Ninja Assault. Don Pendleton

      * * *

       South Dover Avenue

      THE FIRST CROSS street in Bolan’s way was Ventnor Avenue, with traffic lights and people crossing at the corner. Checking out the chase car in his rearview one more time—it was a black sedan, of course, the model indeterminate—he slowed enough to judge the two-way traffic pattern up ahead, and let a couple of pedestrians get closer to the curbs on either side, then floored his gas pedal and blasted through the intersection. He was mindful of stores to the right, then houses, as he braced himself for sudden impact if he had miscalculated.

      More horns blared at him, tires squealed, but nothing slammed into the Civic as he cleared Ventnor and shot across to North Dover. No deviation in the street’s beeline toward water, but a slightly altered name for the convenience of police or postal workers. Bolan flicked another glance behind him, through the rearview, and was disappointed when the chase car made it through the intersection as he had, all in one piece.

      What were the odds that someone passing by on Ventnor, having been surprised or frightened, would take time to phone the cops? Bolan pegged it at fifty-fifty, if he and the Yakuza pursuing him had pissed off somebody enough to make it worth the time and effort.

      The response time, if they did call?

      Bolan had done his homework, memorized the basic layout of Atlantic City and the landmarks that were meaningful to him. Police department headquarters was on Atlantic Avenue, at Marshall Street, three-quarters of a mile to the northeast. There would be cruisers closer to the waterfront, of course, but any calls would still be routed through the cop shop, and back to the street via dispatchers.

      Say five minutes until the word came through on some patrolman’s radio or one of those computer terminals that could be found in most prowl cars today. From there, the hypothetical responding officers would need another five minutes, at least, to reach the scene of the disturbance, now two hundred feet behind Bolan as he approached the next stoplights, at Sussex Avenue.

      He caught the green this time, a lucky fluke, and ran with it, spotting a gap in southbound traffic as he cleared the intersection, passing one slow driver on the left and slipping back into the proper lane before the startled stranger saw him coming. Bolan’s trackers tried the same thing, but a bus got in their way and slowed them.

      He used that interruption to his own advantage, putting on more speed, continuing past stores on either side to Norsex Avenue, the next-to-last cross street before he reached the waterfront. He’d have a choice to make at Winchester, go left or right, decide which part of Chelsea Harbor he would turn into a battleground.

      It was another guessing game. He knew the area from an online mapping service, its detailed maps and zoom-in aerials that let him count the cars in any given parking lot, but only real-time passage on the streets would let him choose a kill zone. Bolan knew what to avoid: popular restaurants, a shopping mall or multiplex. Beyond that, it was all decided in a heartbeat, as he judged a scene in person, from the ground.

      Traffic was light on Norsex, and he cleared it on the yellow light, leaving the hunters on his tail to jump the red. They made it, with a near-miss from a Pepsi truck, and came on strong.

      Winchester Avenue was dead ahead.

      Beyond it, in a few more moments, someone would be dead and gone.

      * * *

      “MOVE IT!” ENDO EISHIN SNAPPED.

      “I’m hurrying, goddamn it!” Ken Tadayoshi answered from the driver’s seat.

      In back, Aoshi Yoshikage asked, “Where the hell is he going?”

      “I don’t know,” Tadayoshi spit. “Shut up and let me drive!”

      Eishin knew that was good advice, but he still couldn’t let it go. “We’re losing him!”

      “He’s right there!” Tadayoshi told him, lifting one hand off the steering wheel to point, his index finger jabbing at the windshield. “See?”

      Eishin could see, all right. He saw the car speeding ahead of them, and he could also see the future, if they let the gunman slip away. Noboru Machii would be furious, demanding restitution for their failure. If he let them live, a sacrifice would be required.

      Eishin’s left hand, clutching the Ithaca Model 37 Stakeout shotgun in his lap, looked oddly lopsided at first glance. A closer look revealed the first two segments of the little finger to be missing, severed by his own hand in the ritual of yubitsume—“finger shortening”—and solemnly presented to the bosses he’d offended by his failure to perform as they required.

      Two relatively minor errors. Two small sacrifices to the family.

      What would Noboru Machii order if they let the man who’d killed their brothers get away? Perhaps a hand in recompense? Or possibly a life?

      The better way was to complete the job they’d been assigned, capture the gunman and bring him back alive if that was possible. From what he’d seen at Sunrise Enterprises, Eishin did not like their chances of succeeding on that score, but if they killed the rotten son of a bitch, that would be the next best thing.

      Some satisfaction for their boss, at least, and they would not have failed.

      He swiveled in his seat, peering at Yoshikage and Kanehira next to him, both holding short assault rifles. And smiling, as if this were just one of the damned video games they loved to play at any given opportunity. They looked like morons, sitting there.

      “Listen to me,” he cautioned them. “This guy is good. Professional. He took our brothers down like they were nothing. Take no chances with him. If we cannot capture him alive—”

      “We waste his ass!” Kanehira chimed in, grinning like a monkey with a fresh banana in his hand.

      “Smoke him!” Yoshikage said, smiling from ear to ear.

      Eishin despaired of his men, sometimes. The young ones coming up these days were rash and often reckless, straining at their leashes until something stopped them short. In his day, not so long ago, the discipline was paramount and rigidly enforced. There’d been no second chances, as attested by his own truncated flesh.

      “Just follow orders,” he advised the backseat soldiers, glowering. “This isn’t one of your video games.” They blinked at that, as he pressed on. “If you get shot out here, there are no do-overs. You don’t jump up and start again. Understand?”

      Both nodded their understanding, looking chastened, but Eishin had a sense that they would smirk at him, the moment that his back was turned. Dismissing them from his mind, he turned back toward the chase and saw their quarry crossing Winchester, continuing toward Phyllis Avenue.

      It was to be the eastern side of Chelsea Harbor, then, where they would run him down and take him, one way or another.

      “Faster!” Eishin ordered, and ignored the growl from the driver, focused on his prey.

      * * *

      THE ONLY CHOICE was turning right on Phyllis Avenue. Dover did not go on from there, but in a short block Bolan had another chance to turn left, on to Chelsea Court, which led him closer to the waterfront. Ahead of him, along the curving street that circled back toward town if he went far enough, stood offices and shops, all closed for the night. To Bolan’s right was some kind of gym or recreation center with a swimming pool out back, no one outside to be a random target at the moment. Bolan knew he wouldn’t find a better killing ground nearby, and circling Chelsea until it turned into North Harrisburg and started back toward town would only make things worse.

      So it was here or nowhere. Do or die.

      Now, all he had to do was make it work—and make his adversaries die.

      First thing, he needed room enough to turn and face the carload of pursuers who were now a block behind him, closing rapidly. The road was clear ahead, and Bolan wasted no time taking full advantage of it, standing on the Civic’s brake, cranking its steering wheel