“And the big one? He is your responsibility.”
Hibiki nodded. Alicia saw these men weren’t guards in the truest sense of the words—they were minders at best. Of course nobody would actively seek to gain entrance to a Yakuza stronghold; nobody in their right minds, and probably never had. If a person did, and even passed this level of security they only gained entry to a building full of even more of the same. She put her head down, hiding her face, because she just couldn’t figure out how to imitate that broken, terrified look of the frightened captive. Better to stare at the floor.
Together, they approached the heavy door. One of the guards entered a six-digit code and pushed it open. Beyond Alicia saw a roughly hewn tunnel, shored up by heavy spars set into the walls and illuminated by a row of strip lights. It was rudimentary, but effective and perfect for the Yakuza’s needs. No more words were passed as the door closed behind them. Hibiki started forward, saying nothing. Dahl coughed and Alicia looked up at him.
“Keep your mouth shut,” he said, his meaning twofold, both as a token threat for unseen eyes and as a warning to her—their enemies could yet be playing them, allowing them to venture further into their territory.
The tunnel ran straight, cold and damp in parts, but sturdy enough. Nothing trickled or drifted down from above. Cameras were attached to every second spar. Alicia imagined the busy road above; the cars that passed over every day having no idea as to the activity going in beneath. How many other cities in the world had this kind of set up? London? Washington? New York? Those, she thought, and hundreds more.
It didn’t take long to traverse the tunnel. The far side was composed of a glass cubicle, which the three of them entered and waited inside. Completely enclosed they assumed that again they were being vetted. Hibiki stood patiently until a door opened automatically and allowed them access to another room; the mirror of the one on the opposite side. Yakuza guards stared at them as they passed through and entered another elevator.
Hibiki caught both their eyes. His meaning was clear.
We’ve done it.
Alicia allowed herself an inner smile. Dahl’s grip on her arm relaxed. The elevator doors whooshed open.
And a scene of dangerous bedlam met their eyes.
Guards were rushing around, guns up. Outside the elevator a man stopped as he ran past, took a look at Hibiki and his captive.
“Better keep a low profile for a few hours,” he said. “Check in over there and wait.” He pointed to yet another unmanned desk. “The guy should be back soon.”
Hibiki’s face was surprised, and the expression was not faked. “Considering where I am,” he said, “I’m wondering what the hell is going on?”
Shouts were flung through the air all around them. Men who looked like boys helped double the guard near the front entrance to the building. Suited individuals with a sense of authority shouted order, themselves looking flustered.
Hibiki coughed. “Please. What is happening here?”
“We’ve been infiltrated.” The man shook his head in disbelief. “A woman. She came in here with the girls. The entire building is in lockdown, all the guards up and armed. Damn, if this hasn’t happened before.”
Alicia watched as Hibiki struggled to contain himself. “What girl? Why?”
“They think it is the sister of one of our special guests. You know, the one scheduled for trial tomorrow? Well, they think it’s her and that she has help. But don’t worry, they caught her.”
“They caught her?” Hibiki’s words all but trembled.
“Of course. And now they have both of them.” The man laughed. “Should be a real showcase tomorrow.”
Alicia closed her eyes, feeling actual gloom for the first time since they locked handcuffs on her, and then reopened them to take in the chaotic scene. Hundreds if not thousands of guards—all getting organized and ready for battle. Dozens of bosses. More weapons than she could count. Untold security precautions.
And now they were smack bang in the very middle of it.
“Fuck,” she said aloud.
The Japanese man stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re worried about. Nobody’s going to be interested in you for at least two days.”
Hibiki grunted. “I only came to drop the bitch off.”
“Then you’re out of luck. Nobody’s getting in or out of here, my friend. Nobody. Not even Special Forces could get through those doors now.”
Alicia unobtrusively caught Dahl’s eye, both of them having the exact same thought.
No. But I bet Matt Drake could.
*
When he took Chika’s call Drake felt elation. Against the odds but with stealth and the unexpected on her side, Mai’s sister had completed her task. Hibiki’s operation had also passed with relatively little hiccup—that was until the trio gained access to the Yakuza HQ. It was then that Drake, listening through the comms, learned Chika’s fate and saw the new dilemma.
Shit, we have a team inside that can’t operate. One sister about to go on a showcase trial and the other about to join her. How did all that happen?
He sat back in the chair, pushing it away from the table and rubbing his eyes. They were on a knife edge. Could he bridge the blade one way or another? His watch read: 3.13 a.m. So there was time. Time to come up with a new plan. But it would have to be concise—Hibiki needed to be a part of it and Drake’s involvement thus far had been passive—they had not communicated for fear of alerting Yakuza security measures. Deciding on a plan and relating it had to be a one-time deal.
The only other person in the room brought him a mug of black coffee. “Thanks, love,” he said a little gruffly. “This isn’t turning out quite bloody right.”
Grace plonked herself down next to him. “You will do it,” she said. “And if I can help . . .”
“We’re in a world of shit.”
“Hey, stop sugar coating everything will ya?”
Drake turned to her. This was a seventeen-year-old runaway with no good experience to draw upon, her old past a jumble of newly emerging hateful memories. Raised later by the Tsugarai and in particular her brutal master—Gozu—the same man who had trained Mai, her life until this moment had been a tapestry of evil. As she told it she was now determined to let the past go, to embrace her future potential. To rise from the depths of Purgatory.
“It’s not all like this,” he said lightly. “Sometimes we even have a laugh.”
“Next time maybe.”
Drake focused his attention fully on her. Next time? “We’re soldiers, Grace. Trained ones. You shouldn’t even be here. If Mai knew she’d blow her top.”
Grace blinked. “Eh?”
“Y’know. Like a volcano. Nobody ever said you would be part of the team, Grace.”
The young girl clenched her jaw, eyes filling so that Drake suddenly felt like a major bastard. He reached out but she flinched away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I know . . . I know . . .” He was about to say I know what you’re going through. But how could he? He was being insensitive, bloody condescending to be honest. But it was the damn job, the situation, cluttering his thoughts.
“They’re still searching for your parents,” he said. “You’re still young enough to have anything you want. Any job. We’re all here to help. You have a new start at life.”
“Could I be like Karin?” Grace suddenly asked, eyes now filled with excitement. “A geek? I’d like to be a geek. I’d wear glasses and everything.”
“You don’t need to try so hard to fit in.” Drake smiled. “You’re already one of us.”
Her smile now included him. “Family?”
“Family.”
Drake fought an instinct to hug her, turning instead to the window before she could see the surge of empathy in his eyes. “And you can start by helping me plan how to save ‘em. How to save ‘em all.”
“There is one thing,” Grace pointed out. “What has happened to Yorgi
?”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Mai came fully awake as the guards invaded her cell. Her stomach wound flared as she tried to stand. Two men pulled her upright, the cramped muscles in her arms screaming in protest. Guards fanned out in front of her, each one toting a mini machine gun. When she was fully vertical and alert the mass of guards parted as if split by a cleaver, leaving enough space for one black-suited man.
He stopped a hair’s breadth away, disdainful and disrespectful of her skills. “Today the Yakuza see you for what you really are,” he spat out. “Tomorrow we get to see you die. No more insolence, no more freedom, no more dreams for you, Kitano bitch.”
Her inner fury lived in her gaze, which locked onto his like a heat-seeking missile. To speak would be wasteful, expending energy which she knew might yet be needed, and attract only cruelty which she also knew these men would never have the courage to risk if they were alone with her. Cowardly, spineless, they would dare challenge her only now, and only to plump themselves up in front of their men.
So, simply, she remained mute.
The Yakuza boss barked an order, sneering in her face. His men urged her forward, pushing her out of the clean cell and into a corridor. More guards lined the walls, all with raised automatic weapons. Mai had never seen so much security, not even surrounding President Coburn in the hours after his escape from the Blood King. Were they expecting an assault? Surely all these safety measures couldn’t be for her.
The Yakuza boss read her mind. “So many bosses have come to watch you die,” he said with an air of sentimentality. “It has been a long time since we all came together. For that, at least, we have you to thank. The atmosphere up there is electric, euphoric, a thing I thought I’d never again see in our stronghold. Today,” he nodded, “will go down forever in Yakuza history as a day to be remembered.”
Mai didn’t doubt it. Her legend was strong among the police and governmental authorities. Her demise would deflate morale at the very least and leave some important individuals crushed. The optimistic part of her mind knew that Drake and the rest of the SPEAR team would have tracked her by now, starting with the symbol she drew in her own blood, but even that failed to ascertain her actual rescue. Not without bringing the damn building down. But then, if they knew civilian casualties would be non-existent, even that wasn’t beyond them.
Mai walked the line, traveled up several floors in an elevator, exited and then walked another line. By now, the corridors were wider, the men more smartly dressed. She knew they must be close to their destination. She passed empty room after room, seven floors up judging by buildings she could view out the far windows. Her only thoughts were of Drake and Grace and the man she had murdered, Hayami, and his poor daughter, adrift in the world.
I no longer feel like the strong woman I once was.
Her dilemma in a nutshell. Incident and consequence had sapped her inner strength and calm. Now, since no avenue of escape automatically existed she didn’t waste time trying to concoct one. At last her entourage slowed and finally stopped before a huge double door, but rather than fling them dramatically open she was shown a side door and made to make her way along a darkened corridor and into a spacious room.
“Wait here,” somebody said.
She looked around. Whiteboards propped on easels stood everywhere, as well as a lectern and other conference paraphernalia. Of course, there was only one room big enough to house all these mobsters—the building’s premier conference room. So she was about to head out on stage for the first time in her life.
Smyth would be proud, she thought. Maggie in the limelight. Maggie standing proud. Maggie undefeated. And Drake? Where was the Yorkshireman now? The darkness around her crawled with Yakuza. And as she put her mind to it, as she concentrated on her peril instead of her problems, she heard the murmurings of a gathered crowd.
“They’re waiting for you.” The boss’s mouth was so close his dry lips brushed against her ear. “Time to face your accusers, Kitano. Time to face those you wronged.”
She struggled to remain mute, to keep from crying out: No you’re not! I wronged Hayami! I wronged his family! Emiko! That’s who I wronged, not some inked-up, arms trafficking, lethal organization that destroys hundreds of lives every single day! Never that!
The rear of the stage protruded into the room and was reached by a set of small steps. For now she was shielded from the conference area by a wide accordion-shaped partition. As she waited a great cheer split the air.
“You’re up.”
A door opened and she was guided through, then left alone. A great hubbub swelled all around her, straight at her, filling her head. An overwhelming force, it swept all else aside, leaving her stunned. But she stood tall against it; a sturdy oak in the eye of a hurricane, a survivor refusing to bend in the face of all her aggressors.
The men sat before her, arrayed around the room in their hundreds if not thousands. She stood on the stage, watching their hostile gestures, their violent fake lunges. Not one of them would stand against her alone. Not one in several thousand. Yet here . . . here they were kings and gods and unstoppable tyrants. Their words—only words, she reminded herself—threatened every manner of degradation and shame and vicious death.
“Approach the stage.” She spoke aloud into the storm, her words whipped forcefully away and unheard so that only those who could read lips knew what she said. “Come now. Just approach.”
None did. It took many minutes for the abuse to die down and nobody immediately brought the trial to order. There were no judges here today, only prosecutors. If any germ of hope existed in the far corners of her mind it knew that the longer this trial went on, the more chance she had of being saved.
Let them rant.
At length, the men relented and were served drinks. As this process continued Mai finally heard the voice of someone she knew.
All too well.
Hikaru rose from his, no doubt honorary, place in the front row. “You are accused of dishonoring the Yakuza family, Mai Kitano. What do you say?”
Mai ignored the little weasel, preferring instead to examine the faces beside him. These would be the most powerful then. She wondered if she might seize one of them.
“What do you say?” Hikaru repeated, voice rising.
“I say it takes at least three people to have a trial,” she said. “The accuser, the accused and the judge. I see no judges here today. Only killers. I say this is no trial at all.”
“Oh damn, you got us.” Hikaru hooted to the sound of laughter, jeers and some disapproving looks from the older men beside him. “This is what you Europeans call a holiday. Some time off for jobs well done.”
“I am Japanese,” Mai pointed out.
“But show no respect for your countrymen. We are Yakuza; we live and die here as our ancestors did. We are family with a family ideal. Many of our members are outcasts, betrayed by their so-called parents. And yet you have now disrespected us twice.”
You are a bunch of deluded killers, Mai wanted to say but her composure won the day. Maybe she could turn this into a long-running debate. “I was doing my job.”
But Hikaru and his betters saw her reply only as a further sign of contempt. Hikaru snorted, “The police work for us. Not us for them. But not you. Never you. Not until now, at least.”
Mai caught a change in his tone, a cunning that hadn’t been there before. Instantly she was on her guard. Perhaps she had underestimated this homicidal mixture of deviants.
Hikaru waved in a general manner. Mai saw movement over by a far door. A loaded moment passed and then the world fell out from under her. Even she, trained and tough as she was, felt her knees buckle.
Chika came into the room, restrained and bloodied, a gun pointed at her head.
The world would never be the same.
Hikaru began to laugh.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Hayden Jaye stared into the heart of chaos, wondering how to make sense of all the evidence scattered aro
und her. Never in her life had she known so many clues to exist that led nowhere. First—the Lost Kingdom. It was out there somewhere, probably submerged between China and Taiwan, though the jury was still out on that one—their language translator, David Daccus, still engrossed in his thankless task of deciphering the symbols and characters nobody had ever managed to decode in all of human history—those found on the Niven Tablets.
Or had they?
The USS Queenfish was looking more and more like it might have been an exploration vessel, and had been ordered to sink the Awa Maru to conceal its real intentions in the South China Sea. Such an appalling tragedy. Either way, it had helped spirit away a fortune in glittering treasure and an ancient, priceless one—the Peking Man. And now Dudley, his crazy crew and the Pythians possessed the old Chinese treasure and a potential map to an even older and more controversial one.
The lost kingdom of Mu. It would be a find beyond belief, she reasoned, but also an enormous bone of contention between China and Taiwan. As if they didn’t have enough already.
Their curator back at the Steel Mountain facility was busy checking for an old translation of the Niven Tablets, but had come up with nothing so far. The physical tablets had been saved by Hayden and her team, but Dudley still escaped with the photographs. Hopefully it would take the Pythians time to put so many pictures together, but her gut and Karin’s knowledge of cutting edge technology, told her otherwise.
“Seconds,” the Blake woman told her. “Once they get the photos loaded onto the right machine it will render them in seconds.”
As time marched on she decided to take a break and call Matt Drake. It would be early morning for him on the night Chika was due to infiltrate the Yakuza. She paused with her finger hovering over the button. Should she risk the call? The team could be in the middle of something finicky.
What the hell . . . Mai once made a call that saved Smyth’s life!
The Lost Kingdom (Matt Drake Book 10) Page 12
