The third arrow sung as she released it, but the target had ducked behind an out-jutting wall and the lethal projectile caromed harmlessly off the stone. Still, he was injured and that group of attackers would have no choice but to retreat.
“Save some of them for me,” Kurt joked.
She didn’t sense the humor. “Unfortunately, we have plenty of enemies left to fight.”
Seeming to prove the point, an assault rifle began hammering away, shells splintering the wood above them and pinging off the heavy iron bell.
Kurt and Akiko dropped to the ground and took cover in the center of the platform as additional gunfire came in from the other side.
“We’re caught in a cross fire,” Kurt said, as he crawled toward the rail and risked a look. “They’ve taken cover behind the wall. Might be time to break out that cannon after all.”
Before they could do more, a muffled explosion, followed by a whoosh of flames and smoke, rumbled on the far side.
“Molotov cocktail,” she said.
“Without oysters or caviar,” Kurt said, “just uncivilized.”
Down below, tongues of auburn flame licked at the edges of the pagoda and began snaking their way up toward its crown. The ancient wood was bone dry and lacquered in oil-based paint. Dark and noxious fumes billowed upward. The fire would soon follow.
“We need to get out of here,” Kurt said.
“You said we needed to take the high ground.”
“That was before the high ground became a barbeque.”
Kurt urged her forward and the two of them ran down the stairs only to find the door stuck. Kurt put a shoulder to it but it wouldn’t budge.
“There’s something up against it,” Akiko said, looking through a small window at the top.
Kurt stepped back, preparing to charge forward and hit it like a battering ram. But before he could move, a salvo of bullets punctured the wooden door from the other side.
Kurt plastered himself against the stairs and avoided being hit, but Akiko took two shots to the chest and fell backward.
Kurt rushed forward, shoved the crossbow through the small window at the top of the door and aimed it downward before pulling the trigger.
A shout of pain came from the other side of the door. It was followed by breaking glass and erupting flames of another Molotov cocktail. Flickering orange light visible through the window told him the room outside was on fire, all the beautiful tapestries and old furniture.
Staying low in case another wave of bullets came through, Kurt crawled to Akiko. She lay on her side, grabbing her midsection. She wasn’t bleeding and Kurt noticed a web of Kevlar beneath the ancient metal plating.
“I was wondering why you bothered to put that on,” he said. “Apparently, not all technology is bad.”
She forced a painful grin. “We have to get out. This won’t protect us from the smoke . . .”
“Can you stand?”
“I think so,” she said, getting to her feet and then doubling over almost as quickly.
She began to cough and Kurt could feel the irritation building in his own lungs. He needed to find another way out and he needed to find it fast. He glanced back up the stairs, took a deep breath and ran into the thickening smoke.
9
“THIS WAY,” Kenzo urged. “Quickly.”
He spoke with nervous energy as he led them through a section of the ancient castle that Joe didn’t recognize. “This isn’t the way we came,” Joe said.
“Shortcut,” Kenzo insisted. “It’ll keep us hidden. If they’re out there and we’re in here, it will be better for us all.”
They came to a wooden door that Kenzo opened with an old-fashioned key. It swung outward and then bumped against something.
Squeezing through, they found themselves in a rotunda. A body on the ground had stopped the door from opening all the way. Kenzo crouched beside it. “Ichiro. One of my earliest followers. He left an abusive family to come with me.”
Joe reached down and felt for a pulse, but a quick look told him it was too late. Ichiro had been riddled with bullets at close range. “He’s dead,” Joe said. “And this means our attackers are obviously inside the castle.”
Kenzo nodded. “The question is, how many and where?”
A trail of blood led to a far door. “Let’s not go that way,” Gamay suggested.
The shooting picked up outside. As if things were reaching a frenzy. The scent of burning wood was growing stronger. “We can’t go back the way we came,” Paul said.
A third door in the rotunda stood across from them. The other option was a flight of stairs that wound around the rotunda up toward a small door.
Kenzo stood and rushed toward the third door, grabbing the handle and pulling.
“Wait,” Joe called out.
It was too late.
Kenzo had already pulled the door open. Pent-up flames and smoke exploded from the hall beyond, bursting forward in a flash as new oxygen rushed into what had been a stagnant, air-deprived hall.
The flashover engulfed Kenzo and threw him backward at the same time. He was flung to the floor like a rag doll with his clothes on fire.
Joe ripped off his coat and lunged for Kenzo, covering him with the jacket and smothering the flames. Gamay helped him put the flames out as Paul slammed the door shut to keep the fire from pouring into the rotunda.
“His face is burned,” Gamay said. “And his hands. I think his clothes took the worst of it.”
Kenzo moaned once or twice but said nothing.
“He hit his head pretty hard,” Joe said. “I think he’s unconscious. Let’s hope he stays that way until we can get him help.”
He picked Kenzo up in a fireman’s carry and pointed to the door up above. “Up the stairs,” Joe urged. “It’s our only chance.”
“We’ll be exposed,” Gamay said, gripping the mace.
“We don’t have much choice. We’re rats in a burning maze and Kenzo was the only one who knew the layout.” He urged them to move. “Make sure the ledge is clear. I’ll carry Kenzo.”
Paul went up first, with Gamay right behind him. They checked the door for heat before they opened it and went through.
Joe followed with Kenzo over his shoulders. He ducked through the door, careful not to harm Kenzo in the process.
Paul and Gamay were standing on the parapet, awestruck. The entire pagoda was ablaze. All four levels of the ornate wooden structure alive with flames.
“I hope Kurt’s not still in that tower,” Gamay said.
“He’s too smart for that,” Paul replied.
“Keep moving,” Joe urged. “We need to get to the water.”
They pressed on, crossing the bridge headed for the outer wall. As they neared it, the door swung open behind them and a pair of men came running out.
“They’re headed this way,” Paul said. “If they spot us, we’ll be sitting targets down on the rocks.”
“We have no other choice,” Joe said. “Take Kenzo. Find a place to hide. I’ll keep our friends occupied as long as I can.”
Paul put down the pike, leaning it against the wall, and took Kenzo from Joe. With the injured man over his shoulder, he followed Gamay, picking his way down toward the water’s edge.
As they left, Joe grabbed the pike, turned around and crouched in the dark.
The pursuers were coming on fast, racing through the smoke across the bridge. They, too, were escaping the inferno, more than anything else, but they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Paul, Gamay and Kenzo if they found them. Joe wasn’t about to let that happen.
He stayed hidden, waiting until they were almost on top of him before rising up. He swung the pike in a tight curve. It caught the first man in the stomach, doubling him over. In response, the second man aimed a pistol at Joe, but a return stroke of the metal pike caught t
he weapon and knocked it from the assailant’s hand.
The gun fell onto the rocks and discharged harmlessly. But the man lunged for Joe and tackled him. They struggled and then fell over the wall. Not forward toward the lake but backward into the dry moat, where the Komodo dragons waited.
* * *
• • •
KURT CLIMBED down the stairs with Kenzo’s antipersonnel cannon in his arms; eyes burning and half blind with tears, he almost tripped over Akiko. She was lying on the floor near the gap in the door. A chimney-type effect was bringing fresh air in, funneling it up the stairs, keeping them alive in the process.
Kurt exhaled and took a breath as he set the cannon on the floor.
Akiko crawled toward him and helped to set it up. They packed it with powder and an eight-pound solid steel cannonball. Unable to find a proper linstock, or lighter, Kurt used a wadded-up piece of paper. He touched it to the fire coming down the stairwell and held it against the fuse. For a long couple of seconds, nothing happened. Then the fuse sizzled to life, the powder charge went off and the eight-pound ball thundered into the door, blasting it to splinters.
“And I thought this thing wouldn’t be useful,” Kurt mused.
Shoving broken pieces of wood aside, they enlarged the gap and climbed through, crawling over a pile of furniture that had been used to block them in. “Which way to the garage?”
“This way,” she said.
Despite her bruised ribs and the vest of armor, she moved quickly. They found seven of Kenzo’s people but no sign of Kenzo or the NUMA team.
“Is anyone else here?” Akiko asked.
One of the men shook his head.
“We have to go back,” Akiko said.
For the second time, Kurt grabbed her by the arm. By now, the smoke was beginning to creep down into the garage. Some of the rafters were smoldering. “The floor above us has to be an inferno. Joe will get them out. Trust me.”
She shook loose and turned to the others.
“Tell them to get in the cars,” Kurt said. “We’re going to drive out of here.”
Akiko gave the command in Japanese, then added, “I’ll lower the drawbridge.”
She ran to the wall, pulled one lever to the side and then down.
The drawbridge fell with surprising speed. It banged into place. The bridge beyond was already in flames.
* * *
• • •
JOE AND THE MAN who’d tackled him landed in the sand and separated. They got up simultaneously, forgot about their own fight and focused their attention outward, looking for the Komodo dragons.
Two of the smaller animals were coming at them from one side. A third was holding its ground far beyond, and the fourth, the largest of the group, was lumbering toward them from the other direction.
The animals were agitated and far more aggressive than any Joe had seen before. The fire, smoke and cinders probably had something to do with that.
One of the smaller ones came forward and Joe stood as tall as he could, raising his arms in a sudden motion.
The predator stopped in its tracks, dropping lower to the ground on its oddly bent legs. It moved again and Joe repeated the motion, but the animal seemed less impressed.
“Where’s your gun?” Joe shouted.
The assassin looked at Joe oddly before shoving him to the ground and running for the wall.
Joe leapt to his feet, flung some of the gravel at the dragons and dashed for the pike he’d been using. He quickly grabbed it from the ground, spun and swiped the first animal in the face.
The beast hissed and backed away.
Meanwhile, Joe’s assailant was running for his life. His movement had attracted the attention of the largest dragon in the moat. The ten-foot-long, three-hundred-pound monster moved with surprising speed.
The man sprinted without looking back, leapt into a gap in the wall and scrambled upward. The Komodo dragon rushed up behind him, reared up on its back legs and thrust its head into the gap. It managed to rake its teeth along his shoulder and arm, tearing the man’s shirt off and gouging some of his flesh. It came down with the back of the man’s shirt in its mouth but had missed out on a meal.
The man kept climbing, his bare back displaying a colorful tattoo that covered every inch of skin.
Joe felt a begrudging respect as the man reached the top of the wall and disappeared over it. But he was now alone with four of the most lethal animals in the world.
“I’d like to see them eat,” Joe whispered, recalling his words from an hour ago. “Why do I say these things out loud?”
The animals moved toward him. As Joe saw it, the big one was the problem. The others were small enough to ward off with the long metal spear, but the big one would probably yank it out of his hand and use it as a toothpick once it devoured him.
He tried to outflank it, but it blocked him and forced Joe to back up.
A thunderous crash startled all of them and Joe turned to see a section of the burning pagoda tumble into the moat. A shower of sparks sent the lizards back a few yards.
“Not the kind of dragons that like fire,” Joe mused.
He moved toward the flames, pulled his coat off and wrapped it around a burning length of wood. With the pike in one hand and the flaming torch in the other, he inched toward the waiting animals.
“Back,” he said, jabbing at the nearest one. “Back.”
The dragon swatted at the stick with an outstretched claw but retreated after making contact with the flames. The other juvenile did the same. But the alpha male stood its ground.
“Now or never,” Joe told himself. He rushed directly toward the big animal, tossing the blazing section of wood at its face.
The animal shrugged off the burning stick, knocking it effortlessly to the side with its snout. The distraction was all Joe needed. Still running, he jammed the pike into the sand and pole-vaulted himself up and over the animal, launching himself forward at the top and hitting the ground at a dead run.
The beast leapt up too late to swat him out of the sky. It came back down on all fours and spun in a half circle.
Joe was already leaping onto the wall. He found the cleft and climbed hand over hand, never looking back until he reached the top.
The Komodo dragons stood below in a tight semicircle, gazing up at him hungrily.
Joe waved a farewell and ran down toward the lake, where Paul, Gamay and Kenzo were taking cover on the rocks. There was no sign of his wounded attacker. Out on the water, the boats were speeding off into the dark.
“They’re leaving,” Paul said.
“The question is, who are they and why did they do this?” Gamay asked.
“Whoever they are, they’ve done what they came to do,” Joe said. “They’ve burned Kenzo out and destroyed his work. All the data, all the records. It’s all on paper. Everything is gone.”
“Not everything,” Gamay said.
Joe turned her way. She unraveled what she’d wrapped around the shaft of the mace. It was the blue map with the silver borders. Aside from torn patches in each corner where she’d ripped it from the wall, it was no worse for wear.
The red lines were still plainly visible. “Someone didn’t want us to find out where these lines crossed,” Gamay said. “I thought that made this information worth saving.”
“Could it really be worth killing for?” Paul asked.
“Someone obviously thought so,” Joe said, looking at Kenzo. “How is he?”
“He’s coughing blood,” Gamay replied. “I think his lungs may have been burned. If he inhaled the fire . . .”
She didn’t have to say any more; they all knew that to be a bad diagnosis. In any case, Kenzo’s only hope was a hospital with a burn center.
“We could use a car,” Paul said. “Any chance the garage hasn’t burned?”
Joe looked over his shoulder, though he didn’t need to. The entire pagoda was an inferno. It no longer looked like a building, just a fountain of flame. “Not likely,” Joe said. “But this fire should act as a beacon and bring help; it couldn’t be much brighter.”
A minute later, the sound of another boat motoring through the darkness set everyone on edge.
Joe strained to see into the night. Instead of a sleek motorboat, he saw a slow, ungainly looking craft chugging their way. Its flat front bulldozed the water rather than knifing through it, while its motor sounded like an old air-cooled VW.
“The Duck,” Joe said, recognizing the amphibious car from Kenzo’s collection.
Kurt was at the wheel while Akiko and several of Kenzo’s people were sitting in the back.
Joe waved frantically to get Kurt’s attention. The Duck wouldn’t be the fastest mode of transportation, but it could drive on land as well as water. It meant there was a chance to get Kenzo help.
10
SHINJUKU PRINCE HOTEL
AFTER SPENDING the balance of the night at the hospital and talking with the local police, Kurt, Joe, Paul and Gamay had been taken to a hotel, where they’d managed a few hours of exhausted sleep, before talking with Rudi Gunn in Washington.
The tone of the conversation was somber until Kurt asked Rudi’s permission to sneak into Chinese waters and see what they might be hiding.
“Not a chance,” Rudi Gunn replied. “Absolutely out of the question.”
His voice came from the speakerphone sitting in the middle of the table. The sound was surprisingly clear, echoing around the hotel suite with so much volume that Rudi might as well have been there in person.
Kurt leaned back in his chair, his eyes on the triangle-shaped speaker. “So what I’m hearing is . . . you’d like us to be careful.”
“Then you need to get your ears checked,” Rudi said. “The location you gave us is not just deep within Chinese territorial waters. In a section they’ve designated a special operations zone. It’s one of their naval testing grounds. They patrol the demarcation line relentlessly. Ships, aircraft, submarines. They even have a permanent line of tethered sonar buoys out there. Something like our SOSUS lines in the North Sea.”