Satori

line to Moscow, in touch with an old colleague, Colonel – now General – Gorbatov.

“Yuri, how are you?”

“In Beijing, if that answers the question.”

“Ah. To what do I owe -”

“Does the name Kishikawa mean anything to you?”

“I was the Soviet part of the joint Allied prosecution of Japanese war criminals outside of Tokyo back in ‘48,” Gorbatov answered. “Kishikawa was my biggest fish. Why do you ask?”

“Did you execute him?”

“We were going to,” Gorbatov said. “Didn’t get the chance.”

“Why not?”

“It was extraordinary, actually,” Gorbatov said. “Quite the story. There was this young man who worked as a translator for the Americans and was somehow a friend to Kishikawa. Actually he was the son of a Russian aristocrat… hold on… it’s coming to me… Ivanovna. A countess, no less.”

“Do you remember his name? The young man’s?”

“He was quite a memorable chap. Very self-possessed -”

“His name, Piotr?”

“Hel. Nicholai Hel.”

Voroshenin actually felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “What happened to the general?”

“That’s the extraordinary part,” Gorbatov answered. “Young Hel killed him. In his cell. Right in front of the guards, some sort of Japanese strike to the throat. Apparently he wanted to save him the shame of hanging.”

Voroshenin felt his own throat tighten. “Is this Hel in our custody?”

“No, the Americans took him. We were happy to see him go, believe me.”

“Do we know what happened to him?”

“I don’t,” Gorbatov said. “Glad to wash my hands of it. Very spooky, the whole thing, if you ask me. On which subject, why are you asking, Yuri?”

“A favor, Piotr?” Voroshenin asked. “Forget I called?”

He hung up the phone.

45

NICHOLAI PUSHED A CHAIR against the wall to create some space in his room, then he stripped down to his shorts and did twenty repetitions of the demanding hoda korosu “Caged Leopard” kata.

He selected this particular form because it stressed close-in fighting – precise strikes that demanded the buildup of force at short range. Starting with the entire room, he performed the kata in increasingly smaller circles, until by the end he barely moved his feet as he fought in the tightening bamboo cage of his imagination.

Although the form included brutal elbow and knee strikes, its principal feature was its unique “leopard paw” hand posture, the fingers bent at the second knuckle but not closed to make a complete fist. The striking surface was therefore thin, just the second knuckles, intended to penetrate a narrow space.

Precision was key.

That, and the concentration of force, and Nicholai practiced until he could generate explosive power in a strike that traveled just two inches before striking its target. He thought he might have as much as six inches to two feet in the actual situation, but didn’t want to allow himself the mental leisure of that luxury.

Physically exhausted but mentally invigorated when he finished, Nicholai sat on the floor, pulled himself into a rigid meditation posture, and envisioned the plan of the Zhengyici Opera House.

He had the floor plan perfectly in mind, and now he worked from the box Voroshenin had reserved, out the hallway, and down a set of stairs. A left turn would take him into the main part of the theater, then into the lobby and out the main doors. But a right turn at the bottom of the stairs led to another short corridor and a door that would lead to the backstage area.

At that point, he could turn right to go backstage or left into the alley behind the theater.

So there it was, and he mentally walked through the escape route. Out of the box, left down the hallway, down the stairs, right down the hallway, left out of the building. He “walked” it twenty times in his mind before adding the next mental level.

Obstacles.

First would be Voroshenin’s guards, but if he performed the strike properly, they would not know anything was wrong for another crucial minute. But he had to consider the possibility of having to fight his way out. There was no way to know how the guards would be positioned, so that would have to be improvised on the spot. But that was the purpose of kata, to train the body to react instantly to any threat, without the fatal necessity of thought.

So he dismissed the guards from his mind.

The hallway outside the boxes should pose no problems. There might be Chinese police, but if the killing of Voroshenin raised no outcry, he should simply be able to walk past them on his “way to the toilet.”

But he mentally slowed his pace, “walking” casually, not as a man who has just killed, but as one who simply needed to empty his bladder.

He walked down the stairs and took a right. At the end of the hallway was a door to the backstage, and there would almost certainly be an employee of the theater, a doorman, to bar the way of adoring fans.

Killing the man would be easy.

But killing the innocent doorman would be a shameful dishonor, out of the question, so now Nicholai mentally rehearsed a nonlethal blow to the side of the neck, to the carotid artery, to disable but not kill. He threw the strike, lowered the man to the floor, and opened the door.

The next door was just to his left, and he stepped out into the cold night air.

Simple, he thought, then chuckled at his self-delusion.

Simple, if you get within lethal proximity to Voroshenin.

If you perform the perfect strike that renders him quietly dead while still sitting up in his seat.

If the guards notice nothing amiss.

If you don’t have to kill three more men and then fight your way through the Chinese police.

If all of it goes your way, it’s simple and easy, but those are a lot of ifs. Small wonder Haverford had given him a one in a hundred chance of success and survival.

And if not? he asked himself.

If not, then that is your karma, your “joss” as the Chinese would have it, and you will be killed.

Are you prepared for that?

Yes.

Kishikawa’s words came back to him. When one is prepared to die, that is settled. There is then only the action to consider. Think then only of success, because failure will take care of itself.

Nicholai sat for another hour and envisioned the entire operation, step by step, going perfectly. He got up, coaxed hot water from the taps, and bathed. Then he dressed and went down into the lobby, where Chen was waiting to inflict more hospitality on him.

46

THE ACROBATS WERE wonderful.

Superb athletes, they performed amazing feats of strength, balance, and courage. It all brought back to Nicholai happier childhood days in Shanghai, going to the street circuses and marveling at the performers.