but not so loud you had to shout to be heard. Movie posters and surfboards were plastered on the walls. Diner-style booths with bright red naugahyde cushions and laminate tables reminded Annja of the 1950s-style joints she’d seen back home.
The hostess led them past a bunch of tables packed with Japanese teens adorned with body piercings and colorful spiked red hair. She felt their eyes roam over her body and now wished she’d worn something less clinging than what she had on.
More than the way they looked at her, though, she was alarmed by the way they checked Ken out. Several of them shifted in their seats, and Annja felt her own instincts buzz. Were they going to jump them? And if so, why?
“Annja.”
Ken’s voice brought her back to reality. He smiled at her and Annja smiled back. “Sorry.”
“Forget about them. They’re just teppo .”
Annja frowned. “I’ve heard that word before—”
Ken nodded. “It means ‘bullet’. It’s what they call the kids who have just joined a Yakuza gang. They’re low-level thugs who are used for intimidation. They extort money. Some of them run small-time prostitution rings or sell drugs on the side. And tragically, most of them are dead before they’re twenty years old.”
“That’s horrible,” Annja said. She’d seen enough of youth involved in crime to know the statistics could be devastatingly similar in the States, if not worse.
“Stupid, more likely,” Ken said. “None of these kids have come from the lower class. They’ve all been recruited from the middle class. They have all their options open to them, but they choose instead to forsake the sacrifices their parents made simply because they think it’s cool to be in a gang. It’s very different in America, where the economics of poverty breed new generations of criminals. Here, it’s a fad to be involved. And a stupid one at that.”
A waitress on roller skates glided up to their table. Annja cracked the menu and ordered a hamburger.
The waitress smiled. “Would you like corn on that?”
Annja blanched. “Excuse me?”
Ken chuckled. “We put corn on a lot of things. Pizza, too.”
Annja shook her head. “Just lots of cheese, lettuce, ketchup and mayonnaise. No corn. Oh, and I’d like a large glass of water.”
Ken ordered a plate of Buffalo wings and a beer. “I miss the States and come here for my wing fix. If I could get Sam Adams beer here, I’d be really happy.”
“Where did you go to school? That is why you were there, right?”
Ken nodded. “Georgetown for undergrad. Harvard for my master’s.”
“In what?”
“Partying, most likely. I was something of a nut in school.” He smiled but then corrected himself. “My degree is in languages. Sanskrit, Tibetan and Nepali.”
Annja leaned back. “Impressive.”
“I had an ulterior motive for it. One we’ll discuss shortly.”
Their food arrived faster than Annja would have thought. After carefully checking her cheeseburger for any sign of corn, she took a huge bite. Tasting the juices and melted cheese run into her mouth, she moaned. “This is incredible.”
“It’s better with the corn,” Ken said around a mouthful of wings.
“You’ve got sauce on your face, champ.” Annja washed down her bite with a long sip from her water.
Ken wiped his mouth. “So that’s what was stinging.” He took a healthy pull on his beer and then tore into the rest of his plate as if he hadn’t eaten in a long while.
Annja devoured her burger and found the fries just as tasty. She and Ken ate in relative silence for the next few minutes until at last, Annja leaned back, wiped her mouth and sighed. “That was a great meal.”
Ken finished his beer and gestured to the waitress. He glanced at Annja. “How about a beer?”
“Sure.” Annja normally didn’t drink alcohol after a fight, but she was full and relaxed and eating with a handsome man. One drink wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Ken held up two fingers and then turned back to Annja, with a serious expression. “My family line is very old. Over one thousand years in fact. I’m descended from a long line of warriors. One of my ancestors was presented with a relic far back in Japan’s history.”
Annja glanced around the restaurant. “How far are we talking here?”
“A.D. 560.”
Annja blinked. “You weren’t kidding about a long family line. I never knew the name Ogawa stretched back that far.”
“Ogawa is nothing so special. It’s more the lineage itself that is important. But martial-arts lineages aren’t normally named after people. They’re instead named after an idea, concept or even a geographical location.” He smiled. “Forgive me, I’m sure you know all of this already.”
“Actually, my knowledge of Japanese martial arts is fairly rudimentary.”
Ken nodded. “My family’s lineage is known as the Yumegakure-ryu. It means ‘hidden dream.’ We were employed by the Regent Prince Shotoku Taishi during his reign and by almost every ruler since then.”
Annja frowned. “That’s a lot longer than most historians would argue records have been kept.”
“Most historians are a bunch of academics who have little common sense about the very things they claim expertise in. They sit in dusty offices, using only books to make their sometimes ridiculous claims,” Ken said.
Annja grinned. She knew more than a few people who fit that description exactly. “I’m something of a historian myself, though. You think I fit the same mold as they do?”
The waitress brought their beer and Ken hoisted his in Annja’s direction. “I don’t know too many academics who would have the courage to fight for three hours in the budokan. Kempai .”
“Kempai,” Annja said.
They drank together and then Ken rested his glass on the tabletop and leaned forward. “Besides, you’re an archaeologist. And you do your best work in the field. That’s your real value to me. I need you to help me find something that was stolen from my family a long time ago.”
“What is it?” Annja asked, feeling the excitement that always accompanied a new challenge.
Ken leaned back. “My ancestors, for their service to Prince Shotoku, were awarded a very special relic known as a vajra. It means ‘thunderbolt’. Prince Shotoku had the small sceptre made specially for my ancestors, and legend has it that it was also endowed with certain, shall we say, mystical qualities.”
“What kind of mystical qualities?” Annja grinned as she thought about how just a few years ago she would have scoffed at the idea of mystical properties in relics. How times had changed.
Ken shrugged. “Probably nothing. After all, have you ever seen anything that defied rational thought in all your travels?”
Annja felt a twinge in her stomach. How would Ken react if she said, “Well, sure, I’ve got this magical sword that I can pull out of thin air if I get into trouble.”
Instead she only smiled. “Go on.”
“I suppose it might have been more a matter of what it represented—that it was given by a powerful ruler to my family so that we would continue to be a force for good and balanced thought against those who might use their power to prevail in an opposite direction. But its loss led to the eventual downfall of my family. Gradually, over many years, the Yumegakure-ryu began to die out. I am, in fact, the last descendant.”
“Only you? There’s no one