第101节

ccess road beyond the eastern edge of the

field.

Shouting above the tumult, Toshiro Hase-Gawa called upon the garrison

commander to pull back his own small force. By the convoluted laws of

protocol, he himself could not leave the field before the

Consul-General, and he was thus obliged to remain astride his terrified

horse.

It was a parade animal, unused to being subjected to a rain of fiery

projectiles, and was now circling restlessly, pitting its strength

against his. Eyes rolling, teeth bared, neck arched, it tried its

utmost to grasp the bit between its teeth, but Toshiro held the reins

in a vice-like grip, drawing the horse's foaming jaws against its

chest. His own eyes were fixed on a more tranquil animal; the

flying-horse now circling high overhead.

Come on, Brickman! What are you waiting for?

Steve had already handed the transmitter to Clearwater and the tip of

her finger was, at that very instant, exerting a downward pressure on

the appropriate button.

Having just witnessed the inexplicable destruction of his escort, the

Consul-General's initial terror returned. His fears had not been

groundless. The kami had held back their anger, choosing to strike at

a moment when they could inflict the greatest possible humiliation on

the vain and foolish men who had dared, once again, to flout the divine

plan!

They had been taught a richly deserved lesson. But he was an innocent

passenger; his only error that of blind obedience to his sovereign

liege-lord. And here he was in mortal danger of .being consumed by a

fiery thunderbolt from heaven!

Oh, Ameratsu-Omikami! Have pity on this unwilling trespasser who was

driven by duty alone to set foot in your cloudy domain! If I must

forfeit my life for this foolish act, then let me die an honourable

death with a sword in my hand! I will face it unflinchingly this very

day! This very hour! But let it be among men, with the ground beneath

my feet!

Forcing his bulky body round in his seat, the Consul shouted to the

samurai pilot. 'I wish to alight! Go down!

Go down!" As the wind tore the words from his mouth, the pilot and the

centre-section of the flying-horse was suddenly engulfed in an

orange-white sheet of flame. The smooth forward motion ended with a

sickening lurch and the Consul-General, the right side of his face now

hideously seared and blistered, his sightless eye steaming in its

socket and with the back of his robe on fire, found himself projected

into a world where sky and earth revolved and became one.

He clutched desperately at the sides of the cockpit in an effort to

steady himself, but the wooden structure around him came apart in his

hands. The straps that held him to his seat slipped from his shoulders

and he found himself floating on a cushion of air. Below him lay a

patchwork quilt of red, brown and orange fields. The world had stopped

spinning; had separated once more into earth and sky.

The shock of what was happening, the suffocating rush of air, numbed

the shrieking pain and drove the terror from his mind. His education

had not included the chilling fact that bodies in free fall accelerate

at a rate of 32 feet per second until they reach a speed of 120

m.p.h.

A velocity that is terminal in every sense of the word.

At 2,000 feet, with arms and legs outstretched, you still have a few

moments left in which to feel you could fly for ever and that - if you

only knew the secret - you could skim down like a bird in a graceful

curve to alight gently on your feet. It is only when you pass through

the 1,000-foot mark that you suddenly realise the ground is rising to

meet you at a frightening speed and that it is all going to end quite

differently.

Cowering under the canopy of their box and surrounded protectively by

their bodyguards, YamaShita and Min-Orota watched with appalled

fascination as the Consul-General plummeted to earth, arms and legs

flailing like a deranged mechanical doll. Wonderful.

Toshiro had long awaited this moment, but he still flinched as the

Consul-General punched a six-inch-deep outline of his body into the

ground and split open like an over-ripe melon. And so it ends...