"She will take care of herself," Hashimoto said without inflection. "Just see that you destroy the white powder."
Bolan nodded and walked toward the vans. There were four of them, all fitted out like local produce delivery trucks. Bolan's force of twenty divided themselves into the vans, and the four vehicles rumbled out of the warehouse.
Junko drove one of the vans, and Bolan sat in the passenger's seat. He'd seen her driving before and trusted her implicitly. They shared a smile as she changed gears to follow the others onto the gravel road.
"Nervous?" he asked.
"Yes," she returned. "You?"
He took a long breath. "I don't know if it's nerves. Something stinks, and I don't know what it is. But I do know I'm tired of being led around by the nose."
"Tonight should clarify feelings." Junko turned off the gravel service road onto the Oume-Kaido Road in the direction of downtown Tokyo. "We've planned this operation for a long time. It will be a big one."
"How did you get on to it?" he asked.
"We had some contact with minor Yakuza, Japanese mafia. They're secretive, but nothing like Sonnojoi. Through bribes and threats we found that the coca bushes come from six thousand feet up in the Andes, along with the coffee beans. Yakuza-controlled companies do all the shipping and delivery. A warehouse foreman at the coffee company separates the real beans from the coca bushes. Once a week the shipments come in. Once a week, on Wednesdays, they process. We've been watching the pickups and deliveries for months."
"Have you ever seen American military personnel pick up cocaine?"
"All the time. Do you think that this is your Operation Snowflake?"
"Yeah." He turned and stared at her in the lights of passing autos. The shadows highlighted her fragile beauty. Bolan was usually so good at turning everything off save the job at hand, usually so good at pretending he wasn't human, but Junko kept breaking through the facade, getting to him. He fought down a rush of feelings. "What does the word chikatetsu mean to you?" he asked.
She looked at him for just a second before returning her gaze to the road. She shrugged. "Underground. Subway. That's what the dark man said at the gambling club last night."
"Right before he died."
She nodded. "Hai," she said softly. "I prayed to his ancestors this morning."
"Does that make any sense to you? Could the subway be a hiding place for the Sonnojoi?"
Again she shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose it's possible, although it seems there would be very few entry points that wouldn't be public."
Bolan sank against the back of the seat. "That's what I thought."
The talk tapered off as they sped into the city proper and turned down Aoyama-Dori, moving toward the harbor. They were psyching themselves up, mentally preparing to face the enemy, to perhaps face their own ends. The only other time Junko spoke was when they passed Tokyo Tower.
"My father built the tower," she said proudly. It resembled the Eiffel Tower, but at three hundred and thirty-three meters, it was one of the largest freestanding steel structures in the world.
Bolan could smell the harbor before he could see it, that unmistakable odor of sweet decay that accompanied nonflowing shallows. The buildings became less fancy and more utilitarian, large rusted tin structures. And then Tokyo Harbor stretched before them, a small spot of calm in the raging infinity of the Pacific Ocean. Large freighters filled the dock spaces, loading and unloading going on even at night.
"Look," Junko said, pointing.
Through the swishing wipers Bolan could see it, a large, two-story tin building several docks away. Tanazaki Kohi Ltd. was written under a huge painting of a steaming cup of coffee.
"Binoculars are under the seat," Junko said, and Bolan took out the large unit, switching on the infrared attachment as he put it to his face.
This was the place, all right. The building terraced like a wedding cake. Bolan could make out a number of Sonnojoi armed with what appeared to be scopes attached to their Ruger Mini-14s. From their positions the guards commanded a panoramic view of the terrain in all directions.
The vans slid behind the cover of a rotting dock two hundred meters from the building. The Asano people climbed out of the vehicles and silently handed their equipment around.
Bolan walked up to Mett, who was helping unload a crate of C-4 plastique. "We're going to have to deal with those lookouts," he said.
Mett smiled and walked to the back of his van, pulling out a rifle wrapped in a blanket. He handed it to Bolan.
The Executioner pulled the blanket off a Weatherby Mark V, .460 Magnum, a hunting rifle of righteous proportions. The scope, like the binoculars, was infrared.
"Seen one before?" Mett asked.
"Yeah," Bolan said, thinking of a day in Tehran several years before. He stared at the bolt-action, single-shot weapon. 'There's seven of them up there on that building and you people have a lot of ground to cover to get there."
Mett handed him a box of shells. "It was Hashi-san's idea," he said.
Bolan looked at the man and began to realize exactly how seriously they all took the Bushido code. He turned to the others, who were standing silently around him, waiting.
"Ask them," Bolan told Mett.
The doctor shrugged and spoke to the group in Japanese, everyone responding with smiles and nods of encouragement. They were all of them, to a man, betting their lives on the Executioner's ability as a marksman.
Bolan took a deep breath. "Okay," he said, "I'll play."
Just then they heard trucks rumbling down onto the dock area. They pulled back into the shadows and watched as a small Air Force convoy moved past their position. Two covered deuce-and-a-halfs and two covered jeeps roared by, grinding toward the coffee company.
Bolan moved to peer around the edge of the dock to see a shadowy figure waving from atop the building. Junko was at his elbow.
"Your Operation Snowflake?" she asked.
"Yeah," Bolan said. "Maybe." He turned to Mett. "There's no other approach to that place?"
Mett shook his head. "It's located on a point of land. This is the only approach where we could conceivably get away when it is over."
Bolan looked at the building again. The convoy had gone around the building, disappearing from view. "Have your men ready," he told Mett. "Spread them out and keep to the shadows. When I say the word, go for it. We'll regroup at the building and all go in together. Junko, you stay with me. We'll use the van when I'm finished."
Bolan handed Junko the rifle and shells, then moved to one of the parked vans. Jumping, he got a grip on the top rails and hauled himself onto the roof of the vehicle. Junko handed him the hardware from the ground. Bolan could easily reach the wharf roof from the top of the van. He placed his weapon on the roof of the building, then climbed up moving across the cracking boards until he reached the peak of the roof. From here he had an unobstructed view of the complex.
He flexed his fingers, loosening them, and then squatted in a comfortable position. On the range years ago he had tested the Mark V. The best time he had been capable of achieving was about six seconds to load, aim, fire, bolt and reload. That meant forty-two seconds to kill seven men — providing he didn't miss. He assumed that, as soon as his force was spotted, those inside would be alerted. It would take about a minute for his men to reach the tin building, not enough time for those within to be truly prepared. It could work if his aim was perfect. If it wasn't, the men on the roof would kick hell out of his squad with their Rugers and they'd be lost before they started.
It was a dangerous game with his men as the bait to keep the Sonnojoi on their feet and shooting. Otherwise, it would be a standoff — the enemy would hide and wait.
"Ready," he whispered loudly and in response heard his men run toward their positions. Bolan lined up seven of the big shells on the flat peak, then pulled back the bolt and slid one of them into the chamber. He closed the bolt and took a deep breath. The rifle would make plenty of noise. No one would dou
bt what was going on. This was a game of time — of seconds — they were playing. And it was all Hashi-san's idea. The man had an intricate, multilayered mind.
The Executioner breathed again, isolating himself from everything extraneous to the task ahead. He emptied his mind of all thought except the mechanics of loading, firing and hitting the target. It was a metaphysical thing, very Zen, very Japanese.
He raised the rifle, resting the recoil pad snugly against his shoulder. Mind now clear, Bolan flicked on the scope and sighted through the wavering red cross hairs. He would be methodical. The building tiered in three layers, with one man at the top. He would take the top man first, then move left to right down each tier, taking out each man as he sighted in on him.
The cross hairs found the first man easily. He was moving around nervously. The punk was jumpy. Bolan thumbed off the safety and led his target slightly. He breathed again, totally calm, an island of tranquility. This was it.
"Go," he rasped, and at the same instant squeezed the trigger. The first man spun under the impact of a chest hit, and Bolan snapped back the bolt before he even saw the man fall.
The shell sprang from the chamber, along with a whiff of smoke, and the Executioner shoved another shell in to replace it. He jammed the bolt into place and sighted on the second man. The enemy gunman was searching for the source of the gunshot. Bolan got the enemy's head in the cross hairs and squeezed off. The man's head popped, and his body tumbled forward off the building.
The next shell flew from the chamber, rattling down on the roof as Bolan reloaded in a single fluid motion. He saw the third man on a walkie-talkie, obviously alerting those inside. The Executioner ended the transmission with one shot. The radio exploded along with the punk's face.
Less than twenty seconds had gone by. The fourth man had spotted the charging Asanos and was sighting with his Ruger. Bolan fired chest high, thinking for a second that he'd missed the man when he continued to stand, holding his rifle. Then the Sonnojoi folded quietly, crumpling to the rooftop as his rifle plunged off the building.
Damn! Bolan had lost several seconds watching the last hit. He hurried through the reloading process, taking a second to calm himself again before sighting the fifth man.
Before he found the man, the sound of gunfire assailed the Executioner's ears. His squad was now under enemy fire from a superior position. Bolan swung to the fifth man, who was firing rapidly. He hurried the shot, only taking the fleshy part of the man's shoulder, but it was enough to make him drop his rifle over the edge.
He fought down anger at himself and reloaded, taking a breath as he sighted the sixth man and squeezed him off cleanly with a chest hit. Only one rifle was now firing at his men. Less than forty seconds had elapsed.
Bolan bolted, then reached for the last shell. His hand hit it, knocking it off the small ledge to rattle down the roof. His instincts kicked in, and his hand flashed down to catch the shell in midbounce. He chambered it, swung the rifle to the seventh man and fired. An animal sound escaped his lips as the gunner's head exploded on the other end.
The rifle was of no more use to him. Bolan dropped it, then ran down the sloping roof and jumped onto the top of the van. "Go!" he screamed to Junko, who jerked into gear immediately and roared off. Bolan grabbed the top handrail and held on with one hand while drawing Big Thunder from his hip holster with the other.
They sped along the docks and past numerous storage buildings before catching up to and then passing the now charging squad. Junko braked, and the van skidded to a stop directly below the painting of the coffee cup. Bolan jumped from the roof and ran to a door at the base of the structure. His men were running up as he tested it. Locked.
It was a metal door set in metal. Mett pushed his way to the door and pulled out a hand grenade.
"Back off!" Bolan yelled as Mett pulled the pin, balancing the grenade on the doorknob. They all took cover just as the explosion echoed across the sounding board of Tokyo Harbor.
Bolan's group moved back to the blackened, gutted hole that had once been a door. The Executioner primed Big Thunder, its stainless steel glinting under the lights from inside. He was charged for this, in control at last. "You know what to do!" he yelled and ran into the guts of the building, his men right behind.
They were in the building's plumbing, a maze of various sizes of water, steam and natural-gas pipes that crisscrossed above their heads and on ground level.
"C-4 here!" he yelled. "Set the timer for twelve minutes!"
As a demolition man hurried to comply, Bolan kept running. There was no time now for stealth or caution. He knew that it had to be straight-out guts baseball.
They charged through the concrete room toward a series of small steps at the far end. Four Sonnojoi were charging down the stairs with their Remingtons. Bolan's men were ready, and soon the basement rattled with the trill of fifteen M-16s.
The blasts literally cut the Sonnojoi to ribbons, and body parts and organs splattered against the chipping concrete walls.
Bolan's group charged up the blood-spattered stairs toward a door that led to a locker room. A handful of Sonnojoi had taken up positions there and were able to concentrate fire on the doorway, holding Bolan's people back. The smell of gunpowder mixed with the strong odor of freshly roasted coffee.
"Grenades!" the Executioner called, and Mett was there again, his face, as always, calm and placid.
He had a pouchful of grenades and began lobbing them, one after another, into the locker room, mixing his directions and velocity. After several seconds they began exploding, and the thin metal lockers that lined the room became deadly, ripping shrapnel. Mett continued to toss the grenades, turning the inside of the room into a rumbling, smoke-filled nightmare.
"Go!" he said finally, and Bolan was the first into the blinding smoke. He could hear a gunner still firing, but the smoke was impossible to sight through. The room was a gutted shambles of collapsed lockers and ceiling. They moved through the maze as the smoke began to clear.
The remaining gunman was hiding behind what was left of a round cement urinal, no more than fifteen feet away. He was pivoting toward Bolan as the big man raised the AutoMag and fired. The man pitched crazily to the left, hitting his head on the urinal.
The Asanos hurried through what was left of the room, stepping across several bodies buried in the rubble. They hit the exit arch, hugging the wall on each side before running through. Mett was on one side of the doorway, Bolan on the other, Junko at Bolan's elbow. Bolan looked at Mett, and the man shrugged in return. Bolan turned and grabbed Junto's beret off her head and threw it through the doorway. Nothing. He looked at his watch. They'd already lost a couple of minutes. There wasn't time to think about it.
Bolan ran through the doorway, tumbling and rolling. He came up in a short, dark hallway but could see the main working area of the factory beyond a glass wall and doorway. He saw no sign of resistance.
"Let's go!" he called, and they were out of the locker room and running down the hallway with Bolan and Junko in the lead.
Just as they reached the end door, three men jumped up from behind some machinery on the factory side, blasting away with their Remingtons.
Bolan ate pavement, and Junko screamed from beside him as his men fell. They were trapped in the hall under deadly fire from the shotguns. The Executioner fired from the prone position on auto, lacing one of the Sonnojoi from groin to chest. The man's insides burst through his black clothes as he fell hard.
Men, who was behind him on one knee, claimed the next one as his M-16 dropped the man atop Bolan's kill.
The third man decided to turn and run. It was a fatal decision. Those left on their feet in the hall tore him up from behind, cutting his legs out from under him before he dropped to the floor.
Bolan turned quickly to Junko. She lay still as blood oozed from a dozen places. For a second a cold hand gripped the Executioner's heart. Then she stirred, shaking her head. A thin trickle of blood dotted her lower lip.
/> "I'm not dead," she said and smiled. "Only the glass hit me. Let's go."
"Wait," he said and pulled a glass shard out of her arm before helping her up. She winked at him — one tough woman.
Bolan turned. Three of his men had been wounded in the hallway, but they refused to stay behind. Bushido.
They ran into the factory and into the overpowering smell of coffee. It was a huge, open room, full of thirty-foot-tall heating vessels where green coffee beans were roasted. But this wasn't what Bolan was looking for. He wanted the machines they used to make instant coffee. The ones they'd use to process cocaine.
Bolan and his warriors came under fire immediately from catwalks located high above the brightly lit room. But they had cover and room to run. They could take these sons of bitches.
They ran serpentine-style through the room as concrete chips flew around them. "Take cover!" Bolan yelled. "Pick your targets. We don't have much time! Junko! Demolition! Follow me!"
The three of them ran into the guts of the building. Bolan had decided to leave the snipers for his men so that he could concentrate on the mission itself. They'd gone a hundred feet, past the roasters and into the maze of conveyor belts and stamping machines where the roasted and ground coffee was canned for the public, when he saw it.
The instant-coffee machine was a large, square, stainless-steel structure — an extractor — that performed several tasks. Ground coffee was filtered through water into a cooler, then dropped into a vacuum drum drier that removed the water at freezing temperature, leaving tiny, solid coffee crystals behind. Such a system worked perfectly with ground coca leaves.
The heavily guarded extractor was thirty feet away. Bolan and his party stood amid a profusion of conveyor belts that carried beans, cans and ground coffee to other parts of the building. When Bolan found the controls to turn the whole system on, the belts churned to life with a loud whine.
A belt beside them rose at a forty-five-degree angle, then straightened, moving toward the extractor. Bolan put a finger to his lips and indicated the belt. So far they hadn't been seen. He wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.
Code of Dishonor Page 8