The Fifth Profession

sure we hadn't been followed. But after Medford Gap, we were so distracted we might not have realized we had a tail. When we left the car to go into the Harrisburg hospitals, the surveillance team could have planted a homing device on the car and followed us easily after that, all the way to Virginia Beach where they killed Mac to keep him from talking and tried to get you away from us. Now that I think of it, Mac's death didn't only stop us from getting information. We were blamed for his murder. It put more pressure on us to run.”

“And when we saw Kunio Shirai on television, we knew exactly where to run,” Rachel said. “ Japan.” She shook her head. “There's a flaw in the logic, though. How could anyone be sure we'd see a picture of Shirai?”

“Because we'd be forced to check the news to learn what the police were saying about the murders. If not on television, then in magazines or newspapers, we'd eventually have found out about him.”

“… I agree.”

Savage frowned. “But the team that killed Mac works for someone different than the team that tried to kill us last night. One wants us to keep searching. The other wants us to stop.” He gestured, angry, bewildered.

Ahead, a wide path led them through a huge cypress gate, its tall pillars joined near the top by a beam and at the very top by other beams, each beam progressively wider, the entire structure reminding Savage of a massive Japanese ideogram. Trees and shrubs flanked the path and directed Savage's troubled gaze toward a large pagoda, its three stories emphasized by long, low buildings to the right and left: the Meiji Shrine. The pagoda's roof was flat, its sides sloping down, then curving up, creating a link between earth and sky. Savage was struck by the elegance and harmony.

A voice speaking English startled him. Rachel clutched his arm. Nervous, he pivoted and saw something so unexpected he blinked in confusion.

Americans!

Not a few but several dozen, and though Savage had arrived in Japan only yesterday, he'd become so used to seeing crowds composed exclusively of Orientals that for a moment this throng of awkward Caucasians seemed as foreign to him as he and Rachel felt amid the numerous Japanese they'd been following toward the shrine.

But the voice he'd heard speak English belonged to an attractive female Japanese in her twenties. She wore a burgundy skirt and blazer that resembled a uniform. Holding a clipboard with pages attached, she turned her head as she walked and addressed the Americans following her.

A tourist group, Savage realized.

“The Meiji Shrine is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Japan,” the guide explained, her English diction impressive, though the l and r in “pilgrimage” gave her trouble.

She paused where the path led into a courtyard. The group formed a semicircle.

“In eighteen sixty-seven,” she said, “after more than two and a half centuries in which a shogun was absolute ruler of Japan, an emperor again assumed power. The name of His Imperial Highness was Meiji”-she bowed her head-”and the return of authority to the emperor was called the Meiji Restoration, one of the four greatest cultural changes in the history of Japan.”

“What were the other three?” a man in blue-checkered pants interrupted.

The guide answered automatically. “Influences from China in the fifth century, the establishment of the Shogunate in sixteen hundred, and the United States occupation reforms after World War II.”

“… Didn't MacArthur make the emperor admit he wasn't a god?”

The tour guide's smile hardened. “Yes, your esteemed general required His Highness to renounce his divinity.” She smiled even harder, then gestured toward the pagoda. “When Emperor Meiji died in nineteen twelve, this shrine was created in his honor. The original buildings were destroyed in nineteen forty-five. This replica was constructed in nineteen fifty-eight.” She tactfully didn't mention that American bombing raids had been what destroyed the original buildings.

Savage watched her lead the group across the courtyard. About to follow toward the shrine, he glanced reflexively behind him and noticed, his stomach hardening, that some Americans hadn't proceeded with the group. They lingered thirty yards back on the tree-rimmed path.

Savage redirected his gaze toward the shrine. “Come on, let's join the group,” he told Rachel. He tried to sound casual but couldn't conceal the urgency in his voice.

She turned sharply toward him. “What's wrong?”

“Just look straight ahead. Match my pace. Pretend you're so fascinated by what the tour guide's saying, you want to keep up with her.”

“But what's…?”

His heart cramped. “When I tell you, don't look behind us.”

They neared the group. The spacious courtyard was bathed in sunlight. Savage's spine felt cold.

“All right, I won't look behind me,” Rachel said.

“Five men on the path. For a moment, I thought they were tourists. But they're wearing suits, and they seem more interested in the shrubs along the path than they are in the shrine. Except for us. They're very interested in us.”

“Oh, God.”

“I don't know how they found us.” Savage's fingers turned numb as adrenaline forced blood toward his muscles. “We were careful. And that subway was too damned crowded for anyone to keep us in sight.”

“Then maybe they really are tourists. Businessmen with a few hours off, trying to get over jet lag. Maybe they're less interested in the shrine than they thought they'd be and wish they'd gone to a geisha house.”

“No,” Savage said, pulse hammering. They reached the tour group. He had to keep his voice low. “I recognized one of them.”

Rachel flinched. “You're sure?”

“As sure as I am that I saw Akira beheaded and Kamichi cut in half. One of those men was at the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat.”

“But the Medford Gap Mountain Retreat…”

“Doesn't exist. I know that. I'm telling you I remember him being there.” Savage's head throbbed. His mind reeled, assaulted again by jamais vu.

Though he tried to hide it, the distress in his voice made members of the tour group turn and frown at him. A fiftyish woman with blue-tinted hair told him, “Shush.” The Japanese guide hesitated, peering back toward the distraction.

Savage murmured apologies, guiding Rachel around the group, walking anxiously toward the looming shrine. “False memory, yes,” he told Rachel. “But that doesn't change the fact that it's in my head. It feels real to me. Akira and I both remember Kamichi having a conference with three men. One looked Italian, the other Spanish, or maybe Mexican or… The third, though, was American! And I saw him just now behind us on the path!”

“But the conference never happened.”

“I saw him one other time.”

“What?”

“At the hospital. While I convalesced.”

“In Harrisburg ? But you were never in a hospital in Harrisburg. How can you recognize a man you never met?”

“How could Akira and I recognize Kunio Shirai, the man we knew as Kamichi?”

“You never met Kamichi either.”

Savage flooded with terror. He needed all his discipline, the effects of all his years of training and hardship under fire, to keep from panicking. Reality-the shrine before him- seemed to waver. False memory insisted that it alone was true. If what I remember isn't true, Savage thought, how can I be sure that this is?

They entered the shrine. In a glimmering corridor that stretched to the right and left, Savage saw burnished doors emblazened with golden suns. Equipped with hinges in the middle, the doors had been folded open, revealing the precinct of what looked like a temple. Railings prevented him from going farther.