The Courier

by Gordon J Campbell

  “Roger, on your mark,” said Marron.

  Levy maneuvered the clutch and shifted from neutral to first gear, and the machine rolled. He pushed the gas pedal to the floor with no concern for the future of the truck’s transmission system, shifting through second and to third only when the engine screamed and the tachometer turned bright red. The downhill grade forced him to downshift with expert stick work keeping the speedometer at a steady and controlled 40 kph as the vehicle bounced onto the Hakushika Estate’s driveway. The vehicle maintained a steady speed, and Levy steered down the incline toward the iron gate.

  “Eagle, fire away,” said Levy

  Marron adjusted his sights on the Mk13 sniper rifle and squeezed the trigger, releasing a .300 Winchester Magnum round and all but decapitating the sentry on the Hakushika’s roof. He moved his focus to the gate guards who were reacting aggressively to the approach of the petroleum container truck and shot the three uniformed sentries in rapid succession. He waited for Levy to turn in front of the Hakushika and position the machine to back against the gate.

  The approaching vehicle or the rifle shots alerted and motivated several of the inner guards to rush toward the wrought iron fencing of the Hakushika’s main gate. Levy observed four armed men rushing the gate, screaming, and readying their weapons. Every single one of the defenders were blown apart before the backup viewer inside the truck’s cab revealed the brass sign welded to the wrought iron fence displaying “FOUNDED IN 1905.” Two German shepherds rushed the gate and barked viciously as Levy climbed down from the tanker truck. He ignored them, and Marron discounted the animals as a threat. He preferred to leave them angry and alive and turned his attention to the guards behind the bulletproof glass.

  The three men standing in the bay window moved closer to the bulletproof glass, secure in their ability to observe the area in safety. The results of Marron’s work and the advancing petroleum tanker seemed to have them frozen in disbelief, which offered Marron time to deploy his AT-4 shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon. He charged the gun, released the safety, and launched the missile. The explosion shook the entire estate while taking out the bay window and everything on the second floor behind it.

  “What the hell was that?” asked Ward.

  “The AT-4 assault weapon,” replied Marron.

  “You fired an antitank missile in the middle of Yokohama?” screamed Ward.

  “Well, if you want to split hairs,” replied Marron.

  The blast blew dust and debris for hundreds of meters, clouding the area around the petroleum tanker truck where Levy was engaging each of the charges. He left them rhythmically pulsing dull green light as he strolled away from the Isuzu container truck and the Hakushika.

  “You’ve got ten minutes to reach your extraction point, rocket man,” said Ward.

  “I’m at the pickup point, and I see my ride coming,” said Levy.

  “Travel well, gentlemen,” said Ward.

  “Roger, over and out,” said Marron.

  “Copy, over and out,” said Levy.

  ***

  Marron moved downhill with more speed and far less stealth compared to his approach to the rocky hill’s summit. He ran through the evacuated estate’s backyard and through the house. He left the estate wearing his full ghillie suit and entered a waiting helicopter marked with logos from a regional television station. “Nice ride. On loan for the day?” asked Marron.

  “As long as you need it,” replied the pilot, who engaged the engine and within minutes the two men were high above Yokohama. They’d traveled ten miles when an explosion sent a shock wave from the Hakushika, causing the helicopter pilot to work feverishly with the controls for several seconds before regaining equilibrium.

  The pilot looked at Marron, obviously expecting an explanation, but Marron replied by shrugging his shoulders. He lifted his foot and rested it on the door handle in front of him to elevate his throbbing ankle.

  ***

  Levy and his motorcycle companion were passing the Yokohama Landmark Tower, known as the tallest structure in Kanagawa, when they heard and felt the rumble of the explosion in front of the Hakushika. The bike driver pulled over and both riders admired a gigantic fireball rising high into the sky and slowly spreading out across the city. The driver lifted her visor and yelled, “Holy shit.”

  Levy shrugged his shoulders and the driver revved the engine before pulling the bike onto the highway to merge back into traffic. They’d travelled less than a minute when an August evening rain started falling in regular drips and quickly developed into a torrent. Levy felt under assault as gallons of water poured down and splashed off his helmet. The bike driver pulled to the side and the two waited out the heavy shower while Levy wondered how many homes would be spared from fire by Mother Nature.

  Chapter 41

  Miura

  The commercial fishing village of Miura was located on the southern end of a peninsula surrounded on three sides by Sagami Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Trains leaving the Miurakaigan (Miura Beach) Station reach Tokyo in approximately eighty minutes. The businesses built around the Miurakaigan Station are common to the small city centers in Japan where restaurants serve chicken on skewers and the convenience store is essential to daily lives.

  The small police station was sandwiched between the main entrance gate of the train station and a large pachinko parlor. One of Japan’s eighty-seven thousand police officers stood in front of the local facility in his summer uniform. The police guard recognized Nori Nakada’s white Lexus NX and nodded as the mobster cruised by his post.

  Nakada ignored the gesture and turned past the pachinko parlor into a parking lot near a three-story gray concrete office building. It was designed with a front entrance, and double side doors were built on each side of all the floor levels. The front lobby entryway was identified by a small blue neon sign with the building’s name, “Midori.”

  Nakada had driven three hours to complete a drive from Yokohama to Miura normally requiring forty-five minutes. An international windsurfing competition was drawing massive crowds to Miura Beach and jamming the highways. He’d spent most of the drive screaming orders through his cell phone and was offering final advice to an assistant as he put his car into park.

  “Review the shot list for camera and lighting positioning, complete sound checks, assemble the necessary accessories, and be sure to deploy extra security. I’m coming in for an inspection before we bring the little bitch to the studio for show time,” ordered Nakada. He opened his car door and stepped out with one stiff braced leg and walked to the Midori building as quickly as his injuries allowed.

  He entered the front lobby modeled after the Shinjuku Soapland establishment and limped passed bowing staff members to stairs leading to the facility’s third-floor action center. He had designed the studio and all equipment himself, and he had handpicked the pornographic film specialists. It was his baby and he knew it was the industry standard for the Japanese porn business. He was energized and full of anticipation. The windows were covered with blackout curtains allowing precisely controlled illumination with tungsten lights, LED panels, and several custom lighting stands ready for specific application.

  Three Sony commercial-quality digital movie cameras were set on portable tripods around a king-sized bed. Sound recorders with timecodes, timecode slates, mixers, audio recorders, and shotgun and boom pole microphones were in the process of setup and fine-tuning. As Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings provided somber background music, technicians connected cables, tested lights, and confirmed camera angles.

  Nakada started the inspection of the company’s inventory of sexual devices essential to his genre and made selections for the work ahead. He looked over candles of all description, vibrators, and his favorite S&M equipment while rubbing his hands together and bouncing on the balls of his feet. His assistant stood ready for instructions.

  “Take those handcuffs and leg irons to prepare the little bitch and bring her here,” ordered Nakada
. The assistant bowed and grabbed the restraints and hurried out of the room. A call came in on the burner phone given to him by his boss and Nakada answered. His face paled as he listened to Sato. “They hit Ezura, and the sick motherfuckers left him cut up like squid sashimi. We’re dealing with animals, and they may know the location of the girl,” said Sato.

  “Do you think Ezura gave us up?” asked Nakada.

  “Are you willing to take the chance? We can’t lose any more face, and you don’t want to be caught with the girl. Get the little bitch and come to the Hakushika where we’ll dispose of her. Do you understand the importance of my last directive?” asked Sato.

  “Yes, understood,” said Nakada as Sato cut the cell connection. Nakada braced himself against a wall and shook his head in disbelief. The door opened and the assistant, with the aid of one of the female employees, carried the young teenager into the studio. They had dressed her in a negligée suitable to a bride on her honeymoon and were now dragging the terrified Kou toward the bed.

  Kou was sobbing, and when she recognized Nakada’s scarred face she screamed. It was a horrible and desperate wail but was easily absorbed by the soundproofing in the studio. Nakada picked up the gag made with a rubber ball and strap and walked to Kou. “This will shut you up, and now it’s time to create some art. Close the door and let’s get started.”

  ***

  Miura

  The Skipper circled the Midori building to facilitate Gregg’s reconnaissance from the back of the motorbike. They didn’t identify guards or detect other forms of security outside the structure and the building’s configurations matched the data reviewed. They circled the area expecting to spot men posted near the building or watching from cars but did not locate even one.

  They traveled six blocks north and entered a shopping center’s parking lot. Its open-air roof on the sixth floor offered a clear and direct view of the backside of the Midori building. The Skipper made his way up to the roof and stopped to let Gregg off the bike. His dismount was slow and deliberate due to the extra weight of the ballistic vest and gear in his pack.

  “You know what to do,” said the Skipper and drove away.

  Gregg raised the visor on his bike helmet and pulled the pack off his back to bring it around and rest it on a ledge in front of him. He pulled out a scope and sighted it on the top-floor window on the far left side of the Midori building. The thermal vision technology allowed identification of warm bodies in the soapland complex. The first room was empty, and he shifted the scope and scanned the second floor. Gregg found two people with heat signatures obscured possibly by hot water as they were likely bathing together. He moved the focus to the bottom-floor window and identified someone standing outside a room near the end of the hall by the side door.

  He repeated the process and located security posted on each end of all three floors. Several of the second-floor rooms were occupied by couples bathing or in bed. The top level had a large room on the far east side of the building, and Gregg probed it with his scope. “Bingo,” he said and scanned the area carefully. “Those bastards . . .” He activated the automatic dial of his cell phone, now connected to speakers and microphones built into his bike helmet by the Skipper.

  “What’s your status?” asked Ward.

  “I’ve finished my recon. How’s my commo working?” Gregg asked.

  “It’s crystal clear, and we’re about forty-five minutes out and caught in the beach traffic. Can you hang tough until we arrive?” asked Ward.

  “Mission success has become time sensitive. There’s some sick shit happening on the third floor, and I think the hostage is becoming the centerpiece of some messed-up ritual,” said Gregg.

  “Intel reports the place is used to film adult entertainment, and you probably scoped their porn studio. Did you identify your daughter?” asked Ward.

  “It’s a gut feeling. I’m going on the offense and am ready to kill anyone who gets in the way. Armed guards are on all the doors and several on the third floor. I expect they’ll be unfriendly and don’t want them to get in the way once I find Kou,” replied Gregg.

  “We’ve got two mercs en route by train with an ETA in approximately thirty minutes, and you can time their arrival to assist the extraction,” said Ward.

  “Thanks. You folks will know when to start looking for me. There’ll be a big diversion and an unscheduled pyrotechnical display. The Skipper sent the right stuff for the job.”

  “Keep the commo engaged and have a good one,” said Ward.

  ***

  Midori Building

  Gregg walked from the parking lot to the Midori building carrying the heavy backpack full of lethal gear. He wore the biker’s helmet with visor down, maintaining his cover in spite of the oppressive heat, and his T-shirt worn underneath his Kevlar vest was soaked with sweat. He carried a large envelope under his left arm as a prop useful to his impersonation of a motorcycle courier. Delivery services were common in Japan, and bike couriers made regular visits to office buildings and private homes.

  He approached the first-floor east-side door of the Midori building knowing it was guarded on the inside. He gently turned the handle and pulled the door to confirm it was secure. Then he lifted his backpack off to place it on the steps which ran up to each floor on the side of the building. He removed a Ziploc bag containing what looked like two lumps of clay with some metal pins protruding.

  Gregg took the plastic explosives from the package and applied the powerful chemical components and their electrical power units to the door. Two housewives returning from shopping walked by and he positioned his body to block the view of his work. He nodded to them and they bowed politely in return but picked up their pace home. Gregg moved up the stairs to the second floor and repeated the exercise.

  After moving up a flight and applying charges to the third-floor door, he returned to ground level and focused on the five windows. They were made from thick smoked glass but did not inhibit loud music and other noises from escaping the building. A woman’s sexual moan echoed off the glass near him, and Gregg felt himself blush. He finished preparations by placing and activating the preset explosives and hustled up the steps to the top floor.

  He pulled out the lock-picking instrument and, as practiced with the Skipper, was able to turn the deadbolt without delay. He reached into his bag and pulled out two flashbang grenades and placed them in his windbreaker’s pocket. He looked around and, once confident that he was undetected, pulled and slung the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun around his neck. He then removed a tiny electronic remote control from his pack and activated the power switch with fingers protected in rubber gloves.

  Its touchscreen lit up displaying two color-coded buttons. Gregg secured his backpack and fastened it on and hesitated a moment to take a deep breath and release it slowly. He lifted his helmet’s face cover up to improve his vision and applied pressure on the first button to remotely trigger a blast, ripping the doors on the first and second floors off their hinges. He switched off the remote detonator’s power and replaced it in his backpack.

  He pulled open the east-side door and looked down the hallway before throwing the first flashbang grenade into the room and then slammed the door closed. He’d located five men in the hall with the glance. He opened his mouth as instructed and braced himself for the 170-decibel blast and seven-million-candela flash coming after the five-second delay. He threw open the door and stepped into the hallway and assessed the enemy.

  All the men in the hall were armed but had dropped weapons onto the floor after the blast to hold their ears. Gregg waited by the film studio door, and when the first armed guard stepped out he shot him three times from close range. He released the safety pin from the second M84 grenade, tossed it into the studio, and ducked and stepped away from the doorway. Afterward, he scanned the hallway. One guard had recovered enough to crawl to his gun but could not stand. The businessman-turned-assassin lost his grip on the weapon and fired three shots in rapid succession with the ro
unds finishing wasted in the ceiling. He regained control of the MP5 and walked close enough to the target to kill him with a head shot.

  Gregg moved to the studio door and walked in while music by a Japanese girl band blasted beyond tolerable levels. He looked over and saw his daughter lying gagged and tied up like some animal half-naked on a bed. It enraged him and he systematically walked around the studio placing bullets in the heads of everyone involved in the production. The high-tech lights made the room brighter than a Florida white-sand beach at noon, and pink mist drifted after each execution.

  Gregg depleted his ammunition, discharged the magazine, and reloaded as easily as one might add sugar to coffee. He was moving to assist his daughter when a shotgun blast blew the roof above him apart. Gregg turned to see Nori Nakada dressed only in bikini underpants, obviously disorientated, and frantically trying to draw a bead on Gregg. The amateur assassin charged and tackled the tiny man and held him on the ground with his left hand while he pummeled his face with his right until Nakada ceased to move. He stood and finished the job by firing several rounds into the yakuza’s chest.

  Gregg pulled his SOG knife from a leg holster, moved to Kou, cut her bindings, and wrapped her in the sheets beneath her. He picked her drugged and limp form up and rested her head against his chest. He carried her down the stairs as smoke drifted from the building and people in all forms of half dress and nakedness rushed for safety. They became soaking wet upon leaving the Midori building as a heavy monsoon rain common to Kanagawa summer nights poured down on them. He walked fifty meters with his daughter in his arms before a Navy Toyota Estima pulled alongside him and Jeff Ward and a second man wearing black beanies and sunglasses got out and helped him place Kou in the vehicle.