“Move!” John yelled, and his men poured in, some from the oak tree, others from the rear, pulling out an entire section of fencing with their four-wheel drive truck. And the welder cut a neat square in the fencing near John, allowing the rest of them to stream inside.
* * *
Ross had followed the tracks around a long, curving descent. He heard the sound of water as he neared a growing light and knew he must be near the exit. Just in case, he pulled his Glock as he rounded the last curve. A railed mine car was being efficiently unloaded, the workers so intent they didn’t see him. Bags were being piled into what looked like a jet boat, idling on a curve of the Colorado, the driver occasionally firing it up to keep it from drifting in the rough water.
With one glance, Ross saw that the cave had been tunneled to this wide bend in a way nature never intended. Even the cliffside cut had been concealed, by the look of the heavy branches tossed to the side of the exit.
Ross stepped up directly behind them. “Your hands up. You’re under arrest.” The driver bleated and gunned the motor. With two shots, Ross took out the two rear engines, leaving the boat adrift. The two workers on the riverbank didn’t even put up a fight. They both held up their hands.
Ross cuffed them together. Then he ripped a radio from the belt of one of them and dialed the frequency he knew.
* * *
Inside the ring, Hana was too busy fighting for her life to notice anything outside this little square of reality. She didn’t see Zach’s hand shaking as he hesitated, his aim true at Kai’s back. She deflected yet another of Kai’s strikes, but so weakly this time that her blade trembled.
Zach knew if he pulled the trigger, killing her enemy from behind, she’d never forgive him. He also knew it was a coward’s act. Any cop who shot a man in the back faced a battery of investigation, no matter the circumstances. But the bitter truth was that his own safety wasn’t in imminent danger. Kai didn’t even have a gun.
But it wasn’t the reality of law-enforcement protocol that stayed his hand.
It was love for Hana.
He loved her exactly as she was, with flaws of vanity and insecurity and stubbornness, counterweighted by pride and honor and bravery. He could not adore her for those gifts, and then deny her the right to use them. He put the gun back in his holster.
This was her destiny, bestowed on her by the honor of many Nakatomis. It was a choice a direct descendant of William Barrett Travis could understand. If he had to watch her die to share that destiny with her, he would do so.
But he could better arm her. Just as he turned toward the rear, he felt something hard and vicious conk him in the skull. He fell, a roaring in his ears, and then he knew nothing. The time on his watch clicked past 0600 but he didn’t see it. Or note that he was searched and relieved of his grenades.
* * *
Inside the armored truck, which had been pulled for safety deeper into the trees, Takeo—with several sentries guarding him—was having so much fun watching all the monitors and fancy gauges he forgot to be mad. He comprehended, as only a child of the digital age could, that these weird uniformed men had access to devices even his father lacked. He kept up a spate of questions to the tech operator. That young man tried to answer patiently as he listened to his audible, viewed his visuals, and then recorded and tweaked his equipment as necessary.
Finally, as 0600 came and went, Abigail gently pulled Takeo next to her on the seat. “Let the man do his work, little boy. He’s going to help save your mama, so we mustn’t distract him.” She patted the “little boy’s” shoulder awkwardly when he glared at her.
“I’m not little,” he said sullenly. “I know how to fight.” He scooted farther away on the seat. “My mama told me not to talk to strangers.” Folding his arms over his chest, he stared over her head.
Her hand shrinking away, Abigail cleared her throat a bit uneasily. That stalwart lady, having faced down international drug dealers, murderers, and the occasional lying lover, looked at Takeo as if he had two heads. No glib words would come; for once in her life she was totally at a loss.
* * *
Outside, John’s men approached the compound in crouching, zigzag patterns, expecting fire to rain down on them from every position. No response but eerie quiet. When they reached the house, they saw metal shutters lowered over every possible opening. They tried firing at the bottom where the latches should be, but dangerous ricochets made them stop.
“Holy hell,” John muttered. “This stuff is bulletproof.” He grabbed the radio at his belt, but before he could call for the cutting torch, it crackled.
A familiar voice said through static: “John?—there? It’s Ro—” John tweaked his radio and Ross’s voice came in more clearly. “I’m here, Ross. Have y’all set off the flash bangs and tear gas? We’re trying to get inside, but the bastard’s wrapped up tight behind heavy metal shutters.”
“Forget the front of the house,” Ross said more clearly. “Go to the old windmill. There’s a hatch that leads straight down. A left takes you to a hole in the hillside to the Colorado. He was loading everything to make a clean getaway. There’s a jet boat drifting downstream loaded with evidence. I disabled it. A right takes you into the main cavern.”
John looked at the head of the Travis County SWAT team. He nodded and used his own radio to call for a chopper.
“Where’s Zach?” John demanded. He, along with the rest of his team who obeyed his arm wave toward the windmill, ran as fast as he could away from the house toward the whirring blades of the old-fashioned water windmill.
“He went the other way. I haven’t heard any gunfire or explosions. He went to find Hana.”
“Why hasn’t he deployed the grenades?” John’s heart was beating fast now, and not with exertion.
“I don’t know,” Ross said curtly. “I’ll make my way back into the main cavern from this end as soon as someone takes these guys into custody. Over and out.”
* * *
Meanwhile, once Ernie was sure Takeo was safe with Abigail, he’d given her a cheery wave and moved back toward the hatch. He hesitated. The entire cavern would soon be crawling with law-enforcement personnel and he knew Zach must already be there, doing what he could to help Hana.
Ernie had debated following, but he knew his skill set was most valuable in another area. It would aid the entire incursion more than just another set of... feet. Ruefully, Ernie looked down at his hands in the growing light, hoping he could type.
Then he turned toward his own bedroom window. He’d planned this, just in case, during one of Kai’s drills. Ernie drew back his long leg and kicked high and true. The bolts he’d loosened at the bottom gave way as the metal bent. Another couple of kicks and he could squeeze inside.
* * *
Inside the ring, Kai had just made a lucky strike at Hana’s right cheekbone, enough to barely graze her, when his movement in the ring led him around enough to see Zach’s inert form and his jubilant sentry, his hand cradling an obviously sore stomach, standing over him. Breathing heavily, Kai stepped back, allowing Hana to swipe at the blood on her face with her sleeve. “Do you want to stop? Do you yield Takeo and the blade to me?”
“You can cut off my nose and both my ears, but I yield to you neither,” she said between deep breaths. She was breathing more quickly than he was.
He turned away, hiding his smile of glee. If his men could hold off the approaching cops and Rangers—he glanced at his watch—for another twenty minutes, he should be able to get away with his cash just as the bomb blew, burying them all. He’d save as many of his men as he could, but they had sworn loyalty to him until death, and he would hold them to it. He already had plans in motion to get Takeo back. There had been a flicker of light when the power was cut, and then the backup solar generator came on, powering only the interior of the house and the most strategic lighting and systems inside the cavern.
The assault had begun. Their timing was perfect.
Kai looked around to be s
ure his men were in position, but then frowned. He saw the barricades, but no one peeking above them. He peered down the corridor, expecting to see rifles braced against the cave walls, but there was nothing. He saw no evidence of activity except for the three guards around the prone Ranger.
Kai was perturbed, wondering if he’d forgotten part of his own strategy, but for now he was too busy to chastise the laggards. As for Hana . . . of her fate he would not think. He’d rather leave her marked for life, missing her son, than leave her to be killed in the cave-in, but for now, the blade had to be his priority.
He jumped down from the ring, ordering his men to keep Hana where she was. Several AK-47s pointed in her direction, but she was bent over, her hands on her knees, gasping for breath, and scarcely seemed to notice.
Then Kai was standing over Zach’s inert form. He kicked him in the side. Zach groaned, and his eyes opened, uncannily blue in the blacking on his face. He blinked rapidly and then focused on Kai’s face.
For good measure, Kai kicked him again. “Give me the blade, or die.”
Zach sat up, groaning, and pulled the red-wrapped katana from the side of his harness. He offered it to Kai, as if terrified. Kai noted his guns were missing and he saw the grenades his men had moved out of Zach’s reach. He accepted the blade, totally distracted by the feel of it. A split-second later Kai realized his men had missed one of Zach’s defenses when they frisked him because he’d been lying on his back.
With a speed that shocked Kai, Zach pulled a wicked knife from his back sheath and stabbed the knife in Kai’s black-slippered foot. He drew it out to stab again, but one of his men grabbed the knife first.
Immediately, guns pointed at Zach from every quarter, and the knife was turned back on him.
But Kai held up his hand. “No! It’s just a scratch. I want him to watch what I do to her. Guard him.” They hauled Zach to his feet, guns jabbing into him from both sides. The man Zach had disabled earlier was on his right, half turned so he could watch the action in the ring.
Despite his bravado, Kai limped slightly as he walked back toward Hana. As he went, he removed the red silk from the katana, baring the unremarkable black-lacquered sheath.
Just as he reached the ring and bent to climb inside, Zach stomped his foot down on the foot of the man to his right, simultaneously jabbing his elbow into his other assailant’s side. When both men stumbled, the assault rifles lowering, he wrenched the real Nakatomi blade from his old foe’s sheath. With him bent in pain, it was easy to grab.
He yelled, “Hana! Catch!” and tossed the heavy blade into the ring.
It landed at Hana’s feet. Then everything happened at once.
* * *
Inside the ring, Hana looked up, seeing Zach for the first time. She realized Zach must have switched the blades when he’d fought with Kai’s second in command, knowing the man would return to his master. She saw Kai limping and Zach grabbing at an assault rifle. She tried to warn him about the bomb, but before she could speak, Zach was too busy to listen. He was struggling with both his assailants, managing to kick one rifle away, but the other moved dangerously close to his side. Then a third man walked up behind him and whacked him on the skull with the butt of his gun. Again, Zach went down, and this time he stayed down.
Hana looked at the black sheath at her feet, the hilt slightly exposed as it loosened in its casing when it landed. She recognized it immediately and was able to grab it and unsheathe it just as Kai climbed through the ropes.
Hana only had time for one worried look at Zach’s long form before Kai was inside the ring.
He was white with fury, and she saw from his expression that he, too, had read Zach’s switch too late to stop it. He drew the katana in his hand free of a very similar-looking sheath. It was a good blade, but not remarkable.
He looked at Hana, and finally, there was death in his eyes. “Give me the blade, you bitch.”
With her family’s legacy in her grasp, Hana stood straight, stronger and somewhat rested. “Come and get it.” The blade gleamed as she held it in one capable hand.
* * *
John and his men were moving as quietly as they could down the corridor toward the noise they could hear. He’d sent five deputies in the other direction to relieve Ross, but most of his force would be needed to fight against Kai and his men.
John was still worried because he saw no evidence of either tear gas or flash bangs. That meant Zach had been captured, killed, or disabled.
His cheek working, John pulled off his gas mask. At his gesture, they all removed their masks. Moving even more stealthily, they separated into two forces, one along each wall.
They’d only gone a short way around another curve when they saw black-garbed men walking toward them. The Rangers raised their guns and to their shock, the men—silent as wraiths—dropped their own weapons one by one at their feet and raised their hands.
What the hell? John wondered. He counted. Must be twenty of them. At least. They seemed very eager to be taken into custody, moving as one toward the left entrance, in a way that made John suspicious.
Like they wanted to escape the cavern....
* * *
Inside the ring, Hana raised the blade, gripping it with both hands in the classic samurai pose: arms bent, knees slightly flexed, preparing to strike.
Kai moved fluidly despite a slight limp, and faked a right-hand downward diagonal, spinning at the last minute on his good foot to morph into a side strike toward her rib cage.
This time, Hana read him and leaped sideways, at the same time striking back underhanded to catch his blade and force it upward. The two blades rang loudly in the cavern, but Kai’s vibrated slightly. Hana’s held true. Before he had time to recover, she used her blocking momentum to continue in the same direction with a strike at his nearest appendage—his leg, extended in his lunge. He moved to block her strike, but a split-second too late. She felt the Nakatomi blade penetrate the meat of his thigh before he stumbled out of range.
He faltered, blood oozing, shiny but still dark, on the nylon of his tight pants. He backed away another step, limping on his bad foot.
Hana looked down and saw that his foot had opened too, and he was leaving bloody footprints with every step. The blade drooped slightly in her slack grip. “Stop, Kai. This is enough. They’re coming. Give yourself up. If you do, I promise I’ll bring Takeo to see you in prison.”
Immediately, his own slightly lowered blade raised to strike. She should have known better than to tell him that, but there was no time to say anything more.
Only then did she realize how he’d been holding back. Wounded, bleeding from two spots, he weaved a wall of impregnable steel with his inferior blade. She backed up, studying his timing. She didn’t dare look away, even for an instant, but she thought she heard sounds down the corridor.
She moved left, right, blocking his furious blows at her side and even one upward diagonal that would have cleaved her in two. The Nakatomi blade sang as its tensile strength caught and deflected the force of his two-handed blows. Still, while the steel rang true, only by backing up each time could she fully fend off the strikes by lengthening his range.
Then she was against the ropes. She had no more room to move.
Even Kai was gasping now. Only she heard his puff of venom, “If I die, you die . . .”
He’d heard the men arriving too.
She lifted the blade just in time to block his full body blow aimed at her midsection. His own steel glanced off hers, and his blade bounced away, cutting into her sleeve as it went.
Vaguely, Hana sensed frantic activity all around, but she had no time for anything but to stare at the twisted, perspiring face of her son’s father. She sensed the Rangers had the upper hand even though she didn’t dare peek, but one look in Kai’s dead, dark eyes and she knew.
Just as she’d predicted, either he died or she died.
There was no compromise.
Regrouping the last of her energy, Hana, fo
r the first time in her life, used one of Kai’s underhanded tricks. As he gripped his hilt more tightly, raising his sword for a final head strike—arms bent, blade lifted high—she brought her own booted heel down, hard, on his wounded foot, which he’d had to brace to gain power for the blow.
His elbows lost some of their strength as he stumbled slightly. The blade fell toward her.
Smoothly, she used the movement she’d made to stomp his foot to gather all the power in her body in the upward right diagonal, her strongest stroke. Leaning slightly toward her and off balance, Kai still tried to block, but her powerful steel glanced off his sword and struck true. The Nakatomi katana, like the five-body blade it was, cleaved Kai from his hip in one stroke, diagonally upward through gristle, muscle and bone, excising organs and intestines as it sliced. Her perfect cut exited at the clavicle on the opposite side of his body. His blade fell to the mat.
A strange look of shock on his face, he fell apart before her eyes, the upper left part of his body moving in one direction, the right half going the opposite way in a greasy slither. He was dead before he hit the ground. In pieces. Quite literally. Blood jetted in a growing pool, forcing Hana to jump back to avoid it.
She fell to one knee, panting so hard she had to lean on the blade to help support herself or fall into the red mess oozing into the mat. Then Zach was there, using antiseptic wipes at her cheek and arm. It stung, but revived her enough to smile at him.
A bright smile showed her white teeth. “You saved my life by getting me the blade. And you stabbed Kai too? Didn’t you? In the foot?”
Zach only nodded.
Finally, still panting, she looked around. To her shock, she was stared at from every quarter. All types of law-enforcement personnel gawked at her: deputies, SWAT, Texas Rangers. She was puzzled why they looked at her so strangely. But equally odd, she didn’t see any of Kai’s men. She hadn’t heard a single shot . . .
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