“I’m gonna crawl into the front. When I do I want you to pull clear of Guard—”
Gunfire rang out, shocking in the silent aftermath of the crash. Dudley saw Guard Winston and the driver fall, faces and eyes staring right at him, now void of life. And a good riddance to you. Now the guy next to him was fidgeting like a man on Speed, straining to see in four directions at once.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Dudley said. “You’ll be dead soon too.”
That was when the guy got a bright idea. Instead of trying to save himself he grabbed Dudley by the neck, thrust his head down, and shoved a handgun into his ear.
“You want him? Then show yourselves. Or I’ll blow his head off!”
“That’s our wee brother,” a splendid Irish twang rang out. “You hurt him I’ll rip yer eyes out.”
Dudley’s mood soared. Malachi! His older brother, reunited at last in bloody murder. His only hope now was that the rest of the 27-Club were here and they could make it a new chapter to be proud of.
“Callan, me wee brother. Yer there?”
“Fire top and bottom,” he said. “They got me in the middle.”
With not a moment’s hesitation, shots rang out. Bullets ripped through the SUV, the lower one coming perilously close to his own forehead. Blood splashed over him, but not his own. The handgun that felt like it had become part of his ear didn’t go off in any kind of reflex action.
Score one to the lads for that! Lucky bastards!
Dudley waited patiently for his release. Soon, he heard heavy breathing and the grunting of two men. A pair of hands dug under his belt, releasing it, then the two men helped drag him clear of the wreckage.
No words were spoken. Homecomings weren’t made to a man clapped in irons and wearing a mask. When the keys had been located and manacles removed, the hood was whisked away.
“Callan, me fella. How are ye?”
Malachi’s grinning visage popped up before his eyes.
“Better for seein’ the lads, to be sure. You ready to do some real mischief, lads?”
Six familiar faces surrounded him, all grinning like maniacs now their bloodlust was up. Boyle, Daley, McLain, Byram and Brannan needed no introductions.
“Yer wanna take these Pythian eejits and fill them full of holes?”
Dudley grinned at McLain, the passion in the man’s voice igniting his own violent ardor. “Not yet,” he growled. “First I want to murder this woman what took me down called Alicia Myles. Then we’ll murder her again just for fun, and the team who helped her. We can use the Pythians’ help with all that.”
“Grand, grand,” Malachi said. “Let’s get started.”
Dudley couldn’t help but smile even wider as he kicked the corpses aside and armed himself. “Damn, I’m looking forward to this.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mai Kitano awoke to the sound of deep, thrumming engines. Disorientation overcame her for a moment and then the acute stabbing pain in her stomach brought it all back.
The hotel room. The Yakuza. Hikaru shooting her in the stomach; the second bullet slamming into the carpet by her head. The dragging and the lifting, the intense pain. The knowledge that she never should have left the safety of the suite of rooms provided by the Americans. And Matt Drake?
Damn. She had pushed him away, now look where she was.
A plan had been forming in her mind, a plan to revisit Tokyo and seek out the surviving girl from Hayami’s family. Emiko, wasn’t it? That was her name. Find her and lay all your sins out before her.
She knew now how ridiculous it all sounded. Yes, her primary motives were selfish — she was doing it for her own peace of mind. But… that didn’t stop her needing to do it.
Then the Yakuza changed all that. Hikaru had grown a set, come to DC and confronted her. Granted, the set he’d grown hadn’t allowed him to confront her without an entourage of armed goons, but then why should he?
Mai remembered the agony of being shot in the stomach, the knowledge that such a death was extremely painful. Nevertheless, she would have endured it all night just to keep a certain, special knowledge away from Hikaru.
That Grace had been sleeping in the next room. The Yakuza never found out.
Now, coming to in the gently rolling, malodorous room with a single bare light bulb and cracked wooden shelves; with a no doubt locked metal door and no windows; with a single desk full of papers and small glass bottles and syringes and tubes, Mai Kitano found she couldn’t move more than an inch.
Her arms and legs were strapped to a bed. After a moment she determined that she still wore pants, thankfully, and boots and the tank top she had gone to bed in. The pain of trying to sit up seemed to wrench her stomach apart, making her groan. Somebody had done a decent job down there, removing the bullet and patching her up.
Where the hell am I?
The situation was awkward. Yes, she had been in worse and escaped without a scratch but never with a fresh bullet wound. Ideally, she needed time to heal — even a few days would help.
Not enough.
She knew that and told her inner voice to shut up. The man who had taken her would reveal all, she was confident of that. His egotism ensured it. All she had to do was get better until he did.
Again she lifted her head as much as she was able, fighting the pain. Beyond her feet stood a medicine cabinet and beside that a drinks globe. Interesting set-up. Boxes were piled in one corner of the room, some torn open to reveal such diverse items as bandages, condoms, bottled water and designer aftershave.
The door rattled, opened and a man walked in. Mai saw instantly that he was Japanese, grubby and worn down.
“Ah, you are awake. I will fetch water.”
Mai sipped for a while and then said. “Where am I?”
“On board the Genkai Hida.”
He spoke with such matter-of-factness that Mai wondered if she’d been told before and forgotten.
“And we’re bound for…?”
“You are bound for Kobe.” Hikaru’s strong voice came from somewhere beyond her field of vision. “Where else would the infamous Mai Kitano be going?”
Mai understood immediately. Hikaru belonged to Japan’s largest Yakuza organization which, despite being one of the largest criminal entities in the world, had its headquarters in Kobe, Japan. Taking into account Mai’s past exploits against the Yakuza it was a no-brainer to expect that she would be afforded a visit to the center of operations. With over forty thousand members, press-covered invitations for their Kumicho — their leader — from the police to step in as ‘honorary police chief’ for the day, and even an in-house magazine, the Kobe based Yakuza family was universally well connected. It was also highly publicized that they had started a large-scale relief effort after the great Kobe earthquake of 1995, helping with the distribution of food and supplies, something that was vital to the local people since official support was non-existent for several days. And again, after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the Yakuza opened its offices to the public and sent out supplies to affected areas. Even CNN were quoted as saying the Yakuza “moved quietly and swiftly to provide aid to those most in need”. Rather than an attempt at glory-seeking, this was more of an honor-code move by the criminal organization. Their members were well acquainted with having to fend for themselves without government aid or community support, valued justice and duty above anything else, and forbade allowing others to suffer.
Mai knew she would see very little of this honor code. She had wronged the Yakuza. They would make her suffer beyond belief.