Ninja Assault

by Don Pendleton

But first, he had to keep himself alive.

  No small trick, that, under the present circumstances. Running shamed him, even if the men around him did not see it, but Takumi placed the family above himself. He had no heir to take the reins if he was killed in battle. His survival was a duty to the Sumiyoshi-kai.

  And he would crush the enemies arrayed against him, if it was the last thing that he ever did.

  * * *

  Marunouchi, Tokyo

  “THE MONK KNOWS EVERYTHING,” Kayo said.

  “No one knows everything,” Bolan replied.

  “Permit me to rephrase. The Monk knows everything of any value about crime in Tokyo.”

  “Is he a real monk?” Bolan asked.

  “At some time in his past, perhaps. Who knows?”

  “Maybe the Monk?”

  Kayo laughed at that, but kept his eyes on the pedestrians around them. They were walking north in the stylish heart of Marunouchi, which, itself, was rather like the heart of Tokyo. Bounded by the Imperial Palace to the west and Tokyo Station to the east, Marunouchi was one of the capital’s oldest business districts, nearly destroyed by an earthquake and fire in 1923, now home to hundreds of multinational corporations. The avenue was closed to normal vehicles, patrolled by cops on bicycles who gave the district’s shoppers, diners and CEOs plenty of room.

  The Monk met none of those criteria. Kayo had described him as a former law adviser to the Yamaguchi-gumi family, retired now, but remaining in the know. The Monk maintained a network of informers: Yakuzas and cops, dealers and users, pimps and hookers, gamblers and shylocks, lawyers and doctors, cab drivers—whoever could feed him intel on the city, regardless of rank or their stance in the eyes of the law.

  They found him lounging at a table outside a small café. A folding white cane lay in plain view on the tabletop.

  “He’s blind,” Bolan observed, stating the obvious.

  “And still sees everything,” Kayo said.

  Let’s hope so, Bolan thought, but kept it to himself.

  They had lost track of Kazuo Takumi, not hard to imagine in the termite hill of Tokyo. The oyabun owned a string of penthouse condos, but he wasn’t in residence at any of them, nor had he been seen at either of his two posh offices since Bolan started wreaking havoc in the man’s backyard. If he had fled the city altogether, finding Takumi among Japan’s 6,852 islands and 127 million people would be next to impossible. If he’d left the country, forget about it.

  “Ah, Lieutenant,” the Monk said before Kayo had a chance to speak. His choice of English was explained when he added, “You have a gaijin friend.”

  “You heard us talking,” Kayo stated, as he sat.

  “And I smelled you coming,” the informant countered. “You still wear Issey Miyake cologne, although it needs to be refreshed this morning. Your companion smells like…gunpowder.”

  “It’s been a hard night,” Kayo said.

  “So I hear. I’m sorry that you’ve come to this.”

  “We all do what we must.”

  “And now you seek Kazuo Takumi. To finish something?”

  “If we can.”

  “He’s left the city, I’m afraid,” the Monk informed them.

  “And you’ve lost him?”

  “Please. When was the last time I lost anyone?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “No one can.” The Monk allowed himself the vestige of a smile, then said, “Kazuo Takumi has a house in Shizuoka. You know Suruga Bay.”

  “It is very large,” Kayo said.

  “You need not search it all. Takumi’s property lies one mile inland from Oikawa Port, along the Ooi River, at the south end of Osakagawa Ryokuchi Park.”

  “I will find it.”

  “I have no doubt,” the Monk replied. “But will you find your way back home?”

  “I’m not sure where that is.”

  The Monk turned sightless eyes toward Bolan, seated opposite.

  “Has the gaijin led you off your path, my friend?”

  “I choose my own path,” Kayo stated.

  “Then pursue it to the end. Suruga Bay.”

  “You have been very helpful,” the lieutenant said.

  “I have done nothing but arrange a meeting. How it ends…” The shrug was barely visible.

  Southbound on Naka-dori Avenue, Kayo said, “He thinks we’re going to be killed.”

  “No reason you should go the extra mile,” Bolan replied.

  “I lied to him,” Kayo said.

  “How’s that?”

  “I did not choose the journey, Cooper-san. The path chose me.”

  * * *

  Suruga Bay, Shizuoka Prefecture

  SHOEI SATO WAS bored after the ride from Tokyo, annoyed by the warbling, chirping flute music that his godfather demanded as their traveling theme. It put him in mind of geisha houses—not bad, in itself—but those were places he went to relax and flush the world out of his head. The journey to Suruga Bay was not a pleasure jaunt, by any means, and so the music was incongruous. A mockery.

  If he were honest with himself, Sato was shaken by Koyuki Masuda’s death. It made the point he normally ignored: that all of them were ultimately vulnerable, and their days on Earth were numbered. No surprise, that, given all the lives he’d personally ended, but it was not something that he chose to dwell on, either.

  So, forget it, Sato told himself, as he stepped from the limousine and stretched his stiffened muscles. Do the job, and then get on with seeking your revenge.

  Wise counsel. And the job, he thought, might well be part of the revenge he craved.

  Was it coincidence that, in the midst of these attacks upon his family, Kato Ando had disappeared and Masuda had been eliminated trying to discover what had happened to the godfather’s attack dog? It was possible, of course—but so were UFOs, abominable snowmen and the monster said to lurk in Lake Ikeda, on Kyushu.

  In his personal experience, Sato had found that true coincidence was rare in dealings with the Sumiyoshi-kai. Losses were nearly always someone’s fault, whether an enemy’s or some pathetic idiot within the family who could not follow simple rules.

  Tadashi Jo was barking orders at the other soldiers as they piled out of their cars, greeted by others who’d been summoned to the godfather’s estate by phone, as they were leaving Tokyo. A rapid head count showed him thirty-seven gunmen prepared to fight and die, if necessary, for their clan leader. Sato assumed there were a few more in the house, and some scouring the grounds for prowlers. Call it fifty guns, then, plus himself, Tamura and Nakai, an army in themselves.

  As far as weapons, there would be no shortage. Sato saw assault rifles and submachine guns, shotguns, every man wearing a pistol. From past visits, he knew there were heavy weapons in the house: at least two Minimis, the Belgian light machine guns made by Fabrique Nationale d’Herstal with a cyclic rate of fire exceeding 700 rounds per minute; and an M134 Minigun from the United States, a Gatling-style weapon with six barrels capable of spewing an extravagant two thousand rounds per minute.

  Police would have a field day if they ever got around to raiding Kazuo Takumi’s estate, but bribes had thus far kept any such inconvenient visits from occurring. What would happen if his enemies from Tokyo discovered where they’d gone and came to find them? Would the neighbors—one a middle-rank vice president of Nippon Steel, another highly placed with Mitsubishi—summon officers if trouble came and shooting started? Almost certainly. And would their wealth offset Kazuo Takumi’s efforts to ensure that Shizuoka’s prefectural police played deaf, dumb and blind?

  That remained to be seen.

  Tadashi Jo stood before him now, lips moving. Sato realized he had not heard a word of what the first lieutenant was saying.

  Tamura saved him, answering, “We’re ready. Leave us to it. If intruders come, we’ll handle them.”

  “And quietly, if possible,” Jo stressed. “We must avoid humiliation of our godfather.”

  Sato supposed he might have smile
d at that, if he was not a stranger to emotion. But why bother, anyway, unless it was to irritate Jo? Their clan leader had already endured humiliation; every member of the Yakuza with half a brain knew that. An enemy he could not stop had ravaged Kazuo Takumi’s business in the United States and now in Tokyo. His worthless son was missing in action, as always, and he’d been driven to hide in his summer home, far from the city.

  What further humiliation could there be?

  Only death.

  And that, in his godfather’s case, might even be a blessing.

  * * *

  Osakagawa Ryokuchi Park, Shizuoka Prefecture

  DARKNESS HAD FALLEN on the park when Bolan pulled his Honda behind a line of trees and switched off the engine. Across the two-lane road immediately to his left, a low stone wall provided nothing in the way of real security before a wooded hillside rose and crested, hiding Kazuo Takumi’s rural hideout from their view.

  “I doubt that he’ll have mines on public land,” Bolan said. “But there could be cameras or something else. You never know.”

  “He shall not stop us,” Kayo stated.

  “Confidence is great,” Bolan replied. “But keep your eyes open, regardless.”

  “Do not worry, Cooper-san.”

  “Still just the .38?”

  “I may find something useful, once we’re on the grounds.”

  “Your call,” Bolan conceded. Stepping from the car, he flexed his shoulders, then got busy with his mobile arsenal.

  The Steyr was going with him, absolutely, and the Milkor MGL. He wore the Glock already over black slacks and a turtleneck to match, adding a bandoleer of ammo for the rifle and another for the 40 mm launcher. To his belt, he clipped four RGD grenades and tanto blade in its scabbard.

  Overkill? He hoped so, but the worst mistake that any soldier ever made was leaving gear behind on the assumption that he wouldn’t need it. Bolan would prefer to lug an extra twenty pounds or so, rather than come up short on hardware in the midst of battle, when his life was on the line.

  He’d heard it in a movie somewhere, sometime: Never let them say you died from lack of shooting back.

  Amen.

  Kayo had nothing to check except his six-gun, already reloaded. He was still wearing the suit he’d had on when they met, the jacket buttoned now to hide as much as possible of his white shirt. Not exactly Mr. Stealth, but there was nothing to be done about it now.

  A car rolled past, and Bolan let it clear the next curve, passing out of sight before he crossed the blacktop with Kayo at his side. Scaling the hillside was a chore for his companion, slipping twice in his street shoes, needing a hand up from Bolan to keep from backsliding on down to the curb. They made the crest five minutes after starting out, and saw Kazuo Takumi’s place roughly a quarter mile ahead of them, the house lit up, while darkness cloaked the grounds.

  That could be good, or bad.

  Without night-vision goggles—something his armorer hadn’t had in stock when Bolan visited his shop—the night could be both friend and enemy. Bolan was skilled at working in the dark, less sure about Kayo, but the Sumiyoshi-kai had a home court advantage, playing on familiar ground. They might have booby traps in place, though Bolan wasn’t sure they’d risk explosives, but if the oyabun was spooked enough to run, who knew?

  He’d talked about it with Kayo on the drive from Tokyo, trusted the cop to use his head and keep his wits about him when the shooting started, as he had so far.

  “From here on in, watch every step,” Bolan advised.

  Kayo nodded, and they started down the hill toward Kazuo Takumi’s reckoning.

  * * *

  Chinese Embassy, Minato, Tokyo

  COLONEL FULIAN SUN took the call at half past midnight, routed through the embassy switchboard to his private apartment. He had not been asleep when the phone rang, too restless on this night when such momentous and terrible things were supposed to happen. He recognized the caller’s code name and his voice, remembered from the one and only time they’d met in person, joined by Susumu Kodama.

  “You have news?” the colonel asked.

  “Bad news,” Captain Takahira Amago replied. “The worst, I’m afraid.”

  Sun kept his face deadpan, though there was no one else to see him in his bedroom, and his voice was level as he said, “Explain, please.”

  “There will be no reckoning,” the policeman said. “We have failed.”

  He sounded like a man grief-stricken, which would fit the profile of a true believer. Colonel Sun, for his part, felt dismay and an unpleasant churning in his stomach.

  “That is not an explanation,” he replied.

  “The flight was interdicted. All three aircraft are destroyed, together with their cargo. Seven men are dead. Police are on the scene.”

  “And those responsible?” Sun asked.

  “Still unidentified.”

  “The helicopters can be traced, as planned?”

  “In time, no doubt. Whether the cargo can be recognized is something else. The fire…”

  “I understand,” the colonel stated.

  Sun was not trained in the forensic sciences beyond the basic knowledge necessary to commit a simple crime and get away with it: blood spatter, fingerprints, transfer of hairs and fibers. He had no idea if fire eradicated every trace of anthrax spores, or if they could be recognized among the ashes, charges filed against the Sumiyoshi-kai for terrorist conspiracy. If that were possible, he still might salvage something from the wreckage of Susumu Kodama’s plan. A scandal in the government, if nothing else.

  “Was the son among those killed?” he asked.

  “No. He’s missing, with his father and Master Kodama.”

  “Are your officers pursuing them?” Sun asked.

  “Not yet. A warrant will be issued for Kazuo Takumi when the aircraft are identified as his. Toi is not considered active in the family. Master Kodama should be overlooked, unless the dead are linked somehow to Saikosai Raito.”

  “And will they be?”

  “I cannot say.”

  Sun swallowed bitter disappointment, mixed with worry. The police captain, once vital to his scheme, had now become a liability. Would he begin to reconsider his involvement as the net was cast for members of his cult? What would he say or do to save himself from prison?

  “We should meet,” Sun said. “You’ve been of great service, regardless of the outcome. I wish to reward you for your help in person.”

  “Of course!” The captain’s voice revealed surprise and something close to pleasure, even in the midst of grief. “At your convenience, sir.”

  “I’ll call tomorrow,” Sun assured him, “and arrange for an appointment. Somewhere private.”

  “Yes. Until then.”

  Sun would do the job himself. He had not killed a man in years, but wet work was like falling off a log. Once learned and practiced, it was never quite forgotten.

  Sun’s next problem was Susumu Kodama. He was “missing,” whatever that meant. Had he fled Tokyo to escape any fallout from his Great Reckoning? Had the unknown raiders who’d foiled the anthrax attack done away with Kodama, as well? Colonel Sun didn’t know, but he had to find out, and the sooner the better. The cult leader at large was a threat that he could not afford to ignore. The lunatic might try to blackmail Sun, or be arrested on some other charge and spill his story of a grand conspiracy to curry favor with the law. Wherever he had gone, if he was still alive, Kodama had to be found and killed.

  As for the Sumiyoshi-kai, if Toi Takumi was not implicated in the anthrax plot, his father might well escape prosecution. He could claim the aircraft had been stolen—which they were—and create a solid alibi. With friends like his, long grown accustomed to substantial bribes, Takumi might even strike a martyr’s pose, lamenting groundless persecution. None of that helped Colonel Sun, or Beijing’s plan to rack Japan with chaos.

  Sun cursed the whole damned cast of characters involved in what had seemed a solid and straightforward plan. Part
of the guilt was his, Sun knew, for trusting criminals and zealots, but such people were a spymaster’s normal stock in trade.

  Above all else, he had to preserve deniability.

  He had to survive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Shizuoka Prefecture

  There was an eight-foot chain-link fence around Kazuo Takumi’s property, with concertina razor wire coiled at the top, but it was not electrified. Bolan applied his Leatherman all-purpose tool and snipped the links, low down, and held it open while Kayo wriggled through, then followed, crudely fastening the flap behind him.

  It would pass inspection long enough, he hoped, for them to reach Takumi’s house and get the party started. Bolan had observed the ground for ten long minutes prior to making his approach: no dogs and no patrols along the fence so far. He saw no cameras, but couldn’t swear there weren’t some tiny fiber-optic eyes watching their entry to the property.

  If so, they’d find out soon enough.

  Takumi’s grounds were sparsely wooded, not a forest like the one they’d tramped through on their hike in from the park, but darkness pooled among the trees, untouched by lights burning outside the house. Guards had been stationed on the patio, and Bolan knew others would be on watch at any entrance to the place.

  The house was built in the style of a sixteenth-century Japanese country home, but with all the modern amenities and then some. Its centerpiece was a two-story grand pavilion with cantilevered verandas, wings extending to the north and east, with a separate guesthouse on stilts to the west. A tiered pagoda rose above a bonsai garden, while multiple satellite dishes sprouted from rooftops. Bolan saw no paper walls, which would have made their penetration easier, but guessed there might be some inside the house, for style’s sake.

  Either way, the house was built of wood, which guaranteed that it would burn.

  They met no roving guards and triggered no alarms on their approach. The final thirty yards were open lawn, well kept, no cover once they made their final rush to reach the house. That meant downing the guards Bolan could see, and causing a diversion that would draw others away from the glass doors he planned to use for entry, on the south side of the sprawling residence. Kayo would go with him, as agreed, snatching the first piece from a fallen enemy that suited him, and then was free to go off hunting on his own, as he desired.