Ryan gave an involuntary start. Yuki took a half-step forward.
The woman with Chen shot a glance at Yuki and then back at Ryan and Midas before leaning in to whisper something. Chen looked up from his cigarette and hitched up the leather bag, walking toward Ryan. He made it two steps before darting left to disappear between two buildings where the earlier men had gone. The woman was right behind him. Three more men exited the same café before Ryan and Midas could follow. Amanda Salazar came out behind them.
“Chen and Kim Soo coming at you, mid-block,” Midas shouted into his mic. “Two more Asian males ahead of them. Could be together.”
The last man out after Chen attempted to draw a long hunting knife from his belt, but Yuki came up from behind and gave him a brutal chop to the forearm with an expandable baton. He dropped the knife but wheeled on her immediately, still very much in the fight. Amanda screamed like a banshee and ran directly at Midas, clawing at his face. The two men came at Ryan in unison.
It was relatively early and Kabukichō was just waking up, but the few people on the narrow street jumped back, not sure if they should run or pull out their phones and start filming.
Grateful for the darkness, Ryan sidestepped the lead, moving into the entryway of a nearby bar, narrowing the possible angles his opponents had to mount their attack and forcing them to stack, one behind the other. Ryan faded back a hair, drawing that man in close before driving upward with a wicked uppercut, slamming the man’s teeth together with a satisfying crack and setting him up for a quick left hook to the jaw that turned off his lights and left him sprawled on the pavement.
Ryan caught the glint of a blade in the hands of the second attacker, upping the ante. Undaunted by the quick defeat of his partner, this one was surely endowed with cold-steel courage brought on by the knife. He bent forward at the waist and rushed Ryan, shoulders stooped, blade out like a fencer on the offense. Ryan stepped sideways again, feeling the sickening scrape as the knife glanced off a rib. He grabbed a handful of golf jacket, taking advantage of the momentum to help the man run past. The man’s head punched straight through the bar’s flimsy hollow-core inner door, all the way to his shoulders. Blades and multiple opponents left little room for mercy. Ryan brought his elbow down on the back of the man’s neck, crushing his throat against the edge of the door and ending the fight — for this one.
Seeing the mortally wounded man hanging half in, half out by his neck, two Japanese women in the tiny bar screamed and retreated to the far corners of the room.
Ryan moved his arms, chicken-wing-like, to be certain they still worked after the knife wound.
The quick snap, snap of fist to flesh came from Ryan’s right. He turned in time to see Midas lift a screaming Amanda Salazar above his head and slam her to the ground. Blood poured from the big man’s nose, revealing that the snapping sound had been Amanda hitting him and not the other way around. She moaned at his feet, writhing on the asphalt and bleeding from her ear.
Yuki stood over the body of the third man, clutching her expandable baton. She bent quickly and handcuffed him to a standpipe next to the road.
“You okay?” Ryan looked at Yuki.
She nodded.
“I’m fine, brother,” Midas said, hand to his bleeding nose as he started for the alley. “In case you were wondering.”
“Are you armed?” Ryan asked. He hadn’t told them about his ribs, and hesitated to look down.
She nodded, producing a stainless SIG Sauer P230. “You?”
Ryan glanced down at the man he’d knocked out and saw a small revolver in an ankle holster. He stooped and picked it up. “I am now,” he said.
Yuki stepped in close, touching his side. “You are bleeding.”
“I’m fine,” Ryan said, rolling his shoulders. “Really.”
Lightning rent the sky above Tokyo, followed by a crack of thunder. The wind shifted abruptly to the north.
Adara’s voice came on the radio, garbled and unintelligible. Ding shouted something next, on the net, but loud enough to hear from the next alley over.
The skies opened up, and it began to rain. More thunder echoed through the narrow streets. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t thunder at all, but the flat crack of gunfire.
57
Marine One took roughly seven minutes to fly from the White House to Joint Base Andrews. The HMX-1 helicopter flew in a formation of three identically marked Sikorsky Sea Kings, shifting positions constantly while en route to confuse any would-be attackers with their Presidential shell game in the predawn darkness. Identical helicopters had already been transported to Tokyo along with dozens of Secret Service vehicles (including two copies of the Presidential armored limo known as The Beast) aboard Air Force C-17s and C-5s.
Ryan saluted the Marine as he left the chopper and then walked approximately a hundred fifty feet with Special Agent Montgomery before returning the salute of the staff sergeant at the base of the air stairs leading to Air Force One. He paused halfway up the steps and looked at the big blue-and-white bird. The smell of jet fuel and tarmac gave Ryan the creeps, but if he had to fly, this was the plane to do it on.
Mary Pat Foley was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. Arnie van Damm followed him inside.
“MP,” Ryan said. It was a chilly morning and he wore his navy blue flight jacket with the Presidential seal.
“Good morning Mr. President,” the DNI said. “We have Captain Lim of the Taiwanese Coast Guard vessel Taitung on the line now.”
Ryan followed Foley amidships to the combination dining and conference room. Scott Adler was already there, along with the chief of naval operations, Admiral George Muñoz, and Coast Guard commander Jeff Carter. Gary Montgomery had already peeled off with the rest of the Secret Service detail to give the President his space.
A Chinese man in the blue uniform of the ROC Coast Guard looked on from the flat-screen television mounted on the bulkhead at the end of the conference table. He was slender, with high cheekbones and the pinched look of a man in the middle of a violent storm.
“Can he see us?” Ryan asked the Air Force staff sergeant from Communications.
“I can indeed, Mr. President,” Captain Lim said. “We are approaching your American research vessel now, but I must inform you that the PRC destroyer Kunming is twenty-six nautical miles to the west and closing rapidly.”
“How far are you from undisputed Chinese waters?” Ryan asked.
Captain Lim looked off screen and barked something in Mandarin. The pitch and roll of the ship were evident in the footage. “Eleven nautical miles,” he said.
“Very well,” Ryan said. “I appreciate your assistance — and I know the crew of Meriwether is even more grateful.”
With Ryan aboard, Air Force One began her takeoff roll almost immediately.
“We are almost in position, Mr. President,” Lim said. “I have explained to Commander Carter how we plan to attempt the rescue. I must ask to be excused as we get under way but one of my crewmen will attempt to video our efforts to the extent possible once we actually begin.”
“By all means, Captain,” Ryan said. “Thank you again.”
Ryan nodded and the staff sergeant put the connection on mute.
United States Coast Guard Commander Jeff Carter sat at the table to Ryan’s immediate right with a blank sheet of paper and a black Sharpie marker. Both Carter and the Four Star were on board Air Force One solely to be the president’s subject matter experts regarding the Meriwether rescue. Both men would fly home commercially from Tokyo while everyone else on board attended to their duties at the G20.