The Samurai Inheritance (30 page)

‘Should I slow down?’

‘No. Put your foot down. I think this time it’s neck or nothing.’ A hundred metres ahead someone had toppled the electric golf buggy to block the road and Jamie could see at least three men behind it. Hurriedly he buckled his seat belt and winced as he saw the intermittent blink of machine-gun muzzles. A heartbeat later, bullets hammered into the bonnet and stitched the ground ahead of them. ‘They’re going for the tyres. Go right. Aim for the back of the bloody thing.’

Magda screamed as another burst of fire smashed into the car. ‘Right?’

‘Trust me. But hit it full on.’

The temptation was to try to get round the obstacle, but Magda gritted her teeth and put her foot to the floor. She aimed for a point just in front of the rear tyres where one of the gunmen crouched behind the chassis.

‘Hang on.’ The big car seemed to bounce as it hit and the engine surged, but the effect on the buggy and the men behind it was devastating. The entire rear of the fragile machine disintegrated and something whirled to smash off the bonnet of the Toyota and disappear into the trees. The rest of the buggy was smashed aside taking the other two men with it and they were through.

‘Oh my God.’ Jamie looked at Magda, wondering if he’d need to take over the wheel, but she was grinning. ‘I thought we were going to die. How did you know we’d get through?’

‘I didn’t. The engine in those things is either at the front or the back. I took a gamble it was the front. If I’d got it wrong we’d probably be halfway up a tree.’

‘You—’

‘But I didn’t get it wrong.’ He cocked his head and listened for a moment. ‘The engine doesn’t sound too healthy, but we can’t be far from the gate.’

The security gate appeared as they rounded the next corner and Magda gunned the engine, prepared to ram her way through the barrier.

‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ Jamie counselled, ‘not unless you want to be the filling in a metal sandwich. That gate is designed to stop things a lot heavier than us.’ She slowed and he leaned across to push a button on the dashboard. ‘I suspect it normally opens automatically, but the Dragon Lady’s henchmen must have disabled the mechanism. Pull up across the roadway and as close to it as you can get.’

Jamie watched the road while she manoeuvred the car into place. When she was done she handed him the rucksack and the keys. He helped her on to the bonnet, then the roof and finally across on to the top of the gate where she could jump down into the street. He heard another car in the distance, but before he followed her he walked round the Toyota carefully putting a bullet through each tyre. By the time he reached the street she’d disappeared round the corner of the nearest block and he could hear the shouts of consternation as the chasing car was forced to halt. He sprinted after her and within a few minutes they were back on the main street, breathing hard but trying not to show it.

XXXIV

‘This is too quiet.’ Jamie studied the street around him. ‘We need to find somewhere with a lot more people and quickly.’

‘If you don’t want to attract attention you’d better get rid of that.’ Magda pointed to his jacket, caked with what, even in the light from the street lamps, was obviously blood. He slipped the rucksack to her and unzipped the gory evidence, rolled it into a ball and pushed it under a bush in a little ornamental garden.

The sound of squealing tyres alerted them and Jamie instinctively took the first turn they came to. It led to a poorly lit alley and he wondered if he’d made a mistake. He didn’t have time to worry because moments later a car drove slowly past the entrance. They ducked into a doorway before they could be seen and the vehicle moved on. Jamie would have stepped back out into the alley if Magda hadn’t clutched him by the arm. ‘Hang on,’ she hissed. ‘I thought I heard a car door.’

They waited, hoping against hope she was wrong, but knowing she wasn’t. An indistinct shadow appeared at the far end and began to move warily towards them and they pressed further back into the doorway. ‘Shit,’ Jamie said under his breath. Two thoughts clawed their way through the panic that set his heart thundering. The first that the man was certainly carrying a gun. The second that Jamie also had one, but he didn’t feel like shooting anybody else today. On the plus side, the Yakuza foot soldier was alone, and therefore vulnerable, but that wasn’t likely to last for long. Jamie slipped the rucksack from his shoulders and unzipped it one notch at a time.

He put his mouth directly to Magda’s ear. ‘Get down low.’ He felt her nod and obediently drop to a crouch. A man searching the darkness couldn’t afford to look everywhere without making himself as vulnerable as his quarry, so he tended to cover his bets by looking at waist height. The closer to the ground they were the less likely to be seen. Jamie fumbled inside the body of the rucksack and recoiled as his fingers touched something leathery covered with hair. He tried again and found the neck of the hammer, but he discovered that the thought of bashing someone’s head in with a hammer was even less attractive than shooting them. He delved a little deeper hoping to find the pepper spray before he remembered it was still in his jacket pocket and now nestling beside a plastic bag of McDonald’s leftovers.

He had the option to let the gangster walk past, but, even if he didn’t see them, they’d still be trapped in a district that would soon be flooded with Yakuza. The hammer or the pistol then. He made his decision. As he crouched down beside Magda his foot brushed something that emitted a tiny rattle and he suppressed a curse. All it would take was one sound. Their pursuer was less than fifty paces away and Jamie felt Magda tense against him. He gripped the handle of the hammer in two hands, then changed his mind. With his right hand he groped for the beer or soda can and picked it up. Forty paces. Not yet. Thirty. Wait. Twenty. Now!

With a flick of his wrist he threw the can so it clattered across the concrete about thirty feet ahead. The gangster shouted something and Jamie heard the sound of running feet. When the approaching shadow appeared in the corner of his eye he waited another second before rising silently to his feet. The running man had a pistol in his outstretched hand when Jamie came from nowhere and brought the head of the hammer down with bone-breaking force on his wrist. Jamie felt a surge of relief as his victim gave a grunt of agony and the gun dropped with a clatter on to the concrete.

He’d gambled on the pain paralysing his victim long enough to allow him a second, knockout blow. Almost any other man would have been put out of action, but this one stepped in close to thwart the follow-up strike and simultaneously slammed a left hook under the Englishman’s ribs that gave a new meaning to the word pain. In the same movement the Yakuza brought his right foot round in some sort of jujitsu move that swept the legs from under his opponent. Stunned by the speed of the reaction Jamie had no defence as the gangster followed up with a body slam that crushed the breath out of him.

Too late he discovered his target was the slab-sided Korean who’d ‘welcomed’ them to the Dragon Lady’s concrete castle the previous morning. So much for being bloody squeamish. In desperation he tried to bring the hammer round to smash the man’s back and ribs, but the body on top of him was so bulky it was impossible to get the angle for a telling blow. Instead, the Korean was able to push Jamie’s arm backwards and he felt fingers as powerful as an industrial vice close over his wrist, working the bone like a terrier’s jaws until he dropped the hammer. At the same time a granite skull battered down in a brutal headbutt that would have smashed half the bones in Jamie’s face if he hadn’t managed to twist away. He felt the rasp of the Korean’s stubble on his cheek and the pungent scent of his aftershave filled his nostrils. If he couldn’t think of something quickly it would be the last thing he’d ever smell.

The weight and the strength of his opponent were unbelievable. As the Korean’s head rose for a second butt Jamie clawed desperately at the moon face, his fingers raking the deep-set dark eyes. With a grunt of irritation the Yakuza released his grip on Jamie’s wrist, bringing both hands to the Englishman’s throat. There was a moment’s confused hesitation as he contemplated his dangling right wrist, but it didn’t last and the claw-like fingers of the left hand closed on Jamie’s windpipe. Jamie scrabbled desperately at his killer’s arm in a futile attempt to break the grip, but it was impossible. He heard the sound of a rook cawing and realized distantly that it was the sound of his own death.

As his vision began to blur a snarling figure launched itself at the Korean accompanied by a stream of obscene oaths. Jamie had a fleeting thought that Magda Ross must have had a more chequered upbringing than he’d realized, before the Yakuza swiped her aside with a sweep of his right arm. The only benefit of her attack was a fleeting reduction of the pressure on Jamie’s throat that allowed him to take in a last whooping breath. When the world turned red and the screaming started he thought someone had opened the gates of Hell.

What seemed a lifetime later he heard Magda’s voice in his ear urging him to get up. He tried to raise himself on his elbows but it felt as if someone had tried to tear his head from his shoulders. It honestly didn’t seem the best idea, but she was very insistent.

Hands hauled at his shirt. ‘Jamie, we have to get out of here. They’ll be back.’

Reluctantly he tried again, and with her help he staggered to the nearest wall where he could recover his breath. For the first time he noticed the Korean lying on his back in the middle of the alley with a dark shadow covering the upper half of his face.

‘I hit him on the head with the hammer,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘I couldn’t think of anything else to do.’

‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d thought of that.’ He had a moment of recollection. ‘What was the red light I saw?’

She held up a blackened cardboard tube. ‘I needed to get his attention first. I think it’s called a Roman candle.’

When they reached the street Magda did what she could to dust him down and get rid of the nameless filth from his clothing. It was worth a try, but he knew from the way she scowled at him that he still looked like something from a Zombie movie. Still there was no help for it. After fifteen minutes of cautious searching they found a place where the bars were still open and they could get a taxi. As they waited in the queue Jamie went over their options.

‘I don’t see how we can go back to the hotel. The chances are they’re already waiting for us.’

‘All right,’ she agreed immediately, and he wondered how many other women would abandon all their clothing and jewellery so readily. ‘So we head straight to the airport? Only they could be waiting for us there too.’

‘That’s true, which is why we won’t go there directly.’

After a tense wait they got in the back of the green and yellow taxi. ‘Tell him to take us to the ferry terminal down at the port. It’s the last thing they’ll expect,’ he explained. ‘We’ll book a cabin on the first sailing to Okinawa. From there we can get the earliest flight out of Naha airport to Hong Kong or Taiwan and we’re home free.’

She passed on the instructions and the driver pulled out into the late-night traffic. Every bone in Jamie’s body ached and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him, but he knew he had to stay awake. Little images of horrors that were and worse horrors that might have been flitted through his head. He frowned as he remembered the piece of business that couldn’t be ignored.

‘All right,’ he turned to Magda, ‘I know you’ve been waiting for me to ask. Who’s the mystery man with the blond bob?’ He nodded to the rucksack that sat between them.

‘My grandfather.’

Why wasn’t he surprised?

‘And you knew he was there all the time?’

‘No.’ There was a challenge in her eyes as she turned to meet his gaze. ‘But I had to find out. It’s a long story.’

Jamie was conscious of the driver’s eyes on them in the rear-view mirror and he lowered his voice. ‘Tell me. We have all the time in the world.’

‘His name was Johannes Rudiger and he was a pastor with the Basel Missionary Society in China in the nineteen thirties. When the Japanese attacked Nanking he went there to do what he could to ease the suffering. He was that kind of man. Johannes linked up with a businessman called John Rabe. Rabe was a Nazi who supported Hitler, but he was a good man at heart. Because of the Anti-Comintern Pact between the Third Reich and Japan, he had some influence with the Japanese commanders. He managed to set up safe zones for westerners and some Chinese civilians.’ She had begun the story forcefully, but now she hesitated and he registered the catch in her voice. ‘The zones … the zones were mainly successful – they managed to save about two hundred thousand people – but individual Japanese units violated the agreement. They’d claim bandits were operating in a certain section and carry off hundreds, sometimes thousands, of innocents to be executed, or raped and then killed in ways too sickening to describe. One of the worst perpetrators was a battalion led by a Major Yoshitaki.’

Light danced across her face from the garishly lit skyscrapers with their metres-high adverts for computers and photocopiers; in their glow Jamie could see the tears shining on Magda’s cheeks. He wanted to hold her, but somehow he knew it would be wrong.

‘I was always told my grandfather had simply disappeared in China.’ Magda’s voice found new strength as if she was defying the past. ‘Everyone in the family accepted that story, except me. Nothing just vanishes. Not things. Not people. There’s always evidence. I read everything I could about Nanking and the Japanese occupation and what I learned almost drove me mad. I was on the point of giving up when Rabe’s surviving relative allowed me access to his letters and a memoir he’d written, but never published. Rabe said Yoshitaki would permit his soldiers freedom to rape and plunder, and personally select their victims. The German’s protests were ignored and finally he asked Johannes to remonstrate with the Japanese commander. He never returned, but a witness testified that he had seen Yoshitaki himself taking my grandfather away under guard after he’d tried to stop his men burying a group of Chinese civilians alive.’