"Of course."
"We have the next two days to ourselves," Picard said, "and a Lear jet. Where would you like to go?"
"How about some place Oriental? Maybe Singapore?"
"Why Singapore?"
"I've never been there, and National Geographic had a special on it a few days ago. Did you know that sixty-five percent of the country's population live in the capital city? Did you know that the people there enjoy the highest per person income in Southeast Asia? Then there was the footage the photographers took. It sounded like the perfect place to go for a quiet few days."
Picard laughed at her obvious enthusiasm. "I can't promise that it will be all that quiet," he said. "I've still got business going on that will require my attention."
"When you sit down to do whatever it is you do, I can go shopping. It will be marvelous."
"Tell Jensen to lay in the quickest course he can to Singapore and to plan on a three- or four-day layover before we have to get back to the island."
Picard said goodbye and broke the connection and dialed another number. Singapore would work for him, too. It was only a few hours by jet to Tokyo. When the phone was answered, he said, "Tell our boy in Tokyo he can take care of the local problem now. I've got everything secured at this end."
"Yes, sir."
Picard hung up the phone. The acquisition of John Winterroad hadn't been necessary, but it certainly started matters on a downhill slide toward the success he had plotted for. It also hadn't been surprising. A lot of the people Picard had culled from the CIA's ranks had been disgruntled employees looking for something to believe in again. And usually that something included an enemy to fight. Now, once Tuley liquidated Tucker in Tokyo, the Agency would move to place Winterroad in his position, giving Picard an even firmer grip on the events he controlled in Japan. And in the world market. He smiled to himself again, luxuriating in the feel of success that he had become accustomed to over the years.
* * *
Moving through the darkness, clad only in the formfitting blacksuit with the Beretta in a speed rig and the Desert Eagle on his hip, the Executioner closed in on the warehouse. Perspiration trickled down the tiger stripes of greasepaint that darkened his face — the night air had thickened with humidity.
He carried the Uzi as his lead weapon, cradling it in one arm as he vaulted a low fence surrounding the warehouse and became a part of the shadows filling the empty parking area behind the building.
Remaining motionless at the side of a flatbed truck behind the closed bays of the warehouse, Bolan studied the lights visible in the building. Besides the truck, a total of five other vehicles sat in the parking lot — three older sedans and two American luxury cars. Both luxury cars announced the presence of Yakuza members.
Bolan left the truck, edging into the deeper shadows that surrounded the building like a moat. Pain thudded into the Executioner from the wound in his side, reminding him that the blitz he had embarked on was taking its toll on him as well as the people he pursued. He brushed perspiration from his eyes as he pressed into the weathered wood of the warehouse.
He peered in through a dirty window and saw the tarp-covered shapes of motors, hulls and sailboats scattered across the warped planks of the floor. A wooden staircase led upstairs to the small second story. Intel gleaned earlier revealed that the warehouse was a repair shop that barely made ends meet. The real money was turned in the upstairs room as Yakuza bookies set odds on everything from baseball to sumo wrestling, domestic and international events.
Easing the window up and out, Bolan threw a leg over the sill and stepped inside. Voices carried to him from his right. He moved forward, and seconds later found the two men stationed at the foot of the stairs. Both were armed with silenced Ingrams canted against their waists. Apparently word had gone out on the streets that Yakuza operations were being hit.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, letting bright light splash against the dark interior of the warehouse. The two men at the bottom of the stairs came to attention at once. A man in an expensive dark suit stepped onto the landing, stared down at them and said something. They responded at once. The man nodded and flipped a cigarette butt out over the edge of the stairs. The orange coal exploded against the side of one of the boats into a flurry of embers. Satisfied, the man turned and went back into the room, closing the door behind him.
Bolan lifted the 93-R from its shoulder rig as the two men at the bottom of the steps separated and walked the outer perimeters of the warehouse. As the first guard came abreast of Bolan's position, the warrior raised the Beretta and stroked the trigger. He caught the body and lowered it to the planking. When he looked back up, he'd lost the other man.
He slung the Uzi over his shoulder, choosing the Beretta's silence over the machine pistol's firepower, and set off to find the missing man. The unwary scuff of his target's foot alerted him to the man's whereabouts. The warrior catfooted to the guard's position, reached out and tore the weapon from the unsuspecting man's grip.
The man whirled around, the momentum of the movement knocking both men into the repair berth. The guard started to yell as the water closed over his head, but Bolan covered his mouth with a big palm. The guard struggled and reached for something under his jacket.
Still holding the man by a fistful of hair, Bolan bolstered the Beretta and slipped the broad-bladed combat knife from its upside-down sheath in his rigging, chopping it in a short swing between the man's ribs and into his heart.
Bolan surfaced, drawing in a deep breath of air. He secured the body in the air pocket left between the bay water and the wooden planking. Hauling himself out of the water, he made his way to the fifty-five-gallon fuel drums stacked on pallets in one corner of the warehouse. Working quickly, he released the taps on several, the smell of gasoline becoming all-pervasive. He took a five-gallon jerrican from the wall, fisted the Uzi and took the stairs two at a time to the landing. After sloshing a quarter of the can's contents across the landing, he positioned himself in front of the door with the jerrican at his feet. Then he rapped his knuckles on the wooden surface.
When the door opened, he caught a glimpse of long, narrow tables covered with phones and index files. More than a dozen men were working inside.
Before the man who answered the door could react, Bolan hit him with the Uzi. He reversed the machine pistol and sprayed the room with 9 mm tumblers, sending the men inside scurrying for cover. Then he booted the jerrican into the room, waiting until it reached the center of the room before emptying the Uzi's clip into it.
Sparks from the bullets ignited the gasoline, and fire spread out in an ever-widening pool as some of the men inside the room unlimbered weapons. Then it was racing back toward Bolan, following the trail he'd made by spilling it over the landing.
Bolan seized the unconscious man and dropped him into the open berth immediately below. As the fire crossed the threshold of the room and flared across the broad pool soaked into the staircase, the Executioner dived after the man. He hit the water cleanly, arcing back up almost at once to grab the jacket of the man he'd thrown in. He stroked for the clearance under the bay doors, noticing the bright stabs of bullets penetrating the dark water.
Then the fire reached into the pool made by the draining fifty-five-gallon fuel drums. The explosion ripped the warehouse apart, scattering puddles of fire. The rapid fire of the weapons abruptly ended as men scrambled for their lives.
Bolan pulled his prisoner under the bay doors as the interior of the warehouse turned into a fiery hell. Fire roared out from under the bay area like dragon's breath. There was a moment of intense heat, then it evaporated, withdrawing back into the inside of the warehouse.
The man gurgled and spit, suddenly flailing at the water. Bolan treaded water an arm's length away, leveling the Desert Eagle at his prisoner's face. He waited until the man saw him, then thumbed back the hammer. "Do you speak English?" the Executioner asked.
The man shook his head and said something in rapi
d-fire Japanese.
"It doesn't matter. You'll understand enough. Saburo Hosaka." He motioned with the big .44, then repeated the name.
Eyes riveted on the Desert Eagle's large bore, the man said, "Saburo Hosaka."
Bolan nodded. "Just tell them that. They'll get the message." He swam for shore, leaving the man treading water. Dark plumes of smoke from the burning warehouse stabbed into the night sky and washed away the brightness of the stars.
Chapter Eighteen
"Hello?"
Bolan didn't recognize the voice. "I expected a woman to answer at this number." He leaned into the phone booth, keeping a watchful eye on the street.
"Unfortunately she isn't out of the hospital yet. Perhaps I may be of service."
"What happened?"
"She's suffering from smoke inhalation after reentering the building to try to recover… some sensitive documents."
"That's too bad."
"Yes," the man agreed, "but better than other people who didn't make it out of the building at all."
Bolan ignored the thinly veiled sarcasm. "I'm looking for someone."
"So I've been told."
"Where is he?"
"As yet my superiors are trying to decide whether to aid you in this. The Hosaka family is attempting things that are beneficial to our efforts. We wouldn't want to see Joji Hosaka's dreams die before they have a chance to take root."
Bolan hardened his voice. "I closed the waterfront gambling room in the warehouse on the Arakawa Hosuiro River less than twenty minutes ago. If you want to continue to up the ante, I'm staying in the game. It's your choice."
The phone was covered at the other end, leaving only the dead buzz of static. Seconds later the man came back on. "I have just been authorized to release the information to you. Do you have a pencil?"
"Just give it to me."
The man repeated the address.
"If this information is false, another one of your businesses will suffer losses tonight," Bolan warned.
"We understand that. We…"
Bolan hung up.
* * *
"The guy's a menace, Hal," Alan Tucker yelled, slapping the steering wheel for emphasis.
Brognola looked at the younger man and sighed. The argument had been off and on for the past few hours, flaring back to full strength each time special reports broke into regular radio programming to announce another incident of violence.
"Look at that," Tucker said, pointing at the building beyond the police cordon.
On the other side of the cordon, yellow fire trucks converged on the blazing building. Ambulances rolled slowly through the congestion of people, cars, emergency vehicles and fire hoses.
Brognola fished another antacid tablet from his shirt pocket and popped it into his mouth. He glanced to the right side of the street and saw members of Fujitsu's staff from the banquet security. He looked for Fujitsu but didn't see him. The Foreign Affairs man had appeared extremely interested in Bolan's disappearance and had ordered a special bulletin put out on Bolan despite Brognola's protests.
"Do you remember the Egyptian hijacking?" Tucker asked as he pulled the car to a halt. "That's what Belasko reminds me of. And do you know what they said about that after the Egyptians went through the plane and killed the terrorists despite the resulting high rate of civilian deaths? The only thing worse than being hijacked is being rescued by the Egyptians."
"We don't have a handle on this operation," Brognola said. He pushed himself up from the seat and out onto the street, coming to a stop beside the CIA man.
Flames rushed into the night sky twenty feet above the top of the building. A cloud of smoke wreathed the top two floors.
Tucker pointed at the building. "So this is your answer? You're just going to unleash this mad dog of yours and hope he kills some of the right people?"
Brognola turned, thrusting his face to a point within inches of Tucker's. "You're out of line."
Tucker didn't back away. He shoved a finger at the head Fed. "Out of line, hell. Your boy was out of line back there at the hotel when he pulled his gun on me."
"Belasko pulled his piece before you did," Brognola said. "Don't go getting sanctimonious on me. And if you shove that finger in my face again, you're going to have to put a splint on it when you get it back."
Tucker's jaw muscles worked, and he blinked with restrained fury. Brognola leaned back against the car. The voices of the crowd, combined with the rescue efforts by the emergency people, created an undercurrent of sound punctuated by the hissing rush of the fire hoses, the bullhorn used by the fire department and the winch motors of the hook-and-ladder trucks.
"You're keeping something back," Brognola said softly.
Tucker didn't respond. He rested his hands on his hips, allowing his jacket to gape enough to reveal the rubber-banded handle of his .44.
"Every department involved in the baby-sitting job on the Hosaka Consortium has been made," Brognola continued. "You know it, I know it and the Japanese know it. The thing that's keeping you on the prod right now is that you're worrying that whatever it is you've been keeping under wraps is about to fall into public view."
More police cars arrived, parking at the sides of the street while the uniforms clambered out with fiberglass shields and other riot gear. They fell in with other policemen forming a wedge to get an ambulance through the crowd.
"I wouldn't be the only one with something to hide if that was true. It wouldn't do for anyone to find out who your boy really is, or to know that the Justice Department brought him over here to kick the shit out of everything."
"We can sit here all night and throw mud at each other," Brognola said tiredly. "What we can't do is do something about this assignment. At least not if we play by the rules."
Tucker looked at him sharply. "Have you ever thought that maybe those rules are the only things that keep us from being like the people we're hunting?"
"Yeah. I used to think about that a lot when I first met Belasko. Lost a hell of a lot of sleep over it from time to time. Nowadays I realize things haven't changed that much. I still don't like bending the rules when it becomes necessary, but I realize it is necessary, so I sleep a little better."
"Sounds like a cop-out to me."
"That's from where you're sitting, buddy. Let me define the difference in rules between the CIA and law enforcement. In law enforcement you worry about how you take the guy down, the legal ramifications, the social ramifications, the precedents you set when you nail the guy, the whole ball of wax. In the CIA you boys decide who needs to be taken out, then you do it. The only thing you're worried about is getting caught. That's what you're worried about now. Somewhere, in all the bullshit files Langley has buried on this thing, there's somebody who's still pretty tight with the Agency." Brognola paused. "Now tell me I'm wrong."
Tucker shook his head. "You got an extra cigar?" Brognola gave him one. Tucker lit it, inhaled, then started choking. "Damn, Hal, these things are terrible."
Brognola chuckled. "I wouldn't know. I never light them. But they taste okay."
Tucker puffed away.
Firemen in the upper stories of the building threw bodies out of the windows to land in the nets below. Brognola could tell they were bodies from the way they dropped instead of fell. "The President is about to call Americans home," he said.
"I wasn't told about that," Tucker replied. "It probably hasn't helped that we're getting our asses kicked over here."
"No."
Tucker blew out a stream of smoke. "Suppose there was a guy Langley's afraid will crawl out of the woodwork?" He looked at Brognola. "What would you do about it?"
"I don't know. Depends on how I might be able to get to him."
"Let's suppose a little more. Let's suppose this guy has been like a ghost for the past ten years or so. That his file was eradicated years ago, that everything we think we know about him seems to contradict itself somewhere. Suppose we could almost tie him to Hosaka's black market dealings
during the occupation after World War II, but we couldn't prove anything. Maybe some of these mercs who have been brought down almost have ties to this guy, too, but nobody knows where he is or how he got in touch with them." Tucker squinted against the cigar smoke. "Let's say Langley's even afraid to address the situation because they're not sure how deeply the guy's resources still run in the Agency. What would you do then?"
Brognola shook his head. "I'd have to know more."
"That's all you get — a vague collection of rumors and half-truths, and nothing solid for years. Would you be interested?"
"In following a trail of bread crumbs?"
Tucker looked toward the burning building. "It might prove better than attempting to piss off the Yakuza, since they're not a part of the immediate problem."
Brognola was silent. He looked over Tucker's shoulder as a sports car maneuvered in behind one of the police vehicles thirty feet away.
"I've put together a file," Tucker revealed. "The Agency doesn't even know I have it."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I know Belasko is really Mack Bolan, and I know he won't bow out if we're told to." Tucker's eyes glittered brightly. "Don't get me wrong. I believe there's a right way and a wrong way to do something, and I don't want to be pulled out of this operation. But with this situation it just needs doing any way we can get it done."
Brognola stuck out his hand. "You've got a deal."
Tucker took the hand and smiled grimly. Metal glinted in the window of the sports car as Brognola's beat-cop instincts went haywire. A speck of ruby light touched Tucker's shoulder, then raced toward his neck. Yelling, "Sniper," Brognola pushed the other man, knocking them both to the street. There was no sound, but the CIA man jerked from impacts.
Brognola rolled over, dragging the .38 into view. Smoke surrounded the sports car's tires as the driver reversed and sped away.
Brognola squeezed off two rounds at the windshield where the laser scope was still visible. A bullet whined from the street surface only inches from his gun hand. Then the car disappeared around a corner. Keeping the revolver fisted, Brognola limped back to Tucker.
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