pursuing other friends and goals entirely foreign to his upbringing.
That was a problem for another day, however.
Reaching for the intercom beside him, Takumi summoned Kato Ando and greeted him with curt instructions. “Call The Four,” he said. “They must be ready to depart within the hour.”
“Yes, sir,” Kato replied, and left the room without a backward glance.
* * *
Atlantic Avenue, Atlantic City
BOLAN’S INFINITY TRANSMITTER was not hampered by the scrambler on Machii’s telephone, because it picked up conversation from the office, not the phone line. There were pros and cons to that: he only heard the kyodai’s side of the discussion, had to guess what he was hearing from the other end, but Bolan still had contact when Machii cut the link and called out for his flunky.
“Tetsuya!”
A moment later, Bolan heard the second now-familiar voice, reading the captions as his smartphone carried out translation.
“Yes, sir?”
“Are we ready to get out of here?” Machii asked.
“As ordered, sir. The limousine is downstairs, waiting.”
Bolan twisted the RAV4’s ignition key and pulled out of the Tropicana’s parking lot, turned left and drove southwestward, back toward Sunrise Enterprises. There was traffic, sure, but it would slow Machii’s getaway as much as it did Bolan’s progress, thirteen blocks to cover from the huge casino to the office building where he’d killed three men that evening.
Machii had disposed of their remains, presumably, since he hadn’t been carted off for questioning. It didn’t pay to underestimate the Yakuza, either in terms of their ferocity or their efficiency. The Yakuza served as the planet’s oldest criminal syndicate—older even than the Chinese triads—and survival spanning some four hundred years meant they had learned a thing or two along the way.
Bolan was approaching Windsor Avenue when he saw a black stretch limo turning into traffic on Atlantic, headed in the same direction he was going. That saved him time and inconvenience, since he didn’t have to box the block and come around Machii’s crew wagon. All Bolan had to do now was maintain visual contact with the limousine until it dropped the kyodai at the “other house” he’d mentioned in his office. Bolan couldn’t eavesdrop on the limo’s passengers, since they had left his bug behind, but he could follow them all night if necessary, until they found a place to roost.
In fact, it didn’t take that long. At Washington, the limo took a right-hand turn and traveled past the Margate City Historical Museum, then hung a left on Ventnor Avenue and followed that until it crossed the JFK Bridge and became Route 152, skirting the Atlantic coast of an unnamed barrier island. It was marshy ground, with serpentine canals or rivers winding through it, trees along the north side of the highway, beaches kissed by breakers to the south.
Bolan trailed his quarry past the Seaview Harbor Marina, then watched the limo turn northward, on to a two-lane access road that disappeared from view around a curve. He dared not follow it too closely, so drove on two hundred yards, until he found a place to turn and double back.
Machii’s ride was long gone by the time Bolan returned to where they’d parted company. It was a gamble, trailing him, but still the only way of finding out exactly where he’d gone. Nosing into the two-lane access road, he braked and pulled a pair of night-vision infrared goggles from the bag of tricks beside him on the shotgun seat, and slipped the straps over his head, then killed the RAV4’s lights.
The goggles let him see for fifty feet without another light source, but a half moon rode the sky this night, extending Bolan’s vision to fifty yards or more. He’d have to take it easy, keep from edging off the road and on to marshy ground, but there’d be ample warning if another car was headed his way, and he’d show no lights of his own unless he stepped on the Toyota’s brake pedal.
The drive in seemed to take forever, but the dashboard clock—light dimmed until it was barely visible—told Bolan he was making decent time, all things considered. Stealth took longer than a mad charge toward the firing line, and that was what he needed now.
He spent ten minutes on the looping access road before he spotted lights a quarter or half mile farther on. The vehicle had come to a stop in front of a large, two-story house, not quite a mansion, but the next best thing for its surroundings. Open fields and marsh surrounded it, making a foot approach more dangerous, but that would clearly be the only way to go.
Bolan stopped a quarter mile out from the house, switched off the RAV4’s dome light prior to opening the driver’s door, and then went EVA. Standing in moonlight, he removed the goggles and surveyed his target through a pair of field glasses that brought the place up close and personal. He saw two gunmen on the front porch, covering a driveway that branched off the access road, and figured there’d be more in back, watching the alternate approach.
Machii doubtless thought that he was safe out here, away from everyone and everything.
The Executioner had plans to prove him wrong.
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