takes a long sip.

“My name is Kenji Sakai,” he says.

“Ah, family shit.”

Kenji nods as he puts the cap back on the thermos. “My brother. I do not agree with his decision. Selling weapons to these people. Money should not matter more than honor.”

“Money tends to get in the way of most things. But that probably means after this you don’t get to go home.”

“I’m not planning on it,” he says. “My brother’s life will be the last one I take.”

“Really?” I ask. “Getting out of the business?”

“I’m tired,” Kenji says, leaning against the wall, gazing into the distance. “May I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Does it ever weigh on you? The accumulation of it?”

He doesn’t have to say what it is. I know what he means. I follow his gaze with my own, over the barren industrial area, like there’s some kind of answer written on the horizon. “It’s all math to me. I balance equations. Your brother, all those people who are going to show up here, they’re planning to do some bad things. We take them out, those bad things don’t happen. Overall, it’s a win.”

“And do you sleep at night?” he asks.

“Like a baby.”

Kenji gives me a little look that says he does not. “I believe that every time we kill,” he says, “we lose a part of ourselves, and gain a part of that person.” His eyes take on a soft haze of sadness. “I feel like I have lived a very long time, and I am ready to rest.”

“Geez, man, you’re not gonna off yourself when this is through, are you? We don’t really know each other, but I’m not sure that’s the answer…”

“No. There is a group of people like us, who have laid down their weapons. A support group, to help us transition into a new life. One without killing. After I kill my brother, I will drop my sword and seek them out. See if I can make another life for myself.”

I reach into my coat to check the tablet. He side-eyes me and his hand reflexively goes for the blade. “Checking the cameras.” He nods and relaxes. The party has yet to arrive.

“So what is it?” I ask. “Like AA for killers?”

“Exactly that.”

“We’re not really addicted to this, though, are we? It’s not like heroin.”

“It’s a pleasure-reward system,” Kenji says. “You do your job. You do it well. You earn money or praise. Your brain produces dopamine. You get used to dopamine, so you look for more.” He side-eyes me again. “You know what I mean.”

Not a question.

Because yes, I do.

It feels good to be good at something.

“It doesn’t have to be a drug to be addictive,” he says. “Sex is addictive. Gambling is addictive. The thrill of winning. The risk of losing. The danger. There was a study in which they found people who kill, people like us.” He taps his head. “We have deficiencies in the prefrontal cortex of our brains. That affects judgment, decision-making, self-control. Many of those same things are present in addicts.”

Never really thought of it like that. Or gave it any thought, ever. What I do is what I do and I learned to stop parsing it while midair in Singapore.

“Do you think you’d ever stop?” he asks.

“Always figured it would be nice to have a farm one day. A dog. Something quiet. Sleep in every morning. But to be honest, this is the only thing I’ve ever been good at. It’s hard to think of not doing it.”

“The program is not just about not killing,” Kenji says. “It’s about surrendering the ego. The idea that we’re granted the right to make decisions that aren’t ours to make. I would like to do that. And maybe, one day, make amends for the things I’ve done.”

“Amends?” I ask. “Like, sit down with the families of all the people you killed and say you’re sorry? Jesus, man, I’m not passing judgment on how you want to live your life, but that just sounds humiliating.”

“The difference between humility and humiliation is willingness,” Kenji says. “Ultimately, it’s not for them. It’s for me.”

There’s a crunching sound in the distance. Tires. I check the cameras. The men inside are scrambling so they look like they haven’t been goofing off for the last hour.

“Showtime,” I tell Kenji. “You don’t have a gas mask, do you?”

“I do not.”

Damn it. Only brought one. I was really looking forward to using the BZ. Oh well, have to do this the old-fashioned way. I take the HK417 assault rifle off the holster on my back and give it a quick check. “Sakai is yours. I imagine we’re not getting drinks after this, but it was nice to meet you.”

He presents me his hands, one cupped underneath the other.

Perched on his palm is a small, intricate paper crane, folded from white paper.

I pick it up. I consider sticking it in my pocket but don’t want to damage the delicate beauty of it, so I place it inside the case I brought the HK in.

“If you ever decide you would like to find that farm,” Kenji says.

“Thank you,” I tell him, not entirely sure how I mean it. It’s a kind gesture, and I’m happy to know he’s finding his own peace. But I don’t feel like this will be anything other than a really good story and a cool souvenir.

Because I’m not addicted.

I can stop any time I want.

There’s a shout from down on the street, and the sound of a gate rolling up. I check my rifle one more time and say, “Let’s go kill a whole bunch of people.”