Matt Drake 07 - Blood Vengeance (13 page)

Karin balanced on the scaffold plank and fairly skipped across. Komodo jumped on straight after, and then the night exploded. The little access door bloomed outward,
chased by shrapnel and fire. Its surrounds shattered under the detonation, spinning and skimming off into the night. Komodo paused before he negotiated the plank, unsure what would come next.

But Smyth knew. “Run!” he cried.

Too late. The enemy swarmed up through the widened gap, firing as they came. Smyth and Kinimaka ducked beneath the brick parapet as bullets thudded all around them. Karin remained kneeling, shooting hard, hitting one man’s arm and sending his gun soaring, kneecapping another and sending him down hard. Komodo charged across the plank, at the last minute leaping for the edge of the other building as the deformed wood rolled. His hands caught the edge, scrabbling for purchase. Bullets struck brick all around and between his flailing legs.

“Fuck me!”

Smyth and Kinimaka popped up and laid down covering fire. Komodo heaved his bulk up over the edge, landing hard. Once safe, the team wasted no time in retreat, first upending the scaffolding plank and letting it fall to the ground far below.

Kinimaka, staying low,
scanned the roof. “I hate to say it, but this roof ain’t any better than the one we just almost died on.”

“Sure it is
.” Smyth crawled past him at speed. “The bad guys aren’t on it.”

Kinimaka
scooped up Hayden’s body, feeling the shallow breaths she was taking vibrate up his arms, and scrambled after Smyth. Komodo and Karin thwarted their assailants by discharging a measured, slow and steady stream of bullets.

Kinimaka reached the far end of the roof. More scaffold poles poked up over the edge and, beyond them, a bright yellow crane.
When Smyth glanced over the parapet he gave out a loud cheer.

“There
’s a ladder. Double wide, so even you should fit, big man.”

Kinimaka stared at him. It was clear that, if they survived tonight, the ex-Delta soldier and he were going to have to talk. Hawaiian hula g
irls and surfer chicks had previously gotten away with calling him ‘big man’. Dudes did not.

This time Smyth motioned Karin and Komodo to go first. Without pause they jumped down onto the scaffolding, feeling the whole structure rock, and headed for the ladder. Kinimaka went next, securing Hayden tightly
and with great care, then leaping and landing on two feet. The planks groaned under his weight, the metal poles whining under the pressure, but the construction held.

“No fuckin
’ about,” Smyth yelled. “They’re coming across now!”

He picked off
the first few as they laid a fresh plank, but the hail of covering fire he withstood soon sent him scrambling over the edge of the building. Nevertheless he tarried, still firing, mindful that their attackers carried grenades and could quite easily and happily blow the scaffolding apart before the team reached the bottom.

The sound of Komodo
’s clattering came to an end, then Karin’s. Kinimaka was understandably slower. Smyth fired a last volley as the enemy leapt onto the roof, then turned and sprinted for the ladder. It was wide, with platforms at every level, and switch-backed, so provided a decent amount of protection. Smyth saw Kinimaka’s bulk hammering at the stairs far below, then a shout came from above.

“Say hi to your little friend!”

Smyth glanced up through the gaps. Faster than him, quicker than even the Special Forces man could calculate, the vicious albino had raced to the parapet and now perched there like some nightmarish gargoyle.

In one hand he held a pineapple-shaped grenade.

Smyth put his head down and ran hard. In less than a second, he heard the clatter as the metal object hit wooden planks and knew he had no chance of outrunning the explosion. No chance at all. But he had managed to cover his team’s escape.

In that last second he ran
faster than ever before.

The grenade exploded with an ear-splitting clap of thunder, sending out a supercharged blast of fire and energy. Part of the brick wall of the building crumbled inward. The scaffolding all around was blown away, poles and planks shooting like arrows into the darkness, causing the whole structure to collapse.

Smyth felt the entire configuration shifting beneath his feet, swaying away from the wall and crumbling into oblivion. He flew, fleet of foot, with a fire at his heels.

One more second
. . . one more step . . .

The scaffold collapsed in on itself with a clang and a roar. The albino
’s cackle sounded above it all. Smyth took one more step, then launched his body away from the disintegrating structure and out into empty space.

Sheer blackness and a drop of
almost thirty meters lay directly below him.

He hit the bright
-yellow crane hard. His forehead smashed into an upright, making him see stars, but his hands found purchase on a cross support, arresting his fall. Smyth stared up, meeting the shocked eyes of the albino.

“Mother
—”

The rest was lost as the albino opened fire. Smyth placed his fee
t to either side of the stanchion he was clutching and let himself freefall, using his thickly-clothed arms and legs to control the descent.

He landed hard, crumpling and groaning, thankful that at least he had landed on grass
and not the concrete.

Komodo held out a hand, looking impressed.
“Nicely done. Thought you were a goner.”

Smyth managed a rare grin.
“Yeah. I bet even Mai Kitano couldn’t have pulled that off.”

Komodo led him away at a jog.
“Mai? Are you kidding? She’d have caught the grenade in her teeth and spat it right back into the bastard’s face.”

Smyth acceded gracefully. “Good point.”

“I mean, crap,” Komodo went on. “Torsten Dahl would probably have just chewed it up and spit it out. This ain’t Delta anymore, Smyth. These fuckers are the meanest, most expensively trained fighting machines on earth. They ain’t normal warriors.”

“I get it, I get it,” Smyth grumped. “Where the hell are we going?”

“We’re getting the fuck outta here.”

Kinimaka
ducked his head and shoulders as low across Hayden’s body as he dared. Any lower and he would lose his balance and go sprawling. Smyth and Komodo were ahead, tearing across the parking area toward an old but still sleek black Camaro.

“No!” Karin hissed from behind. “We won
’t all fit in the bloody thing.” She shook her head.
“Men.”

Smyth veered to the door of a
n old Suburban. They were certain the albino would have left men stationed down here and were expecting resistance at any minute. Sure enough, as Smyth smashed a side window and gave their position away, several heads popped up no less than a hundred yards distant.

“Got
‘em!”

The radio went flying as the man broke cover, compelled by urgent orders.
Smyth jumped into the Suburban and fiddled with the ignition wires. As he fought to twist the engine into life, rounds smacked into the Suburban’s bodywork. Kinimaka jerked open the rear door, lifting Hayden. At that precise moment, a heavy volley struck the car, smashing windows and shattering plastic, tearing through upholstery and cloth. Kinimaka could neither duck nor turn away. He managed to drop his arms, laying Hayden down, and then Karin and Komodo returned fire, shredding the enemy.

Smyth twisted the wires once more. The engine roared to life. Karin jumped in, then Komodo, lying flat out on the back seat. Kinimaka clim
bed into the footwell, letting Hayden have the seat, and found his body wedged there. It was all he could do to bring an arm up to wipe the sweat from his face.

Smyth pe
eled out of the lot, cheering and giving the enemy the finger through the rear view. Karin and Komodo heaved sighs of relief, then the young woman’s face collapsed into grief as, again, thoughts of Ben and her parents flooded back. Kinimaka looked at the back of his hand and wondered where the blood had come from.

He tapped his head. Nothing hurt.
That could mean only one thing . . .

Smyth threw the Suburban around a corner.
“Where to?”

“CIA safe
house,” Komodo said. “One of our old ones. One of SPEAR’s old ones, I mean.”

Carefully, Kinimaka rolled Hayden on to her side.

“No. Oh no.”

Blood stained the seat.
Fresh blood.

“Got an address?” Smyth was concentrating on the road ahead.

“Yeah, hang on.”

Kinimaka pulled Hayden
’s shirt up. The bullet wound was still bandaged, untouched. So where . . .

Hayden
’s eyes fluttered open. Kinimaka nodded at the bandage. “Does it hurt?”

“Nah.
It doesn’t hurt at all. It went straight through Boudreau’s old knife wound.” Her eyes smiled.

Kinimaka sighed with relief. “Then what
—”

Hayden coughed
harshly. “It’s the new one just under my heart that’s killing me.”

Mai
Kitano walked away from Tokyo Bay, drifted for a short while, then ducked into a quiet alley. She dug out her phone and noted that Hibiki had called.
What now?
Her heart wanted to return the call, to make sure both he and Chika were safe, but her head told her that they should both be kept out of this, well away, and that contacting them would do no good. She couldn’t help them at the moment.

There was nothing from Drake, and she
failed to quell a pang of worry. It would only take her a second to log on to a network and scan the news channels, but even that small luxury was forbidden. In her heart the road was clear. The way forward went in only one direction.

She was theirs. She belonged to the
Clan. Her parents were being kept under lock and key. These factors could not be avoided and needed to be addressed directly before she would allow herself to dream of a future.

Mai hit the return call icon next to Gyuki
’s phone number.

“Yes?”
the flat voice instantly answered.

“It is done. I have completed your work.”

“Of course you have. We already know. Where have you been for the last twenty four minutes?”

Mai shuddered at the expectant tone. This man truly believed he owned her.
“Getting lost. Making sure I was not seen nor followed.”

“You have let your standards slip
so far, Mai Kitano? These issues are not a concern if the job is prepared for and executed in the approved manner.”

“Time was not on my side.”

There was a long pause, then Gyuki said, “We gave you no time constraint.”

“
Hayami was there. Alone. Sometimes a job is best done on the first pass to ensure your face does not become familiar to the area. And you have my parents.”

“Ah. You do not trust us.”

Mai resisted an urge to reply in the manner of Alicia Myles to that one. Swearing, mocking and taunting would not help her case. Instead, she remained silent.

“Well, we are true to our word.
As men of the Clan have always been. As tradition has taught us. Meet me here,” he reeled off an address, “In half an hour.”

****

Mai met Gyuki for the second time that day in his first-floor hotel room. Behind closed and locked doors and draped windows, Gyuki was a different man. Stripped to the waist, he bowed without taking his eyes off her.

“Come inside.
We will leave soon.”

Mai skirted him warily, eyeing every movement of his rippling body.
“How about right now?”

“You are scared of me
.” Gyuki nodded. “I understand. But don’t be. You are still useful to us.”

“Scared of you?” Mai repeated. “Why would I be? I could take you, Gyuki.”

The master assassin gauged her movement. “Have you grown so much?”

“You
’re a fossil, Gyuki. A product of Japan’s past. You should have long since disappeared with the Samurai, the Shoguns and the fucking dynasties. And with the Ninja clans. They should also be long gone.”

Gyuki faced her, deliberately making his muscles dance independently of themselves. “Fight me for your body
,” he whispered malevolently. “As we used to do.”

Mai stood very still. This was one of the memories she had kept buried all these years. And despite her words, she wasn
’t sure she could take Gyuki. She would not be bated into trying before she located her parents.

“Maybe later,” she said with cold detachment. “When do we leave?”

Gyuki shrugged. “The clan village is two hours away. If we leave now we can be there before lights out.”

They exited the hotel, found Gyuki
’s car, a mundane white Honda and joined the slow-moving traffic. Once away from the bright lights and bustling attractions of central Tokyo, the roads grew quieter and Gyuki made better time. His driving was unremarkable and he did nothing to make himself stand out, just one of many homecoming minions. Mai studied his visage in the repeated wash of oncoming headlights and found it to be unkind, merciless and devoid of emotion. The world could only become a better place when this man breathed his last.

High rises gave way to office buildings
, then to rows of houses and, eventually, to patches of undeveloped grassland. After two hours Mai looked thoroughly lost, and Gyuki didn’t even mention blindfolding her. It was one of his failings, this arrogance, this all-encompassing clan belief that he, and they, were superior beings. It may eventually prove his undoing.

At last, Gyuki pulled the car off the road at a turn marked by two overhanging wizened old trees and an abandoned church, and drove about three more miles. The tree-lined road was pitted, overgrown with roadside shrubbery, and extremely unappealing.
Designed to keep the curious away, no doubt. Gyuki circumvented several nasty potholes, bounded across a few more, and then pulled into a blind road to the left. He powered up the double-rutted dirt track, then slowed as the trees grew sparse and a flat space opened out.

Mai saw a dirt-topped parking area where several other cars as nondescript as Gyuki
’s sat waiting for the next assassin. Or maybe just for the next grocery run. Who knew what womb-to-tomb assassins got up to these days?

Gyuki parked and got out, signaling that Mai should follow. The Japanese woman was happy to do so, taking in every twist and turn of the emerging village as she went. The
Clan had extended since she had left. What had been a long shed billeting a dozen mixed men and women, girls and boys, was now two. A fighting arena sat between the two; square and marked by hanging red banners adorned with the golden symbol signifying the name of the Clan.

Tsugarai
.
It was only a family name, but it should have meant
devil.

Mai familiari
zed herself with the place. Beyond the two sheds were dotted half a dozen small dwellings, no doubt the homes of the clan chiefs, and one small temple. Further over near the tree line stood one final building, a long low structure with barred windows and doors. This was also new. The village had never needed a jail before.

Gyuki pointed Mai to the temple. She tried to shake off the sense of unreality
which had clung to her since she had stepped out of the car. Not only was she stepping back in time to a place she feared and hated, but where
was
everyone? The village was deserted, as quiet as Hayami’s boat now that the man was dead.

“Quiet day, Gyuki?”

The man ignored her, his attention captured by the temple before them. It was by far the fanciest building in the village, tastefully adorned with golden flags and with two lion-head statues that stood to either side of the entrance.

“Shoes off at the door.
Bow when you enter,” Gyuki reminded her. It was like taking a terrible trip down the haunted highways of her past. By most standards the clan temple was simple, little more than a large and gently curving roof traditional in Japanese architecture with thin, movable, non-load-bearing walls. The oversized eaves gave the interior a classic dimness, contributing heavily to the temple’s foreboding presence. The interior consisted of only one room, commonly called a moya, though the movable walls could partition small areas off.

Mai
was aware that most temples were sacred places and business would never be conducted there, but the Clan held mostly to their own rules and broke them when it pleased. As she crossed the threshold, she paused for a minute to let her eyes adjust. Figures slowly materialized out of the gloom beyond.

The clan master, Bishamon,
looked as old today as he had over twenty years ago, not a day younger than three hundred. Mai wondered if his stick-thin right hand could still whip out with a quick cuff as fast as it used to.

“
Hisashiburi, Hanshi
.”
Mai saw no reason to antagonize the elder too soon, allowing him the high honorific which roughly translated as ‘Grand Master’.

“Your family misses you, Mai.”

She bowed her head, aware that Bishamon’s statement had nothing to do with the feelings of her parents. “I have returned,” she murmured at the earthen floor. “To do your bidding.”

The clan master unfolded his body from where
he sat, cross-legged, upon a raised dais. He wore only a loin cloth and a white robe open down the middle. As he crept toward her, Mai was reminded of a spider slinking across its web on thin, spindly legs.

“You returned to save your worthless sister and her
koshinuke
boyfriend
.
You have far to go before we will allow your true rebirth.”

“Of course.”

“But for now it is good.” Bishamon waved dismissively at her. “Gyuki tells us Hayami is dead. Go see your parents now, Mai, and see what you fight for.”

Mai spun immediately, anxious to get away from the evil old man and his private lair.
The place stank of deep buried things; bad earth, sweat and old blood. Not a whisker stirred in there, not a whisper went unheard. The deep shadows concealed more than dark corners, she was sure.

Outside, the pitch black night was not as sinister. Clouds scudded across a quarter
moon. She paused to get her bearings and Gyuki’s voice whispered close to her ear. “Looking for something?”

“No
,” Mai said quickly. “Waiting for you.”

“We have eighteen warriors,” Gyuki told her with a smirk. “Two master assassins and the Grand Master.
If you held any notions about freeing your parents—and yourself—Mai, I hope you are no longer courting them.”

“Two
master assassins?” Mai was surprised. “I thought you were the only one.”

Gyuki hissed. “Then you are an idiot. The
Tsugarai never stagnate.”

Mai fell in behind him, wondering who else might have made the grade
to master assassin. She could barely remember any of her old classmates. Truth was, she had tried to forget about all of them and held serious doubts that any had actually survived. Questions regarding the prison-like building struck her again.

Gyuki
led her around one of the big sheds. Nestling close to its treeward side, small, squat and built in perpetual shadow, was a single story structure which could be labeled as little more than a hut. Gyuki waved her toward the door.

“Go. I will wait here. You have thirty minutes.”

Mai stared at the door. Legs which never failed her in battle suddenly started to shake.
My parents?
The couple who had sold her in order to put food on the table. Sold her, albeit unknowingly, into a violent form of slavery that she was still trying to escape. For a minute her feet refused to move, and she almost turned around, but the sight of Gyuki’s amused face galvanized her body and will.

Before she knew
it, she was knocking on the door, heart pounding. The first thing she heard was shuffling, then a man’s voice—
my father’s voice—
and the sound of the door being dragged open.

Words failed her. Emotion slackened her face. The old couple staring out at her wore expressions of utter amazement.
The woman acted first.

She fell to her knees.
“Mai?”

Her father fell onto her, sobbing, and it was all she could do to hold him up.
Behind her, the callous voice of Gyuki cut through the night.

“Twenty minutes.”

Mai carried her father inside.

****

Five more minutes passed before anyone could speak.

“When they said they could find you
, we didn’t believe them,” her mother somehow strung a sentence together. “But they . . . they have taken good care of us.”

Mai supported her father as he tried to lower himself into a chair. “Wait. They
’ve
taken good care
. . . you mean you’re here voluntarily?”

Her mother, Chie, spoke quickly, her accent so thick Mai could barely follow.
“They found us many months ago. Your father . . . he was not doing so well. They took us in. They knew your sister, Chika, she . . . she—”

Disowned you,
Mai thought, but said nothing. She could see the agony they had been through. It was etched on every single line and curve of their faces, it limited their every movement. It had all but destroyed them.

The
Clan had given them hope. Again. For the second time. And the Clan would dash that hope on a whim and gladly hand her parents the poisoned swords upon which to throw themselves.

Mai bit back her thoughts and feelings.
“It is good to see you again,” she said simply, and reveled in the pure happiness that flowed across her parents’ features. For now, it was enough.

****

Mai walked out into the night, making sure her parents knew she would return soon. In what capacity, she didn’t know, but she intended to be back within days rather than weeks.