The Fifth Profession

warriors eagerly chose this option. Oishi paid them and urged them to leave. Of more than three hundred samurai, only forty-seven remained. With these, Oishi made a pact, each cutting a finger and joining hands, sealing the pact with their blood.

The forty-seven surrendered to the shogun's warriors and claimed to disavow any obligation they felt to giri and their dead lord. They pretended to accept their lot as ronin, masterless samurai, wanderers. Each traveled his separate way.

But the shogun-suspicious-sent spies to follow them, to insure that the feud had ended. To deceive the spies, each ronin bitterly engaged in unworthy conduct. Some became drunkards, others whoremongers. One sold his wife into prostitution. Another killed his father-in-law. Still another arranged for his sister to become a mistress of the hated Lord Kira. Permitting their swords to rust and themselves to be spat upon, all appeared to wallow in dishonor. At last, after two years, the shogun's spies were convinced that the feud had ended. The shogun removed surveillance from the ronin.

In 1703, the forty-seven ronin regrouped and attacked Kira's castle. With long- repressed rage, they slaughtered their enemy's unsuspecting guards, tracked down and beheaded the man they so loathed, then washed the head and made a pilgrimage to Asano's grave, placing the head on the tomb of their now-avenged master.

The chain of obligation had not yet ended. In obeying the burden of giri, the ronin had violated the shogun's command to stop their vendetta. One code of honor conflicted with another. Only one solution was acceptable. The shogun dictated. The ronin obeyed. In triumph, they impaled their bowels with their swords, drawing each blade from left to right, then fiercely upward, in the noble ritual of suicide called seppuku. The tombs of the forty-seven ronin are revered to this day, a Japanese monument.

The comitatus. The forty-seven ronin. Savage and Akira. Codes and obligations. Honor and loyalty. To protect and if duty compelled, to avenge-even at the risk of death. The fifth and most noble profession.

ONE. RETURN OF THE DEAD

THE LABYRINTH

1

Obeying professional habits, Savage directed the elevator toward the floor below the one he wanted. Of course, an uninvited visitor would have had to stop the elevator at the second-highest floor, no matter what. A computer-coded card, slipped into a slot on the elevator's control panel, was required to command the elevator to rise to the topmost level. Savage had been given such a card but declined to use it. On principle, he hated elevators. Their confinement was dangerous. He never knew what he might find when the doors slid open. Not that he expected trouble on this occasion, but if he made one exception in his customary methods, he'd eventually make others, and when trouble did come along, he wouldn't be primed to respond.

Besides, on this warm afternoon in Athens in September, he was curious about the security arrangements of the person he'd agreed to meet. Although he was used to dealing with the rich and powerful, they were mostly in politics or industry. It wasn't every day he met someone not only associated with both arenas but who'd also been a movie legend.

Savage stepped to one side when the elevator stopped and the doors thunked open. Sensing, judging, he peered out, saw no one, relaxed, and proceeded toward a door whose Greek sign indicated FIRE EXIT. In keeping with that sign, the door's handle moved freely.

Cautious, Savage entered and found himself in a stairwell. His crepe-soled shoes muffled his footsteps on the concrete landing. The twenty-seven lower levels were silent. He turned toward a door on his right, gripped its knob, but couldn't budge it. Good. The door was locked, as it should be. On the opposite side, a push bar would no doubt give access to this stairwell-in case of emergency. But on this side, unauthorized visitors were prevented from going higher. Savage slid two thin metal prongs into the receptacle for the key-one prong for applying leverage, the other for aligning the slots that would free the bolt. After seven seconds, he opened the door, troubled that the lock was so simple. It should have taken him twice as long to pick it.

He crept through, eased the door shut behind him, and warily studied the steps leading upward. There weren't any closed-circuit cameras. The lights were dim, giving him protective shadow while he climbed toward a landing, then turned toward the continuation of the steps. He didn't see a guard. At the top, he frowned when he tried the door-it wasn't locked. Worse, when he opened it, he still didn't see a guard.

On nearly soundless carpeting, he proceeded along a corridor. Glancing at numbers on doors, he followed their diminishing sequence toward the number he'd been given. Just before he reached an intersecting corridor, his nostrils felt pinched by tobacco smoke. With the elevators to his right, he turned left into the corridor and saw them.

Three men were bunched together in front of a door at the far end of the corridor. The first had his hands in his pockets. The second inhaled from a cigarette. The third sipped a cup of coffee.

Amateur hour, Savage thought.

Never compromise your hands.

When the guards noticed Savage, they came to awkward attention. They were built like football players, their suits too tight for their bullish necks and chests. They'd be intimidating to a nonprofessional, but their bulk made them too conspicuous to blend with a crowd, and they looked too muscle-bound to be able to respond instantaneously to a crisis.

Savage slackened his strong features, making them non-threatening. Six feet tall, he slouched his wiry frame so he looked a few inches shorter. As he walked along the corridor, he pretended to be impressed by the guards, who braced their backs in arrogant triumph.

They made a show of examining his ID, which was fake, the name he was using this month. They searched him but didn't use a hand-held metal detector and hence didn't find the small knife beneath his lapel.

“Yeah, you're expected,” the first man said. “Why didn't you use the elevator?”

“The computer card didn't work.” Savage handed it over. “I had to stop on the floor below and take the stairs.”

“But the stairwell doors are locked,” the second man said.

“Someone from the hotel must have left them open.”

“Whoever forgot to lock them, his ass is grass,” the third man said.

“I know what you mean. I can't stand carelessness.”

They nodded, squinted, flexed their shoulders, and escorted him into the suite.

No, Savage thought. The rule is, you never abandon your post.

2

The suite had a sizable living room, tastefully furnished. But what Savage noticed, disapproving, was the wall directly across from him, its thick draperies parted to reveal an enormous floor-to-ceiling window and a spectacular view of the Parthenon on the Acropolis. Though Athens was usually smoggy, a breeze had cleared the