Sergeant Demanov followed Lurbud and two other troopers in the last dash across the lawn to the house. As they approached the thick slabs of glass of one wing, Lurbud tossed a grenade. The grenade cracked the glass as it hit, but did not penetrate. A second later, it exploded, shattering three panels in a plume of crystal and fire. Lurbud led his men through the resulting six-foot-wide hole. Their boots crunched across the fine glass chips spread out over the woven reed mat within. One of Kenji’s men lay smeared against the far wall of the Japanese-style room, his body shredded by the razor-sharp glass.
The remainder of Lurbud’s team had used similar techniques, blowing four other holes in the structure. What followed was nothing short of an all-out war, with both sides falsely assuming their enemy was an American commando team.
Cordite smoke hung heavily in the entrance foyer as Lurbud cautiously edged himself into the lofty room near one wall. In the whirling air, it was difficult to tell who was part of his force and who was not. A figure leapt from behind a huge terra-cotta vase, leveling his weapon at Lurbud. Sergeant Demanov dispatched the attacker with a quick burst.
Lurbud acknowledged Demanov with a nod and continued his sweep of the house. Gunfire echoed throughout the cavernous home and streaks of tracer fire, like comet tails, could be seen through some of the transparent walls. Halfway up the stairs, Lurbud came under a scathing fire, bullets ripping up the thick marble banister only inches from his body.
Lurbud leapt up and over the railing, exposing himself for a moment to the hidden gunman before dropping back to the first floor. He hit the hard marble and rolled once as more bullets sliced the air around him. More than one gunman had targeted him. He continued to roll, directing fire from his machine pistol at the vague outline of a man far across the foyer. The rounds caught the man low in the gut, the kinetic energy of the impacts lifting him bodily and tossing him through a bullet-riddled glass wall.
A grenade rumbled somewhere within the mansion, shaking the entire building. It was immediately followed by the sound of huge chunks of glass shattering against the hard floor.
Up and running, Lurbud changed clips for his weapon with expert hands. Someone loomed out from the reeking smoke and Lurbud almost tore him apart, but stopped in time as he realized it was Demanov.
“What’s your estimate?” Lurbud panted.
“Ten to fifteen, maybe as many as twenty. It’s hard to tell because this place is so fucking big.”
Bullets flew over their heads as they both dove behind a sofa in what must have been the formal living room. Demanov returned fire quickly. Another fusillade pinned them back to the white-carpeted floor.
As soon as the firing stopped, Lurbud sprang to his feet and ran across the room. Bullets tracked his progress, edging closer and closer to his racing form. A Waterford crystal sculpture nearly seven feet tall exploded just behind him. He dove for the floor between two leather ottomans, breath jamming into his throat with the impact.
The firing stopped for a moment and he lifted himself. The gunman was in plain view. Lurbud opened up, stitching rounds across a massive Roy Lichtenstein painting before finding his mark. The gunman went down with three slugs buried deep in his torso.
Lurbud slithered across the room to the fallen assailant. Expecting to see a caucasian or Japanese from Ohnishi’s security detachment, he was shocked to find that the gunman was Chinese or possibly Korean.
“What the fuck is going on?” he wondered.
Lurbud heard the distinctive crack of a pistol shot just as a bullet slammed into the corpse’s chest inches from his hand. He lifted his machine pistol and fired instinctively, but his bullets hit nothing but more glass. The attacker had nimbly ducked behind a glass-cased suit of Japanese armor guarding a curve in the hallway leading to some of the guest suites.
Lurbud lurched to his feet and started down the hall, back pressed tight to the wall, hands steady on his weapon. He fired a burst at the priceless armor, which disintegrated under the hail of 9mm rounds. There was no one behind it. He continued on, passing the body of one of his own men further down the hallway. The Russian soldier’s head had been completely twisted around.
“Jesus,” Lurbud muttered, remembering that Ohnishi’s assistant Kenji was a black belt of the eight don, a master virtually without peer. The dead Russian had to be his handiwork.
Lurbud tightened the grip on his machine pistol now that he knew the power of his quarry. He searched each of the opulent guest suites quickly but calmly, mentally blocking out the firefight still raging within the building. The door at the far end of the hallway did not lead to a room, but rather opened onto a stark concrete and steel service staircase.
He ascended cautiously, the rancid sweat of fear snaking down his flanks. It was impossible to hear anything in the echoing stairway because of the cacophonous battle.
After a few minutes, Lurbud reached the top of the stairs but there was no sign of Kenji, just a dimly lit landing and a fire retardant door. Lurbud jerked open the door, keeping his body safely out of the way.
When the gunfire he expected didn’t occur, he ducked his head around the corner quickly. The room beyond was small, maybe twelve feet square, but tastefully furnished with a low bed, an antique dresser, and damascene wall coverings. A huge built-in mirror dominated the far wall. Lurbud knew it was one-way glass from the plans provided to his team.
Rather than waste time looking for the secret exit that Kenji must have used, Lurbud pumped a few rounds into the mirror and watched it tumble to the floor in a glittering cascade. Beyond lay Ohnishi’s private bedroom and on the beautiful four-poster bed lay Ohnishi himself, naked.
His head had been severed from his torso, as had his arms and legs. Each appendage lay neatly in its proper anatomical position, but about two inches separated each from the trunk of the billionaire’s body.
Evad Lurbud had been witness to and had in fact carried out some of the most vicious torture yet devised by mankind, but what lay before him brought vomit shooting out of his mouth. Ohnishi’s withered genitalia had been cut off and placed a few inches from his groin. Lurbud knew from the amount of blood in this region that this had been the first member carved off.
Trying to regain his composure, Lurbud thought for a moment and realized that such a death took more time than he’d given the fleeing Kenji. Either someone else had been here first, or Kenji had done this prior to Lurbud’s assault on the mansion.
If the presence of Korean guards was baffling, then Ohnishi’s death was truly confusing. Kenji was Ohnishi’s assistant of many years, by all accounts incredibly loyal. Why had he suddenly turned? Why had he killed his employer? Lurbud let these questions sink into the back of his mind as he continued his search.
Beyond the bedroom lay a dayroom as large as most suburban homes. The decor was very modern, including geometric and freeform art pieces and a glossy white pine floor. The pyramidal top of the mansion soared over Lurbud’s head, supporting a huge primary-colored mobile by Calder, a smaller version of the one hanging in the east wing of the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Lurbud dashed from the dayroom through the nine-foot-tall French doors at the far end and onto an open balcony that overlooked the back of Ohnishi’s estate. He took a few deep breaths of the humid air, glad to be out of the smoke-filled house. Amazingly, he could make out the sounds of night insects over the din of battle below.
Kenji stood on the back lawn, a lean shadowy form in the rich moonlight. The instant Lurbud saw him, he raised his machine pistol, but Kenji was too far out of range. A glance to his left showed Lurbud the rope ladder, hanging over the side of the balcony, that Kenji must have used to escape.