He reached for the door to the laboratory. As he touched the door latch, fluorescent tubes above him began to glow. Before the door lock was automatically released, the radiation tubes built in intensity until they discharged a single blinding flash, leaving Bolan bathed in an eerie afterglow.
The enforced sterilization procedure was complete, and the door responded to Bolan's push.
Behind him, screams of rage at the shored-up outer door receded as the door of the antechamber clicked shut. Before him, everything was white—walls, floors, ceilings, storage spaces, doors.
In a split second, the nightfighter absorbed the chilling scene. Long benches were laden with glass retorts, coiled transparent tubing, flasks full of bubbling mixtures, dishes of bilious colored cultures, electrical wiring and a thousand instruments to test, control and record the results of Yamazaki's experiments.
On the far wall above a tangled mass of equipment was mounted a polished wooden panel that held a huge ceremonial sword, its long blade positioned vertical to the ground. There was a Japanese inscription engraved in the wood beneath the sharp tip of the sword. Bolan decided the weapon was some ghoulish memento of Hideo's family history. It stood as a symbol of power and vicious intent in this sterile chamber, where the biochemical conspiracies of a death cult were hatched in oozing test tubes.
In his helmet and asbestos suit, Bolan strode down the broad passageway between the lab benches. He would wreck as much of the equipment as he could before the doors behind him were broken apart by his pursuers. At the top of the list were the two cases of germ vials that would look like the glass cases the foul Hideo had shown off to him in his throne room. He sought them out, found them.
They were placed on a table on either side of a large straw-packed vessel full of acid. Bolan pushed the vessel over with his foot and let the contents slurp out onto the floor into a small lake, while he used the sword to pry open the first glass case of deadly virus.
Three bottles containing volatile spirits were sitting on the edge of the same table. Bolan swept them off with the flat of his sword. They shattered on impact and the different chemicals formed a larger, oily, smoking puddle. The suit protected him from the noxious fumes, but Bolan was careful where he trod as he next upended the first glass container of deadly germs. The small glass bulbs tumbled out, hissing as they hit the floor and cracked open.
Bolan turned to the second chest of bacteria. Its contents, too, joined the now vividly colored slime that coated the tiles. The smorgasbord of elements that was splashed across the floor would, Bolan hoped, help mute the power of the dangerous bacteria by exposing them to acidic deterioration. A small-scale but total germ war was going on right at his feet. Anthrax and gangrene and their nutrient base raged to survive in the hostile environment of acid and other brimstones from hell.
Bolan heard harsh rasping for breath through his headset.
He spun around.
Yamazaki stood at a concealed private entranceway, attired in an anti-contamination suit and helmet, surveying the boiling wreckage of his life's work.
"You fool—you cannot destroy an idea!" The voice echoed in Bolan's helmet. "I have perfected these strains. You cannot eradicate that knowledge!"
"No, you didn't perfect them," said Bolan. "It was the work of Naramoto."
"That's not true—"
"And now he'd rather destroy his own mind than let you unlock its secrets with hypnosis!"
Bolan raised his sword in a two-handed hold above his head.
The Lord of the Red Sun would not refuse this final challenge.
Hideo would insure that this was to be a duel without parallel.
There would be no need for a deep thrust. No major artery need be severed. The merest scratch, a single cut through the fabric of their protective suits would insure an agonizing death. The lab was awash with some of the deadliest bacteria ever mutated.
The two warriors stood facing each other squarely, dressed from head to foot like astronauts about to stand on the moon, yet each man bore a katana blade hand-forged in an earlier century.
The eyes of Yamazaki burned through his visor with an implacable hatred as he took up the opening stance.
Even Tanaga himself must have been mesmerized by those glittering slits, thought Bolan. Kuma, too. And Nakada. They had bent before Yamazaki's will. They had sold their souls to be admitted to his secret circle.
"You sacrifice yourself for no purpose," said Yamazaki. His tone was now almost cordial. "You are one of us, Colonel. . . "
Inviting.
"An outsider."
Quietly convincing.
"An outcast . . . yet a warrior."
Perceptive.
"A wandering samurai. You are ronin." Sympathetic.
"You dress as we do, think as we do, act as we do. . . "
Confident now.
"They gave you a rank, but you are your own man."
Truthful.
"You are the masterless ninja."
Flattering.
"This is your place. Here!"
Demanding. . .
"No!" It was a struggle for Bolan to issue even that simple, hoarse denial. He had been listening to the words, almost seduced by the tone, watching those eyes. . . and now Yamazaki was nearly upon him.
He had not seen the other man move—he would swear to that—but somehow Yamazaki had approached close enough to strike. It seemed as if he had glided across the floor.
Bolan managed to raise his weapon and parry the blow. The hypnotic spell was shattered as sparks flew from the clashing steel.
"No, I am not one of you!" It was Bolan's turn to press home the attack. Yamazaki fell back before the angry flurry of flashing strokes, the razor-sharp edges scraping, chipping, clanging against each other.
Hideo was driven back to his starting point.
Bolan poised for the first and final cut. He was beyond thought, unimpeded by careful plans—mind dissolved into instinct—as the sword thrust itself forward like a live thing in his hands.
He felt his foot slipping in the fizzing sludge. Yamazaki's savage counterstroke deflected his blade. It slapped flat down on the surface of the workbench. A second chop cleaved the ancient steel apart, leaving Bolan holding only the broken hilt.
He dodged backward quickly to get beyond range of Yamazaki's sword point.
But Yamazaki was in no hurry. The American officer was defenseless. Now he could dispose of his adversary slowly, painfully, remorsefully, here beneath the wall-mounted sword of his father. How symbolic.
"You should have listened," said the Lord of Shoki Castle. His mocking laughter boomed in the gaijin's ears.
"I could not," said Bolan, lifting back his arm, "for I am your executioner!"
He threw the heavy broken handle over Yamazaki's head. It hit the wooden display board hard .. . the sword trembled, slipped from its pegs and plunged downward.
It slit the suit between Yamazaki's shoulder blades before clattering to the floor. Yamazaki was unaware of the puncture, but almost immediately the point of his weapon started wavering in an uncertain circle.
One leg collapsed beneath him. Yamazaki reached out, trying to steady himself, and knocked several more bottles flying as his arm swept over the work top.
Yamazaki crumpled to his knees. The air rushing into his suit was killing him. He began to choke.
Bolan picked up a bottle of inflammable spirits and began stuffing a torn rag into its neck.
"Colonel!" Yamazaki held out one hand in an imploring gesture. He was begging to be finished off quickly.
Bolan reached out with his foot and shoved the long sword back toward Yamazaki before walking to the decon chamber. As he closed the airlock, Bolan took one last look to see Yamazaki slowly push the steel point into his lower abdomen, starting at the left and then slicing across to the right.
Then he left the Lord of the Red Sun committing hara-kiri in the solitary shambles of his own nightmare.
24
T
HE MEN CROWDED outside the lab's changing area were eagerly waiting for their master to emerge triumphant. The decon hatch swung back on its hinges, and they were served a Molotov cocktail. Three men tumbled backward, their clothes afire; four more were so deprived of oxygen in the conflagration that they collapsed where they were.
Bolan, in black again with his belt back on, hurried through the bitter smoke. Now he resorted to the shaken. One soldier running down the corridor did not have the sense to drop the water buckets he was carrying before a three-pointed star buried itself in his forehead.
The alarm gong was sounding with a renewed frenzy. Fire!
As he strode along the passage, Bolan knocked over every lantern he could find, each new blaze adding its own heat to the inferno that roared through the chambers and crevices of Shoki Castle. Bolan's rage cut through the rolling clouds that were smothering everything else in confusion.
The stairs were ahead of him.
The steps to freedom. . . and clean, fresh air.
"COLONEL PHOENIX! OVER HERE!"
They were waiting for him in the darkness, in the shelter of a tall hedge. Suki, Sandy, Professor Naramoto and his wife.
When Bolan reached them, the professor was staring up at the smoke-smudged stars. His mind was back in 1945, lost forever in the fires of history. His wife wept.
"John, I never thought I'd see you again," murmured Sandy, coming to the side of the black-clad terror-scourger and holding him tight around the waist.
"You should have more faith," smiled Suki knowingly. She was well aware of the American colonel's high aims and strengths to match, being of the same inclination herself. She looked him in the eye, and the look lingered. This was the man who had set the fires from which they now sheltered. This was one true blitzer.
"I have a report to make," Bolan grunted. He led the way to the nearby Datsun, its engine running.
He was impatient to make contact with Hal Brognola to wrap up the latest episode in his endless new war.
He was impatient to make contact with April Rose, too. For that, he would have to return to the States. It was an arousing thought.
Once more he turned to watch the tongues of flame that blossomed from the castle windows. Tendrils of blue white fire ran across the wooden tiles to the upturned curves of the roof corners.
Yamazaki's mad dream was going up in smoke. Consumed by fire.
The cleansing fire.
The purifying fire of justice.
Executioner 053 - The Invisible Assassins Page 14
