Fight now.
Had she originally believed that a life with Drake might somehow take all the struggle away? Or was he a convenient harbor in the storm; a lifeline? One thing was certain — he had helped neutralize the pain. Perhaps he could do so again.
But first there was the Yakuza to contend with and, more importantly, the issue of the man she had killed and his surviving daughter, Emiko. What was the answer there? Yes, guilt swamped her but surely it would do no good to seek out the girl and confess.
I can’t just let it go.
As the car started moving Mai found her thoughts turning deeper, more twisted, as she looked inward. The past could never be altered, but the future? It could be shaped, changed; amends could be made. But how?
Kobe passed her by, its main thoroughfares clogged with traffic and pedestrians. If anyone thought the two-car parade that headed away from the docks odd they didn’t show it. Not a head was turned. Twice she noted policemen standing near traffic lights when the car slowed, but she was too savvy to seek their assistance. If they were Yakuza owned she would only make matters worse and if they were unsullied she would get them killed. Her mind flashed quickly then, becoming more responsive as drugs and painkillers wore off, and wondered how the SPEAR team would plan their approach. No doubts existed that they would attack the Yakuza. It was all a matter of when… and how.
Analyze the compound first, she thought. And I should do the same.
Kobe flashed by, the driver taking a well-known route. The men around her didn’t engage eye contact; they sat alert and watchful as if always expecting an attack. And maybe they did. Mai knew that Kobe was one of the safest places in Japan so surely, with a kind of perverse logic, it would make the Yakuza stronghold less well guarded. Very soon she would be testing that theory.
Each street appeared similar to the last, but Mai kept the route in her head, memorizing street names where she could. The Yakuza headquarters was more than obvious to her when it appeared out of the gray, monotonous dirge — a smoked-glass-fronted high rise with wide spaces all around the first floor entrance and many black-suited men stood about. In Kobe the Yakuza didn’t have to hide — everyone knew where they lived. Mai counted thirty floors before the building grew too close to continue and saw a smooth, peaked roof, clearly deliberate since the others around it were flat. Even Yorgi would have a hard time up there. More features lodged in her mind — the black windows that stood fully flushed with the brick walls, the lack of balconies and ledges, the positioning of the guards. Soon, the cars pulled up outside the building and everyone climbed out. Mai found herself entering the headquarters of her arch nemesis under a twelve-man shield.
Inside, the lobby was surprisingly small, no doubt designed that way. Glass formed partitions and walls everywhere. Mai could imagine the guns bristling on the other side of the two-way mirrors.
A sparse front desk, several women working the phones and computers — the first she had seen — and then a cramped trip in a highly polished elevator. Unsurprisingly it was down she went, into the bowels of the earth, even though the buttons only went in ascent from one to thirty five. Mai couldn’t help but turn a wry smile upon her closest guard.
“Got that tip from the CIA? Or Hollywood?”
With no answer forthcoming she caught her reflection in the walls. Not good. She looked exhausted, white and ill. Hikaru, to her right, noticed and nodded.
“Don’t worry. We’ll fix you up for your trial.” He mimicked injecting her with a needle. “Best cocktail you ever had.”
Mai looked up at the roof, seeing at least the fiftieth CCTV camera so far. She badly needed to heal in order to take charge. They weren’t going to give her that chance. And in this city she was isolated beyond belief. Yakuza here wore expensive suits, operated from offices like this and carried business cards. She found it odd that the trial would take place here and not at the walled compound in one of the wealthiest areas of Kobe, but perhaps with the arrival of so many significant Yakuza figures the office building could be better protected. It could obviously house more men.
Several floors down, she knew not how many, the elevator stopped and the doors glided open. A man in a doctor’s robe sat waiting for her. He took one look at her form and rose quickly.
“More antibiotics,” he said. “Before she gets locked away for the day. Otherwise you might have nobody to put on trial at all.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hayden stepped to the middle of the room.
“All right, guys, we have a number of questions that need answering. Why was a US submarine in the straits of Taiwan that day? Why did it sink a hospital ship? Why does the United States possess the Peking Man, lost for over fifty years? Why the hell does Callan Dudley want it? What’s he after next and where is this second vault? We have a lot of odd pieces to this jigsaw, guys, and no way of fitting them together.”
“And why did he leave that poor family alive?” Karin added. “Or rather, the other men he’s working with.”
“MI5 are checking,” Hayden said. “As well as the Irish. We’ll soon know all there is to know about Dudley and his degenerate friends.”
“What will happen to Walcott?”
“Nothing. He was acting under duress. Perhaps now the government will pass some kind of bill that deals with this problem.”
“Yes,” Kinimaka said with his CIA hat on. “Don’t forget there’s the other side of the coin — a man pretending to be under duress and getting away with some priceless relic.”
Komodo nodded in agreement. “Some of the twisted outlaws I’ve met would sell their family out that way just to make a few bucks.”
Hayden waved her hands a little. “Okay, okay, let’s focus. The sub and the ship are at the root of all this. Obviously the ship’s long gone but what about the sub? I need the name of the captain.”
Karin checked the records. “A John Kirby. You know he’ll be subject to something like the Espionage Act.”
“Sure.” Hayden nodded. “But I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
Karin sniffed. “Yeah, scratch that. John Kirby died in the eighties. His son would have been seventy nine this year but he also died. Now his son is forty five and still very much alive. Wow, I feel like I’m clutching at secondhand bendy straws here.”
“Well, that’s because we are.” Hayden huffed. “If you have a better suggestion let’s hear it, but we’ve very rarely been presented with a crime that doesn’t actually make any sense. Our only lead has vanished. The Peking Man clearly plays a big part in all this so let’s follow the damn fossil.”
“Assuming it was on the Awa Maru,” Kinimaka said. “Off Singapore dock, it should be at the bottom of the ocean.”
“Shark infested,” Komodo pointed out with a shudder.
“Or salvaged by the Chinese in the eighties.” Karin nodded. “But it turns up here, in Washington. And at the Smithsonian of all places. Why?”
“I believe Hayden is way ahead of you,” Smyth griped. “That’s why she asked about the ship’s captain.”
“Maybe the US kept the fossil as leverage,” Lauren suggested. “In my line of work — my old line of work — I came across this many times at high-class parties and establishments. They used facial recognition software to identify their shyer, more influential clients so they could leverage against them later.”