by Wilson, Gar
Everyone sighed with relief when they arrived at Chiba without encountering any obstacles.
Although much smaller than Tokyo, Chiba is a modern city with high-rise apartment towers, office buildings and a steadily growing population. Many residents of Chiba commute to Tokyo or work at the local harbors. In time Chiba will probably become part of Tokyo, since the capital of Japan continues to grow, swallowing suburbs, turning everything into a massive metropolis.
The motorcade arrived at the Migato hotel. A squad of policemen, both Tokyo and Chiba officers, had blocked off a space in front of the hotel for the vehicles. The motorcade pulled up at the curb. Cops dismounted from motorcycles and exchanged salutes and bows with fellow officers. Car doors opened and policemen saluted Palmer and his party.
Agent Morton emerged from the limo and asked the police about the security measures taken. Aaron Palmer and Yashedi joined them. Then Agent Brown climbed out of the car.
His skull exploded.
Blood and brains splattered Palmer and Morton. Yashedi and several policemen shouted orders. The commandos leaped from the sedan, M-16 rifles held ready. One of the troopers fell to the sidewalk, a large bloody hole in the center of his chest.
"Asoko," voices cried as fingers pointed at the dull glint of a muzzle-flash from a silencer-equipped rifle on the roof of the building across the street from the Migato hotel.
Commandos instantly moved behind the cover of parked cars and opened fire. The metallic chatter of automatic rifles filled the night as streams of 5.56mm rounds poured into the sniper's position. A figure toppled from the roof and fell to the pavement, his body ripped and mangled by bullets.
Three police officers hastily escorted Palmer and Morton into the hotel, while other cops and Kompei agents scattered to check surrounding buildings for more terrorists. Palmer and his group entered the hotel lobby where five uniformed policemen waited.
"Iras-shai," a hard-faced cop ordered as he led the way down a corridor to the emergency fire stairs. "Matteh!" snapped an officer dressed in a Tokyo police lieutenant's uniform. He frowned at the other cop. "Do sh'te—"
The lieutenant never finished his sentence. A white-gloved hand grabbed his mouth from behind as a "policeman" drove a knife blade into his left kidney.
Another killer clad in a cop uniform swung a wire garrote over an officer's head and twisted the steel cord around the man's neck. A cop, unaccustomed to carrying a side arm, clumsily clawed at a button-flap holster on his hip. He was suddenly seized from behind by another wolf in uniform who rammed a knee into the small of his back. Before the startled officer could react, the knife artist who had killed the lieutenant thrust his blade into the cop's heart.
A harsh metallic cough erupted, and Palmer turned to see Morton's right eyeball pop from its socket as a 7.65mm bullet splintered his cheekbone. One of the assassins in blue had shot him in the back of the head with a silenced M-68 pistol.
Aaron Palmer was unable to tell which cops were real and which were terrorists. Then the leader of the enemy hit team slammed a rock-hard seiken punch into Palmer's solar plexus. The American doubled up with a gasp and Daito-san hit him again, chopping the edge of his hand into the facial nerve under Palmer's jawbone. The American slumped unconscious to the floor.
"Good work, comrades," Daito told his fellow terrorists. "Takamine. Zuikaku. Take care of the bodies. Doyykai. Yamada. Guard the corridor. Harou, help me carry the capitalist inu downstairs."
The terrorists quickly obeyed. Morton and the three slain policemen were dragged into an elevator. One of the killers pressed the button for the fifth floor, while his partner attached a long wire to the pin of a Soviet F-1 hand grenade and braced it under two corpses.
They stepped from the elevator and tied the other end of the wire to the stem of a metal ashtray mounted on the wall. The doors hummed shut and the elevator rose, pulling the wire taut. When the lift reached the second floor, the wire yanked the pin from the grenade.
The F-1 exploded between the third and fourth floors, blasting apart the elevator car, severing the hoist cables and breaking the roller guide and steel sling. What remained of the elevator crashed to the bottom of the shaft.
The explosion drew the police and Kompei agents from the street. They rushed to the stairwell and raced to the fourth floor. The JRC hitmen had already descended the stairs to the underground parking lot. Two patrol cars filled with phony police officers pulled onto the street, sirens screaming.
Other police cars and fire engines were racing to the Migato hotel. No one paid much attention to the pair of cop cars that sped away from the scene. Daito-san, seated in the back of one of the stolen vehicles, placed his feet on the helpless figure of Aaron Palmer, who lay bound and gagged on the floor.
"You have much to tell us, American," Daito said with a cold smile. "And you will tell us everything we want to know. All the secrets of your country... everything we need to destroy the United States of America."
10
Four stevedores patrolled the pier at the Hoshiro Company. Fog clung to the harbor, creating an ominous atmosphere. The muscular sentries resembled horror-film ghouls as they marched through the mist with thick clubs in hand. Each man also had a pistol and a fighting knife hidden under his wool jacket, and each was trained in crash courses of judo, karate and sumo wrestling.
One of the brutes stopped at the side of a storage shed and removed a pack of cigarettes from a coat pocket. He shook one out, placed it in his mouth and struck a match. Cupping a hand around the flame, he raised it to the cigarette.
Then something hard smashed into the base of his neck, breaking vertebrae on impact. The stevedore lived long enough to grunt, then he crumbled to the plank walk. Muscle spasms caused his body to twitch. Gary Manning raised his H&K G3 SG1 rifle and stamped the butt into the back of the man's skull to be certain he would never rise again.
Another stevedore checked the door of the main office building. The guard then heard cloth rustle behind him. With a gasp, he began to turn. He was seized at the back of the neck. Steel talons squeezed forcibly, sharp points biting into flesh. The stevedore tried to scream, blood bubbling from his mouth. The hideous sound of crunching bone filled his ears. Then his spinal cord snapped.
Yakov Katzenelenbogen opened the steel claw at the end of his arm and lowered the corpse to the plank walk. He wiped the blades of his prosthetic arm on the dead man's jacket as Rafael Encizo approached. The Cuban nodded, acknowledging Yakov's success in silently taking out the sentry. The Israeli returned the gesture.
Another guard strolled around the corner of the building. He saw Yakov; he saw the Uzi submachine gun that hung from a strap on the Israeli's left shoulder. The sentry immediately reached for a pistol in his belt.
Rafael's H&K MP-5 rasped a three-round burst, and a triangle of bullet holes appeared in the sentry's upper chest. His sternum and manubrium pulverized, the JRC muscle boy was kicked backward by the impact of the multiple 9mm slugs. The man uttered a choked groan and fell to the pier.
The fourth and last guard heard his comrade's feeble moan. He pulled a Makarov from a shoulder holster and hurried toward the sound. The stevedore failed to notice the soft footfalls behind him as a tall shadow followed, holding a long steel blade in one fist.
Suddenly the sentry stopped. A sixth sense warned of danger, and he glanced over his shoulder in time to see a streak of silver lightning that struck the side of his neck.
Keio Ohara's wakazashi sliced through flesh, muscle and bone with a single stroke. The man's head fell to the plank walk. His decapitated corpse staggered toward Keio like a headless drunk. Aware a muscle reaction might trigger the pistol in the dead man's hand, Keio swung the sword again. The gun landed at Keio's feet, the severed hand still clenched around the weapon's grip.
The nightmare on two legs finally accepted death and slumped to the plank walk, blood still gushing from the stump of its neck and wrist. Keio stepped over the grisly corpse and hurried to join the other memb
ers of Phoenix Force, who had assembled by the office building.
"Hoshiro's office is located upstairs," Rafael explained as he inserted his lock picks into the key-hole of the door. "The downstairs is just a storage area. . . ."
"Down," Manning said when he saw a figure at the starboard quarter of one of the fishing boats docked in the harbor.
Phoenix Force dropped to the plank walk as an AK-47 opened fire. Copper-jacketed projectiles splintered the wall above their prone bodies. Manning aimed his H&K SG1 at the gunman.
An, infrared telescopic sight mounted on the barrel of the automatic rifle allowed Manning to easily locate the terrorist sniper. The cross hairs fell on the center of the killer's forehead. Manning squeezed the trigger and split the JRC hitman's skull with a 7.62mm bullet.
"Keio, McCarter," Yakov shouted. "Hit those boats."
McCarter and Ohara bolted for the fishing fleet as more terrorists appeared on the decks of three vessels. The Briton, armed with a short-range M-10 machine pistol, took the lead, while Keio supplied cover fire with his M-16. McCarter's silenced Ingram coughed, and a volley of 9mm rounds sent two JRC followers into a jitterbug of death.
The terrorists on board the other boats were uncertain where the gunman was because of the fog and the lack of muzzle-flash from his silenced weapon. Still, three JRC soldiers aimed guns in McCarter's direction.
Keio did not allow them to try their luck at shooting at the shadows. His M-16 snarled and slammed a salvo of 5.56mm slugs into the trio. One terrorist fell to his knees, both hands clamped over his bullet-gouged face. The other two were kicked over the rail for an impromptu funeral at sea.
"Screw picking the lock," Rafael muttered as he aimed his MP-5 at the door and blasted the lock with a three-round burst. The Cuban, Yakov and Manning all stood clear of the door. Rafael kicked it open. A shotgun bellowed, and a swarm of Number 6 pellets spat through the opening. Encizo poked his weapon around the edge of the doorway and fired a quick volley, while Manning removed a concussion grenade from his black ditty bag.
He yanked the pin and hurled the canister into the building. The grenade erupted. Glass burst from windows on the first floor. Manning and Rafael plunged inside to find half a dozen dazed terrorists sprawled on the floor, blood dripping from their nostrils and ears. Rafael terminated their suffering by hosing the wounded terrorists with 9mm rounds.
YAKOV WAS ABOUT TO FOLLOW the two younger men inside the building when four figures charged across the pier, heading for the Israeli. Katz dropped to one knee and braced his Uzi across his prosthetic arm. He squeezed the trigger and expertly chopped down three JRC zealots with hot blasts of destruction.
The fourth lunatic kept coming, blood oozing from four bullet wounds in his chest. The terrorist screamed a kiya battle cry as he swung a stevedore hook overhead.
Katz aimed the Uzi at the rampaging fanatic and fired once more, gradually elevating the barrel. Nine-millimeter slugs tore into the terrorist from navel to forehead. His body was hurtled across the pier by the force of the projectiles.
"Haiii-ya!" a voice bellowed.
Yakov turned to see that a JRC assassin had crept out of the fog to attack from behind. The assailant swung a long oak bo stave in a deadly arch aimed at Yakov's skull.
Katzenelenbogen's prosthetic arm rose in an overhead block. Wood smashed into steel. The terrorist gasped when he saw his white oak stave break in two when it struck Katz's arm. Then he felt the stubby barrel of the Uzi jab into his midsection. Yakov squeezed the trigger and nearly cut his opponent in two.
The submachine gun exhausted its ammunition. Before Yakov could swap magazines, another JRC killer charged forward, wielding a nunchaku. Katz had never met Shikimi Yoto, one of the martial-arts instructors at the Zembu Dojo . . . until now. Shikimi had waited for the right moment before launching his attack, confident he could defeat an older man armed only with an empty gun.
Yakov knew the nunchaku—an Okinawan weapon consisting of two sticks connected by a short chain—is far more lethal than it appears. A nunchaku stick travels at speeds greater than seventy-five miles per hour, and even a glancing blow can shatter bone. Shikimi's weapon sliced through the air in a vicious figure-eight pattern as the Israeli raised his Uzi.
The nunchaku bounced off the frame of the machine gun, whirled and struck again, only to connect with Yakov's prosthetic arm. The ex-Mossad agent delivered a low sidekick to his opponent's kneecap, breaking the patella bone in Shikimi's left leg.
Shikimi howled in pain, shocked that he had been a victim of one of the most fundamental karate techniques. His shattered leg buckled, and he fell to the plank walk. Yakov stepped back and pulled a .45-caliber Colt Commander from a shoulder holster under his right arm. Shikimi stared up to see the muzzle of the pistol before Yakov shot him in the face.
TWO JAPANESE RED CELL SAVAGES on board a fishing boat opened fire on Keio with AK-47 assault rifles.
Ohara dived for cover behind a cargo crane. Bullets whined as they ricocheted off the framework of the steel hoist.
Keio returned fire with the M-203 grenade launcher attached to a sleeve on the barrel of his M-16. A fat HE projectile sailed across the pier and crashed into the fly bridge of the enemy vessel. The grenade exploded, blasting the boat into a pile of splintered, burning wreckage with charred human corpses among the debris.
David McCarter had climbed on board another boat, his Ingram blasting a terrorist as the hardguy emerged from the bulkhead. The Briton paused to swap magazines, then he heard footsteps on the fly bridge.
"You bastards aren't going anywhere," he hissed as he yanked the pin from an M-26 fragmentation grenade and lobbed it overhead.
He leaped over the transom and threw himself flat on the pier. A pistol cracked and a bullet splintered wood near the Briton's head.
The M-26 exploded and tore apart the fly bridge—including the two JRC flunkies who had been positioned there. Wood, glass and twisted metal spewed across the harbor. McCarter rolled to the shelter of a pile of crates and hastily reloaded his Ingram while Keio Ohara launched a one-man raid on the last vessel in the Hoshiro fleet.
Keio spotted two terrorists at the foredeck who had just removed an American M-60 machine gun from the cabin trunk. Ohara snap-aimed and fired. The two Nihon-jin thugs plunged overboard in a death dive.
Keio prepared to reload his M-16 when two more Red Cell men armed with stevedore hooks attacked his position. The Japanese Phoenix Force member raised his empty assault rifle in both hands and blocked a steel hook aimed at his head. He quickly snap-kicked his opponent in the groin and followed up with a butt stroke to the face. Keio hit the JRC hood with such force it shattered the plastic stock of his M-16.
The first terrorist fell, but his comrade took his place. A murderous hook slash narrowly missed Keio as he ducked. The hook whistled overhead and Keio drew his wakazashi, pivoting on one knee to add momentum to the sword stroke.
Razor-sharp steel sliced through the terrorist's body, cutting him open with an ichi-no-do stroke. The hardguy dropped his hook and fell to the plank walk, his life spilling out in crimson gore.
RAFAEL ENCIZO AND GARY MANNING had been just as busy inside the Hoshiro Company building. Several Japanese Red Cell scum had poured into the storage area from rooms that served as billets for the terrorists. A savage gun battle soon erupted.
Rafael chopped down three terrorists with 9mm lead before they could fire a single shot. Manning opened up on two Nippon-bred mistakes who tried to creep down the stairs to get the drop on Phoenix Force. Slugs sizzled through their chests and pulverized their black hearts. Two more terrorists died, their lifeless bodies tumbling down the stairs.
Rafael charged deeper into the storage room, dodging from one pile of crates to another. A Japanese girl with long black hair and fierce dark eyes suddenly bolted around the corner of the stack of wooden boxes Rafael had chosen for cover. The Cuban ripped apart her face with a trio of 9mm rounds from his MP-5. The girl's hair fanned out as the back of
her head exploded, spraying blood and brains on the nearest wall.
"Damn," Encizo groaned.
Manning headed for the stairwell when a stack of crates suddenly crashed down on him.
Two grinning JRC youths eagerly approached the fallen warrior. The terrorists were pleased with their strategy, which had allowed them to attack a formidable opponent without exposing themselves to danger. One junior barbarian kicked Manning's H&K SG1 out of reach while his comrade prepared to finish off the Canadian with a .25 automatic.
The eight-inch barrel of a huge revolver rose from between two crates. The minicannon roared, and a Magnum slug smashed through the center of the young terrorist's chest. The impact hurled the boy's corpse five feet—it slammed into a wall and slid to the floor, smearing blood every inch of the way. The other kid turned to see Manning sit up, his Smith & Wesson Model 57 held in a two-handed weaver's grip.
"Ee-ya," the boy shouted, but as he cried no, he tried to bring his Skorpion machine pistol into play.
Manning's Magnum bellowed again, and a big semijacketed wadcutter round performed messy brain surgery on the youth's skull. The powerful Canadian climbed to his feet and brushed himself off.
Manning mounted the stairs, his S&W held ready. A terrorist stepped from the cover of a stack of boxes to aim a T50 submachine gun at Manning's broad back.
Rafael, watching for such treachery, fired his MP-5 before the guncock could trigger his North Korean subgun. Four slugs snapped the terrorist's backbone in three places. The would-be assassin did a swift and final nose dive to the floor, dead.
A Red Cell gunman at the head of the stairs jacked a round into a World War II Tokarev pistol—Mother Russia's contribution to the list of worse-made handguns in history. He tried to aim the Soviet junk gun at Manning, but the roar of the .41 Magnum drove him back behind a flight of stairs.
