“Never mind,” Joe said. “I wouldn’t bet on me either.”
The guards behind him snickered, but Joe couldn’t have been happier. He knew he wasn’t alone. Someway, somehow, Kurt would try to rescue him. All he had to do was stay alive long enough for Kurt to do it. And in that situation, a big, slow bruiser of an opponent would be far easier to hold off than a quick-hitting martial artist.
Joe was pushed to the center of the ring. Weapons were offered. Joe took a staff, like the one he’d used to vault over the Komodo dragon. The Japanese version of Hercules took a pair of sticks, one in each hand.
A horn sounded and the bout began. Joe held the staff in front of him as the giant moved in without hesitation. Joe jabbed at him a few times with the point of the staff, slowing his approach.
His opponent took the first two in the ribs and shrugged them off as if they were nothing. He responded to the third jab with a vicious counterattack. Displaying incredible speed for such a big man, he brought the left-handed stick down and knocked the point of Joe’s staff into the floorboards, while simultaneously lunging forward and swinging the other half-staff toward Joe’s skull.
Joe ducked just in time, hearing a distinct whistling noise as the stick passed over his head. The crowd let out a collective gasp and Joe pulled back, resuming his defensive stance.
“Take it easy, big fella,” he said. “At least give the people a show before you cave my head in.”
He might as well have been talking to a wall. The man neither smiled nor frowned. He just charged forward once again.
This time, Joe dropped to the ground, shoved the staff between his opponent’s legs and levered it to the side. The big man’s knees buckled from the attack and he dropped to the ground.
Instead of injuring the man, Joe’s next move was to disarm the guy. He swung his staff like a nine iron, catching one of the sticks in his adversary’s hand and sending it into the third row. Patrons dove out of their seats to avoid the incoming missile and Joe laughed at them.
The sideshow gave his opponent a chance to stand. Joe hoped the man realized he’d deliberately gone for his weapon instead of his head.
Before they could spar again, the horn sounded, signaling the intermission between rounds.
The big guy returned to his starting area and was briefly tended to. Joe went back to his spot, but the guards just stared at him. He grabbed a bottle of water for himself, took a small drink and rested against the wall.
For the first time, he was able to study the crowd. It was an intimate setting. Seating for maybe a thousand people. They surrounded him on steeply sloped tiers and every seat was taken.
He looked for Kurt but found no sign of him. What he did see were security guards standing at every entrance and in each aisle. There was no way Kurt could get into the arena without being caught. A fact Kurt had no doubt already discovered. It meant Joe would have to keep fighting while Kurt found another way.
The horn sounded for round 2. Joe put the water down and stepped forward. “Make it quick,” he whispered. “I can’t dance with Godzilla forever.”
21
IN A LUXURY SUITE overlooking the arena, Walter Han watched the fight from behind thick glass. It muffled the sound of the crowd and the viciousness of the blows and allowed a sense of privacy. Scanning the arena through a pair of opera glasses, he saw nothing to indicate a rescue was under way.
“Anything?” Kashimora asked.
“Not yet,” Han said.
“So much for your plan to draw him out into the open,” Kashimora said condescendingly.
Han placed the glasses down and began to pace. The arrival of the American unnerved him. Not only because he’d been told they were all dead or in the hospital but because they’d struck so close to him. He had a survivor’s instincts and they told him he was in danger.
He explained what he knew to Kashimora. “Based on the description your doorman gave, you’re looking for a man named Austin. He’ll be wearing a distinctive white dinner jacket. The man in the ring is his comrade. Considering what I know about these two, neither will abandon the other.”
Kashimora smirked. “Bravado: I find it goes out the window when the stakes get this high. If Austin knows what’s good for him, he’s already looking for a way out of the building.”
“An effort I assume your men will prevent,” Han said.
“Of course,” Kashimora said. “Trust me, there’s no way for them to escape now.”
Han nodded. “Then I’ll depart and let you handle it.”
“You’re leaving?”
Han knew it wasn’t his finest moment, but he had to get out of there. If he was exposed, the entire plan would come apart. And the leaders of the Party in China would sacrifice him to save themselves. “What purpose does my staying serve? You said it yourself: there’s no way for them to escape.”
Kashimora had been trapped by his own words. “If this goes badly for us, you will hear about it,” he threatened.
“You forget your station,” Han said. “I deal with those much higher in the syndicate than you. My patronage is appreciated and has been for years.” He put his hand on the door, not waiting for permission. “If the American has friends here, I expect you to find them and eliminate them. If not, get rid of the one in the ring and leave no trace of his existence.”
Kashimora bristled but did not try to prevent his leaving. “Take the wild man with you,” he said. “Don’t ever bring him here again.”
Han opened the door and motioned to Oni. They left together.
Kashimora remained behind, stewing for the moment and frustrated. He grabbed the opera glasses off the table and scanned the arena himself. He saw nothing out of order and lowered the glasses, pointing to his empty tumbler as a cocktail waitress entered.
“Scotch.”
He sat down in an overstuffed chair as she freshened his drink and delivered it.
Without acknowledging her, he brought the glass to his mouth, tipped it back and consumed half the liquid inside. The fiery liquid burned in just the right way and Kashimora felt instantly calmer.
He put the tumbler down and turned his attention back to the fight. The second round had gone much like the first. The hulking giant attacking and the nimble American dodging and weaving.
“Maybe Han is right,” he said to himself. “Perhaps he is waiting for rescue.”
“Then we’d better not disappoint him,” a voice said from behind them.
Kashimora whirled in his chair. The American accent was unmistakable, the white dinner jacket confirming who it was that had spoken. Kashimora noticed the man was unarmed but smiling.
“You must be Austin.”
“I am,” the man replied, taking a seat.
“How did you get in here?”
“With surprising ease,” Austin replied smugly. “Now that most of your men are out there looking for me, the hallways are empty. And your guards at the door were easy to distract and subdue.”
“I don’t need guards to protect myself,” Kashimora said, producing a snub-nosed pistol and aiming it at the American’s chest.
Instead of fear or even caution, Austin merely raised his hands in a halfhearted manner as if he were surrendering. He wore an outright grin on his face. Not the look of a defeated man. “I wouldn’t pull that trigger, if I was you.”
“You’ll wish I had when you’re drowning at the bottom of Tokyo Bay with your friend.”
“And you’ll wish you’d listened to me,” the American replied, “when your heart goes into an uncontrollable fibrillation and your arteries begin leaking blood out of every pore and body cavity.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Whatever happens to me happens to you,” Austin told him. “Either we both live or we both die. It’s up to you.”
“Lies and a bad attempt to bl
uff. That doesn’t work well around here.”
Austin held up an empty plastic vial and tossed it to him. Kashimora caught it with his free hand. A bitter residue clung to the sides.
“That was filled with heparin,” Kurt said. “A powerful blood thinner. Very similar to rat poison. You’ve ingested a fatal dose in that beverage of yours. Enough to kill a man three times your size—like the one trying to beat up my friend down there. The alcohol masks the taste of the drug, but I imagine you can detect a metallic and bitter flavor on your tongue at this point.”
Kashimora began running his tongue across his teeth; he detected an unpleasant essence. He knew what rat poison could do. He’d used it on others.
“You’re probably feeling flushed as well,” Austin continued. “Your heart will be racing soon, if it’s not already.”
Kashimora’s face felt warm. His heart was beating firmly, a little too firmly. A bead of sweat was already forming on his brow. “You’ll never get out of here alive,” he said.
Austin raised an eyebrow. “I will if you escort me to the door. And if you’re willing to do that, I’m willing to leave you at the front gate with a firm handshake and the antidote in your outstretched palm.”
“Or I could shoot you and search your body for it.” Kashimora cocked the pistol and stared down the barrel.
“Excellent idea,” Austin said. He opened his palm, revealing a handful of tablets. There were five pills all of different colors, shapes and sizes. “It’s one of these,” he said. “But you guess wrong, you get more poison and you die even quicker.”
Kashimora could hardly believe what was occurring. In the heart of the Yakuza stronghold, with every exit sealed and fifty armed men looking for him, Austin had turned the tables against the house.
“Put the gun on the floor and slide it over here,” Austin demanded.
He shook his head. There had to be another way.
Austin glanced at his watch. “Wait much longer and it’ll be too late.”
Kashimora tried to control his fear, but it was overwhelming. His heart was pounding now; a sheen of sweat had built up on his face. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his jacket and put the gun down. He kicked it Austin’s way. “What do you want me to do? Call off the security teams?”
Austin picked up the pistol. “They would find that awfully suspicious.”
“Then what?”
“First, I’ll take your phone,” he said. “Mine was impounded. And then you’re going to help me get my friend out of the ring. And you’re going to do it the old-fashioned way. By hand.”
22
THE HORN blew and round 4 began. Joe noticed a new tactic from his opponent. The man was no longer charging forth, trying to land a deadly blow. Instead, he was hanging back, waiting for Joe to move first. Perhaps he was tiring. Or maybe it was a new tactic born out of Joe’s ability to evade him.
Joe looked his opponent in the eye. The man waved Joe forward, daring him to move closer. Joe shook his head. The big man repeated his gesture, swinging the remaining stick in the air as if to challenge him. Still, Joe held his ground and the fight turned into a stalemate.
With the combatants circling each other instead of attacking, the crowd began to whistle. Soon a chant began. Joe didn’t understand the words, but he felt the intensity growing.
The ground began to move under his feet. Not side to side but vertically. The outside edge of the circular ring was rising up, the planks being lifted by a hydraulic jack. A small section in the middle remained flat, but that was it. What had been a large circular arena—with plenty of room to move about in—began transforming into a funnel that would force the warriors into close combat.
The big guy smiled at this development and walked calmly down to the center of the funnel.
Joe held his position, crouching as the angle of the floor grew steeper. He dropped lower to keep his center of gravity down, put a hand on the floor to keep himself balanced, but as the angle passed forty-five degrees, his feet began to slip.
The crowd was chanting deliriously now. Anticipating the moment Joe would fall and tumble into the arms of the giant.
Joe knew he couldn’t hold on much longer. At any moment, the friction holding him in place would be overcome by the force of gravity.
Instead of remaining still and trying to hold off the inevitable, he leapt up and ran. But he didn’t run straight at his opponent, he ran at an angle, cutting across the funnel and down. Picking up momentum, he was able to curve back up the opposite slope like a speeding car on a banked turn.
The big man swept at his feet, but Joe leapt over the attack and then whacked his oversized opponent in the back of the head as he passed him.
The big man fell with a heavy thud as Joe ran up the far side of the banked platform. He was about to make another high-speed attack when the bottom dropped out. Literally.
The pneumatic hiss told the story, but Joe heard it too late. Large valves had been opened and the pent-up pressure holding the floor panels up released. The floorboards fell back to their original state and Joe fell with them, slamming against the solid ground.
Stunned, he rolled over. “That’s just not fair.”
He looked up to see his opponent rushing in. The muscle-bound specimen of a man grabbed the staff and pulled it out of Joe’s hand. Almost immediately, it came swinging back Joe’s way with deadly force.
Joe covered up. His natural instinct as a boxer was to bring his left arm up and protect his head. The stick crashed against Joe’s flexed bicep and forearm but still caught the side of his head with a glancing blow.
His legs felt like jelly. A voice in his head told him to get up and run, but it was drowned out by the ringing sound in his ears.
He tried for a crawling position, before falling to his side and then rolling over on his back. He lay that way, staring straight up. There was no ref to count him out, only the blinding glare of the lights up above. A perfect square of incandescence with an impenetrably dark section in the center.
For a second, the giant stood over Joe, blocking the light. But the horn sounded and the big man walked off rather than attempting to finish Joe.
“Chivalry isn’t dead after all,” Joe said to himself.
As he lay there waiting for the feeling to return to his legs, something fell toward him from up above. At first, Joe thought it was his imagination, but it hit the deck next to him, bounced and then rolled in a curved path until it bumped against his ribs.
He turned on his side, innate curiosity driving him to see what had fallen from the rafters. Grasping it with his fingers, he plucked the object from the floor. It was a five-yen coin, with its brassy color and hole in the middle. A token of good luck.
Joe’s spirits soared. He looked back up to the rafters just as the bank of overhead lights went out.
23
“THROW HIM THE ROPE,” Kurt called.
He, Akiko and Kashimora were perched on the catwalk that ran between the lights. Akiko had a long nylon cord used to secure things to the catwalk. She dropped one end over the side, allowing it to fall straight down. It hit the canvas in the dark.
“I hope he sees it,” she said. “After that last hit, he might not be thinking clearly.”
“If there’s anything harder than a diamond, it’s Joe’s head,” Kurt told her. “He’ll be all right.”
Kurt had seen Joe grasp the coin and look up. He knew Joe would put it together.
“Once he’s up here, you give me the antidote,” Kashimora said anxiously.
“Not until we’re outside,” Kurt replied.
The rope went taut. Two pulls told them Joe was ready.
“Now,” Kurt said. “Pull him up.” The three of them began hauling on the rope. Arm over arm. With synchronized strokes that would have done a yacht crew proud, they lifted Joe off the ground, but it was a long w
ay up to the lighting array and Joe weighed nearly two hundred pounds.
Halfway up, Kashimora stopped. He dropped to a knee, clutching at his chest. He was sweating feverishly. “I need the antidote.”
“Get back on the rope,” Kurt shouted.
“Not unless you give me the pills.”
There wasn’t much Kurt could do. Joe was a lot heavier without Kashimora hauling in tandem. If Kurt let go, Akiko would be hard-pressed to hold him all by herself. “I’ll give you the pills as soon as he’s up here. Now pull.”
With Kurt frozen, Kashimora lunged at him, thrusting his hand into Kurt’s pocket and fishing around for the pills. The impact almost knocked them both over the railing. The rope slipped, Joe dropped a few feet and Kurt gripped it again.
“Give me the antidote!” Kashimora screamed.
Kurt didn’t bother to respond. He pushed Kashimora back against the rail, wrapped the other end of the rope around him and pushed him over. The bulky mobster was not particularly nimble, but, in desperation, he managed to hook one foot around the railing. He stopped his fall. He and Joe were now balancing each other out.
Kurt pulled out the orange tablets. “This is what you want.”
“Please,” Kashimora said.
“One question first,” Kurt said. “Who paid Ushi-Oni?”
“What?”
Kurt reared back as if to throw the tablets into the dark.
“Wait,” Kashimora pleaded. “It was Han.”
“Han who?”
“Walter Han.”
“Is he Yakuza?”
“No,” Kashimora said. “He’s a Chinese businessman. Very wealthy.”
Kurt pressed, though there was little time to do so. “Why would a businessman hire an assassin?”
“I don’t know.”
Kurt let a little of the rope out.
“I swear it,” Kashimora shouted. “Now give me the pills.”