“The guard saved my life. Jesus H. Christ. How the hell did he get the shiv, Dusty?”

  “I believe the Inspector could answer that question. Couldn’t you? Talk to me you piece of shit before I rip your fucking head off.” Rhodes beside himself. The rage palpable. Joe had never seen this side. Dusty always in control although the cauldron was always simmering. Just below the surface. Mount Pinatubo had blown now though. No holding him back. Joe positioned himself between the black man and the Japanese and waited.

  The Japanese moved towards the exit and Rhodes knocked him out with a roundhouse worthy of Jack Johnson. Dickwell staring in disbelief.

  “Pick this piece of garbage up, and take him to the consulate for interrogation.” The two Marines standing at the doorway picked the Japanese policeman up and took him away. The Japanese soldiers did nothing.

  “I’ll explain later, Joe. Suffice it to say that the scum is one of Asahara’s soldiers. One of the reasons we haven’t been able to pick him up for so long. Never could get anything on him. Tipped off at the last minute every time we got close. Unfortunately we had to let something like the shiv incident happen to get anything on the scumbag.”

  79

  Keiko Watanabe walked through Harajuku on a beautiful summer’s day. She loved this part of Tokyo. The fashion district, the young people and the outlandish outfits. This is where the Dancing Elvises could be found. A group of Japanese men all with outlandish pompadours, prancing through the streets. Passersby could not help but see the glow emitting from the young woman’s face. A look not unlike that of one who had just been told that the initial diagnosis of terminal cancer was just a mistake. Charts misplaced. Very sorry. You will live now. Please enjoy. Once condemned now resurrected. Keiko did not merely look at the beauty around her, she devoured its entire essence. Keiko Watanabe was alive.

  Given the circumstances surrounding Keiko Watanabe’s life up to this point, it would seem ludicrous for the redeemed to now leave the idyllic setting of a glorious spring day in Tokyo, board the subway to Roppongi, leave the station and walk to the dark, whiskey-sated environs of Paddy Foley’s Pub. This is what she did however. The price of her redemption. Not without consequences. Nothing in life for free.

  The ambassador met her with open arms. She sat immediately without any acknowledgement. For this charade, done out of necessity, the old Keiko would take center stage. The snub not lost on Blasingame or the Frenchman.

  “Yes, well, Ms. Watanabe…”

  “Keiko, Keiko Watanabe.”

  She dismissed him.

  Looking directly at Blasingame. No sign that the ambassador even existed as far as she was concerned.

  “Commander.”

  “Please, Keiko, call me Steve.”

  Blasingame taking her hand somewhat uneasily. Regretting agreeing to the plan now. Too late in any case. The Frenchman standing and bowing. The music reverberating. The smell of stale alcohol and sated souls. Cheery, artificial conversation throughout fueled by the booze.

  One night, eons ago she had found Adam here. Chatting up two woman right there at the bar. Their earlier date broken with deceit. He had to stay on the ship, he told her with fake remorse. She had come here that night hoping not to find him. Moving in behind him. Hysterical with rage and hurt. Flailing out at him. The crowd laughing at the spectacle of the small Japanese girl punching the American man almost twice her size.

  A redemption of sorts now. Love returns. Keiko and Adam together again. Stronger. They were not really in love before, thought Keiko. A series of events and a kind of spiritual awakening had taken place for both of them.

  Keiko Watanabe had one last thing to do before her rebirth was complete. The death of Asahara, his total destruction was imperative of course The ambassador a pawn. The history of Adam and the Irishman only recently completely explained to Keiko. Part of her new relationship with Adam. The complete unconditional honesty. The morning in the hospital when Adam had confessed the whole sordid past. Keiko knew that this was the end of Adam’s cheating. He was hers forever now. She would never have to share him with John Barleycorn or any other woman. Adam’s demons dying with the confession of the atrocities committed by the Irishman on his body and on his soul. A wreckage of the past. Just part of the tally that Adam had built up while drinking away his life. All in the past now. Business to be done. Plans to be made. Not much time.

  “Are you with us, my dear? You seem distant.”

  Lemieux bringing her back. He sensed the tension between her and the ambassador. Knew it was there. That was enough. Needed to move things on. Blasingame looking on. The sooner this was finished, the better, God save us all.

  80

  “The guard will live , sir.”

  “His name please?”

  “Oh yes, of course, sir. Makoto Mitori. He is 22. No family. His parents died in a car accident when he was young. He was going to make the police his career.”

  “I want him promoted immediately with honors. Arrange a note, some kind of statement from the Prime Minister. What about Asahara?”

  “He is in the facility infirmary.”

  “Isolated I hope?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the police chief?”

  “In custody being transported to Yokosuka Naval Base Brig for interrogation as per your orders, sir.”

  “Very well. Take me to Asahara. Now.”

  81

  “Dad, I worry about Keiko. I had a dream about her last night. It was horrible.”

  The room here at Yokosuka Base Housing reminded Dan of more serene times. Times when he and Cathy, his first wife, actually his only wife were living the white-picket fence American Dream. Dan light years away from that now. Jeez how times had changed. The world was an evil place, thought Dan as he looked at the love of his life. His fragile angel. Dan wondered if it really was the vilest it have ever been. He remembered talking with Art about whether or not we were in the Last Days. Only a year ago now. Seemed like a million though. Eons ago. Art had said that we weren’t. Not even close. Jesus, Man, half the population of the known world was wiped out by plague and war during the Dark Ages, Art had said. Yea, Dan thought, but they didn’t have ricin back then.

  “Kelley my dearest, you’ve been through a terrible time. We are safe here. Just like being back in the States.” Was that really safer?

  “I worry about her, Dad. In the dream she sees him and….”

  Asahara, the scum, had had a lasting effect. Years of therapy ahead. Dan knew that Kelley covered up a lot. This was good though. Letting it all out. Good sign. Let her pour it all out. Sobbing now. Uncontrolled.

  “Why does everyone have to die, Dad?”

  Dan’s first thought probably right on the money. Rose’s death had not gone unnoticed. Profound effect. What else had his little girl hidden beneath the strong impenetrable façade that few could see but himself?

  82

  “What did you do to Adam? What the fuck did you do to my love? You destroyed him.”

  The Frenchman and Blasingame feigning surprise at Keiko’s outburst towards the ambassador; although not really necessary as the boisterous crowd at Paddy Foley’s were involved in their own drunken reverie. Keiko had never looked at the ambassador. Until now. The glare. Raising up. The knife coming out from under her Kate Spade knock-off. Too late. The blood spurting onto the table from the Irishman’s jugular. Mixing with the Jameson. An odd combination. Blasingame would later wonder at his first thought. No wonder whiskey and tomato juice are never mixed. A distasteful concoction. The Irishman tried to stand. Never left his seat. Head crashing to the edge of the booth. Knocking over the shot glass. Dead. His bodyguards looking the other way. The Almond Café bombing the last straw for them as well.

  The rape of Adam Welsh vindicated. And although Keiko would not know it, the lost souls at the Almond Café as well. All part of the plan from Lemieux and Blasingame. Once they discovered the connection between Adam, Keiko and the Irishman, it was easy to goad her into removing O’Mara. But at what price?

  Blasingame leaking the information to Keiko that she had already suspected. It had been the Irishman all along. Meeting Adam years ago. Striking up the false friendship that can be seen in every bar and pub throughout the world where men drink to ease the pain and then sell their souls for the company of strangers. Funny thing about bars. One can be mere inches from another and yet never really be conscious of that person. The booze, the fantastical atmosphere. Whatever. No one really saw Keiko Watanabe actually put the knife into the Irish ambassador’s neck. Witnesses who included an underaged Japanese girl named Miho, a name which endeared her to American sailors as well as Bill Dwyer, journeying out from the confines of the Sanno Bar as he was wont to do only about once in a Blue Moon, said that the ambassador appeared to pass out. No knife was ever found although Colonel Dwyer was said to have lost a rather expensive combat knife from his collection that was kept at home. Nothing ever proven. The Frenchman and Blasingame displaying ignorance. Seeing nothing in the best tradition of Sgt Schultz from a show called Hogan’s Heroes that Adam used to love to bring up in happier days with Art.

  Two days later, the Sanno Hotel was severely damaged by what authorities later surmised to be a plastic explosive hidden in the kitchen area. Apparently planted by Peanut. He had killed one last time from beyond the grave. A Filipino girl of about twenty-two. She had just started working. Sending money to her province. Collateral damage.

  83

  Dan Bronsan had that feeling of foreboding again.

  When was the last time? Years ago? Where? When?

  Coming back now. The curtain parting. Early 1969, Christ Church Hospital, London. Low rent as far as hospitals went but with the Universal Healthcare system prevalent in the United Kingdom not really any difference among hospitals or physicians for that matter. Kind of a crap shoot, thought Dan. The doctor arriving at the waiting room of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. News about Kelley. The look on the Indian’s face indicating the worst. M.S. Multiple Sclerosis. The doctor saying she wouldn’t live past fifteen or sixteen. Sweet sixteen. Cathy with the stoic front. No outward feeling. Dan sure something had left his body.

  The same feeling now. Here at Tokyo Metropolitan Water Treatment Plant No. 3, the impending doom returning. Behind the door. The sense that nothing good would be coming out from behind it. The knob turning ever so slightly. Almost imperceptible. Just a crack. Open nonetheless. Dan’s thoughts turning to Benny Carter now. Outside the building. Standing watch. Cell phone in hand. Adam Welsh with Keiko far away. Better this way. Dan on his own. Somehow ever since the talk with Father Terry, so long ago, Dan Bronsan knew this would be the way he would end. The way to make amends. The way to salvation. The only way. Maybe this what Father Terry was trying to tell him. The good father unsure himself though. Doubts. Dan needing to experience everything that had happened to him since. The miracle of his flesh and blood, Kelley, breaking the sixteen year barrier and now a woman of twenty-three. Healthier than most her age. She had beat the devil. In love now even.

  Passing through the doorway now. Music. Seventies music. “Come on Eileen.” Dexy’s Midnight Runners blaring from somewhere inside the room… Louder and louder. Dan pausing as he felt for his cell phone with his other hand. Taking it out. The “No Service” text staring up at him. Mocking him. Taunting. Of course he should have known that the damn Swedish piece of crap wouldn’t work in here. Early days for cell technology notwithstanding.

  Dan sensing that God was punishing him for promoting the Svenson phones. Dan rationalizing with his standard “You get what you pay for” retort.

  “Damn it all, anyway,” muttering under his breath.

  Then he saw it. The man in the lab coat. Dan started to speak, but the lab coat disappeared behind a partition.

  Dan Bronsan here through an anonymous tip. One of his students at a seminar he had given on the Svenson cell phones that the Metropolitan Water Department was providing its employees had contacted him. Out of the blue. He had remembered Dan’s boast that he knew various intel sources in the government. This basic Bronsan bullshit was in this case possible world saving bullshit. Dan had told Benny, and he had in turn passed it on to Dusty Rhodes and Blasingame. The decision was made to follow up the tip which stated that a colleague of the informer was acting very strangely and had talked about Aum and rebirth through destruction. Now, as Benny, Dusty and scores of Japanese Defense Forces and American marines surrounded the building, Dan’s head telling him that this was complete insanity, yet he kept on moving further into what he now realized was a fully operating laboratory. The music louder now. The source a portable boom box sitting on some kind of a control panel at the far end of the room. Footsteps behind him now. Flashback to a horror not so long ago. The New Jersey Suite. The Monster. The feeling of impending doom. He turned. Hiroshi Aki, the father of Hanako who loved Barbie dolls stood before him.

  “I was expecting you. Someone anyway. Interesting times that we live in, Mr. Bronsan.”

  “How do you know who I am? What are you doing here? Who the hell are you?”

  The Japanese Water purification specialist stood at the control panel about three meters from the American. Various laboratory tools in front of him. This at least the perception of Dan Bronsan from his vantage point. All he could accurately make out were a few test tubes and what he had remembered from Chemistry 101 as a Bunsen burner. The burner on now, Dexy’s Midnight Runners winding down their pleas to the long forgotten Eileen.

  Aki holding up a test tube to the light. A liquid inside. Green in color. He addressed the American.

  “You don’t remember me? I was at your cell phone seminar a while back. I am the one who told you to come here. A tip I believe you call it. I have a daughter, Honaka is her name. As do you of course. I feel I know both of you, having followed you both in The Japan Times as well our own tabloids.”

  Aki turning the music down.

  “Yes, the 80’s. A truly unappreciated time in music, Mr. Bronsan.”

  “What the fuck is going on here?”

  “As I was saying, I have a young daughter. I want her to grow up in a world that…”

  Trailing off. Doing something with the test tube and the control panel.

  “Do you think this planet of ours will be here in ten years?”

  Dan Bronsan noting the man’s trembling hands. Focusing on the test tube now. Yes, definitely a test tube of some sort. The color of the fluid menacing for reasons that Dan Bronsan could not explain. At least not at this moment.

  “What are you doing there?”

  No answer. Looking down. Some kind of knob. A control of some kind. The control panel of course. Aki turning the knob.

  “Stop now!”

  A smile. Placid. Aki looking directly at Bronsan now.

  “The antidote. The salvation of the planet. The death of my beloved.”

  Aki began to cry. Turning to a whimper.

  “My daughter will die. A martyr.”

  It all became clear to Dan.

  “Aki San, Asahara is jailed. He is in solitary. He is unable to communicate with the outside world. All of his moles have been killed or captured. The nightmare is over.”

  “You can’t be…you wouldn’t lie to me, Mr. Bronsan?”

  The look from Dan said it all. It was all true. Asahara was neutralized. His daughter safe. The threat of a Madman not carried out.

  “I will ask you one more time. What are you doing?”

  “Antidote. Yes. The antidote. Please, I must concentrate.”

  “Antidote for what? Please stop what you are doing and answer my…”

  “The entire Tokyo Water Supply will be contaminated with ricin within hours. There is no time.”

  A button pushed. A low humming sound. Aki began pouring the contents of the tube into some unseen void. The button is pushed again. The humming sound stops. These actions taking place in a period of seconds.

  “Now, Mr. Bronsan, please in the name of what goodness there is left in the world, take me to my daughter, my precious daughter and prove that you speak the truth.”

  Of course Dan Bronsan had spoken the truth. As had Hiroshi Aki. There were a few cases of nausea reported in the Meguro district of Tokyo. No deaths though. In any case, the fact that minute traces of ricin were found in the Tokyo water supply was never reported to the public at large. Enough for Hiroshi Aki and Dan Bronsan to know that thousands, perhaps millions of lives had been saved by Aki’s quick action. The earlier incident with the poor lost soul, Akeno Mori at the Yamaguchi Reservoir had alerted Aki that terrible plans had been put in place. An initial test of some water samples near to where Mori had landed had indicated the presence of ricin. He had placed the antidote into the system after immediately closing the Yamaguchi Reservoir. As a result of this heroic feat, unknown to only a few high-placed intelligence operatives, Aki’s beloved daughter, Honaka, along with Mori’s daughter would be assured places at Tokyo University when the time came for Honoka to design her own Barbie doll.

  . . . . .

  The Japan Times covered the state funeral of the Irish Ambassador to Japan, the apparent victim of a brazen IRA assassination right in the heart of Roppongi.

  A month later, Adam and Keiko, with Kelley as the maid of honor, were married in the Sanno Ball Room. A magnum of Perrier was placed in their suite by Dan Bronsan. The newly renovated New Jersey Suite. Keiko appreciating the irony in the choice of the room as well as the carbonated beverage which helped to ease the morning sickness that she had recently started to experience. The child that doctors said she would never have would be a girl baby named Rose.

  The world would go on.

  . . . . .

  Unfortunately, due to what many in the West would consider very liberal sentencing guidelines, Shoko Asahara was not given the death penalty. Nor did he rot in prison. He spent less than three years in a high security mental hospital.