Pandora's Succession (23 page)

The Sig was still within his reach, and he snatched it up and aimed it at both Marx and Tanaka. “It’s time for a change of authority around here.” He could shoot them both right now and end this, but it would still leave him at a dead end since he didn’t know where Pandora was hidden, not to mention how many locations it could be stored at.

But now that he was in control, he would be the one to ask them questions, not only to uncover where to find Pandora, but also how to undo the effects of the Clarity drug.

“You.” Fox pointed the gun at Tanaka. “Get up.”

Tanaka’s grin faded and he did as told. Fox then pointed the gun at Dr. Marx.

“And you. Go stand beside him.” Marx, however, was much slower and obviously didn’t feel as threatened as Tanaka. Her stare went cold as she tightened her grip on the syringe as though to crush it in her hand.

“You won’t need that anymore, so give it to Tanaka.” Her eyes narrowed and the same coldness he felt when he first met her seemed to penetrate his bones, to which he responded by pointing the Sig at her head.

“Now!” Fox said, this time louder.

Marx sighed and handed the syringe to Tanaka. “You continue to impress me. I suppose you’re going to force me to take the truth serum to get the information you want. Pity it won’t work.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?” Fox moved closer to them, stopping short about five feet away.

“I designed truth serum upgrades for the military, as well as their blockers,” she answered. “In fact, I’m on one of them right now.”

The shot Fox fired grazed Marx’s upper right arm, spinning her down on one knee as she grasped the wound with her opposite arm. Fox noticed beads of sweat form on Tanaka’s forehead.

With her back to Fox, Marx shot a look over her left shoulder in cold rage. “You idiot!” Her scream stung Fox’s eardrums.

Fox then smiled. “Tell me, Dr. Marx. Would you call
this
putting science to use? I got to say I like it. I’m curious to know how many bullets in your arms and legs you’d have to get before you start talking.” His sarcasm then lost its bite and his tone darkened as he glared at Marx. “Where’s Pandora?”

“You can kill me, but you’ll just end up destroying yourself and contributing to the global cleansing.” She got up, still holding the wound, and turned to face him. “The plans are already set in motion.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Am I? Do you honestly think I’d have researched such a deadly microbe without knowing how to destroy it just in case something went wrong?”

“No, but then again if you shared the cult’s philosophy, you wouldn’t have bothered, would you?” Fox pointed the gun at Tanaka who still held the syringe. “Give her a shot. Or I’ll give you one.”

Glass shattered at the entrance of the cocktail lounge and an avalanche of loud music flowed inside. Fox counted more than six gunmen pour in quickly, before he ran into one of the booths for cover. When he looked out, slightly above the headrest, he saw Marx, with Tanaka’s help, running away.

Flying bullets filled the air around him. Fox ducked back down. He was clearly out-manned and out-gunned, and eventually they would force him to surrender. But that wasn’t an option for him.

He took another look to the middle of the dancehall with the suspended cages. That’s when a crazy idea came to him. It was risky, but doable. Fox looked below the glass partition and saw the booth that was in front of him. Beyond that there was a chain that suspended one of the caged dancers. It was well within jumping distance and that’s where he would make his exit. It looked sturdy enough to support his weight.

He pointed the Sig and pulled the trigger twice. No sound was heard above the loud music but the window pane shattered. He got up and pulled the trigger five more times in rapid succession, in different directions towards the entrance of the lounge. Naturally, the gunmen all dove for cover, and while they did so, he shoved the gun back in his holster and sprinted towards the booth, bullets flying past him.

When he was less than three feet away from the table, he leapt onto it. His foot landed on the windowsill and he threw himself upwards towards the chain with nothing below him but a five-storey drop. Catching the chain was easy, but keeping his grip wasn’t. His momentum nearly caused him to fumble on the chain and plummet to his death, but he managed to catch it with his left leg and wrapped it around his shin. He then grabbed the chain securely and let himself slide down until he landed on top of the cage.

A handful of people on the third and fourth floors saw Fox and rushed to the inner circle of the hall. Within seconds, Fox had almost everyone in the club watching him. He looked up and saw a few men rush to the windowsill from where he had launched himself. The gunshots would come soon. He knelt down and slid off the roof of the cage and caught the side bars. Fox watched the girl in the cage shriek and jump back.

He doubted Marx’s henchmen would risk hitting the girl, but depending on how desperate they were, they just might. A few seconds passed, but Fox couldn’t hear the faint staccato noises from the firearms amidst the loud music. They would have something else planned. As the cage descended, the spectators below cleared an opening for him, and he let himself drop to the floor to the welcoming cheers.

He couldn’t stay here. The longer he did, the more he was endangering the lives of others. And it began much sooner than he anticipated. He noticed commotion erupt to his left. People were being knocked over as a huge figure burst out from the crowd and lunged at him. Fox dipped low to the left and swept his right leg across the floor, caught the bouncer by the shins and tripped him. He flew forward in a nosedive and knocked over a few individuals like bowling pins. More bouncers would come, and he could take them all on easily. They were nothing more to him than oversized, moving punching bags. But they could stall him long enough for Marx’s other henchmen to get to him. He bolted in one direction and the crowd cleared a path for him.

Fox emerged from the crowd problem free, but knew he had to keep moving because the bouncers, and Marx’s henchmen, would be close behind him. In front of him was a peculiar individual that made him come to a halt. He was far from resembling the six-foot-tall, muscle-bound bouncers, but was an average-looking person. He was no more than five foot nine and wore a dark trench coat. But the way he stared at Fox definitely told him something was up. He didn’t seem as impressed by him as everyone else was, and Fox’s gut instinct told him to prepare for a fight. Years of experience told him that when someone is conspicuously out of place and is eyeing you, it’s not because he wants to chat.

Fox rushed him, but the man whipped out a Micro-Uzi from inside his trench coat and pointed it at Fox whose hands shot up so fast that he fell back off balance and onto the floor.

Damn it, not another Micro-Uzi! First Ares and now this guy.
Fox scrambled to get up but he knew he was a dead man. There was no way he could dodge gunshots from this distance while he was on the ground.

The man kept his eyes on Fox—there was no anger in them, just a simple blank stare that Fox found difficult to read. Fox could recognize a killer’s intention to shoot him by just looking into his eyes, but unless this guy mastered his emotions, he didn’t fit the profile of someone who was going to do so.

The man pointed the submachine gun towards the ceiling and fired.

Bedlam!

Screams mixed in with the staccato of shots and a stampede of people immediately followed. Fox got up and was almost knocked back onto the floor as people bumped and slammed into him from all directions. Seconds later, the gunman stopped firing. A hand grabbed Fox by the shoulder, and at the same time he heard a man yell at him.

“Fox!”

Fox spun around and knocked the hand off, and he saw that it was the gunman.

“Come with me quickly!”

Sato?

The carnage spilled outside the club and was all around them as they made their escape. Adding to the cacophony, Fox heard several police sirens closing in on their position. Fox tried to catch up to his rescuer, who had a head start on him. The gunman darted across the street, his Micro-Uzi pointed upwards, and ran around the next corner. He passed about ten cars to his left, when he saw the gunman unlock and open the right-hand side door of a sporty, yellow hatchback and get inside. Fox got to the car, slid between the back of it and the car parked behind, ran to his door and hopped in.

“Ridley Fox, I’m Aijima Sato, Ken Katori’s partner. I’m pleased to finally meet you.” Sato started up the car and sped out from his parking space, passing a few individuals who hadn’t stopped running from the club.

Fox panted as he looked behind and saw the screaming cacophony pouring out of the nightclub. “Yeah, glad to see you, too. Now of all times.”

After Sato sped off, Fox heard a faint beeping sound. “What’s that noise?” At that moment Sato pulled over and slammed on the breaks.

“Get out, now. You’ve been bugged.” Fox did as he was told, and Sato opened the glove compartment and took out an object the size of a small television remote, complete with antenna. Sato approached Fox on his side of the car and swept him from head to waist, where the beeping increased simultaneously with the light-emitting diode or LED. The frequency increased as Sato brought the device closer to Fox’s left arm and stopped above his watch where the device’s frequencies maxed out.

“It’s in your watch!” yelled Sato. Fox immediately ripped it off and threw it on the side of the road where it fell into a storm drain. Sato swept him again with the detector but there was nothing else.

“You’re clean. Let’s go.” Both Sato and Fox jumped back into the car.

Fox sat there pondering how anyone could’ve bugged his watch without his knowledge. As Sato raced past other cars through the streets of Shibuya, he thought back hard. If he’d been compromised, then it meant that Walsh, Dobbs, Levickis, and Parris were all in danger. “I need to make a phone call.”

“You can’t.”

“I’m not here alone. The mission’s most likely been compromised. Give me your phone.”

“I don’t have one. And may I suggest that you keep away from them. They’re everywhere.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Listen. You’re not in control anymore,
they
are. And you’ve seen what they can do. So you’ll just have to do as I say if you want us to get through this. Your teammates will be fine.”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe. And when we get there, you’ll get to see what we’re really up against.”

Chapter 23

Dr. Hideaki Hashimoto’s Residence, West Tokyo, 12:21AM

Marx wasn’t startled even though she could have sworn that a lightning bolt struck, just outside one of the five floor-to-ceiling windows she passed on her way to Hashimoto’s office. Her close call with Fox a few hours ago would no doubt cause concern with Hashimoto, who in her opinion panicked too much. The bandage below her right shoulder would be a constant reminder of how Fox had left his mark on her that evening. But Fox didn’t worry her—Ares did. They had found Valerik and dumped his body onto a freeway.
How much more blatant of a message could they send that they were closing in on us?
Valerik’s capture could only be due to a breach, there was no other explanation. It didn’t appear to be too long ago that she had ordered Hashimoto to trick Valerik into visiting him so that his henchmen could ambush him. The gratification she felt when she personally clarified him in the chair was too sweet. Although he was useful, she wouldn’t miss him. After all, he was a former KGB operative that worked for the same people that had brought so much misery to her.

As Marx opened the double doors to Hashimoto’s office, a crack of thunder boomed as though she had summoned it. The lights in the room began to flicker. Hashimoto, Tanaka, and Commissioner Yushida were already there.

Hashimoto got up from behind his desk and faced Marx. “I was told what happened—”

“I’m fine,” Marx cut him off by raising her hand. Hashimoto got up from his chair and she sat in it. Hashimoto sat in another chair beside the others.

“I’m going to get to the specifics. Valerik’s dead, and I think there’s a leak. I want your input on where you believe it came from.”

Commissioner Yushida pointed his right index finger in the air. “That’s assuming that there was a leak.”

Marx shot a stern glance at him. “Yes, I do assume. It was either that or Valerik got very sloppy. And I’m not so convinced of the latter. Has your investigation turned up anything on what happened to him?”

“All signs lead to a professional hit,” Yushida replied. “The investigation’s at a standstill.”

Hashimoto crossed his arms. “What about Fox and his CIA cohorts?”

Marx shot him a menacing glance. “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.”
There’s no way you’re controlling this meeting.
“Fox is, and should remain, the least of our concerns. As long as we can track him, he can be controlled.”

“I have to agree with Dr. Marx,” said Tanaka. “We’ve been tracking him all day.”

Marx relaxed back into the cushioned chair. “And has he come into contact with anyone in particular?”