I came to the first floor and looked out at the entranceway of the building. For a second I pictured the way she had hugged me here. It already seemed like a long time ago. I felt an unpleasant mixtur...
Fat droplets of rain started spattering against the city’s concrete skin, against the glass windows of its eyes. A few people with umbrellas opened them. The rest ran for cover. I walked on, through i...
Both women had been wearing earbuds—one of the many things Livia taught her self-defense students never to do, because demonstrating both that you can’t hear and that you’re too naïve to know better i...
Traversed
Sold to the public on false pretenses, high officials confessing to ordering torture in violation of treaty and domestic law, and an economic meltdown even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greensp...
Long-ago lifetime.
Yukiko walked over, her mouth stretching into a feline grin at the sight of Murakami. Naomi followed a moment later. She was wearing another elegant black cocktail dress, this one silk, fitted at the...
When I was ready, I eased in beside him. Immediately I felt my muscles trying to shrink back from the heat, and knew that in a moment they would give up their fruitless struggle and surrender to delir...
When I had found a payphone in a suitably innocuous location, I inserted a phone card and punched in Tatsu’s number. I could have just ignored him, but it was hard to predict what he might do in respo...
We were quiet for a few moments. Then she said, You were right. I wouldn’t have reacted so sharply if what you were saying were untrue. These are things I’ve been thinking about a lot, and I haven’t b...
The walls flickered in the candlelight. The room felt close and warm, like an underground sanctuary.
The waiter brought the drinks. After he had moved silently away, I looked at her and said, You’re not involved in any of this? She looked into her glass. Several seconds went by. You want an honest an...
That was the dirty little secret of 9/11,
Some vicious thing inside me stirred. I felt it in my gut, the back of my neck, my hands. I thought of Musashi, the master swordsman, who wrote, You must think of neither victory nor of defeat, but on...
I walked on, my footfalls melancholy, respectful of the thick silence around me. Unlike the surrounding city, Aoyama Bochi is changeless, and I had no difficulty finding what drew me despite the decad...
I paused before the door and used the SoldierVision to confirm the hallway was clear before opening it.
I nodded my head at him and gave a small wave of acknowledgment, the gesture communicating, Oh there you are, good. I started walking over. His head turtled in a fraction and his body tensed in the in...
He moves like a cat, hears like a dog, and hides like a rabbit. And strikes like a damn rattlesnake.
Had I not known that I was dead already I would have mourned my loss of life. —last words of Ota Dokan, scholar of military arts and poet, 1486
Context had reinforced familiarity, and familiarity had blinded them to new possibilities.