The Sumiyoshi-kai were firing back now, not precisely sure where Bolan was, but trusting random semiauto fire to pin him down. Their odds would have been better if he wasn’t screened by semitrailers that absorbed the probing rounds. Bolan ducked around and ran the full length of the trailer, to its east end, circling back to bring the chase car under fire from that direction.
The hardmen weren’t stupid. Pinned down as they were and maybe close to panicking, they still had sense enough to know their enemy would flank them if he could. One of them had the west end of the semitrailers covered, with another covering the east end. The third was busy wrestling bodies from the black sedan’s front seat to clear it, maybe trying to discern if either of the soldiers wounded there was still alive.
Bolan could rush them, but that meant crossing a no-man’s land of open pavement, thirty yards or so, with automatic weapons tracking him. That smelled like suicide, but it was only marginally worse than waiting where he was, time flitting by until police showed up and ended it.
So, move.
To take them down and walk away from it, he had to flush the Yakuza killers from cover, and he wouldn’t get that done by sniping at the car they hid behind. There was a way, however…
Bolan palmed one of the RGD-5 frag grenades, eleven ounces in his hand, one-third of which was TNT. The rest consisted of a pyrotechnic fuse and an internal fragmentation liner scored to cast 350 bits of shrapnel with a killing range of eighty feet. Once Bolan made his pitch, detonation would follow in three to four seconds.
And he would be doing it left-handed.
Not a problem, under normal circumstances, but the Yakuza gunner assigned to watch the chase car’s rear spied Bolan as he stepped from cover, winding up his throw. A burst of submachine-gun fire came rippling toward him, diving back to cover as he pitched the dimpled green egg overhand. He’d barely started counting when the blast came, drawing Bolan back to join the fight.
He was surprised to find three hardmen charging the semitrailers, two with automatic weapons blazing, while the third one—obviously wounded—hobbled toward their target with a pistol raised. Bolan went prone beneath the storm of fire, spotting the nearest shooter first and plugging him above his belt buckle, center of mass. The hardman dropped to his knees, then toppled over to his left, the SMG he held still spitting death. His aim was shot, though, bullets wasted as they cut a zigzag pattern in the semitrailer’s corrugated side.
Two left, and Bolan shifted past the wounded gunman toward his more agile, more lethal pal. That one had spotted him, but had already spent his last rounds on the charge around the black sedan. Now he was trying to reload, cursing nonstop in Japanese, until a 5.56 mm mangler drilled his throat and silenced him for good.
Bolan was swinging back to drop the pistol shooter when the flat crack .38 rang out and the last Yakuza soldier went down. Turning to face the sound, he saw a stranger watching him from twenty yards, revolver lowered at his side, a wallet raised in his left hand to let illumination from the parking lot’s tall lamps glint from a badge.
Police, damn it.
“I am Lieutenant Kenichi Kayo. We need to talk.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Roppongi, Tokyo
Captain Takahira Amago once had felt at home among Roppongi’s all-night revelers—the young and wasted, gaijin tourists looking for an after-hours thrill—but that had been so long ago, as a patrolman for the Metropolitan Police, that it seemed foreign to him now. He knew his way around the neon zoo, of course, old ways were not forgotten, but he had moved on to better things.
This night, Roppongi felt particularly alien for his appointed rendezvous.
The message had arrived by telephone, and it was not for him to question, but it still felt…wrong. Why would Susumu Kodama insist on meeting there, and in one of the district’s trendiest nightclubs featuring foreign performers at that?
No matter. He’d been summoned, and it was his duty to obey.
The place was called Genesis for reasons that he never grasped. Perhaps Kodama had selected it for some symbolic reason or, more likely, for the crush of drunken bodies that would render him anonymous, unrecognizable.
Captain Amago paid his cover charge and squeezed his way into the club, blinded by strobe lights for a moment, then navigated his way to the corner booth where Kodama had promised to meet him. At first, he barely recognized the man he’d come to see, his shaved scalp hidden underneath a frizzy perm wig, horn-rimmed glasses distorting his mesmeric eyes.
Amago sat before he bowed. “Master.”
“Thank you for meeting me, Takahira.”
“To hear is to obey.”
“I would expect no less.”
“How may I serve, Master?”
“The schedule for the Great Reckoning has advanced.”
Despite the humid atmosphere inside the club, Amago felt a chill. Three years had passed since his salvation by Saikosai Raito from a course of drunken sloth that would have ruined him, perhaps led him to suicide. A fire had claimed his wife and children while Amago was at work, wasting his time on one more fruitless effort to disrupt the Yakuza drug trade. He had come home to ashes and despair, a grim resolve that nothing mattered in this life beyond the moment. On his path to dissolution, he’d been rescued by Master Susumu Kodama, who had recognized a soul worth saving.
Even then, it had been difficult at first, grasping the concept of the Great Reckoning would be apocalyptic, but he’d come to recognize its absolute necessity, drawing upon his own frontline experience with human decadence and the corruption of society at large. Nowadays, for saving souls, nothing but shock and awe would do.
“Advanced, Master?”
“The materials are ready. We shall have the means of adequate dispersal in a day or two, at the outside.”
“So soon.”
Kodama eyed him through the horn-rims. “Are you not prepared?”
“Of course, Master.”
Truth be told, Amago had a relatively minor role in the Great Reckoning. His part was to direct the manhunt, steering it away from Saikosai Raito toward the Sumiyoshi-kai. Master Kodama had an acolyte inside the clan—old man Kazuo Takumi’s son, no less—who would, without his knowledge, naturally—make the perfect scapegoat. At one stroke, the nation would be stunned, grief-stricken, then would rise in righteous fury against those who had transformed Japan into a sewer of corruption.
Cleaning house was sometimes drastic. As the purge began, those who survived would naturally question their allegiance to the ineffectual religions of their youth. Shinto, Buddhism and imported Christianity would all be seen as failures. None had cleansed the country or prevented the apocalypse. Only a new prophet could lead the way to new awakening and ultimate release from sin.
Master Kodama was prepared to take the lead. And when that moment came, Amago would be standing at his right hand, ready to do anything within his power for the cause.
“What should I know about the actual event, Master?” he inquired.
“We shall be using helicopters owned by Toi Takumi’s father. Is it not perfect?”
“Perfect, Master.”
“On the day—you’ll be informed of time and place—your aircraft must not intervene too soon.”
He was referring to the Metropolitan Police Department’s fourteen Falcon helicopters, employed for everything from monitoring traffic and pursuing fugitives to search-and-rescue work. In extreme emergencies, the helicopters could be armed and used as gunships, but the changeover took time and an order from the department’s Public Security Bureau, issued by someone with a captain’s rank or higher.
Someone like Takahira Amago.
“The response can be delayed,” he told Kodama.
“Excellent. And when the helicopters are shot down, when they have been identified, it drives the final nail into Kazuo Takumi’s coffin.”
“Brilliant, Master.”
“I must give the credit where it’s due. Toi suggested the refinement. I a
lmost regret the need to sacrifice him.”
“But—”
Kodama smiled. “I said, ‘Almost.’”
* * *
Ueno, Tokyo
BOLAN HAD FOLLOWED the policeman’s car to a small coffee shop near the Ameya-Yokochō street market, adjacent to Ueno Station. The cop went in, returned with steaming cups of coffee, black, and sat in Bolan’s car. It could have been a trap, an ambush hastily arranged by radio while they were traveling en route, but Bolan saw no SWAT teams lurking in the shadows anywhere nearby.
“Okay,” he said. “So, talk.”
They had already introduced themselves, after a fashion, at the river shooting scene, but there’d been no time for discussing anything beyond a basic plan to chat when they had gained some distance from the dead. Bolan had glimpsed Kenichi Kayo’s ID, and had introduced himself as Matt Cooper, a name he could discard at need.
“I serve with the department’s Organized Crime Control Bureau,” Kayo said.
“Must keep you busy.”
“Not as busy as I’d like. Mostly, I clean up after bōryokudan Yakuza fights and arrest what you call small fry. Some go to prison, most escape with fines. They kill each other and I do not mourn.”
“Frustrating,” Bolan said.
“It seems that you have found a way to circumvent frustration,” Kayo pointed out.
“Have I?”
The lieutenant smiled at Bolan. “I have known assassins, and you do not fit the mold. Who are you, Mr. Cooper?”
“Just a soldier.”
“From America.”
“I’m not part of the alphabet,” Bolan assured him.
“Arufabetto?”
“CIA, FBI, DEA, ATF, NSA, DIA. The alphabet.”
“Am I to think you are a solitary vigilante?”
“Just a soldier, like I said.”
“A soldier follows orders from superiors,” Kayo stated.
Bolan considered his reply, judging the officer beside him. Finally, he answered, “Can we say I’m off the books and let it go at that?”
“Deniability. Of course, the concept is familiar. Our Public Security Intelligence Agency is much the same.”
“I told you, I’m not—”
“With the alphabet. I understand. Your target is the Sumiyoshi-kai.” Not asking.
Bolan nodded, cautiously. “There have been incidents at home.”
“Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Yes, we do get CNN. Noboru Machii and Jiro Shinoda will not be missed in Tokyo. I wonder, Mr. Cooper—may I call you Matthew?”
“Suit yourself.”
“I wonder, Matthew, if you might need any help.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Advice, perhaps. Or aid in navigation, though I must admit you’ve chosen targets well enough, so far.” Kayo dropped the smile. “Direct participation, if you think it feasible.”
“You’ve seen the way I work,” Bolan replied.
“Indeed. It is impressive.”
“You’re a cop,” Bolan reminded him.
“Yes. And getting nowhere with the job I’m paid to do.”
“Frustration’s no excuse to throw your life away.”
“Have you lost yours?”
“I have,” said Bolan. “More than once.”
“Perhaps I’m ready for the sacrifice,” Kayo said.
“You need to be damned sure about that. And I need to know you mean it.”
“You are not under arrest. I have not called for reinforcements. How else can I demonstrate my earnestness?”
“There’s only one way,” Bolan said. “And once you take that step, you can’t turn back.”
“The blooding. Hai. I understand.”
Bolan had always been a fairly decent judge of human character. He used that judgment now and said, “Okay. Here’s what I have in mind.”
* * *
Akihabara, Tokyo
IT HAD BEEN a near miss at the Blushing Maid café. Tadashi Jo had been fifteen minutes out, when he’d received the warning of a raid on the café, an unknown number of his soldiers dead or wounded, others in pursuit of the gaijin attacker. If he had been there when the maniac arrived, most likely he would lie among the corpses now.
Jo settled for a drive-by at the scene, peering at the police cars and the gawkers through the tinted window of his Cadillac CTS-V. There was no risk that anyone would recognize him passing by, distracted as they were by death and destruction inside the café. Like ghouls, they flocked around the scene, most of them drunk or high on something peddled by his dealers, leering at catastrophe.
Jo should have been there, would have been a dead man, if he had not stopped to see Shiori on his way to deal with business. She had several techniques that always managed to relax him, even at the worst of times, and while he’d only lingered with her briefly, he’d felt better on the drive from her apartment to the Blushing Maid café—until he saw what he had missed.
“Get out of here!” he told his driver, slumping down into the Cadillac’s backseat.
“Where to, sir?” the wheelman asked.
Jo had to think about it for a moment, while they covered half a block and slowed to idle at the intersection, red light glaring at him like a baleful eye. His first order of business was to tell Kazuo Takumi what had happened, hoping one of the police on-site had not beaten him to it. That would look like negligence, the very last thing that Jo needed at the moment.
“Hinode,” he said, naming an all-night club he visited approximately once a month, not frequently enough to make a pattern, as he saw it. It was popular, but not controlled by any family, although Jo had considered muscling in to claim a portion of the business. Now, with every operation of the Sumiyoshi-kai at risk, procrastination was its own reward.
His driver waited for the green light, turned when it was clear, and set the course. Jo found his cell phone, grimacing as he speed-dialed Takumi’s number at the penthouse in Tsukiji, hoping that his boss had not moved yet again. He did not recognize the voice that answered, certainly not Kato Ando’s rasp, but he was put through when he gave his name.
“What’s the news?” Kazuo Takumi said. “What word?”
Jo opened, as had recently become his habit, with apologies for bearing more bad news. That done, he told Takumi what he knew about the Blushing Maid attack and waited for his oyabun’s response.
“How many dead?” Takumi asked, no outward sign that he was seething like the lava in Mount Meakan.
“I’m not sure yet. I have a call in to police,” Jo lied. Something for him to rectify as soon as he got off the line with his oyabun.
“And have you gathered any information on our enemy?”
“Not yet, godfather.” A little fawning never hurt in situations such as this. “All of our eyes and ears—”
“Seem useless. Can you explain that?”
“It tells me the man or men we seek are strangers, probably foreigners.”
“Not Inagawa-kai?”
“There’s nothing to suggest it but the phone call.”
“Which you disregard?”
“No, sir. But—”
“Never mind,” Takumi said dismissively. “I’ll handle that myself. What are your plans?”
“To speak with the police,” Jo said. “Increase security around our other properties, and—”
“Fine. Do that.” The click of Takumi ending their conversation struck Tadashi Jo like a slap across the face. He blushed with anger and embarrassment, thankful his soldiers could not see it in the Caddy’s dark interior.
Jo knew that he was running out of time in which to prove himself. And he was running out of tricks.
His only hope, it seemed, lay with The Four.
And where were they?
* * *
Tokyo Heliport, Koto
TOI TAKUMI DID not personally know the four Saikosai Raito members who were trailing him through cavernous Shin-Kiba Station, but he trusted them because they came with Master Susumu Kod
ama’s endorsement. Three of them were helicopter pilots, he’d been told. The fourth had come along to supervise, in case something went wrong.
Toi saw no reason why there should be any problem with the helicopters, but his arrogance was not so great that he believed himself to be infallible. He did not know the men who were assigned to watch the aircraft on the night shift, and would be bracing them with nothing but his name to make them grovel and obey his orders. If they doubted him, if one of them decided it was best to verify Toi’s orders with his father, it could ruin everything.
He had a pistol tucked beneath his belt, rubbing against his spine, a Walther PPQ. Toi did not plan on shooting anyone, but carrying the weapon made him feel more serious, substantial, like a person to be reckoned with. The others might be armed as well, for all he knew. It had not been his place to ask.
Access to the heliport was through Shin-Kiba Station, Toi showing his corporate ID to an attendant at the entryway. The clerks there were accustomed to his father’s pilots showing up at any hour of the day or night, requiring access to the Bell 206L LongRanger helicopters owned and registered to Oatari Enterprises. Signing in was a formality. Toi did not care that he had left a paper trail. Tomorrow or the next day at this time, his father and the lackeys he controlled would have much more important things to think about.
The helicopters were identical, as far as Toi could see, aside from the distinctive registration numbers stenciled on their waspish tails. All three were navy blue with white piping, their twin rotor blades drooping slightly while at rest. Toi knew the three aircraft had cost his father something like a million dollars each—another loss for the old man to tabulate when he was adding up the final score.
There should have been one pilot and one mechanic at the heliport, on standby if the oyabun required their services. They might be sleeping now, though it was early by Toi’s standards, and he would be pleased to wake them, might even expect them to be more compliant in a groggy state. He would transmit his father’s orders, fabricated from thin air, and if the loyal retainers balked…well, they could be the first of many sinners sacrificed for the Great Reckoning.
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