Free Enzan: The Far Mountain by John Donohue

and threaded my way through the crowd at top speed. The floor was slippery, but I kept it up, heading for the lower concourse and the Long Island Railroad. A bend in the hallway would have put me briefly out of sight of my pursuer. I went faster, using the staircase instead of the elevators, and then jagged left toward track 18. The green panels were flickering and announcing the Babylon Express. People were flowing to the track entrance, a thick river of commuters overheating in their coats as they rushed to make the train. I stood to one side and looked to my right. A figure came pounding down the stairs toward the concourse. He stood out because he wasn’t focused on a destination. Everyone else in that place was moving like a guided missile toward a target. But the man rushing down the stairs was looking all over the place, frantic to catch sight of me.
    But I’d already seen what I needed to and I flowed along with the crowd, down to the train platform. I kept walking to the other end of the station, pushing my way up against the flow of homebound commuters. I left Penn on Eighth Avenue and walked across to Herald Square.
    I caught the N back to Brooklyn.
    If you ride the trains enough, the jolt and sway lulls you into a type of trance. The announcements come; the doors open and close. You hear the whine of the electric motor and the distant screech of the wheels as they take a curve in the tracks. People read, or nap, or stare off into the distance. Eye contact is frowned upon. It’s almost soothing. Or it would be if the molded plastic seats were actually sized for an adult human being.
    I thought about the situation. People follow you because you are doing something they want to know about. Ito was going to get a report on what I was doing. It made no sense for him to have someone follow me. Someone might also wish to tail me simply because they didn’t trust me. But again, if Ito didn’t trust me, why contact me in the first place?
    The final option: Someone was keeping tabs on me so they would know what I was doing before Ito did. This meant things were a little more complex than they seemed.
    The subway rattled through Brooklyn. I got off at Fifty-Ninth Street just for a change of pace. The Chinese would get off at the Eighth Avenue stop. The sights and sounds of the neighborhood were familiar and my feeling of being followed was gone. I had lost my tail back in Penn Station. I thought about the man on the stairs at Penn, frantically scanning the crowd in the train station. I smiled.
    Goro, you impetuous devil .

Chapter 6
    Burke . The voice was clear. Insistent. The sound rang in my head, tolling with strange clarity. A summons unbidden, jerking my eyes open and making my heart pound.
    Darkness. I lay for a moment in bed, wondering. The voice comes to me, but I am never sure whose it is. It could be Yamashita’s, or that of an old love. Perhaps it is a simple stirring of my conscience. But it comes in the tail end of the night, when the stars fade and the sleeping world begins to hum awake.
    I rolled out of bed, the wood floor cold on my feet. I left the kitchen light off, working by feel as I set up the coffee. I like to be in the dark and sense the dawn slowly wash over me. The dining room is high ceilinged and I had emptied it of furniture a long time ago. There is a sword rack along the wall and two windows that open toward the sea. Across the tar-papered rooftops of Brooklyn and the cement arc of the Gowanus Expressway, the lights on the top of Verrazano Bridge were still bright.
    The day begins with discipline. Then coffee. I sank to the floor and stretched, warming my way through old injuries, loosening up muscles and a frozen shoulder joint. There was an early training session at the dojo, and I needed to be ready.
    When I was done stretching, I held the coffee mug to my face; the steam played across my skin. I wondered about the voice that had awoken me. I wondered at my involvement with the Miyazaki