Breaking Point (5 page)

They passed a big building off to the left. "Imperial War Museum," Carl said. "We're not far now."

She had to admit, she had been enjoying her time with the
silat
instructor. Enough so that she considered getting to know him better than just as a teacher and friend. But despite having quit her job, and the breakup with Alex, she wasn't ready to get into another relationship just yet. The wounds were still too raw.

"Here we go, then."

He pulled the two-seater to the curb.

"This is a no-parking zone," she said.

"Right. And the meter maid who usually works this stretch is one of my students. Orinda? Short, built like a fireplug? Be hell to pay in class if she had my motorcar towed." He smiled.

The building they parked in front of was another of those sixteenth- or seventeenth-century things with columns and dormered windows and all, not particularly large or imposing, but stately enough.

They walked up to the front. A uniformed, but unarmed, guard saw them, tipped his hat, and said, "Morning, Mr. Stewart."

"Hello, Bryce. Lovely day."

Toni looked at him. "Come here a lot, do you?"

"Now and then."

There was a brass plate on the wall next to a pair of tall wooden doors, and Toni saw that they were about to enter the London Museum of Indonesian Art.

Ah.

She happened to notice a list of the board of directors for the museum posted just inside the door, and prominent on the list was the name "Carl Stewart."

She looked at her companion. "You're on the board of directors here?"

He shrugged. "My family contributes to various foundations and such. Give enough money, they put your name up somewhere. It's nothing, really."

"Place seems to be empty except for us," she said.

"Well, that is one of the perks of having your name on the wall. They'll open a bit early for you."

When she'd first met Stewart, just after going to his silat school in a bad section of town, she'd used her access to the local computer nets to check him out. His family was more than well-off, a thing he had not mentioned. The rich were different, and not just because they had more money.

"This way."

She followed him down a corridor with shadow puppets mounted on the walls, and into a room at the end.

"Wow," she said.

All around here, in freestanding glass cases, or in clear-fronted cabinets against the walls, were scores--hundreds--of
krises.
Some were in wooden sheathes, some out, revealing a multitude of shapes and patterns of whorled steel in the blades.

"Wow," she said again.

"Impressive, isn't it? The largest collection of such daggers outside of Indonesia."

Toni nodded absently, looking at a seven-waved black steel blade with inlaid lines of gold outlining the body of a dragon whose tail undulated all the way up to the weapon's point. The dragon's head was at the base of the blade, opposite the longer side of the asymmetrical hilt.

"Raja naga
," Carl said. "Royal dragon. It was made for a Javanese sultan around 1700. Both of those sheathes there belong to it--that one is the formal
ladrang
, the one shaped like a ship, the other one, with the rounded ends, that's the
gayaman
, for informal wear."

The sheathes were made of carved wood, with embossed metal sleeves over the long shaft in which the dagger rode.

"What's the
pamor?
" Toni asked.

He looked away from the exquisite blade to her. "You know about these things?"

"Not really," she said. "My guru presented me with one a few months back. I know just enough to ask questions."

"Ah. Well, the
pamor
on this one is
bulu ayam
, cock feather. I don't know enough about them to be sure about the
dapur."

Toni nodded.
Pamor
was an Indonesian word that described the pattern found in the steel. Genuine
krises
--sometimes spelled
k-e-r-i-s
--were generally made of hammered, welded steel mixed with nickel. When the final grinding and staining was done to finish the weapon, the iron in it would turn black, but the nickel would tend to stay shiny, thus creating designs in the metal. According to her guru, the staining process usually involved soaking the metal in a mixture of lime juice and arsenic, which probably accounted for the
kris's
reputation as a poisoned blade.

Dapur
was the overall shape, the proportions and esthetics of the blade combined with the handle and guard.
Krises
could be straight or curved, the latter ranging from a few undulations to more than thirty, but always, she had been told, an odd number of waves.

For hundreds of years, especially on the larger islands, no Indonesian boy could officially become a man until an elder, usually his father or uncle, presented him with a
kris.
More than a few were given to young women, too. They were not only weapons, but imbued with magic as part of their construction. The size, shape, pattern, time it was made, and desires of the potential owner were all taken into account by the smith, called an
empu
, who forged the weapon. Some
krises
were reputed to draw fire away from a house, protect the owner against black magic, or to rattle in the sheath to warn of approaching danger.

Toni's heirloom, a gift from her
silat
teacher, was in a safety-deposit box back in New York City. Her guru had given it to her so that its magic might help her get Alex. It had apparently worked.

Too bad it hadn't worked to
keep
him.

Carl led her around, pointing out the various configurations of the daggers. They were beautiful, if you could take the time to look at them properly.

"This is my favorite, right here," he said. He opened the glass case, which was not locked. The British were a lot more trusting about such things, Toni had noticed. In some of the Royal museums, you could literally touch priceless works of art with your nose, if you were that stupid. They just hung unprotected on the walls.

Carl took the
kris
and its sheath out. He gave it a quick nod, a kind of military bow, then held it up so she could see the designs in the steel. "This is a five-wave
dwi warna--a
two-colored, or double-
pamor
--blade. By the guard, it's
beras wutah
, rice grains. From here to the point, it's
buntel mayit
--the twisted pattern called death shroud. A very powerful
pamor
, this latter, particularly suitable for a warrior.

"It's a Balinese blade, they are generally longer and heavier than the Javanese make, though it has been stained and dressed in the Javanese style. Solo seven-plane
ukiran
handle, of
kemuning
wood. Look how intricate the carved
cecekan
is on the inside, here and here."

He pointed at the tiny stylized faces, said to represent
kala
, or protective spirits.

"According to the history, this probably belonged to a mercenary who moved to the area of Solo, Java, from Bali, sometime in the mid-1800s. As a mercenary, he would likely have been employed by the local ruler."

He handed her the blade, and she took it and touched it to her forehead, a gesture of respect her guru had taught her. She noticed him nod in approval at her gesture.

The sheath was an informal one, the comers rounded, the wood a light color with a couple of darker splotches, and the shaft was covered with a plain tube of reddish copper.

"This is your favorite? Out of all these? Why?"

He nodded, as if expecting the question. "Because it's a working weapon. It was never worn in the sash of a
maharaja
, but belonged to a professional warrior. It probably saw duty on the field of battle, and as such, it is full of fighting spirit. Might just be my imagination, but I can feel its power every time I touch it."

"Too bad it's in the museum's collection," she said. He glanced away from her. "Actually, it's on
loan
to them." He grinned.

She shook her head and returned his smile. Of course.

It did have the feel of a fighting instrument in her hand.
Krises
were stabbing weapons, with a pistol-shaped grip, this one angled slightly inward, pointed where a thrust, if it hit a torso, would drive it into the body's center, where it would likely find a major organ. The waves would gouge a wider cut as it went in, and allow more blood to flow when it came back out. They were ceremonial weapons and cultural artifacts these days, but you could skewer an enemy just as well with one now as you could two hundred years ago, human anatomy not having changed much in the past couple million years.

Her own weapon had been used at least once that way that she knew of--she had seen John Howard take down a gunman who would have killed him, had she not thrown him the
kris
in time.

Remembering John reminded her of her days at Net Force, though, and she did not want to travel that path right now.

"I have trained with knives, but not the
kris
proper," she said.

"I know some of the methods," he said. "I'll show you, if you want."

"Yes. I'd like that."

"Over here, look at these, a matched pair ..."

She went along to see. She was enjoying herself here, despite all that had happened. Yes, sooner or later, she was going to have to go home. But, like Scarlett O'Hara, she could worry about that
another
day ...

Chapter
5.

Saturday, June 4th

Seattle, Washington

Luther Ventura sat in the Koffee Me! store in the mall near the new entrance to Underground Seattle, holding a triple espresso. The textured cardboard sleeve around the paper cup allowed just enough heat to warm his hands slightly as he inhaled the fragrant vapor wafting up from the fluid. The brew smelled bitter, and it was as dark as a pedophile's sins.

He inhaled the scent, connecting to it as a wine expert might enjoy the aroma of a great vintage.

When he was ready, Ventura sipped the espresso, let the hot liquid swirl around his mouth a bit, then swallowed it.

Ah.

When he drank or ate, that was what he did. He didn't read the paper, he didn't watch television, he didn't split his attention--well, save for the basic Condition Orange he always maintained in public, but he had been doing that for so long it was almost a reflex. After twenty-five years of practice, you didn't have to think about that consciously. You automatically sat with your back to the wall. You checked the entrances and exits of any building into which you went. You knew what kind of construction the building was, which walls you could smash through, which ones would likely stop a bullet. You were always aware of what was going on around you, tuned into the currents of who came and who left, alert for any small sign that danger might be casting a glare in your direction. You expanded your consciousness, relied on all your senses, including your hunches, tuned out nothing, but allowed yourself enough quiet that you could experience the total reality of the place where you were.
Zanshin
, the swordplayers called it. The Zen of being in the moment, no matter where you were and what you were doing, of being and not merely doing. To Ventura's mind, this was all unthinking and basic, absolutely necessary to a man who wanted to stay alive in the business he'd been in.

Once upon a time, Luther Ventura had been an assassin. And, once upon a time, he had been the best in the business. He had worked for governments, he had worked for corporations, and he had worked freelance. Twenty-three years he had done it. Seventy-six major assignments, ninety-one people taken down in the doing of them, and he had never failed to complete a job.

Not any longer. He hadn't assassinated anybody in a while, and if you didn't sharpen your edge regularly, you got dull. Oh, he could still run with
most
of the elite; his skills had been considerable and they had not deserted him completely--but his time had passed. Somewhere out there was a man for whom hunting and taking human prey was a total focus. A man who was faster, stronger, younger, whose entire being was wrapped around what he did, and that made him better than Ventura. His ego didn't want to hear that, but he wasn't going to lie to himself. Experience could balance many things, but no fighter stayed champion forever. Those who tried to hang on too long always lost. Always.

He could still do twenty chins, he could run five miles in half an hour, and he could hit any target his weapon was capable of hitting, but he was pushing fifty, and his reflexes weren't what they had once been. He wore glasses to read and, these days, he missed some of the high notes he knew were there when he listened to a Mozart concerto or a Bach fugue.