Flashback

Malcolm dropped his arm and shrugged. “To be honest, I-Twenty-five may be the slightly better bet this week. Gallagos’s cannibals have extended their raiding circle from the old Philmont Boy Scout camp near Cimarron along the canyon highway. The Duchess’s cavalry hasn’t been clearing the last thirty miles of Highway Sixty-four of obstacles and bandits the way she usually has them do… some say she’s died. Maybe in all the confusion after the battle, the Interstate Twenty-five route gives you a slightly better chance of going undetected. There’s a chance of that. Maybe. Small chance.”

Sato nodded, shook hands with the major, and led Nick out of the trailer and down the hill to where the two tan, modified Toyota Land Cruisers they’d be driving into New Mexico sat by the side of the road. Tanks were parked in the turnouts near the summit of the pass and Nick could see National Guard artillery units along the ridgeline to the north and south. The dragonfly ’copter had already departed.

The four ninjas working for Sato were waiting by the vehicles. When Sato had introduced the four young men to Nick—Joe,” “Willy,” “Toby,” and “Bill”—all Nick could say in response to their nods was “Uh-huh.” It reminded him of when he was a child before the turn of the century and would call for tech help on his computer or software and the heavily accented voice from somewhere in India would say “My name is Joe.” Uh-huh.

The four had been in faded jeans and cheap noninteractive T-shirts when Nick had met them, but in the short period he and Sato had been in Major Malcolm’s trailer, they’d changed into their body armor. This was a serious transformation. No black ninja slippers and clothing and balaclavas for these four boys. Their hideously expensive post-dragon body armor—seemingly as thin as silk covered with overlapping scales—was based on samurai armor from the eighth or tenth century A.D. or some such time. Each man’s armor was different, but each included studded shoulder pads, a sort of skirt, a helmet, studded gloves, and shin guards.

“Whoa,” said Nick, staring. “As my son would say, those are totally coolshit.”

“Hai,” grunted Joe. He was the only one of the four wearing his helmet and it was an impressive piece of work, complete with elaborately carved horns or small-hockey-stick-shaped prongs that clicked up from their inset place along the curve of the otherwise modern Kevlar-9 impact-armored headpiece.

Nick pointed to the helmet extensions. “Joe, do you mind me asking what the superhero antelope prongs there are about?”

“Clan symbols,” Joe grunted fiercely. But some of the ferocity was offset by the young mercenary’s sudden grin and by the fact that he was chewing gum. “Nakamura clan,” he added with no grin.

Nick looked at the other three helmets held under the men’s left arms as they waited by the open doors of the Land Cruisers. All had the same elaborately painted, click-up Nakamura-clan-symbol goalpost horns. So, Nick realized, Sato’s men weren’t just ronin, masterless mercenaries—they were some sort of ninja-samurai bushi not just in the employ of Hiroshi Nakamura but almost certainly fanatically loyal to the Nakamura family corporation.

“What are these things called?” asked Nick, pointing to but not quite touching Joe’s dangling shoulder pads. They looked heavy, but Nick realized that they were made of the same superlight Kevlar-9 woven material as the rest of the body armor.

“Sendan-no-ita, kyubi-no-ita,” said Joe.

Nick thought that this was a long name for a relatively small shoulder pad. “And why the extra layer of red K-nine on the left arm and not the right?”

Toby answered. He was the shortest and slimmest of the four young fighters, but his voice was almost absurdly deep. “The extra left-arm armor is called kote, Bottom-san. It can be held up quickly to deflect a sword thrust or bullet. It’s only on the left arm because the right arm must be free to allow the samurai to fire a bow.”

“Or a nine-K-forty-six Igla shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile,” added Bill as he tapped a cylindrical case strung over his shoulder.

Sato came around the closer Land Cruiser. The security chief was in his own samurai armor—all red, pure blood red, including the helmet and metallic mask. Although the mask was pushed back on his head and not yet in place, Nick could see that it had some sort of pale, whiskery fibers protruding from it like white whiskers. An actual samurai sword—sheathed—was in the stocky man’s belt.

Nick had no urge whatsoever to laugh.

“Tsugi no fourtsu desu ka yaban to jdan owa~tsu ta no?” Sato barked at his four fighters.

The four young men bowed at once. And they bowed low.

“Hai! Junbi ga deki te, bosu ni id shi masu,” said Joe.