James Bond - 042 - The Man With the Red Tattoo by Raymond Benson

Author:Raymond Benson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller, Thrillers, Men's Adventure, Espionage
ISBN: 0515135631
Publisher: Jove
Published: 2003-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

THE DESIRE FOR DEATH

IT HAD HAPPENED AGAIN.

Goro Yoshida awoke in his bunker and had to shake off the remnants of another nightmare. It was a recurring one, something that normally wouldn’t have disturbed him if it hadn’t been for Yukio Mishima’s role in it.

In the dream, Yoshida was kneeling on the floor, naked to the waist, and was prepared to commit ritual seppuku. Mishima, his mentor, stood over him with a sword, ready to cut off Yoshida’s head. The problem was that when Yoshida attempted to plunge the dagger into his belly, the skin wouldn’t budge. The blade just wouldn’t penetrate. Mishima would get angry and yell that Yoshida was a coward. And just as Mishima raised the sword to lop off Yoshida’s head, Goro would wake up.

There was no morning sun in the bunker. That had been the most difficult thing about going into exile and having to live underground. Yoshida used to enjoy rising with the sun. It was said that dawn was the ideal time to commit seppuku. At the end of one of Yoshida’s favourite books by Mishima, the hero gallantly commits ritual seppuku on a mountaintop, plunging the dagger into his belly just as the “bright disk of the sun soared up and exploded behind his eyelids.”

The digital clock indicated that it was indeed morning. It was time to get up. There was much work to be done, but instead Yoshida lay there wallowing in memories of the man he admired so much.

Yoshida had been a part of Mishima’s Shield Society, the private army that the poet and novelist had formed in the late 1960s as a token of his dedication to the emperor and to the traditional values of Japan. Yoshida had looked up to Mishima-san and revered the sensei’s every word. He volunteered to be a cadet in the Shield Society and trained along with Mishima and the rest of the students. He worked to improve his body and mind with kendo and other martial arts. He read the doctrines prescribed by his mentor. He was prepared to follow Mishima in whatever the sensei chose to do.

Then Mishima learned that Yoshida was involved with the yakuza. Even though he was an intelligent and freethinking individual, Mishima did not approve. It was true that Mishima had right-wing tendencies and believed in many of the same principles as the yakuza did, such as the purification of Japan, but he drew the line at organised crime. Mishima told Yoshida that he must leave the Shield Society.

Yoshida had never felt so disgraced in his life. The man he looked up to had dismissed him. Yoshida had wanted to commit seppuku then and there, but his friends in the yakuza convinced him not to. He was persuaded to use his knowledge and skills for the good of the Ryujin-kai, where he could someday become a kaicho.

And so Yoshida turned his back on the Shield Society and tried to forget about Yukio Mishima until that fateful day in November

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