The Expediter (46 page)

In the small temporary quarters they’d been given in officer’s territory, McGarvey and Todd had laid out the gear from the Farm on the two bunks. In addition to Russian night fighter camos, which they’d donned, they had a pair of Austrian Steyr AUG 9 mm Para-silenced submachine guns, a few British flash-bang grenades, and an Italian 12-bore Franchi SPAS-12 automatic shotgun.

Commander Stiles knocked at the door a few minutes before seven thirty and McGarvey let him in. He pulled up short, and whistled softly. “You guys aren’t screwing around.”

“No sense in it,” McGarvey said.

Todd put a pair of Russian-made night vision glasses in one of his zippered pockets, and stuffed several magazines of 9 mm Parabellum ammunition for his Steyr and for his SIG-Sauer, also Austrian.

The only U.S.-made equipment they would carry in was McGarvey’s
Wilson. But he figured if he lost it the game would be up anyway. If the Japanese got on to them the political fallout would be harsh and endless. The weapon’s extreme accuracy made it worth the risk.

“The captain’s authorized a Knighthawk helicopter for your ride. It’s been fitted out with a battlefield infrared detector the Marines use to detect warm bodies on the ground. We figured it might come in handy once we’re over this guy’s compound.”

“Is it ready now?”

“It’s on deck.”

“What about weapons?” Todd asked.

“A pair of 50-caliber machine guns, but you’re taking off dry. No ammunition.”

“I wouldn’t expect so,” McGarvey agreed with the commander. “If the Navy opened fire over Tokyo the shit would truly hit the fan.”

“I couldn’t have said it better, Mr. Director,” Stiles said.

“What about our extraction?”

That had been a sticking point that Stiles had promised to take care of. The helicopter would not be able to stay on station no matter how quickly the situation was resolved. Simply flying from the carrier into the city and back would cause a lot of questions. And standing by somewhere in Ueno with a Navy staff car to come in and pick them up wasn’t possible either. Someone would spot the vehicle in the vicinity and it wouldn’t take the Japanese cops long to link it to the mess they would undoubtedly find at the compound, and even tougher questions would be asked.

Stiles tossed him a small Bluetooth comms device. “When you want out, transmit: Yankee needs a ride. A pair of ONI plainclothes investigators volunteered to help out. They’ve rented a dark blue Toyota van under assumed names from Hertz out at Narita and they’re on the way back to Ueno right now. They’ll wait in the parking lot at the train station for your call.”

“We’ll need to come back here and get down to Okinawa.”

“The Greyhound will be warmed up the minute we get word that you’re on the way,” Stiles said. “Will you be bringing anyone out with you? A prisoner?”

“No prisoners,” McGarvey said.

Stiles nodded. “One last thing. The ONI officers will not be armed, so if something goes wrong they won’t be able to help out. In fact, if the mission falls apart their orders are to get away as quickly as possible.”

“If it comes to that we’ll figure out a way to get back here on our own.”

“We’ll arrest you at the gate if the cops are on your tail when you show up.”

“You’re all heart, Commander,” Todd said.

“You have your job to do, and I have mine,” Stiles said. “I sincerely hope that you find what you’ve come for, but except for your ride in and out, that’s all we can do.”

“We appreciate it,” McGarvey said.

“When do you want to leave?”

“How long will it take to get us up there?”

“You’ll be over the site in twenty-five minutes,” Stiles said. “I imagine you’ll want to wait until later tonight or sometime in the morning.”

McGarvey shook his head. “We’ll do it right now. I want to be on the way out of here no later than midnight.”

Stiles nodded. “Then if you’ll follow me, gentlemen, I’ll take you topside. The pilot’s name is Allen Kilpatrick. He’s a good man.”

The house was deathly silent as Turov finished removing the hard drive from his main computer and stuffed it in the same case with his laptop and Nokia 110. He brought it out to the deck and set it next to his single hanging bag, all that he was taking from the compound.

Nothing else here could possibly point to him being anything other than a Russian ex-pat businessman who traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and who was heavily involved in commercial real estate in the heart of the business district. It’s what his meeting in town this morning had been all about.

The security systems in place were normal for a man of his wealth, and although the weapons left behind would be considered somewhat excessive, his contact with the police would make certain that became a nonissue if this part of the city wasn’t incinerated.

He looked up at the night sky and shook his head. Tokyo had been fine, but for the past year he’d been having the feeling that the time to leave was approaching. No place would last forever. The majority of his money was safe in Jersey, the Caymans, and Switzerland, and he and Minoru would be able to set up in Australia, at least temporarily until he could gauge which way the winds were blowing in the aftermath.

Having a lot of money smoothed the way almost everywhere. It had worked for him ever since he’d gotten out of Russia, and it would continue that way even after the small nuclear war that he had expedited, because the only man alive who knew the truth would never get the proof.

One day soon, Turov promised himself, he would kill the man.

He couldn’t help but smile. The coming days and weeks promised to be the most interesting period of his life so far.

Minoru came from the front where he’d been loading his things into the Lexus SUV for the ride out to the airport. He pulled up short at the end of the deck.

Turov ignored his chief of staff for a few seconds, a little show of power, even though he felt the almost overwhelming urge to run right this moment and get out of Tokyo as fast as humanly possible. One-on-one with McGarvey would be an interesting challenge, but he wasn’t equipped to fight a U.S. Navy detail. At least not here and now with inadequate preparations, although the blowback that would develop if the U.S. military fired its weapons on Japanese soil would be interesting.

“Are we ready to leave?” he asked.

“Whenever you are, Colonel.”

“What about Hatoyama?”

“He just left.”

Turov nodded. “In a few hours we will be out over the Pacific, well out of the battle zone and untouchable, sipping champagne and eating caviar.”

“Mr. McGarvey will follow us,” Minoru said.

“Yes, I think he will. But not immediately. I would like a few days to get settled in at the Melbourne house. Reconnect with some old friends. Reestablish a few of my club memberships. Make my courtesy call to the police.”

“He’ll want to get to you before Beijing launches its missiles and Kim Jong Il responds.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Turov demanded.

“Perhaps it would be better to wait here for him and have it done with one way or the other.”

“What about the Navy?”

“They might arrange for a civilian car to drop him off nearby, but I’m thinking that they won’t fire their weapons on Japanese soil. Only McGarvey is foolish enough to do such a thing.”

In the distance to the south they heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter approaching. For a moment both of them stood motionless, but Turov was the first to respond.

“We’ll find out if you’re right or wrong, Hirobumi-san,” he said. “Cut all the lights and see if you can get Hatoyama back. Let’s end it here, as you suggest, one way or the other.”

The Knighthawk’s crewman, Chief Petty Officer Dick Upton, opened the side door as they flew over the Ueno train station when the compound’s lights suddenly went out. “Looks as if they might have heard us coming,” he said. “You guys ready?”

McGarvey and Todd had gotten into their rappelling gear on the way out and they gave him the thumbs-up as the helicopter flared and slowed its rate of approach. “Find out what’s on infrared,” McGarvey said.

“What are you painting?” Upton asked in his helmet mike.

“At least two live bodies inside the compound,” the copilot Lieutenant Dan Herbert replied over the ship’s intercom. “One on foot approaching the compound.”

McGarvey took off his helmet and pulled his Steyr AUG into firing position and went to the open door in time to see one man in civilian clothes racing up the street toward the compound’s open front gate. He looked up and raised what, even from this distance, was obviously a weapon and began firing.

“Holy shit, we’ve got incoming!” Upton shouted.

“Hold it steady,” Todd radioed the flight deck.

McGarvey picked off the shooter with one round, sending him sprawling, but the man got to his hands and knees and started scrambling toward the gate.

“He’s hurt, let him go,” Todd said, pulling off his helmet.

McGarvey squeezed off two shots, the first sending the man reeling and the second knocking him down as he tried to get up. This time he didn’t move. “I didn’t want him coming up behind us.”

The chopper moved toward the open gate.

“Standby,” Upton shouted.

McGarvey pulled the pin on one of his H&W flash-bang grenades but held the lever.

“Go now!”

McGarvey tossed the stun grenade just over the compound’s wall on the other side of the gate, waited until it went off with a tremendous noise and a blinding flash of light, then leaped out of the hovering chopper and quickly rappelled the sixty feet to the pavement.

Todd was beside him an instant later, and they unslung their Steyrs and raced to the compound wall where they took up positions on either side of the open gate as the helicopter banked sharply to the right and, nose down, headed back to the carrier.

McGarvey figured they only had six or seven minutes tops before the police showed up in force. They had no time for niceties.

He nodded to Todd, who poked his suppressed submachine gun around the corner and emptied his first 32-round box magazine left to right inside the front courtyard, the heavy 9 mm rounds easily penetrating the lightly built walls of the main house.

The moment Todd fell back to reload, McGarvey tossed another flash-bang grenade across the courtyard then looked away seconds later as it went off with an impressive boom and a blinding burst of intense light.

The two of them rolled through the open gate and darted across the courtyard in opposite directions. According to the helicopter’s infrared equipment two people were inside, one of them near the rear of the main house. McGarvey figured the one in back might be Turov using the other one as a screen through which his attackers had to come before they reached him.

It was one of the scenarios he’d discussed with Todd on the way up from the Big G, and one of the easiest, because they would only be dealing with a few men and not the ten or more he’d thought possible. The others had either slipped away in the night, or never had been here in the first place.

McGarvey reached the Lexus SUV, its rear hatch open. A couple of
duffle bags had been tossed inside along with a hanging suitcase. Turov had been getting ready to leave.

He looked over his shoulder as Todd got to the east side of the house and took a quick look around the corner. Someone at the rear of the main building opened fire with an AK, shredding the wall as Todd fell back out of the way, apparently not hit.

Someone else suddenly opened fire on McGarvey with another AK, the rounds passing through the SUV’s side windows. Dropping the Styer where he stood, and keeping low, McGarvey pulled out his much more accurate Wilson and two spare magazines as he jackrabbited to the front of the big car.

The firing from both positions inside the house momentarily stopped, both shooters probably reloading. With a quick glance over his shoulder as Todd disappeared around the corner, McGarvey charged around the front of the Lexus directly toward where he figured the shooter was standing and opened fire, emptying his eight round magazine, ejecting it and pocketing it, slamming one of the spares into the handle and firing again.