They all climbed onto the belt to take the ride up. From the diminishing fire behind them, Bolan figured his people were doing their jobs. A tribute to Mett, a man Bolan could not admire. He killed for money only, part of what was wrong with the world.
When they crested and slipped onto the horizontal conveyor, Bolan got his first look at the storage area. Hundreds of sacks with green tags were piled near the extractor. These were weighted and filled with coca leaves. Beyond that were loading docks, where uniformed military men were helping the Sonnojoi load huge bags, like feed sacks, into the backs of the trucks.
So it was all true, every bit of it. Air Force personnel were heavily involved in one of the biggest illegal drug operations Bolan had ever witnessed. It made his insides knot with rage. He'd worn the uniform proudly; all of his dedication had poured into what it represented. These men were worse than the Mafia, worse than the KGB. These men were a cancer on the reputation of the U.S. military, and they had to be destroyed at all costs.
"Time?" Junko whispered from behind him, and Bolan snapped back to the present.
He looked at his watch. "We've got less than six minutes," he said and pulled the Beretta so that he had a weapon in each hand. Death times two.
The conveyor was taking them near the extractor, three meters above it. Five nervous gunmen surrounded the machines, plus two men in white lab coats who were being forced to continue working by one of the Sonnojoi.
Bolan turned and looked at Junko. Blood oozed from several of her cuts, two on her face marring her perfect skin. She nodded and firmly locked her M-16 in her bloody hands.
"Now!" Bolan yelled, and the three of them jumped onto the top of the loudly grinding extractor.
Five shotguns turned upward, and Bolan fired down into two helmetless faces. The men hadn't stood a chance.
Two shotguns popped loudly, and Bolan's demolition man dropped his knapsackful of C-4 to clutch a gaping wound in his chest. He rolled off the machine as Junko took out his killer, her M-16 on full auto tearing off the punk's arm and opening his left side like a split melon.
The scientists ran, and Bolan let them as SMG fire rattled from the loading bays. The military was adding their firepower to that of the drug pushers.
Bolan cursed and jumped from the machine, blasting one of the Sonnojoi who was scurrying for cover. Junko got the other as he fell to his knees, begging for mercy.
Junko jumped off the machine, the knapsack looped around her arm, as the Air Force concentrated fire on her. At ground level hundreds of thousands of pounds of coffee beans separated Bolan from the Air Force. Neither could get in a shot.
The gunfire had stopped from behind, and Bolan's men were running up to join him at the extractor, which was still running and dumping conveyor loads of processed white powder onto the floor. They were surrounded by billions of dollars' worth of cocaine. Fifty-pound sacks, not yet closed, were set all around them.
Dr. Mett surveyed the scene. "Guess we did pretty damned good," he said.
Bolan grunted. "Set a charge here for three minutes, " he said. "Let's gather our dead and wounded and get out the way we came in — quick!"
Everyone scattered, leaving Bolan and Junko standing by the machine. "Let's go," she said.
"Not yet," Bolan replied, snapping new clips into both his sidearms. "I've got business with the Air Force."
"There's no time..."
"Maybe. Now get out."
"No," she said simply, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she wouldn't leave him.
They ran in the direction of the loading docks, drawing heavy fire almost immediately. Bolan gained ground by using five-foot-high stacks of bean sacks for cover, which he jumped over to the next closest aisle.
"This is taking too much time," Junko said. "We'll never make it."
Bolan silently agreed, but he jumped another aisle. The Executioner came up over a stack and fired at a Sonnojoi driving a forklift and loading a palletful of fifty-pound sacks into the back of a truck. The man slumped over the wheel and drove right off the end of the dock, crashing loudly on the concrete outside.
That was enough for the Air Force. Bolan could hear shouted orders and knew they were getting out. He abandoned his hiding place and charged out into an aisle, firing at the trucks as they pulled away from the dock.
He made the edge of the dock near a Sonnojoi who stood with his hands in the air. Bolan ignored him and kept firing at the departing trucks, although they were now too far away to stop. He emptied both clips before turning to the Sonnojoi. Junko ran up beside Bolan, and the Sonnojoi's face took on a quizzical expression as she blasted him to a meeting with his ancestors.
"We've got to get out of here!" she yelled, and Bolan nodded his agreement. They jumped off the edge of the dock and charged around the structure to find the road they had come in on.
They got around the building with mere seconds left before it blew. Mett had the dead and wounded in the van that Junko had driven up to the building and was just pulling away. The rest of the team was running behind the vehicle.
Bolan and Junko joined the flight, running like animals through a forest fire to put as much distance between themselves and the conflagration to come.
First the charge in the storage area went up with a loud whomp. There was no physical sign of the explosion until the walls and the roof began to collapse and large tongues of fire licked out of the top of the building.
"Keep running!1' Bolan screamed to the stragglers, and then the basement charge went, taking out the gas lines in a devastating fireball whose concussion knocked them all to the ground.
Bolan was up first, helping Junko to her feet. The area was lit up like day from the monstrous white-hot fire that burned behind them.
"Go! Go!" They ran on, exhausted, the fire heating their backs, making them sweat. They could hear small explosions as gas motors and storage tanks blew. Cars a hundred feet from the explosions burned — the harbor area was a blazing inferno.
Sirens screamed as the group reached their vans. As they pulled away from the harbor area, they passed many fire trucks — trucks that were arriving too late to stop the hand of fate.
* * *
"What's the connection between the coke and Dr. Norwood?" Hal Brognola asked for the third time.
Bolan leaned against the freestanding outdoor phone booth and sighed. "If I knew that, Hal, I wouldn't be asking you about it." He had unscrewed the light bulb in the booth for privacy, while Junko sat in the passenger's seat of the van, nursing her wounds. "What about those APs I asked you to find out about?"
"You've hit on something with that one," Brognola said. "All the guys you mentioned — O'Brian, Prine, Jeffries — have spent time in military jails all over the world. Prine and Jeffries were in for murder and felonious assault. Prine was also held on a rape charge. O'Brian's an even bigger fish. He was one of the key men in the NCO service club kickback scandal in 1970. He'd ripped the government off for millions before they caught him."
"How'd they get out?"
"Came up for parole and were personally vouched for by a fly-boy named Captain Jamison. He asked that they be transferred to serve under him as APs at Yokota. It's all on the up-and-up as far as the government's concerned, but I checked into Jamison's background and found out that he was a lieutenant colonel who was busted in Vietnam for atrocities."
"What sort of atrocities?"
"He enjoyed napalming villages, Mack — any kind of villages. Friend, foe, you name it. He liked to watch them burn."
"Good God. Can you do anything on your end?"
"Start an investigation," Hal Brognola said. "But that won't do us any good right now. If you only had more proof..."
"You didn't send me over here to find proof, Hal. You sent me over to ice those bastards."
Silence on the other end.
"What about Hashimoto?" he asked, looking at Junko again. She was staring at him with sad eyes.
"Clean as a whistle. He was a
noncombatant in the Second World War, apparently hid out in the mountains to resist the draft. After the war he helped rebuild Japan's economy, especially the steel industry. He's done so well that he's managed to undercut American steel and keep us from competing in the world market. What does he have to do with this?"
"Not sure," Bolan said. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, Mack. Take care of yourself."
"Sure."
Bolan hung up and left the booth, moving quickly around to the driver's side of the van. He climbed in, and Junko turned her head to smile at him.
"You sure you don't need to go to a hospital?" he asked.
She shook her head. "What's your American word... super... something?"
"Superficial."
"Yes. My wounds are superficial. I want you to take care of them."
"All right." He drove back to his safehouse. Junko slept for most of the trip. When Bolan walked around the van and opened her door, she looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes.
"Hello," she said sleepily and didn't resist when he picked her up and carried her into the house.
He took her into the bedroom and set her down on his futon, hurrying back to the car to retrieve the first-aid kit that each van was furnished with.
He came back into the bedroom to find her fully awake. She had taken her uniform off and was sitting, naked, on the sleeping cushions. "You'll take better care of me than any doctor," she said.
He moved to her, his mouth dry. She was exquisite, a fluttering wounded bird totally dependent upon him. He opened the kit and took out bandages and antiseptic.
"You should bathe first," he said.
She lowered her head and looked up at him.
Bolan wanted this woman badly. She understood him and the underlying sense of duty that drove him. She was a small voice crying out to him that he wasn't totally inhuman, that his quest hadn't deadened him completely. And most of all, he saw the same things in her and knew that her need was just as strong.
And when they made love it was slow, with understanding and genuine caring, both of them reaching out for what was caring in the other and cherishing it until they both cried out in their passion and mutual need.
And then Mack Bolan slept. He slept so deeply that he didn't hear her crying softly in the night.
9
The deck overlooked Lake Ashi from a height of several hundred feet. Bolan leaned against the rail and stared out at the beautiful placidity of Ashi, nestled in an emerald-green bowl of forests and volcanic mountains. In the distance a cable car moved silently toward the sulphurous peak of Mount Kamiyama. Hashi-san stood silently beside him, hands behind his back, contemplating the serenity that stretched around them.
"Life can be filled with so many wondrous experiences," Bolan said softly.
"And so many hideous ones," Hashi-san replied, completing the Executioner's thought. "The great dichotomy. A man like you sees both sides. You have become an instrument of karma, you know. You help maintain the balance of the two extremes."
"I wish I believed that." Bolan turned away from the lake to stare at Hashi-san's magnificent palatial home nestled in the foothills of Mount Kamiyama. "I fear the dark side takes more than its share, that it threatens to swallow us."
"That is why you are such a good karmic weapon," the small man returned, smiling broadly. "Dr. Mett tells me you did extremely well last night."
They had begun to walk back toward the house. Junko, wrapped in silks, her hair done up with flowers, knelt in her garden. A traditional Japanese garden, it contained several small bonsai trees, plus bamboo and wildflowers. Carefully arranged rocks and an ornamental stone lantern completed the scene. It was a place of beauty and order.
They stopped near Junko. She looked up shyly, then bent her head, blushing, and returned to her flower arranging.
"I want you to understand something," Bolan told the man. "The only reason I used your rifle was because your people expected it and I saw no other way into the building at that moment. That was a far too dangerous approach and endangered the lives of too many of my men."
Hashi-san laughed, nodding vigorously. "You are a warrior, Bolan-san, a Bushido warrior. You did it out of loyalty to your leader and out of love of the challenge."
"I told you two days ago," Bolan said. "I answer to no one but myself."
Hashimoto stopped smiling and stared hard at him. "You don't know yet who or what you serve," he said. "You have followed your heart and the heart knows no reason."
Bolan bowed slightly. "Out of respect, I accept your definition."
Hashi-san laughed again, patting Bolan on the arm. "Good, good." He gestured toward Junko. "You look upon my daughter with bright eyes."
Bolan looked at the young woman. "She's a good fighter," he said. "A good... friend."
"Hai," the old man said. "You think maybe my eyesight's so bad I cannot see." He pulled off his wire-rimmed glasses.
Bolan and Hashi-san shared a look, and Bolan saw something very catlike in the man's face. He took Bolan by the arm.
"Come," he said. "I tire. We'll sit down and make plans." He spoke to Junko in Japanese, and the young woman hurried to her feet and ran off without looking at either of them.
The old man began to walk, and Bolan moved with him. "Junko is a fine girl," Hashi-san said. "She will bear fine sons. She is a cultured girl, not just the fighter you have seen. She grew up in the schools of ikebana, the art you saw her practicing in the garden. She may be too educated for most men, but somehow I do not think a man like you would fear that in a woman."
Bolan stared at him. They continued to walk through the garden, its tiny diverging pathways beginning to resemble a sophisticated spiderweb. Stone stairs led up from the garden to a wide veranda, which was surrounded by a short stone wall topped by small, well-sculpted hedges. Three full glasses waited for them on a table in the middle of the veranda.
The magnificence of rural Japan rose around them as they sat. It would be easy, Bolan thought, for a man to get lost here. And he surprised himself with the thought. It wasn't one he usually entertained.
"Iced tea," Hashi-san said, picking up his tall glass. "One of the few civilized practices invented by Western society." He took a small sip, letting the tea sit in his mouth before swallowing it.
Bolan followed suit. "You have a problem with Western civilization?" he asked.
Hashi-san shook his head. "Life is change," he said. "The West gave us technology, a force in life that means change. Good, bad, who knows? The Orient invented gunpowder and used it to make fireworks. The Europeans made cannons with it. Different approaches. The secret of life today is in keeping up with change."
"I understand that you've beaten the West at its own game technologically," Bolan said.
"It's a game anyone can play," Hashi-san replied, shrugging. "What game is it that you're playing?"
"I don't understand."
The old man gestured wide. "I've opened my life to you. You know my deepest secrets yet you keep many secrets from me. Junko tells me that you have made two transoceanic phone calls. And now you're referring to my technological games with the West. If you want to know about me, why don't you ask? My respect for you grows by the minute, Mr. Bolan. There is nothing I won't tell you."
"I've lived for many years in the world of shadows, Hashi-san," Bolan replied, suppressing a feeling of guilt. "As you said, the instrument of karma. Trust is something I cannot afford if I'm to stay alive."
The large smile was back. "You are simply a ronin looking for a master," he said. "Place your trust in me. I can be father and protector and country to you."
Just then Junko came through the sliding-glass door from the house, bearing a silver tray piled high with rice cakes. Eyes downcast, she set the tray in the middle of the table, then stood off to the side.
"You may sit, Daughter," Hashi-san said.
"Domo arigato," she replied, taking the empty seat.
"I was just telling Bolan-san that he doe
sn't trust us enough," Hashi-san said.
"Each answers his own calling, Father," she replied. "Mr. Bolan does not owe..."
"Wait," Bolan said. "There's no reason at this stage for secrecy on my part. I'm sorry if I've offended you in any way, Hashi-san."
"No offense taken, my son," Hashi-san replied.
Bolan told them the story then, leaving nothing out. Hashi-san listened intently to the story of Dr. Norwood and Operation Snowflake, nodding from time to time. He seemed relieved when Bolan was finished.
"This is no great secret," the old man said. "In fact, it is a relief. My influence and channels of information run deep. Perhaps I can help you with your mission, and then we can look onward to other things."
"Other things?" Bolan asked.
"I say in front of my ancestors that I want you to stay with me and help me run my organization," Hashi-san replied, taking another small sip of iced tea. "You are a man of ideas and ideals, a man not afraid to put those feelings into action. If I help you with this problem, perhaps I can clear your mind enough that you will think about these things."
"I'm always open to suggestions," Bolan answered, honored at the man's admission. Then a thought occurred to him. "I saw some Japanese characters written on the skid of the helicopter that kidnapped Dr. Norwood. If I wrote them down, could you translate them for me?"
"I will do my best," Hashi-san said, bowing.
Junko was sent for paper and pencil, her fingers and Bolan's stopping for a lingering touch when she handed them to him.
The big man sat down and tried to recreate the moment in his mind, closing his eyes to bring the look of the characters into sharp focus. He wrote the characters just the way he remembered them, then slid the paper over to Hashi-san.
The man looked at it for a minute, then raised his eyebrows. "Ah, your kanji could use some improvement, but I think I see what you want. Unfortunately, I think it will be of little help. You have written the characters for the bit of snow, or snowflake."
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