The Fraternity of the Stone (27 page)

Troubled, they both glanced behind them. What had happened in those woods?

"We've got to find Jake," Arlene said urgently

Chapter 14.

Heading south through Pennsylvania, they stopped at Bethlehem on the Lehigh River. The motel they chose was off a side street, a line of adjoining units with a parking slot outside each door. Facing a sleepy clerk, they registered as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Davis, requested the unit that was farthest in back ("So the morning traffic doesn't wake us"), and discovered that at 3 a.m. all the nearby diners were closed. They had to settle for the rest of their trail food along with stale cheese and crackers from a coin dispenser in the motel's lobby.

They parked the Firebird in front of the unit but left the motorcycle around the side out of sight from the street, locked the unit's door behind them, closed the drapes, and only then turned on the lights.

At once, Arlene sank across the bed, her arms outstretched. Against the white spread, she looked as if she were making angels in snow. She closed her eyes and laughed. "Just like the old days, huh? Reminds me of the time we holed up in Mexico City. You and me and -"

She opened her eyes, no longer relaxed.

"And Jake," Drew said.

She frowned. "It's time."

He didn't answer.

"You promised." x

"Sure. It's just that..."

"Jake. You said you were in a monastery. You said six years ago Jake killed you. What does that mean?" Her voice hardened. "Tell me."

He'd known this was coming. During the troubled drive here (again the terrible question: What had happened in those woods? Why hadn't they been followed?), he'd tried to prepare himself.

But he still wasn't ready.

"I'm afraid it will take a while."

"Then don't waste time. Get started." She stood, taking off her khaki jacket, beginning to unbutton her heavy wool shirt.

The intimate gesture surprised him, though clearly she didn't think twice about it, still relating to him as if they were lovers. Again he felt a rush of love for her, a bittersweet nostalgia for their former life.

"And while you're at it" - she opened the door to the bathroom - "I've got dibs on the shower." She turned impatiently, oblivious to the corner of one breast that showed through her partly opened shirt. "Come on, Drew. Talk to me."

His thoughts were in chaos, his subconscious struggling not to give up the nightmares it had buried. He glanced at the floor.

When he peered up, Arlene was gone. From the bathroom, he heard the scrape of hooks on a shower curtain, the spray of water into a tub.

The curtain scraped again, and he walked in. Her shadow moved behind the yellow-flowered barrier. Her dusty climbing clothes were piled beneath the sink. Steam rose, filling the room. "Drew?"

"Here. I'm trying to decide where to start." He bit his lip, closed the lid on the toilet seat, and eased himself down.

"But you said six years ago."

"No, it starts before then. Unless you know what happened before, the rest of it doesn't make sense." He stared at the steam that filled the bathroom. Despite their intimacy, he had never told her any of this before. The memories had been too depressing. "Japan," he murmured.

"What? I can't hear you. This shower."

"Japan," he said louder.

The mist swirled thicker. For a dizzying moment, he had the sensation of falling in.

*

PART FIVE

VISITATION

THE SINS OF THE PAST

Chapter 1.

Japan, 1960.

On June 10, prior to a planned visit by American President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a raging mob of ten thousand Japanese anti-American demonstrators stormed Tokyo's airport to protest a new Japanese-American defense treaty that permitted the continued presence of American military bases, and worse -considering the A-bombs the United States had dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the inclusion of nuclear weapons on Japanese soil. The immediate targets of their fury were the American Ambassador to Japan, along with several members of Eisenhower's White House staff. As a warning of worse riots to come if the American President arrived in Japan, the mob surrounded the limousine in which the American contingent had planned to drive to the embassy, so threatening the occupants that a U.S. Marine helicopter made an emergency landing among the protestors and flew the officials to safety.

Six days later, the Japanese government requested a postponement of Eisenhower's visit. However, the massive demonstrations continued.

Chapter 2.

Tokyo, one week later. The recent "troubles" - Drew had heard his father use the expression often lately -the "troubles" were to blame for the cancellation of his birthday party. He didn't know what the troubles were (something to do with the mysterious place called the embassy where his father worked!), but he did know that last year when he turned nine there'd been twenty children at his party, and this year, tomorrow, there wouldn't be any.

"With the troubles, it isn't safe for Americans to associate with each other," his father had said. "So many cars and parents arriving. They'd attract too much attention. We can't afford further incidents. I'm sure you understand, Drew. Next year, I promise, we'll give you a bigger, better party than the one we planned for this year."

But Drew didn't understand - not any more than he understood why his father had told his mother at supper last night that they might have to move from their house to the embassy.

"Temporarily." Sometimes Drew's father used words too big for Drew to grasp. "Only until the situation has stabilized."

Whatever "stabilized" meant. The only sign Drew had of anything wrong was that during the past few weeks, most of their Japanese servants had resigned. And now that Drew thought about it, there'd been one other thing. His best friend in the neighborhood, a Japanese boy, no longer came to play. Drew often phoned him, but his friend's parents always said that the boy wasn't home.

"Hey, never mind the party, sport," Drew's father said, and playfully mussed his hair. "Don't look so glum. You'll still have presents. Lots of them. And a big chocolate cake, your favorite. I'll even stay home from work to help you celebrate."

"You mean you can actually get away?" Drew's mother asked, delighted. "Won't they be needing you at the embassy?"

"With the hours I've been putting in, I told the ambassador my son's more important than any damned crisis."

"And he didn't get angry?"

"All he did was laugh and say, Tell your son Happy Birthday for me.' "

Chapter 3.

A long black limousine stopped in front of the house at two the next afternoon. Drew watched, excited, from his bedroom window. The car had a small American flag on a metal post near the driver's side-view mirror. Its license plates were the same kind as on his father's car - from the embassy. A uniformed American got out, took a large red-white-and-blue package from the seat beside him, straightened the bow, and proceeded up the curved front walk, past an ornate Japanese garden, toward the entrance.

He knocked on the door and, while he waited, adjusted his chauffeur's cap, then turned, attracted to the song of an unseen bird in a nearby blossoming cherry tree. An elderly Japanese woman, one of the few local servants who hadn't quit working here, came out and bowed gracefully in her brilliant orange kimono.

The driver bowed slightly in return and then, from American habit, tipped his cap. "Please tell Mr. Mac-Lane that the ambassador sends his compliments." The driver grinned. "Or I guess you should tell his son. And give him this birthday present. The ambassador hopes it makes up for the canceled party."

The driver handed the package to the servant, bowed again, and returned to the limousine.

Chapter 4.

Despite his growing impatience, Drew obeyed instructions and waited in his room while his mother and father made sure that everything was properly arranged.

"It's just the three of us," his mother had said. "But we'll have enough fun for twenty."

Eagerly he paged through the American comic books - Superman and Davy Crockett were his favorites - that his father had arranged to be specially delivered. "In the diplomatic pouch," his father had said, though Drew knew he was joking. "Nothing's too good for my son."

He lay on his bed, staring anxiously at the ceiling.

"Okay, Drew," he heard his mother call from the garden at the rear of the house. "You can come out now."

He leaped from his bed and scurried out of his room. The quickest way to the garden in back was through his father's study. As he passed his father's desk, he saw through the open sliding door to where his mother and father sat at a circular table piled high with presents, all sizes and colors. Sunlight glinted off the tall, frosted glass that his mother held.

"Why, even the ambassador sent you a present," she said, excited when she saw him coming, and raised the glass to her mouth.

"He didn't need to. Thinks of everything. Wonder what's in it," Drew's father said and shook the box.

Drew entered the garden.

The stunning blast deafened him, throwing him back through the open study door, slamming him hard against his father's desk. He must have blacked out for a moment. He didn't remember falling from the desk to the floor. The next thing he knew, he was staggering to his feet. The roar behind his ears made him sick. His vision was blurred. As he stumbled toward the indistinct wreckage of the study door, he realized - confused - that his clothes were wet, and peering down, frantic to clear his eyes, he saw that he was drenched with blood. The blood alone should have made him scream. But it didn't. Nor did he scream as he panicked, afraid of how badly he might be hurt, nor as he realized - no! - that the blood wasn't his.

He lurched through the shattered doorway, seeing his mother and father in fragments across the lawn, the grass wet from their blood. The birthday cake, the plates and cups and gaily wrapped presents that had covered the table no longer existed. The table itself had disintegrated. Acrid smoke from the blast swirled thickly around him, making him choke. A nearby bush was in flames.

But still he didn't scream.

Not until he focused on his mother's almost-severed head. The force of the blast had rammed the glass from which she'd been drinking into her mouth. Its circular base propped her lips apart. Inside her mouth, the rest of the glass had shattered. Blossoming shards protruded, dripping blood, from both her mangled cheeks.

Then he did scream.

Chapter 5.

The steam began to clear. Arlene's shadow was motionless behind the curtain. The bathroom was silent. Drew hadn't been aware that she'd turned off the water.

The silence was broken by the rasp of metal hooks on the curtain as she opened it part way, her features taut with sympathy. "I didn't know."

"You couldn't have. It's something I don't like to talk about. Even now, it's too painful." Except, Drew thought, once, in a moment of weakness, he had told Jake. He wiped what might have been steam from around his eyes.

"I'm deeply, terribly sorry."

"Yeah." His voice was flat.

"The present from the embassy -"

"With red-white-and-blue wrapping paper."

"- was booby-trapped?"

Drew nodded.

"But it didn't come from the embassy, and the limousine wasn't an official car, and the government license plates were fake," she said.

"Of course. And the driver - nobody knew anything about him. The embassy's security staff made me look at photographs. Nothing."

"Classic."

"Yeah." Drew closed his eyes. "Wasn't it, though?"

Chapter 6.

His mind blank, his body numbed from grief, he faced the ambassador in the large, oppressive office. From his ten-year-old perspective, the ceiling disturbed him; it was so high that it made him insecure, as if he'd suddenly become shorter. The hulking furniture was covered with leather and looked uncomfortable. The walls had somber wood paneling, brooding books on massive shelves, disturbing photographs of important-looking men. The carpet was so thick that he didn't know if he was allowed to stand on it with his shoes.

"Will that be all, sir?" an embassy guard - Drew's eyes had widened at the gun in the holster on his belt -asked the elderly white-haired man behind the desk at the far end of the enormous room.

Drew recognized the man, having met him several times before when his parents had brought Drew to the embassy for Christmas and Fourth of July parties. The man wore a gray pin-striped suit and vest. His closely trimmed mustache was as white as his hair. His lean face looked wrinkled, tired.

"Yes, thank you," the man told the guard. "Instruct my secretary to hold all my calls and appointments for the next fifteen minutes."

"Very good, sir." The guard stepped backward, leaving the office and shutting the door behind him.

"Hello. It's Andrew, isn't it?" The ambassador studied him, seeming to choose his words. "Why don't you come over here and sit down?"

Confused, Drew obeyed. The leather chair made a creaking sound as he settled onto it, his feet dangling off the floor.

"I'm glad you're out of the hospital. Did they treat you well?"