The Orphan Master's Son Read Free

exchanged a look.
    Officer So said to Gil, “Tell him what ‘how are you’ was again.”
    â€œOgenki desu ka,”
Gil said.
    â€œOgenki desu ka,”
Jun Do repeated.
“Ogenki desu ka.”
    â€œSay it like ‘How are you, my fellow citizen?’
Ogenki desu ka
,” Officer So said. “Not like how are you, I’m about to pluck you off this fucking beach.”
    Jun Do asked, “Is that what you call it, plucking?”
    â€œA long time ago, that’s what we called it.” He put on a fake smile. “Just say it nice.”
    Jun Do said, “Why not send Gil? He’s the one who speaks Japanese.”
    Officer So returned his eyes to the water. “You know why you’re here.”
    Gil asked, “Why’s he here?”
    Officer So said, “Because he fights in the dark.”
    Gil turned to Jun Do. “You mean that’s what you do, that’s your career?” he asked.
    â€œI lead an incursion team,” Jun Do said. “Mostly we run in the dark, but yeah, there’s fighting, too.”
    Gil said, “I thought my job was fucked up.”
    â€œWhat was your job?” Jun Do asked.
    â€œBefore I went to language school?” Gil asked. “Land mines.”
    â€œWhat, like defusing them?”
    â€œI wish,” Gil said.
    They closed within a couple hundred meters of shore, then trolled along the beaches of Kagoshima Prefecture. The more the light faded, the more intricately Jun Do could see it reflected in the architecture of each wave that rolled them.
    Gil lifted his hand. “There,” he said. “There’s somebody on the beach. A woman.”
    Officer So backed off the throttle and took the field glasses. He held them steady and fine-tuned them, his bushy white eyebrows lifting and falling as he focused. “No,” he said, handing the binoculars back to Gil. “Look closer, it’s two women. They’re walking together.”
    Jun Do said, “I thought you were looking for a guy?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” the old man said. “As long as the person’s alone.”
    â€œWhat, we’re supposed to grab just anybody?”
    Officer So didn’t answer. For a while, there was nothing but the sound of the Vpresna. Then Officer So said, “In my time, we had a whole division, a budget. I’m talking about a speedboat, a tranquilizing gun. We’d surveil, infiltrate, cherry-pick. We didn’t pluck family types, and we never took children. I retired with a perfect record. Now look at me. I must be the only one left. I’ll bet I’m the only one they could find who remembers this business.”
    Gil fixed on something on the beach. He wiped the lenses of the binoculars, but really it was too dark to see anything. He handed them to Jun Do. “What do you make out?” he asked.
    When Jun Do lifted the binoculars, he could barely discern a male figuremoving along the beach, near the water—he was just a lighter blur against a darker blur, really. Then some motion caught Jun Do’s eye. An animal was racing down the beach toward the man—a dog it must’ve been, but it was big, the size of a wolf. The man did something and the dog ran away.
    Jun Do turned to Officer So. “There’s a man. He’s got a dog with him.”
    Officer So sat up and put a hand on the outboard engine. “Is he alone?”
    Jun Do nodded.
    â€œIs the dog an akita?”
    Jun Do didn’t know his breeds. Once a week, the orphans had cleaned out a local dog farm. Dogs were filthy animals that would lunge for you at any opportunity—you could see where they’d attacked the posts of their pens, chewing through the wood with their fangs. That’s all Jun Do needed to know about dogs.
    Officer So said, “As long as the thing wags its tail. That’s all you got to worry about.”
    Gil said, “The Japanese train their dogs to