Bolan was approaching Windsor Avenue when he saw a black stretch limo turning into traffic on Atlantic, headed in the same direction he was going. That saved him time and inconvenience, since he didn’t have to box the block and come around Machii’s crew wagon. All Bolan had to do now was maintain visual contact with the limousine until it dropped the kyodai at the “other house” he’d mentioned in his office. Bolan couldn’t eavesdrop on the limo’s passengers, since they had left his bug behind, but he could follow them all night if necessary, until they found a place to roost.
In fact, it didn’t take that long. At Washington, the limo took a right-hand turn and traveled past the Margate City Historical Museum, then hung a left on Ventnor Avenue and followed that until it crossed the JFK Bridge and became Route 152, skirting the Atlantic coast of an unnamed barrier island. It was marshy ground, with serpentine canals or rivers winding through it, trees along the north side of the highway, beaches kissed by breakers to the south.
Bolan trailed his quarry past the Seaview Harbor Marina, then watched the limo turn northward, on to a two-lane access road that disappeared from view around a curve. He dared not follow it too closely, so drove on two hundred yards, until he found a place to turn and double back.
Machii’s ride was long gone by the time Bolan returned to where they’d parted company. It was a gamble, trailing him, but still the only way of finding out exactly where he’d gone. Nosing into the two-lane access road, he braked and pulled a pair of night-vision infrared goggles from the bag of tricks beside him on the shotgun seat, and slipped the straps over his head, then killed the RAV4’s lights.
The goggles let him see for fifty feet without another light source, but a half moon rode the sky this night, extending Bolan’s vision to fifty yards or more. He’d have to take it easy, keep from edging off the road and on to marshy ground, but there’d be ample warning if another car was headed his way, and he’d show no lights of his own unless he stepped on the Toyota’s brake pedal.
The drive in seemed to take forever, but the dashboard clock—light dimmed until it was barely visible—told Bolan he was making decent time, all things considered. Stealth took longer than a mad charge toward the firing line, and that was what he needed now.
He spent ten minutes on the looping access road before he spotted lights a quarter or half mile farther on. The vehicle had come to a stop in front of a large, two-story house, not quite a mansion, but the next best thing for its surroundings. Open fields and marsh surrounded it, making a foot approach more dangerous, but that would clearly be the only way to go.
Bolan stopped a quarter mile out from the house, switched off the RAV4’s dome light prior to opening the driver’s door, and then went EVA. Standing in moonlight, he removed the goggles and surveyed his target through a pair of field glasses that brought the place up close and personal. He saw two gunmen on the front porch, covering a driveway that branched off the access road, and figured there’d be more in back, watching the alternate approach.
Machii doubtless thought that he was safe out here, away from everyone and everything.
The Executioner had plans to prove him wrong.
CHAPTER FIVE
Noboru Machii was not ready to relax. It helped, having some distance from Atlantic City, but uncertainty gnawed at his nerves, making him restless, even after he had downed three cups of sake at room temperature. When the sweet rice wine failed to relieve his tension, he had switched to Bushmills twenty-one-year single malt whiskey, hoping its higher alcohol content would do the trick.
So far, no go.
Tetsuya Watanabe knocked and poked his head in through the study’s open door. Machii glanced up from the cold fireplace in front of him and nodded his permission to proceed.
“The guards are all in place,” Watanabe said. “Six men, positioned as you wished. I think you can sleep safely now.”
“You think?”
Watanabe shrugged. “We should be safe here, sir,” he replied.
“We should have been safe at the office. I assume there’s been no progress in the city, finding out who’s sent us into hiding?”
“None so far,” Watanabe admitted ruefully.
“What of Endo and the others?”
“The police have them, sir. They’ll be dissected by the medical examiner, of course.”
“Autopsied.”
“Gomen’nasai.”
“There’s no need to apologize. Work on your English.”
“Yes, sir. It will be difficult for the authorities to link them with the family. None are on file with immigration, and they have not been arrested in America.”
“Suspicion still attaches to us, given the succession of events.”
“Suspicion is not proof.”
“But it’s enough to prompt investigation, if they are not looking into us already.”
One more headache, on a night that was replete with them. Machii pushed that prospect out of mind and focused on his unknown enemies. He made it plural, since the man or men behind a raw act of aggression, in Machii’s world, would never carry out the act themselves. That left him with a list of possibilities to ponder, none of which stood out above the rest.
New Jersey was awash in crime and government corruption. That had been a fact of life for generations, going back a century and more, beyond the days when simple-minded folk thought they could cure a nation’s ills by banning alcohol. These days, the old Italian Mafia was in decline from former glory days, competing for survival in an ethnic stew of Chinese and Koreans, Cubans and Jamaicans, Russians and Albanians, Vietnamese and Japanese. Anytime contending sides brushed shoulders, there was bloodshed. Thanks in large part to Machii’s acumen, the Sumiyoshi-kai had managed to stay clear of overt violence so far.
Until this night.
Now, in a few short hours, everything he’d worked for was at risk. His very life was riding on the line, if he could not eliminate the danger to his family.
But so far, he had no idea where to begin the search.
“Is there a chance that Endo’s men wounded the person they were chasing?” he inquired.
“Our man on the police force doesn’t think so, but it’s possible his car was damaged by the shooting. Chips of glass were found, he says. A search is under way for cars damaged by gunfire, but it could be anywhere.”
And if they found it, Machii thought, it would probably be stolen, anyway. A competent professional would no more take his own car on a raid than he would dress up in kabuki robes.
“Who is most likely to move against us in Atlantic City, then?”
Watanabe thought about it for a moment, then replied, “I think, the Russians. Shestov knows you represent the family, and he’s been looking for a foothold in a great casino.”
“Shestov’s Ukrainian, not Russian.”
“What’s the difference?” Tetsuya asked. “They’re all barbarians.”
He had that right, at least. Pavlo Shestov was tough, ruthless and driven by ambition. It was said he watched the movie Scarface once a week, at least, and tried to mimic the ferocity of its protagonist. With thirty-five or forty soldiers on his payroll, he was capable of starting trouble, but would he be fool enough to take on the Sumiyoshi-kai?
Perhaps.
It was a starting place, at least.
“Pick up one of his men,” Machii ordered. “Try for the lieutenant. What’s his name, again?”
“Palatnik.”
“Question him. If Shestov is behind this, he should know.”
“And when we’re finished with him?”
“We can’t let him run back home and tattle, can we?” That would start a war with Shestov, if they weren’t already in the midst of one.
“No, sir.”
“Well, then.”
“I shall see to it myself.”
Machii raised a hand to stop him. “Let Yoshinori handle it,” he said. “I want you here with me.”
Watanabe frowned, as if uncertain whether he sh
ould take that as an insult or a compliment. Instead of answering, he tipped his head, a token bow, and marched out of the room.
Machii was about to pour another glass of whiskey, wondering if he should have a sandwich first, when an explosion rocked the house.
* * *
BOLAN HAD PULLED OUT all the stops for his incursion on Machii’s hideaway. He took the silenced MP-5 K, backed up with a Colt M4A1 carbine sporting an Aimpoint CompM4 reflector sight and an M320 grenade launcher mounted under the carbine’s barrel, fitted with its own side-mounted day/night sight. To feed the guns, he wore two bandoleers across his chest—one fat with 5.56 mm magazines, the other packing 40 mm high-explosive rounds—and wore a triple belt pouch for the SMG’s curved magazines. All together, Glock included, he was packing in 450 rounds of sudden death, hoping it was a great deal more than he would need.
Off road, the ground was treacherous beneath his feet. He had the goggles on again, scanning the turf for streams and ponds, long-stepping over them from one firm hummock to another. On his way, he kept checking the house, confirming that Machii’s lookouts were not on the move with a patrol into the marsh. From what Bolan could see, two hundred yards and closing through the moonlight, they seemed fairly well at ease, smoking and chatting on the porch.
That didn’t mean that they weren’t dangerous, by any means.
The Yakuza was not a blood in/blood out operation that required each new recruit to take a human life. Some members never got their hands dirty, beyond cooking the books at firms the syndicate controlled. Soldiers, by contrast, were recruited from the bosozoku “restless tribe” gangs in Japan, equivalent to outlaw bikers in the States, who grew up fighting for a scrap of urban turf and had their consciences seared out of them before they got to high school. Given any chance to join the big leagues, they jumped at it, seizing any opportunity to prove themselves through terrorism, homicide and torture.
All the best of manga entertainment, with real corpses.
Bolan had no doubt the guards would die to save their oyabun, and he was ready to accommodate them. First, though, he desired to get in closer, scout the lonely home’s perimeter and get a feel for how many defenders he was facing. When he made his move, he wanted it to come as a surprise and catch the soldiers with their guard down.
Stopping at the fifty-yard mark, well beyond the floodlights mounted on each corner of the house, Bolan began to circle clockwise, watching as he went for any traps, alarms or hidden cameras that might betray him to a watcher on the grounds. He found none and continued, counting half a dozen lookouts on his circuit. There were two in front, two more out back, one by himself on each end of the manor, north and south. The darkened patio, in back, offered the best approach, with tall translucent sliding doors fronting some kind of lighted recreation room.
The Executioner closed in, moving slowly in a half crouch, weighted by the guns and ammunition that he carried. He gripped the silenced MP-5 K, carbine slung across his back where he could reach it readily at need, both the rifle and its under-barrel launcher primed and ready. At a range of thirty yards, he stopped, knelt and checked again for any lurkers whom he might have missed.
The paired-up guards were definitely on their own.
Approaching them would be a needless risk. Bolan lined up the MP-5 K’s iron sights with a hooded post in front. He pinned them on the watchman to his left, no special reason, and squeezed off a snuffling 3-round burst that put him down, blood spreading from beneath him on the paving stones.
Before the second lookout could react, Bolan had swiveled toward him, squeezed the trigger once again, and opened up his chest with hollow-point rounds. The dying hardman slumped backward, but his index finger clenched around the trigger of his Micro-Uzi, rattling off a burst like fireworks in the dark, still night.
So much for stealth.
Before more lights came on inside the house, before the home team started cursing, shouting orders, Bolan let the MP-5 K drop and dangle from its sling, hauling the Colt around and bringing it to bear. He peered into the M320 launcher’s day/night sight, using its laser range finder, and sent an HE round across the patio, smashing through plate glass on its way and detonating when it struck the rec room’s southern wall.
* * *
NOBORU MACHII DROPPED his whiskey glass and bolted to his feet, cursing a sudden rush of dizziness he recognized as the effect of too much alcohol. He was not drunk, per se, but heard a buzzing in his ears completely unrelated to the blast of seconds earlier, and wobbled on his legs until he braced one hand against a side table and got his balance back.
He made it halfway to the wall-mounted gun cabinet before Tetsuya Watanabe burst into the study, pistol in his hand, asking, “Are you okay, sir?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Machii almost snarled at him. “What’s happening?”
“I’m not sure, yet. I came to check on you. It may be—”
Gunfire crackled from the general direction of the rec room, soldiers crying out.
Machii did snarl, then. “Get out and deal with that! I’ll be there in a minute.”
At the cabinet, he fumbled with a small brass key to open it and took a shotgun from the rack inside. It was a Benelli M3 Super 90 12-gauge, which allowed a choice of pump-action or semiautomatic fire. Its magazine held seven rounds of triple-0 buckshot, with one more in the chamber, each equivalent to six .36-caliber bullets inside one cartridge. At close range, it was devastating.
And exactly what Machii needed at that moment.
As an afterthought, he snatched a pistol from its hook inside the cabinet, a fully loaded Walther PPQ, which stood for “police pistol quick defense” in German. That would give Machii eighteen extra shots, in case his 12-gauge and the guards stationed to defend him all proved useless.
The whiskey bottle beckoned to Machii as he left the study, but he cursed it and moved on, following sounds of combat toward the east side of the house. A smoky, chemical aroma in the air reminded him of the munitions that had fogged his office earlier, but this was subtly different. He recognized the scent of burnt gunpowder and explosives mixed together, and he had no doubt the house was under siege.
How had his nameless enemies located him? There was no time to think about that now, while they were still alive and doing everything within their power to kill him. Not police, he knew that much, since they always arrived with sirens, flashing lights and warrants. Someone else, then, who was not concerned with legal niceties, but only with the bottom-line result.
Machii’s ears rang with the sounds of gunfire now, the softer hiss of liquor working on his brain cells smothered by the battle din. He needed no guide to locate the firing line, but hesitated well short of the rec room, pausing in the hallway as another trio of his men ran past him, heedless of his presence on their way to join the fight.
If he could make it to the car and slip away, while they were busy…
Flushed with shame, Machii cursed himself and started moving toward the action, one foot following the other at a cautious, almost creeping speed. He kept his index finger off the shotgun’s trigger, worried that he might shoot one of his own soldiers accidentally, but he was ready to unleash a storm of lead within a split second, if threatened.
Another blast ripped through the house, much closer than the first. A rain of dust and plaster flakes sprinkled Machii as he huddled in the hallway, nearly deafened now. It was disorienting, but he knew where he was headed, only had to keep on walking in the same direction to become part of the action.
If he ran, there’d be no end to running. And no man escaped his private shame.
One of Machii’s guards staggered into view, emerging from a side door to the kitchen. He was unarmed, clearly dazed, a flap of scalp dangling above one eye as blood streamed down his face and soaked his white dress shirt. The soldier did not recognize his boss, shuffling toward him like a zombie, one arm out to brace and guide himself along the wall.
Machii stepped in front of him and clutched the wo
unded man’s lapel. “What’s happening?” he asked the soldier who stood blinking in his grasp. “Who is attacking us?”
“I do not know, sir,” came the reply.
Of course the young man didn’t know. How could he? He was stunned, brain scrambled, and the enemy would not have introduced himself. Machii stepped around his useless flunky, finding new courage in his own ability to move with purpose toward the battle.
With his finger on the shotgun’s trigger, he was prepared to kill his adversaries or die trying.
* * *
BOLAN HAD KILLED five gunners since entering the house, which made it seven altogether from the patio until he reached the modern, institutional-sized kitchen. Three had been together in the rec room when his first HE round detonated there, one more or less beheaded by the blast and shrapnel, while the other two were shaken to the point of immobility and sat there, staring at him, while he put them down for good.
The other two came charging in as he was moving through the smoke and dust from the explosion toward a door connecting to the kitchen. Sighting him, they both gave out kung fu–type shouts and leveled pistols in his general direction, but their zeal did not equate with combat readiness. One bullet hissed past Bolan’s ear, a foot or more off target, and the second shooter didn’t have a chance to fire as Bolan’s M4A1 carbine answered, stuttering short bursts and gutting them with 5.56 mm manglers.
The NATO rounds were made to yaw and fragment at their cannelures, shredding a target’s vital organs with a storm of shrapnel while the main part of the slug tumbled through flesh and muscle, carving out a devastating wound channel. The two gunners went down, flailing, out of action in a heartbeat, likely dead before their slayer cleared the kitchen door.
The large room, mostly stainless steel and copper, had three exits. Bolan had one covered, while the others, he supposed, would serve a dining room and, possibly, a hallway running through the house to other rooms. He had the kitchen to himself for ten or fifteen seconds, then his ears picked up the sound of more hardmen closing from the right, beyond a swing door. Bolan crouched behind a serving island in the middle of the kitchen, carbine angling toward the door.
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