Takahashi didn’t respond. Justifying the urgency of the salvage operation would be difficult but significantly simpler than the explanations necessary if the police got hold of the limousine.

They burst through another door and came out onto a relatively quiet secondary street. Pedestrians were talking in frightened tones and pointing at the smoke just starting to clear the tightly packed buildings. Takahashi’s men barreled right through them, going for a half-unloaded truck parked at the curb.

Its owners were too stunned to offer any resistance, instead watching in silence as the head of Takahashi’s security detail shoved the general through the driver’s door and then leaped in after him.

In the rearview mirror Takahashi saw his remaining men stepping in front of cars and forcing their occupants out into the street. Within thirty seconds two of his men had pulled a commandeered Prius in front of the truck and another three had a BMW a few meters off its rear bumper.

“Please get down, General!”

He ignored the suggestion. The likelihood that there was a secondary team looking to finish the failed assassination attempt was remote at best. And even if it hadn’t been, he was not going to cower like a child in the face of it.

“What’s the ETA on that chopper, Lieutenant?”

“I’m being told it should be on-site within half an hour, sir. After that, it’ll take another fifteen minutes to hook up the cables. Where should the vehicle be taken, sir?”

Takahashi didn’t immediately respond, looking at the stunned expressions of the people they passed while trying to calculate exactly what had happened and who was responsible. “I’ll give you a destination when it’s in the air.”

12

12

Near Imizu
Japan

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were having an off day when you let this happen.”

Jon Smith’s eyes rose from the blade in the woman’s hand to her face, still shadowed by the brim of her hat. The voice was familiar, but the drugs flowing into him through the IV made it hard to concentrate.

She used the knife to cut through the leather strap securing his ankle and then stepped back into better light.

The hair was an unfamiliar black, but the dark eyes and arrogant smile were unmistakable.

“Randi? How…how the hell did you find me? Did Fred—”

She scowled and shook her head. “Fred’s the reason you got a crossbow bolt in your back. I thought we should talk before I let him in on where you were.”

He let her words sink in for a moment. Had they increased his pain meds? He still hurt like hell but his processing speed seemed to be crawling. “The guy I talked to…the one in charge…”

“Noboru Ueno. One of Japan’s most successful…” She paused for a moment to consider her word choice. “Entrepreneurs.”