Ninja Assault. Don Pendleton

the MP-5 K’s muzzle, Bolan chipped the concrete parapet above him with a parting burst and saw a face fly back, out of frame. He couldn’t rate that as a hit and didn’t care. His rented wheels, a Honda Civic, waited for him on Atlantic Avenue, no more than half a block away.

      He ran.

      The rooftop shooters would need time to reach the alley. As for soldiers on the inside, he’d already dealt with two and given any more something to think about. Assuming they had walkie-talkies for communicating, someone from the lobby could be on his case by now and waiting for him when he reached the sidewalk, but it was a chance he’d have to take.

      The alley was a trap now; staying where he was meant death.

      A brief pause at the alley’s mouth, tucking the MP-5 K out of sight beneath his jacket, hand still on its pistol grip through a slit pocket on his right, and Bolan cleared the sidewalk, glancing right and left as if it was a normal day, nothing to be concerned about. When no one called him out or gunned him down, he stepped off from the curb, jaywalking as if he did it every day, angling through traffic that, with any luck, would slow his pursuers.

      Twenty feet from the Honda, Bolan palmed the keyless entry fob and released the driver’s door lock, instantly rewarded by a flash of taillights and a perky blipping sound. A moment later, he was at the wheel and gunning it, letting the taxi on his tail brake sharply, driver leaning on his horn and offering a one-finger salute, as Bolan pulled away from Sunrise Enterprises.

      He could listen to the office bug right now, in theory, but he had more pressing matters on his mind—survival being foremost on the list—and Bolan figured that Noboru Machii wouldn’t spend the next few minutes in his office, strategizing with his men. There would be firefighters to deal with, and police, the problem of eliminating corpses in a hurry.

      Something else he’d thought about, while planning his incursion: when Machii did begin to talk, the odds were good that he’d be speaking Japanese. While Bolan’s talents were diverse, he’d never had the opportunity to learn more than a smattering of Japanese. And that would have been a problem, if the superteam at Stony Man Farm hadn’t devised a program for his smartphone, offering real-time translated readouts from a list of major languages. The readout wasn’t perfect—something on the order of closed captioning on normal television—but he’d get the gist of what Machii said and go from there.

      First, though, he had to get away. Find somewhere it was safe to sit and eavesdrop once his adversaries chilled a bit and had a chance to think.

      Bolan checked his rearview, frowning as he saw a car behind him, weaving in and out of traffic, closing fast. Three shapes were inside the vehicle, maybe four, and while they might be office workers in a rush to get to happy hour, Bolan wasn’t taking anything for granted.

      What he needed was a place to take the shooters, if they were shooters, and dispose of them without civilians getting in the way. The Ventnor City wetlands were behind him, too much trouble to reverse directions, and O’Donnell Memorial Park, five blocks ahead, would probably have too much foot traffic for him to risk a firefight.

      What was left?

      He thought of Chelsea Harbor, on Atlantic City’s other waterfront, three-quarters of a mile inland from the Atlantic and the boardwalk. There would be civilians, naturally—workmen, people going in and out of restaurants, whatever—but it sounded better than the obvious alternatives.

      He reached South Dover Avenue, turned left against the lights and traffic, hoping there were no cops at the intersection to observe him. If the chase car wasn’t chasing him, he’d lose it there.

      The matter was decided when the vehicle turned in Bolan’s rearview, clipped a motorcyclist and came charging after him.

       CHAPTER THREE

       Sunrise Enterprises

      Noboru Machii watched his soldiers zipping bodies into heavy plastic bags and cursed them for their awkwardness.

      Red-faced with exertion and humiliation, they worked faster, well aware that the police and firefighters would soon be pouring through the doors downstairs, searching the premises for any trace of fire. In fact, Machii understood, the smoke had been a ruse, but he could not tell that to the authorities. It raised too many questions that he did not wish to answer—most particularly with two corpses in the place and one up on the roof.

      What would he do with those?

      There was a garbage chute on each floor of the building he had rented as his local headquarters. Rubbish went down the chute, into a basement garbage bin, where he had another pair of soldiers waiting to receive their lifeless comrades. From the bins, they would be consigned to basement lockers while the search went on—no reason anyone should think the lockers harbored flammable materials—then from lockers into car trunks and away, when it was clear for transport.

      While he waited for the law, Machii mulled the news he’d heard from one of his survivors on the roof. Someone—their prowler, who had killed three of his men—had cut the building’s trunk line, killing power, and had cut his way into the building’s main air-conditioning vent, inserting some kind of device to generate smoke. From there, he’d blasted through the rooftop access door, set off the fire alarm and gone about his bloody work.

      But what was that?

      Two dead men in the corridor outside his office, with his bedroom door wide open, let the crime boss piece together what had happened. Halfway to the street, descending on the service stairs, he had smelled something fishy, as the gaijin liked to say, and he’d begun the climb back to the top floor, taking soldiers with him. Standing in his empty, smoky office, he’d felt slightly foolish for a moment—until all hell had broken loose.

      Now he was certain someone had been in his office, standing at his desk perhaps, or riffling through his files. A glance had shown no sign of any locks picked on the filing cabinets, but Machii wouldn’t know until he had more time and privacy.

      And, naturally, he would have to tell his oyabun about the raid.

      But not just yet.

      Before he broke bad news to Tokyo, Machii hoped to mitigate the damage. When his soldiers caught the man responsible, Machii would have answers. If they took the man alive, he would inevitably spill his motives and the names of his employers. If they had to kill him…well, in spite of the old saying, sometimes dead men did tell tales.

      Both corpses were inside their bags now, and his men were hoisting them, scuttling like peasants toward the garbage chute. Above, the soldier cut down on the rooftop had already slithered to the basement in his own rubber cocoon and should be safe inside a locker now. As for the bloodstains on the runner outside his office…

      “Kenji!”

      “Yes, sir!” his soldier answered.

      “We require an explanation for these stains that will deceive the police. Do you understand?”

      Young Kenji nodded, but his blank expression made it clear he understood nothing.

      “You came to check on me,” Machii said, coaching him. “As you approached the office, you collided with another member of the staff. Sadly, your nose was broken by the impact and you bled on to the carpet.”

      “Sir?”

      Before the puzzled frown had time to clear, Machii slammed a fist into the soldier’s nose, felt cartilage give way and caught him as he staggered, doubling Kenji over at the waist and holding him in place while bright blood drained from his nose, soaking into the older stains.

      “Good man. That should be adequate. You serve the family with honor. Now, remember what we talked about.”

      “Yes, sir!”

      It would be an hour, likely more, before Machii finished with the investigators, then more time to get an electrician on the job, restoring