Summary
Like in bad dreams she has had, Mary runs for her life, her long golden hair flipping left and right. She doesn’t understand what is happening or why. The dark figure of Robert Sand steps from a doorway and puts a hand over her mouth. He reassures her she is safe with him; he comes on behalf of her father. She remembers meeting him at the ranch last year. He explains that he needs to stop the man who is after her so he doesn’t try to kidnap her again. The point of view switches to Winters, who turns a corner to see her long blonde hair. Just before Winters can shoot her, Sand flies from the shadows with a kick. He struggles with Winters briefly before kicking him into a plate glass window; a piece of the glass cuts the man’s throat like a guillotine. He speaks his wife Kathleen’s name as he dies.
Tolstoy arrives at Near’s door and rings the doorbell. Nervously, Near lets him and Dain inside. While Dain counts out four hundred thousand dollars, the phone rings. Tolstoy answers, saying it is a woman. He hands the phone to Near, and Mary puts Sand on. Sand tells Near to try to keep Tolstoy there. Near replies in ways that sound as if he is talking to his girlfriend. Near is encouraged to learn Sand has killed Winters, who Tolstoy waits for at Near’s. Tolstoy decides to leave for the guns now, suspecting something has gone wrong for Winters. Near has a small gun taped to the inside of the straw hat he puts on, just as Sand told him to.
Sand drives one of the cars he asked for, tailing the Colonel with his lights off. He knows where the munitions are: an empty barn on the outskirts of Moges. He’d waited with Mary at her hotel until marines and security men under Clarke’s employ had come to protect Mary and her friends. Near lets Tolstoy and his men inside the old barn. They inspect the military equipment and vehicles. Suddenly, Tolstoy asks Near where the Black Samurai is. He knocks Near to the ground. Dain bends down over him, and Near fires two shots. He begins crawling.
Sand hears Tolstoy unleash a grenade. The truck engines start up and pull away. Sand jumps down from the barn rafters. Dain throws another grenade toward Near, blowing his leg off. Sand brings Dain outside. The man dies in his arms as Sand demands to know where Toki is. Dain says, “UN. At the UN. Chinese, man. Chinese girl. UN.” Sand phones Clarke, who is in London, on the way to the airport to meet his daughter. Sand explains that he let the trucks get away, feeling an obligation to help Near rather than go after Tolstoy. Sand says he thinks the next hostage is a Chinese woman connected with the UN. They arrange to meet in New York, agreeing they won’t try to take Tolstoy alive.
Tolstoy’s plane leaves a derelict airfield in France, on track for a hidden airfield in Canada. They plan to destroy an American town called Shown, population 239, fifty miles on the other side of the Canadian border. Braeden is tasked with kidnapping the Chinese ambassador’s wife from New York and bringing her up to Shown. In New York, Sand meets with Clarke at his hotel. Mary thanks Sand by kissing him on the lips, causing Clarke some embarrassment and amusing Sand.
Clarke phones the current president to arrange a dinner between the ambassador, his wife, and the vice president in New York for the next night, knowing that’s when Tolstoy’s men will strike. Sand sleeps for twelve hours. He then goes to stake out the Chinese UN delegation’s building on the west side of Manhattan. He waits until the ambassador and his wife leave in a car. Sand and his driver, Pines, a Secret Service man on loan from Clarke, follow the limo as it crosses Central Park. A helicopter swoops low as two cars block in the limo. Black men led by Braeden jump out with guns. Clarke and his driver get out. Pines is shot in the stomach, but from the ground shoots one of Braeden’s men in the head as he tries to kidnap the Chinese woman. Sand fights three men with shotguns while watching Braeden escape to the helicopter with the woman.
Just as Braeden reaches the helicopter, Sand jumps from the whirl of dust and knocks Braeden down. Pines arrives and points his gun at the helicopter pilot. Sand gets Braeden in a chokehold and demands to know where Tolstoy is and what he is planning. Braeden tells him Tolstoy is in Knockton and the raid is planned for midnight in Shown. Pines and Sand agree that Pines will stay there while Sand holds the pilot captive and gets him to fly Sand to the airfield. In the chopper, Tolstoy radios in. Sand tells Dave, the pilot, not to answer. He makes him land on the north end of the airfield, pistol-whipping him once they’ve landed and taking the helicopter keys with him.
Sand steals into the darkness and finds a box of grenades on the back of a truck. He blows up the truck, which draws Tolstoy out of a tent with Toki held by the wrist. Behind them are two men with flame throwers on their backs. Tolstoy commands everyone to get into the plane, calling for Jerry, his last pilot. Sand waits with his pistol drawn for Jerry to get into the driver’s seat; Sand kills him with three shots. A helicopter lands and out jump four of Clarke’s men, led by Pines. Sand kills a man carrying a flamethrower with a bullet to the man’s fuel tank.
Tolstoy holds his gun to Toki’s neck and calls out for Sand, demanding he show himself or the girl dies. Sand moves under the plane, all his training building to this moment. Swiftly, he appears under Tolstoy and Toki, pulling Toki down from Tolstoy’s grasp while Pines fires at Tolstoy, buying Sand time. Sand then throws his sword at Tolstoy’s throat. He crumples forward. Pines runs out and says it’s the greatest move he’s seen in his life. Toki and Sand embrace, saying I love you to each other in Japanese.
The novel ends with a scene set two days later. Sand watches Toki’s plane leave, then gets in a limousine with Clarke and Pines. They ask him why he sent her away. Sand explains that she is married to an honorable man, and is committed to him. He says he never told her he loved her until two days ago, and in Japan, a woman waits for a man to ask her to marry him. It’s his fault because he never asked. The car rolls toward New York City.
Analysis
Olden begins Chapter Eighteen with an instance of dramatic irony. Briefly shifting to the point of view of Mary Clarke, Olden’s omniscient narrator details her terror as she runs away from Winters, oblivious to what has been happening. Luckily for Mary, Sand soon appears, reaching her before Winters. The theme of deception arises again as Sand enlists Mary’s help in entrapping Winters, using Mary as bait while Sand jumps from the shadows and ends Winters’s life.
The theme of deception continues with another instance of dramatic irony: while Tolstoy and his men unexpectedly arrive at Coleman Near’s warehouse to discuss their arms deal, Near receives a call from Mary and Sand, who pretends to be Near’s girlfriend. Tolstoy stands oblivious to the true content of Near’s call while Near listens to Sand’s instructions, responding as though he is speaking to a romantic partner. The dramatic irony continues as the narrator comments on how Near has attached a gun to the inside of his hat, as Tolstoy and his men do not think to search there. With this detail, Olden increases the dramatic tension as Near and Tolstoy head for the countryside munitions supply.
Despite the reader’s expectation that Tolstoy had been oblivious to Near’s communication with Sand over the phone, it turns out that Tolstoy suspected collaboration all along. Once at the barn full of munitions, Tolstoy double-crosses Near, accusing him of working with the Black Samurai. As Near defends himself against the terrorists, Sand drops down from his hiding spot in the barn rafters and tries, in vain, to save the courageous man. Meanwhile, Tolstoy makes an escape in the military trucks Near was selling him. However, Sand collects from Dain the crucial information that they are planning to kidnap a third woman.
The next stop in the story is New York City, where Sand reconnects with Clarke to plot their next move. The theme of deception comes up again as the men plan to lure out Tolstoy’s men by setting up a dinner date for their next target, the wife of the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations. When Braeden and his men descend on the woman and her husband in the middle of Central Park, Sand and the Secret Service agent Frank Pines are waiting to thwart their kidnapping. The theme of deception continues as Sand forces the helicopter pilot to bring him straight to Tolstoy at the Canadian airfield from which he intends to launch his attack.
In the novel’s climactic scene, Sand finally has his showdown with Tolstoy, who has managed to evade him in France, Vietnam, and Japan. No longer trying to escape Sand, Tolstoy boldly stands in the open, beckoning Sand to show himself while he holds a gun to Toki’s neck. Once again, Sand uses his cunning to deceive his opponent, sneaking under the plane Tolstoy stands on and leaping up to pull Toki out of the man’s grasp. The risky move proves successful, and Sand finishes Tolstoy off with the special tanto sword Konuma awarded to him. With this final act of righteous violence, Sand puts Tolstoy’s reign of terror to an end.
Although Toki and Sand, reunited, finally say aloud that they love each other, they do not end up together at the end of the book. In a bittersweet instance of situational irony, Sand watches as she flies back to her husband in Vietnam. Having spent the book serving others, Sand realizes that he has been suppressing his true feelings for too long, and he admits his regret for not having told Toki he loved her when he had the chance. In another instance of situational irony, Sand’s rejection of Toki sent her into the arms of her current husband. Despite achieving his goal of avenging Konuma’s death and rescuing Toki, Sand reveals that what he really wants is still out of grasp.
