Ninja Assault

The matter was decided when the vehicle turned in Bolan’s rearview, clipped a motorcyclist and came charging after him.

CHAPTER THREE

Sunrise Enterprises

Noboru Machii watched his soldiers zipping bodies into heavy plastic bags and cursed them for their awkwardness.

Red-faced with exertion and humiliation, they worked faster, well aware that the police and firefighters would soon be pouring through the doors downstairs, searching the premises for any trace of fire. In fact, Machii understood, the smoke had been a ruse, but he could not tell that to the authorities. It raised too many questions that he did not wish to answer—most particularly with two corpses in the place and one up on the roof.

What would he do with those?

There was a garbage chute on each floor of the building he had rented as his local headquarters. Rubbish went down the chute, into a basement garbage bin, where he had another pair of soldiers waiting to receive their lifeless comrades. From the bins, they would be consigned to basement lockers while the search went on—no reason anyone should think the lockers harbored flammable materials—then from lockers into car trunks and away, when it was clear for transport.

While he waited for the law, Machii mulled the news he’d heard from one of his survivors on the roof. Someone—their prowler, who had killed three of his men—had cut the building’s trunk line, killing power, and had cut his way into the building’s main air-conditioning vent, inserting some kind of device to generate smoke. From there, he’d blasted through the rooftop access door, set off the fire alarm and gone about his bloody work.

But what was that?

Two dead men in the corridor outside his office, with his bedroom door wide open, let the crime boss piece together what had happened. Halfway to the street, descending on the service stairs, he had smelled something fishy, as the gaijin liked to say, and he’d begun the climb back to the top floor, taking soldiers with him. Standing in his empty, smoky office, he’d felt slightly foolish for a moment—until all hell had broken loose.

Now he was certain someone had been in his office, standing at his desk perhaps, or riffling through his files. A glance had shown no sign of any locks picked on the filing cabinets, but Machii wouldn’t know until he had more time and privacy.

And, naturally, he would have to tell his oyabun about the raid.

But not just yet.

Before he broke bad news to Tokyo, Machii hoped to mitigate the damage. When his soldiers caught the man responsible, Machii would have answers. If they took the man alive, he would inevitably spill his motives and the names of his employers. If they had to kill him…well, in spite of the old saying, sometimes dead men did tell tales.

Both corpses were inside their bags now, and his men were hoisting them, scuttling like peasants toward the garbage chute. Above, the soldier cut down on the rooftop had already slithered to the basement in his own rubber cocoon and should be safe inside a locker now. As for the bloodstains on the runner outside his office…

“Kenji!”

“Yes, sir!” his soldier answered.

“We require an explanation for these stains that will deceive the police. Do you understand?”

Young Kenji nodded, but his blank expression made it clear he understood nothing.

“You came to check on me,” Machii said, coaching him. “As you approached the office, you collided with another member of the staff. Sadly, your nose was broken by the impact and you bled on to the carpet.”

“Sir?”

Before the puzzled frown had time to clear, Machii slammed a fist into the soldier’s nose, felt cartilage give way and caught him as he staggered, doubling Kenji over at the waist and holding him in place while bright blood drained from his nose, soaking into the older stains.

“Good man. That should be adequate. You serve the family with honor. Now, remember what we talked about.”

“Yes, sir!”

It would be an hour, likely more, before Machii finished with the investigators, then more time to get an electrician on the job, restoring power to the office block. By then, he hoped to have the prowler in his hands and know exactly what in hell was happening.

* * *

South Dover Avenue

THE FIRST CROSS street in Bolan’s way was Ventnor Avenue, with traffic lights and people crossing at the corner. Checking out the chase car in his rearview one more time—it was a black sedan, of course, the model indeterminate—he slowed enough to judge the two-way traffic pattern up ahead, and let a couple of pedestrians get closer to the curbs on either side, then floored his gas pedal and blasted through the intersection. He was mindful of stores to the right, then houses, as he braced himself for sudden impact if he had miscalculated.

More horns blared at him, tires squealed, but nothing slammed into the Civic as he cleared Ventnor and shot across to North Dover. No deviation in the street’s beeline toward water, but a slightly altered name for the convenience of police or postal workers. Bolan flicked another glance behind him, through the rearview, and was disappointed when the chase car made it through the intersection as he had, all in one piece.

What were the odds that someone passing by on Ventnor, having been surprised or frightened, would take time to phone the cops? Bolan pegged it at fifty-fifty, if he and the Yakuza pursuing him had pissed off somebody enough to make it worth the time and effort.

The response time, if they did call?

Bolan had done his homework, memorized the basic layout of Atlantic City and the landmarks that were meaningful to him. Police department headquarters was on Atlantic Avenue, at Marshall Street, three-quarters of a mile to the northeast. There would be cruisers closer to the waterfront, of course, but any calls would still be routed through the cop shop, and back to the street via dispatchers.

Say five minutes until the word came through on some patrolman’s radio or one of those computer terminals that could be found in most prowl cars today. From there, the hypothetical responding officers would need another five minutes, at least, to reach the scene of the disturbance, now two hundred feet behind Bolan as he approached the next stoplights, at Sussex Avenue.

He caught the green this time, a lucky fluke, and ran with it, spotting a gap in southbound traffic as he cleared the intersection, passing one slow driver on the left and slipping back into the proper lane before the startled stranger saw him coming. Bolan’s trackers tried the same thing, but a bus got in their way and slowed them.

He used that interruption to his own advantage, putting on more speed, continuing past stores on either side to Norsex Avenue, the next-to-last cross street before he reached the waterfront. He’d have a choice to make at Winchester, go left or right, decide which part of Chelsea Harbor he would turn into a battleground.

It was another guessing game. He knew the area from an online mapping service, its detailed maps and zoom-in aerials that let him count the cars in any given parking lot, but only real-time passage on the streets would let him choose a kill zone. Bolan knew what to avoid: popular restaurants, a shopping mall or multiplex. Beyond that, it was all decided in a heartbeat, as he judged a scene in person, from the ground.

Traffic was light on Norsex, and he cleared it on the yellow light, leaving the hunters on his tail to jump the red. They made it, with a near-miss from a Pepsi truck, and came on strong.

Winchester Avenue was dead ahead.

Beyond it, in a few more moments, someone would be dead and gone.

* * *

“MOVE IT!” ENDO EISHIN SNAPPED.

“I’m hurrying, goddamn it!” Ken Tadayoshi answered from the driver’s seat.

In back, Aoshi Yoshikage asked, “Where the hell is he going?”

“I don’t know,” Tadayoshi spit. “Shut up and let me drive!”

Eishin knew that was good advice, but he still couldn’t let it go. “We’re losing him!”

“He’s right there!” Tadayoshi told him, lifting one hand off the steering wheel to point, his index finger jabbing at the windshield. “See?”

Eishin could see, all right. He saw the car speeding ahead of them, and he could also see the future, if they let the gunman slip away. Noboru Machii would be furious, demanding restitution for their failure. If he let them live, a sacrifice would be required.

Eishin’s left hand, clutching the Ithaca Model 37 Stakeout shotgun in his lap, looked oddly lopsided at first glance. A closer look revealed the first two segments of the little finger to be missing, severed by his own hand in the ritual of yubitsume—“finger shortening”—and solemnly presented to the bosses he’d offended by his failure to perform as they required.

Two relatively minor errors. Two small sacrifices to the family.

What would Noboru Machii order if they let the man who’d killed their brothers get away? Perhaps a hand in recompense? Or possibly a life?

The better way was to complete the job they’d been assigned, capture the gunman and bring him back alive if that was possible. From what he’d seen at Sunrise Enterprises, Eishin did not like their chances of succeeding on that score, but if they killed the rotten son of a bitch, that would be the next best thing.

Some satisfaction for their boss, at least, and they would not have failed.

He swiveled in his seat, peering at Yoshikage and Kanehira next to him, both holding short assault rifles. And smiling, as if this were just one of the damned video games they loved to play at any given opportunity. They looked like morons, sitting there.

“Listen to me,” he cautioned them. “This guy is good. Professional. He took our brothers down like they were nothing. Take no chances with him. If we cannot capture him alive—”

“We waste his ass!” Kanehira chimed in, grinning like a monkey with a fresh banana in his hand.

“Smoke him!” Yoshikage said, smiling from ear to ear.

Eishin despaired of his men, sometimes. The young ones coming up these days were rash and often reckless, straining at their leashes until something stopped them short. In his day, not so long ago, the discipline was paramount and rigidly enforced. There’d been no second chances, as attested by his own truncated flesh.

“Just follow orders,” he advised the backseat soldiers, glowering. “This isn’t one of your video games.” They blinked at that, as he pressed on. “If you get shot out here, there are no do-overs. You don’t jump up and start again. Understand?”

Both nodded their understanding, looking chastened, but Eishin had a sense that they would smirk at him, the moment that his back was turned. Dismissing them from his mind, he turned back toward the chase and saw their quarry crossing Winchester, continuing toward Phyllis Avenue.

It was to be the eastern side of Chelsea Harbor, then, where they would run him down and take him, one way or another.

“Faster!” Eishin ordered, and ignored the growl from the driver, focused on his prey.

* * *

THE ONLY CHOICE was turning right on Phyllis Avenue. Dover did not go on from there, but in a short block Bolan had another chance to turn left, on to Chelsea Court, which led him closer to the waterfront. Ahead of him, along the curving street that circled back toward town if he went far enough, stood offices and shops, all closed for the night. To Bolan’s right was some kind of gym or recreation center with a swimming pool out back, no one outside to be a random target at the moment. Bolan knew he wouldn’t find a better killing ground nearby, and circling Chelsea until it turned into North Harrisburg and started back toward town would only make things worse.

So it was here or nowhere. Do or die.

Now, all he had to do was make it work—and make his adversaries die.

First thing, he needed room enough to turn and face the carload of pursuers who were now a block behind him, closing rapidly. The road was clear ahead, and Bolan wasted no time taking full advantage of it, standing on the Civic’s brake, cranking its steering wheel hard left, whipping the rear end through a power slide on screeching rubber. It was nothing that they taught in driver’s ed, but if you handled it correctly it could be a lifesaver.

Like now, perhaps.

Before the Honda came to rest, with Bolan facing back the way he’d come on Chelsea Court, he had the MP-5 K’s shoulder rig unsnapped, the submachine gun resting in his lap. He put the Civic in Reverse, checking his rearview to make sure the coast was clear, and started running backward toward the curve where it changed street signs to become North Harrisburg. A row of townhouses obscured his view around the curve, but that was fine. He didn’t plan on going that far, anyway.

In front of him, the chase car had slowed, still following, but waiting now to see what Bolan had in mind. A window powered down behind the driver’s seat, and Bolan saw an Asian shooter lean out with a weapon in his hands, maybe an Arsenal AR-SF or a Micro Galil. Either way, it was deadly and had to be countered at once.

Bolan raised the MP-5 K in his left hand, angling out the Civic’s open driver’s window. Aiming wasn’t possible, per se, but with a steady hand and skilled eye he could do the next best thing.

Still set for 3-round bursts, the little SMG could fire six times before he had to switch its magazine, an operation that would mean taking his right hand off the steering wheel. In fact, he did that now, shifting the Honda from Reverse to Drive and bearing down on the accelerator, closing up the gap between himself and his pursuers.

He had a choice of firing at the driver or the shooter, but the gunman was the greater threat. Bolan squeezed off a burst, too low, and saw his bullets slash the chase car’s left-rear door. It wasn’t likely that hollow-point rounds would penetrate the passenger compartment through sheet steel and insulation, but the triple impact made his target squawk and pull back from the window without firing at the Civic, as they passed each other on the two-lane blacktop.

Now what?

He could take off, fleeing back into the maze of Atlantic City’s streets, or stay and finish it. Whichever choice he made, the time for a decision was right now.

Enough running.

Bolan hung on and took the vehicle through another power slide, coming around behind the chase car so that he was in pursuit now, and the hounds were running from the fox. It took only a second for the Yakuza driver in front of him to catch on, but in that time Bolan had his submachine gun leveled and had smashed the black sedan’s rear window with another 3-round burst.

Two faces, furious and frightened, gaped at Bolan through the open window frame, before both men raised automatic rifles into view.

* * *

“HE’S BEHIND US NOW!” Eishin exclaimed.

“I see that,” Tadayoshi answered through clenched teeth.

“Well, do something!”

“What did you have in mind?”

Before Eishin could think of anything, their back window imploded, spraying pebbled safety glass like buckshot through the passenger compartment. Pieces of it stung his scalp and neck. Something more deadly struck the windshield, halfway between him and his driver, knocking a chip out of the glass and rattling on the dashboard.

Eishin ducked and saw a mutilated bullet resting on top of the central heating vent. If it had been diverted ten or twelve inches to the left or right, he might be dead now, or the car could be speeding off course, with a corpse behind the wheel.

Yoshikage and Kanehira sat in the back, chattering like two macaques, preparing to return fire, when another burst struck home. Its bullets marched across the trunk lid, striking with the force of hammer blows, and one spanged off the lower window frame, to ricochet inside the car. The driver cried out this time, slumping, left hand clutching at his shoulder, steering with his wounded right.

Feeling foolish even as he spoke, Eishin asked him, “How bad is it?”

“I’m not a doctor!” Tadayoshi rasped, showing bad form by his tone.

“Well, can you drive?” Eishin demanded.

“Do you see me driving?”

Although fuming over the man’s insubordination, Eishin knew it might be suicide to chastise him just now. Instead, he turned to see their enemy tailgating them, his two soldiers in the back trying to recover from the last incoming fire, raising their weapons once again.

Instead of waiting for them, Eishin fired his cut-down shotgun at the Honda, making both soldiers in the back yelp and cringe as thunder filled the car, stinging four sets of ears. He saw his buckshot, double 0, take out a portion of the Honda’s windshield larger than a dinner plate, but he had missed the driver by at least a foot.

He pumped the Ithaca’s slide-action, chambering another 12-gauge round. The cartridge he’d ejected bounced off the driver’s cheek and dropped into his lap, provoking a string of curses.

They would have to talk about that later, set things straight between them and cement the clear lines of authority that governed every member of the Yakuza.

Assuming that they lived.

In the backseat, Yoshikage cried, “I’ve been hit!”

Eishin glanced at his squealing soldier, saw no blood and snapped, “You’re not wounded! Shut your whining mouth and do your job!”

Red-faced, the soldier turned away from him and aimed his stubby carbine through the car’s rear window, firing as his partner did, their muzzle-flashes visible as dusk descended on the waterfront. Eishin considered firing one more shotgun blast between them, but decided it would only spoil their shaky aim.

And Tadayoshi wasn’t helping, in the driver’s seat. He swerved the car erratically, cursing under his breath as more slugs from their quarry’s automatic weapon struck the vehicle. At least one found its way inside, clipping the rearview mirror from its post and dropping what remained of it at Eishin’s feet.

“Stop all this crazy skidding!” Eishin ordered. “How can we hit anything, the way you drive?”

“He’s hitting us,” Tadayoshi replied, shooting a quick glance toward the spot where there had been a mirror seconds earlier, mouthing another curse when he saw nothing but a chip out of the windshield’s glass.

“Drive straight!” Eishin repeated. “That’s an order!”

Tadayoshi turned to glare at him, then gave a jerky nod and straightened the steering wheel—just as their adversary’s bullets found their left-rear tire and shredded it. The car’s tail end immediately whipped around, the wheel’s rim biting into asphalt, and they went into a skid, the backseat shooters howling like a pair of lunatics.

Eishin clutched the nearest grab handle and hung on for dear life.

* * *

BOLAN RECKONED HE had been lucky with the last burst, trying it before his magazine ran dry. He eased off the accelerator as the Yakuzas’ car went into its final skid, jumping a curb off to the right, its nose crumpled against a lamppost with a granite base. He drove past, checking as the occupants began to move around inside. The left-rear door sprang open, and a dazed-looking hardman tumbled onto the pavement, still holding his carbine in one hand.

Bolan passed on three or four doors farther down the street, then swung his car around to block both lanes and bailed out on the driver’s side, keeping the Civic between himself and his would-be killers. Three of them were EVA as Bolan got his SMG reloaded, the driver seeming to have trouble with unfastening his shoulder harness.

Bolan helped him with it, rattling off a 3-round burst that turned the wheelman’s face into a bloody stir-fry. That brought in return fire, but it wasn’t organized as yet, or aimed precisely. Bolan’s car had taken hits during the final moments of the chase, and he could hear more bullets striking it along the passenger’s side, drilling the bodywork, evaporating window glass.

Somebody else’s headache, since he’d bought the full insurance package when he took delivery on the Honda. Not in his own name, of course—Mack Bolan had been “dead” for years—but on a credit card whose bills were promptly paid from Stony Man. As long as it was drivable and he could leave the scene when he was done, Bolan was satisfied.

If not? Plan B, whatever that was.

First, he had to move, close with his enemies and take them down before the racket they were making drew police to swarm the block.

Bolan had only two rules in the field. He would not harm or threaten innocents, and he would not use deadly force against police—even though some of them were far from innocent themselves. It was a short list of restrictions, but he rarely deviated from those basic principles.

And he was not about to do so this day.

He made his move while they were trying to get organized, recovering from having seen their driver killed before their eyes. One of the three surviving Yakuzas saw Bolan moving, shouted something to his comrades and squeezed off an autorifle burst that missed its moving target by at least ten feet.

Bolan returned fire, did a better job of it and saw the shooter drop his rifle as three Parabellum shockers ripped into his gun arm, taking out the shoulder. In the movies, shoulder wounds were treated lightly, on par with paper cuts, but in the real world they were serious, often disabling, sometimes fatal if projectiles nipped the brachial or subclavian arteries.

Whatever, Bolan pegged the odds at two-to-one against him now, and focused on reducing those.

Bolan reached the nearest sidewalk, ducked behind a bulky standing mailbox, then proceeded with his charge. Another Yakuza shooter was firing at him—and he had been right, that was an Arsenal AR-SF—until the next burst out of Bolan’s SMG nearly beheaded him.

Three down, and now the last Yakuza on his feet sprang out from cover, brandishing a stubby shotgun with a pistol grip. He pumped the slide, ejecting brass and plastic, screaming something Bolan couldn’t understand without his smartphone translator. Before the screamer had a chance to loose another buckshot cloud, Bolan zipped him across the chest and slammed him back against the crumpled wreckage of his car’s front end.

One left, and he was still alive, sitting in blood, his eyes half-closed, lips moving silently, when Bolan walked around the car. Bolan considered him, knew they were running out of time to talk, even if they possessed a common language, and he fired a single mercy round into the man’s forehead.

All done.

He got the Honda started and was rolling out of there, already thinking downrange toward the best and quickest place to find another car.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sunrise Enterprises

“No, Detective. I have no idea who might desire to vandalize our offices. Do you?”

The bald, fat officer stared at Noboru Machii, his suspicion thinly veiled, and said, “No, sir. But I’ll be looking into it.”

“Perhaps you’ll trace the smoke grenades,” Machii said. A firefighter had found them in the air-conditioning duct, while seeking a source for the smoke that still hung around them in the lobby.

“I couldn’t rule it out,” the detective said. Was his name Davis? Dawkins? No matter. All Machii wanted was for him to leave the premises. “These things are mass-produced, you understand.”

“Of course.”

“Your ordinary public’s not supposed to have them, but does that mean anything these days? Between the internet and dealers on the street, forget about it.”

“So, it’s hopeless then?” Machii asked.

“Oh, nothing’s hopeless,” the detective answered. “But I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if you follow me.”

“I understand. Now, if there’s nothing else…”

The plainclothes officer was rummaging inside his rumpled jacket, pulling out a dog-eared business card and offering it to Machii, who accepted it and held it gingerly, between his thumb and index finger, checking it for sweat stains.