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“Unhappy news. But you can carry on without them?”
“Certainly. I’m taking measures as we speak.”
Measures to run and hide, that was, where he would have better security.
“What of the project?” Takumi asked, all business.
“It’s proceeding well, sir. I anticipate a breakthrough later in the week.”
“That’s excellent. I shall expect another call when all of it is finalized.”
Meaning Machii should not call again until he had good news. The kyodai nodded, feeling slightly foolish when he realized his master could not see him.
“I shall definitely be in touch, sir.”
“I look forward to it with anticipation. Goodbye.”
And the line went dead.
Machii was not sure if he should feel relieved or apprehensive, maybe some of each. His boss had not raged at him, but that was not the oyabun’s style. If he wanted you dead, he would smile to your face, then make arrangements for your execution when it suited him. A soldier who displeased Kazuo Takumi might be left as an example to his comrades. Other targets of his anger simply disappeared.
Machii knew he was not safe yet. To secure himself and his position in the family, he had to correct the problems that beset him. First and foremost, he had to find out who had dared to move against him and eliminate the threat. When that was done he could proceed with taking over Wolff Consolidated.
Which, of course, included a casino in Las Vegas. That, under the old plan, would have gone to Jiro Shinoda, but Machii had other plans for Shinoda now. He would not forget being stabbed in the back.
And he would not forgive.
* * *
Azabu, Tokyo
AZABU WAS THE richest neighborhood in Tokyo, home to celebrities and business moguls, living side by side with foreign embassies. It bordered the Akasaka business district and upscale Aoyama, where fashion was everything. Aside from the Roppongi entertainment district, most of Azabu was relatively quiet, considering its placement in the world’s most crowded city. One-bedroom apartments in Azabu started at 700,000 yen—call it $8,500—per month.
That had no impact on a man who owned seven high-rise apartment buildings.
Kazuo Takumi kept large suites in five of those buildings, and smaller bolt-holes in the other two, sometimes spending a month or more at one apartment, other times shifting each night, if he believed that staying in the same place might involve some risk.
Above all else, he took no chances where his safety was concerned.
This day he had awakened at his second-favorite home, on Block 8. City addresses in Japan did not depend on street names, but on numbered blocks. Within each block, buildings were numbered by their age, with “1” assigned to the oldest, and so on to the newest structure. Thus, Takumi’s present home, however briefly, sat atop building 12 on Block 8, with a view of traffic gleaming on the Sakurada Dori freeway.
He was troubled by the two calls from America. Jiro Shinoda had been on the line as soon as he had finished speaking with Noboru Machii in Atlantic City, voicing his concern, twisting the knife in a transparent effort to advance himself. That was unfortunate, but nothing unexpected for a relatively young, ambitious big brother. Bad blood would separate them now, a fact Takumi had been conscious of when he informed Machii of the call from Shinoda.
It was always best to keep subordinates at odds with one another, constantly competing for their master’s favor, rather than agreeing to conspire against him while the master’s back was turned.
Machii’s call had been more troubling. Seven men lost, and police would now be on alert to watch him, if there had been no surveillance previously. An attack was bad for business, all the more so when its source was unidentified. Noboru would be working urgently to solve that problem, knowing that his very life depended on it, but the crime lord wondered now if his Atlantic City kyodai was equal to the task.
Machii had disposed of Tommy Wolff, using the agents he’d supplied, but now the takeover of Wolff Consolidated would be stalled until Machii solved the riddle of his latest difficulty. Should that drag on much beyond Wolff’s funeral, Takumi was prepared to send more men around the world to lift the burden off his kyodai’s shoulders.
And, if necessary, they would lift his head at the same time.
Machii had a short window of opportunity in which to prove himself. And when that window closed, it would descend upon him like the blade of a katana in a ninja’s hands.
After victory, he thought, quoting a proverb from his youth, tighten your helmet strap.
The moral: premature excitement over great success might cause a careless man to drop his guard before the war was truly won.
Takumi never quit, never let down his guard. As for Machii…
The Yakuza crime boss decided he would send another team, four of his best this time. His private jet was always ready on a moment’s notice, and the flight from Tokyo to Atlantic City International Airport was fourteen hours long. If they arrived in time to help Machii, fine. If not, at least they would be on-site to begin the cleanup process.
Put things right before it was too late.
Meanwhile…
Takumi had his own concerns at home, completely unrelated to the situation in America. His son and heir apparent had not grown into the man Takumi hoped would run his empire when the time came for him to depart this life. In youth, Toi had been frivolous and spoiled—his father’s fault, of course, as it had to fall on any father. Lately, he had grown more serious, but also more distracted, as if no part of the family business inspired him in the least. The thought that Toi might try to leave the Sumiyoshi-kai appalled Takumi, but he could not rule it out.
Worse than the personal insult, of course, would be the blow Takumi suffered in the eyes of other godfathers when he could not control his only son. It would be viewed as weakness, and he could not argue with that judgment. Toi’s abdication, if it happened, was a threat to the whole family. Better if he had not been born, in fact, than to run off pursuing other friends and goals entirely foreign to his upbringing.
That was a problem for another day, however.
Reaching for the intercom beside him, Takumi summoned Kato Ando and greeted him with curt instructions. “Call The Four,” he said. “They must be ready to depart within the hour.”
“Yes, sir,” Kato replied, and left the room without a backward glance.
* * *
Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic City
BOLAN’S INFINITY TRANSMITTER was not hampered by the scrambler on Machii’s telephone, because it picked up conversation from the office, not the phone line. There were pros and cons to that: he only heard the kyodai’s side of the discussion, had to guess what he was hearing from the other end, but Bolan still had contact when Machii cut the link and called out for his flunky.
“Tetsuya!”
A moment later, Bolan heard the second now-familiar voice, reading the captions as his smartphone carried out translation.
“Yes, sir?”
“Are we ready to get out of here?” Machii asked.
“As ordered, sir. The limousine is downstairs, waiting.”
Bolan twisted the RAV4’s ignition key and pulled out of the Tropicana’s parking lot, turned left and drove southwestward, back toward Sunrise Enterprises. There was traffic, sure, but it would slow Machii’s getaway as much as it did Bolan’s progress, thirteen blocks to cover from the huge casino to the office building where he’d killed three men that evening.
Machii had disposed of their remains, presumably, since he hadn’t been carted off for questioning. It didn’t pay to underestimate the Yakuza, either in terms of their ferocity or their efficiency. The Yakuza served as the planet’s oldest criminal syndicate—older even than the Chinese triads—and survival spanning some four hundred years meant they had learned a thing or two along the way.
Bolan was approaching Windsor Avenue when he saw a black stretch limo turning into traffic on Atlantic, headed in the same direction he was going. That saved him time and inconvenience, since he didn’t have to box the block and come around Machii’s crew wagon. All Bolan had to do now was maintain visual contact with the limousine until it dropped the kyodai at the “other house” he’d mentioned in his office. Bolan couldn’t eavesdrop on the limo’s passengers, since they had left his bug behind, but he could follow them all night if necessary, until they found a place to roost.
In fact, it didn’t take that long. At Washington, the limo took a right-hand turn and traveled past the Margate City Historical Museum, then hung a left on Ventnor Avenue and followed that until it crossed the JFK Bridge and became Route 152, skirting the Atlantic coast of an unnamed barrier island. It was marshy ground, with serpentine canals or rivers winding through it, trees along the north side of the highway, beaches kissed by breakers to the south.
Bolan trailed his quarry past the Seaview Harbor Marina, then watched the limo turn northward, on to a two-lane access road that disappeared from view around a curve. He dared not follow it too closely, so drove on two hundred yards, until he found a place to turn and double back.
Machii’s ride was long gone by the time Bolan returned to where they’d parted company. It was a gamble, trailing him, but still the only way of finding out exactly where he’d gone. Nosing into the two-lane access road, he braked and pulled a pair of night-vision infrared goggles from the bag of tricks beside him on the shotgun seat, and slipped the straps over his head, then killed the RAV4’s lights.
The goggles let him see for fifty feet without another light source, but a half moon rode the sky this night, extending Bolan’s vision to fifty yards or more. He’d have to take it easy, keep from edging off the road and on to marshy ground, but there’d be ample warning if another car was headed his way, and he’d show no lights of his own unless he stepped on the Toyota’s brake pedal.
The drive in seemed to take forever, but the dashboard clock—light dimmed until it was barely visible—told Bolan he was making decent time, all things considered. Stealth took longer than a mad charge toward the firing line, and that was what he needed now.
He spent ten minutes on the looping access road before he spotted lights a quarter or half mile farther on. The vehicle had come to a stop in front of a large, two-story house, not quite a mansion, but the next best thing for its surroundings. Open fields and marsh surrounded it, making a foot approach more dangerous, but that would clearly be the only way to go.
Bolan stopped a quarter mile out from the house, switched off the RAV4’s dome light prior to opening the driver’s door, and then went EVA. Standing in moonlight, he removed the goggles and surveyed his target through a pair of field glasses that brought the place up close and personal. He saw two gunmen on the front porch, covering a driveway that branched off the access road, and figured there’d be more in back, watching the alternate approach.
Machii doubtless thought that he was safe out here, away from everyone and everything.
The Executioner had plans to prove him wrong.
CHAPTER FIVE
Noboru Machii was not ready to relax. It helped, having some distance from Atlantic City, but uncertainty gnawed at his nerves, making him restless, even after he had downed three cups of sake at room temperature. When the sweet rice wine failed to relieve his tension, he had switched to Bushmills twenty-one-year single malt whiskey, hoping its higher alcohol content would do the trick.
So far, no go.
Tetsuya Watanabe knocked and poked his head in through the study’s open door. Machii glanced up from the cold fireplace in front of him and nodded his permission to proceed.
“The guards are all in place,” Watanabe said. “Six men, positioned as you wished. I think you can sleep safely now.”
“You think?”
Watanabe shrugged. “We should be safe here, sir,” he replied.
“We should have been safe at the office. I assume there’s been no progress in the city, finding out who’s sent us into hiding?”
“None so far,” Watanabe admitted ruefully.
“What of Endo and the others?”
“The police have them, sir. They’ll be dissected by the medical examiner, of course.”
“Autopsied.”
“Gomen’nasai.”
“There’s no need to apologize. Work on your English.”
“Yes, sir. It will be difficult for the authorities to link them with the family. None are on file with immigration, and they have not been arrested in America.”
“Suspicion still attaches to us, given the succession of events.”
“Suspicion is not proof.”
“But it’s enough to prompt investigation, if they are not looking into us already.”
One more headache, on a night that was replete with them. Machii pushed that prospect out of mind and focused on his unknown enemies. He made it plural, since the man or men behind a raw act of aggression, in Machii’s world, would never carry out the act themselves. That left him with a list of possibilities to ponder, none of which stood out above the rest.
New Jersey was awash in crime and government corruption. That had been a fact of life for generations, going back a century and more, beyond the days when simple-minded folk thought they could cure a nation’s ills by banning alcohol. These days, the old Italian Mafia was in decline from former glory days, competing for survival in an ethnic stew of Chinese and Koreans, Cubans and Jamaicans, Russians and Albanians, Vietnamese and Japanese. Anytime contending sides brushed shoulders, there was bloodshed. Thanks in large part to Machii’s acumen, the Sumiyoshi-kai had managed to stay clear of overt violence so far.
Until this night.
Now, in a few short hours, everything he’d worked for was at risk. His very life was riding on the line, if he could not eliminate the danger to his family.
But so far, he had no idea where to begin the search.
“Is there a chance that Endo’s men wounded the person they were chasing?” he inquired.
“Our man on the police force doesn’t think so, but it’s possible his car was damaged by the shooting. Chips of glass were found, he says. A search is under way for cars damaged by gunfire, but it could be anywhere.”
And if they found it, Machii thought, it would probably be stolen, anyway. A competent professional would no more take his own car on a raid than he would dress up in kabuki robes.
“Who is most likely to move against us in Atlantic City, then?”
Watanabe thought about it for a moment, then replied, “I think, the Russians. Shestov knows you represent the family, and he’s been looking for a foothold in a great casino.”
“Shestov’s Ukrainian, not Russian.”
“What’s the difference?” Tetsuya asked. “They’re all barbarians.”
He had that right, at least. Pavlo Shestov was tough, ruthless and driven by ambition. It was said he watched the movie Scarface once a week, at least, and tried to mimic the ferocity of its protagonist. With thirty-five or forty soldiers on his payroll, he was capable of starting trouble, but would he be fool enough to take on the Sumiyoshi-kai?
Perhaps.
It was a starting place, at least.
“Pick up one of his men,” Machii ordered. “Try for the lieutenant. What’s his name, again?”
“Palatnik.”
“Question him. If Shestov is behind this, he should know.”
“And when we’re finished with him?”
“We can’t let him run back home and tattle, can we?” That would start a war with Shestov, if they weren’t already in the midst of one.
“No, sir.”
“Well, then.”
“I shall see to it myself.”
Machii raised a hand to stop him. “Let Yoshinori handle it,” he said. “I want you here with me.”
