The Lost Kingdom

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Mai came fully awake as the guards invaded her cell. Her stomach wound flared as she tried to stand. Two men pulled her upright, the cramped muscles in her arms screaming in protest. Guards fanned out in front of her, each one toting a mini machine gun. When she was fully vertical and alert the mass of guards parted as if split by a cleaver, leaving enough space for one black-suited man.

He stopped a hair’s breadth away, disdainful and disrespectful of her skills. “Today the Yakuza see you for what you really are,” he spat out. “Tomorrow we get to see you die. No more insolence, no more freedom, no more dreams for you, Kitano bitch.”

Her inner fury lived in her gaze, which locked onto his like a heat-seeking missile. To speak would be wasteful, expending energy which she knew might yet be needed, and attract only cruelty which she also knew these men would never have the courage to risk if they were alone with her. Cowardly, spineless, they would dare challenge her only now, and only to plump themselves up in front of their men.

So, simply, she remained mute.

The Yakuza boss barked an order, sneering in her face. His men urged her forward, pushing her out of the clean cell and into a corridor. More guards lined the walls, all with raised automatic weapons. Mai had never seen so much security, not even surrounding President Coburn in the hours after his escape from the Blood King. Were they expecting an assault? Surely all these safety measures couldn’t be for her.

The Yakuza boss read her mind. “So many bosses have come to watch you die,” he said with an air of sentimentality. “It has been a long time since we all came together. For that, at least, we have you to thank. The atmosphere up there is electric, euphoric, a thing I thought I’d never again see in our stronghold. Today,” he nodded, “will go down forever in Yakuza history as a day to be remembered.”

Mai didn’t doubt it. Her legend was strong among the police and governmental authorities. Her demise would deflate morale at the very least and leave some important individuals crushed. The optimistic part of her mind knew that Drake and the rest of the SPEAR team would have tracked her by now, starting with the symbol she drew in her own blood, but even that failed to ascertain her actual rescue. Not without bringing the damn building down. But then, if they knew civilian casualties would be non-existent, even that wasn’t beyond them.

Mai walked the line, traveled up several floors in an elevator, exited and then walked another line. By now, the corridors were wider, the men more smartly dressed. She knew they must be close to their destination. She passed empty room after room, seven floors up judging by buildings she could view out the far windows. Her only thoughts were of Drake and Grace and the man she had murdered, Hayami, and his poor daughter, adrift in the world.

I no longer feel like the strong woman I once was.

Her dilemma in a nutshell. Incident and consequence had sapped her inner strength and calm. Now, since no avenue of escape automatically existed she didn’t waste time trying to concoct one. At last her entourage slowed and finally stopped before a huge double door, but rather than fling them dramatically open she was shown a side door and made to make her way along a darkened corridor and into a spacious room.

“Wait here,” somebody said.

She looked around. Whiteboards propped on easels stood everywhere, as well as a lectern and other conference paraphernalia. Of course, there was only one room big enough to house all these mobsters — the building’s premier conference room. So she was about to head out on stage for the first time in her life.

Smyth would be proud, she thought. Maggie in the limelight. Maggie standing proud. Maggie undefeated. And Drake? Where was the Yorkshireman now? The darkness around her crawled with Yakuza. And as she put her mind to it, as she concentrated on her peril instead of her problems, she heard the murmurings of a gathered crowd.

“They’re waiting for you.” The boss’s mouth was so close his dry lips brushed against her ear. “Time to face your accusers, Kitano. Time to face those you wronged.”

She struggled to remain mute, to keep from crying out: No you’re not! I wronged Hayami! I wronged his family! Emiko! That’s who I wronged, not some inked-up, arms trafficking, lethal organization that destroys hundreds of lives every single day! Never that!

The rear of the stage protruded into the room and was reached by a set of small steps. For now she was shielded from the conference area by a wide accordion-shaped partition. As she waited a great cheer split the air.

“You’re up.”

A door opened and she was guided through, then left alone. A great hubbub swelled all around her, straight at her, filling her head. An overwhelming force, it swept all else aside, leaving her stunned. But she stood tall against it; a sturdy oak in the eye of a hurricane, a survivor refusing to bend in the face of all her aggressors.

The men sat before her, arrayed around the room in their hundreds if not thousands. She stood on the stage, watching their hostile gestures, their violent fake lunges. Not one of them would stand against her alone. Not one in several thousand. Yet here… here they were kings and gods and unstoppable tyrants. Their words — only words, she reminded herself — threatened every manner of degradation and shame and vicious death.

“Approach the stage.” She spoke aloud into the storm, her words whipped forcefully away and unheard so that only those who could read lips knew what she said. “Come now. Just approach.”

None did. It took many minutes for the abuse to die down and nobody immediately brought the trial to order. There were no judges here today, only prosecutors. If any germ of hope existed in the far corners of her mind it knew that the longer this trial went on, the more chance she had of being saved.

Let them rant.

At length, the men relented and were served drinks. As this process continued Mai finally heard the voice of someone she knew.

All too well.

Hikaru rose from his, no doubt honorary, place in the front row. “You are accused of dishonoring the Yakuza family, Mai Kitano. What do you say?”

Mai ignored the little weasel, preferring instead to examine the faces beside him. These would be the most powerful then. She wondered if she might seize one of them.

“What do you say?” Hikaru repeated, voice rising.

“I say it takes at least three people to have a trial,” she said. “The accuser, the accused and the judge. I see no judges here today. Only killers. I say this is no trial at all.”

“Oh damn, you got us.” Hikaru hooted to the sound of laughter, jeers and some disapproving looks from the older men beside him. “This is what you Europeans call a holiday. Some time off for jobs well done.”

“I am Japanese,” Mai pointed out.

“But show no respect for your countrymen. We are Yakuza; we live and die here as our ancestors did. We are family with a family ideal. Many of our members are outcasts, betrayed by their so-called parents. And yet you have now disrespected us twice.”

You are a bunch of deluded killers, Mai wanted to say but her composure won the day. Maybe she could turn this into a long-running debate. “I was doing my job.”

But Hikaru and his betters saw her reply only as a further sign of contempt. Hikaru snorted, “The police work for us. Not us for them. But not you. Never you. Not until now, at least.”

Mai caught a change in his tone, a cunning that hadn’t been there before. Instantly she was on her guard. Perhaps she had underestimated this homicidal mixture of deviants.

Hikaru waved in a general manner. Mai saw movement over by a far door. A loaded moment passed and then the world fell out from under her. Even she, trained and tough as she was, felt her knees buckle.

Chika came into the room, restrained and bloodied, a gun pointed at her head.

The world would never be the same.

Hikaru began to laugh.