Sign of the Dragon (Tatsu Yamada Book 1) by Niall Teasdale (e reader TXT) 📕

went, and he let out a shriek of pain which had to have woken up his friends. ‘Sit down and shut up,’ she ordered, ‘and I won’t shoot you in the eye.’ She raised her voice. ‘This is the police. Everyone on this floor is under arrest. The building is surrounded. Lay down your weapons and–’

Someone carrying a submachine gun of some sort emerged from one of the apartments, looking around for the source of the voice. Spotting Tatsu, his eyes lit up for about a millisecond, and then the slug she fired hit him between the eyes. Blood, brains, and bone fragments exploded from the back of his skull and he dropped like a stone onto the worn carpet. Down the corridor, someone else opened fire. He had more luck hitting the man Tatsu had wounded, but two rounds smacked into Tatsu’s torso where they had absolutely no luck getting through the armoured plate that was her ribcage. The wounded man was now, probably, a dead man; Tatsu had no MedStat data to check but being shot was not usually a good thing. Tatsu fired back, blood sprayed across the corridor wall, and the gunman fell backward.

There was a second or two where no one else emerged from any of the doors, and Tatsu took the time to check TacNet. The team were split: five of them moving in across the ground floor while the others hit the stairwell. Rooms on the floorplan map were being marked off in green as they were cleared. Ammo indicators for the officers suggested they had not had to fire on anyone so far. ‘Just me who’s lucky then,’ she muttered.

There was a clatter as another submachine gun was tossed out into the corridor. ‘Don’t shoot! We’re coming out.’

‘Hands above your heads,’ Tatsu called back. Two men came out of one of the doors, hands above their heads. These two were not even pretending; they looked like a couple of businessmen. They looked around in horror at the three bodies who had been their compatriots. Tatsu smiled and started toward them. ‘I’m glad you decided to give up. We have so much to talk about.’

Yokohama, 16th August.

It took a couple of days to crack one of the captured men and track several of the others, and then get permission from Sakurada Gate to mount a fairly large operation in Yokohama. They were hitting two locations and Tatsu could only be at one of them, so she had elected to go in with the assault team at the organisation’s headquarters rather than the site where the drugs were being manufactured. The lab was way down in Yokosuka, practically outside the Tokyo–Yokohama urban area. The HQ was right in the middle of Yokohama.

There was still signage up on the building to say it had once been a happening bar named Nichibotsu. Tatsu had never felt the need to visit a sex club. Even if the love hotels in Chiba, and other places, served a purpose in the cramped conditions a lot of people now lived in, the idea of going out to a club where the specific purpose was to find a stranger to fuck did not appeal. This one was shut and did not count.

The building was still owned by a company called Nichibotsu Holdings which also owned the disused factory where the drugs were being made. That was a bad sign. The fact that a closed-down club had a significant power bill each month was another indication that something was up. Frankly, someone should have checked the place out already but there was no record of such an inspection having been carried out.

‘You really think this is the headquarters of some drug-dealing cartel?’ The speaker was Hideyoshi Ono, a sergeant with the TYMPD based in Yokohama. Yokohama HQ had insisted on a local being involved and the assault teams were locals too.

‘That’s the information I have,’ Tatsu replied. ‘However, it doesn’t entirely make sense. Nichibotsu Holdings has owned this place since the club closed in twenty-eighty-five. The new drug only turned up recently and the old factory they’re using down south was only bought last year. They have to have been doing something before they started making rapture.’

‘Are you sure your information is accurate?’

‘Yes, but possibly not complete. Plus, it took too long to get these raids organised. They may have closed down and relocated in the time it’s taken to set this up. They have to know we got their people in Chiba.’

‘So, we could be wasting a lot of time and money.’

Ono looked like the kind of detective who backed sure things. His suit was pristine, even under a ballistic vest. His hair was styled in a manner which made you suspect an expensive stylist had been involved. He had even had a bit of work done on his face to make himself look attractively rugged, though genetics had given him a good start. He dyed his hair to make it darker. His physique was good, but it probably came from a gym and a personal trainer. Of course, Tatsu’s physique had come via a designer and an engineer, so she could not really talk. Whatever, Ono’s career was probably based around closing cases he was sure he could close. If this turned out to be a wash, he would dump all the blame on Tatsu, and not entirely without cause.

‘Any operation could be a total waste of time,’ Tatsu said. ‘If we close down their rapture plant, I’ll call this a success. Give the order. Let’s go in.’

Unlike in Chiba, here the special operations people did not know Tatsu. So, the assault team went in with a battering ram before Tatsu and Ono were allowed to enter. They had allowed Tatsu to link into their tactical server, so she was able to see all the interior rooms on the map marked off as