by Kyle Mills
“The fire exit,” one of his men said.
“Are you sure there is one?” Takahashi asked, feeling himself being pushed forward again. “We could get trapped by the fire.”
“We’re certain, sir. We’ve been through all the buildings on your normal travel routes. This has a rear exit that opens onto the next street.”
He had no reason to doubt what he was being told. His security detail had been handpicked from the best men the country had to offer.
“My vehicle,” Takahashi said.
“Sir, we need to focus on getting you out of here.”
The man ahead of him had a hand against his earpiece as they ran, nodding at whatever was coming over it. “General, I have confirmation that a helicopter is on its way and will be airlifting the car out.”
Takahashi didn’t respond. Justifying the urgency of the salvage operation would be difficult but significantly simpler than the explanations necessary if the police got hold of the limousine.
They burst through another door and came out onto a relatively quiet secondary street. Pedestrians were talking in frightened tones and pointing at the smoke just starting to clear the tightly packed buildings. Takahashi’s men barreled right through them, going for a half-unloaded truck parked at the curb.
Its owners were too stunned to offer any resistance, instead watching in silence as the head of Takahashi’s security detail shoved the general through the driver’s door and then leaped in after him.
In the rearview mirror Takahashi saw his remaining men stepping in front of cars and forcing their occupants out into the street. Within thirty seconds two of his men had pulled a commandeered Prius in front of the truck and another three had a BMW a few meters off its rear bumper.
“Please get down, General!”
He ignored the suggestion. The likelihood that there was a secondary team looking to finish the failed assassination attempt was remote at best. And even if it hadn’t been, he was not going to cower like a child in the face of it.
“What’s the ETA on that chopper, Lieutenant?”
“I’m being told it should be on-site within half an hour, sir. After that, it’ll take another fifteen minutes to hook up the cables. Where should the vehicle be taken, sir?”
Takahashi didn’t immediately respond, looking at the stunned expressions of the people they passed while trying to calculate exactly what had happened and who was responsible. “I’ll give you a destination when it’s in the air.”
12
Near Imizu
Japan
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were having an off day when you let this happen.”
Jon Smith’s eyes rose from the blade in the woman’s hand to her face, still shadowed by the brim of her hat. The voice was familiar, but the drugs flowing into him through the IV made it hard to concentrate.
She used the knife to cut through the leather strap securing his ankle and then stepped back into better light.
The hair was an unfamiliar black, but the dark eyes and arrogant smile were unmistakable.
“Randi? How…how the hell did you find me? Did Fred—”
She scowled and shook her head. “Fred’s the reason you got a crossbow bolt in your back. I thought we should talk before I let him in on where you were.”
He let her words sink in for a moment. Had they increased his pain meds? He still hurt like hell but his processing speed seemed to be crawling. “The guy I talked to…the one in charge…”
“Noboru Ueno. One of Japan’s most successful…” She paused for a moment to consider her word choice. “Entrepreneurs.”
Smith shook his head weakly. “Jesus, Randi. Is there an organized crime boss on the planet you don’t have a relationship with?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Count yourself lucky that I have friends in low places. Noboru’s plans for you weren’t exactly all sunshine and lollipops. Unless I miss my guess, they’d have ended with you getting mixed in with the cat food at one of his meatpacking plants.”
“And you trust this guy, but not Fred?”
“I don’t trust anyone. You know that. But Noboru and I go way back and we have some shared interests. With Klein I’m never quite sure.”
Smith forced himself into a sitting position. She watched him struggle, silently calculating how his condition would affect her plans but not offering any help.
“I take it you’re here to spring me?”
She nodded. “The doc says you’re in pretty bad shape but that it should be okay to move you if we’re careful. They’re bringing a wheelchair and I’ll take you to an apartment I rented through a dummy corporation. No way to trace it to either one of us. We can lay low there until you’re a little more mobile and we figure out how to get you back to the States.”
“Fred can send a jet.”
“We’ll see. No need to jump into anything blind.”
He didn’t bother to protest, instead pointing to a pair of cargo pants folded in the corner. He rarely won an argument with her even when he was firing on all cylinders. Better to concentrate on getting the hell out of there before their host changed his mind.
While he was struggling to get his zipper up with dead-feeling fingers, the door opened and the man he’d spoken with when he’d first woken up entered, followed by three very serious-looking companions.
“Randi,” Noboru Ueno said, examining her from bottom to top, finally stopping at the black-dyed hair. “What have you done to yourself?”
“You know how I hate to attract attention.”
He reached for her hand and kissed it. “Impossible. You look radiant as always.”
“Such a charmer,” she said with a barely perceptible smile. “Now where’s the wheelchair you promised me?”
“And where are the items you promised me?”
Randi pointed to the satchel lying on the table. Ueno opened it and flipped approvingly through what from Smith’s position appeared to be bearer bonds.
“I could have just wired the money to your account in Croatia.”
He shook his head. “I’ve come to enjoy the feel of paper in my hand.”
Smith was too drugged to generate any meaning from Ueno’s subtle nod, but Randi wasn’t similarly handicapped.
The men moved on her with blinding speed, but it wasn’t fast enough. Instead of backing away like they expected, she charged at the lead man, the blade reappearing in her hand and sinking to the hilt in his side. She spun, catching the second man in the head with an elbow as Smith threw himself out of the bed. He had the vague sensation of the IVs ripping out of his hand as he went for Ueno, but when his feet hit the floor, his legs wouldn’t support him. He collapsed at the man’s feet, pain and nausea washing over him as he tried desperately to get up and help Randi.
The man who’d caught the elbow was shaken but didn’t go down. He managed to block the knife from getting him in the throat but the gash it put in his forearm looked to be six inches long and down to the bone. She feinted high on the only uninjured man left but she was off balance and he knew it. A foot sweep took her down hard onto the wood floor and the man with the wounded forearm managed to drop a knee on her arm, splattering her with blood and trapping the knife.
And then it was over. Each man probably outweighed her by fifty pounds and both were now on top of her. In a standing fight, Randi’s uncanny speed and accuracy made her a force to be reckoned with. On the ground, though, her size was an insurmountable disadvantage.
Smith managed to get to all fours but his head was spinning so badly he could no longer determine which way was up. Ueno used a foot to shove him onto his side and then stared down at him. The Japanese man’s mouth was moving, but Smith had to concentrate to decipher his words.
“The doctor assured me that your injuries were too serious for you to even get out of bed without help, but Randi’s friends tend to be very resilient. In light of that, I had him add a little something to your IV.”
&nb
sp; Ueno adjusted the dead guard leaking all over his expensive teak floor and then walked over to Randi and kicked her hard in the side. “He was one of my best.”
She thrashed wildly against the men holding her, prompting Ueno to take a cautious step backward.
“Not good enough, you son of a bitch! And these two won’t be either!”
He let out a long, frustrated breath. “I spent millions on my security. I was guaranteed that it would be impossible to smuggle a weapon past my entry hall. And now this.”
Ueno stepped over the expanding crimson puddle at his feet and opened the door, waving in five more men. A moment later Smith had been rolled onto his stomach and his numb limbs were being wound with duct tape. From his position he could see that Randi was getting the same treatment, though at least she was putting up a respectable—if completely pointless—fight.
Smith barely managed not to vomit from nausea and pain when he was thrown over a man’s shoulder and carried out into the hallway. Randi was right behind him, still kicking and shouting threats as they went through the front doors and were deposited into the trunk of a waiting vehicle.
“You better just kill me now, Noboru. Because if you don’t, I’ll be back.”
Smith couldn’t see the man from his position with Randi on top of him but when the Japanese man spoke, he sounded genuinely shaken.
“This was very difficult for me, Randi. I’ve always liked you and to be completely honest, I’m afraid of you and your Central Intelligence Agency. But the men who want you…” His voice faded for a moment. “I’m afraid of them more.”
13
Outside Imizu
Japan
Randi Russell realized she was hyperventilating and forced herself to get control. Her mouth was taped shut and her face was crammed into the trunk lid, so the deep, cleansing breaths she normally used to keep her rage in check weren’t an option. She tried to picture a peaceful landscape dappled with sun, but Noboru Ueno’s face kept intruding. Fantasies of his death filled her mind—from the classic simplicity of a bullet between the eyes to more exotic scenarios involving stampeding cattle and Rube Goldberg dismemberment machines.
Pull it together, Randi!
The white heat of her anger was one of her greatest strengths. It could keep her going when everyone else collapsed from exhaustion, and it could keep her locked on a target when everyone else had given up in frustration. But it could also run out of control and make it impossible for her to think. That’s where Jon usually stepped in with a calm assessment and well-thought-out plan. From the looks of him when they were being carried out by Ueno’s men, though, about the best he could do at this point was not drool down the front of his shirt.
She held her breath for a moment, silencing the loud rush of air coming through her nose and trying to orient herself to her surroundings.
The trunk they were stuffed into wasn’t as spacious as the grandeur of the car would have suggested. She was wedged in hard and beneath her Jon must have been worse off. Ueno’s men had left little to chance, winding the better part of a roll of duct tape around each of them and then securing them back-to-back. That made getting to the trunk latch or the electrical wires threaded behind the carpet pretty much out of the question.
The sound of the engine was smooth and even, suggesting that the driver was a pro who knew enough not to get nervous and attract attention. After a number of turns and stops getting out of Ueno’s property, they’d been going mostly straight and steady for the last fifteen minutes.
Other than that, there was nothing but darkness. And for some reason that bothered her. It took a moment to figure out why.
Jon.
He had always been an immovable object. Unflappable no matter how bad the shit hit the fan, unkillable even in the most dire situations. Now he wasn’t moving at all.
A jolt of adrenaline coursed through Randi when she realized that despite being crushed up against him, she couldn’t feel him breathing. She jerked backward and felt a rush of relief when he grunted weakly. He was alive. But for how much longer?
If he died, it would be her fault. She’d come there with no backup at all. Klein didn’t know anything about Ueno and no one at the agency had any idea where she was or that Covert-One even existed.
That left it up to her to bail their asses out. But how?
She tried to slide forward, planning to search the dark space for something sharp—a protruding bolt, a disconnected wire—but didn’t have the leverage to move more than half an inch. She pulled harder but it didn’t get her any farther and Jon wasn’t even groaning anymore when she yanked on him. Had he lost consciousness? Or was he…
Pull it together! She scolded herself again. There was precisely nothing she could do about his condition until she got them out of there. If he was dead, he was dead.
The vehicle began to slow and finally rolled to a stop. For a moment she feared they’d reached their destination but then the car moved, gliding along for a few seconds before once again coming to a standstill. Traffic.
Maybe someone with their window open would hear her if she started shouting. She ground her face on the inside of the trunk, trying to scrape the tape off her mouth. The carpet covering the surface was too soft to have any effect on the powerful adhesive.
She kept at it, straining until her neck muscles were on the verge of giving out and the skin felt like it was being torn from her cheeks. Then just let her body go slack. There was no way out. She’d killed them.
Randi didn’t know how long she drifted like that, thinking about Jon and Klein. About her dead husband and Ueno. The traffic didn’t get any better and the gentle rocking kept pulling her further into oblivion.
The car stopped again, but this time there was a deafening crash and she was thrown violently to the side. The trunk lid bent outward enough to let in a little light and she rammed her knees into it, trying to get it to open the rest of the way. The latch held, but flexed enough to give her hope.
Randi had pulled back for another try when the gunfire started—controlled bursts from three, maybe four separate automatic weapons. She tensed, but none of the rounds sounded like they were hitting metal. Just glass and flesh.
After only a few seconds the guns went silent and all she could hear was the revving of motors and the crumpling of bodywork as people tried to escape on the packed road.
A steel bar slid into the gap in the trunk near her feet and another appeared above her head. A moment later the lid had been pried open and she was squinting at a Japanese man with a straight razor in his hand.
She tried unsuccessfully to dodge when he swung it at her, but instead of going for her throat, he cut her loose from Jon. After a few more deft waves of his blade, she was free enough to pull herself out of the trunk under her own power. He pointed to an SUV stopped near the overturned delivery truck that was backing up traffic, but she refused to move until he’d pulled Jon from the trunk and was carrying him toward the waiting vehicle.
Through the windshields of the cars blocked in around them, she could see that most people were just staring at her in horror. A few others were shaking their phones in frustration as they tried to film the scene. She counted three men still standing, all sweeping MP5s smoothly back and forth, searching for targets. The four men who were in the car she’d been trapped in were all dead. None had even managed to get his door open before taking multiple shots to the head.
She stood behind the man shoving Jon into the back of the SUV, trying to figure out who the hell she was dealing with. By the precision of their attack and the classy setup with the delivery truck, there was no question they were pros—an assumption that was supported by the fact that no one’s phone seemed to be working. The type of gear you needed for that kind of jamming wasn’t something you picked up at Walmart.
But whose pros? Should she make a break for it and let them take Jon with the idea of living long enough to track him down again? Or should she throw in with them?
&n
bsp; The SUV started backing up with the rear door still open. There was no more time.
Running awkwardly with her hands still taped behind her, she dived through the open door and landed on top of Jon, who was sprawled unconscious across the seat. As soon as she was in, the driver floored it into the grass median, speeding around the crippled van and onto the open road beyond. She barely managed to pull her feet in before the acceleration slammed the door closed.
The straight razor was on the floorboard and she slid down to pick it up. A moment later her hands were free and she was carefully cutting the tape off Jon.
The good news was that he was breathing. The bad news was that it was creating a wet, sucking sound that came not only from his throat, but from a reopened wound between his ribs.
“Jon! Can you hear me?”
His eyes fluttered momentarily, but that was about it. She tore his shirt fully open and pressed a wad of cloth against the hole in his side. Beyond that, she wasn’t sure what else she could do.
“Who the hell are you people?” she said, turning to look at the man calmly piloting the vehicle up the road.
By way of an answer, he passed a phone back. It was already in the process of connecting to a number that came up all zeros.
“Hello?” she said, putting it to her ear.
“Hello, Randi.” The voice was unmistakable and not entirely unexpected. Fred Klein.
“You had me followed,” she said, her indignation ringing a bit hollow.
“When I found out you were on your way to the area where Jon was presumed to have died, I was concerned you were looking for revenge instead of pursuing the mission I assigned you.”
She had to admit that it wasn’t a completely unreasonable supposition.
“I have to say,” he continued, “I’m so pleased with what you turned up I can’t even bring myself to be angry at you for doing one of the stupidest and most careless things I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. Now, tell me about Jon’s condition.”
Her mouth tightened but she didn’t protest. In light of what had happened, she was forced to silently admit that Klein might have a small point. “He doesn’t look good.”