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.”
Smith shook his head weakly. “Jesus, Randi. Is there an organized crime boss on the planet you don’t have a relationship with?”
She shrugged noncommittally. “Count yourself lucky that I have friends in low places. Noboru’s plans for you weren’t exactly all sunshine and lollipops. Unless I miss my guess, they’d have ended with you getting mixed in with the cat food at one of his meatpacking plants.”
“And you trust this guy, but not Fred?”
“I don’t trust anyone. You know that. But Noboru and I go way back and we have some shared interests. With Klein I’m never quite sure.”
Smith forced himself into a sitting position. She watched him struggle, silently calculating how his condition would affect her plans but not offering any help.
“I take it you’re here to spring me?”
She nodded. “The doc says you’re in pretty bad shape but that it should be okay to move you if we’re careful. They’re bringing a wheelchair and I’ll take you to an apartment I rented through a dummy corporation. No way to trace it to either one of us. We can lay low there until you’re a little more mobile and we figure out how to get you back to the States.”
“Fred can send a jet.”
“We’ll see. No need to jump into anything blind.”
He didn’t bother to protest, instead pointing to a pair of cargo pants folded in the corner. He rarely won an argument with her even when he was firing on all cylinders. Better to concentrate on getting the hell out of there before their host changed his mind.
While he was struggling to get his zipper up with dead-feeling fingers, the door opened and the man he’d spoken with when he’d first woken up entered, followed by three very serious-looking companions.
“Randi,” Noboru Ueno said, examining her from bottom to top, finally stopping at the black-dyed hair. “What have you done to yourself?”
“You know how I hate to attract attention.”
He reached for her hand and kissed it. “Impossible. You look radiant as always.”
“Such a charmer,” she said with a barely perceptible smile. “Now where’s the wheelchair you promised me?”
“And where are the items you promised me?”
Randi pointed to the satchel lying on the table. Ueno opened it and flipped approvingly through what from Smith’s position appeared to be bearer bonds.
“I could have just wired the money to your account in Croatia.”
He shook his head. “I’ve come to enjoy the feel of paper in my hand.”
Smith was too drugged to generate any meaning from Ueno’s subtle nod, but Randi wasn’t similarly handicapped.
The men moved on her with blinding speed, but it wasn’t fast enough. Instead of backing away like they expected, she charged at the lead man, the blade reappearing in her hand and sinking to the hilt in his side. She spun, catching the second man in the head with an elbow as Smith threw himself out of the bed. He had the vague sensation of the IVs ripping out of his hand as he went for Ueno, but when his feet hit the floor, his legs wouldn’t support him. He collapsed at the man’s feet, pain and nausea washing over him as he tried desperately to get up and help Randi.
The man who’d caught the elbow was shaken but didn’t go down. He managed to block the knife from getting him in the throat but the gash it put in his forearm looked to be six inches long and down to the bone. She feinted high on the only uninjured man left but she was off balance and he knew it. A foot sweep took her down hard onto the wood floor and the man with the wounded forearm managed to drop a knee on her arm, splattering her with blood and trapping the knife.
And then it was over. Each man probably outweighed her by fifty pounds and both were now on top of her. In a standing fight, Randi’s uncanny speed and accuracy made her a force to be reckoned with. On the ground, though, her size was an insurmountable disadvantage.
Smith managed to get to all fours but his head was spinning so badly he could no longer determine which way was up. Ueno used a foot to shove him onto his side and then stared down at him. The Japanese man’s mouth was moving, but Smith had to concentrate to decipher his words.
“The doctor assured me that your injuries were too serious for you to even get out of bed without help, but Randi’s friends tend to be very resilient. In light of that, I had him add a little something to your IV.”
Ueno adjusted the dead guard leaking all over his expensive teak floor and then walked over to Randi and kicked her hard in the side. “He was one of my best.”
She thrashed wildly against the men holding her, prompting Ueno to take a cautious step backward.
“Not good enough, you son of a bitch! And these two won’t be either!”
He let out a long, frustrated breath. “I spent millions on my security. I was guaranteed that it would be impossible to smuggle a weapon past my entry hall. And now this.”
Ueno stepped over the expanding crimson puddle at his feet and opened the door, waving in five more men. A moment later Smith had been rolled onto his stomach and his numb limbs were being wound with duct tape. From his position he could see that Randi was getting the same treatment, though at least she was putting up a respectable—if completely pointless—fight.
Smith barely managed not to vomit from nausea and pain when he was thrown over a man’s shoulder and carried out into the hallway. Randi was right behind him, still kicking and shouting threats as they went through the front doors and were deposited into the trunk of a waiting vehicle.
“You better just kill me now, Noboru. Because if you don’t, I’ll be back.”
Smith couldn’t see the man from his position with Randi on top of him but when the Japanese man spoke, he sounded genuinely shaken.
“This was very difficult for me, Randi. I’ve always liked you and to be completely honest, I’m afraid of you and your Central Intelligence Agency. But the men who want you…” His voice faded for a moment. “I’m afraid of them more.”