Sentinel Five (The Redaction Chronicles Book 2) (25 page)

Yoshida Nakata sat behind his desk and listened to the bloody murder going on below him. He was dressed in the traditional clothes of the
Shinobi
, dark grey trousers, shirt, gloves and the customary
tabi
on his feet. His mask lay before him on the desk. He'd underestimated this
gaijin
and his team. He had hoped to lure them into a trap, isolate them and finish them off in his own way. But he had to admit, these western spies had achieved much and taken down his best assassins.

No firearms were allowed inside the pagoda, it was a fundamental rule, and he'd hoped the use of traditional
Shinobi
weapons would have been enough to cut down this assault team. But Gorilla and his men had been resilient. Even now, he wondered how his clan brother Hokku was faring. Over the past few minutes he'd heard the sound of animals growling, gunshots and the inevitable sounds of hand-to-hand combat. He knew the gunmen were approaching and they would be here in minutes… but so be it… he had gambled and thus far, he'd never lost. Not that the killing was over just yet… he still had options if he was to survive. He'd removed the last remaining sample of the
Kyonshi
virus from the safe built into his desk. The other operational samples were already in use, as part of his plan to destroy his enemies scattered across the world. But this was a concentrated and more powerful version… created for his personal body chemistry. It was his last ditch doomsday weapon, to strike back at those wanting to kill him.

He glanced down at the weapons lying before him on his grand desk. The two razor sharp
Ninjato's
and the syringe which contained the
Kyonshi
virus. They were two very different types of weapons; one from the old world and one from a future world. Yoshida Nakata would never be taken alive. He was committed to taking as many of his enemy down with him as he could. If today was to be his death day, then he would spill the blood of his foes before they killed him.

He heard a guttural shout from the level below him followed by a jarring silence and then, a final boom of a shotgun blast. He gently played his fingers over the cord wrapping on the handles of his swords. He would use them well today. Without hesitation, he lifted up the syringe, studied the vial's orange contents and plunged the needle deep into his arm, just above the bicep. This was the condensed version of the virus. He felt… nothing… but he knew that soon, in fact within minutes, that would all change. He would be gone forever, but his legacy would live on, all over the world. His head snapped back up when he heard footsteps on the stairs. And then at the top of the stairwell he made out the shape of a man. He was diminutive in height, but strong looking, with short blond hair. He was dressed in black, almost like a western version of a Japanese shadow warrior, a
Shinobi
. He looked tired, injured even, but his face was set determinedly… the… he… man… thing… Yoshida Nakata's mind started to falter, flashing backwards and forwards, as the toxins he'd pumped into his system moments before began to take effect. Fury, rage and a detached sense of strength began to filter through his mind. It was almost as if someone had replaced his body… but his mind was in a fugue and he couldn't remember what he had to do… only experienced the insatiable urge to kill.

The last thing he did was pick up his two beloved swords, gripped them in his hands and then the fury engulfed him and the
Karasu-Tengu
was truly born…

* * *

The '39 was dead, empty and obsolete in the holster on his right hip. The only weapon left was his back up gun, the Outdoorsman revolver. It only held six shots, but what it lacked in quantity of ammunition, it more than made up for in stopping power. Killing power, Gorilla hoped. He stood at the top of the staircase and drew the revolver from his shoulder holster. He held it loosely at his side, finger off the trigger, but ready.

The room on the top level of the pagoda was laid out like an office belonging to a high-level business executive; it held a corporate desk, exclusive artwork and paintings, comfortable leather chairs. It was jarring, a stark contrast to the sparse training room below. It took him a moment, through the darkness of the poorly lit office space, to see the thing standing like a living corpse behind the desk.
This
was the man he'd spent six months tracking down, so that he could kill him. The thing, whatever it was now, and which had once been Yoshida Nakata – the Raven – turned and glared at him. It seemed to have grown in size, its bone structure misshapen somehow, and its eyes were blood red. The skin on its body was greying by the minute and its mouth drooled and spat a vicious yellow fluid in alternative moments. It looked rabid. Then it would suddenly twitch, as if it had a tick, causing the black robes it wore to fly out behind it, making the thing appear as if it had wings.

To Gorilla, it looked as if the
Karasu-Tengu
, the Raven Demon of legend, had truly come to life. In its hands were two swords and the monster was slashing them about wildly as it tore up the desk and the chairs and the paintings on the wall with a fearsome ferocity. It took several minutes before the monster sated its initial thirst for violence, then it turned its red eyes one way, then the other, in a quest for a new target.

Gorilla reasoned that if he remained still, the 'thing' wouldn't spot him. Slowly, cautiously, he moved his hand to cock the hammer on the revolver. There was an audible 'click' and instantly, the monster's head snapped around to seek out the source. It glared at Gorilla, twitched in a spasmodic convulsion and let out an ear piercing screech. Everything was rolled into that screech; death, anger, fury – the hiss of an animal from the pits of hell. Then it ran, charging like a rampaging rhino, swords flailing, straight towards him, and all the time, filling the room with that screeching, shrill scream.

The thing had made it less than ten feet when Gorilla lifted the big beast of a revolver with two hands and fired. It was both heavier and more powerful than his '39, and he didn't want to take any chances of missing the target moving at speed towards him. He aimed at the centre of the body mass and fired constantly… once, twice, three times, four times then five. With each round that hit home, and all of them did, the thing seemed to pause in mid-air, before trying to thrust itself forward again, only to be hit by the next heavy bullet and pushed back even further. Its feet seemed to stumble, returning along its original path, past the desk and back towards the large material windows. The sixth shot caused it to fall back through the window, ripping open the thin material that created its covering and then it disappeared into the emptiness of the night. Seconds later, there was a dull thud as the body hit the snowy earth outside.

Gorilla ran to the window and peered down through the gaping slash. The ground, at least sixty feet below, was a mixture of blood and snow smeared together and at its centre was a dark spidery mass, squirming and writhing in agony from the six hard calibre bullets which had blasted it apart. The thing seemed to pause for a moment, as if the messages from its brain weren't connecting to the rest of its body. But the eyes and the scream were still there… the eyes still blazing with fury, the mouth still screeching that whine of hell. Gorilla watched for a minute or two as the body of the deformed and misshapen Japanese assassin struggled and then grew still and all signs of life disappeared.

* * *

Gorilla heard the first 'crump' of an explosion outside and knew he only had moments left to escape. The attack on the pagoda had taken longer than he'd expected. He'd intended to run a nice, quiet and fast attack. Instead, they'd been lured into a trap and fighting a hidden enemy had taken its toll both on his team and the speed of the operation. Now as a result, Hodges whizz-bangs were already starting to do their job.

He was aware of a ball of orange fire as it exploded from somewhere at the base of the pagoda, taking out the supports in one corner. Gorilla dropped the big revolver, pulled out the razor and ran for the stairs, his exhausted legs pumping as hard as he could make them. He wasn't stopping, not for anything, no more fighting – he would just cut and slash and blast past whatever stood in his way. Every level down was like a running through another level of hell as he saw the bodies of the men he'd killed and the men he'd fought beside Another 'crump' shook the building, it rocked from side to side and somewhere behind him he smelled the heavy stench of fire and explosives. On the second floor he came across an assassin, who had miraculously survived and was beginning to climb up the steps. Gorilla wasted no time in kicking the man in the face before slashing at him, slicing open his neck. He sprinted hard for the door leading to the pagoda's exit, lifting up the bolts and running out the main door. He hurtled down the steps, ignoring the bodies lying around, and ran out onto the blood red snow. He slipped and slid his way over the bridge towards the tree line. He heard a voice call his name, and saw Miko standing further along the tree line, waving frantically at him.

“Quickly! Any second now it—” She never finished her sentence because the sound of several larger blasts filled his ears and the shockwave of the explosion flung him into the undergrowth. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him. Gorilla pulled himself upright and he and Miko stared at the same thing. A blaze of red and yellow flames in the darkness of the night, the fire was a furnace and there was very little of the pagoda which remained recognisable. Hodge's bombs had done their work well and all that remained was a maelstrom of fire and crackling timber and the smell of burning flesh.

“Is it over?” he heard her despite the ringing in his ears.

Gorilla nodded. “I think so, I think we did—”

He stopped mid-sentence, because from out of the inferno, a noise was emitted which sounded half human and half wounded animal. For a few seconds, neither of them could establish what it was. Then from deep within the firestorm, the inhuman cry grew louder. It rose up from the centre of the mass of burning wood, a horror from the pits of hell. Its size and shape where distorted, its body charred and burned, one of its arms severed and it trailed a leg along limply behind it. The remnants of its clothes had been tattered and torn by the explosions it had survived and tendrils of cloth blew behind it like charred wings. But still in its eyes, was the same look of madness and violence Gorilla had seen earlier. It was the
Karasu-Tengu
. It saw them, saw them well, and even in its weakened state the
Karasu
seemed determined to get to its 'feast' and kill them both.

“I've no bullets left,” Gorilla muttered out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes never leaving the monster which approached with each passing second.

Miko nodded and brought the rifle up in one smooth motion, steadied herself and fixed the scope on the centre of the
Karasu's
head. “For my father,” she whispered and fired. She saw the creature's head explode and watched as it dropped back into the burning pit it had come from. She lowered the rifle and glanced over at Gorilla. They stood together, their hands touching lightly, staring at the flames, watching as the charnel house they'd created burned to the ground. Even at this distance, the intensity of the fire was almost overwhelming.

Gorilla removed the empty '39 from the holster at his hip. He pulled back the slide to make sure it really was empty, an old habit. He traced his fingers once more over the contours of the weapon, remembering its history, what it had helped him do, the number of Redactions it had carried out in his capable hands. Operations gone now, lost forever. The weapon would be a liability, traceable, compromised, and to hang onto it would mean a prison sentence or worse. He knew he could never use it again. He looked at it one last time, then threw it deep into the heart of the blazing inferno. The heat would melt the metal and destroy any evidence… the '39 would be lost forever.

“What was that?” she asked, sounding confused. “Why did you throw it away?”

“It was nothing,” he said sadly. “Just a relic from the past…”

LONDON – MARCH 1968

Three days later, Jordie Penn met them both at London Airport. They'd been shepherded into the rear of his Jaguar and whisked through the streets to a safe flat for de-briefing. He'd provided them with a status update, sounding like a newsreader, reading out the information almost in a daze. Initial news reports suggested that the pagoda in Japan had been the subject of an unfortunate fire, there were not thought to be any survivors. The inferno had been so severe, identifying the multiple bodies was proving difficult, if not impossible. There were unsubstantiated rumours that one of the bodies was that of respected businessman Yoshida Nakata, but more would not be known until a post-mortem had been conducted.

On the same day, according to Penn, the Japanese National Police Agency and the Public Security Intelligence Agency received several anonymous tip-off's regarding criminal activities at Nakata Industries of Tokyo. The informant mentioned terrorism-related offences, money laundering and financial links to illegal arms dealing. The officers of the NPA and the PSIA arrived the next morning, with warrants giving them carte blanche to search every room in the multi-storey Nakata Industries office building. Several senior executives at Nakata Industries had already been arrested, and several more had abruptly committed suicide. An in-depth investigation was underway.

Penn handed Grant two final gifts. He'd unfolded the small piece of paper Penn passed to him and raised an eyebrow at the figure in the 'balance' column. It was enough to set him up for the next few years, he would have a chance to start again and provide for the family. Penn had then handed Grant a small automatic pistol. “One's for protection and the other's to keep the bank manager happy,” Penn said. “You decide which is which. The Colonel will eventually want to thank you personally, Jack. I'm on my way to meet him later… hopefully… haven't been able to get through to him today. Phone just keep's ringing and ringing.”

“He's probably just celebrating, Jordie. The way we used to do it in the old days in Berlin,” said Grant, trying to calm his case officer's concerns, but he could see the worry etched on Penn's face. The intervening months of the operation had been hard on him and he'd visibly aged.

The two men shook hands and Grant had kissed Miko briefly on the cheek, the kiss of a friend rather than a lover and wished her well before he left them to catch a train north to Scotland. They'd had their time and now their destinies would send them in different directions.

* * *

Penn and Miko watched Jack Grant through the window as he walked away to catch a taxi. Miko turned to Penn and smiled demurely. “And for me, Mr. Penn? What do you have for me? Money, rewards?”

Penn smiled. “I have an end to this operation, Miss Arato. One final job to do, one final target… if you want it? After that, I have a ticket home, or to wherever in the world you wish to go, compliments of Sentinel.”

“And the target?” she asked, intrigued.

Penn gave her all the information he knew about the target. His name, his location, and his dealings with the Raven.

“Weapons?” she asked.

“There is a specialist piece of equipment waiting for you in the boot of my car. A British made Parker Hale rifle.”

“Ah, an old friend of mine,” Miko said, remembering Lochailort. Now it seemed a lifetime ago.

“An old friend indeed. Are you interested?” asked Penn.

She smiled at him, that sweet smile of hers, both playful and demure. “I think that you and I should go on a little journey, Mr. Penn.”

“I think we should, Miss Arato.”
She's both beautiful and deadly,
thought Jordie Penn. It was a devastating combination.