The Rising Sea

39

Joe had launched exactly half of his fireworks at Han’s building when he called the fire department. Using the phonetic translation Akiko had worked out for him in advance, he told them the CNR factory was exploding and burning. At least that’s what he hoped he was telling them. He repeated it twice and then hung up.

Grabbing the second set of launch tubes, he loaded more of the monster-sized bottle rockets and angled them to fire downward and onto the roof ahead of him instead of up into the sky. With the press of a button, he lit them off.

The launch filled the overlook with a swirling cloud of gray smoke. Through it, Joe saw red, white and purple explosions right above the building. Another shell, designed to flare in a horsetail effect, hit the roof and spread out blazing golden embers in all directions. He listened to reverberating booms and the sound of fire engines coming from the outskirts of town.

“That should do it,” Joe said to himself.

He got up, tossed the camera and the binoculars into the back of the Skyline and climbed into the driver’s seat.

The sirens were growing louder by the moment; he could see the flashing lights coming down the main road a mile or two from the factory, but it was another sound that got his attention.

He turned back toward the factory and noticed lights descending toward it from Nagasaki Bay. Amid all the chaos, a helicopter was coming in for a landing.

Joe turned the key, put the Skyline in gear and spun the tires, pulling off the dirt and out onto the road. If Han’s people took Nagano out of there in a helicopter, he would never be seen again.

Gao had already come around by the time Han and three members of the security team reached him. Smoke was pouring into the hall through the open door to the garage, the sprinklers were blasting at full pressure, but the fire had been hidden so well, it wasn’t being doused.

“Untie him,” Han ordered one of the men. “And get someone in there to put out that damned fire.”

“What happened?” Gao asked groggily.

“What do you think happened?” Han snapped. “Austin and the woman jumped you and set the place on fire.”

By now, the guard had untied Gao’s hands and propped him up. Gao rubbed at his wrists, then his neck. “Maybe they realized I was taking video of them.”

Han put his hand on the medallion around Gao’s neck. It was undamaged. The high-tech computer glasses he’d been wearing lay on the floor a few feet away.

“If they were upset about you recording them, they wouldn’t have left all your cameras behind. This is an act of desperation. A fire to bring the authorities into the building. An incident to put a spotlight of attention on us. It won’t matter; in fact, it will be more evidence to use against them later. Did you get enough video?”

Gao nodded. “We have video, voice recordings, movement analysis. Everything we need to construct a replica.”

“Good,” Han said. “There’s a helicopter on the way in. Get back to the island and get working on them immediately.”

“‘Them’? You want more than one?”

“Oni has brought us a gift: the policeman who helped Austin back in Tokyo. I want a replica of him also; it will make it that much more difficult for the authorities to cause us trouble when we make our move.”

Kurt and Akiko made it to the warehouse. The loading bay waited just beyond.

Using Gao’s key card, Kurt opened the last door. A stairwell led down to the floor, where towers of wooden crates and machinery loomed like a miniature city.

Several vehicles sat at the far end.

“We’re going to need a way out of this, once we get Nagano,” Kurt said. “See if you can find the keys to one of those cars or trucks.”

“If not, I can hot-wire one,” Akiko said.

“Good,” Kurt said. “If we have a choice, something sturdy enough to break down metal gates and brick walls would be nice.”

“I’ll do my best,” Akiko said.

“I probably don’t have to tell you this after what we’ve seen, but watch out for the automated equipment. If Han can use machines to storm an armed compound, he can turn anything with batteries and cameras into a whistle-blower or worse.”

Akiko nodded and moved off, traveling swift and silent. Kurt went the other direction, heading for the back door. He pressed up against it and opened it a crack. He saw Ushi-Oni, bossing around a group of Han’s men. He was barking orders as the men went to work emptying the sedan.

First, they removed some long wooden boxes. Then other items wrapped in leather. They placed the boxes on a cart with great care before moving back to the car and dragging out Superintendent Nagano with far less caution.

Nagano sagged to the ground as he was pulled out of the sedan, which Kurt noticed was sporting government plates.

One of the men shouted at Nagano. A second man kicked him as they tried to force him to stand on his own.

At least he was alive.

Kurt hoped some of them would leave with the treasure they had, but they stuck together. And Kurt soon saw why. A helicopter was descending toward a concrete swath just beyond where they stood.

“Five against one. Wonderful odds.” Kurt looked around for a way to even the playing field and settled on using a forklift.

Starting the electrical vehicle was easy. Driving it a little more difficult. But he didn’t need to be as precise as he’d been out on the racetrack.

He backed up, pivoted and sped forward, raising the arms of the forklift like a pair of spears.

He drove around and out through an open bay door and, from there, came flying around the edge, gunning for Ushi-Oni.

The Demon saw him at the last second and dove out of the way. Two of his men weren’t so lucky. The forklift slammed them like a battering ram; luckily, they weren’t skewered.

Kurt immediately pulled backward and spun to the right. The three-wheeled vehicle pivoted with surprising swiftness and the raised forks took out another of Han’s men, knocking him out of the way, cracking several ribs in the process.

Gunfire rang out before Kurt could do anything else. Ricochets and near misses forced him off the forklift. He dove to the ground and took cover. By the time he looked up, Han’s remaining guard was dragging Nagano to the helipad.

Kurt rose up, intending to give chase, but Ushi-Oni blocked the way. Instead of a gun, Oni held a gleaming katana sword.

He waved the sword toward Kurt. “To the samurai, a blade was worthless if it couldn’t cut a man in half with a single swing. They tested their weapons on captives and criminals. I’m going to test this one on you.”

He stepped forward and swung at a diagonal angle. Kurt jumped behind the stationary forklift and the blade slammed against the protective cage. Looking for any kind of weapon to defend himself with, Kurt grabbed a pry bar from the side of the forklift.

“That won’t help you,” Oni said. He lunged forward again, swinging for Kurt’s head.

Kurt ducked and held the pry bar up at the same time. It deflected the blade just enough to save him. But the sword came back from the other direction and knocked the bar from Kurt’s hand. A third swing forced Kurt to dive away once more.

He rolled and came up bleeding. His suit was slashed, his shirt was sliced and there was blood oozing from a line on the back of his arm. The tip of the blade had made so fine a cut, Kurt barely felt it.

“The next one will take your head,” Oni insisted.

Kurt didn’t doubt it, but the sound of fire engines closing in and of the helicopter landing gave him hope. “If I were you, I’d get out of here. You’ll never get to spend Han’s money if you’re serving life in prison.”

Kurt’s words brought the fury of the Demon down on him. The sword came hard once more. Kurt moved to the side, keeping the forklift between him and Oni. Oni went one way, Kurt went the other. It was an effective defense if reinforcements showed up. But Kurt needed an offense. Now.

He lunged for the controls, reaching into the cage, turning the key and spinning the small wheel. The forklift jerked to the side and spun randomly. Oni was knocked backward, but more of Han’s men were closing in.

Kurt had no choice. He jumped onto the forklift and threw it into reverse, speeding away from Oni and the men as the helicopter touched down. He raced back into the warehouse, found himself surrounded but was bought freedom when Akiko came crashing through the stacks of equipment and crates in a ten-wheeled truck.

As Han’s men took cover from the avalanche, Kurt climbed into the truck and Akiko backed out of the warehouse. She drove across the lot, blasted her way through the gate and turned down the access road as the fire trucks came racing up it.

“Keep going,” he said. “Don’t stop for anything, not even the police.”

As she drove, Kurt got on the phone. “Joe, where are you? They took Nagano in the helicopter.”

“I saw that,” Joe replied. “I’m trying to follow it and get a tail number. But I’m running out of road.”

“Where are they headed?”

“Southwest. Along the bay.”

Joe drove with skills that would have matched Kurt out on the racetrack, but he had to deal with real-world issues: other cars, potholes and pedestrians. He swerved around a slow-moving bus, lost sight of the helicopter as it went behind the trees and then found it again as the view opened up.

He came to a one-way road, ignored the rules of traffic and followed it downhill. By the way it sloped, he knew he was heading for the shoreline.

A building blocked his view. Seconds later, a small car almost hit him head-on. Horns blared and Joe drove into the gutter, where he avoided taking out a fire hydrant. He pulled back onto a two-way street as soon as he could.

“Where’d you go?” he said, craning his neck around and looking for the fleeing helicopter.

Finally, he saw it again, farther out over the water; it was definitely heading out to sea.

He found another street, sped up again and then slammed on the brakes as his lights reflected off a sign at the end of the road. The tires screeched and the Skyline GT-R slid to a stop inches from a fifty-foot drop.

Joe got out of the car and raised the binoculars. He tracked the helicopter for another thirty seconds and then its lights went out and it vanished in the night sky.