Assassin's Code Read online

  “So she figured out that if you couldn’t carry sacks of flour, paint weapons, or get the overhead sprinklers to come on and reveal your opponent’s shape, there was another, even better alternative.”

  Kengo leaned forward like a hungry man presented with a steak. “And?”

  “The transfer of light from one side of the fabric to the other isn’t instantaneous. The break takes place in millionths of a second. The human eye would never notice it, but it wasn’t fast enough to beat a laser. Lasers are coherent light. They move at the speed of light, and when a laser hit the fabric there was a few milliseconds break when it hit and was transferred to the back.”

  “And even the crudest laser range-finding device would detect that break!”

  “Our girl rigged up weapon-mounted lasers for us. Their main modification was that they had an audio alarm that would peep if the laser struck something that registered millisecond breaks instead of instantaneous bounce back like they would if they had hit a solid object,” Bolan said.

  “And you blasted anything in the direction that peeped! Simple, brilliant, perfect!”

  Bolan reached into the kit between his feet and pulled out two, laser-aiming modules that had the John “Cowboy” Kissinger’s genius all over it. “When I knew I was going to come to India I had a bad feeling. I had a number of laser aiming-light transferal detecting devices worked up by my organization and sent to the CIA safehouse. I noticed your Glocks had accessory rails. These are for you. If no nonfactory modifications have been done to your Glocks’ lower frames, these should be properly zeroed out to twenty-five yards. If you have any rifles, carbines, shotguns, or PDWs with Picatinny rails, I have several units for them, as well.”

  Kengo was the most friendly, forthright, unassuming, nontraditional Japanese, much less ninja, that Bolan had ever met. Now the man’s face became stone as he took the sighting units in his cupped hands, turned and bowed so low in his seat that his nose nearly brushed the upholstery. “Cooper-san, from the moment I met you, I knew you would be a gallant and honorable ally. Now it is my privilege to know you as a friend.”

  Bolan returned the bow. “Kengo-san, let’s kick this pig.”

  Kengo slid the laser onto his .22-caliber Glock’s accessory rail and took out a Swiss Army knife to tighten the screws. “Definitely.”

  New Town

  “WE’RE HERE.” Kengo checked his loads. Bolan pulled the Contessa and onto the construction site. “We go in as if we own the place.”

  New Town was one of the first modern, urban-planned parts of the city. Farmers had worked the alluvial flood plain since time out of mind. Now skyscrapers, town houses and housing developments rose like shining glass-and-steel mountains, forming a new skyline. The meeting place was a high-rise whose top seven floors still had no windows. Bare girders stuck up into the sky from the topmost floor like a crown of spikes. Construction equipment and materials littered the ground all around the high-rise in a sea of planned chaos. A chain-link fence surrounded the site, but the gate was open. The lone security shack was dark and empty.

  Bolan drove through the gate and followed the gravel path down into the pitch-black parking garage. The subterranean level was a sea of pallets, bundled pipes and industrial-size wiring spools. He pulled to a stop. As per the arrangement, the soldier blinked his lights twice and cut the engine. For a moment the two men sat in utter darkness.

  A small LED white light blinked three times ahead and off to the right. Bolan had taken a mental snapshot of his surroundings before cutting the lights. The light was coming from cover between two pallets of cable. A single row of orange emergency lights in the ceiling blinked on, throwing the underground garage into a very Halloween-like sea of dim glow and dark shadows. Bolan and Kengo stepped out of the car. A small Indian emerged from between the two huge spools of cable. He barely cracked five feet tall and wore a sparkling white dhoti and an oxford shirt. A white turban topped him off, and at first glance he looked ridiculous. He pressed his hands together and bowed. “I am V.”

  Bolan immediately smelled the danger radiating from the man in waves. His small stature and comic relief in a Bollywood movie look were his passport for killing the unsuspecting. Kengo gave the bare minimum of a bow. “I am Ken.”

  The Executioner couldn’t feel his face, but he knew it was set in a permanent scowl like a water buffalo and he left it that way. “I am Mas.”

  “You are expected, honored guests.”

  “We are extremely disturbed by the recent events in the FATA,” Kengo said.

  “As are we, Sahab-Ji.” V. bowed again as he used the big Hindi honorific. “We understand that two of your men were captured. We were given to understand such a thing was impossible. We are also given to understand that the Americans released them. This, too, we find quite baffling.”

  Kengo was good. He managed to radiate a barely controlled rage while at the same time speaking politely. “You will be pleased to know, V.-san, that Sota and Mu are no longer of any concern.”

  “I see. Very well. Please accompany me.” V. gestured back the way he had come. “There is someone you should meet.”

  Kengo and Bolan stepped forward.

  The rumal whipped out from V.’s hand like a snake, striking for Kengo’s throat. The ninja’s blade was an orange flash in the subterranean lights. The coin in the rumal’s fold, which gave the weapon striking weight and compressed the trachea once the strangle was established, sailed across the parking level. V. stared for a startled moment at the remaining six inches of cotton hanging limply in his hand. Kengo seized V.’s fingers, bones breaking as the ninja squeezed. He yanked V.’s arm straight, and the blade of the kubikiri chopped between the bones of V.’s wrist. Kengo twisted the blade and pulled. The ninja took off the Thuggee’s hand like a butcher going through a joint of lamb.

  V. gasped and sat, clutching his stump.

  Bolan’s pistol cleared its holster as Kengo suddenly did a remarkable imitation of man doing the limbo beneath an invisible pole. Kengo clutched at his throat and tried to stab backward with his blade, but his unseen opponent had him. Despite all of Kengo’s training his enemy had all the leverage.

  “Drop!” Bolan roared.

  Kengo dropped. He fell completely into the strangle and forced the Thuggee to take his whole body weight. Veins pulsed across Kengo’s face as the strangle sank in accompanied by his body weight. Only his training and the tensed muscles of his neck kept his trachea from cracking. Bolan was already utilizing the laser. He pointed the Beretta a foot above Kengo’s head, and the aiming module peeped in rapid alarm. The soldier squeezed off three bursts from the Beretta as rapidly as he could pull the trigger. Kengo fell to the ground, gasping and coughing as his assassin released him.

  Bolan spun and lased. “Back to back!”

  Kengo bounced up off the floor like a slightly malfunctioning jumping jack and his Glock cleared leather. He tottered to Bolan’s side and turned so that the two warriors could face all comers. They had two advantages. Every kill the Thuggees made was a ritual sacrifice to the goddess Kali. For that sacrifice to be pure, the killing had to be done without the shedding of blood.

  The second advantage was that Bolan was pretty sure they didn’t know about the aiming module trick.

  Kengo’s Glock peeped. He fired off three quick double taps.

  Bolan kept scanning behind them. “Back to back, move with me.” The two warriors walked in the direction of Kengo’s shots. In the dull orange light the blood staining the garage floor looked black. Bolan eyed a path of drops that stopped about two yards away. He lased the end of the blood trail and the module peeped. He raised his sights a foot and fired off two quick bursts. The shadows where the blood ended imperceptibly pulsed. “Watch my back.”

  The soldier strode past the blood trail and crouched. His hand hit something solid, and he grabbed a handful of something that didn’t appear to be there. He yanked the fabric away and found a man who could have been V.’s twin. The man wo
re one of Kengo’s double-taps to his abdomen and six of Bolan’s bullets in his chest. “Back the way we came.”

  Bolan and Kengo returned to the battle’s starting point. The Executioner dropped to a knee beside V. as the little man moaned and rocked back and forth, holding his wrist. He reached into the man’s pocket and snatched out his spare rumal. “How many more?”

  V. clamped his jaw shut.

  Bolan drew his new kubikiri. “Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll cut off your other hand.”

  “Three!” V. gasped. “We were thought sufficient to deal with two.”

  “Is there someone in the back we need to talk to?”

  “No. Since the massacre in the FATA, the involvement of your people was deemed a liability. I was ordered to see to your deaths.”

  “Let me explain the situation to you. We are profoundly disturbed by what happened in the FATA. Finishing the mission, and revenging ourselves upon the Americans is now a matter of honor for us. If you do not cooperate with us in this, then revenging ourselves upon you and your people will be a matter of honor for us, as well. It is important that you explain this to your people so that they can make an informed decision about what they wish to do next. Do you understand?”

  V. nodded.

  “Good. As a gesture of goodwill, you may inform your superiors that we are willing to once again remove the woman from U.S. custody.” Bolan tucked the rumal back in the man’s pocket like an afterthought. He went over to the two dead Thuggees and took their light-transferring shrouds. “We expect you to contact us within twenty-four hours.”

  Bolan and Kengo returned to the car. The soldier threw the shrouds and their power packs in the trunk and locked it. Kengo didn’t speak until they were back out along the river. “This was the same MO used by the Thuggees you fought before.”

  “Yeah. A few of them in India or Pakistan may have survived our purge and made off with some of the shrouds.”

  “How could they possibly be connected with the Nizari Ismaili Assassins?”

  Bolan had been giving that a great deal of thought. “When I fought them before, they were modern incarnations of the ancient sects. Revivalist movements. Despite religious fundamentalism being key to their movements, both the Ismailis and the Thuggees were remarkable for being able to adapt their religious doctrine and behavior to meet changing needs, whether suddenly having to survive the Mongols or dealing with the British Raj. On top of that, the largest, modern surviving population of Ismailis is located in India.”

  “But the Ismailis are Muslims. The Thuggees are Hindu and worship idols. You would not think they could work together,” Kengo observed.

  “Like I said, both sects were famous for their ability to change with the times, and terrorism makes for strange bedfellows.”

  “Interesting.” Kengo grew quiet. Bolan waited for the rub and it came. “Cooper-san, I will require one of the light-transfer units.”

  Bolan shook his head. “No.”

  The car got very quiet. “What if I require it for there to be any more cooperation between the two of us?”

  Bolan had been waiting for that, too. “What if I said that after this mission, assuming it’s successful, I would send one example to Japanese Intelligence.”

  Kengo considered this long and hard. “I might trust you to do this, Cooper-san, but I am not sure your government would adhere to the bargain.”

  “You’re not dealing with my government. You’re dealing with me. There’s a difference.”

  Kengo gave this more, long moments of consideration. “Do you know, I had not thought it possible to strangle a ninja.”

  “I once heard a martial-arts master say that it wasn’t the number of techniques that made a master, but his utter mastery of those he knew. Thuggees pretty much do one thing, that’s strangle people, and they’ve been developing their technique for God only knows how long.”

  “You consistently say profound things, Cooper-san.” Kengo glanced back the way they had come. “Do you believe V. will contact us?”

  “I give it a fifty percent chance.”

  “Given the circumstances and what is at stake, those are not particularly good odds.”

  “Yeah, but we have a backup plan,” Bolan stated.

  “I would dearly love to hear it.”

  “I slipped a RFID in V.’s rumal. Since you cut off his hand, I doubt he’ll be using it again in the next twenty-four hours, much less even taking it out of his pocket.”

  Kengo clapped his hands and his smile lit up the car. “Cooper-san, we are going to have to make you an honorary ninja.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “We seem to have angered the ninjas.” The little man gazed sadly out of the panoramic apartment window and took in the lights of Kolkata below. Gholam Daei sipped almond honey milk as he gazed upon Sreenath Tendulkar. The two men couldn’t have been a greater study in opposites. Daei could easily have passed, indeed, on more than one occasion he had been compared, to heroes out of Persian mythology. The man in front of him was short, pear-shaped, balding, bandy-armed and bow-legged. He could be charitably described as somewhat dopey-looking. Daei had absolutely no doubts whatsoever that the day Sreenath snuck up behind him with a twisted handkerchief in his hands would be the day that Gholam Daei died on his knees with his eyes bugging out of his face. “And,” the man continued, “I have not only lost a brother but also lost the skills of not one but two of our greatest brethren.”

  V. Tendulkar sat unhappily at the breakfast bar in a haze of painkillers with his arm bound across his chest. He would never wield the rumal again. Tendulkar’s third brother, Harbajan, and his accomplice Suresh still lay dead on the floor of the subterranean garage. Their bodies would be retrieved, sanctified and given proper burial when it was certain their extraction wouldn’t be observed.

  For Sreenath Tendulkar the night of the ninjas had been a triple blow. His identical triplet, Harbajan, was dead. V. the youngest of the trio by forty-seven minutes, was maimed. Sreenath Tendulkar was the secular leader of an ancient death cult that specialized in widespread murder, and in the current era, assassination. The ability to seemingly be in two if not three places at the same time had been an asset beyond price. “What are we to make of this turn of events?”

  “The behavior of the ninjas is quite startling.” V. turned from the window. “Perhaps the problem is that the ninjas sell their souls for bowls of silver, while we commend ours to the service of a higher power.”

  Daei kept his discomfort with the comparison off his face. The overwhelming majority of Muslim imams would say that Daei’s faith had strayed far from the tenants of Islam. Many would describe it as outright heresy. However he considered himself a devout Muslim. There was only one true god. Allah was his name, and Mohammed was his prophet. Only infidels bound for hell’s flames worshipped idols.

  Sreenath Tendulkar prayed at the sacred flame of a naked, four-armed goddess of Death who wore garlands of human skulls.

  Gholam Daei was on total jihad. It was his purpose to bring about the global caliphate. He fully realized once this Garden of Eden was established that there might not be a place for a man like himself in it. That didn’t matter. His place in Paradise was assured. From what Daei could gather, Sreenath wished to fully awaken the sleeping abomination he worshipped. Every human life extinguished by the squeeze of the rumal brought the goddess one infinitesimal step closer to awakening and performing her dance of destruction that would end the world.

  The Tendulkars and their people seemed to believe the growing global jihad was an excellent step in the right direction toward the orgy of Armageddon they awaited, and they were happy to help.

  “I do not want a war with a clan of ninjas,” Daei said. “It would be a very dangerous and costly distraction from what must be done. If the ninjas are compelled by honor to slaughter our enemies, then I say we let them do it, and indeed, even employ them further.”

  “Our opponents are now aware of the involvemen
t of ninjas,” V. said.

  “Indeed, and when we left our daggers as calling cards in Afghanistan, the American found out he was dealing with Ismaili Assassins. He found out about the ninjas in the FATA. This night he has learned of the Thuggees.”

  V. once more. “It was a terrible failure.”

  Daei waved the thought away. “Assassins, ninjas, Thuggees. I tell you, to almost anyone on Earth it would sound like something out of an extremely bad Hollywood film. Who would believe such a thing? Can this American truly convince his President of such a thing? Can he then convince the imams and the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, the governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India that three groups, whom most presume to be mythological or at best extinct, could form such a cabal? And even if our American friend is that convincing, I put it to you, V. Tendulkar, can he do it in time?”

  “Which means he must try to stop us himself.” V. joined Daei once more in looking out over the lights of India’s City of Joy. “I fear that will force him to ever increasingly dangerous and desperate acts.”

  CIA Station, Islamabad, Detention Room

  THE MOSSAD ASSASSIN sat in the corner of the bare room. She had been stripped and searched, then issued a pair of men’s sweats that were probably seven sizes too big for her, and no shoes. The sweatpants had no drawstring, so she would have to hold them up with one hand. It was an old Russian technique. Detainees often had a hard time escaping when they had to hold up their pants with one hand. Bolan thought it was a useless countermeasure. He was pretty sure Na’ama Shushan would gleefully skip through the CIA station and the streets of Islamabad naked as the day she was born, killing anyone in her path until she found some clothes that fit.

  The killer couldn’t stop staring at Bolan’s transformation. Her remaining eye continually scanned his changed appearance. “Remarkable.” She gave Kengo a long look, as well. “And you’re different from the others.”

  Kengo shrugged.

  Shushan stretched in her shackles and made of show of looking bored. “While you have been pretending to be a ninja, Agent Farkas interrogated me. I will tell you that there is nothing that the United States government can threaten me with that I am afraid of.” Her eye roved Bolan once more. “And I do not believe you are capable of doing what would be physically required to make me talk.”