Shadows of Ash (The Nameless Book 2)

by Adrian J. Smith

  Tilly giggled as she sipped hers. “I feel like one of those ladies in that Abbey TV show.”

  Zanzi clinked her glass with Tilly and said, “That would be nice, sitting in the sun drinking wine.” She took a sip. “What other way, Josie?”

  “A possibility. The nanites are programmable. In theory we could activate the self-destruct sequence to those in The Eyrie, but we’ll need a coder at the very least, and that could take months.”

  “What about security. How many?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s hopeless,” Josie said, tears falling down her cheeks.

  Zanzi let go of her awkwardness and hugged Josie, letting her cry. She understood the pain of losing someone close all too well. Her brother was never far from her thoughts.

  Seven

  Nagano, Japan

  The trip down from the temple was uneventful. The mountain road was in bad shape but there had only been a few minor rockslides from the earthquake. Most of the damage was centered on the opposite side of the valley. There, large landslides had taken out swathes of trees, cascading down the steep hills and filling the river below with rocks and stone.

  The Nameless sat in the middle row of seats in the white Toyota van, squished together, the Yamada clan gunmen in front and behind. They snarled at Ryan and Booth and openly leered at Cal, Allie and Sofia, occasionally making lewd comments in Japanese.

  Sofia nudged Ryan in the ribs. “I messaged Avondale.”

  “When?”

  “Back on the train.”

  “What?”

  “AA.”

  That was a code they had established years before, meaning “All Alive,” letting HQ know the team was safe but couldn’t speak. One of the yakuza jabbed his pistol into Ryan’s leg.

  “No talking.”

  Cal rolled her eyes. “Dickhead.”

  The valley below was densely populated. Cities merged into one another, forming one long expanse of habitation. Ryan’s eyes followed the railway as it swept past the river before disappearing into another tunnel. The tracks were twisted and buckled like a can of silly string had exploded. Large boulders and trees had slid down covering roads, houses, and temples. Bridges had cracked and shifted. The whole area was devastated from Mother Nature’s fury.

  The driver slowed as an army truck appeared around the next corner. Yamada snapped his head around. “Keep your mouths shut. Let me do the talking.” He held up one of the nano wands. “Don’t make me press the button.”

  They were waved to a stop by a soldier wearing a white helmet, its chin strap pulled tight. “Where are you going?”

  “Nagano.”

  “What about them?” The soldier pointed at The Nameless.

  “We picked them up. The train they were on couldn’t go any farther.”

  “All foreigners are to report to the tourist office.”

  “We’ll get them there,” said Yamada.

  “Identification?”

  “Listen to me very carefully. I’m going to tell you my name. Then, if that doesn’t make a difference, I’ll show you my ID.”

  The soldier stepped back and raised his rifle. “All of you. Out of the vehicle.”

  “Hey. Calm down,” Yamada said.

  A sergeant with a pistol at his hip walked over. “What’s the hold-up, private?”

  “They aren’t cooperating, sir. And those men are armed.”

  “Armed?”

  “Sergeant. My name is Yamada. Touma Yamada.”

  The sergeant’s eyes widened, and he bowed deeply before shoving the private away. “Please forgive me. I will personally deal with him. Can I assist you in any way?”

  “We need better transport,” said Yamada.

  “Certainly.”

  The sergeant turned and shouted instructions. Soldiers dashed from the truck and ran up the street, looking into stalled vehicles.

  “How’s the road up ahead, Sergeant?” Yamada asked.

  “Good through to Nagano. We’re still clearing it to the coast.”

  “And the other preparations?”

  “On schedule, sir.”

  Yamada exited the van and pulled the sergeant away. They conversed out of earshot. Ryan kept an eye on the pair, hoping for any indication of their discussion. He’d learned that one could tell a lot from watching someone’s body language, but all he could gather from the pair was the power that Yamada exuded.

  After a few minutes, one of the soldiers drove up in a Toyota 4X4. The yakuza jostled The Nameless inside, shoving Sofia, Keiko and Hogai onto the floor and pulled away, leaving the Army to deal with the growing crowd of survivors. After the events on Wednesday in Koyasan, Ryan had seen few people; only small groups here and there. In Tokyo there had been hundreds, trying to get into the train station. Here in Ueda, there were thousands – and not as many Siphons. Did it have to do with the way the signal was broadcast? Did the mountains interrupt it somehow? Here the Army was responding, setting up roadblocks to stop people from traveling. Handing out essential food and medical supplies. Maybe the major cities were slower to respond due to the enormity of the task.

  Cal leaned into Ryan and laced her fingers in his. He was looking at the passing landscape. Steep, forested mountains surrounded the valley, their peaks capped with snow. Dozens of villages alternated with lakes and rivers. Bright greens of new spring growth shone on the maple trees.

  Ryan sighed. Despite the chaotic events, nature was moving along as if nothing had happened.

  ***

  They made it to Nagano and the driver brought the 4X4 to a sliding stop outside the train station. When the earthquake hit, two trains had been pulling into the station. They had clearly been tossed about, leaving the carriages skewed at odd angles. One carriage had mounted the raised platform and slammed into the ticket booth and concourse, showering bricks and glass across the road. But that wasn’t what stopped the Toyota. Siphons were desperately trying to get at a group of people who had barricaded themselves inside the station and were poking at the creatures with umbrellas and chairs, anything they could get their hands on.

  “We have to help them,” Cal said, gasping at the sheer number of Siphons.

  Yamada shook his head. “Go around,” he instructed his driver.

  “C’mon. We can at least draw some of the Siphons away?” Ryan said.

  “Go around,” Yamada spat. “Now!”

  The driver did as he was instructed, skirting the knot of Siphons and ducking down a side street. Apart from a few wrecked cars, it was clear.

  Ryan ground his jaw, angry at Yamada’s disregard for the lives of his fellow countrymen. They were expendable to him, nothing more than an annoyance.

  “You’re not going to have much of a country left to be emperor of,” he muttered.

  “And you, Mr Connors, are a self-righteous bore. All of you Nameless are. Flying around, trying to save the world. Where did that get you, huh?”

  Ryan glared at Yamada. One of the yakuza gunmen made a show of checking the magazine in his weapon.

  “The problem with people like you, Connors, is that you never see the big picture. You think too narrowly. Too afraid to look outside the box. Let me ask you something. Did you ever question your orders when you rescued some idiot politician or some drug baron because he had amnesty for giving information?”

  “Of course I questioned them.”

  “But you always obeyed the director’s orders, did you not?”

  Ryan said nothing.

  “Huh. I thought so. Your team is good at what they do, but you are a bunch of sanctimonious fools.”

  “We’d rather be that than some megalomaniac asshole with an emperor complex,” Sofia muttered.

  The yakuza guards cocked their weapons.

  “Everyone, let’s all take a breath,” Goro said.

  Ryan raised his eyebrows. Goro had spoken out of turn, talking over his grandfather. He half expected Yamada to reprimand him, but nothing further was said as the yakuza holstered th
eir weapons. Yamada ignored his grandson perhaps bored by the argument, or more likely it was beneath him. He was the Oyabun – the head of the Yamada clan and that always demanded respect. His kobun, his followers, would never act without his permission.

  As they pulled into the airport, Cal let out a low whistle. Several planes had smashed into each other, wrecking across the runway and into the terminal. Ryan counted three burned-out wrecks. Siphons turned when they heard the noise of the Toyota 4X4 pulling into the narrow slipway, but thanks to the security fencing, they had no way of reaching the group. The helicopter pads and hangers were located at the back of the airport, away from the terminal and runways.

  A Bell 212, painted bright orange, had been pulled from the hanger and towed to the pad. More of the Yamada clan surrounded it. They bowed when Yamada and Goro exited the 4X4. Everyone climbed into the chopper. Ryan was pleased to see supply crates strapped against the walls. Four of the new yakuza jumped in and they lifted off the ground, banking away.

  It was five hours since the train crash. Five hours of torture. So many times Ryan had wanted to shoot Yamada and his goons, but the opportunity had never arisen – plus the fact Yamada had activated something in Hogai and Keiko. All Goro or Yamada had to do was push a button and they would turn to ash. Better to wait at least until Takeshi had been secured.

  The chopper turned north and flew high over the mountains. Everywhere Ryan looked, he could see evidence of the earthquake. Towns washed away in landslides and rockfalls. Cracks splitting highways in half. Bridges collapsed and buildings toppled over.

  He settled back, holding Cal’s hand. Maybe tomorrow would provide the opportunity to even the score.

  Eight

  Hokkaido, Japan

  “This is crazy,” Allie said.

  “I know,” Booth agreed. He smiled at her. It was crazy because they were heading into an unknown situation in a country they had little intel on. They had no business being here. Yamada had made it their problem; the old “help me help you” cliché.

  They had flown north and landed in the small coastal town of Yoichi. A light dusting of snow coated the ground as if someone had shaken icing sugar over everything.

  From there they took taking an RHIB – rigid-hulled inflatable boat – and headed west around the rocky headland, cruising slowly to avoid making noise.

  Ryan brought the RHIB to a stop two hundred meters offshore. He and Cal observed the Tomari Nuclear Power Plant through night vision binoculars, thanks to Yamada. He had provided the team with everything they needed.

  Allie was sure everyone had the same question. What did the Black Skulls want so badly? Yamada’s kid? The target wasn’t the plant itself. Rather, it was the seemingly innocuous rectangular building behind it. To the casual observer, it looked like a separate business altogether. The building was low and squat. Six floors, with the first-floor windows blacked out. Surrounding the structure were acres of open space – carefully mowed lawns. Not a shrub or tree within a hundred meters. Beyond that was a two-meter-high chain-link fence. There was one access road in, gated, with a guardhouse. No signage. Anonymous and nondescript.

  “Seeing anything?” Booth said.

  “Hostiles have the place surrounded. Humvees with .50s. Thirty commandos so far. Road is barricaded but the oceanside is clear,” Ryan said.

  “Five snipers on the power plant roof. Fifteen soldiers in the plant grounds, stationed at every corner. What are they waiting around for?” Cal said.

  “Heavy equipment?” Allie said. “Yamada said the blast doors were three meters thick. Ain’t nothing getting through there.”

  “Not that I can see,” Ryan said. “Sofia? Any movement in the abandoned seafood factory?”

  “Negative.”

  “Remember what’s at stake. We’re here for Takeshi and a Doctor Ando only,” Ryan said. “We row to shore.”

  They had planned it out once they’d reached Yoichi. The Nameless and the Yamada clan, like they were old friends, planning a raid. Allie had watched Ryan and Cal struggle with what they had to do. Touma Yamada had them, played on their emotions by threatening the kids. She doubted he would let them go once they had rescued Takeshi.

  The Yamada clan were to provide a diversion, attacking from the road and the air, while The Nameless, dressed in the same black fatigues, were to sneak into the building, punch in the access code to get through the blast doors, grab their targets, and get out again. Easy. Nice and smooth. Thank you. Goodbye. No plan survived first contact with the enemy though, did it?

  Allie understood why the team looked up to Ryan. He had a knack for figuring out ways into buildings. He had pored over the blueprints, firing question after question at Goro and Yamada. He’d even grilled one of the heavily tattooed goons.

  Yamada wouldn’t disclose exactly what the building was used for, but it was secret enough to warrant an off-site data storage server, hidden in the abandoned seafood factory. Normally data was stored far away by a specific company specializing in storage. Yamada had explained that their research was too secret and kept off-site for security. Ryan had smiled; that was their way in, squeezing three hundred meters along the cable trench and into the building. Undetected. It was going to be a tight fit and hard work. Cal had suggested using skateboards: lie down and slowly wheel yourself along.

  The RHIB bumped against the mussel-encrusted rocks just below a rickety dock. The timber was split and filled with worms and insects. Seagulls nested on the posts. Allie helped pull the boat under the factory and followed Booth to a side door. Inside the factory the old machinery had been covered in plastic sheeting, now painted with years of dust. No one spoke as they threaded their way through the rooms and down into the basement. Ryan entered the code he’d been given and ducked in, sweeping the room with his Glock.

  Allie shivered. The server room was clean and painted stark white. Soft blue lights glowed, illuminating enough to see by.

  Ryan lifted the access panel to the cable trench and turned toward The Nameless. “Let’s go over the plan. Sofia?”

  “I’m staying here. Watching. Providing mission control.”

  “Allie?”

  “Guard duty. Watching our backs.”

  “Booth?”

  “Keeping our escape open.”

  “Good. Cal and I will access the lab, get our targets, and we all backtrack to the next bay over from where Yamada will extract us.”

  “I don’t like it,” Allie said. “What’s to stop him from shooting us once he’s got his son? Or turning us into ash?”

  Booth, Cal, and Sofia murmured in agreement.

  “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” Booth said.

  Ryan checked his watch and looked at Allie. “I’ve been thinking about that since Nagano. Unfortunately, he has Keiko and Hogai. We can’t risk it. We must carry out this mission. If Sofia had one of those wand gizmos, then we could scan Takeshi and Ando, give ourselves a little insurance. But we don’t.”

  “I’m not positive that even if I did, I could get the nanites to activate like he can. That’s days if not months of work. If I can even make sense of it,” Sofia said.

  “All Yamada has to do is believe we can. Find something that looks like the wand, pretend we scanned Takeshi, and we do an old-fashioned prisoner exchange. Then go our separate ways,” Booth said.

  Sofia exchanged a look with Ryan. He shook his head slightly. “All right. Nice idea, but we have no way of obtaining a wand. Complete the mission. Cal and I are Alpha team. Everyone clear?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Positions. Wait for the diversion,” Ryan instructed. He unzipped a large duffle bag and grabbed three skateboards. “Comms check.”

  Allie used her throat mic to check after everyone else. Not for the first time, she wondered why she’d agreed to assist them. Okay, not so much that she’d agreed, more like wondering if she was good enough. Flying planes, yeah, she was confident. Small firefights, okay. Killing the Siph
ons, not a problem. But an actual operation, like she was a Navy Seal or something? Insane. Confidence had always been an issue for her; it was a miracle she had succeeded in the Air Force. She sighed and waited until Ryan and Cal had rolled down the narrow space. She shivered. Tight spaces? No thanks.

  Sofia left the basement and headed upstairs to the main office. It provided a three hundred and sixty-degree view, thanks to the windows on every wall.

  “In position,” she said over the comms.

  Booth stayed behind with Allie. He looked at his watch before stretching. “How are you going?”

  “Going? What do you mean?”

  Booth grinned. “I’ve hung around Ryan too much. It means the same as “How are you doing?”

  “Coping. So far. I’ll feel better once we’re back on American soil.”

  “Heck yeah. Nothing like home. The sweet fields of Iowa.”

  “I can’t help but think about what kind of hellfire we’re flying into. If this Offenheim joker has managed this in Japan, what’s home going to look like? Are we going to have a home to go to? After nine-eleven, airlines came up with protocols for terrorist attacks. Procedures, stuff like that. It’s all I’ve ever known. I was still in high school in 2001. Surely the government had something, a shit-hitting-the-fan response.”

  “Connors told me he asked Yamada the same thing. Yamada said they had OPIS members in positions of power all over the world. Assurances that their plans went undetected. LK3 only caught wind of it by chance, and then only a hint. We had no idea what the hell was going on.”

  Allie frowned. “Still, it’s an awfully big conspiracy to hide for so long. You’d think someone would have found out. What about Cal? Do you trust her?”

  “Do you have kids?” said Booth.

  “Nope. Not interested. Little demons.”

  “Love for children is a powerful thing.”

  “That’s why you trust Cal?”

  “Yes. Cal may be a lot of things but she loves her children. Plus I trust Ryan’s judgment wholeheartedly.”