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Ninja Assault
Don Pendleton


Lethal bargainA ninja attack in a Vegas casino leaves two billionaires dead, and all signs point to the Yakuza, a Japanese crime syndicate bent on infiltrating America's legalized gambling industry. To cut the problem out at the root, Mack Bolan targets the gang's Stateside web of legitimate businesses and vicious warriors, closing in fast on the Yakuza's most ruthless clan.But when the battle takes Bolan to Japan and he faces a quartet of elite killers, he realizes Vegas was just the tip of the iceberg. A cult-enthralled clan member has partnered with a corrupt Chinese general to bring about massive spiritual "cleansing"–in the form of a deadly toxic weapon. With millions of lives on the line, the Executioner isn't playing the odds. He's betting everything on his special brand of hellfire.







LETHAL BARGAIN

A ninja attack in a Vegas casino leaves two billionaires dead, and all signs point to the Yakuza, a Japanese crime syndicate bent on infiltrating America’s legalized gambling industry. To cut the problem out at the root, Mack Bolan targets the gang’s Stateside web of legitimate businesses and vicious warriors, closing in fast on the Yakuza’s most ruthless clan.

But when the battle takes Bolan to Japan and he faces a quartet of elite killers, he realizes Vegas was just the tip of the iceberg. A cult-enthralled clan member has partnered with a corrupt Chinese general to bring about massive spiritual “cleansing”—in the form of a deadly toxic weapon. With millions of lives on the line, the Executioner isn’t playing the odds. He’s betting everything on his special brand of hellfire.


Bolan sprinted across the roof, heading for the fire escape.

A pistol cracked, and he heard the whisper of a bullet as it streaked past his cheek. One shooter was behind him when he turned, and Bolan saw another peeking from the rooftop access doorway. He sent the shooter spinning away with a 3-round burst, his white shirt spouting scarlet, then sent three more rounds to make the doorway peeper duck back out of sight.

With ammunition running low, he glanced over the parapet, saw no shooters prepared to pick him off as he descended and swung out onto the fire escape. Gripping the side rails with his hands and bracing the insteps of his shoes against them, Bolan slid down until he landed in a crouch fifty feet below.

Gunshots echoed above him, a reminder that he had no time to waste. Raising the MP5K’s muzzle, Bolan fired a burst and saw a face fly back.

His rented wheels waited for him half a block away.

Bolan ran.


Ninja Assault






Don Pendleton







Only the dead have seen the end of war.

—Plato

Human predators will never be eradicated. A new crop pops up when the old one is cut down. There is no cure for the plague of evil and avarice, but I can fight the symptoms when they surface, wherever they surface.

—Mack Bolan


For Captain William D. Swenson,

1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment




CONTENTS


Cover (#uae5ec874-3da7-5fae-84f8-20f03dafa2eb)

Back Cover Text (#uc3deb89a-9378-5375-b69a-afe824d75e51)

Introduction (#ue3d5fc88-f57b-5ef9-a077-5d12adcf774a)

Title Page (#ue589affb-fee4-5224-b6c0-19345dcd33a7)

Quotes (#ud61eb596-d19a-56f1-b296-640c3705a725)

Dedication (#uf4d7ee0d-9412-5bc3-a132-1531ce027af4)

PROLOGUE (#ufaa48143-ce43-5d2a-9eac-28b26c737ecd)

CHAPTER ONE (#ud0ac6835-d193-5e5c-bd38-ef882ce9ec4d)

CHAPTER TWO (#u6ece8d43-290e-5bb7-b4fc-a8a4ea9fd626)

CHAPTER THREE (#u6c584860-7ff2-5f97-bfbe-811f8d8b5a53)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u5bd97c0d-31e4-5400-8720-80acfe5b2a0f)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u5daf37cd-a794-56ba-aebb-9506f90b3fe4)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE


Atlantic City, New Jersey

Tommy Wolff leaned closer to the window, peering at his face and raising one manicured hand to prod the pouches underneath his ice-blue eyes. He’d chosen Kisdon lighting for the penthouse bathroom, fixtures planned with flattery in mind, but lights could only do so much.

Time for a touch-up there, he thought, and made a mental note to fit it in.

Not that the ladies waiting for him in the bedroom would object to pouchy eyes. They’d been well paid to service him, with cash and with cocaine. They’d do whatever Wolff required, as he required it, and they’d damn well like it.

Hell, why not? They hadn’t seen his schmeckel yet, and they were bound to be impressed.

The ladies always were. No work required in that department.

Wolff retreated from the mirror, taking in the long view of himself from neck to knees. His time spent in the private gym had paid off handsomely. At fifty-five, he now looked better than he had in twenty years, his stamina was better, and he rarely needed a Viagra boost to keep the ladies happy.

Almost never.

Tommy Wolff preferred his women young, and—he had a guy who double-checked IDs in order to protect him from a statutory rape charge. Wolff had enough to think about on any given day, with IRS leeches and spies from the state Casino Control Commission crawling up his ass. The very last thing that he needed was to wind up on TV, doing the perp walk over some sweet thing who’d lied about her age to get a little taste of power.

Okay, not a little taste. But, still.

Wolff took his new robe off its hook behind the bathroom door. Kimono was the proper term, he understood, a black silk number, knee-length, with those baggy sleeves that stopped short of his wrists and made him feel like he should trade it for a larger size. Across the shoulders, looping down around his right hip, an embroidered wolf was snapping at a frightened lamb.

He liked that image. Liked it very much indeed.

The robe—kimono—was a gift from one of Wolff’s new partners in Japan. They’d pooled resources to erect a new resort in Tokyo, where current law prohibited casino gambling, but with nudges in the right direction and strategic contributions to the major players, rules could always change. Meanwhile, there was pachinko, mahjong, and kōei kyōgi, betting on a list of “public sports” that covered racing horses, bicycles, speedboats and cars.

Wolff slipped on the kimono, nothing underneath except his tanned, taut flesh, and broke eye contact with the mirror. Too much self-examination could be bad for anyone.

He thought about the young women in his bedroom, high atop Nero’s Hotel-Casino, with its sweeping panorama of the boardwalk. “Caesar’s” had been taken, but he’d found a Roman emperor who suited him, regardless. Nucky Johnson never dreamed of anything like Nero’s when he ran Atlantic City for the syndicate, and it was all completely legal now.

Well, close enough.

The girls—one blonde, one redhead, one brunette—had suddenly gone quiet in the bedroom. Frowning, Wolff considered whether he had left them too much coke to play with in his absence, but he doubted it. Besides, if one of them had OD’d, he’d expect the others to be panicking.

“You little bitches better not be dozing off,” he muttered to himself. “You’ve got a long, hard night ahead of you.”

Longer than any of the three expected. Harder, too.

The schmeckel humor always made Wolff smile.

He lost the smile as he stepped through the bathroom doorway, turning toward the bed. It was the emperor size, imported from Ireland, forty-two square feet of padded playground on a hand-carved wooden frame, with satin sheets that had been white when Wolff went to the bathroom.

Why were they red now, and dripping on the carpet?

Wolff blinked, found two of the girls stretched out across the bed diagonally, side by side. It looked as if they’d been engaging in a little foreplay, but it hadn’t lasted long. The redhead, lying on her back, had one arm raised as if to shield her face. The other arm was…where, again?

Wolff felt the Lobster Thermidor and Provençal asparagus he’d eaten half an hour earlier trying to come back on him, but he kept it down with effort, taking in the gash below the redhead’s chin and shifting toward the nubile body sprawled beside her.

Someone had been more efficient with the brunette, taking off her head completely, propping it atop two pillows, wide blank eyes turned toward the bathroom doorway where Wolff stood. As far as he could tell, that was the only wound she’d suffered, but it had obviously done the job.

A mewling from his left brought Wolff around to face the blonde. She stood before him, naked as the day she’d come into the world but far from innocent, flanked by two men no taller than herself—say five foot six, if that—all dressed in black from head to toe.

Not black suits, mind you. These were some kind of commando costumes, maybe one piece, though Wolff couldn’t really tell. They both wore snug, formfitting hoods like ski masks, only thinner, that hid everything except their glinting eyes. And there was something odd about their shoes that took a second glance to recognize: split toes, of all things, which was new in Wolff’s experience.

But what he really focused on was the long sword each man held in his right hand. Katana they were called, as if it mattered now. Americans normally called them samurai swords.

“Jesus Christ.”

It came out as a whisper, barely audible even to Wolff as he spoke. The picture set before him clarified itself immediately, even if he still had trouble grasping its reality. He had a shitload of security downstairs to stop this kind of thing from happening, yet here he stood, confronting death times two.

Negotiation wouldn’t work. He knew that much instinctively. They’d come too far for that. Blood had been spilled, and only more blood could erase the problem.

Now, the only question: Was he fast enough?

Wolff kept a Glock 31 in the top nightstand drawer, to the right of his bed. It was chambered for .357 SIG rounds, loaded with Triton Quik-Shok bullets, and Wolff had practiced using it. There was no safety switch to fumble with in an emergency, just fifteen rounds in the magazine and one up the spout.

If he could reach the piece before one of the swordsmen got to him, Wolff thought he had a fighting chance.

Big if.

And standing there, considering it, only wasted precious time.

He bolted for the nightstand, heard a squeal behind him, from the blonde, and didn’t turn to watch her dying. Bimbos were a dime a dozen in AC, but Tommy Wolff was one in a million.

An endangered species, at the moment.

There was no time to circle the emperor bed, so Wolff clambered across it, mattress springing underneath his feet, trying to topple him. The dead girls lolled and rocked, the redhead’s one arm flopping as if reaching out to grab him by the ankle. Bloody satin squelched beneath his bare soles, slippery and treacherous. Wolff heard one of the men in black behind him, rushing toward him, and he vaulted toward the nightstand, stumbling on a bare, firm thigh and plunging headlong toward the finish line.

His forehead struck the nightstand’s edge, received a stunning gash that added Wolff’s blood to the mix, but he pushed past the pain and sudden dizziness, ripped at the drawer and pulled it free as he went down on to the floor. It banged against his chest, more pain, and Wolff upended it, dumping its contents on his torso, littering the black kimono.

Condoms. Moist towelettes. A vibrator.

The Glock.

Wolff grasped it, flung the empty nightstand drawer away from him, and raised the pistol as one of the black-clad swordsmen loomed above him. Finger on the trigger with its built-in safety, he was just about to fire when steel flashed, and a bolt of icy pain shot through his upraised arm.

Wolff saw his right hand flying, still clutching the Glock, and barked with startled laughter as his index finger clenched the trigger, firing one shot toward a limited edition of Picasso’s Buste de Femme au Chapeau Bleu, drilling the woman’s offset nose. All things considered, not a bad shot overall.

Wolff saw the sleek katana rising, flinging drops of crimson toward the ceiling, while his wrist pumped gouts and torrents of it. In the microseconds he had left to think about it, Tommy saw the story of his life written in blood.

For one last time, he’d gambled and he’d lost.




CHAPTER ONE


Atlantic City, Two Days Later

The boardwalk simmered, thronged with tourists on this summer afternoon. Mack Bolan didn’t mind the crowd, divided between gamblers seeking action and the families a person saw in any tourist town when school was out and vacation rolled around. Young couples held hands, sharing ice cream cones as if they were a promise of more intimate activities to come, while aged seniors passed with cans and shopping bags, regarding youth with envy.

Bolan, for his part, was wary.

Nothing special there, since he was always wary, anywhere he went.

That was the price of waking up each day in a hostile world.

Before Hurricane Sandy, the Atlantic City boardwalk had extended from Absecon Inlet in the north to Ventnor City, six and a half miles southward. Rampant nature had wiped out the promenade’s northern end, but the rest—built in 1870 and billed as the “Showplace of America”—had managed to survive unscathed. The vast casinos facing the North Atlantic had ignored that storm, as they’d ignored all other challenges from God and man since they were legalized, back in the 1970s.

AC had been the new Las Vegas in those days, and while the new had quickly faded, tourism declining with renovations in Las Vegas and erection of new gambling palaces in Connecticut, the boardwalk and its temples of mammon remained the city’s backbone and its throbbing, greedy heart. The flood of cash and service jobs had done little for the middle class, much less the residents of ghettos where resentment smoldered, ever ready to ignite.

Back in 2005, Forbes magazine had called Atlantic City “dangerous and depraved,” boasting a crime rate triple that of any other US city, double on the murder rate. While gross gambling revenue increased each year, the number of casino jobs declined.

AC had bet its future on the gaming tables. Some would say the town had lost its soul.

Of course, it hadn’t started in the seventies, by any means. That was the era when casinos had been legalized—controlled, in theory, by the guardians of civilized society. Supporters of the scheme had looked at Vegas, saw the neon and the bottom line without considering the downside, and had rushed ahead to claim their places at the trough. But vice had put down deep, abiding roots decades before a modern crop of architects had dreamed the Taj Mahal or the Borgata, run by men who settled scores with lead, instead of million-dollar lawsuits.

Atlantic City was the midwife to America’s crime syndicate, born on that very boardwalk, Bolan knew, during May of 1929, when every hood who mattered in the eastern half of the United States had come to hammer out their plans for the remaining years of Prohibition. Those who weren’t invited had been killed within a year or so, clearing the dead wood as a younger generation rose to claim its due.

Bolan was standing outside Nero’s when another tall man stopped beside him, frowning from the shadow of a gray fedora. “Penny for them,” said the new arrival.

“I keep watching out for Nucky Johnson.”

“Thompson.”

“Johnson,” Bolan said again. “They changed it for the TV series.”

“Ah. Wrong century, regardless,” Hal Brognola said.

They shook hands, old friends and combatants in a struggle that would outlast both of them. They knew the rules, expected no heavenly trumpets to declare their final victory and took it one day at a time.

“So, this is where it all went down,” Brognola said, tilting his head back, squinting at the sharp metallic gleam of penthouse windows high above, where seagulls wheeled and screamed.

“The Wolff thing,” Bolan said.

“None other. Four dead in the penthouse, three more from security before the hit team made it all the way upstairs.”

“Messy.”

“But quiet,” Brognola replied. “They knew what they were doing. Never fired a shot.”

“On CNN, they’re talking stab wounds.”

“Make that sword wounds, and you’ve got it right.”

Bolan had no response to that. He waited, knowing the big Fed would get around to it in his own time.

“You know much about Tommy Wolff?” Brognola asked.

“A younger version of The Donald or Steve Wynn. More cash than he could spend in twenty lifetimes.”

“And he didn’t even manage one.”

“I’m guessing that the Bureau and the state police are on it.”

“Absolutely,” Brognola agreed. “And getting nowhere.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, for starters, Wolff and all the rest of them were killed by ninjas.”

“The real deal.”

“Looks like. Black tights and balaclavas, swords and split-toe shoes. It’s all on video.”

“So, no ID on any of the perps.”

“Not even close. They’ve got ICE working on it, too, the passport angle.”

“ICE” was Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Homeland Security umbrella that had theoretically shielded America from foreign attacks since September 2011. In practice, Bolan knew, safety required much more than uniformed guards and a roster of alphabet agencies.

“They’re thinking Japanese, then?” Bolan asked. “Ninja originals?”

“Why not? We know they’re out there.”

Right. Bolan had faced some personally, once upon a time, and lived to tell about it. If he was allowed to tell. If anybody would believe it.

“So?”

“I sent a coded file to your smartphone, when you get a chance to take a look,” Brognola informed him. “Same password as usual.”

“You want to run the basics past me?”

“Abridged version, Wolff had been negotiating with a company in Tokyo to build a Nero’s Far East, matching this one, the joint he’s got—well, had—in Vegas, and the Nero’s San Juan, down in Puerto Rico.”

“There’s no legit casino gambling in Japan,” Bolan stated.

“Say he was hopeful, betting on a sea change.”

“Or he had some other kind of action in the works.”

“Or that.”

“Which was it?”

“All I hear, so far, is that he’d stepped on certain toes in Tokyo. The Sumiyoshi-kai, for starters.”

“Big toes, then.”

“And highly sensitive.”

The Sumiyoshi-kai was Japan’s second-largest Yakuza family, claiming some twenty thousand oath-bound members and at least that many hangers-on. As number two, they tried harder, chasing the larger, stronger Yamaguchi-gumi, while the Inagawa-kai snapped at their heels.

“Still, taking out a guy Wolff’s size, with his high profile…”

“Sends a very public message,” Brognola filled in for him.

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t a one-off?” Bolan asked.

“Because you know your way around. Six months ago, out in LA, Merv Mendelbaum dropped out of sight. He hasn’t surfaced yet. The family’s been sitting on it, but they’re lawyered up and getting out the carving knives.”

“That’s Mendelbaum of Goldstone Entertainment?”

Brognola nodded. “Owner of casinos in Las Vegas, Reno, one up in New London and another in Biloxi.”

“So, coincidence?”

“Goldstone was also putting feelers out to Tokyo, feeling its way around the National Diet, schmoozing with the prime minister and leaders of his party.”

“More toes bruised,” Bolan surmised.

“The Yakuza likes things the way they are, most forms of gambling banned but readily available through outlets they control. They stand to lose a fortune—not a small one—from another US occupation.”

“What about their operations stateside?”

“They’d love to have a stake in gambling where it’s legal, if they don’t lose anything at home. Right now, they mostly smuggle methamphetamine and heroin into the States, and take guns home.”

Bolan knew that Japan’s gun control laws ranked among the world’s strictest. Police estimated there were 710,000 firearms in civilian hands, scattered among 128 million citizens—or one gun for every 180 Japanese. America, by contrast, had at least 270 million guns floating around the civilian population, one for every 1.2 men, women and children. The upshot was 32,000 gun deaths per year in the States, versus eleven annually in Japan.

Coincidence?

Unlikely.

Bolan brought his mind back to the topic on the table. “So, the Sumiyoshi-kai could benefit from taking out a few top men,” he said. “Keep US gaming corporations out of Tokyo and cause a power vacuum over here.”

“It cuts both ways,” Brognola said. “Just like a sword.”

“Suspects?”

“They’re listed in the file I sent you, but we don’t have any solid evidence. The Sumiyoshi-kai had kyodai—�big brothers,’ similar to capos in the Mafia—both here and in Las Vegas. If the family killed Wolff and Mendelbaum, they’ll be the place to start.”

Brognola didn’t have to say the rest, but Bolan looked downrange. “What about carrying the fight back home?” he asked.

“It’s not my place to second-guess a soldier on the ground,” the big Fed said. “But obviously, if we have a chance to make the problem go away, at least for now…”

He let the sentence trail off, staring up at the casino. There was no need to explain what both of them already knew from long experience.

The predators would never be eradicated. Some defect within humankind itself produced a new crop every time the old one was cut down. Evil could be beaten down and held at bay, but it could never be extracted from the human genome. There was no cure, no inoculation, for the plague of avarice and cruelty that lurked behind the thin facade of “civilized” society.

No cure, perhaps, but he could fight the symptoms when and where they surfaced.

Starting now.

The file was waiting for him, just as Brognola had said.

Roughly two hundred years older than Sicily’s Mafia, Japan’s homegrown version of organized crime had arisen from a merger of two criminal classes: the bakuto, itinerant gamblers, and the tekiya, peddlers who furnished goods and services proscribed by feudal law. After resisting for a time, the Edo Dynasty had bowed to the realities of daily life, legitimized the syndicates and granted their leaders—known as oyabun, “fathers, or godfathers”—the right to carry short wakizashi swords, while the larger katanas were reserved for full-fledged samurai. The overall syndicate’s name, ya-ku-za, translated as “8-9-3,” a losing hand in Oicho-Kabu, the Japanese version of blackjack.

This day, the Yakuza consisted of some seventy-odd rival clans, fighting for turf in the shadow of Japan’s top three families. Only the Sumiyoshi-kai concerned Bolan as he began to scan Brognola’s file.

The outfit’s oyabun was Kazuo Takumi, based in Tokyo, which kept him near the seat of government and all the major economic action. Sixty-one years old, he’d earned his reputation the old-fashioned way, by wading in the blood of rivals, and had risen to the status of a recognized philanthropist whose generosity to charity was known throughout Japan. He held shares in a score of thriving companies and sat on several of their boards, ensuring that the firms he graced were never short of cheap materials or healthy profit margins.

The oyabun’s only son and heir apparent was Toi Takumi, something of a cipher in the file Brognola had provided. He had earned a playboy’s reputation in his early twenties, but now, approaching thirty, he had dropped out of the social scene and rarely showed his face in public.

Growing into his position as the next boss of the Sumiyoshi-kai, perhaps.

Or was it something else?

Atlantic City’s “big brother” was Noboru Machii, thirty-one, an ex-con who’d done time for smuggling methamphetamine before a key witness recanted and committed suicide—seppuku in the native tongue. That had blown the prosecution’s case, freed Machii on appeal and helped restore the honor of the dead man’s family—along with a substantial contribution to their bank account, supposedly the payoff from a life insurance policy that didn’t quibble over self-destruction in a righteous cause.

Now, Machii had a foothold on the boardwalk and was bound for bigger things, it seemed. If he could hand a piece of Tommy Wolff’s casino empire to the Sumiyoshi-kai, he would be well positioned for a top spot in the syndicate. Who could predict what might transpire when old Takumi finally cashed in his chips?

It was a gamble, right, and Machii had one strike against him, going in.

He didn’t know Bolan had dealt himself into the game.




CHAPTER TWO


Sunrise Enterprises, Atlantic City

The office complex wasn’t much to look at in comparison to the casinos standing tall along the boardwalk, one block closer to the ocean. Just four stories high, a drab rectangle painted beige, it gave no hint that anyone inside was tinkering with local history or planning to tap a vein of gold from the exalted gaming industry that kept Atlantic City on the map.

To spot those signs, a person had to look behind the stucco, maybe close one eye and make believe there was no weedy vacant lot next door, where homeless people had been known to light a bonfire on a winter’s night. A person had to know about Sunrise, and it was helpful if there was a team on tap like Hal Brognola’s crew at Stony Man, hidden within the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, picking secrets from the cloud, thin air, wherever, and reviewing them until they all made sense.

In this case Sunrise Enterprises was a paper company, incorporated like so many others of its kind in Delaware, existing for the sole purpose of purchasing and selling stock in other companies. On paper, it was all strictly routine, aboveboard, and the company filed tax returns on time, paying its debts without complaint.

Look deeper, though, and Sunrise was an offshoot of another company, the G.E.A. Consortium, whose initials stood for Greater East Asia. It was just a fluke, perhaps, that during the 1930s and ’40s, Japan’s imperial masters had called their captured territory in the Far East and South Pacific the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Maybe.

Look deeper yet, and G.E.A. was owned by three middle-aged members of the Sumiyoshi-kai, including the family’s administrative officer, its legal adviser and its top accountant. Needless to say, they served at Kazuo Takumi’s pleasure and could be replaced at any time they ceased to please him.

Break it down. The drab four-story box was Takumi’s nerve center in Atlantic City. Strings were pulled inside those offices that ended human lives and had potential to disrupt the city’s—and, perhaps, the state’s—economy.

Bolan saw two approaches to the viper’s nest. He could obliterate it, salt the earth and scatter any stray survivors, or he could attempt a soft probe, look for opportunities to gain further intelligence and plan his final killing stroke accordingly.

On second thought, why not combine the two ideas?

One item in his bag of tricks was an infinity transmitter, designed to monitor conversations within a room through its telephone line, whether or not the phone itself was in use. Its name derived from the fact that phone line transmissions could be received at an infinite distance, unlike other bugs with a finite physical range.

But it still required that Bolan get inside to plant the bug.

And for that, he needed a diversion.

The internet provided a schematic drawing of the office block, showing him where and how to cut the building’s juice. There were battery-powered emergency lights on all floors, but severing the trunk line would deactivate security cameras found on all floors, while leaving the fire alarms live. If he could generate sufficient smoke to rout the office occupants, it all came down to a matter of time and nerve.

Sorting through his mobile arsenal Bolan selected weapons first. He wasn’t planning an attack, per se, but meant to be prepared for any unforeseen eventuality. An MP-5 K submachine gun fit the bill ideally—“K” for kurz, or “short,” in German, easily concealable even with a suppressor screwed on to its threaded muzzle. He would wear it on a shoulder sling, beneath a lightweight jacket, backed up by a Glock 17 that was lighter, easier to handle and loaded a higher-capacity magazine than the Beretta he had carried into countless other skirmishes.

For the diversion proper, Bolan chose four AN-M8 smoke grenades, each filled with nineteen ounces of Type C hexachloroethane—HC. Each cylindrical canister would emit thick white smoke for 105 to 150 seconds following ignition, enough to choke a four-story building’s ventilation ducts and keep any occupants scurrying for the nearest exit once fire alarms set them in motion.

Getting in and out before firefighters reached the scene was Bolan’s problem.

Make that getting in and out alive.

* * *

NOBORU MACHII FELT like celebrating. He had carried out the order from his oyabun without a hitch, had seen the two imported killers off, beginning their long flight back to Japan, and felt he had the local situation well under control. It was too early yet, of course, for a direct approach to Tommy Wolff’s estate, but Machii had his battery of lawyers hovering, gauging the time and monitoring every move by Wolff’s board of directors since the penthouse massacre, the night before last. As expected, there was posturing and jockeying for power, but Machii held the winning hand.

He’d spent the past eight months uncovering the secret sins of every member on the board at Wolff Consolidated. There were seven of them, and Machii knew them well, although they’d never met. In fact, he knew them better than their partners, wives and children did.

Machii knew that one of them collected child pornography and traveled once a year to Bangkok, where his indiscretions had been filmed. Another had been stealing from the company, a third selling insider knowledge to the firm’s competitors for half again his yearly salary. A fourth was what Americans presumed to call a “high-functioning” alcoholic, though he had not functioned well enough the night he struck and killed a homeless African-American with his Mercedes-Benz in Newark. No suspicion had attached to him so far, but that could change within an instant.

So it went, on down the line, with six of seven board members. The seventh was above reproach—a miracle, of sorts—but he could not prevail once Machii had secured a majority of the directors to support his takeover of Wolff Consolidated. In addition to the preservation of their guilty secrets, he would promise them secure positions and the standard golden parachutes in place.

As if a written contract could protect them when Machii tired of having them around.

He would have another kind of contract waiting for them then, and nothing any lawyer said would rescue adversaries of the Sumiyoshi-kai. Machii had taught Tommy Wolff that lesson, and if the dead man’s underlings refused to learn from his example, their deaths would be tantamount to suicide.

As far as celebrating went, however, it was premature. The prize was now within his grasp, but he had not secured it yet. Until the transfer of authority was finalized, Machii could not rightfully claim victory.

“How long shall we wait for the approach?” Tetsuya Watanabe asked.

Machii’s lieutenant was younger, still learning the art of patience. Left unchecked, he might have overplayed their hand, but he inevitably followed orders from his boss.

“After the funeral is soon enough,” Machii said. “A few more days will do no harm. If we approach them prematurely, they might panic and do something foolish.”

“I understand.”

Of course, Watanabe understood. The order had been simple and required no verbal answer, but he still observed the standard courtesy.

Noboru had another thought. “We should send flowers, yes? Preserve proper appearances, and—”

Suddenly, the lights went out. The air-conditioning gave a little gasp and died.

Machii swiveled toward his office window, with its view of the boardwalk casinos. Lights were blazing in the massive pleasure palaces, along the piers and on Atlantic Boulevard below. Rising from his chair, he told Watanabe, “It’s our building only. Find out what is wrong.”

“Yes, sir!” Watanabe was halfway to the office door when he acknowledged the command, already reaching for the knob. Beyond the door, the hallway’s emergency lights had kicked on, illuminating escape routes from the building in case of disaster.

A simple power failure that affected only Sunrise Enterprises?

It was possible, of course. And yet…

Machii reached into his desk’s top right-hand drawer, removed the SIG Sauer P250 pistol he kept ready there, and held it at his side. There was no need for him to check the weapon. It was fully loaded and ready to fire as soon as he depressed its double-action trigger. Its magazine held ten .45-caliber rounds, with one more in the chamber, enough to keep any prowlers at bay until his security team reached the office.

Machii was moving toward the panoramic office window when the fire alarm went off, making him flinch. The action was involuntary, barely noticeable even if he had not been alone, but it embarrassed him, regardless.

Fire?

It seemed unlikely, but it might explain the power cut. Instead of waiting in his office, he should—

Even as the thought took form, Machii smelled it: smoke. The scent was unmistakable.

Coming from where, exactly?

“Jesus!”

There was no one in the room to hear him curse or note his momentary loss of calm. With pistol still in hand, Machii went to find out what was happening and right the situation.

* * *

BOLAN HAD PARKED his rented car on Atlantic Avenue and locked it. As it was getting on toward closing time, he’d crossed through spotty traffic in the middle of the block and made his way along an alleyway behind Atlantic Avenue, past long ranks of commercial garbage Dumpsters bearing names of their respective pickup companies. He’d met no one along the way, except a stray cat that examined him in passing and decided that he wouldn’t make a meal.

At the rear of Sunrise Enterprises, Bolan found a fire escape. The lower portion of the ladder operated on a counterbalance system, wisely using nylon bushings and stainless-steel cables to ward off corrosion. When he jumped to grasp the lowest rung, that section of the ladder dropped to meet him, making no more noise than Bolan would expect from a bicycle passing through the alley.

Scrambling up the fire escape, bolt cutters dangling from his belt, the MP-5 K swinging underneath his right arm, Bolan checked each window that he passed. Some of the offices were empty, others occupied, but no one noticed him, bent to their work as if clock-watching at day’s end had been decreed a mortal sin.

Atop the roof, he found the junction box and used the bolt cutters to clip the padlock’s shackle. Once the small gray door was open, he could see the trunk line pumping power through the building, keeping it alive.

The bolt cutters had rubber grips, so there was no need for insulated gloves as Bolan spread the jaws to clasp the thick trunk line. One flex of his arms and shoulders, one brief shower of sparks, and twenty feet beyond the junction box, the building’s air conditioner shut down.

So far, so good.

Wasting no time, he crossed to stand over the air-conditioning unit, opened it and slit the silver wrapping on a large duct set into the roof. When that was open, Bolan took his smoke grenades in turn, removed their pins and dropped each of the four smoke bombs into the vent he had created with his blade. The unit wasn’t running to propel the smoke through lower ducts and vents, but each grenade contained enough HC to spread fumes through the topmost floor, at least.

And that was all that Bolan needed.

He approached the rooftop access door—no padlock on the outside there—and tried it. Locked, of course. With numbers running in his head, he stepped back from the door and raised his stubby SMG, firing a muffled 3-round burst into the steel door’s dead-bolt lock. Another moment and he was inside, descending steep stairs dimly illuminated by pale ceiling-mounted emergency lights.

Halfway there, Bolan removed a lightweight balaclava from his pocket, pulled it on and made a quick adjustment to permit clear, unobstructed vision. He had borrowed the idea from Tommy Wolff’s assassins, caught on video, and saw no reason why it shouldn’t work for him, if he was seen by anyone he wasn’t forced to kill.

Just plant the bug, he thought, but knew it might not be that simple. Nothing ever was, once battle had been joined.

Voices below made Bolan hesitate, but they were all retreating from the service stairs. No one would think of heading for the roof when they lost power. Down and out would be the drill, assisted by floor plans posted in offices and corridors, reminding people where to go in the event of an emergency.

He reached the bottom, peered around the corner and immediately saw the fire alarm wall unit to his left, within arm’s reach. Unseen, he grasped the unit’s pull-down handle, yanked it sharply, and was instantly rewarded with a clamor echoing throughout the building.

Sixty seconds, give or take, cleared out the fourth-floor hallway, even as the smoke from his grenades began to filter down through ceiling vents. Downrange, the last two visible employees reached a stairwell leading to the street below, pushed through its heavy door and disappeared.

Noboru Machii had a corner office at the far end of the hall, to Bolan’s right. Turning in that direction, Bolan double-timed to reach his destination, submachine gun gripped in one hand, while the other delved in a pocket and extracted the infinity device.

The clock was running now. Bolan could hear it in his head, louder than the insistent fire alarm.

The kyodai’s office, reeking of smoke, was vacant when Bolan got there, and a white haze was seeping from the ceiling vents. He left the door to the reception area wide open, as he’d found it, and moved on to penetrate Machii’s private sanctuary.

Empty.

Bolan went directly to the spacious desk, set down the bug he’d taken from his pocket and retrieved a small screwdriver. Within ten long seconds he’d removed the base plate from the telephone, surveyed the wiring and began the installation.

When he’d cut the trunk line on the building’s roof, it had no impact on phone service to the floors below. Landlines were powered by another system altogether, usable in blackouts, and he hadn’t touched their power conduit when he was turning off the lights at Sunrise Enterprises. He scanned the phone’s guts, finally wedging the infinity transmitter in beside the set’s digital answering machine. A simple clip job finished it, with no need to strip any wires and risk short-circuits sometime in the future. A few keystrokes on Bolan’s cell phone, and the bug went live, the arming signal cut before the desk set had a chance to ring.

He was finished, except for putting back the base plate. He had three screws set, was working on the fourth, when he heard voices coming down the corridor in his direction, speaking Japanese.

Unhappy voices, which was natural enough, and now he had to scoot.

Bolan tightened the fourth screw down as far as it would go and pocketed his screwdriver. He replaced the phone as he had found it, nothing out of place as he surveyed the desktop, making sure no traces of himself remained.

Now, out.

Machii’s office had a private washroom, and the washroom had its own connecting door to yet another room beyond, labeled as Storage on the floor plan he had memorized. That room, in turn, had its own exit to the corridor from which he’d entered the office. If his luck held, he could slip around behind whomever was approaching in a heated rush, and slip back to the roof while they were fuming in the office.

And if not, at least he might come out behind them. Give them a surprise.

Meeting opposition was a risk on any soft probe, always kept in mind, no matter how much preparation went into avoiding contact. With his work done, the transmitter live and waiting to broadcast whatever words were spoken in Machii’s office from now on, it wasn’t absolutely critical for Bolan to escape unseen.

But it was vital for him to escape alive.

The washroom door was shut when Bolan reached it, and he closed it tight behind him once he was inside. No dawdling in the john to eavesdrop on the Yakuza returning to the office. He was out the other door in seconds flat, and found that Storage meant a bedroom where Machii could sleep or party privately, with someone who had caught his fancy. There was no one in the boudoir, smoky now and ripe with HC’s tangy odor, and he crossed directly to the other door. Bolan paused there, ear pressed against the panel, listening.

And heard nothing.

Behind him, in the Machii’s private office, two men conversed, their words incomprehensible to Bolan. Taking full advantage of their evident preoccupation, he stepped out into the corridor—and found two young men gaping at him in surprise.

“Hakujin!” one declared.

“Supai!” the other snapped, as both reached for their holstered pistols.

Bolan didn’t need to speak the language to know that they had pegged him as an intruder. He had them beaten, going in. The MP-5 K sneezed two muted 3-round bursts from less than twenty feet, stitching the young men’s chests with 9 mm Parabellum hollow-point rounds, mangling their hearts and lungs, stopping those hearts before the guards knew they were dead. They fell together, but he didn’t stick around to see it, sprinting for the service staircase that would take him to the roof.

It was a judgment call. To reach the street without retracing his original approach meant running back the full length of the corridor and rushing down eight flights of stairs—two zigzag flights per floor—among Sunrise employees exiting in answer to the fire alarm. If he got past them all, that route would put him on Atlantic Avenue, busy with traffic and pedestrians. If someone brought him under fire out there, it could become a massacre.

Better to do the unexpected thing, descend via the fire escape and exit through the alley. Cornered there, if he ran out of luck, at least Bolan could fight without much fear of injuring civilians.

He was on the roof and sprinting for the fire escape when someone shouted from behind him. Next, a pistol cracked, and Bolan heard the whisper of the bullet as it flew past his cheek.

One shooter was behind him when he turned, and Bolan saw another peeking from the rooftop access doorway, clearly not as bold as the front-runner. Bolan sent the shooter spinning with a 3-round Parabellum burst, his white shirt spouting scarlet, then sent three more rounds to make the doorway peeper duck back out of sight.

Eighteen rounds remained in the MP-5 K’s magazine, and Bolan didn’t plan on using any more of them topside than he could help.

He still had no idea what might be waiting for him in the alley below.

He glanced over the parapet, saw no shooters prepared to pick him off as he descended, and swung out onto the fire escape. Taking the metal ladder rung by rung was slow. Instead, he gripped the side rails with his hands and braced the insteps of his shoes against them, sliding down until he struck the asphalt fifty feet below and landed in a crouch.

Above him, gunshots echoed. One round struck a commercial garbage bin to his right and spanged into the heaped-up garbage it contained. Another slapped into the pavement, closer, a reminder that he had no time to waste.

Raising the MP-5 K’s muzzle, Bolan chipped the concrete parapet above him with a parting burst and saw a face fly back, out of frame. He couldn’t rate that as a hit and didn’t care. His rented wheels, a Honda Civic, waited for him on Atlantic Avenue, no more than half a block away.

He ran.

The rooftop shooters would need time to reach the alley. As for soldiers on the inside, he’d already dealt with two and given any more something to think about. Assuming they had walkie-talkies for communicating, someone from the lobby could be on his case by now and waiting for him when he reached the sidewalk, but it was a chance he’d have to take.

The alley was a trap now; staying where he was meant death.

A brief pause at the alley’s mouth, tucking the MP-5 K out of sight beneath his jacket, hand still on its pistol grip through a slit pocket on his right, and Bolan cleared the sidewalk, glancing right and left as if it was a normal day, nothing to be concerned about. When no one called him out or gunned him down, he stepped off from the curb, jaywalking as if he did it every day, angling through traffic that, with any luck, would slow his pursuers.

Twenty feet from the Honda, Bolan palmed the keyless entry fob and released the driver’s door lock, instantly rewarded by a flash of taillights and a perky blipping sound. A moment later, he was at the wheel and gunning it, letting the taxi on his tail brake sharply, driver leaning on his horn and offering a one-finger salute, as Bolan pulled away from Sunrise Enterprises.

He could listen to the office bug right now, in theory, but he had more pressing matters on his mind—survival being foremost on the list—and Bolan figured that Noboru Machii wouldn’t spend the next few minutes in his office, strategizing with his men. There would be firefighters to deal with, and police, the problem of eliminating corpses in a hurry.

Something else he’d thought about, while planning his incursion: when Machii did begin to talk, the odds were good that he’d be speaking Japanese. While Bolan’s talents were diverse, he’d never had the opportunity to learn more than a smattering of Japanese. And that would have been a problem, if the superteam at Stony Man Farm hadn’t devised a program for his smartphone, offering real-time translated readouts from a list of major languages. The readout wasn’t perfect—something on the order of closed captioning on normal television—but he’d get the gist of what Machii said and go from there.

First, though, he had to get away. Find somewhere it was safe to sit and eavesdrop once his adversaries chilled a bit and had a chance to think.

Bolan checked his rearview, frowning as he saw a car behind him, weaving in and out of traffic, closing fast. Three shapes were inside the vehicle, maybe four, and while they might be office workers in a rush to get to happy hour, Bolan wasn’t taking anything for granted.

What he needed was a place to take the shooters, if they were shooters, and dispose of them without civilians getting in the way. The Ventnor City wetlands were behind him, too much trouble to reverse directions, and O’Donnell Memorial Park, five blocks ahead, would probably have too much foot traffic for him to risk a firefight.

What was left?

He thought of Chelsea Harbor, on Atlantic City’s other waterfront, three-quarters of a mile inland from the Atlantic and the boardwalk. There would be civilians, naturally—workmen, people going in and out of restaurants, whatever—but it sounded better than the obvious alternatives.

He reached South Dover Avenue, turned left against the lights and traffic, hoping there were no cops at the intersection to observe him. If the chase car wasn’t chasing him, he’d lose it there.

The matter was decided when the vehicle turned in Bolan’s rearview, clipped a motorcyclist and came charging after him.




CHAPTER THREE


Sunrise Enterprises

Noboru Machii watched his soldiers zipping bodies into heavy plastic bags and cursed them for their awkwardness.

Red-faced with exertion and humiliation, they worked faster, well aware that the police and firefighters would soon be pouring through the doors downstairs, searching the premises for any trace of fire. In fact, Machii understood, the smoke had been a ruse, but he could not tell that to the authorities. It raised too many questions that he did not wish to answer—most particularly with two corpses in the place and one up on the roof.

What would he do with those?

There was a garbage chute on each floor of the building he had rented as his local headquarters. Rubbish went down the chute, into a basement garbage bin, where he had another pair of soldiers waiting to receive their lifeless comrades. From the bins, they would be consigned to basement lockers while the search went on—no reason anyone should think the lockers harbored flammable materials—then from lockers into car trunks and away, when it was clear for transport.

While he waited for the law, Machii mulled the news he’d heard from one of his survivors on the roof. Someone—their prowler, who had killed three of his men—had cut the building’s trunk line, killing power, and had cut his way into the building’s main air-conditioning vent, inserting some kind of device to generate smoke. From there, he’d blasted through the rooftop access door, set off the fire alarm and gone about his bloody work.

But what was that?

Two dead men in the corridor outside his office, with his bedroom door wide open, let the crime boss piece together what had happened. Halfway to the street, descending on the service stairs, he had smelled something fishy, as the gaijin liked to say, and he’d begun the climb back to the top floor, taking soldiers with him. Standing in his empty, smoky office, he’d felt slightly foolish for a moment—until all hell had broken loose.

Now he was certain someone had been in his office, standing at his desk perhaps, or riffling through his files. A glance had shown no sign of any locks picked on the filing cabinets, but Machii wouldn’t know until he had more time and privacy.

And, naturally, he would have to tell his oyabun about the raid.

But not just yet.

Before he broke bad news to Tokyo, Machii hoped to mitigate the damage. When his soldiers caught the man responsible, Machii would have answers. If they took the man alive, he would inevitably spill his motives and the names of his employers. If they had to kill him…well, in spite of the old saying, sometimes dead men did tell tales.

Both corpses were inside their bags now, and his men were hoisting them, scuttling like peasants toward the garbage chute. Above, the soldier cut down on the rooftop had already slithered to the basement in his own rubber cocoon and should be safe inside a locker now. As for the bloodstains on the runner outside his office…

“Kenji!”

“Yes, sir!” his soldier answered.

“We require an explanation for these stains that will deceive the police. Do you understand?”

Young Kenji nodded, but his blank expression made it clear he understood nothing.

“You came to check on me,” Machii said, coaching him. “As you approached the office, you collided with another member of the staff. Sadly, your nose was broken by the impact and you bled on to the carpet.”

“Sir?”

Before the puzzled frown had time to clear, Machii slammed a fist into the soldier’s nose, felt cartilage give way and caught him as he staggered, doubling Kenji over at the waist and holding him in place while bright blood drained from his nose, soaking into the older stains.

“Good man. That should be adequate. You serve the family with honor. Now, remember what we talked about.”

“Yes, sir!”

It would be an hour, likely more, before Machii finished with the investigators, then more time to get an electrician on the job, restoring power to the office block. By then, he hoped to have the prowler in his hands and know exactly what in hell was happening.

* * *

South Dover Avenue

THE FIRST CROSS street in Bolan’s way was Ventnor Avenue, with traffic lights and people crossing at the corner. Checking out the chase car in his rearview one more time—it was a black sedan, of course, the model indeterminate—he slowed enough to judge the two-way traffic pattern up ahead, and let a couple of pedestrians get closer to the curbs on either side, then floored his gas pedal and blasted through the intersection. He was mindful of stores to the right, then houses, as he braced himself for sudden impact if he had miscalculated.

More horns blared at him, tires squealed, but nothing slammed into the Civic as he cleared Ventnor and shot across to North Dover. No deviation in the street’s beeline toward water, but a slightly altered name for the convenience of police or postal workers. Bolan flicked another glance behind him, through the rearview, and was disappointed when the chase car made it through the intersection as he had, all in one piece.

What were the odds that someone passing by on Ventnor, having been surprised or frightened, would take time to phone the cops? Bolan pegged it at fifty-fifty, if he and the Yakuza pursuing him had pissed off somebody enough to make it worth the time and effort.

The response time, if they did call?

Bolan had done his homework, memorized the basic layout of Atlantic City and the landmarks that were meaningful to him. Police department headquarters was on Atlantic Avenue, at Marshall Street, three-quarters of a mile to the northeast. There would be cruisers closer to the waterfront, of course, but any calls would still be routed through the cop shop, and back to the street via dispatchers.

Say five minutes until the word came through on some patrolman’s radio or one of those computer terminals that could be found in most prowl cars today. From there, the hypothetical responding officers would need another five minutes, at least, to reach the scene of the disturbance, now two hundred feet behind Bolan as he approached the next stoplights, at Sussex Avenue.

He caught the green this time, a lucky fluke, and ran with it, spotting a gap in southbound traffic as he cleared the intersection, passing one slow driver on the left and slipping back into the proper lane before the startled stranger saw him coming. Bolan’s trackers tried the same thing, but a bus got in their way and slowed them.

He used that interruption to his own advantage, putting on more speed, continuing past stores on either side to Norsex Avenue, the next-to-last cross street before he reached the waterfront. He’d have a choice to make at Winchester, go left or right, decide which part of Chelsea Harbor he would turn into a battleground.

It was another guessing game. He knew the area from an online mapping service, its detailed maps and zoom-in aerials that let him count the cars in any given parking lot, but only real-time passage on the streets would let him choose a kill zone. Bolan knew what to avoid: popular restaurants, a shopping mall or multiplex. Beyond that, it was all decided in a heartbeat, as he judged a scene in person, from the ground.

Traffic was light on Norsex, and he cleared it on the yellow light, leaving the hunters on his tail to jump the red. They made it, with a near-miss from a Pepsi truck, and came on strong.

Winchester Avenue was dead ahead.

Beyond it, in a few more moments, someone would be dead and gone.

* * *

“MOVE IT!” ENDO EISHIN SNAPPED.

“I’m hurrying, goddamn it!” Ken Tadayoshi answered from the driver’s seat.

In back, Aoshi Yoshikage asked, “Where the hell is he going?”

“I don’t know,” Tadayoshi spit. “Shut up and let me drive!”

Eishin knew that was good advice, but he still couldn’t let it go. “We’re losing him!”

“He’s right there!” Tadayoshi told him, lifting one hand off the steering wheel to point, his index finger jabbing at the windshield. “See?”

Eishin could see, all right. He saw the car speeding ahead of them, and he could also see the future, if they let the gunman slip away. Noboru Machii would be furious, demanding restitution for their failure. If he let them live, a sacrifice would be required.

Eishin’s left hand, clutching the Ithaca Model 37 Stakeout shotgun in his lap, looked oddly lopsided at first glance. A closer look revealed the first two segments of the little finger to be missing, severed by his own hand in the ritual of yubitsume—“finger shortening”—and solemnly presented to the bosses he’d offended by his failure to perform as they required.

Two relatively minor errors. Two small sacrifices to the family.

What would Noboru Machii order if they let the man who’d killed their brothers get away? Perhaps a hand in recompense? Or possibly a life?

The better way was to complete the job they’d been assigned, capture the gunman and bring him back alive if that was possible. From what he’d seen at Sunrise Enterprises, Eishin did not like their chances of succeeding on that score, but if they killed the rotten son of a bitch, that would be the next best thing.

Some satisfaction for their boss, at least, and they would not have failed.

He swiveled in his seat, peering at Yoshikage and Kanehira next to him, both holding short assault rifles. And smiling, as if this were just one of the damned video games they loved to play at any given opportunity. They looked like morons, sitting there.

“Listen to me,” he cautioned them. “This guy is good. Professional. He took our brothers down like they were nothing. Take no chances with him. If we cannot capture him alive—”

“We waste his ass!” Kanehira chimed in, grinning like a monkey with a fresh banana in his hand.

“Smoke him!” Yoshikage said, smiling from ear to ear.

Eishin despaired of his men, sometimes. The young ones coming up these days were rash and often reckless, straining at their leashes until something stopped them short. In his day, not so long ago, the discipline was paramount and rigidly enforced. There’d been no second chances, as attested by his own truncated flesh.

“Just follow orders,” he advised the backseat soldiers, glowering. “This isn’t one of your video games.” They blinked at that, as he pressed on. “If you get shot out here, there are no do-overs. You don’t jump up and start again. Understand?”

Both nodded their understanding, looking chastened, but Eishin had a sense that they would smirk at him, the moment that his back was turned. Dismissing them from his mind, he turned back toward the chase and saw their quarry crossing Winchester, continuing toward Phyllis Avenue.

It was to be the eastern side of Chelsea Harbor, then, where they would run him down and take him, one way or another.

“Faster!” Eishin ordered, and ignored the growl from the driver, focused on his prey.

* * *

THE ONLY CHOICE was turning right on Phyllis Avenue. Dover did not go on from there, but in a short block Bolan had another chance to turn left, on to Chelsea Court, which led him closer to the waterfront. Ahead of him, along the curving street that circled back toward town if he went far enough, stood offices and shops, all closed for the night. To Bolan’s right was some kind of gym or recreation center with a swimming pool out back, no one outside to be a random target at the moment. Bolan knew he wouldn’t find a better killing ground nearby, and circling Chelsea until it turned into North Harrisburg and started back toward town would only make things worse.

So it was here or nowhere. Do or die.

Now, all he had to do was make it work—and make his adversaries die.

First thing, he needed room enough to turn and face the carload of pursuers who were now a block behind him, closing rapidly. The road was clear ahead, and Bolan wasted no time taking full advantage of it, standing on the Civic’s brake, cranking its steering wheel hard left, whipping the rear end through a power slide on screeching rubber. It was nothing that they taught in driver’s ed, but if you handled it correctly it could be a lifesaver.

Like now, perhaps.

Before the Honda came to rest, with Bolan facing back the way he’d come on Chelsea Court, he had the MP-5 K’s shoulder rig unsnapped, the submachine gun resting in his lap. He put the Civic in Reverse, checking his rearview to make sure the coast was clear, and started running backward toward the curve where it changed street signs to become North Harrisburg. A row of townhouses obscured his view around the curve, but that was fine. He didn’t plan on going that far, anyway.

In front of him, the chase car had slowed, still following, but waiting now to see what Bolan had in mind. A window powered down behind the driver’s seat, and Bolan saw an Asian shooter lean out with a weapon in his hands, maybe an Arsenal AR-SF or a Micro Galil. Either way, it was deadly and had to be countered at once.

Bolan raised the MP-5 K in his left hand, angling out the Civic’s open driver’s window. Aiming wasn’t possible, per se, but with a steady hand and skilled eye he could do the next best thing.

Still set for 3-round bursts, the little SMG could fire six times before he had to switch its magazine, an operation that would mean taking his right hand off the steering wheel. In fact, he did that now, shifting the Honda from Reverse to Drive and bearing down on the accelerator, closing up the gap between himself and his pursuers.

He had a choice of firing at the driver or the shooter, but the gunman was the greater threat. Bolan squeezed off a burst, too low, and saw his bullets slash the chase car’s left-rear door. It wasn’t likely that hollow-point rounds would penetrate the passenger compartment through sheet steel and insulation, but the triple impact made his target squawk and pull back from the window without firing at the Civic, as they passed each other on the two-lane blacktop.

Now what?

He could take off, fleeing back into the maze of Atlantic City’s streets, or stay and finish it. Whichever choice he made, the time for a decision was right now.

Enough running.

Bolan hung on and took the vehicle through another power slide, coming around behind the chase car so that he was in pursuit now, and the hounds were running from the fox. It took only a second for the Yakuza driver in front of him to catch on, but in that time Bolan had his submachine gun leveled and had smashed the black sedan’s rear window with another 3-round burst.

Two faces, furious and frightened, gaped at Bolan through the open window frame, before both men raised automatic rifles into view.

* * *

“HE’S BEHIND US NOW!” Eishin exclaimed.

“I see that,” Tadayoshi answered through clenched teeth.

“Well, do something!”

“What did you have in mind?”

Before Eishin could think of anything, their back window imploded, spraying pebbled safety glass like buckshot through the passenger compartment. Pieces of it stung his scalp and neck. Something more deadly struck the windshield, halfway between him and his driver, knocking a chip out of the glass and rattling on the dashboard.

Eishin ducked and saw a mutilated bullet resting on top of the central heating vent. If it had been diverted ten or twelve inches to the left or right, he might be dead now, or the car could be speeding off course, with a corpse behind the wheel.

Yoshikage and Kanehira sat in the back, chattering like two macaques, preparing to return fire, when another burst struck home. Its bullets marched across the trunk lid, striking with the force of hammer blows, and one spanged off the lower window frame, to ricochet inside the car. The driver cried out this time, slumping, left hand clutching at his shoulder, steering with his wounded right.

Feeling foolish even as he spoke, Eishin asked him, “How bad is it?”

“I’m not a doctor!” Tadayoshi rasped, showing bad form by his tone.

“Well, can you drive?” Eishin demanded.

“Do you see me driving?”

Although fuming over the man’s insubordination, Eishin knew it might be suicide to chastise him just now. Instead, he turned to see their enemy tailgating them, his two soldiers in the back trying to recover from the last incoming fire, raising their weapons once again.

Instead of waiting for them, Eishin fired his cut-down shotgun at the Honda, making both soldiers in the back yelp and cringe as thunder filled the car, stinging four sets of ears. He saw his buckshot, double 0, take out a portion of the Honda’s windshield larger than a dinner plate, but he had missed the driver by at least a foot.

He pumped the Ithaca’s slide-action, chambering another 12-gauge round. The cartridge he’d ejected bounced off the driver’s cheek and dropped into his lap, provoking a string of curses.

They would have to talk about that later, set things straight between them and cement the clear lines of authority that governed every member of the Yakuza.

Assuming that they lived.

In the backseat, Yoshikage cried, “I’ve been hit!”

Eishin glanced at his squealing soldier, saw no blood and snapped, “You’re not wounded! Shut your whining mouth and do your job!”

Red-faced, the soldier turned away from him and aimed his stubby carbine through the car’s rear window, firing as his partner did, their muzzle-flashes visible as dusk descended on the waterfront. Eishin considered firing one more shotgun blast between them, but decided it would only spoil their shaky aim.

And Tadayoshi wasn’t helping, in the driver’s seat. He swerved the car erratically, cursing under his breath as more slugs from their quarry’s automatic weapon struck the vehicle. At least one found its way inside, clipping the rearview mirror from its post and dropping what remained of it at Eishin’s feet.

“Stop all this crazy skidding!” Eishin ordered. “How can we hit anything, the way you drive?”

“He’s hitting us,” Tadayoshi replied, shooting a quick glance toward the spot where there had been a mirror seconds earlier, mouthing another curse when he saw nothing but a chip out of the windshield’s glass.

“Drive straight!” Eishin repeated. “That’s an order!”

Tadayoshi turned to glare at him, then gave a jerky nod and straightened the steering wheel—just as their adversary’s bullets found their left-rear tire and shredded it. The car’s tail end immediately whipped around, the wheel’s rim biting into asphalt, and they went into a skid, the backseat shooters howling like a pair of lunatics.

Eishin clutched the nearest grab handle and hung on for dear life.

* * *

BOLAN RECKONED HE had been lucky with the last burst, trying it before his magazine ran dry. He eased off the accelerator as the Yakuzas’ car went into its final skid, jumping a curb off to the right, its nose crumpled against a lamppost with a granite base. He drove past, checking as the occupants began to move around inside. The left-rear door sprang open, and a dazed-looking hardman tumbled onto the pavement, still holding his carbine in one hand.

Bolan passed on three or four doors farther down the street, then swung his car around to block both lanes and bailed out on the driver’s side, keeping the Civic between himself and his would-be killers. Three of them were EVA as Bolan got his SMG reloaded, the driver seeming to have trouble with unfastening his shoulder harness.

Bolan helped him with it, rattling off a 3-round burst that turned the wheelman’s face into a bloody stir-fry. That brought in return fire, but it wasn’t organized as yet, or aimed precisely. Bolan’s car had taken hits during the final moments of the chase, and he could hear more bullets striking it along the passenger’s side, drilling the bodywork, evaporating window glass.

Somebody else’s headache, since he’d bought the full insurance package when he took delivery on the Honda. Not in his own name, of course—Mack Bolan had been “dead” for years—but on a credit card whose bills were promptly paid from Stony Man. As long as it was drivable and he could leave the scene when he was done, Bolan was satisfied.

If not? Plan B, whatever that was.

First, he had to move, close with his enemies and take them down before the racket they were making drew police to swarm the block.

Bolan had only two rules in the field. He would not harm or threaten innocents, and he would not use deadly force against police—even though some of them were far from innocent themselves. It was a short list of restrictions, but he rarely deviated from those basic principles.

And he was not about to do so this day.

He made his move while they were trying to get organized, recovering from having seen their driver killed before their eyes. One of the three surviving Yakuzas saw Bolan moving, shouted something to his comrades and squeezed off an autorifle burst that missed its moving target by at least ten feet.

Bolan returned fire, did a better job of it and saw the shooter drop his rifle as three Parabellum shockers ripped into his gun arm, taking out the shoulder. In the movies, shoulder wounds were treated lightly, on par with paper cuts, but in the real world they were serious, often disabling, sometimes fatal if projectiles nipped the brachial or subclavian arteries.

Whatever, Bolan pegged the odds at two-to-one against him now, and focused on reducing those.

Bolan reached the nearest sidewalk, ducked behind a bulky standing mailbox, then proceeded with his charge. Another Yakuza shooter was firing at him—and he had been right, that was an Arsenal AR-SF—until the next burst out of Bolan’s SMG nearly beheaded him.

Three down, and now the last Yakuza on his feet sprang out from cover, brandishing a stubby shotgun with a pistol grip. He pumped the slide, ejecting brass and plastic, screaming something Bolan couldn’t understand without his smartphone translator. Before the screamer had a chance to loose another buckshot cloud, Bolan zipped him across the chest and slammed him back against the crumpled wreckage of his car’s front end.

One left, and he was still alive, sitting in blood, his eyes half-closed, lips moving silently, when Bolan walked around the car. Bolan considered him, knew they were running out of time to talk, even if they possessed a common language, and he fired a single mercy round into the man’s forehead.

All done.

He got the Honda started and was rolling out of there, already thinking downrange toward the best and quickest place to find another car.




CHAPTER FOUR


Sunrise Enterprises

“No, Detective. I have no idea who might desire to vandalize our offices. Do you?”

The bald, fat officer stared at Noboru Machii, his suspicion thinly veiled, and said, “No, sir. But I’ll be looking into it.”

“Perhaps you’ll trace the smoke grenades,” Machii said. A firefighter had found them in the air-conditioning duct, while seeking a source for the smoke that still hung around them in the lobby.

“I couldn’t rule it out,” the detective said. Was his name Davis? Dawkins? No matter. All Machii wanted was for him to leave the premises. “These things are mass-produced, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Your ordinary public’s not supposed to have them, but does that mean anything these days? Between the internet and dealers on the street, forget about it.”

“So, it’s hopeless then?” Machii asked.

“Oh, nothing’s hopeless,” the detective answered. “But I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if you follow me.”

“I understand. Now, if there’s nothing else…”

The plainclothes officer was rummaging inside his rumpled jacket, pulling out a dog-eared business card and offering it to Machii, who accepted it and held it gingerly, between his thumb and index finger, checking it for sweat stains.

“Call me if you think of anything that might be helpful, eh? You got my office number on there, and my cell. Work cell, that is. Nobody gets the home number, know what I mean?”

“Indeed,” Machii said.

“Okay, then. If I find out anything, I’ll be in touch. You’ll still be doing business here?”

“I will. Power should be restored within the hour, once your people clear the scene.”

The fat detective nodded, turned and waddled toward the exit, glancing at the team of electricians as he passed them, no doubt wondering how much a rush job after hours would be costing.

And the answer, as Americans would say, was plenty: triple time for labor, plus materials. Restoring power to the building was about to cost Machii three grand, with another thousand minimum on top of that, to fix and flush the air-conditioning. He had that much and more in petty cash, but he was seething over the audacity of the assault.

And he was worried that no suspects sprang to mind.

Of course, Machii had his share of enemies, but most of those were in Japan. The few he’d made so far, around Atlantic City, had been dealt with swiftly and decisively. Unless he started to believe in zombies, they no longer posed a threat.

But someone clearly did.

He nodded curtly to the electricians and the air-conditioning technicians standing with them. “It is clear now,” he informed them. “Get to work.”

A couple of them didn’t seem to like his tone, but that meant nothing to Machii. When they were as rich as he was, when they’d killed as many men and when they had a family of twenty thousand oath-bound brothers standing at their back, supporting them, he would consider their opinion.

In the meantime, they were nothing more than servants.

Machii climbed the stairs, hating the smoke taint in the air be breathed, and found his office as he’d left it. As expected, the police had asked about the bloodstain on the hallway carpet, and he’d trotted out his underling to lisp the fable of his accident. The fat detective had refrained from asking any questions on that score, being more interested in the smoke bombs from the AC duct.

Thank heaven for small minds.

Back in his office now, Machii started a more thorough search than he’d had time for while he’d waited for emergency responders to arrive. First thing, he checked his desk, found nothing out of place, and then repeated the inspection with his files. Needless to say, he kept nothing at the office that might incriminate him, guarding against situations such as this, but if he found some normal business papers disarranged or missing, it might point him toward enemies behind the raid.

When Machii found nothing to direct him in the filing cabinets, he stood back and surveyed the room, inhaling its polluted scent as if the latent fumes might hold a clue. If not to steal from him or kill him, why would anyone attack Sunrise? No other possibility immediately came to mind, and since the power blackout had deactivated all of the building’s security cameras, no answers awaited him on videotape.

What next?

He had two calls to make. The first, to Jiro Shinoda in Las Vegas, would be a deliberately vague inquiry, trying to determine whether he had experienced any disturbances of late, without alerting him to what had happened in Atlantic City. After that—and there was no escaping it—Machii had to report the raid to Tokyo. His oyabun had to be informed within the hour, or suspicion might begin to ripen in his mind. And that, above all things, was something that Machii wanted to avoid.

His hand was on the telephone when Tetsuya Watanabe knocked, then entered without waiting for a summons. “Excuse me, sir,” he said.

“You are excused. What is it?”

“Endo and his team…”

“They’ve captured the intruder?” Sudden hope flared in Machii’s chest.

“No, sir,” Watanabe said. “They’re dead.”

* * *

Tropicana Casino and Resort, Atlantic Avenue

FINDING ANOTHER CAR had not been difficult as night fell on Atlantic City. Bolan had left his shot-up Honda Civic in a multilevel parking garage at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, swapping it for a Toyota RAV4 whose owner played it “safe” by hiding a spare key in one of those magnetic holders, tucked under the right-front fender. Bolan switched the license plates, transferred his mobile arsenal and cleared hospital grounds within ten minutes, flat.

The Sunrise Enterprises bug went live as he was driving along Atlantic Avenue, so he’d pulled into the casino’s parking lot to listen and to read the captioned messages on his smartphone. He’d missed the number that Machii dialed, but soon worked out from the conversation that the call was placed to Vegas. That meant Jiro Shinoda, since Machii—as a kyodai—would not seek input from inferiors.

Staying alert to his surroundings, ready to depart immediately if security rolled up on him, Bolan surveyed the boxed translations on his phone’s screen.

“You have surprised me,” Shinoda said.

“There is something I must ask you.”

“Yes?”

“Please, do not question me.”

“Very mysterious.” A hint of mirth entered Shinoda’s tone. “Proceed.”

“Are you experiencing…difficulties, where you are?”

Shinoda thought about that for a moment, then replied, “Aside from the Internal Revenue, nothing to speak of. Why? Are you?”

“Something has happened, but I cannot speak about it now.”

“That’s even more mysterious,” Shinoda said. “Are you suggesting I should be concerned?”

It was Machii’s turn to pause and think. At last, he answered, “No. I’m sure it has nothing to do with you. Strictly a local matter, but I must report it to our godfather.”

“Ah. In that case, I’m afraid that I cannot advise you further. Do what must be done, of course.”

“If you hear anything…”

“I, too, shall do what must be done,” Shinoda said.

Sly as a fox, that one. The threat of squealing to their oyabun was left unspoken, but Machii had to have known Shinoda would turn any given circumstance to personal advantage, if he could.

All mobsters were alike that way, Bolan knew, regardless of their nationality, skin pigment or the oaths they’d sworn on joining their respective rotten “families.” For all the vows of fealty, defense of brothers and the rest of it, the bottom line was always each man for himself. “Honor” was highly touted in the underworld, enforcing codes of silence and the like, but it was stained and tattered like an old dust rag, each rip another captain who had overthrown his boss, or one more witness who had squealed to save himself from prison.

Bolan listened while the two kyodai traded pleasantries, Machii clearly anxious to be off the line and on to some more pressing task. Bolan’s infinity device would transmit any conversation from Machii’s office, not just phone calls, and he hoped there would be more to hear before he had to leave the Tropicana’s parking lot.

As if in answer to that wish, a voice he didn’t recognize chimed in, asking, “Will you call our godfather now?”

“It cannot be avoided. If I do not, he will learn by other means. Delay might have been possible, if we had caught the prowler, but with four more dead…”

He left it dangling, no response from his companion in the office. Bolan pictured them, the search they had to have executed prior to calling Vegas, their reactions when they had found nothing out of place. Machii knew he had been targeted, but didn’t know by whom, or why. Uncertainty would give his nerves a workout and might prod him into reckless action.

“I will leave you to it,” said the kyodai’s anonymous subordinate.

“Tetsuya, wait. I will be sleeping at the other house tonight,” Machii said.

“Yes, sir. I’ll make all the arrangements.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

A door closed. If Machii had more men inside his office, they stayed silent. He delayed another minute, almost two, before he dialed another number. Bolan read it from his smartphone’s screen: “0011” was the international code used for dialing outside the States; “81” was Japan’s international code; “3” was Tokyo’s area code; and the last ten digits represented someone’s private line.

The oyabun’s, presumably.

Bolan saved the number to his phone and sat back to listen in.

* * *

Sunrise Enterprises

NOBORU MACHII DREADED his next call but could not postpone it. Timing was not a problem, with Tokyo thirteen hours ahead of Atlantic City. It was breakfast time tomorrow in Japan, and the oyabun of the Sumiyoshi-kai had always been an early riser. Even in his sixties, fabulously wealthy, he maintained an active schedule, sleeping no more than five or six hours per night.

Kazuo Takumi would be awake, and probably at work, but was he ready for the news Machii had to share?

Quit stalling. Time to get on with it, said the stern voice in Noboru’s head. And he was stalling, there could be no doubt of it. Whatever happened in the next few minutes could decide his fate.

He sat in his favorite recliner, in the private office bedroom, put his feet up in a futile effort to relax, and dialed his master’s number, tapping out seventeen digits, then listening to empty air before a telephone halfway around the world began to ring.

As usual, the first ring passed, then it was answered midway through the second. Machii pictured the oyabun’s houseman and chief bodyguard, Kato Ando, scowling as he answered.

“Who is calling, please?”

Machii gave his name and said, “I need to speak with him.”

Ando grunted, a disapproving sound, then said, “Just a minute, please.”

Machii waited, as instructed, switching hands with the telephone because his palm was sweating, even with the air-conditioning back on and blowing cool, clean air. When Kazuo Takumi took the phone, his voice was deceptively soft.

“Noboru. I’ve been expecting you.”

“You have, sir?”

“Jiro called ahead. He fears you have encountered difficulties.”

Rotten sneak! Machii ground his teeth and made a mighty effort to control his tenor.

“It is true, sir. Difficulties have arisen.”

“Tell me.”

So he did, in outline, leaving out only the price his men had paid in blood. With the scrambler on his own phone, and the oyabun’s private security measures in place, Machii had no fear of law enforcement snatching his words from the air. Still, there was no reason to link himself with any killings, just in case. Police already knew about the raid on Sunrise Enterprises. There was nothing to be lost by mentioning the smoke grenades or the prowler’s escape.

Takumi heard him out, then told him, “You were fortunate to have no injuries.”

Machii bit the bullet, said, “A few employees have departed over the affair.”

“Oh, yes? How many?”

“Seven, sir.”

“Unhappy news. But you can carry on without them?”

“Certainly. I’m taking measures as we speak.”

Measures to run and hide, that was, where he would have better security.

“What of the project?” Takumi asked, all business.

“It’s proceeding well, sir. I anticipate a breakthrough later in the week.”

“That’s excellent. I shall expect another call when all of it is finalized.”

Meaning Machii should not call again until he had good news. The kyodai nodded, feeling slightly foolish when he realized his master could not see him.

“I shall definitely be in touch, sir.”

“I look forward to it with anticipation. Goodbye.”

And the line went dead.

Machii was not sure if he should feel relieved or apprehensive, maybe some of each. His boss had not raged at him, but that was not the oyabun’s style. If he wanted you dead, he would smile to your face, then make arrangements for your execution when it suited him. A soldier who displeased Kazuo Takumi might be left as an example to his comrades. Other targets of his anger simply disappeared.

Machii knew he was not safe yet. To secure himself and his position in the family, he had to correct the problems that beset him. First and foremost, he had to find out who had dared to move against him and eliminate the threat. When that was done he could proceed with taking over Wolff Consolidated.

Which, of course, included a casino in Las Vegas. That, under the old plan, would have gone to Jiro Shinoda, but Machii had other plans for Shinoda now. He would not forget being stabbed in the back.

And he would not forgive.

* * *

Azabu, Tokyo

AZABU WAS THE richest neighborhood in Tokyo, home to celebrities and business moguls, living side by side with foreign embassies. It bordered the Akasaka business district and upscale Aoyama, where fashion was everything. Aside from the Roppongi entertainment district, most of Azabu was relatively quiet, considering its placement in the world’s most crowded city. One-bedroom apartments in Azabu started at 700,000 yen—call it $8,500—per month.

That had no impact on a man who owned seven high-rise apartment buildings.

Kazuo Takumi kept large suites in five of those buildings, and smaller bolt-holes in the other two, sometimes spending a month or more at one apartment, other times shifting each night, if he believed that staying in the same place might involve some risk.

Above all else, he took no chances where his safety was concerned.

This day he had awakened at his second-favorite home, on Block 8. City addresses in Japan did not depend on street names, but on numbered blocks. Within each block, buildings were numbered by their age, with “1” assigned to the oldest, and so on to the newest structure. Thus, Takumi’s present home, however briefly, sat atop building 12 on Block 8, with a view of traffic gleaming on the Sakurada Dori freeway.

He was troubled by the two calls from America. Jiro Shinoda had been on the line as soon as he had finished speaking with Noboru Machii in Atlantic City, voicing his concern, twisting the knife in a transparent effort to advance himself. That was unfortunate, but nothing unexpected for a relatively young, ambitious big brother. Bad blood would separate them now, a fact Takumi had been conscious of when he informed Machii of the call from Shinoda.

It was always best to keep subordinates at odds with one another, constantly competing for their master’s favor, rather than agreeing to conspire against him while the master’s back was turned.

Machii’s call had been more troubling. Seven men lost, and police would now be on alert to watch him, if there had been no surveillance previously. An attack was bad for business, all the more so when its source was unidentified. Noboru would be working urgently to solve that problem, knowing that his very life depended on it, but the crime lord wondered now if his Atlantic City kyodai was equal to the task.

Machii had disposed of Tommy Wolff, using the agents he’d supplied, but now the takeover of Wolff Consolidated would be stalled until Machii solved the riddle of his latest difficulty. Should that drag on much beyond Wolff’s funeral, Takumi was prepared to send more men around the world to lift the burden off his kyodai’s shoulders.

And, if necessary, they would lift his head at the same time.

Machii had a short window of opportunity in which to prove himself. And when that window closed, it would descend upon him like the blade of a katana in a ninja’s hands.

After victory, he thought, quoting a proverb from his youth, tighten your helmet strap.

The moral: premature excitement over great success might cause a careless man to drop his guard before the war was truly won.

Takumi never quit, never let down his guard. As for Machii…

The Yakuza crime boss decided he would send another team, four of his best this time. His private jet was always ready on a moment’s notice, and the flight from Tokyo to Atlantic City International Airport was fourteen hours long. If they arrived in time to help Machii, fine. If not, at least they would be on-site to begin the cleanup process.

Put things right before it was too late.

Meanwhile…

Takumi had his own concerns at home, completely unrelated to the situation in America. His son and heir apparent had not grown into the man Takumi hoped would run his empire when the time came for him to depart this life. In youth, Toi had been frivolous and spoiled—his father’s fault, of course, as it had to fall on any father. Lately, he had grown more serious, but also more distracted, as if no part of the family business inspired him in the least. The thought that Toi might try to leave the Sumiyoshi-kai appalled Takumi, but he could not rule it out.

Worse than the personal insult, of course, would be the blow Takumi suffered in the eyes of other godfathers when he could not control his only son. It would be viewed as weakness, and he could not argue with that judgment. Toi’s abdication, if it happened, was a threat to the whole family. Better if he had not been born, in fact, than to run off pursuing other friends and goals entirely foreign to his upbringing.

That was a problem for another day, however.

Reaching for the intercom beside him, Takumi summoned Kato Ando and greeted him with curt instructions. “Call The Four,” he said. “They must be ready to depart within the hour.”

“Yes, sir,” Kato replied, and left the room without a backward glance.

* * *

Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic City

BOLAN’S INFINITY TRANSMITTER was not hampered by the scrambler on Machii’s telephone, because it picked up conversation from the office, not the phone line. There were pros and cons to that: he only heard the kyodai’s side of the discussion, had to guess what he was hearing from the other end, but Bolan still had contact when Machii cut the link and called out for his flunky.

“Tetsuya!”

A moment later, Bolan heard the second now-familiar voice, reading the captions as his smartphone carried out translation.

“Yes, sir?”

“Are we ready to get out of here?” Machii asked.

“As ordered, sir. The limousine is downstairs, waiting.”

Bolan twisted the RAV4’s ignition key and pulled out of the Tropicana’s parking lot, turned left and drove southwestward, back toward Sunrise Enterprises. There was traffic, sure, but it would slow Machii’s getaway as much as it did Bolan’s progress, thirteen blocks to cover from the huge casino to the office building where he’d killed three men that evening.

Machii had disposed of their remains, presumably, since he hadn’t been carted off for questioning. It didn’t pay to underestimate the Yakuza, either in terms of their ferocity or their efficiency. The Yakuza served as the planet’s oldest criminal syndicate—older even than the Chinese triads—and survival spanning some four hundred years meant they had learned a thing or two along the way.

Bolan was approaching Windsor Avenue when he saw a black stretch limo turning into traffic on Atlantic, headed in the same direction he was going. That saved him time and inconvenience, since he didn’t have to box the block and come around Machii’s crew wagon. All Bolan had to do now was maintain visual contact with the limousine until it dropped the kyodai at the “other house” he’d mentioned in his office. Bolan couldn’t eavesdrop on the limo’s passengers, since they had left his bug behind, but he could follow them all night if necessary, until they found a place to roost.

In fact, it didn’t take that long. At Washington, the limo took a right-hand turn and traveled past the Margate City Historical Museum, then hung a left on Ventnor Avenue and followed that until it crossed the JFK Bridge and became Route 152, skirting the Atlantic coast of an unnamed barrier island. It was marshy ground, with serpentine canals or rivers winding through it, trees along the north side of the highway, beaches kissed by breakers to the south.

Bolan trailed his quarry past the Seaview Harbor Marina, then watched the limo turn northward, on to a two-lane access road that disappeared from view around a curve. He dared not follow it too closely, so drove on two hundred yards, until he found a place to turn and double back.

Machii’s ride was long gone by the time Bolan returned to where they’d parted company. It was a gamble, trailing him, but still the only way of finding out exactly where he’d gone. Nosing into the two-lane access road, he braked and pulled a pair of night-vision infrared goggles from the bag of tricks beside him on the shotgun seat, and slipped the straps over his head, then killed the RAV4’s lights.

The goggles let him see for fifty feet without another light source, but a half moon rode the sky this night, extending Bolan’s vision to fifty yards or more. He’d have to take it easy, keep from edging off the road and on to marshy ground, but there’d be ample warning if another car was headed his way, and he’d show no lights of his own unless he stepped on the Toyota’s brake pedal.

The drive in seemed to take forever, but the dashboard clock—light dimmed until it was barely visible—told Bolan he was making decent time, all things considered. Stealth took longer than a mad charge toward the firing line, and that was what he needed now.

He spent ten minutes on the looping access road before he spotted lights a quarter or half mile farther on. The vehicle had come to a stop in front of a large, two-story house, not quite a mansion, but the next best thing for its surroundings. Open fields and marsh surrounded it, making a foot approach more dangerous, but that would clearly be the only way to go.

Bolan stopped a quarter mile out from the house, switched off the RAV4’s dome light prior to opening the driver’s door, and then went EVA. Standing in moonlight, he removed the goggles and surveyed his target through a pair of field glasses that brought the place up close and personal. He saw two gunmen on the front porch, covering a driveway that branched off the access road, and figured there’d be more in back, watching the alternate approach.

Machii doubtless thought that he was safe out here, away from everyone and everything.

The Executioner had plans to prove him wrong.




CHAPTER FIVE


Noboru Machii was not ready to relax. It helped, having some distance from Atlantic City, but uncertainty gnawed at his nerves, making him restless, even after he had downed three cups of sake at room temperature. When the sweet rice wine failed to relieve his tension, he had switched to Bushmills twenty-one-year single malt whiskey, hoping its higher alcohol content would do the trick.

So far, no go.

Tetsuya Watanabe knocked and poked his head in through the study’s open door. Machii glanced up from the cold fireplace in front of him and nodded his permission to proceed.

“The guards are all in place,” Watanabe said. “Six men, positioned as you wished. I think you can sleep safely now.”

“You think?”

Watanabe shrugged. “We should be safe here, sir,” he replied.

“We should have been safe at the office. I assume there’s been no progress in the city, finding out who’s sent us into hiding?”

“None so far,” Watanabe admitted ruefully.

“What of Endo and the others?”

“The police have them, sir. They’ll be dissected by the medical examiner, of course.”

“Autopsied.”

“Gomen’nasai.”

“There’s no need to apologize. Work on your English.”

“Yes, sir. It will be difficult for the authorities to link them with the family. None are on file with immigration, and they have not been arrested in America.”

“Suspicion still attaches to us, given the succession of events.”

“Suspicion is not proof.”

“But it’s enough to prompt investigation, if they are not looking into us already.”

One more headache, on a night that was replete with them. Machii pushed that prospect out of mind and focused on his unknown enemies. He made it plural, since the man or men behind a raw act of aggression, in Machii’s world, would never carry out the act themselves. That left him with a list of possibilities to ponder, none of which stood out above the rest.

New Jersey was awash in crime and government corruption. That had been a fact of life for generations, going back a century and more, beyond the days when simple-minded folk thought they could cure a nation’s ills by banning alcohol. These days, the old Italian Mafia was in decline from former glory days, competing for survival in an ethnic stew of Chinese and Koreans, Cubans and Jamaicans, Russians and Albanians, Vietnamese and Japanese. Anytime contending sides brushed shoulders, there was bloodshed. Thanks in large part to Machii’s acumen, the Sumiyoshi-kai had managed to stay clear of overt violence so far.

Until this night.

Now, in a few short hours, everything he’d worked for was at risk. His very life was riding on the line, if he could not eliminate the danger to his family.

But so far, he had no idea where to begin the search.

“Is there a chance that Endo’s men wounded the person they were chasing?” he inquired.

“Our man on the police force doesn’t think so, but it’s possible his car was damaged by the shooting. Chips of glass were found, he says. A search is under way for cars damaged by gunfire, but it could be anywhere.”

And if they found it, Machii thought, it would probably be stolen, anyway. A competent professional would no more take his own car on a raid than he would dress up in kabuki robes.

“Who is most likely to move against us in Atlantic City, then?”

Watanabe thought about it for a moment, then replied, “I think, the Russians. Shestov knows you represent the family, and he’s been looking for a foothold in a great casino.”

“Shestov’s Ukrainian, not Russian.”

“What’s the difference?” Tetsuya asked. “They’re all barbarians.”

He had that right, at least. Pavlo Shestov was tough, ruthless and driven by ambition. It was said he watched the movie Scarface once a week, at least, and tried to mimic the ferocity of its protagonist. With thirty-five or forty soldiers on his payroll, he was capable of starting trouble, but would he be fool enough to take on the Sumiyoshi-kai?

Perhaps.

It was a starting place, at least.

“Pick up one of his men,” Machii ordered. “Try for the lieutenant. What’s his name, again?”

“Palatnik.”

“Question him. If Shestov is behind this, he should know.”

“And when we’re finished with him?”

“We can’t let him run back home and tattle, can we?” That would start a war with Shestov, if they weren’t already in the midst of one.

“No, sir.”

“Well, then.”

“I shall see to it myself.”

Machii raised a hand to stop him. “Let Yoshinori handle it,” he said. “I want you here with me.”

Watanabe frowned, as if uncertain whether he should take that as an insult or a compliment. Instead of answering, he tipped his head, a token bow, and marched out of the room.

Machii was about to pour another glass of whiskey, wondering if he should have a sandwich first, when an explosion rocked the house.

* * *

BOLAN HAD PULLED OUT all the stops for his incursion on Machii’s hideaway. He took the silenced MP-5 K, backed up with a Colt M4A1 carbine sporting an Aimpoint CompM4 reflector sight and an M320 grenade launcher mounted under the carbine’s barrel, fitted with its own side-mounted day/night sight. To feed the guns, he wore two bandoleers across his chest—one fat with 5.56 mm magazines, the other packing 40 mm high-explosive rounds—and wore a triple belt pouch for the SMG’s curved magazines. All together, Glock included, he was packing in 450 rounds of sudden death, hoping it was a great deal more than he would need.

Off road, the ground was treacherous beneath his feet. He had the goggles on again, scanning the turf for streams and ponds, long-stepping over them from one firm hummock to another. On his way, he kept checking the house, confirming that Machii’s lookouts were not on the move with a patrol into the marsh. From what Bolan could see, two hundred yards and closing through the moonlight, they seemed fairly well at ease, smoking and chatting on the porch.

That didn’t mean that they weren’t dangerous, by any means.

The Yakuza was not a blood in/blood out operation that required each new recruit to take a human life. Some members never got their hands dirty, beyond cooking the books at firms the syndicate controlled. Soldiers, by contrast, were recruited from the bosozoku “restless tribe” gangs in Japan, equivalent to outlaw bikers in the States, who grew up fighting for a scrap of urban turf and had their consciences seared out of them before they got to high school. Given any chance to join the big leagues, they jumped at it, seizing any opportunity to prove themselves through terrorism, homicide and torture.

All the best of manga entertainment, with real corpses.

Bolan had no doubt the guards would die to save their oyabun, and he was ready to accommodate them. First, though, he desired to get in closer, scout the lonely home’s perimeter and get a feel for how many defenders he was facing. When he made his move, he wanted it to come as a surprise and catch the soldiers with their guard down.

Stopping at the fifty-yard mark, well beyond the floodlights mounted on each corner of the house, Bolan began to circle clockwise, watching as he went for any traps, alarms or hidden cameras that might betray him to a watcher on the grounds. He found none and continued, counting half a dozen lookouts on his circuit. There were two in front, two more out back, one by himself on each end of the manor, north and south. The darkened patio, in back, offered the best approach, with tall translucent sliding doors fronting some kind of lighted recreation room.

The Executioner closed in, moving slowly in a half crouch, weighted by the guns and ammunition that he carried. He gripped the silenced MP-5 K, carbine slung across his back where he could reach it readily at need, both the rifle and its under-barrel launcher primed and ready. At a range of thirty yards, he stopped, knelt and checked again for any lurkers whom he might have missed.

The paired-up guards were definitely on their own.

Approaching them would be a needless risk. Bolan lined up the MP-5 K’s iron sights with a hooded post in front. He pinned them on the watchman to his left, no special reason, and squeezed off a snuffling 3-round burst that put him down, blood spreading from beneath him on the paving stones.

Before the second lookout could react, Bolan had swiveled toward him, squeezed the trigger once again, and opened up his chest with hollow-point rounds. The dying hardman slumped backward, but his index finger clenched around the trigger of his Micro-Uzi, rattling off a burst like fireworks in the dark, still night.

So much for stealth.

Before more lights came on inside the house, before the home team started cursing, shouting orders, Bolan let the MP-5 K drop and dangle from its sling, hauling the Colt around and bringing it to bear. He peered into the M320 launcher’s day/night sight, using its laser range finder, and sent an HE round across the patio, smashing through plate glass on its way and detonating when it struck the rec room’s southern wall.

* * *

NOBORU MACHII DROPPED his whiskey glass and bolted to his feet, cursing a sudden rush of dizziness he recognized as the effect of too much alcohol. He was not drunk, per se, but heard a buzzing in his ears completely unrelated to the blast of seconds earlier, and wobbled on his legs until he braced one hand against a side table and got his balance back.

He made it halfway to the wall-mounted gun cabinet before Tetsuya Watanabe burst into the study, pistol in his hand, asking, “Are you okay, sir?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Machii almost snarled at him. “What’s happening?”

“I’m not sure, yet. I came to check on you. It may be—”

Gunfire crackled from the general direction of the rec room, soldiers crying out.

Machii did snarl, then. “Get out and deal with that! I’ll be there in a minute.”

At the cabinet, he fumbled with a small brass key to open it and took a shotgun from the rack inside. It was a Benelli M3 Super 90 12-gauge, which allowed a choice of pump-action or semiautomatic fire. Its magazine held seven rounds of triple-0 buckshot, with one more in the chamber, each equivalent to six .36-caliber bullets inside one cartridge. At close range, it was devastating.

And exactly what Machii needed at that moment.

As an afterthought, he snatched a pistol from its hook inside the cabinet, a fully loaded Walther PPQ, which stood for “police pistol quick defense” in German. That would give Machii eighteen extra shots, in case his 12-gauge and the guards stationed to defend him all proved useless.

The whiskey bottle beckoned to Machii as he left the study, but he cursed it and moved on, following sounds of combat toward the east side of the house. A smoky, chemical aroma in the air reminded him of the munitions that had fogged his office earlier, but this was subtly different. He recognized the scent of burnt gunpowder and explosives mixed together, and he had no doubt the house was under siege.

How had his nameless enemies located him? There was no time to think about that now, while they were still alive and doing everything within their power to kill him. Not police, he knew that much, since they always arrived with sirens, flashing lights and warrants. Someone else, then, who was not concerned with legal niceties, but only with the bottom-line result.

Machii’s ears rang with the sounds of gunfire now, the softer hiss of liquor working on his brain cells smothered by the battle din. He needed no guide to locate the firing line, but hesitated well short of the rec room, pausing in the hallway as another trio of his men ran past him, heedless of his presence on their way to join the fight.

If he could make it to the car and slip away, while they were busy…

Flushed with shame, Machii cursed himself and started moving toward the action, one foot following the other at a cautious, almost creeping speed. He kept his index finger off the shotgun’s trigger, worried that he might shoot one of his own soldiers accidentally, but he was ready to unleash a storm of lead within a split second, if threatened.

Another blast ripped through the house, much closer than the first. A rain of dust and plaster flakes sprinkled Machii as he huddled in the hallway, nearly deafened now. It was disorienting, but he knew where he was headed, only had to keep on walking in the same direction to become part of the action.

If he ran, there’d be no end to running. And no man escaped his private shame.

One of Machii’s guards staggered into view, emerging from a side door to the kitchen. He was unarmed, clearly dazed, a flap of scalp dangling above one eye as blood streamed down his face and soaked his white dress shirt. The soldier did not recognize his boss, shuffling toward him like a zombie, one arm out to brace and guide himself along the wall.

Machii stepped in front of him and clutched the wounded man’s lapel. “What’s happening?” he asked the soldier who stood blinking in his grasp. “Who is attacking us?”

“I do not know, sir,” came the reply.

Of course the young man didn’t know. How could he? He was stunned, brain scrambled, and the enemy would not have introduced himself. Machii stepped around his useless flunky, finding new courage in his own ability to move with purpose toward the battle.

With his finger on the shotgun’s trigger, he was prepared to kill his adversaries or die trying.

* * *

BOLAN HAD KILLED five gunners since entering the house, which made it seven altogether from the patio until he reached the modern, institutional-sized kitchen. Three had been together in the rec room when his first HE round detonated there, one more or less beheaded by the blast and shrapnel, while the other two were shaken to the point of immobility and sat there, staring at him, while he put them down for good.

The other two came charging in as he was moving through the smoke and dust from the explosion toward a door connecting to the kitchen. Sighting him, they both gave out kung fu–type shouts and leveled pistols in his general direction, but their zeal did not equate with combat readiness. One bullet hissed past Bolan’s ear, a foot or more off target, and the second shooter didn’t have a chance to fire as Bolan’s M4A1 carbine answered, stuttering short bursts and gutting them with 5.56 mm manglers.

The NATO rounds were made to yaw and fragment at their cannelures, shredding a target’s vital organs with a storm of shrapnel while the main part of the slug tumbled through flesh and muscle, carving out a devastating wound channel. The two gunners went down, flailing, out of action in a heartbeat, likely dead before their slayer cleared the kitchen door.

The large room, mostly stainless steel and copper, had three exits. Bolan had one covered, while the others, he supposed, would serve a dining room and, possibly, a hallway running through the house to other rooms. He had the kitchen to himself for ten or fifteen seconds, then his ears picked up the sound of more hardmen closing from the right, beyond a swing door. Bolan crouched behind a serving island in the middle of the kitchen, carbine angling toward the door.

When it flew open, Bolan glimpsed the formal dining room beyond—something from Better Homes & Gardens—then three gunners blocked the view, crowding the doorway in their rush to meet the enemy. Two of them carried submachine guns, and he couldn’t see the third one’s hands.

Instead of wasting bullets on the trio, Bolan let them have a 40 mm HE round, ducking behind the heavy wood-and-granite island as it blew, unleashing thunder in the kitchen with a storm of brick dust, plaster, ventilated pots and pans. When Bolan looked again, two of the attackers were down, the third no longer visible, either propelled back through the doorway by the shock wave or—a slim chance—quick enough to save himself.

Bolan rose from cover and proceeded toward the dining room, uncertain where he’d find Machii in the house, now that his probe had turned into a running firefight. Some commanders, in that circumstance, would lead their soldiers by example; others, a majority, would be content to issue orders, all the while intent on looking out for Number One. The samurai mind-set might help determine how Machii acted, but he couldn’t count on that to put the Yakuza boss in his rifle sights.

First thing through the door into the dining room, he saw that the third shooter had escaped, leaving a trail of blood across beige carpet and along the nearest wall, likely from trailing fingertips. With no one else in sight, Bolan went after him, the smears and splashes leading to another door six yards in front of him. There was a blood smudge on the doorknob, verifying that his quarry had passed through it in his flight from the explosion.

He hesitated at the door, listened and heard nothing beyond it. Careful to avoid the bloody knob, he eased it open, started to lean through—then jerked back as a sudden movement to his right warned Bolan of a trap in waiting.

He recoiled, crouching, and grimaced as a shotgun blast shattered the door frame, heavy buckshot pellets drilling wood and drywall. Bolan waited for a follow-up that didn’t come, while calculating odds of getting nailed if he proceeded through the exit to the corridor beyond.

A shotgun gave his adversary an advantage. Marksmanship was secondary, with a scattergun, to nerve and steady hands. If Bolan rushed the doorway, he could wind up getting peppered, and the gunner was loading double-0, at least. One hit, much less a pellet cluster, could be fatal or debilitating.

On the other hand, if he stayed where he was, it could mean reinforcements coming down the corridor or through the kitchen at his back. They might come both ways, trap him in the dining room and finish him, if they had guns and guts enough to pull it off.

Given the choice, Bolan would almost always choose attack, and this was no exception.

But he had a little something different in mind.




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