“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 an 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 climbed 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 peeled 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.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
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?