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 Tokyo, Japan
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 Ireland, which 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 Ireland was near the sea, and in Duncleeve you could hear the sound of the waves on all 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 Tokyo, a city of 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 Japan.
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.
After some minutes, he took her hands in his and kissed them one by one, running his tongue across the palm of each hand. She was wearing only a thin silk yukata, and through the thin material he could feel her breasts where they rested against the back of his head and her nipples hard and firm.
'Come with me,' she said into his ear, her tongue licking it. Naked, he rose from the hot water into the cool night air and stepped from the tub onto the tile surround. His penis was erect and hard. The faintest lightening of the sky indicated the promise of dawn.
She draped his shoulders in a thick towel to dry him and to shield him from the night air, and took another towel and knelt down to dry his lower body. Again, she touched him without restraint, as if they had been lovers without secrets for some time.
Her beautiful hair, thick and glossy and normally worn up on a chignon or some other restrained style, now cascaded around her shoulders. He let the sensations wash over him until he could scarcely bear it, and then he bent over and lifted he up and took her in his arms.
She smelled of an exotic perfume he could not identify, but which was intensely stimulating. It was a subtle, sexual fragrance, and it blended with the clean, musky odor of her own arousal. Her arms around his neck, lips gently stroking, tongues intermingling, he carried her from the courtyard through the open shoji screens to where he cold see the golden flickering light of a dozen candles.
The floor was of fresh tatami, but instead of the futon he had expected there was a low-slung, king-size bed. He lowered her feet to the floor and, still kissing her, stripped the gossamer-thin yukata from her body and placed her on the bed.
