Siege

by Don Pendleton

  Fujitsu spread his hand and shrugged slightly. "You cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs."

  The old adage coming so unexpectedly from the Foreign Affairs man brought a wry smile to Bolan's lips. He set the coffee cup to one side and held up his hands. "I don't suppose I could talk you out of the cuffs."

  "Sorry. I like you just the way you are. I have already seen the kind of violence you are capable of. I have no desire to see it up close."

  "So you trust me even though you don't really."

  "I find it needful if not truly comforting."

  Bolan glanced at the folder. "If I look at the material you have in that, I might find myself needing to trust you."

  "Perhaps."

  "That's not very comforting."

  "Now you appreciate my position in this."

  "Maybe I do at that." Bolan took the folder and flipped it open, knotting the handcuff chain in his fingers to keep it from scattering the small pile of papers and photographs as he sorted through them. He identified Brognola immediately. One showed the head Fed coming down the steps of Justice with three men flanking him. Another showed Brognola and an unknown man seated at a booth of a restaurant Bolan recognized as the Howard Johnson's across from the Watergate Hotel where he'd met Brognola a few times himself. The last was of Brognola in an unknown parking garage talking to another man. There were four more pictures, but Bolan didn't know any of the people in them. He moved the pictures to one side and started going through the sheaf of papers that turned out to be English translations of coroners' reports on the men who'd been killed during that morning's firefight. Beneath that was another stack of eight-by-ten glossies. The faces revealed in these were of dead men. Some he recognized as having been in his gunsights, and some he recognized as having been in the first batch of pictures. He went back and matched them up.

  Fujitsu tapped a callused forefinger on the first pictures. "Here, here and here. See them with your friend Brognola? And here. This is Tucker. See them? Here, here, here and here. In all, four men are in the seven photographs we received. Four men who had their pictures taken with key American personnel working on an extremely delicate international affair. The same four men you later killed. One of those men has been identified as having been with the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1970s."

  Going back to the coroners' pictures of the dead men, Bolan reflected grimly that not all of them had been killed by him. The fletched arrow shaft through one man's eye was a mute reminder of that.

  "Assuming these men are known to Tucker and Brognola, why would they attack you?" Fujitsu asked.

  "They might not be known to Hal or the CIA guy." Bolan returned the Foreign Affairs man's stare full measure.

  "Someone knew. Just as someone knew at least some of these men would be killed in their engagement with you."

  The memory of the woman ninja played through Bolan's mind again, followed swiftly by the three he'd killed at the nightclub. He wondered if this morning's help was just an effort to complete the confusion made by the pictures. It would have been hard to point an accusatory finger at Brognola or the CIA agent without the convenient corpses. "When did your department receive these pictures?"

  Fujitsu settled back into his chair and said nothing.

  "Have you got the negatives?" Bolan asked as he burned the details of the pictures into his mind.

  "This is where cooperation on my part ends," Fujitsu said.

  "It would be easier to find out if these pictures have been tampered with by checking the negatives."

  "I am aware of that."

  Bolan knew the man had already checked or was unable to check. He assumed the latter due to the way the Foreign Affairs man was putting the questionable intel into play in the mix of agencies. He closed the folder and pushed it back across the table. There wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind as to Brognola's trustworthiness. The two of them had been soldiers fighting the same war for far too long for that, but it didn't rule out the possibility that Justice had been compromised. The attack on the Sumida River proved that. The thought left him wondering how much he could trust his friend's organization with intel he gathered during the operation, recognizing the hesitation to share would limit Brognola's ability to help. A coldness spread through his stomach as he studied Fujitsu's impassive gaze and realized the reverse knowledge was already achieving its desired effect. Fujitsu had called the play with the skill of a master strategist because he'd read Bolan as a loner and provided stimulus that would keep the Executioner operating that way.

  Whoever had engineered the photographs, whether partially true or not, had moved with animal cunning. Whatever quiet and deadly little game was being played out in Tokyo was building tension and suspicion as it turned the American investigative effort into a house of cards. Bolan had no doubts that the wind that came along to sweep it away would be an eruption of bloody violence that would leave no one in its path untouched.

  * * *

  Tuley came to a halt at the curb outside the nightclub where he'd called Sacker, and waited for Vardeman to bring their car around. Repressed anger still turned his stomach sour. The last thing he needed right now was for Sacker to tell him how to do his job. He blinked his eyes in vain to clear the bleariness that stained his vision.

  He cupped his hands to light a cigarette, then shut the lighter with a quick snap. When he looked up, he saw two men step from the crowd leaving the back alley nightclub where he and Vardeman had spent the past two hours. The skin across the back of his neck prickled, and he crushed the cigarette under his shoe.

  He dropped the lighter into a jacket pocket with one hand while the other reached for the .45 holstered on his hip. His fingers brushed against the butt of the pistol as a cold, blunt cylinder was screwed into the base of his neck.

  "Don't," a thin, reedy voice cautioned.

  Tuley took his hand away from the .45 and swallowed hard. He thought about trying a spin kick on the man behind him, then saw the two men in front of him bring Uzi pistols into view. The man behind him relieved him of his side arm, then pulled the barrel away from his neck.

  "Hands on your head," the reedy voice commanded.

  Tuley complied at once. Right now his captors held all the aces, but he knew from experience if he gave them a little slack, things could change in a heartbeat. He'd come out of worse than this. If they proved to be Tokyo police, he'd sit in the cooler for a short time before Sacker pulled him out of it. All things considered, he decided he'd rather come out of the present situation on his own. Belasko had already screwed the mission up enough as it was.

  "This way," the man behind ordered, yanking him into the shadows of the alley.

  Tuley stumbled and skinned an elbow on a brick wall. He cursed under his breath. The stench of rotten vegetables, fish and stale urine almost took his breath away. A round whiteness blurred in the distance. When he got up closer, he realized it was Vardeman's face.

  Vardeman was on his knees in the alley. Two men stood on either side of him and held Uzi muzzles just under his ears. "Bastards got me before I even saw them, Ross." The big man sounded apologetic.

  Tuley gave him a tight nod of encouragement as he recounted the five men that held them. The man behind him grabbed him by his collar and said, "Down on your knees."

  Tuley dropped to the ground, wetness from the alley soaking the knees of his slacks. His adversary yanked his jacket down with a sudden pull, pinning his arms. Tuley started to come back up fighting, but one of the men stepped forward and smashed the butt of an Uzi into his face. Blood flowed from his forehead into his eyes.

  "You stay put," the man behind him said. "Alive or dead, it doesn't matter to us. Hosaka pay us all the same."

  Tuley recognized the name at once as being on Sacker's list of targets.

  "Never figured it would end like this," Vardeman said in a resigned voice.

  "Silence!" one of the gunners ordered.

  Clamping his jaw muscles tight to keep in the f
ear and rage pummeling through him, Tuley watched the men. One mistake, that was all he was asking for.

  There was a moment of conversation, then one of the men dug a set of keys from his pocket and ran back down the alley. Tuley shifted subtly, swallowing hard when both guns at his throat increased their pressure. At least they were taking him alive. He made himself wait.

  A van rolled down the alley with the lights out and came to a stop in front of them. He and Vardeman were allowed to rise to their feet as the driver ran around the back to unlock the doors. The man fell back with a shrill cry of pain as the doors exploded open to reveal a man dressed in black from head to toe. A short length of dark steel glittered in one hand as the other flashed forward.

  What looked like a kid's set of jacks suddenly covered the face of the man to Tuley's left and sent blood streaming from numerous superficial wounds. The man went down, clawing at the caltrops as he tried to trigger a burst at the black-garbed man. Nine-millimeter rounds ripped through the back of the van, but the target was no longer there.

  Tuley caught an impression of movement in his peripheral vision, then the head of the man on his right jumped from the man's shoulders. He felt warm blood spray across his arm as the corpse fell away from him.

  One of the men covering Vardeman thrust his Uzi at the masked man and squeezed off a burst of parabellums. Tuley hit the ground at once, reaching for one of the fallen machine pistols. The sword blurred, slicing through the gunner's forearms and dropping hands and weapons into the alley. The injured man had time for one scream before the sword swept across his throat and removed his larynx. The last man was too far away for the sword, and Tuley figured his unknown benefactor's advantage had ran out.

  Then the black-clad man's arm snapped out. Something that resembled a railroad spike sunk into the gunner's forehead and dropped the man instantly. Vardeman had never moved, still holding his hands on top of his head.

  Tuley pulled the Uzi into his chest as the man in black turned to face him. He stared into the man's dark eyes, barely visible in the oval of the mask, as he rolled over onto his back. The man in black clasped his sword hilt in both hands as he kept his eyes focused on Tuley.

  "Hold it right there," Tuley ordered as he brought the Uzi into target acquisition. As he watched, the outlines of the man seemed to blur and become indistinct. He blinked and could see nothing at all of the man. He forced himself to his feet and moved in cautiously on the wall where he'd last seen the man. There was nothing there. He made himself reach out a hand to touch the bricks.

  "Holy shit," Vardeman breathed as he dropped his hands. "I've never seen anything like that."

  Tuley made a slow circle, letting his peripheral vision max out, keeping the machine pistol at his waist. A dozen people had spread across the mouth of the alley. "Get our pistols and let's get the hell out of here." Vardeman began searching the bodies.

  Shifting the Uzi to single-shot, Tuley put a round through the blinded man. He checked the body of the man who had opened the van doors and found ropes of intestines covering the guy. He fought down the urge to be sick. He had seen death a myriad times before, had dealt it out himself on a very personal basis, but he'd never seen something like this happen so quickly. The back of his neck prickled again.

  "Who was that guy?" Vardeman asked.

  "I don't know."

  "Where did he go?"

  "How the hell should I know? You were standing here, too. You tell me."

  "Hey, take it easy, Ross. We're in this together, remember?"

  Tuley let out a tense breath. "C'mon." He jogged down the alley with Vardeman right behind, wondering the whole time how the hell he was supposed to look for somebody who could vanish. They reached their car without incident. He dropped the captured Uzi out the window as Vardeman engaged the transmission and pulled them into traffic. Then he glanced over his shoulder to see if someone was following them.

  "Clean?" Vardeman asked.

  "As far as I can tell." Tuley turned back around and took a cigarette from his pack. He stared at his shaking fingers for a moment.

  "It wasn't an accident that that guy was there," Vardeman said. "He was there to take care of us."

  Tuley nodded.

  "You think Sacker put him on to us?"

  "I don't know. Sacker does things like that. You know that as well as I do. He gives you a piece of the operation and never lets you know exactly where it fits, and he doesn't tell you how many different angles he's playing it from." Tuley remembered the sword flashing and the man's head flying loose through the air. "God, I hope so, because if it wasn't Sacker, we're in some deep shit here."

  * * *

  "What the hell are we doing here, Hal?" Tucker asked, smothering a yawn with his hand.

  Brognola clumped around the Club Morena painfully. "I've got a feeling about this," he replied.

  Two paramedics staggered out of the club's elevator with a gurney between them. The sheet covering the body was bloody. Out on the street a half-dozen uniformed cops wearing riot gear kept the crowds from crossing their official lines.

  "A feeling?" the CIA man repeated. "Okay, never mind. I can understand that, but tell me why I'm here."

  "That's even simpler," Brognola said as he smiled at him. The hours were finally starting to catch up with the younger man. "You're here because I can't speak the language."

  A plainclothes detective was taking statements from the employees at a corner table. Three coffeepots were at his elbow. Brognola wanted a cup but refrained from asking. Tucker had made it very clear that their presence was barely being tolerated. Throwing Fujitsu's name around didn't appear to impress the regular cops.

  He'd gotten a glimpse of the carnage upstairs before the evidence recovery teams had restricted the area, but it had been enough. He'd been on a number of sites of Bolan hits back during the early days of the Executioner's war against the Mafia, and it had gotten to the point that he could tell it was a Bolan blitz just by the crackle in the air. That crackle had been there tonight. So where was the Executioner?

  "What kind of credit do you have with the homicide people?" Brognola asked. A uniformed officer came down the stairs on the other side of the room carrying a plastic trash bag.

  "I've got a little pull with a couple of guys I've been able to do favors for in the past."

  "Let's give them a call and see if you can find out where they put the guy they took into custody."

  Tucker looked like he wanted to argue, then shrugged and moved toward a bank of pay phones around the corner from the bar. Brognola noticed the homicide detective watching him while changing interviewees. The CIA man dropped coins into the phone and said, "Look, I listened to the same translated-news station you did. There are a lot of Americans in this city. This doesn't have to be Belasko."

  "Humor me."

  Tucker's eyes showed that he'd like to do anything but. He spoke in rapid Japanese, waited, then spoke again.

  Brognola listened, growing more and more irritated at being frozen out of the information exchange. He wasn't sure which irritated him more, getting the intel secondhand or depending on Tucker to get it. He watched the agent's face shift from nonchalance to full-blown interest. By the time Tucker hung up the receiver, he was frowning.

  "Looks like you're right on target," the CIA man said. "Giichi tells me they've identified the pistol the prisoner used as one of a batch that had been brought into Japan a few weeks ago by some arms dealers. They found a sizable chunk of those weapons along with the bodies of known arms traffickers earlier this afternoon. And, wonder of wonders, some of those people had .45 slugs in them that matched weapons used at the Sumida River target range. Giichi didn't mind telling me that more than a few people want to get their hands on your boy."

  "Who has him now?"

  "Fujitsu."

  A hard knot formed in Brognola's stomach. "Did you find out where?"

  "Yeah. After I told Giichi the guy was one of ours, he told me where Fujitsu had him, and
that Fujitsu had clamped down hard on this one from the beginning. Evidently our guy in Foreign Affairs has pissed off a lot of police people with his hands-off policy concerning Belasko. Giichi said one interview with your boy could clear a lot of paperwork from his desk and lighten the load immediately."

  "Sounds like maybe Fujitsu knew this was about to fall."

  Tucker shrugged. "At this point, between his shenanigans and yours, I wouldn't put anything past either of you."

  Brognola limped toward the door, turning events over in his mind and trying to make them fit together. It got confusing fast, and he gave it up.

  "I've got it all figured out, though," Tucker said with heavy sarcasm. "If Fujitsu objects to our liberating your guy, we just slip Belasko a gun and let him shoot his way out. That seems to be his answer to everything."

  Brognola let the comment slide uncontested, filled with questions about why Fujitsu felt it necessary to isolate Bolan, and how much the Foreign Affairs man knew about the events that had taken place at the nightclub.

  * * *

  Bolan slept sitting in the chair in the interrogation room, one leg drawn up with his cuffed hands over it and his forehead resting on his knee. His combat senses came alive instantly when someone turned the lock. He looked up as Fujitsu entered the room with Brognola and Tucker. The CIA agent favored the photographs he'd seen earlier.

  Brognola clamped an unlit cigar between his teeth and gave the Foreign Affairs man a hostile stare. "Where are the keys to those handcuffs?" he asked in a cold voice.

  Fujitsu pulled a key ring from his pocket and tossed them to him. Brognola limped over to the table and sat down heavily. Bolan lifted his hands and presented the cuffs. "How are you doing?" Brognola asked.

  "Better," Bolan answered tersely as the cuffs fell from his wrists. He rubbed the circulation back into his hands and stood.

  "There are still a number of questions that need to be answered concerning the deaths you have been party to, Mr. Belasko," Fujitsu said. "My government would not think well of your department, Mr. Brognola, if he were to disappear in the next few hours."