Flashback

“Whoa, Dad, did you see Grandpa knee that ninja’s cojones up into his mouth?” cried Val. The boy was still chewing on the remains of a sandwich. “I mean, who knew old Leonard had it in him?”

Dad? thought Nick. That was a word he was sure he’d never hear again, even if—somehow, impossibly—both he and his son survived. Off to Nick’s right, Leonard continued to snore softly, either oblivious to the praise or faking unconsciousness again so he could listen without commenting.

“We need to talk, Bottom-san.” Sato’s voice was very soft.

Nick noticed more stitches and bandages on Sato. Two of the fingers on his left hand were in a splint. The big man’s black shirt was partially open and it looked as if his ribs had been taped as well.

“Fuck you,” breathed Nick. He was only sorry that he’d been so groggy that he’d stupidly looked at Ranger Captain McReady’s horse pistol before grabbing it.

“No, Dad, it’s okay. Colonel Sato…,” began Val.

“Killed your mother,” said Nick, his tone low and lethal. “Stay out of this, Val.”

The boy blinked in surprise and took two steps back.

“No, Bottom-san,” said Sato. The big man shook his head back and forth in that weird way he had that involved his whole upper body. “I did not kill or arrange to kill your wife and Assistant District Attorney Cohen. This I swear to you on my honor.”

“Your honor!” laughed Nick. The laugh hurt his head so much that he almost blacked out. “Your honor,” he repeated. “The honor of a man who killed his own daughter in cold blood. Shot her between the eyes with a twenty-two-caliber slug so the bullet would bounce around in her skull and do the most damage.”

“Hai,” grunted Sato. “I admitted that I killed my beloved Kumiko. She—as her mother before her—was the light of my life. And I extinguished that light by my own hand. You see, it was a form of jigai—a woman samurai’s form of ritual seppuku that does not involve disembowelment—and my darling Kumiko was indeed a samurai.”

“Your daughter didn’t commit suicide, Sato,” snapped Nick. “You killed her. You shot and murdered her, along with Keigo, a boy who trusted you completely.”

“Hai,” Sato said again, bowing his head slightly. “This would have happened at Nakamura-sama’s order at any rate. There was no escape for either my darling or her lover. Kumiko knew this would be the fate of both of them when she decided to go to your local Denver authorities—your beloved wife’s boss’s boss—to reveal the true origins of flashback. It was her jigai and I gave them both a quick and painless death.”

“You tore the boy apart,” said Nick.

Sato’s bowed head moved slowly from side to side. “Only the body. He died instantaneously.”

Nick had been holding himself up on one elbow but now collapsed on his side, still staring at Sato. Captain McReady, Val, and other people who’d come into the tent were just distant silhouettes to him. For Nick, it was just Hideki Sato and himself there in the night.

“I don’t understand,” said Nick.

“I needed Hiroshi Nakamura’s total trust if I were to do what I had to do,” said Sato. “Both my darling Kumiko and young Keigo had chosen their fates… Keigo’s attempt to tell the world about Nippon’s use of flashback to complete the collapse of America was daring and bold, as the young man himself was. As you said, Bottom-san, a true rebel in a culture with very few rebels in its history. By carrying out the executions myself, I passed Nakamura’s test for me.”

“To what end?” asked Nick.

“Your message to me from Omura-sama… In this world there is a tree without any roots; / Its yellow leaves send back the wind… a poem composed by Omura-sama’s and my own beloved teacher Sozan in the moments before he died… was the last coded message I needed to receive to know that tonight was the night to proceed.”

“Proceed with what?” asked Nick, his words dripping with audible suspicion. There was no need to believe a single word this man said… this man who had shot his own daughter in the face.

Sato was looking at him as if reading his thoughts. He nodded and looked at his wristwatch. “It is midnight here and four p.m. Sunday in Tokyo. Currently, hostile takeover offers are being made against eight of Hiroshi Nakamura’s eleven major companies which constitute the heart of his zaibatsu. Tomorrow, when the markets open in Japan, at least five of these eight takeover attempts, perhaps more, will succeed. The Nakamura dynasty will crumble.”

“He’s still a Federal Advisor here,” said Nick. “He controls the Colorado National Guard and a dozen other armed groups.”

“Nakamura and his people are being arrested as we speak, Bottom-san,” said Sato. “It is his punishment for never coming down off his Colorado mountain… and for believing too much in the reports of his spies, my people. For seven weeks now I have brought several thousand Japanese commandos—my own Taigāsu Tiger Troops—from China.”