Two airmen were waiting for him as he pulled up to the hangar. Both wore basic Air Force blues, one with a master sergeant’s stripes on short sleeves strained by sculpted biceps, while the other had a captain’s double silver bars pinned to his collar, and a name tag that identified him as “G. SHERMAN.” Neither showed a smile as Bolan stepped out of the hot RAV4 and stood before them, waiting out the silence to see who would break the ice.
“Good morning, Colonel,” Captain Sherman said, using the rank Bolan had received after he’d “died” and was reborn through Stony Man. “I hope you had a safe trip.”
“Fine.” No one had tried to kill him in the hour-plus that he’d been on the road, which suited Bolan to a tee.
“We understand you won’t be staying with us long,” Sherman went on.
“Depends on downtime, waiting for my ride,” Bolan replied.
“It’s ready now, sir. You have gear inside the vehicle?”
“I do,” Bolan confirmed, and turned to fetch his three bags from the SUV’s backseat.
“I’ll help you with those, sir,” the master sergeant said.
“Big one’s the heaviest.”
“No problem, sir.” The biceps barely rippled as the master sergeant took the bag containing Bolan’s hardware, but the noncom shot a quick glance toward his captain, who received the message loud and clear.
No comment and no questions from the stoic officer. He settled for, “Please, follow me, sir,” and Bolan obliged, trailing his escorts through the hangar’s open bay. Inside, beneath fluorescent lights, a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport plane sat gleaming, while mechanics finished with its preflight checkup.
The C-17 was a certified workhorse. In service since the 1980s, when it was developed from the McDonnell Douglas YC-15, it was designed for moving troops and cargo anywhere the military needed them to arrive on time and in one piece.
Bolan had been expecting something smaller, but he kept that to himself, watching the burly master sergeant lug his bags aboard. The captain seemed to read his mind, saying, “The other troops should be along directly, sir. Feel free to go aboard, or use the waiting room, whichever you prefer.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
“If there’s nothing else, sir?”
“Nothing I can think of,” Bolan said. “Dismissed.”
* * *
Azabu, Tokyo
THE MOMENT HE saw Kato Ando coming, with the cordless telephone in hand, Kazuo Takumi braced himself for more bad news. He’d spent the past few hours pondering the trouble in Atlantic City but had come to no conclusions. He would need reports from his appointed soldiers, once they landed in the States, but they were hours out from touchdown yet, and would not call their oyabun for any reason while in transit, barring failure of their aircraft.
Ando reached him, holding out the telephone, and said, “Jiro Shinoda.”
Takumi allowed himself a small frown as he took the phone and answered. This time, for variety, he might chastise his kyodai if Shinoda started telling tales about Noboru Machii.
Or, he might not.
As it was, after obligatory courtesies, Shinoda immediately spilled his news. There’d been another shooting in New Jersey, this time with the worst conceivable result. Noboru Machii was among the dead, no final figures yet, but it was Shinoda’s duty to inform his oyabun, and so on. He was still apologizing when Kazuo Takumi cut him off.
“Chinmoku!” The command for silence instantly truncated Shinoda’s flow of words.
“You must prepare yourself,” Takumi ordered. “Be alert in all respects. Until we know who is responsible, our operation in Nevada also is at risk.”
“I am prepared, master,” Shinoda replied, too quickly.
“This is not a time for arrogance,” Takumi said. “I’m sure Noboru thought he was prepared, as well.”
“But—”
“Double-check all of your preparations, then go back and check again. Goodbye.”
Takumi cut off the call and placed the phone in Ando’s waiting hand.
His old and trusted friend studied his master’s face, reading his mood, although he could not guess the details of Jiro Shinoda’s call. “What shall we do?” he asked.
“I’ve done all that I can do, for the moment,” Takumi replied. “But I must take my own advice. Warn everyone within the family to stay alert. No deviation from our normal business is required, as yet, but anything unusual must be reported back without delay. Understand?”
“Yes!”
“If they desire to speak with me…”
“I’ll tell them you are indisposed,” Ando suggested.
“Perfect.”
Everyone of value in the Sumiyoshi-kai already knew that Ando was Kazuo Takumi’s voice in many varied circumstances. He would pass his master’s order to the captains, who would pass it on to their subordinates, until it reached the lowest gambler, dealer and pimp on the street. Whoever got the word—and that meant twenty-thousand members of the family, plus all of their associates—would know it came from Kazuo Takumi’s lips.
And they would do as they were told.
The main thing, now, was not to panic. He had lost Noboru Machii, and perhaps the whole New Jersey operation, but Takumi had survived worse losses in the past and still emerged victorious from the last battle.
Ando was about to leave and carry out his orders when his master stopped him. “Have you seen Toi?”
“Not since Friday,” Ando answered, making no attempt to hide his frown.
“Call him. Tell him I want him here. Immediately.”
“Hai, Sensei.”
Kazuo would not tell his son that he was needed, even through an intermediary. Toi tested his father’s will at every opportunity, and it was time to jerk his leash, remind him of the debt he owed for all the privilege that he enjoyed and took advantage of, while sometimes feigning bland indifference.
If nothing else, the present crisis might propel Toi one step closer to becoming a real man. Or, failing that, it could reduce him to the status of a child who knew his place and ventured from it only with permission from his father.
Toi would learn that if it killed him, leaving Kazuo Takumi without a rightful heir.
* * *
Airborne, Over West Virginia
THE “OTHER TROOPS” aboard the Boeing Globemaster were fifty-two airmen, both men and women, en route to Nellis or some other Western air force base with a stopover in Nevada. They sat in sidewall seats, all dressed in ABUs—airman battle uniforms—made from service-distinctive camouflage fabric that deviated from army combat uniform design by including slate blue in its digital tiger-stripe pattern. As per regulation, each ABU bore name tag tape, rank insignia and occupational badges, with trouser cuffs bloused into sage-green suede boots.
The others talked among themselves, while carefully avoiding Bolan. He supposed they had received a hands-off briefing in advance, without details, since no one at McGuire had any knowledge of his mission or his destination, once he drove away from Nellis in the rental car that should be waiting for him on arrival.
He was extra cargo on this flight and nothing more. No reason they should think about the stranger in civilian clothes, or why he rated transport on their aircraft. Bolan knew they had to have questions, but they also had the discipline to keep from asking them aloud.
He kept an empty seat between himself and the young airman first class to his right, turning a little in his seat so that the youngster couldn’t peer at Bolan’s smartphone if he felt a sudden surge of curiosity. He had a four-and-one-half-hour flight ahead of him, enough time to review Brognola’s files once more in transit and make sure he had it all down cold.
Yakuza in the United States had once been confined to Hawaii, by virtue of its Japanese population, but various families had spanned the Pacific to infest California in the early 1980s, branching out from there to Chicago and New York City. In California, they allied themselves with Chinese Triads and other Asian mobsters
, including South Koreans and Vietnamese. Where feasible, they brokered deals with leaders of the Cosa Nostra, taxing Mafia gambling clubs and other rackets in Asian communities.
Another lure in the States was firearms, greatly restricted at home in Japan. Through the eighties, a simple $300 revolver could sell in Japan for $4,000 or more, and ammo averaged a dollar per cartridge to start. That blue-steel gold rush had faltered in the 1990s, as Japan suffered a gun glut of its own, but the Yakuza had expanded by then, importing methamphetamine, trying its hand at human trafficking, and infiltrating legitimate firms. The latter offered threefold benefits: as cover for taxation, covert money laundries and a foot in the door of industries such as gaming and pharmaceuticals, where the predators felt right at home.
The FBI had enjoyed mixed success in cracking the Yakuza stateside. In 2001, the Bureau had arranged for Tadamasa Goto, oyabun of the Fujinomiya-based Goto-gumi family, to receive a lifesaving liver transplant in Los Angeles. Goto had returned the favor with a $100,000 donation to the UCLA Medical Center and some titillating gossip on the rival Yamaguchi-gumi clan, before the story broke and raised a stink from Washington to Tokyo, with reports that scores of Los Angelenos had died waiting for livers while Goto got his, courtesy of the Justice Department.
Meanwhile, Goto had retired to enjoy his new liver and published a memoir, titled Habakarinagara—“While Hesitating”—that topped bestseller lists in Japan, in 2011.
Nowadays the FBI had a joint “working group” against the Yakuza, collaborating with Japan’s National Police Agency, paralleled by Project Bridge with Interpol, and a Cross-Border Crime Forum coordinating operations with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. None had made any significant busts, but they consoled themselves with gathering intelligence, interdicting meth shipments and waiting for the one big chance they needed to get on the scoreboard.
Mack Bolan, fortunately, wasn’t bound by rules of evidence or any fat books filled with authorized procedures. He was free to strike an adversary when and where he liked, as long as certain basic guidelines were observed.
Avoid civilian casualties.
Spare cops, even the dirty ones, from use of deadly force.
Minimize collateral damage to property owned by innocents.
The third rule could be dicey, but he did his best.
Vegas would be different from Atlantic City, both in climate and the risks involved. The Yakuza out there couldn’t be certain they were next in line for trouble, but they had to be smart enough to brace themselves for ripples from the detonation in New Jersey. Bolan would have to hit the ground running, stay in motion and shake his enemies until their house came tumbling down. Along the way, if he could pick up more intel, so much the better.
Satisfied for now, he stowed the smartphone, settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. The other passengers were free to watch him if they liked. He wasn’t going anywhere until they landed.
And from there, only the Universe could say what happened next.
* * *
East St. Louis Avenue, Las Vegas
JIRO SHINODA FUMED over his oyabun’s terse words and lack of courtesy, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He was a subordinate within the family, condemned to follow orders until such time as the oyabun retired or made some critical mistake, leaving himself open to challenge from the ranks.
And that might happen sooner than his rude master imagined. If the rumors out of Tokyo were true, Kazuo Takumi’s son and heir was weak, distracted from the business and perhaps even unwilling to succeed his father when the old man died or stepped aside. How that had to gall Takumi, knowing that he’d raised a wastrel who was glad to spend his money but would not exert an ounce of effort to maintain the empire.
Call it poetic justice for Kazuo Takumi’s arrogance.
Meanwhile, however, there was wisdom in the old man’s orders. If Machii’s murder in New Jersey was a part of some larger conspiracy against the Sumiyoshi-kai, Shinoda should be prepared for trouble on his own turf. Only fools trusted that storms would never threaten them.
He believed he was secure on almost every legal front, with well-placed spies on Nevada’s Gaming Control Board and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. A secretary in the local FBI office was close to turning, presently enraptured by a young shatei who wined and dined and bedded her on Shinoda’s dime, but she had not delivered anything of value yet. When that panned out, he would be covered on all law enforcement fronts.
But now, he might be forced to deal with something else.
Noboru Machii’s death and all the rest of it, back East, could not be blamed on the police or Feds. Shinoda was well aware that lawmen often violated laws, and some of them were murderers, but mayhem on that scale surpassed all plausible deniability. He thought some rival syndicate was to blame, and he could not defend himself against that kind of threat with high-priced lawyers.
It required brute force.
That was a problem in Las Vegas. From its earliest beginnings, with construction of the Fabulous Flamingo under Bugsy Siegel after World War II, the city fathers of Las Vegas had been willing to accommodate known felons if they played by certain basic rules. The first of those was sharing what they skimmed with those in charge. The second was to do their bloody business elsewhere, so that Vegas could preserve a shiny “clean” facade.
The second rule had filled southern Nevada’s desert with a host of shallow graves over the decades, while dictating that high-profile executions had to be carried out elsewhere. Siegel, when it was time for him to go, had been gunned down in Beverly Hills. A decade later, Gus Greenbaum—also a wheel at the Flamingo—had been butchered with his wife in Phoenix. Tony Spilotro, in the 1980s, had been carried off to Indiana, bludgeoned and buried alive in a cornfield.
That explained Merv Mendelbaum. The obstacle in Jiro’s path had vanished from Los Angeles, not Vegas, Reno or Biloxi, where his gambling resorts appeared to be secure, above reproach. Investigators were examining the outposts of his far-flung empire, but they would be disappointed.
Shinoda’s difficulty now was that he did not know his enemy. He could not reach out from Las Vegas to Atlantic City, or wherever else Noboru Machii’s killers might be at the moment, to eliminate them. He could only sit and wait until they came for him, and that meant blood spilled in Las Vegas, if he was not very, very careful. That could blow up in his face and ruin everything that he had worked for since arriving in the States. The agents he had bribed would turn against him if he violated their most basic rules.
He sipped a glass of Chivas Regal whisky, pondering the problem set before him. There was still a chance the storm in Jersey might not reach him, that some local grudge was settled with Machii’s death. Or, on the other hand, it might blow past him, leaving his preserve untouched and moving on toward Tokyo. But neither outcome was predictable.
Shinoda had told his oyabun the truth. He was prepared for anything, and if a spark flared on his turf, it would be smothered instantly. The threat to him—and to the image of Las Vegas—would be neutralized. That was the only way to save his life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas
It was late morning when the Globemaster touched down on concrete shimmering with heat haze underneath the desert sun. The landing wasn’t smooth by airline standards, but the military passengers weren’t likely to complain. They rose and lined up, lugging their deployment bags, and Bolan waited for the line to move before he joined it, stopping to reclaim his bags before he followed the others down the cargo ramp and out into the sunshine.
It was hot out there, and nowhere near the day’s predicted high.
The night, if Bolan had his way, would wind up being hotter still.
Two uniforms had seen him off in Jersey, and another pair waited to greet him now. Apparently, he only rated a first lieutenant, backed by a grizzled staff sergeant. They both saluted him without enthusiasm, waiting for him to return the gesture.
“I’d begun to wonder if you’d made the flight, sir,” the lieutenant said. “We thought you might be first up to deplane.”
“I’m not the pushy type,” Bolan replied.
“Sergeant Jacoby, help the colonel with his bags.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bolan did not object as the staff sergeant took his mobile arsenal, seeing the man wince a little in surprise. Bolan carried the duffel with his clothes inside it.
“This way, sir,” the lieutenant said, already moving out. “If you’d like to refresh yourself, we have all the amenities.”
“No need, Lieutenant.”
“As you wish, sir. In that case, your vehicle is over here.”
“Here” was a short walk from the runway to a prefab building painted beige, like all the others Bolan saw, as a concession to the desert heat. It cast no shade to speak of on the silver Chevrolet TrailBlazer parked out front, the only ride in sight that didn’t bear a military license plate.
“It’s a civilian rental,” the lieutenant said. “We got it from McCarran International. You can return it there, or bring it back here when you’re finished. At your pleasure, sir.”
Bolan received the keys and popped the Chevy’s door locks. Whoever had brought it from the airport on the far side of Las Vegas had seen fit to leave the windows rolled up tight, and it felt like an oven in the SUV. Bolan turned on the Duramax 2.8-liter diesel engine, powered down the windows all around and turned the air-conditioning on full blast to break the killer heat.
“Where would you like your bag, sir?” the sergeant asked.
“In the backseat, thanks.”
As soon as that was stowed, Bolan deposited his smaller duffel with it, and he was good to go.
The officer was squinting at him, fighting sun glare, saying, “Sir, if you require any directions—”
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