The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(107)

Larison was out of the car instantly, coming around the front, his gun up. “Hands up or die. Your choice.”

The guard chose the first alternative. In the earpiece, Delilah heard a similar transaction taking place with the fourth guard, in front of the residence.

A minute later, the guard was on the ground, wrists and ankles cuffed together behind his back, his gun and commo gear in Delilah’s bag.

“The residence guard is secured,” she heard John say. “Delilah, what’s your status?”

“Same. We’re on our way. We’ll be there in under a minute.”

Larison leaned down and checked the guard for a hidden handcuff key. When he was satisfied, he said, “It would have been easier to kill you. Safer, too. But we didn’t. We’re not going to be here long, and it has nothing to do with you. You understand?”

The guard nodded. “Yes.”

“I doubt there’s a neighbor close enough to hear a bomb go off here, let alone some shouting, but still I want you to promise me you’re not going to make any noise.”

“I promise.”

“You know what I’ll do if you break your promise?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Keep your word and I’ll keep mine.”

They got back in the Porsche and headed toward the main residence. Larison would join the rest of the team there. Delilah would drive Dox back to the teahouse, the highest point on the property and therefore the best spot to provide overwatch. Evie would bring the rest of the team, and Dash, and the horse and the dog, to the residence. They’d get what they needed from Grimble and be gone a few minutes after that.

If everything went according to plan.





chapter

seventy-one





RAIN


Rain paused in front of the main residence, bemused at the number of people around him. Dox was positioned on the roof of the teahouse with the sniper rifle. But that still left nine of them, plus Rain, at the residence: Delilah, Livia, Diaz, Manus, Evie, Dash, Maya, Larison, and Kanezaki. Not to mention the dog and the horse. Though at least the animals had stayed in the trailer. The humans had proven less persuadable.

The residence consisted of four separate buildings, each a beautiful example of the classic minka style: kayabuki-yane thatched roofs; hafu gables; kōshi mado latticed windows, everything perfectly proportioned and obviously incorporating only the finest materials. All of it was built out over the pond, connected by covered walkways, and interspersed with gardens of carefully tended niwaki trees, gravel, and stones set in subtle ishi o tateru koto—“rock arrangement”—patterns. Rain had never seen anything like it outside Kyoto. But unlike Kyoto, it was devoid of telephone and electric lines, modern architecture, the sounds of traffic, or anything else that would have been out of place in the seventeenth century. There was a cool breeze carrying a slight scent of cypress, and other than the birdsong and the distant sound of the waterfall by the teahouse, the area was soundless. If Rain hadn’t painstakingly built his own restored minka in Kamakura, he might have been envious. As it was, he was surprised at how wistful he suddenly felt. His mind rarely unlocked the box that contained memories of his mother, but it opened now. Kyō nite mo, kyō natsukashiya, she had said to him, holding his hand and quoting the wandering poet Bashō on a visit to the Kiyomizu temple complex in Kyoto when Rain was a boy. Though in Kyoto, I long for Kyoto. His mother had loved her adopted country in a way that, like Rain’s father, it had never really requited. For a moment he wished she could have seen what this gaijin Grimble had built here. He wished he could have shown it to her.

“John?” Kanezaki said. “Grimble’s phone is still in the residence’s main building—the bedroom. What do you think?”

Rain realized they’d been waiting for him. Lost in thought in the middle of an op . . . He was too old for this shit. And too sick of it. Delilah was right, he needed to get out. And stay out. While it was still up to him.

He looked at the various buildings, at the pond sparkling behind them. He had of course tried to imagine Grimble’s movements when they were back at the office, but that was when he’d been looking at schematics rather than the actual terrain.

Midafternoon. Unless Grimble was an exceptionally late sleeper or just enjoyed lounging in bed—which wouldn’t fit the profile of an entrepreneur—he’d be elsewhere now. Out of the bedroom, at least.

A lot of people kept their phones with them, even when moving around inside a house. But a recluse, or near-recluse, obsessed with a hobby, wouldn’t be like that. On top of which, Kanezaki had already confirmed that Grimble didn’t get many calls.

So where would a non-late riser, who didn’t make or get many calls, be if he were on the premises but not near his phone?

“Maya,” Rain said. “I think you were right. He’s got his Battle of Sekigahara setup in the northernmost building, right?”

Maya nodded. “As best as I could tell from the way the interviewer described it—the size and the view. Again, there were no pictures.”

“Okay,” Rain said. “Let’s start there.”

They walked to the northern end of the residential compound, scanning as they moved, until they came to the last of the four buildings there, a rectangle about a quarter the size of a football field, the length of it running south to north along the pond. They cut in along a gravel trail among a copse of black and white pine trees and came to a wooden door halfway along the eastern length. Rain knew from schematics that, like the other doors throughout the compound, this one was more solidly constructed than it looked. Maybe they could kick it open. A breach charge would be the surer bet, albeit noisier. But . . .