NEVER SAY DIE: Mark Cole Takes On the Yakuza in His Most Thrilling Adventure Yet!

by J. T. Brannan

  What a mess.

  The press was going to have a field day with this one, Nakamura told himself as he pushed through the dense stand of trees to the bordering moat. He’d heard the SAT captain on the loudhailer, knowing that it was pointless; the two targets were never going to give themselves up.

  As he reached the muddy banks, he saw half a dozen SAT officers closing in on the far side of the river, his eyes then drawn upward toward Sotobori Dori.

  Baxter and Michiko were already there, pulling themselves over the concrete parapet at the top.

  He shook his head again, wondering what would happen now.

  What a mess.

  The police were getting close now, Mitsuya noted, watching them as they passed by right underneath him, completely unaware of his presence.

  So Michiko and the American had climbed up onto Sotobori Dori, just as he’d predicted. The police were right behind them, but his own men were already by the roadside, ready and waiting.

  They would kill the American and then bundle Michiko into the waiting sedan, take her back to the Omoto-gumi headquarters in Marunouchi.

  Mitsuya would sit and wait, confirm that everything went according to plan, and then he too would get the hell out of there.

  It was almost over.

  The shots came as soon as Cole pulled himself over the parapet onto Sotobori Dori; as Michiko was pulled away by a black-suited yakuza, Cole spotted the guns raised toward him and threw himself back the way he’d come, back over the protective concrete parapet as the 9mm rounds chased after him.

  Cole could hear Michiko screaming as she was dragged away, and Cole’s shoulder ached as his hand clamped around the parapet, stopping his sudden fall back to the bank below.

  He was unarmed, with an unknown number of yakuza thugs on the road above him and the SAT unit already climbing the pillar beneath.

  His mind made calculations in fractions of a second, a plan emerging which his body was already putting into action.

  As he dangled from the parapet by one arm, legs scrambling for purchase, his free hand went to his belt and removed it, holding it loosely by the buckle.

  A head emerged above him then, just as he’d known it would, one of the gunmen moving in for the kill.

  In the blink of an eye, Cole hauled himself upwards with one arm, while flicking out the belt with the other. It snaked out around the gunman’s neck, and as it passed round, Cole opened his fingers and then closed them again, securing the loop with a single hand; and then he pulled down with ferocious strength, pulling the gunman over the parapet, and the man screamed in shock and abject terror as he plummeted to the muddy banks below.

  There were other shouts, too, from the SAT men as the body fell toward them, and Cole knew that some of them might have been knocked off the pillar; but he didn’t have time to check, already moving once more.

  He pulled himself back up, understanding that the fallen man’s colleagues would instinctively come to investigate; and sure enough, as Cole cleared the parapet, he saw two armed men close to the edge, guns raised.

  He kicked out as his hip rested on the edge of the parapet, foot catching one of the handguns head on and knocking it clear of the man’s hands; the other was closer still, and Cole intercepted him with his hands and arms, left hand snaking out to grip the man’s right bicep, controlling the gun arm as his right hand hit the gangster in the throat. The man’s eyes bulged, and Cole’s right hand went low, between the legs, and he hauled the man up and over his shoulders, cartwheeling him off the side of the road, over the parapet to follow his friend down to the hard earth below.

  Cole’s left hand had stripped the gun out of the man’s grip as he fell, and in one smooth action, Cole turned and transferred the weapon to his right hand, firing instantaneously.

  The man Cole had kicked was hit in the chest and propelled backwards into Sotobori Dori, hit again by a passing transit van which left him a bloody pulp on the roadside.

  Without skipping a beat, Cole identified Michiko’s location, saw two yakuza goons pushing her toward a black sedan parked on the other side of the road, its door open with another man waiting inside to grab her, and he raced forward, firing as he went.

  The head of the man on the left exploded as Cole’s rounds hit, covering Michiko’s face in bright red blood; and then the second man’s head did the same, hit in the rear of his skull, his face blasted out over the man in the car.

  Cole’s peripheral vision was working on overtime, picking out approaching vehicles and calculating angles, speeds and vectors that enabled him to sidestep and swerve around the oncoming traffic, weapon still up and aimed; and instants later the pistol spat its rounds out again, this time nearly grazing Michiko’s shoulder as they passed her by and struck the man in the car in the chest and neck, the look of shock still evident from seeing his friends killed moments before, hand half-way to his face to wipe the blood and bone fragments away.

  Cole took Michiko in his arms, wiped the blood from her face, and turned around to see the first of the policemen climbing over the barrier on the far side of the road.

  The driver of the black sedan had obviously seen the same thing, and Cole pulled back out of the way as the car accelerated off, blasting the horn as it veered into the oncoming traffic, leaving Cole and Michiko stranded.

  Cole turned and looked the other way then, toward the high black fence which ringed the palace grounds and knew they had no other choice.

  As the racing cars on Sotobori Dori blocked the cops from crossing, Cole helped push Michiko up the steel fence, waited as she took hold and clambered to the top, then pocketed the pistol and followed.

  The cops were halfway across the road, with the sirens of police cars approaching from all directions, as Cole and Michiko sat atop the fence and looked down into the palace gardens, trees rising high into the air, the grounds far below them.

  And then they looked at one another, and jumped.

  Mitsuya had seen enough, and was already packing up his equipment, ready to leave his rooftop observation post.

  The entire area was swarming with armed police, and his men were all dead, under arrest, or else scattered to the four winds in their desire to escape – and Mitsuya didn’t know which was worse.

  But now Michiko and the American had entered the palace grounds, they were as good as finished; the SAT unit would surely capture them, and then Mitsuya would have to carefully negotiate Michiko’s release. It might not be all that difficult; despite his known status as second-in-command of the Omoto-gumi, he was still the girl’s legal guardian, and at seventeen they would eventually have no choice but to hand her over to him.

  But what if . . . ?

  He didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility, but there was the chance that the pair would manage to escape again; and if they did, the ramifications to Mitsuya, Chomo, and their entire organization couldn’t be underestimated.

  No, he realized, he couldn’t leave it to the police; he couldn’t take the risk that they would fail.

  And so, before he left the rooftop, he went back on the radio one last time; the call went out for more men to converge in their vehicles on the roads surrounding the palace grounds, ready to intercept the girl if the police failed to do so.

  He simply couldn’t risk her getting away again.

  Nakamura listened to the radio reports from the Special Assault Team as they followed the fugitives into the grounds of Akasaka Palace.

  They were already liaising with their sister team inside the park, who were spreading out through the extensive grounds, ready and waiting for the American man and the Japanese girl.

  The whole thing had gotten out of hand, Nakamura could see that quite readily; the two people were a lot harder to catch than he had ever imagined, mainly due to the resourcefulness and skill of the American.

  So far, it had been only yakuza soldiers that had been killed by the pair; but whether that was due to intention or not was open to debate. Now that the yakuza
seemed out of the action and it was a pure police pursuit, things would become clearer.

  Nakamura had a feeling about the American – if indeed he was an American – that he was a professional, elite solider of some sort. How else could his ongoing performance be explained? But what was he doing here? What was his mission? And did the Japanese government know anything about it? He hoped his contacts in the Nai-cho, the cabinet intelligence and research office, would be able to help with his inquiries.

  But even so, the whole incident was one huge, catastrophic, potentially career-ending blunder of monumental proportions – a real cluster-fuck, as American soldiers liked to say. Chaos was running rampant through Tokyo just spitting distance from the seat of the Japanese government and the prime minister’s residence, which would only compound the fears which had been generated after the pseudo-attack on the Kantei earlier in the week. And then there was the obvious involvement of the yakuza – both in San’ya last night, and here today – which would spell disaster for those fearful of an all-out war over the Yamaguchi-gumi leadership. The fact that the gunfights hadn’t been between rival yakuza factions would almost certainly escape the attention of the Japanese media, at least in the short term, and create the sort of public instability that a man in Nakamura’s position didn’t even like to think about.

  But then, if the American was revealed to be some sort of foreign government agent, all sorts of diplomatic hell would break loose, and Nakamura didn’t know which would be worse, especially with the danger of Zen Ai Kaigi and a complete reformation of the Japanese constitution also in the picture.

  He shook his head as he thought about the mass of problems that he was going to have to wade through, knowing instinctively that the fate of his entire nation was somehow entwined with the couple who even now were escaping through Akasaka park.

  8

  The sun was fully up now, and Cole was all too aware of how the light was making their life far more difficult. He had no idea how many police officers were searching for them through the palace grounds, but from the noise of muffled conversation – sometimes far away, other times far too close for comfort – he knew there were more than he was comfortable with.

  But so far – mainly due to the semi-forested nature of the park, and the intrinsic cover provided by the dense stands of trees – they had managed to escape detection. They kept to the more wooded areas, careful to avoid open areas and the numerous buildings which dotted the landscape. They were especially conscious of avoiding the environs of Akasaka Palace itself, a huge Meiji-era neo-Baroque structure reminiscent more of European architecture than the traditional Japanese aesthetic; Michiko informed Cole that it was heavily guarded due to the guests who often stayed there.

  At this early hour the park was not yet open to the public, which was both a blessing and a curse; while it meant that there were less people who might see them, it also negated their ability to blend in with a crowd and escape among the anonymity of others.

  Cole didn’t know for how long they had been playing cat-and-mouse in the park, but was getting tired of it; the longer they spent here, the more likely it was that they’d ultimately be caught. With every passing minute, more and more officers could be poured into the palace grounds, the surrounding roads could become more and more sealed off and protected.

  And then he saw it – through the trees ahead, the western fence line which bordered Gaien Higashi Dori – Metropolitan Route 319 – outside, the steady thrum of traffic a blur through the steel bars.

  But the distraction was too much, and all of a sudden he felt Michiko grab his arm, and was momentarily shocked as two black-clad, armed policemen stepped out in front of them. But the looks of astonishment on their masked and helmeted faces proved that the meeting was as much a surprise to them, and Cole made sure he was the first to recover and react.

  He surged forward across the mossy ground, trapping the first man’s gun arm and firing an elbow hard into the cop’s face; the Plexiglas mask didn’t break, but the force of the blow still knocked the man’s head back, creating severe whiplash and an instant knockout.

  He reversed the movement while the second man was still turning to confront him, and smashed the bottom of his fist across the cop’s mask in an savage axe-hand which dropped the man to his knees; and before he could recover, Cole double-stepped in, grasped both sides of the cop’s helmet and sent his knee crashing into his head. The result was the same as the first cop – whiplash and knockout, without any shots being fired.

  Cole felt bad about hurting the cops – they were just doing their jobs, after all – but knew the men would soon recover.

  The men had been carrying Howa Type 89 assault rifles – fearsome weapons, but nearly useless in such close quarters due to its length, which was why Cole had been able to engage the men before they’d got the rifles round toward him. He thought for a moment about taking them, but decided against it; his pistol was a better choice for close quarters, and he had no desire to shoot cops anyway. Besides which, he would need both hands for what he had planned.

  Without wasting any more time, he pulled Michiko along next to him and raced through the trees for the steel fence; the time for subtlety had gone. When the two unconscious cops were found, Cole and Michiko’s location would be immediately obvious, and this sector would be sewn up tight as a drum. Their only hope now was speed, and surprise.

  Cole’s legs burned as he accelerated through the thick woods, chewing up the ground beneath him, Michiko right by his side; and then they were out of the trees, open and exposed but at the fence line, and Cole bent at the knees and gave Michiko a boost, levering her quickly to the top of the high steel barrier in a move that was now becoming well-practiced between them.

  He felt, rather than saw, men in the tree line behind him and turned suddenly, reaching into his belt, pulling out his pistol and laying down a succession of rapid shots, aiming high just to keep the cops’ heads down as he turned back to the fence and hauled himself up and over.

  He saw Michiko already on the sidewalk on the other side, face looking up at him anxiously, and as he dropped to the ground beside her the cops still in the palace grounds opened fire, their bullets ricocheting back off the steel bars, sparks erupting from the metal just inches from Cole and Michiko.

  But they were out and – for now at least – safe.

  It was then – as the first dangerous pangs of relief hit him – that Cole saw the two black sedans, approaching fast down the 319, windows lowering, men leaning out. Men with guns.

  The bursts of 9mm fire from the Uzi machine pistols spat toward him, and Cole ducked and rolled, the bullets chewing up the sidewalk behind him. He fired mid-roll, hitting the first man in the neck, arterial blood spraying out across the road; his next shots rang out as he regained his feet and ran toward the car, two rounds punching through the yakuza’s arm and chest.

  The vehicles skidded to a stop and more men tried to clamber out. But the dead bodies got in their way and they had to get out of the far-side doors; and when they did, Cole shot each one in the head, every step bringing him closer to the two cars.

  His gun was empty now, but the drivers didn’t know that; they only saw Cole running toward them and – combined with the sound of multiple sirens heading in their direction – they decided to take off, puling desperately away from the curb in their desire to escape.

  Michiko arrived at Cole’s side, and they both spotted the flashing lights making their way down Gaien Higashi Dori, three cop cars and a motorbike.

  The bike was first on the scene, able to slip through the traffic with much more ease than the cars, and Cole put the pistol down on the ground and stood there with his hands in the air, encouraging Michiko to do the same.

  The men from Akasaka Palace were halfway over the fence now, and there was nowhere else for Cole and Michiko to go.

  The cop on the bike started to slow down as he got nearer, the first SAT men dropping to the sidewalk behind them, weapons up an
d aimed toward Cole and Michiko, confident now that their prey had been finally caught; but then Cole erupted into action, jumping into a thrusting front kick that went high above the bike’s windshield and struck the cop straight in his head, sending him flying back off the still-moving vehicle.

  Cole bent down and picked the bike up, swinging one leg over the other side as he helped Michiko onto the back, the SAT men still not responding, unwilling to endanger their fallen colleague; and then Cole gunned the accelerator and took off the wrong way down Gaien Higashi Dori, slipping between two other vehicles so that the armed cops behind them would no longer have a clear shot.

  Cole felt his daughter’s hands tight around his midriff as he piloted the bike in and out of the traffic, and knew he could not afford to let her down, understood that his duty as a man, as a father, was to protect her above all else.

  They passed the three police cars moments later, the surprise evident on the faces of the cops inside, and Cole let the speed drop slightly as he worked hard to avoid an oncoming truck and a large 4x4 which were traveling side by side, the bike just managing to scrape through the middle, knees inches away from the fast-moving metal.

  But then they were out and Cole increased speed again, darting into and out of spaces, the police siren forcing people to give way to him despite the highly illegal nature of his route.

  He saw another two black sedans then, the style familiar to him now, and – perhaps more used to unusual tactics than the police – the occupants recognized him from a distance, gunmen leaning out of the windows, Uzi machine pistols once more aimed his way.

  ‘Hold on,’ he warned Michiko and opened the throttles even more. The two sedans had been forced into a line by other traffic, one behind the other, and Cole’s bike darted forward at the lead vehicle, the spray of the gunmen’s bullets ripping up the tarmac around him.