The Rising Sea (NUMA Files 15)

Oni charged, tackling Joe and landing on top of him. Joe heaved him over, reversed their positions and landed a rabbit punch to Oni’s side.

The Demon once again tried for a sleeper hold, but Joe smashed an elbow into his gut and pulled free.

Mission accomplished, Joe thought. He stood but was taken to the ground by several members of the casino’s security detail. They had rushed in from all directions, swarming over both Joe and the Demon.

Joe couldn’t see much through all the arms and legs, but he felt the shock of a Taser and the sudden lightness that came with being lifted from the ground by several powerful hands.

He and Oni were dragged from the lobby as the onlookers stared and the violinist stood off to one side. The last thing he saw was a man asking her to play and trying to calm the patrons down. And then he was dragged into a back corridor and thrown in a room with concrete walls, a solid floor and a door made of steel.

* * *

• • •

USHI-ONI was handled in similar fashion by men who had no idea who he was. Despite the fact that his hands were bound, he managed to knee one of them in the gut and send him sprawling to the floor. That earned him a jolt from the Taser, which left him stunned and reeling and seething with more anger than before. As he lay there, Oni imagined different ways he would torture them when he got the chance.

They searched him for weapons but found something else instead: the golden chip. Only the casino’s most valued guests carried such markers.

The rough treatment ended instantly. The guards glanced at one another and then helped Ushi-Oni up off the floor and into a seat.

Before they could ask any questions, the door opened. Two men stood there. The first man was named Kashimora; he was the Yakuza underboss who ran the casino. The second was Walter Han.

18

HIDEKI KASHIMORA stood in the unadorned room, seething with anger. A broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties, Kashimora ran the club for the syndicate. He collected the money, maintained its veil of secrecy and enforced its rules mercilessly—something those foolish enough to cross him usually discovered when they wound up in cement barrels at the bottom of Tokyo Bay.

And yet while violence was second nature to Kashimora, even he felt a certain chill looking into the feverish eyes of Ushi-Oni. If half of the stories told about the Demon were true, it made him the most lethal assassin in Japan. His penchant for toying with his victims first was a kind of sickness even a Yakuza boss disapproved of. Killing was business, not pleasure. But for Ushi-Oni it was both.

“I will not tolerate disruption in my club,” Kashimora said.

“I’m sure our friend Oni had good reason,” Han replied.

“Your friend,” Kashimora corrected. “Oni burned his bridges to the syndicate years ago.”

“The syndicate,” Ushi-Oni muttered. He spat blood on the floor to punctuate his disgust.

“I should put you in the ring to finish what you started,” Kashimora said.

“Do it,” Oni suggested.

Han interrupted. “Who was that man you attacked?”

“Don’t you recognize him?” Oni said. “He’s one of the men you sent me to kill.”

“What lies are these?” the casino boss asked. “That man is a promoter from Las Vegas.”

Oni laughed. “He’s no promoter. He’s an American government agent.”

“What kind of agent?” Kashimora blurted out. “And why would he come here?”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Han assured him. “If Oni’s correct, it’s not the casino they’re interested in.”

“Then what?”

“Oni has been recognized; I can only suspect they came here to capture him.”

“They?” Kashimora said. “You think there are more of them?”

“Would you walk into a fortress like this alone?”