AFTER AN HOUR of studying the layout, Joe was heading back toward the alcove near the front entrance. The pianist had taken a break and the sounds of a violin solo were filling the room.
Finding no sign of Kurt, he accepted another glass of champagne and took a seat in one of the lounge chairs. His back was to the crowd, but he was able to see the reflection of everyone behind him in the polished side of the piano. It was the perfect way to watch the crowd without being seen.
He studied each face that passed by, looking for Kurt in the reflection. But it wasn’t Kurt that he saw. Instead, he spied a man heading directly for him and carrying something in his hands.
Joe knew he’d been made. Normal instincts of fight or flight reared up within him, but he kept calm, waiting as the deranged-looking figure grew closer.
At the very last second, Joe dodged to the side and flung the contents of his champagne flute into Ushi-Oni’s face. Temporarily blinded, Ushi-Oni’s stabbing attempt missed Joe and plunged into the soft back of the chair. But he threw his free arm around Joe’s neck, grasping him in a headlock and thrusting the sharpened stem of the wineglass toward Joe’s throat.
The crowd gasped and pulled back.
Joe was at a disadvantage. He had no leverage, but his reactions were flawless. He blocked the stem with his forearm, taking a minor wound in the process and latching onto Oni’s wrist. His other hand smashed the champagne glass over the assassin’s head, drawing blood and a severe uptick in rage.
Oni tore his arm free of Joe’s grasp and reared back for another strike. But Joe was quicker. He placed his feet on the side of the grand piano and instead of pulling away from Oni pushed toward him with a powerful shove.
The peak of the chair hit Oni in the midsection and he tumbled backward. The chair went over, but Joe sprang to his feet and swung his left foot toward Oni’s face, connecting and sending a splatter of blood and saliva flying from the Demon’s mouth.
Oni rolled with the kick and stood up, licking blood off his lips.
Joe looked him dead in the eye, extended a hand and motioned for Ushi-Oni to bring it on.
Oni charged, tackling Joe and landing on top of him. Joe heaved him over, reversed their positions and landed a rabbit punch to Oni’s side.
The Demon once again tried for a sleeper hold, but Joe smashed an elbow into his gut and pulled free.
Mission accomplished, Joe thought. He stood but was taken to the ground by several members of the casino’s security detail. They had rushed in from all directions, swarming over both Joe and the Demon.
Joe couldn’t see much through all the arms and legs, but he felt the shock of a Taser and the sudden lightness that came with being lifted from the ground by several powerful hands.
He and Oni were dragged from the lobby as the onlookers stared and the violinist stood off to one side. The last thing he saw was a man asking her to play and trying to calm the patrons down. And then he was dragged into a back corridor and thrown in a room with concrete walls, a solid floor and a door made of steel.
* * *
• • •
USHI-ONI was handled in similar fashion by men who had no idea who he was. Despite the fact that his hands were bound, he managed to knee one of them in the gut and send him sprawling to the floor. That earned him a jolt from the Taser, which left him stunned and reeling and seething with more anger than before. As he lay there, Oni imagined different ways he would torture them when he got the chance.
They searched him for weapons but found something else instead: the golden chip. Only the casino’s most valued guests carried such markers.
The rough treatment ended instantly. The guards glanced at one another and then helped Ushi-Oni up off the floor and into a seat.
Before they could ask any questions, the door opened. Two men stood there. The first man was named Kashimora; he was the Yakuza underboss who ran the casino. The second was Walter Han.
18
HIDEKI KASHIMORA stood in the unadorned room, seething with anger. A broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties, Kashimora ran the club for the syndicate. He collected the money, maintained its veil of secrecy and enforced its rules mercilessly—something those foolish enough to cross him usually discovered when they wound up in cement barrels at the bottom of Tokyo Bay.
And yet while violence was second nature to Kashimora, even he felt a certain chill looking into the feverish eyes of Ushi-Oni. If half of the stories told about the Demon were true, it made him the most lethal assassin in Japan. His penchant for toying with his victims first was a kind of sickness even a Yakuza boss disapproved of. Killing was business, not pleasure. But for Ushi-Oni it was both.
“I will not tolerate disruption in my club,” Kashimora said.
“I’m sure our friend Oni had good reason,” Han replied.
“Your friend,” Kashimora corrected. “Oni burned his bridges to the syndicate years ago.”
“The syndicate,” Ushi-Oni muttered. He spat blood on the floor to punctuate his disgust.
“I should put you in the ring to finish what you started,” Kashimora said.
“Do it,” Oni suggested.
Han interrupted. “Who was that man you attacked?”
“Don’t you recognize him?” Oni said. “He’s one of the men you sent me to kill.”
“What lies are these?” the casino boss asked. “That man is a promoter from Las Vegas.”
Oni laughed. “He’s no promoter. He’s an American government agent.”
“What kind of agent?” Kashimora blurted out. “And why would he come here?”
“You have nothing to worry about,” Han assured him. “If Oni’s correct, it’s not the casino they’re interested in.”
“Then what?”
“Oni has been recognized; I can only suspect they came here to capture him.”
“They?” Kashimora said. “You think there are more of them?”
“Would you walk into a fortress like this alone?”
Kashimora was furious. He ignored Oni and focused on Han. “You bring this wild man to my place of business and you lose control of him. You let American agents follow you without even warning me to watch out for them. I ought to kill both of you.”
“Just kill the American and toss him in your koi pond,” Oni said. “Better yet, let me do it.”
“No,” Han said. “We have to know if he came alone.”
“That will be difficult, if not impossible, to determine,” Kashimora said. “For obvious reasons, there are no video cameras here.”
“So torture him or beat the truth out of him,” Ushi-Oni said, rising to his feet.
Kashimora didn’t like the Demon being in his establishment. The man was too prone to unnecessary violence. And far too headstrong. “I’m tempted to expel you both,” he said. “If the Americans came here looking for you, I can only assume they will leave once you’re thrown out.”
“Carrying with them whatever information they’ve picked up on their journey,” Han pointed out. “Including evidence of who comes here and what they do. Don’t think that information won’t find its way back to the police.”
“I’m not worried about the police,” Kashimora said proudly. “In the meantime, I’ll throw all the foreigners out.”
“I have a better idea,” Han said. “Put the American in the ring. Make him fight for his life. Plaster his image on every screen in the establishment. If he came here on his own, you’ll get nothing but a thrilling fight. But if he has comrades in the crowd, they will no doubt come to his aid and try to rescue him. Position your men accordingly and you’ll be able to grab them all with one swish of the net.”
19
KURT GATHERED his chips, left his winning table and circled around the room, walking up behind Akiko. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” he said. “Then again, something tells me that’s th
e wrong question.”
She froze at the sound of his voice, her back stiffening.
“Card?” the dealer asked.
Akiko did not respond.
“Would you like a card?”
“You have sixteen,” Kurt told her.
Akiko was playing blackjack. She refocused on the game and made the motion for another card instinctively. A red king gave her twenty-six and the dealer took her chips.
“Now would be a good time to walk away,” Kurt suggested. “And I’m not just talking about the game.”
She stood and brushed past Kurt without looking him in the eye.
He followed, moving alongside her and matching her stride. “Aren’t we on speaking terms anymore?”
“You’re going to interfere,” she said.
“With what?”
She glanced at him. “How do you even know about this place?”
“A little bird told me. What about you?”
“This was my home,” she said. “My prison.”
Kurt grabbed her by the arm and turned her. “What are you trying to say?”
“I was owned by Kashimora,” she replied bluntly. “It’s nothing special. They own plenty of people. But I was property and I did what they told me. You can imagine what I was used for. But, as it turned out, I had a knack for fighting and when a chance came to be more than a prostitute, I took it. I taught myself everything I could. I studied the martial arts, the samurai, the way of the warrior. A chance encounter led me to Master Kenzo and, when I had the opportunity, I left here and joined him. But they found me. They came after me.”
Kurt was beginning to understand. “You think that—”
“They found me,” she repeated. “Because I tried to escape them, they punished my new family. Kenzo tried to save me from myself and now he’s dead. So I’m going to make things right even if I have to die to do it.”
The story was something of a surprise, despite what Superintendent Nagano had told him. He wasn’t altogether convinced, but there was great determination in her eyes.
“Kashimora,” he said, just to be sure. “The man who runs this place.”
She nodded. “They don’t like to lose their property. And they don’t let people take things from them. I thought I was free, but I will never be free, so I will face my enemy and embrace him in death,” she said. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be seen with me. They might kill you for what I’m about to do.”
A group of patrons came a little too close and Kurt hustled Akiko onto the ramp that led upstairs. He was late for his meeting with Joe anyway.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re making a huge mistake. I spent a couple hours with the police the other day. Those men who attacked us were once part of the Yakuza, but not anymore. And they didn’t attack the castle to get you back or make an example out of Kenzo. They were trying to stop him from giving us the information we came for.”
She looked at him as if she wanted to believe.
“Trust me,” he said. “What happened was not your fault. It was our visit and what Kenzo found in the sea that caused the attack. It’s connected to earthquakes and those Z-waves he found.”
She narrowed her gaze. “These are the people I escaped from. I know their secrets. Things they don’t want coming to light.”
Kurt shook his head. “If they remembered you, they’d have killed you the moment you walked in here. I’m telling you, you can let go of the guilt on this one.”
“I don’t know if I can accept that.”
“Think about it on the cab ride home,” he said. “You’re leaving.”
“Why?”
“In case they do recognize you.”
By now, they’d reached the top floor and were nearing the piano alcove. Joe was nowhere to be found, but a distinct lack of music and the sight of staff members cleaning glass off the floor and rearranging the furniture suggested a commotion had taken place. Security members with earbuds talking to several guests confirmed it.
“Keep walking,” he said, passing the alcove and the exit and continuing in the other direction.
“I thought I was leaving.”
Kurt didn’t look back. “None of us are leaving, not without finding our own way out.”
They continued down the hall and then back down one level toward the crowded casino pit. By the time they got there, screens were updating the list of fights to bet on.
Joe’s image and the false name he’d been provided with were now prominently displayed in the slot marked Fight 1, the first bout of the evening.
“What do those symbols mean?” Kurt asked.
“That’s for the weapons fight,” she said. “Nunchucks, staffs, half-staffs. Seven three-minute rounds or until either combatant cannot rise. No submission.”
All thoughts of finding Ushi-Oni or whoever paid him vanished as Kurt’s mind turned to a different problem. “I’m going to need your help.”
“To do what?”
“Rescue Joe.”
20
KURT AND AKIKO moved through the crowd as the lights came on in the arena.
“How soon till the fight begins?” Kurt asked.
“Twenty minutes,” she said.
All around the casino floor, bettors were gathering up their chips and making their way to the exhibition.
Kurt continued to move with the crowd; Akiko was with him but slowing down. “Stay with me.”
“You can’t go to the arena,” she said. “That’s what they want you to do.”
“I’m going,” he said. “But not the way they expect. First, we have to get out of sight.”
A hidden door opened in the far wall and a cocktail waitress stepped through it with a tray of drinks.
“Back of the house,” Kurt said. “Every hotel has one.”
He led Akiko toward it, pulled up beside the smooth section of the wall and waited. It wasn’t long before the door swung wide and another waitress came out.
She passed them without a second glance, navigating through the crowd toward a table. By the time the door clicked shut, Kurt and Akiko had slipped inside.
They entered an unadorned service hall. A drink station lay in one direction, empty locker rooms in the other. With the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, Kurt angled toward one of the locker rooms, slipped inside and closed the door.
When the steps in the hall passed by, Kurt knew they were alone. “You came here looking for revenge,” he said. “What was your plan?”
She pulled a small plastic vial from a hidden pouch in her dress. Opening the top, she produced several white tablets. “Poison,” she said. “Slow-acting. It would give me enough time to get out before taking effect. No one would ever know who did it.”
“Mind if I borrow that?” he asked.
She placed the pills back inside and handed it over. “Do you think that will help?”
“I’d prefer an AK-47,” he said. “But this will be easier to smuggle, especially considering the wardrobe requirements of the night.”
“You seem very certain,” she said.
“I am,” he insisted. “All we have to do is take our complaints to the manager. I think he’ll see things our way. But to reach him, we’ll need to blend in. If you’d be so kind as to put on a cocktail server’s uniform, that would be a start.”
Akiko opened several lockers before finding the right uniform and then began to disrobe without a hint of modesty. Kurt turned his back to her to give her some privacy and went through several of the lockers before he found what he was looking for: another bottle of pills.
He slipped it into his pocket and turned around.
“Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.
“Not just yet,” he said.
“That white jacket stands out,” she said. “They’ll spot you as soo
n as you walk up.”
“I’m counting on it.”
* * *
• • •
IN A DIFFERENT locker room, down below the arena, Joe was told to dress for the fight. The pickings were slim, different types of athletic gear and martial arts robes. “I don’t suppose you have anything in suit of armor . . . say, early Middle Ages?”
The joke was wasted on his captors. They’d been ordered by Kashimora to get him ready for the fight and force him into the arena if he refused to go willingly. Other than that, they weren’t to speak with him.
With little choice, Joe picked out a two-piece martial arts uniform. The loose gray top had a V-neck collar; the pants had an elastic waistband, designed for ease of movement.
Several weapons were offered for him to practice with. He picked up a set of nunchucks and whirled them around, left and right. He’d toyed with nunchucks once before, but, without professional training, they were as dangerous to the user as to the opponent. After almost hitting himself in the face, he put them down.
The noise of the crowd reached them through the closed door. It rose and fell as a voice speaking in Japanese announced the coming bout.
“It’s time,” one of the guards said.
They marched him to the door and held him in place.
The door opened to a roar from the crowd and a wave of blinding light; Joe squinted as they pushed him forward and forced him to ascend a ramp.
He stepped into a circular arena with a six-foot wall around it. It reminded Joe of a bullfighters’ ring except that the floor was made of wooden planking, complete with dark swaths where it had been stained with blood.
“That’s encouraging,” he muttered.
“You guys should bet on me,” Joe said to the guards in his corner. “I’m sure you’ll get good odds.”
Neither of them responded, and when Joe’s opponent arrived from a gap in the far wall, Joe understood why. The man was a monster. Six foot seven and muscle-bound from head to toe. Huge rounded shoulders tapered to a washboard abdomen and then widened out on a pair of tree-trunk-sized legs.