Ninja Assault

by Don Pendleton

  “Never!” Toi growled, and twisted where he sat, dropping to slam his chin against the concrete floor. At first, Bolan considered it a clumsy try at suicide, but then Toi spit a severed portion of his tongue on to the floor and rolled to face them, smiling, drooling blood.

  Bolan reached out to grip Kayo’s arm, holding him back from swinging the baton at Toi Takumi. “That’s enough!” he said. “We’ve lost him. What’s this all about?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Kayo said. “But I know someone who can tell us.”

  * * *

  Akasaka, Tokyo

  KOYUKI MASUDA FOUND Saikosai Biometrics easily enough. Entering the building after hours was a bit more difficult, but he was skilled in penetration, among other things. There was no overnight security in place, and he was masked, no need to fret about surveillance cameras recording him.

  His destination lay on the third floor. With the building’s elevator shut down for the night, he used the service stairs. The climb relaxed him, burned off energy and gave him time to think about the next step of what seemed to him a tedious and time-wasting inquiry. What did he care about Kato Ando or his small investigation gone awry? Nothing. But the assignment came down from his godfather, and he had volunteered. That obligation meant Masuda would apply his best effort and see it through.

  The office locks were adequate, but nothing that he could not crack. Inside, he found the security keypad, green light flashing, counting down the seconds until it sounded an alarm and summoned the police. Masuda pulled a six-inch crowbar from his stash of tricks and pried the keypad from its moorings, disconnecting crucial wires before the clock ran down.

  So much for the high-tech alarm.

  He swapped the crowbar for a penlight and began to search the office, bypassing the small reception area in favor of an office with a bank of filing cabinets. He opened each in turn, riffled through papers that meant nothing to him: bills of lading, correspondence with more companies he’d never heard of, notebooks filled with calculations that were gibberish. Next door, there was a lab of sorts, with shelving on the walls and two long tables in the middle of the room. Masuda recognized an incubator and refrigerator, scores of petri dishes and a heap of plastic food containers, all stained red inside. He stopped with one foot on the threshold when he saw a pair of yellow hazmat suits hanging from wall hooks to his left.

  This was beyond him, and Masuda knew it, but he needed answers. The lab suggested that whoever ran Saikosai Biometrics might not want police prowling their premises. What was the purpose, then, of the alarm? What else, but to alert the tenants to a breach?

  Masuda turned back to the entryway, holding the penlight in his teeth while he deftly replaced the wires he’d disconnected without damaging them. On again, the green light started flashing, the interrupted countdown starting over. When the light turned red, and no alarm went off inside the office, he retreated to a nearby chair and settled in to wait.

  It was a gamble. If he’d misinterpreted the lab equipment, squad cars might be rolling toward him while he sat there, killing time. Masuda doubted it, but if his guess proved wrong, he had no doubt that he could deal with two, three, even four policemen easily enough. Their judo and batons were child’s play next to his skills, and they were harangued throughout their training to avoid the use of deadly force whenever possible.

  Masuda, for his part, observed no such restrictions.

  Fifteen minutes after he had reset the alarm, he heard footsteps rushing along the corridor outside. One person, trying to be stealthy, failing miserably in his haste. Masuda rose and stood to one side of the door, where it would shield him as it opened. He had drawn no weapon yet, trusting surprise to do the job.

  There came a fumbling at the lock, the door eased open, and a small man eased it shut behind him. Eyeing the alarm pad, dangling from its mount, the green light turned to red now, he reached out and switched on the fluorescent ceiling lights.

  Behind him, killing close, Masuda said, “We need to talk.”

  * * *

  Taito, Tokyo

  EASTBOUND ON KOTOTOI DORI, toward Asakusa, Bolan said, “Let’s hear the rest about this Saikosai Raito.”

  “The name translates to ‘Supreme Light’ in English. All the New Age cults have names like that, you know—One Way, The Truth, The Golden Path. Such arrogance.”

  “Sounds typical of all religions,” Bolan said. “What makes this any different?”

  “Its leader,” Kayo replied. “Susumu Kodama. He presents a bland, innocuous facade, but I’ve researched his background. He’s served time in prison for assault and fraud, is suspected of more serious offenses that were never proved against him.”

  “Such as?”

  “Thirteen years ago, he led another cult. Kisei, he called that one. Homeward Bound. Most of his followers were elderly. Some changed their wills in favor of Kodama and the cult. Three of them died within a few weeks afterward. All accidents, of course, in the official version.”

  “So, a con man and a killer, maybe,” Bolan said. “What’s this about a reckoning?”

  “Saikosai Raito is what we call an apocalyptic cult. You’ve heard of them, no doubt.”

  “Like Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown,” Bolan said.

  Kayo nodded. “Or, in our case, Aum Shinrikyo. ‘Supreme Truth,’ in translation. You’re familiar with it?”

  “Sarin in the subway,” Bolan answered. “What, twenty years ago?”

  Another nod. “Thirteen dead, more than fifty seriously injured, with a thousand others suffering minor effects. In related attacks, a policeman was shot, and a Yakuza assassin killed Aum’s so-called minister of science on the street, outside cult headquarters. Aum’s guru, Shoko Asahara, was arrested months after the sarin incident, convicted of murder and sentenced to die. So far, he’s managed to avoid the gallows with appeals and testimony in new cases, when his later crop of followers wind up in court. They call themselves Aleph today.”

  “Which means?”

  “Nothing, per se. It’s the first letter of three alphabets—Arabic, Hebrew and Phoenician. Presumably, they view their cult as the beginning of all things.”

  “And you think this Supreme Light is another Aum?”

  “Susumu Kodama preaches his Great Reckoning against sin and a corrupt society,” Kayo said. “To most, it has no more reality than Armageddon or the final days of tribulation in the Bible.”

  “But you think he’s up to something.”

  “Toi Takumi seemed to think so. Whatever the secret, he silenced himself forever to keep it.”

  They had left Toi handcuffed in the basement of Kayo’s safe house, nothing they could do about the bleeding from his severed tongue. He might survive, or might not. At the moment, Bolan didn’t care.

  It bothered him, embarking on a tangent, leaving his primary mission to pursue what might be nothing, but he trusted the lieutenant’s instincts well enough to stick with him awhile and check it out. If the Supreme Light were about to trigger an apocalypse in Tokyo, preventing that would take priority over his war against the Sumiyoshi-kai.

  But only for the moment. He would check it out, do whatever he could to spare the city’s innocents from harm if some kind of attack was planned, then he’d get back to business with Takumi’s clan. Distractions were a part of life and part of every battle, but a warrior did his best to overcome them and survive.

  “This guru is a con,” Bolan observed. “You think he’ll cop to planning some kind of attack on Tokyo?”

  “I may be able to persuade him,” Kayo said.

  “Like with Toi?”

  “I see his choice as evidence that he had something serious to hide. He is a true fanatic. If Kodama has some mercenary end in mind, as I suspect, greed makes him vulnerable. He gains nothing by self-sacrifice.”

  “Maybe you should have brought Toi’s tongue along.”

  “I have a better plan. If he proves reticent, we take him back to speak with Toi.”

  “One-sided
conversation?”

  “Or an object lesson.”

  “How much farther?” Bolan asked.

  “Another two blocks. Turn left at the light.”

  * * *

  Asakusa, Tokyo

  SUSUMU KODAMA WAS not expecting visitors. The rapping at his door at that hour put him in mind of trouble, complications, headaches—all the things he did not need. He could refuse to answer, leave the caller standing on his doorstep until weariness set in and whoeever it was departed, but it went against Kodama’s grain to hide in his own home.

  He checked the peephole. Through its fish-eye lens, he saw a bland face peering back at him: short hair, tired eyes, with worry lines between the straight black brows and deep parentheses around the mouth from frowning. An official, from the look of him, which at the present hour, meant police. But he had come alone, and that was something.

  Kodama saw his mistake as soon as he opened the door. A gaijin had been lurking to the left, unseen, and stepped into the open now, staring beyond Kodama, past the foyer, as if seeking any others in the house. At the same time, the Japanese policeman pushed the cult leader backward, entering the house without a pretense of asking permission.

  “Officer—”

  “Lieutenant, if it matters.”

  “May I see your warrant?”

  The lieutenant made a show of patting at his pockets. “I’ve forgotten it, it seems,” he said. “You don’t mind answering some questions, do you?”

  “I answer nothing without first consulting my attorney. If you have no warrant, you must leave my property at once.”

  Kodama saw the punch coming but could not dodge in time. It staggered him, and while he might have kept his footing, one leg struck the low-slung coffee table, and he toppled over, flailing, tumbling to the carpet. Blood spray from his nostrils stained the deep white shag.

  “We understand each other now, eh?” the lieutenant asked. Behind him, the gaijin had still said nothing.

  “What I understand,” Kodama spluttered, struggling up to hands and knees, “is that you have destroyed your pitiful career. I will sue for this brutality and take your last—”

  The kick came out of nowhere, caught him in the ribs and flipped him over on his back. He lay there, gasping, grimacing in pain, completely at the mercy of these strangers in his home.

  “Consider this a reckoning, though not, perhaps, a great one,” the lieutenant said.

  Kodama felt his stomach lurch, a new sensation, separate from the sharp pain of bruised or broken ribs. “Great reckoning” could not be a mere slip of the lieutenant’s tongue. He knew something. Was it enough to hang Kodama if he kept his mouth shut through a beating, waiting for the chance to call his lawyer?

  And what if the lieutenant and his gaijin friend allowed no opportunity for that?

  “I’m injured,” he complained, stalling.

  “Not badly, yet.”

  “You can’t do this, Lieutenant.”

  “Yet, it seems I am.”

  Time for another tack, Kodama thought, trying once more to rise. “I don’t know what you want,” he wheezed. “Perhaps if you explained…”

  “The Great Reckoning,” the lieutenant said, looming above him. “Your words, I believe, for some sort of apocalypse. You cannot save yourself by feigning ignorance.”

  “The sacred texts of Bishamon predict a reckoning for sinners. That is all I preach.”

  “And never gave a thought to making it come true?” the other stranger asked, the first time he had spoken.

  “And who are you?” Kodama asked.

  The self-proclaimed lieutenant answered, saying, “We are colleagues in a vain attempt to save your life. If your disciples carry out the plan, your fate is sealed. If you obstruct us…well, you may not hang, but you will die. I guarantee it.”

  “There is no plan. I tell you this in all sincerity.”

  “And I tell you that you have made a serious mistake.” Stepping behind Kodama, the lieutenant handcuffed him, clamping the cuffs painfully tight. He steered the man toward the stairs, the gaijin following.

  Downstairs, they had barely cleared the final threshold when a chunk flew off the doorjamb, splinters prickling at Kodama’s cheek. He recognized the bullet strike but heard no gunshot, ducking instinctively. On either side of him, his captors gripped his pinioned arms, rushing him toward a car parked at the curb.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Bolan missed the muzzle-flash, but knew that forward motion was their only hope. The car was only yards away, the only cover they could hope for without doubling back inside Kodama’s building. That meant being trapped, and that was no alternative at all.

  Clutching the guru’s right arm with his left hand, Bolan freed the Steyr from its hiding place beneath his raincoat, thumbed off the safety, and held the weapon ready to return fire if he got the chance. A silencer served double duty as a flash suppressor, but he didn’t need a visual to hear the second bullet strike Kodama, slapping flesh and fabric.

  Bolan felt the warm blood on his left cheek, saw the guru start to slump away from him and kept the lurching captive more or less upright, still moving forward. It was just a graze below Kodama’s shoulder, nothing major, but from personal experience he knew it had to have hurt like hell.

  “Keep going!” Bolan snapped at him, and in another second they had reached the Honda, all three huddled in its shadow.

  From the angle of the hit, the shooter had to be across the street. The only way to spot him was to offer him a target, and because they needed Toi’s guru alive, Bolan decided it was his job to play decoy. The shooter wasn’t bad, although he’d rushed his first, best chance to get the job done. Keep it quick and stay alert. There was a fifty-fifty chance Bolan could pull it off.

  He pictured what he’d seen across the street when they’d arrived, remembering the urban landmarks, then stood, scanning the far side of the two-lane blacktop, waiting for it. When the flash came, it was small but obvious, and Bolan dropped back under cover as a bullet creased the Honda’s trunk lid, whining on to strike the white apartment building facade behind him.

  Do it now, he thought, before the shooter had a chance to think and relocate. Bolan rolled to his right, angling his AUG across the street, and fired a 3-round burst toward the lamppost where he had glimpsed the muzzle-flash. One of his bullets rang on metal over there, the other two lost somewhere in the night.

  It was enough to make the shooter duck and dodge, however, looking for a safer place to stand his ground and fight. Across the street, he had a choice of shrubbery outside another block of apartments, or a panel truck parked at the curb. The truck was his best bet, no honest surprise when he chose it.

  Bolan chased his target with another burst, trying to lead the runner, saw him stumble as he reached the van, but couldn’t tell if that was from a hit or diving headlong out of sight. Whichever, he could not afford to leave the shooter where he was, still breathing, maybe fit to follow them, or at the very least fire on the Honda as they fled.

  The Steyr wasn’t silenced, and he knew the shots he’d fired were bound to raise alarms from the apartment dwellers all around him. Some were likely dialing 119—the Japanese version of 911—already, summoning police. Whatever Bolan planned to do, he had to do it now, regardless of the risk involved.

  Translating thought to action, he was on his feet and moving in another heartbeat, sprinting over pavement, veering to his left halfway across the street, to keep from making it too easy for his enemy. The shooter, if he wasn’t badly wounded, would be crouching somewhere on the far side of the panel truck, prepared to fire on any target that appeared to left or right. On top of that, it was impossible to run across two lanes of asphalt silently, so he would be forewarned of death’s approach.

  Ten feet from the van, Bolan dropped prone and pressed his cheek against the pavement, scanning underneath the vehicle and catching shadowed motion in the light provided by a street lamp to his left. He fired a third short burst, his b
ullets grazing blacktop, and immediately heard a cry of pain.

  No miss, this time.

  He rose and ran around the van, still cautious, but aware of how the shock from bullets drilling flesh and bone could spoil even the finest shooter’s aim. He found his target lying crumpled on the curb, one arm outflung, a silenced pistol out of reach where it had slithered when he fell. The shooter lay with pelvis shattered, bleeding out, but kept a stolid poker face.

  “Who sent you?” Bolan asked him, guessing it would be a waste of breath.

  “Kutabare, gaijin!” the wounded warrior rasped, and closed his eyes.

  Bolan drilled him with a mercy round between the eyes, then frisked the body as it shivered into death, taking a wallet, leaving the assorted tools and weapons hidden underneath a stylish blazer. On the jog back to his car, he wondered who it was he’d killed, and what had led the shooter to them in the first place.

  They were riddles that could still prove lethal, if he dropped his guard.

  * * *

  Nakano, Tokyo

  THEY FOUND NO ambush waiting at the safe house, no sign that the place had been disturbed while they were gone. Kayo kept the handcuffs on Susumu Kodama as they guided him downstairs for a reunion with his die-hard acolyte, but from the staircase Bolan saw that they had come too late.

  Toi Takumi lay with a broad pool of blood surrounding his head, one cheek plastered to the basement floor where it was clotting. He had thrashed around some in the midst of dying, etching abstract patterns on the gray concrete. The severed portion of his tongue lay several inches from his open maw, as if he had regretted his decision in those final moments and had tried to take it back.

  Too late.

  Kodama sagged between them, muttering what had to be a curse in Japanese. “What have you done to him?” the guru asked.

  “He did it to himself,” Bolan replied. “That’s loyalty you’re looking at. He died for you and your Great Reckoning. Are you prepared to do the same?”