The Fraternity of the Stone (28 page)

Bewildered, Drew only sighed. In the hospital, there'd been soldiers with guns that had scared him. There'd been no other children in the ward, and groggy from the injection he'd been given to make him sleepy, he hadn't understood why the nurses were called lieutenants.

"Your doctor tells me that apart from several cuts and bruises - and those flashburns on your eyebrows -there's nothing wrong with you. A miracle, really. He says not to worry, by the way. The hair on your eyebrows will grow back."

Drew frowned at him, mystified. His eyebrows? What difference did his eyebrows make? His parents -the shards of glass sticking out of his mother's bloody mangled cheeks - they were what mattered.

Grief cramped his stomach, rising cold to his aching heart.

The ambassador leaned forward with concern. "Are you all right, son?"

Drew wanted to sob but controlled the impulse, swallowing thickly, nodding.

The ambassador waited, trying to smile. "And your room here at the embassy? I'm sure that you miss your home, but under the circumstances, we couldn't very well let you stay there, even with guards. You understand. I trust that you're comfortable now, at least."

The bedroom Drew had been given reminded him of a hotel room - if he'd had the vocabulary, he'd have called it impersonal - where he and his parents once

had stayed during a vacation trip to Hawaii. Again, he forced himself to nod.

"I know my staff's been treating you well," the ambassador said. "In fact, I've given orders to the kitchen crew that you can have all the ice cream you want. For the next few days, at any rate. Strawberry is your favorite, I believe."

The thought of strawberry ice cream, its color and consistency, reminded Drew of his mother's bloody cheeks.

"Is there anything else we can get you? Something you miss from home perhaps?"

My mother and father, Drew wanted to scream. He suffered in silence.

"Nothing at all?"

Aware of the tension, Drew struggled for something, anything, to say and murmured the first words that entered his mind.

The ambassador straightened. "I'm sorry, son. I didn't hear you."

Don't call me 'son,' Drew inwardly raged. I'm not your son. I'm not anybody's son. Not anymore.

But all he said, not caring, was "My comic books."

The ambassador looked relieved. "Of course. Whatever you like. I'll send a man out this afternoon to get them. Have you any preference, any you're especially fond of?"

"Superman." It made no difference. Drew wanted desperately to get out of the office. "Davy Crockett."

"I'll get a boxload for you." The ambassador pursed his lips. "Now then." He stood, came around to the front of his desk, and leaned his hips against it, bending forward to put his gaze at Drew's eye level. "I have a few things we have to discuss. This isn't easy, but it has to be done. Your parents' funeral..."

Drew winced. Though only ten, he'd been taught by yesterday's horror to have a sudden understanding of death. Certainly, after having seen his parents' fragmented bodies, he knew that they couldn't possibly be put back together.

"... will be tomorrow morning. My assistants and myself have had several discussions on the matter. We know how painful this is for you, but we've agreed that you ought to attend it. To lay your nightmares to rest, so to speak. And to make you a symbol..."

Drew didn't understand the word.

"... of what hate can do. Of what shouldn't be allowed to happen again. I know that this is all terribly confusing for you, but sometimes we have to make good things come out of bad. We want you to sit in the front pew at the funeral. A lot of photographers will take your picture. A lot of people - the world, in fact -will be watching. I'm sorry that you have to grow up so fast. For what it's worth, I feel confident that your mother and father would have wanted you to go."

At last Drew did cry. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop himself.

The ambassador held him tightly, patting his back. "That's the stuff. Get it out of you. Let it go. Believe me, it's all right to cry."

Drew didn't need encouragement. He continued to sob, convulsing so hard that he thought his heart must surely break. Finally his spasms subsided. Wiping his eyes, feeling the sting of the tears on his cheeks, he frowned in pain at the ambassador. "Why?" His throat was so swollen that the word was a croak.

"I'm sorry, Andrew. I'm not sure I understand. Why what?"

"Who killed them? Why?"

The ambassador sighed. "I wish I knew. These days, America isn't very popular, I'm afraid." He named several countries, most of which Drew had never heard of - Cuba, Cameroon, Algeria, the Congo. "It's not just here in Japan that we've had riots against us. Everything's changing. The world's a different place."

"But isn't there someone you can punish?"

"I'm sorry. We just don't know enough. But I promise we're doing everything we can to find out."

Drew blinked through his tears.

"I hate to do this all at once. There's something else we have to discuss. A while ago I said that I've told the kitchen staff to give you all the ice cream you want for the next few days. The reason for the time limit is that after the funeral, after you've had a chance to rest, you'll be flown back to the States. Someone has to take care of you. I've spoken to your uncle and made arrangements for you to stay with him. You'll have a chance to speak with him on the overseas telephone" - the ambassador glanced at his watch - "in twenty minutes."

Confused, Drew tried to remember what his uncle looked like, but all he saw in his mind was his father's face, or rather, an indistinct image of his father's face. It alarmed him that he couldn't recall what his father looked like. Except for the fragments of the body strewn across the blood-soaked lawn.

Chapter 7.

"But who killed your parents?" Arlene sat beside him on the bed, clutching a blanket around her.

"I never knew. At the embassy, I heard a lot of talk. The American who'd dressed as a chauffeur and delivered the bomb was described as a free-lance, a mercenary. That was the first time I'd ever heard the word. The assumption was that he'd been hired by Japanese fanatics, but one man on the embassy's security staff - he'd lived in Japan since the end of the war-insisted that a bomb wasn't the Japanese style. He kept talking about samurai and bushido and a lot of other things I didn't understand. The code of the warrior. He said a Japanese worthy of that name was honor-bound to kill his enemy in the open, face to face. Not with a bomb, not even with a gun, but with a sword. Three months later, in fact, a Japanese protestor did just that, shoving his way through a crowd to impale a Japanese politician who favored the new treaty with America. And the security guard also said that a true Japanese wouldn't have tried to kill his enemy's wife and child -only the husband, the father."

"But if the guard didn't blame the Japanese, who did he blame?"

"The Russians. Much of this didn't make sense to me at the time, of course, but I later got the idea of what he meant. The point of the new defense treaty was for America to help protect Japan from an attack by the Soviets. With our bases in Japan, we had our thumb on Southeast Asia and could try to stop communism from spreading. The guard's theory was that, if the Soviets could make it seem that the Japanese had blown up an American diplomat and his family... "

"The deaths would be so shocking they'd widen the gap between America and Japan. The treaty would be threatened," said Arlene.

"That was the guard's idea. But if so, the tactic didn't work. My parents' murders made everybody realize how out of control the situation had become. The Japanese, embarrassed that they were being blamed for the assassinations, began to stop demonstrating. The crisis passed."

Arlene took his hand. "But not your nightmares."

He looked at her with anguish. "I wanted someone to blame."

Chapter 8.

He'd often gone to mass with his parents, but he'd never realized until their funeral how many images of death surrounded him in church. Christ on the Cross, the nails through His hands and feet, His back slashed by whips, His head crowned with thorns, His side split open by a spear. In a prayer book, he found a colorful depiction of the tomb from which Christ had risen.

Christ's disciples stood before the rolled-away stone, raising their faces in celebration.

But nothing could bring his parents back, he knew. He'd seen the bloody fragments of their bodies.

The thunderous organ music was scary, the Latin of the mass as meaningless as the English that the priest used to describe "this terrible tragedy." In the front pew, Drew felt everybody staring at him. Photographers kept taking his picture. He wanted to scream.

The ambassador had explained that the bodies would be flown to a place called Andrews Air Force Base, where his uncle and "even the Secretary of State" would be waiting. Whoever the Secretary of State was. It didn't matter. There'd be another service at his father's family plot in Boston, but to Drew, that didn't matter either, though apparently this first service was more important, a symbol - the ambassador had used that word again - of the need for friendship between America and Japan.

Drew noticed many hard-faced men, their suitcoats open, clutching what might have been guns attached to their belts.

And when the service ended, the ambassador took the American flags - one had covered each coffin -folded them, and brought them over for Drew to touch.

He pressed his face against them, soaking them with his tears.

Chapter 9.

"And that's why I couldn't be this free-lance assassin you told me about. This mercenary terrorist." Drew said the words with disgust. "Janus. Because a man like Janus killed my parents. And he wasn't alone. The ambassador told me there were many other mercenaries like the one who'd disguised himself as a chauffeur." Drew bristled. "Without the honor of a Japanese. Cowards. Sneak thieves, who didn't have the dignity to face their enemies directly. Mothers, fathers, children - it made no difference to them who they hurt, what grief and pain they caused. Each night as I cried myself to sleep, I repeated a vow I made to myself." He clenched his teeth. "If I might never have the satisfaction of seeing the man who'd murdered my parents receive the punishment he deserved, I'd punish those who were like him. I'd make it my business to get even with all of them."

"You were - how old? - ten, you said?" Arlene looked astonished. "And you made that choice? You stuck to it?"

"There's nothing surprising about it." Drew swallowed bitterly. "You see, I loved my parents. To this day, I still miss them. I used to visit their graves. A lot." His voice cracked. "Ten years old, I thought I could get revenge on my own. I didn't know how. But later, in my teens, I learned that others felt as I did. I went to work for... "

"Scalpel." She breathed the word.

The phone rang harshly, interrupting them.

Chapter 10.

Drew swung in surprise toward the bedside table. He glanced sharply at Arlene. Her eyes wide, she seemed as startled as he was. He stared again toward the table, where the phone rang a second time.

"Wrong number?" Arlene clearly didn't believe it.

Drew didn't even bother shaking his head. The phone rang a third time.

"The clerk in the office?" Arlene asked. "Something he forgot to tell us?"

"Like what?"

She couldn't think of anything. The phone rang again.

"Maybe we're talking too loud. Maybe we woke up somebody next to us," Drew said. "There's one way to know for sure." He leaned from the bed to pick up the phone. Despite his tension, he kept his voice calm. "Hello."

"Yes. Not to alarm you" - the voice on the other end was male, husky, heavily accented - "but I have no choice except to call you."

Regardless of that reassurance, Drew did feel alarmed, nagged by the terrible suspicion that he'd heard the voice before, though he couldn't identify it. Arlene left the chair, putting her head next to Drew's, listening as he held the phone slightly away from his ear.

The voice kept talking. "It's unfortunate, but even with the best equipment, I'm not able to hear everything you say in your room. The shower, in particular, presented a problem. And you're coming to the part that interests me."

Drew shivered from a cold spot between his shoulderblades as he remembered, with frightening vividness, where he'd heard the voice before. It belonged to the priest who'd suddenly appeared from the confessional when Drew had been attacked in the chapel at the retreat house in the Berkshire Hills. The priest with the gleaming red ring, the.45, and the Slavic accent. The priest who'd shot the two priest-assailants and chased Drew down the tunnel.

"I realize you need time to adjust to my intrustion," the voice said. "I've no doubt surprised you. But please, don't hesitate much longer. Time, as the saying goes, is short."

Drew gripped his Mauser. "Where are you?"

"In the unit next to yours. Note how freely I tell you. I put myself in your hands."

Drew scowled toward the opposite wall. "How did you find us?"

"Everything in due course. I want permission to enter your room. I'd prefer not to leave the building, however. A locked door separates our units. If you'll unbolt your side, I'll do the same on mine, and then at last we can meet."