Tengu. John Donohue
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Art said. “I knew just what I was doing . . . though I did come away with a strong desire to never go camping again.”
My brother snorted and drank some beer. Both men smirked in remembrance of things that I, a lifelong civilian, would never know.
I held up a hand. “Boys. Please. I can swear that I have no desire to enlist.”
“Enlist?” Art asked. “You’re too old.”
“Too weird,” Micky added.
“So what are we talking about?” I asked. I paused and added with emphasis, “Is it . . . the thing?” It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
Art got up and made sure the door was shut. It has a habit of popping open at odd moments. Micky’s carpentry is effective but rarely precise.
My brother eyed his partner. Art came back to his seat and sat forward, cradling his beer bottle in his hands. “Okay. Look. I got this call about you.”
“I didn’t do it,” I grinned. But neither man smiled back.
“Seems your fame is spreading, Connor,” Micky snickered. “Someone wants to know whether you’re the real deal.”
I sighed. I’ve been in the paper a few times over the last couple of years. I get some mail from martial artists who yearn to know “what it’s like to put your skills to the ultimate test.” That’s the way one guy put it. Some people confuse real life with a movie. I hate to break the news to them: being on the sharp end of events is scary and exhausting. There’s no sound track. No guarantee of a satisfying ending. When I think back, and I try not to, I’m left with a jumble of memories; my mouth so dry I couldn’t swallow, the feel of another human being’s waning heat. There’s the smell of blood and the crackle of radios when the ambulances arrive, as well as the flush of guilt, relief, and surprise. Finally, I recall the desire to sleep forever.
I looked at my brother and his partner, then held my hand out. “Come on. What’s up?”
Art licked his lips. “I got a semi-official inquiry about you. Guy I knew years ago in the service named Baker.” He looked at Micky and said, “He re-upped and made a career out of it.”
Micky shrugged and made a face that said we all screw our lives up in unique ways.
“This Baker sounds like a real hard-charger,” Micky continued. “You know, Special Forces stuff: parachutes, scuba gear, sneaking around, cutting throats . . . ” He looked up at Art. “Like someone else I know.”
His partner shrugged. “Yeah, well, I was young and foolish once, too.”
I sat forward. Special Forces? This was a part of Art’s life that I knew nothing about. Micky saw the look on my face and laughed tightly.
Art shot him a dirty look, and continued. “Baker loved all that crap. After I mustered out, I lost touch. But you hear things . . . he’s been involved in all kinds of stuff.”
Micky looked at me. “Like the martial arts.”
“Aha,” I said, ever alert to a clue.
“Aha,” Art echoed.
“They did some sort of basic hand-to-hand training when I was in the Marines,” Micky said.
I nodded. “Basically judo and jujutsu, from what I’ve read.”
“Yeah,” Art added. “That and the more subtle techniques like jump on the enemy’s head once you knock him down.” He reminisced for a minute. “Simple, yet effective.”
“So what’s Baker want?” I asked, trying to get them back on track.
Art fished a note out of his pocket. “He’s involved with some new unarmed system fighting they’re teaching.” He looked at the small piece of scrap paper. “It’s based at Fort Bragg at something called CERG.”
“Let me guess, “I said, “the Center for Effective . . . ” I trailed off, at a loss for inspiration, but sure that I was on the right track. The military loves acronyms.
“Close, but no cigar. It’s the Combat Effectiveness Research Group.”
“Seems important, yet extremely vague,” Micky said. “Now I’m sure this is something related to our government.”
Art gave his partner a look, then faced me. “Anyway, Baker’s always on the prowl for new ideas and techniques . . . ”
“New blood,” I suggested.
“Fresh meat,” Micky corrected.
“ . . . and he had read a bit about you. He made the connection between you and Micky, then between Micky and me, and was making some inquiries about you.”
“What did you tell him?”
Art held up a finger, “Well, we both spoke with him. I said you were an academic, a writer of fine, yet obscure tomes . . . ”
“I said you had a knack for pissing people off and getting into trouble,” my brother continued.
Art nodded thoughtfully at the comment. “It’s true, you know, Connor.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “And I say that as a friend.”
I shrugged his hand off and smiled. “Will you cut that out?” I looked at Micky. “What else did you say?”
For once, my brother’s face lost its usual sarcastic look. We both had light blue eyes and the same smirky facial expressions that had outraged countless nuns in our bumpy progress through parochial school. But it was gone now and he was very quiet and very serious.
“I told him,” Micky said in a careful voice, “that I had seen you do some remarkable things in some tough situations.”
Art added, “I told Baker I thought that you were the real deal.”
“Hmm,” I said, momentarily surprised at them both.
Then Micky reverted to type. “We also told him you needed a job.”
“He said he’d contact you,” Art supplied. “He may have a proposition.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
Art, however, did. He sat back and took a long sip of his beer. “Baker’s a wild man, Connor. Keep your eyes open. But look on the bright side.”
Micky and I looked at Art skeptically.
“Your mother will be so pleased,” he told the two of us, beaming.
The video footage was flat, and it obscured the subtlety of angle and timing. The old teacher regretted that. But the audience wasn’t trained to appreciate subtlety and the outcome was clear enough. That was all that mattered.
They watched it without comment, which was unusual. They were garrulous as a rule, excitable, and given to flowery discussion. The small old Japanese man in the corner was just the opposite. Words leaked from him in a cadence that was shaped by patience, the slow drip of insight squeezed out drop by drop only by the force of necessity. He felt no need for speech, certainly not here. The image on the television screen spoke for him.
The group’s mission had not moved him, but their timing had suited his purpose. They believed that they had sought him out. In reality, it had not been difficult for him to attract them. He would have preferred to remain in the mountains of his home islands, desiring familiar territory in which to execute his attack. But it was not to be—that meddler from Tokyo had seen to that.
They had asked for his knowledge and he had come, knowing that what they sought was a thing that was easy to bestow. It merely needed devotion, and they had that quality in abundance. He had left one island chain for another, abandoning the peaks and rice fields of his ancestors,