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  "I've been gone too long, Grandfather," she said as she pushed herself back from the embrace.

  His smile was warm and gentle. His hand was callused strength in hers. "It is a big world out there, child. We knew that when you went."

  She nodded, wishing there was something else she could say to erase the guilt finding him there had brought.

  "Your grandmother always liked the cherry blossoms," the old man said.

  "I know."

  "How did you know to find me here?" the old man asked. His arms were once more in the sleeves of the robe.

  "I asked Hosaka-san. He told me I might try here." Ransom kept her voice neutral, the way she had trained it to be when she was on location reporting world news. Her grandmother had helped her put the old hurt away that was connected with the Hosaka family name, and to put away the harm that might come with it were everything to be revealed.

  "I am sorry I was not at the airport to greet you," her grandfather said.

  "I am sorry I didn't call before coming," Ransom replied. She hoped he didn't detect the untruth in her voice. Before, when she was a young girl, her grandfather had been almost psychic where her wants and secrets were concerned. "The assignment was sudden, and I was given no time to prepare." And those were even more lies.

  "I have seen you on television," he said. His attention, as always, seemed divided between her and their surroundings. "I am proud of you. You have done well for yourself."

  "Thank you, Grandfather, but much of what I have benefited from, I learned at your feet."

  The old man smiled. "How long will you be in Tokyo?"

  "A few days, maybe more."

  "Have you a place to stay?"

  "I hoped there would be room for me in your house."

  "Yes, Michi, there will always be room for you, even when you try your best to be an insolent Westerner."

  "Thank you. I want to spend time with you while I'm here, since it's been so long, and combine business with pleasure."

  "Ah, a very old Japanese custom."

  Ransom smiled. "The Americans think they invented the concept."

  "A very old American custom."

  She laughed at his wit by herself because he never laughed out loud. His joy showed in his eyes, the way all of his lighthearted emotions did, the way his love for her grandmother did. Memories made the empty place in her heart swell. She rubbed her arms against the chill.

  "You are cold," the old man said.

  "No, please. Finish your visit. I didn't mean to take you away from that."

  "I am through for tonight. Let us go."

  Chapter Twelve

  "Pictures of Tucker and me?" Brognola repeated.

  Bolan nodded. They sat in the small bathroom tucked into one corner of the big Fed's bedroom. Water ran in gurgling streams from the taps in the sink, shower and bathtub. They'd already found two listening devices but had decided not to take any more chances.

  "Are you sure the men in those pictures were part of yesterday's attack?"

  "I'm sure. I recognized a couple of them, and Fujitsu showed me before and after pictures."

  "Why would someone go to the trouble of faking evidence like that?"

  "It's smear tactics," Bolan replied.

  "Even so, what could they hope to gain? It might confuse the issue some, but that wouldn't be enough to pull Justice out of the investigation. The CIA has, on the surface, acknowledged that they're out of this one. The Man has all of his markers riding on us."

  "A lot depends on who directed the smear. At least some of the heat's coming from our side, and it would be easier for a mole they have in our ranks to take pictures of you. But the Japanese investigators might not want us here, either. Fujitsu, or someone above him, might have had the pictures dummied to keep you out of this."

  "Don't forget that Tucker does most of his work in the Orient. In that scenario it would be easier for them to take pictures of him." Brognola rubbed his temples. "This mess is giving me a headache."

  "Don't forget the Yakuza angle."

  Brognola looked at him sharply. "You've come up against that, too?"

  "Twice. A Yakuza operative named Shigeru, last name unknown to me, gave Tuley and his men their false passports. Word on the street is that they were CIA agents sent over here to cap a Yakuza leader."

  "Do you think someone in the ranks is looking to move up quickly?"

  "Maybe. No matter what, the Yakuza's a definite player in the game, and they're dealing in blood. Those men, after being eased quietly into Tokyo, now have a price on their heads. Dead or alive."

  "The attacks in the States have been expensive," Brognola said.

  "The Yakuza could foot the bill," Bolan replied.

  "But how could they make you? Everything concerning you was routed through my office with Kurtzman officiating."

  "And routed through the proper people here. All they needed was an inside man there or here."

  "You make the structure of this investigation sound like Swiss cheese," the big Fed growled.

  "Isn't it? How well do you know the people you have with you?"

  "They're a handpicked team. You couldn't ask for better people."

  "And how well do you know the people we're helping guard tomorrow?"

  The Justice man fell silent as he mulled it over.

  "Tell me about Joji Hosaka."

  Brognola sighed. "Joji Hosaka made his fortune in the black market after World War II. Unofficially the guy worked for MacArthur's boys during the occupation. Hosaka helped organize the street gangs to break up labor strikes and keep the Japanese government on a right-wing course. According to the files I have on him, that was all he did. But those files were conspicuously devoid of a lot of pertinent information concerning Hosaka's activities. I believe the guy had dirty hands, and I believe G-2 helped him get them that way. There were never any definite links to the Yakuza later, but you could tell Hosaka's and Kodama's boys had bedded down together from time to time."

  "The CIA was active here during that time," Bolan said, "and they used some of the Yakuza members to assassinate people who stood in their way."

  "I know, damn it. You could make a mosaic of all the little threads left hanging after the war. But what could still be operative now forty-five years later?"

  "A lot of groundwork. A lot of people who have had time to rise to the right positions."

  "There are no solid connections between Joji Hosaka and the Yakuza, or anyone in the CIA. Hosaka went entirely legit in 1972, from what Aaron and accounting could figure. Hell, the guy could definitely afford it. There was no shortage of money available to him from that time on."

  "And Hosaka's the principal mover and shaker in the consortium?"

  "There were other people who came to him with the idea a few years back, but they made the deal sound sweet enough to interest him."

  "He has a son?"

  "Actually two. Yemon's the oldest and more inclined to follow in his father's business footsteps. Tucker's had dinner with him occasionally and says the guy speaks nothing but Dow Jones. Saburo's the younger one. According to Tucker, the cocaine found in the publishing offices in L.A. was a shipment Saburo had muscled through. He can't be that bright, though, because Tucker said the Metropolitan Police were already wise to his trafficking."

  Bolan nodded. "Being wise and doing something about it are two different matters." Both men were aware that facet was the cutting edge that divided their worlds. Brognola knew, and strived to work within the law. The Executioner made his own law. "The man I talked to told me Saburo Hosaka hired the assassin who nearly put you away yesterday."

  "How sure are you of that?"

  "The guy thought he was bargaining for his life."

  "Adds a new wrinkle, doesn't it?"

  "More than one," Bolan said, replaying the scene in the Club Morena in his head. "I found the guy who made the passports for Tuley and his shock troops."

  "At the nightclub?"

  "Yeah. That
was Shigeru."

  "So Fujitsu probably knows the score, too."

  "Most likely." Bolan paused. "Just before he was killed, Shigeru told me Hosaka had him make up the passports for Tuley and company."

  "He didn't say which Hosaka?"

  "No."

  "So we have a choice?"

  Bolan nodded. "What about the possibility that Saburo Hosaka is trying to move against his father and take control of this consortium?"

  Brognola shook his head. "When you get a chance, take a look at their files. A back-door effort on Saburo's part wouldn't be out of line with his character, but the door prize would be. From what we've seen, Saburo isn't interested in his father's businesses and would certainly lack the social skills to keep them going."

  "Maybe Saburo isn't unaware of the charges the Metropolitan Police are building against him. His part in this may be just self-preservation."

  "But you don't think so?"

  "I'm not going to play it that way. Until I find out the real score behind the attacks in the States and the attacks on us over here, I intend to trust only the people in this room."

  Brognola nodded. "I can't blame you, but you realize that's what Fujitsu might have banked on when he showed you those pictures."

  "I know. And I also know from experience that it's hard to go after a lone target." Bolan's thoughts turned to the woman ninja who had come to his aid. She was in danger, too, from what Akemi had said. Yet she was as big a question mark as any of the others. "I'm in this until the end, however it turns out."

  "I know." Brognola used his cane to lever himself to his feet. "Let's get some shut-eye and see if things look any better in the morning."

  Bolan turned off the water and moved back into the bedroom with Brognola. The big Fed pulled a small suitcase out of the closet and tossed it onto the bed.

  "I forgot to give you your Care package earlier," the big Fed said as he kicked off his shoes. "I wasn't anxious for Tucker to see it."

  Opening the suitcase, Bolan found a Beretta 93-R and an Israeli-made Desert Eagle .44 in holsters on top of boxes of ammunition and spare clips. A blacksuit lay underneath, its hidden pockets filled with garrotes, knives, a pair of night glasses and a collapsible grappling hook. He made quick work of checking the actions on both weapons, then filled a couple of magazines for each one and loaded them. He left the .44 in the suitcase and fixed the Beretta in a shoulder rig under his jacket. Things looked better already.

  After saying good-night to Brognola, Bolan let himself out, mind still whirling with everything that had happened to him since touching down in Tokyo only eighteen hours ago. There were so many unanswered questions and so many unidentified players.

  His room was at the end of the hall. Most of the other agents were on this floor, as well. Foreign Affairs had arranged for them to be together, but for what reasons really? A well-placed bomb could take out the American effort in one fell swoop. The thought made his feeling of unease return. Usually he picked his own targets, defined his own approaches. This time he had walked in as one of the targets from the beginning, and his approach had been set through Brognola.

  No one else appeared to be awake on the floor. He took the key Brognola had given him earlier from his pocket and turned the lock. The bolt sounded loud in the leaden silence.

  The room was small, a half-size edition of Brognola's master suite. He dropped the suitcase onto the twin-size bed and left the lights off.

  The draperies were open, and the skyline of Tokyo was outlined in the upper portion of the sliding glass door. Staying out of the line of vision in the window, professionally aware of what one man could do with a Star-Tron scope across the street, Bolan pulled the cord that shut the draperies.

  The sliding glass door shattered only a heartbeat after he'd turned back to the bed. He spun, reaching for the 93-R as a black-clad figure clawed through the draperies.

  Before the Executioner could drop his weapon into target acquisition, the Uzi in the intruder's hands blazed into noisy, destructive life. Bolan threw himself into a slide toward the door to the hall, followed by a hail of 9 mm death.

  The warrior dropped flat, arm outstretched as he triggered three rounds. The first missed its target by inches. The second and third scored in the gunner's midsection and punched him back as another man came flying through the window.

  Judging by the sounds from the hallway, Bolan guessed his room hadn't been the only one hit. He pulled himself around the corner and into the hall as the Uzi stuttered autofire in his wake. Flattening against the wall and drawing the Beretta in close, he checked the rest of the action brewing in the hall.

  Two of the women were outside their rooms, holding their weapons in both hands. Three of the men, one bleeding from a wound in the upper thigh, were spread out on both sides of the hall. Cordite swirled toward the fluorescent lights overhead.

  Agent Ron Roberts stumbled from his room as autofire shivered through his door. Roberts got to his feet with a .45 in one hand and slipped his glasses on with the other. "Son of a bitch!" the man yelled as he slammed into position along the wall. The slide racked back on the automatic loudly in the sudden silence.

  "Move!" Bolan commanded, pushing off from his wall. He glimpsed movement inside the room he'd just vacated. "The emergency exit! Now!" He dropped his weapon into target acquisition and put a round through the head of the man in his room. He glanced back to make sure the Justice agents moved in the direction he'd ordered, then ducked into his room for the suitcase containing the Desert Eagle.

  Roberts and one of the women provided brief cover fire as Bolan made his way to the emergency exit. Brognola had joined them.

  "Who's missing?" Bolan asked as he fed a new clip into the 93-R.

  "Saunders and Jamison," Brognola answered.

  "Anybody know anything about them?" Bolan asked.

  "Kristi was in the room next to me," one of the women replied. "I heard shots go off in her room before they got into mine. I don't know about Jamison."

  "He never made it out of bed," one of the men said. "I checked. That's when I picked up the bullet in my thigh."

  Bolan stripped off his jacket. "Hal, get them out of here."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Cut down the odds a little." The Executioner fisted the .44 and triggered a round that caught one of their attackers in the shoulder and spun him into the open. The next 240grain round put the man down forever. "And find out if we can salvage our personnel."

  Bolan moved out into the quiet hallway, straining his ears. There was a rustle of movement behind him and he turned to see Roberts following him, the .45 in both hands.

  The Justice agent gave him a crooked smile. "Backup, my man. I'm not going to let you handle this alone."

  "How many rounds do you have left in that clip?"

  "Three. I didn't have any time to grab extra magazines."

  Bolan passed over the 93-R and the two spare magazines he'd filled.

  Roberts dropped the .45 and took the Beretta, fisting the extra clips.

  "Which room was Kristi Saunders in?" Bolan asked. Nothing moved in the hallway except the gentle eddies of cordite. Roberts pointed.

  Taking the lead, Bolan moved to the room, alert for the slightest movement. He pushed the door open and whirled back out of the way. Nothing happened. Peering around the corner, he saw the woman agent sprawled on the floor, a large section of the back of her head blown away. No one was in the room with her.

  Roberts hunkered down beside him, the folding stock of the 93-R in his forward hand. "Kristi?"

  "Didn't make it," Bolan said flatly.

  "Too bad. She was a sweet kid."

  A few minutes later they found Jamison in bed, his face reshaped by the half-dozen or so rounds that had been fired point-blank. He was alone, too.

  "I read this as strictly hit-and-git," Roberts said.

  Crossing the room, Bolan moved the curtain and peered outside. "So do I." Blood pooled near the base of the sliding d
oor told him that at least one of the attackers who had entered through this room hadn't escaped unscathed. Slim black nylon cords floated free in the breeze outside the tiny balcony. He reached for one and gave it a tug. It was still secure. Just as he started to climb the rope a helicopter rose from the top of the building with its running lights off.

  The helicopter floated like a big dark bird against the neon lights scattered over the vertical lengths of the nearby buildings. Then it was gone.

  The Executioner released the rope and stepped back. Whatever was left of the attack force was already out of reach. When he got back to the hall, Roberts stood over one of the dead men, holding the guy's black ski mask in one fist.

  "What the hell is this?" the agent demanded. "I thought we were up against a bunch of CIA rejects, not refugees from a Chuck Norris film." Despite the bullets that had obliterated the dead man's forehead, the features were unmistakably Oriental. "Who the hell are we up against, Belasko?" Roberts asked, releasing the corpse's head to thud against the floor.

  The Executioner gave him the most honest answer he knew. "On this one, maybe everybody."

  * * *

  "Would you like some tea?" the old man asked.

  Ransom nodded, then automatically walked to the kitchen cupboard that held the tea and ceremonial cups. She kept her eyes away from her grandfather, for the first time in her life uncomfortable in the house where she'd grown up.

  She went through the motions of preparing the tea mechanically, letting the familiar routine shield her from her grandfather's eyes. Without looking, she knew he sat on his knees with his hands resting lightly on his thighs. His weapons, the shaken, knives and garrotes had been put away in the secret places he had designed for them when he had built the house more than fifty years ago.

  When the water was sufficiently hot, she added the family tea and stirred. Leaving the lid on the pot so that it would continue to steep, she joined him wordlessly on the floor with the teacups. She set the pot to one side, then poured and handed him his cup after turning it the required number of times. She filled her own cup, turned it and left it sitting before her, waiting for him to drink first, as traditional respect dictated.