“This Baron Tamura’s got to be a real big noise,” said Mischkie. “A shortage of vehicles and gasoline and this guy’s running a full fleet.”
“My guess is the Baron had patrols out looking for Keiko,” said Ballard. “One of the patrols stumbled onto her when she was with the children back at that village. The other patrols are reporting back in.”
Hanklin watched the second vehicle pass onto the castle grounds and turn toward the command post. “You figure that’s our way in?”
The approach of a third vehicle could be heard climbing the rise behind them where the road crested before dropping beneath their position.
“Let’s find out,” Ballard said.
They broke from the crag and started a fast slip-slide descent together through the gathering darkness, toward the road below.
A Japanese infantryman threw open the door of the Kempeitai office with such force that it slammed against the wall, startling Major Okada and his partner, Abiko.
The soldier glared around the office, ascertained that they were its only occupants and nodded to someone in the corridor, then returned to the hallway, leaving the door open.
General Kurita stormed in. Kurita was of slight build. A long-healed sword scar marked the army officer’s face from his left ear to the corner of his mouth, giving it a permanent sneer.
Okada and Abiko both came to their feet.
“General,” Okada began, “you should not have come here.”
Kurita glared at Abiko. “Who is this?”
“He is one of us. He can be trusted.”
“I awaited word from you last night, Okada. I had one thousand men ready to march at my command. It was you who convinced me not to deploy my troops until I had received word from you of the death of MacArthur. Nothing short of that would have decided me to hold back. As late as an hour before dawn, I held my men back, as did the others. And today you do not return my telephone calls, and I must risk everything coming here like this. Much planning has gone into this coup. It cannot fail!”
Okada had spent the day making arrangements for the safe storage of the files he had amassed. He had given a scaled strongbox to the mama-san at the House of One Thousand Joys for safekeeping. She showed him the hole beneath the cellar that only she knew about. He knew he could trust her. She knew what would happen to her if anything happened to the files.
General Kurita’s scar grew livid as he stormed on. “Nothing happened to MacArthur! He is alive! You joined with my group after your falling out with the Baron. I should never have trusted you, Okada. What sort of deceit do you practice?”
“There was an attack on MacArthur’s life,” Okada insisted. “The Baron sent ninja assassins after MacArthur. We have been ordered to investigate Baron Tamura,” Okada lied. “That is why I thought we should avoid contact, General Kurita.”
General Kurita did not curb his torrent of anger.
“You should have told us! Now I have no choice but to strike at the last possible moment before the treaty is signed. We are at a complete disadvantage.” Kurita gripped the handle of his sword. “I would kill you slowly, Okada, but I cannot afford to draw attention to you or to myself, and killing you now would do that. But be warned. If you ever get in my way again, I will kill you slowly. Our coup will succeed!”
Kurita spun about sharply and left the office. The soldier in the corridor went with him.
Abiko sank into the chair behind his desk.
“They are insane to go through with a rebellion at this late date! They will fail. They will die, every one of them.”
“And what makes you think General Kurita does not know this?” Okada asked. “And why should it matter to us? General Kurita’s uprising will serve as a useful diversion for us. We must concern ourselves now with protecting our own interests. It is Baron Tamura who poses the biggest threat to us.”
“What shall we do?”
Okada looked out at the night. “The time has come for us to deal with General Nagano. Then, Baron Tamura.”
And then, Okada thought, Keiko Tamura will belong to me …
They gained a drop-off at the bottom of the slope. The headlights stabbed twin beams into the black sky, seconds short of appearing over the rise. The road passed directly below where they crouched.
The vehicle—open, armored, military but without markings, like the others—crested the hill, exhaust fumes polluting the clean ocean air, and began gaining speed on the descent.
When it passed beneath them, three shadowy figures left the drop-off above the road to land with cat-like grace in the rear of the vehicle.
The two with the driver twisted around in their seats. Mischkie took the one sitting next to the driver. Hanklin killed the man in the back seat.
Ballard crouched beside the driver. His left hand wrapped around the steering wheel to make sure they stayed on the road, his right fisted the .45, touching the muzzle of the pistol to the driver’s temple. The driver’s face spasmed with surprise and fear.
Mischkie and Hanklin opened the side doors of the vehicle and pitched out the corpses of the other two with enough force to send the bodies flopping off the side of the road and into a ravine, well beyond sight of anyone who might be passing by on the road later tonight.
The castle was coming up on their left. Ballard eased back the .45 and gestured forward to the terrified driver, in the direction of the main castle gate. The driver only registered more confusion and some disbelief.
Ballard made his point by cracking the barrel of the pistol across the back of the driver’s head, not with enough force to render him unconscious but enough to hurt some and persuade him to cooperate. He waved again in the direction they were heading. The driver nodded his understanding.
Ballard returned the nod and removed his hand from the steering wheel. He sat in the seat next to the driver and said to the men in back, “One down, one up. Look sharp.”
The driver focused half of his attention on steering and half on the pistol which glinted a dull blue in the dash lights, pointed directly at him.
The walls of the castle towered above.
The driver, a kid of no more than nineteen or twenty, had obviously decided the wisest thing to do was to cooperate. He touched the brakes as they approached the guard station.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As before, the sentry satisfied himself with no more than a glance of familiarity at the vehicle and the indiscernible forms in the dark of three men aboard. He waved them on through, already turning as the vehicle rolled past without coming to a complete stop.
They passed through a stone archway. The driver, as if by habit, started to steer in the direction of the command post at the far wing of the sprawling structure.
There were a dozen or more men in the uniform of Baron Tamura’s private army strolling about over there.
Ballard touched the nose of the .45 against the driver’s sweat-glistening temple and growled warningly. He nodded in the opposite direction, toward a large courtyard that ran the length of the house. The kid behind the wheel obeyed, driving them to a less lighted end of another wing. Ballard motioned the driver to pull over. The driver did so and at further motioning from Ballard, he extinguished the vehicle’s lights and engine.
Hanklin positioned himself in the seat behind the driver, looping his left forearm under the driver’s throat, pulling him back. He brought his combat knife around so the point of the blade was pressing against the base of the driver’s neck.
“Go ahead, Sarge, ask him what we want to know.”
“He’s been out driving since they brought Keiko back,” Ballard said. “He won’t know anything.”
Mischkie positioned himself in the rear of the armored vehicle, looking out.
“Whatever you want to do with him, better snap it up. Some of those punks at the far end are coming this way to investigate why we’re here and not there.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Ballard said.
“What about him?”
Hanklin indicated the driver he still held in the murderous grip.
“Bring him with us. They find him dead and the alarm will go out and we’ll be dead.”
They left the vehicle parked at the end of the wing and exited into the gloom with the driver, while the men striding toward them were still several hundred yards away. The driver was in a state of panic, certain he was about to die.
When they reached the rear of the building, they came to a line of shrubs, inky black against the wall.
Ballard said, “This should do,” and slugged the driver with the barrel of the .45.
Making sure the unconscious form was well hidden beneath and behind the shrubs, they moved out in single file at combat spacing against the back wall, along a stretch of barely illuminated acreage separating the back of the main residence from the outer wall which towered above them. This area was illuminated only by lanterns on posts spaced far apart from each other.
The other side of this wall met the sheer face of the cliff and dropped to the sea churning on the rocks below. Whoever was in charge of the defenses here would think his manpower better deployed elsewhere, and so they encountered no sentries or patrols as they hurried along.
All lights that were on in the main residence were on the second floor. They gained the rear of the far wing which was the command center for Baron Tamura’s private force. At this end would be the living quarters.
What appeared to be a full-scale alert was in progress. The living quarters would most likely be the quietest sector in this sprawling labyrinth of stone.
Ballard eased a look around the corner at the same instant two of the Baron’s force emerged from a door a hundred feet down from the corner. They were uniformed men with rifles slung over their shoulders and they turned and started toward the corner, not seeing Ballard. He drew back from the corner, pressing his back to the wall.
“Two sentries. We need to talk with one of them.”
“Don’t worry, we will,” said Mischkie.
He and Hanklin sprang on the sentries as soon as they cleared the corner. Mischkie grabbed one by his tunic, jerked him around, grabbing his belt and collar and smashing the top of the man’s head into the brick wall.
The sentry’s legs buckled, and he sat down against the wall and commenced snoring softly. Hanklin had the second one by this time, the blade of his knife pressed against the man’s throat.
“Ask away, Sarge.”
Ballard said to the startled man, “Keiko,” as clearly and forcefully as he could. “Keiko Tamura.”
The man did not reply. He shook his head frantically, confused, as if the words did not penetrate.
Ballard grabbed the front of the man’s tunic.
“Keiko Tamura?” he said again, making a question of it. The man shook his head uncomprehendingly, his eyes trying to crawl out of their sockets.
“Maybe you’re just not speaking the lingo right, Sarge,” said Hanklin. He applied the slightest degree of pressure to the knife blade and a single red droplet formed along it. The sentry could not see this, but he felt it. He opened his mouth but before he could scream, Hanklin placed his right hand over the man’s face, palming the scream back down the throat, thumb and forefinger pinching the nostrils, effectively cutting off the intake of oxygen. Hanklin placed his mouth close to the sentry’s ear. “Keiko,” he whispered.
The sentry’s head bobbed up and down and he indicated the doorway he and the other had stepped from.
“At least you’re not dumb all the time, cowboy,” said Mischkie approvingly.
Hanklin released the sentry, shoving him toward Ballard. “There. He understands.”
Ballard grabbed the back of the soldier’s collar and with a straightened arm placed the nose of his pistol against the base of the man’s neck. The soldier led Ballard in the direction of the door.
“Let’s not forget Sleeping Beauty,” said Mischkie.
He leaned down and flung the unconscious sentry over his shoulder.
Hanklin cast a glance along their trail.
“We best get a move on before those boys looking after that truck out front start nosing around back here.”
Inside the doorway was a vestibule, a door to one side and a hallway jutting off in either direction. Before these were stairs leading down. Mischkie opened the door, found a broom closet. He deposited his unconscious load in among the mops and pails.
Ballard continued to press the nose of the .45 against the base of the sentry’s head.
“Keiko.”
The sentry nodded and started ahead toward where the vestibule formed a T to join the main corridor of this wing. Men entered that corridor from somewhere close by, the noise of boot falls and conversation advancing briskly toward the T, one of the men saying something that made the others laugh as they rounded the corner and started down the stairs into the vestibule.
They saw the Americans and their Japanese captive. Laughter gave way to surprise, which gave way to flaring instinctual response.
The dungeon was dank with the smell of mildew and other unpleasant, unidentifiable odors. Light came from a single, low-wattage bulb within a metal wire covering. There were no windows.
She had lost all track of the time. She wished she had her diary with her. It would have at least helped pass the time.
All was quiet except for the squeaking of mice or rats somewhere nearby.
She regretted having been caught and returned, but she did not regret what she had done. She felt a strange peacefulness inside.
Her one real regret was that she had not been able to tell the Americans that it was her uncle they were after and where they could find him.
She thought about Ballard and she thought with a small smile of his companions, Hanklin and Mischkie, but mostly during the time she sat there, losing track of time, she thought about Ballard.
It was easy in Japan these days for a woman to learn to hate men, she thought; hate them for the way they prolonged the war, the way they treated women. There did not seem to her to have been nearly enough men like those courageous men in the village who had joined with their women to diffuse the fighting.
Ballard was a warrior, yes. Every bit as much as the samurai, and yet a lively intelligence functioned beneath that combat-hardened exterior, an innate humaneness that exhibited itself even in a moment of extreme personal hazard, such as when those demobilized soldiers attacked. Outnumbered by an opposing force closing in from separate directions, Ballard had thought about getting those children out of harm’s way.
She was stunned at how quickly her uncle’s men had swooped down upon her after she led the children to safety at that river bank, away from the shooting. Her uncle had long ago taught her the basics of judo and she had thus defended herself for a short time, but it was three to one and when they aimed their rifles at her, she could not be certain the men would not fire, and so she allowed herself to be apprehended.
She hoped John Ballard would know she had not betrayed them, that she had not led them into a trap in that village.
He would know.
A warrior. Fierce, brutal. Caring, humane. A man of direct action. A strong man who cared. That is why I think of him, she told herself. Her uncle and Hayashi and Nagano and Okada … plots, plots, plots. A man like John Ballard could stop Baron Tamura. They were worthy opponents.
It would take direct action. She had tried and failed, and now she was a prisoner while the world teetered between peace and continued strife and suffering and war.
Keiko wondered if she would ever see him again and surprised herself with the realization that she very much wanted to. Or were these emotions only a part of the madness she and the rest of the world were caught up in? Would the feelings pass, as she hoped the madness would pass?
Where is he now? she wondered.
Gunfire startled her from her reverie, brought her to her feet with a quick rise of strange excitement and one word burst from her, unbidden.
“Ballard!
”
There was no time to fall back.
With rifles tracking in their direction, Ballard pushed away the sentry he had been leading and got down on one knee to steady his aim with his .45. Mischkie and Hanklin bellied to the floor and opened fire with their rifles. Those on the landing tripped back and fell under the hail of fire before triggering only a few rounds, most of which went high except for one that caught the man Ballard had shoved.
It ended as quickly as it began, leaving rumbling echoes to rampage throughout the endless labyrinth of the castle.
The echoes faded. Men’s voices could be heard somewhere nearby shouting to each other. Confused reactions to the sounds of this fire fight filled the night.
The wafting blue haze of burnt cordite stung Ballard’s eyes and nostrils. Mischkie slapped a fresh clip into his M-1.
“Guess this sort of cuts down on how long we’ve got to look for the girl.”
“This place is going to be crawling with guys before we know it,” said Hanklin.
“We’ve got to take a look around,” said Ballard. “If there were any more people at this end, they’d be on us already. The Baron’s got his own army. He’ll have holding cells for prisoners. He’ll keep them separate from the rest of the castle. There’s a good chance Keiko is near us right now. We’ve got to take a quick look. If she is, she goes with us.”
“A real quick look,” Mischkie grunted.
Hanklin laughed. “Damn, you do have that little Jap gal on your mind, don’t you, Sarge?”
“I’ve got the mission on my mind,” Ballard said. “Wil, you see what you can find downstairs. Tex, you take that hallway to the left, I’ll take the right. If you find her and can get her out, fine. It’s enough if you can just pin down where they’re holding her. We rendezvous at that truck we left, in,” he glanced at his watch and so did they, “four minutes.”
They split up. Ballard and Hanklin deftly sidestepped the pretzeled bodies by the T. Ballard said, “I’ll take this way,” and he started off down the length of corridor from which the men had come.
Blood Red Sun Page 20