Theatre of War (Matt Drake 28) Tenth Anniversary Novel

by David Leadbeater

Hibiki drove, windscreen wipers set at double speed just to maintain the barest visibility. “I’ve organized you a contact. His name is Saito and he’s an ex-warden of Shin Kudo Prison, the facility to which Zuki—or Mochizuki Chiyome, the princess of the secret Chiyome royal bloodline—was confined. Though an ex-warden, Saito continues to have great sway in Shin Kudo Prison and is willing and able to answer your questions. For a price.”

  Alicia studied a dismal Tokyo as Hibiki made his way through the traffic and around the outskirts of the vast city. At this range, in this storm, it could be any city in the world, its bright lights washed out and diluted by the rain, its skyscrapers cast into shadow.

  Hibiki drove them to a four-bedroomed home at the end of a cul-de-sac outside the city, and pointed to the door. “I’ll wait here.”

  Mai nodded, understanding that Hibiki didn’t want to get too involved. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

  Alicia followed the ex-ninja out into the rain once more as a new set of clouds scudded across the skies. Mai was about to knock on Saito’s door when it opened inward, showing them a bright warm interior and the face of a grizzled older man with long gray hair and sparkling black eyes.

  “Hello,” he said by way of greeting. “I am Saito. Please come in.”

  They followed the older man along a narrow, wood-panelled hallway. Alicia noted the various prints hanging on the walls, all stunning views taken with a top-notch camera. Saito appeared to love walking, freedom and capturing spectacular views. An interesting hobby for an ex-prison guard.

  “Please sit down.”

  Saito showed them to a tasteful living room. Mai and Bryant sank onto a two-seater sofa as Saito took a worn black chair with a small cushion on the seat. Alicia waited by the door, seeing nowhere else to sit inside the room.

  “She’s better in a high-chair if you have one,” Mai said.

  Alicia gave her the finger then dropped it as Saito rose and left the room to fetch a kitchen chair. Once Alicia was settled, the gray-haired man spoke.

  “Hibiki told me that you are here hoping to visit Mochizuki Chiyome. Do you know who she is?”

  Mai nodded. “Leader of the shadow royal family which used to rule Japan. Head of the secret bloodlines. She tried to steal the Four Sacred Treasures and start a civil war.”

  Saito gave a slight bow. “That is close enough. Zuki—as she is commonly known—has not had it easy in prison. The authorities were not happy with her.”

  “And neither were the Yakuza,” Alicia said. “And countless other organized crime syndicates.”

  “The warden has had as much trouble keeping her alive as he has keeping her contained. But the woman didn’t waste her wealth. She has powerful friends, and she can fight as well as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

  “High praise from a prison warden,” Bryant acknowledged.

  Saito smiled a little. “She is unpleasant. Privileged. She believes her kind of royalty—ancient royalty derived from the oldest bloodlines—should rule mere peasants like us with a boot on the neck. She practices that belief. And her subjects love her.” Saito shook his head. “I don’t understand why.”

  Mai inclined her head. “I too was once captive of a clan with similar principles. The Tsugarai.”

  “You are Mai Kitano.” Saito bowed. “Your name is legend, and I am honored to have you in my home.”

  “Can we speak to Zuki?” Alicia asked before the Sprite hero worship got out of hand.

  “Shin Kudo Prison is above maximum security. It is black site, off grid. But it is well populated. The worst of the worst are sent there. I can get you an audience with Her Highness, but I can’t promise a great outcome.”

  Mai smiled at the old man. “Then we are thankful to you.”

  Alicia caught Bryant’s worried look as he drank in Saito’s words. Shin Kudo Prison didn’t sound like his kind of place, but nothing she’d heard bothered Alicia. “We’re in a hurry,” she said. “Can you get us in tonight?”

  “The prison never sleeps,” Saito said. “I can get you in right now.”

  *

  “Looks pretty standard.” Alicia sniffed.

  Bryant turned to her with a grimace.

  Mai spoke up: “Alicia has visited, stayed in and broken out of several jails in her celebrated past, mostly for fun, an adrenalin kick or just to shag the boss.”

  Bryant’s eyes rose several inches.

  “Oh, didn’t you know? That’s Alicia’s signature move. And you want us all to come work for you at Glacier.” Mai chuckled and walked away, leaving Alicia and Bryant alone. Alicia glared at the Sprite’s back.

  “One day,” she breathed. “One day I’m gonna—”

  “Don’t worry,” Bryant said. “At Glacier, you’d have to form a line to get close to the boss.”

  Alicia sighed, wondering where the sleaze Bryant ended, and the real man began. She hadn’t seen what Mai saw. Not yet. And come to that, she’d forgotten how taxing a few hours with the Sprite could be. But who was worse—Mai or Bryant? They were made for each other.

  Shin Kudo Prison rose from the gloom of predawn, an ugly brick structure set at the foot of a tall hill. Brightly lit, fully-manned towers beat back the dark at regular intervals along the castle-like walls. The front gate was an intricate, bleak design of iron and barbed wire.

  Alicia followed the other two as they approached the walls, stopped at a gate tower and presented credentials and papers. It was a desolate, depressing place, designed only to keep the worst away from the rest of humanity, and in the quiet of predawn it lay in silence, like a nightmare at rest.

  Every time she entered a prison, Alicia felt a kind of nervous tension. Something niggling at the back of her mind that warned her she might not get out, that they might keep her inside by mistake, that she might stay there forever. She wasn’t sure where the feeling came from, maybe a fear originating from a lifetime of searching for the next horizon. Of searching for freedom.

  A prison guard dressed in black body armor led them inside. Alicia waited as again Mai presented their credentials.

  They were led through a secure door, down a narrow passage and then through several gates which needed remote unlocking before negotiating a series of interlocking corridors that totally flummoxed Alicia’s bearings.

  “Don’t know whether I’m facing east, west or upside bloody down,” she breathed as they walked.

  “Typical night for you then,” Mai bit back.

  “You should know, Sprite. You were with Drake before he dumped your skinny ass.”

  Mai stopped then, without turning, but thought better of forcing a confrontation and started walking again. Bryant didn’t react at all.

  Alicia sighed and followed the pair, traversing several more shiny, clinically clean corridors before stopping outside a rectangular barred gate. Through the bars Alicia could see a wide aisle with prison cells to both sides. The walls here were made of pitted old stone, as if the outer structure had been built against a much older building, possibly even a pre-war prison.

  Seconds later they were through.

  Arms snaked out between bars and female faces loomed up behind them. A couple of whistles shrilled out, followed by a curse and a threat.

  Another ten minutes and two more aisles full of cells passed before their guide stopped. Alicia had the distinct impression they were being led into the bowels of the prison where only the outcasts were kept, the ones that couldn’t be saved: killers, traffickers, and those the government wanted forgotten.

  “Here,” their guide said, waving at a cell door and clearly not a master of English.

  Alicia stepped up to a barred window and peered inside. “So this is what happened to Zuki after she lost the Four Sacred Treasures. I wouldn’t want to be her.”

  The cell was large, as befitted a royal, but all the noble trappings ended there. Its walls were pitted stone, its ceiling the same. There were no windows, no heating, and no toilet. Just a bucket and a stone platform for a bed. No blan
kets. No pillow.

  Zuki sat against a side wall, legs drawn up for warmth, wearing a dirty coat which reminded Alicia of what was once called a donkey jacket—a worker’s unlined garment of scratchy wool—that reached her knees. Zuki was barefoot, her once-luscious long hair hanging limp and filthy, the visible parts of her hands red and swollen, the knuckles bloody.

  From underneath her hair, Alicia saw glittering eyes. Zuki was watching them.

  “Dunno about the Scourge,” Alicia whispered. “She looks like the bloody Grudge.”

  Mai entered the jail cell first, followed by Bryant. Alicia remained at the back, keeping an eye on their guide, again fighting an irrational fear that he might just lock them inside and throw away the key.

  “Guests,” Zuki spoke in a harsh, weary rasp. “You should bow or kiss my feet.”

  Mai walked closer. “Do you remember me?”

  “Remember you?” Zuki looked up now, hair falling away from a feral face and hard, murderous eyes. “I spend my days planning the most painful way to flay you alive.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Alicia, conscious that a whole day had passed since they left American shores, stepped up beside Mai. “Quit with the threats, bitch. We need your help.”

  Zuki’s face took on a satisfying half-confused, half-surprised expression. “What?”

  “Information has come to light,” Mai said. “Information that relates to a certain secret organization called the Scourge.”

  Zuki’s shoulders relaxed, her entire body appearing to unwind, as if this was precious information she’d been waiting to hear since the infamous day of her incarceration. “At last,” she said. “I have permitted everything in here. Waited and bided my time. I have endured hell in preparation for this news. Thank you for bringing it to me.”

  Mai frowned. “We didn’t come here to advise you. We’re not your subjects. We came here to learn the Devil’s plan.”

  “The Devil? A sad loss. He was such a great artist.”

  Alicia gestured toward the cell in general. “This doesn’t befit you. A royal princess. Even a spoiled brat. I guess they haven’t been treating you well?”

  “They take canes to the soles of my feet. Feed me rotting slop. Hand me their urine to drink. But they dare not lay their hands on me. It could be far worse.”

  “We can ease your daily suffering,” Mai said. “Even settle you into a fairer prison where you have a window and time alone outside. We can help.”

  “You just gave me the best news I could ever have hoped for. You can go now.”

  Alicia walked forward until she stood just a few feet away from Zuki, her boots close to the woman’s bare toes. “We know that the Devil planned your escape attempt,” she said, smiling. “That’s all over now. You’re probably sitting there thinking some strategy is unfolding that will end with your freedom. Sorry to disappoint, but it won’t happen. Do you hear me?”

  Zuki pulled herself upright with an effort, until she was face-to-face with Alicia. “The Devil did far more than plan my escape. He was a member of the Scourge. He planned the roadmap to the breaking of the world. To the Scourge’s ascendence. First, they will disable America, then China, and then Europe.”

  “But how?” Mai interrupted. “How will they try to do that?”

  “By turning them into theatres of war.” Zuki’s smile was evident even under the filth lining her face. “Incapacitate them. Bring them to their knees. And then the Scourge will rise up as the ultimate power, as they were once before.”

  But for the fact that she knew the Devil had planned all this, Alicia might have thought little of the claims. She might have dismissed it. The words “as they were once before” jabbed at her brain.

  “How?” Mai asked again. “How will they do it? What’s the plan?”

  Zuki backpedaled until her back was to the wall. “Only one scenario exists in which I will tell you what you need to know.”

  “Which is?” Bryant spoke for the first time.

  “You say the Devil’s plan to free me has been neutralized? Someone found out?”

  Alicia recalled that Hibiki had informed Mai of the Devil’s plan a while ago, when they were involved in the Devil’s Island mission. Since then, the Devil had died, and the authorities had plenty of time to thwart any covert plans.

  Zuki was clearly important to the Scourge. But why? She’d been a leading member of one of the most influential shadow families of the royal bloodline of Japan. She’d been thirty-five, elegant, tall and wealthy. Now she was interrogated on a daily basis by those seeking to find the source to her wealth, any siblings that might exist, and much more.

  She’d maimed and killed without care or refrain during her reign as royal princess, seeking power and dominion over the other royal bloodlines, and this was a form of retribution. The Japanese government hadn’t been able to touch her for thirty-five years, and now she was their prisoner.

  But Zuki Chiyome had consolidated, performed and negotiated very well while in jail. She still had influence, money and power and she had an ultimate wonderful plan to unite the samurai, ninja clans and all the shadow royal bloodlines of Japan. The mayhem, bloodshed and death it would cause was positively delightful. Alicia knew all of this from Hibiki’s original report.

  “Months ago,” she said. “The Devil’s plan was thwarted months ago. Whatever you’ve been waiting for, it’s never going to happen.”

  Zuki rubbed her face, smearing the filth, eyes now fixed on the floor. “Then you must break me out,” she whispered. “I can help you. I know every target and the perpetrators of the six attacks. America will be first and, since you are here, it will be soon. Free me... and I will give you the roadmap.”

  Alicia almost laughed before noticing how serious Mai looked. “We can’t do that,” she said. “They won’t let you out of here while you’re still breathing.”

  “Free me and I will owe you. I will give you the roadmap to America’s destruction.”

  Free her? Alicia knew the only way to free Zuki—ever—was to break her out. It was laughable, except that...

  Mai was staring at her. “She’s the only one with the roadmap. We can’t identify the Scourge. The President’s out of reach. The Devil’s long dead. And she won’t reveal any other plans or players unless we free her.”

  Alicia let out a long breath. “How the hell would we break the bitch out? This place is a fortress, a maze and a death trap.”

  Mai faced Zuki once more. “Please,” she said. “Tell us what you know, and I promise that we’ll find you better accommodation. A better life.”

  “The only life I want is the one I was born to lead,” Zuki said. “Of nobility. Of sovereignty. I was born to rule this country and its peasant population.”

  “Is that a no?” Alicia asked sarcastically. “ ’Cause you never answered our question.”

  “No,” Zuki said. “Kiss my ass. Fuck right off. I’ll reveal the roadmap on the outside, and not until then.”

  Mai turned away, leaving Zuki to her grime and misery. Alicia went with her. They went all the way out of Shin Kudo Prison, and drove back to their hotel. Not once in the entire journey did they speak.

  *

  “I don’t see another way.” Mai was in deep conversation with Drake and the others, holding the phone at arm’s length and using her loudspeaker. “It’s a desperate move for a desperate situation. Have you got anywhere?”

  Drake’s Yorkshire twang filled the room. “No, love. Karin’s got her NSA ears to the ground. Michael Crouch is using every contact he’s ever made. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is trawling everything from global communications to backstreet snitches for data. And so far... bugger all.”

  “Then we have no choice.”

  “You aim to break into Shin Kudo, grab Zuki, and break her out in the next few days?” Dahl asked. “I must say, I admire your daring and wish I was there to help.”

  “Me too.” Mai sighed. “But I don’t think the answer lies in breaking int
o the prison. There’s too much risk and innocent guards would get killed.”

  “Then what’s your plan?” Hayden asked.

  “I go in as a prisoner. Saito could arrange it. I then grab Zuki and break her out, with or without the warden’s help, but preferably with. If Alicia and Bryant work for me on the outside, I’m sure I can get Zuki out of there.”

  Drake whistled. Dahl laughed in appreciation. Hayden cleared her throat before she replied, probably buying time to think. “My instinct is to say no, but, as things stand...”

  “We have no leads, no time, and no help,” Kinimaka said. “Any moment now, America could come under attack and, by all accounts, it’s gonna be bad.”

  “And Zuki’s promised to reveal the entire roadmap,” Mai said.

  “But if she doesn’t?” Drake asked. “If you break her out and she refuses to help?”

  “Then I’ll kill her,” Mai said. “And she knows it.”

  “And I’ll help,” Alicia put in.

  “It’s the start of your second day over there,” Hayden said. “You’re in command of your own op. I suggest you decide what’s best and get on with it.” She didn’t sound happy, but she did sound determined.

  Mai agreed and ended the call before turning to Bryant and Alicia. She was sitting on the edge of the hotel room’s double bed, facing them. Alicia was lounging in a corner as Bryant relaxed in a flower-pattern chair.

  “What do you think?” she asked them.

  “We call Saito,” Bryant replied. “We get you in. And then we arrange the biggest distraction we can organize in a couple of days. How long will you need inside?”

  “Two days,” Mai said. “But I’ll be depending on you to get us away from the prison. And then we’ll need time to hear what Zuki has to say.”

  “Not a problem,” Alicia said. “We can do that.”

  Mai held the Englishwoman’s eyes. “I’ve never been in prison before,” she said. “Not as an inmate at least. Any tips?”

  “Yeah, a big one,” Alicia said in worried tones. “Don’t be yourself.”