Rules of the Hunt (64 page)
"On my mark, Sergeant-
san
,"
she said, looking at Oga.
He nodded.
"NOW!" she shouted.
Oga rose behind the barrier, weapon blazing, causing the guards in and
around the doorway to duck temporarily.
Almost immediately, Chifune added to the hail of fire with her C-Mag-fed
automatic rifle and then sighted the grenade launcher and fired.
The bulbous projectile, looking like a massively oversized bullet, shot
from the under-barrel grenade launcher and vanished through the doorway.
Flame and bodies erupted.
Chifune
hosed the area with the rest of her C-Mag, reloaded, and followed Oga around to
the side of the tower and as she was running, firing recommenced from across
the roof.
The grenade had inflicted
casualties, but the defenders were far from out of action.
The tower doorway was half-broken and still burning.
Oga hit it at a run, went straight in, and
rolled and came up shooting.
There was
no one there, just metal stairs that led straight up to the small control room
and the roof.
A face looked down and Oga fired again.
The face vanished, but Oga thought he had missed.
He was furious with himself for having fired
unnecessarily and thus alerting the guards on the roof.
Chifune crouched beside him.
The
stairs led to an open door.
She mentally
worked out the distance and the angle and what the effect of the blast might
be.
The alternative was to climb up the
stairs under fire.
The advantage would
be with the defenders, and she and Oga certainly did not have surprise on their
side.
She did not blame Oga for firing.
Had the base been occupied, they would have been dead if his
precautionary fire had been delayed for even a fraction of a second.
Combat, like most things in life, was about
choices.
You made decisions and you
pushed ahead and you took the consequences if you were wrong.
Regret rarely made a useful contribution.
Oga was changing magazines, so Chifune kept a hail of fire going in a
series of tight-aimed bursts at where she expected the opposition to be.
She could see no one.
"Do you want to be shown up or blown up, Sergeant-
san
?" she said in a brief lull, and
fired again.
The hundred-capacity C-Mag
was a thing of joy.
If fed rounds
effortlessly and gave the firepower of a full machine gun.
Oga got the point immediately.
"Go for it!" he said, holding up his thumb.
She could not hear him, but the gesture was
unmistakable.
She flashed him a grin.
Chifune, crouched near the base of the stairs, fired the grenade launcher
almost straight up.
She imagined she
could see the projectile as it entered the control room, and envisioned it
continuing and impacting against the roof.
She crouched down and put her hands over her ears.
The blast was awesome in the confined space,
and a wave of concussion hit her.
Debris
and dust filled the tower.
She reloaded and fired again at a slightly different angle, in case the
roof had blown open at the point of impact the first time, and again there was
a violent explosion, though the concussion seemed to be less this time.
The roof or some part of the structure had
definitely been perforated and was dissipating the shock wave.
"Let's go," said Oga, and bounded up the stairs.
Chifune followed him.
Thy had
both
received similar training for QCB, and without discussion they both fell into
mutually supporting roles.
They found two bodies in the wrecked control room.
The center of the roof had fallen in and
there was a third body under the debris.
A single flight of perforated steel stairs led to the remains of the
roof.
Oga advanced up it, covered by Chifune.
At the top, he vanished for a few seconds and then reappeared with a
smile on his face.
"I'm going to
look after Renako," he said.
"You'd better take a look, Tanabu-
san
.
Don't worry.
It's safe to look over the parapet."
Oga, grinning from ear to ear but saying nothing more, rattled down the stairs
past her to look after his man.
Somewhat
mystified, Chifune ascended.
Two more
dead lay there, their bodies severely mutilated from the grenade blasts and
their blood leaching into the dust that was everywhere.
Despite Oga's reassurance, she was extremely cautious in looking over the
parapet.
What she saw made her rise to
full height.
Several guards sat crosslegged on the ground, their hands clasped on
their heads.
Sitting slightly apart,
very dazed, hands also on his head, was someone dressed in what looked like the
remains of traditional
samurai
armor.
It was an incongruous sight in
this late-twentieth-century battlefield.
Standing behind the prisoners, the unusual automatic weapon she had
learned was the Calico in his
hands,
was
Fitzduane.
He was wearing a torn white
shirt and slacks and his feet were bare, but he looked very much alive and he
was smiling.
He cupped his hands.
"Chifune, you have never looked more beautiful.
But what I want to know is — who is rescuing
who around here?"
Chifune felt a surge of emotion.
She wanted to run down and throw her arms around this unusual man, to
make love to him, to hold him.
She felt
tears coming to her eyes and fought them back.
She did not move.
She struggled
to regain composure.
Then she started to
laugh.
It was not easy at first, but
then she felt so good she did not want to stop.
Exhilaration gripped her.
She
abandoned the sense of control that was so important to her, that was so much a
feature of her every action.
She felt
liberated and joyous and infused with a sense of optimism.
"I thought you were dead,
gaijin
,"
she said, smiling.
"I nearly was when you fired that 40mm grenade, Tanabu-
san
," said Fitzduane
cheerfully.
"Fortunately, my friend
here" — he pointed at Goto in his shattered armor — "took the blast
and he was equipped for it, though it did not make him happy."
Chifune's cheeks were wet with tears.
I want you, Hugo, she mouthed silently in Japanese.
Fitzduane looked up at her and then blew her a kiss.
*
*
*
*
*
Outside
June 28
Fitzduane felt too languorous and relaxed to open his eyes.
He did not know where he was and he did not much care.
All he knew was that he was warm and
comfortable and safe; and tomorrow, whenever that was, could take care of
itself.
Eyes closed, he daydreamed.
Images
and thoughts floated in and out of his mind:
Chifune looking at him in a very particular way, her face
smoke-blackened, her neat business suit torn and grimy, a high-tech assault
rifle hanging from her shoulder; police helicopters and heavily armed riot
police; bright lights and police video cameras; body bags and uniforms in
surgical masks; an angry police officer and Chifune's calm insistence that they
make statements later; a calm authoritative voice on the radio and the
policeman backing away and saluting; a helicopter ride in the darkness; a long,
low house with a verandah and overhanging roof and
shoji
screen in the traditional style; a long, hot shower and water
tinged with blood as the last traces of those he had killed were washed from
his body, and the nausea he had felt; the steam rising from the hot tub as he
climbed in and Chifune telling him not to move and that it would be fine and it
was.
And then nothing except a delicious
sense of peace as he slipped into sleep.
He stretched.
He felt weightless
in the water and greatly refreshed.
It
was a delicious sensation, this sense of half-floating — free of cares and
responsibilities.
Hot tubs were an invention of the gods.
The Romans had used them and they had done pretty well.
The Japanese were fanatical about them, and
that probably accounted for most of their economic miracle.
Hot tubs had not made it in
explained a great deal.
In Fitzduane's opinion
a that
moment, hot tubs
were the solution to most of the world's problems, and you could even float a
plastic duck in one.
This was
excellent.
He was a great believer in
yellow plastic ducks.
Boots adored his,
though he liked to sink them and then watch them bob up again.
Curiously, someone had once told him, ducks
seemed to be a male thing.
Was this
really so?
Was there some deep-rooted
sexual significance to bath ducks?
Was
there a Freudian thesis lurking somewhere which might explain the whole
thing?
Well, what did it matter,
anyway?
If ducks were
sexy, good for ducks.
You
couldn’t really do very much if you were plastic.
Personally, he liked ducks, but he preferred
women.
Women were soft and warm and caring and interesting and fun to talk to
and they made nice babies like Boots and it had taken him a long tie to really
learn it but he really loved babies and children and he missed Boots greatly
and he wanted to go home and give him the biggest hug in the world and then
another.
But, of course, women were also dangerous sometimes, and complex
always,
and that did make for difficulties.
Still, anything or anyone worthwhile was
difficult.
That's really what life was about:
babies, hot tubs, plastic bath ducks, women, and difficulties.
People searched endlessly for the meaning of
life, and here he had discovered it by floating in a hot tub for a couple of
hours — or was it days?
He really had
not the faintest idea.
He opened his eyes.
He could see
stars in a glowing night sky and the air felt fresh and cool on his face and
there was the smell of the sea.
Everywhere in
but the calmest days and it was a sound that he greatly loved, that made him
feel at peace.
But here he could not
quite hear the sea.
It was close, but
not
close
enough.
The house and grounds were set back and, he now seemed to recall, built
into the side of a hill.
There would be
a magnificent view of the sea and the bay below.
He was sure of it, but it was impossible to
check.
The hot tub was in an inner courtyard that was laid out as a traditional
Japanese garden, and the house surrounded the space on all four sides.
There was total privacy and silence except
for the normal sounds of the night air.
There was no traffic noise, so they could not be in or very near
relentless energy that never rested.
The setting was so extraordinarily beautiful and a miniature world unto
itself.
There was something about the
proportions of traditional Japanese architecture that was particularly pleasing
and restful.
It was a combination of
lien and texture and balance that in the most unostentatious way conveyed a
feeling of harmony with life and with nature.
The secret of a Japanese garden, he had been told, was restraint,
simplicity, and integration with what was most natural.
Instead of flower beds bursting with
artificially reared hybrids and the general excess of a Western garden, there
appeared to be only simple features of mainly natural materials, such as sand
and rocks and gravel and a few carefully selected bushes and some
wildflowers.
Of course, the naturalness
was an illusion, but even though you knew that every natural item had been
meticulously selected and arranged, it was an illusion that worked.
Tatemae
and
honne
.
The way of
He felt gentle hands on his shoulders, and then his neck and shoulders
were being massaged slowly and tenderly.
Her touch was exquisite, and he closed his eyes and let waves of
pleasure wash over him.
From time to
time, her hands left his back and caressed slowly down his body to his loins,
stroking
him
in the
most intimate of places.