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

fell, and Tatsu fired the grenade launcher slung under her carbine. It was a baton round which slammed into the swordswoman’s chest, and it tossed her three metres across the restaurant to hit a table and fall out of sight.

Tatsu started in that direction, but there was no hope. The room was full of shouting and gunfire as men tried to nail the remaining little flying robot. And Tatsu. They could not see the woman who had killed their boss. Half of them did not even know he was down. They could see the cop who had burst into their party along with the two robots. She pulled a grenade from her belt, activated it, and dropped it at her feet just as she turned off her own hearing. Now the room was filled with a strobing screech of multifrequency sound. Hardened criminals clutched their ears and reeled back from the sound, which was better than them trying to shoot Tatsu. Unfortunately, it did not cover the entire room, and it did not stop people outside the main area of effect from attacking. She pulled another grenade and tossed it ahead of her, and a path cleared as men stumbled and crawled to get out of the shrieking sound, deafened and in pain.

The killer was gone. Again. The robot had stopped firing and fled, or someone had got lucky and shot it. There was fitful gunfire aimed in Tatsu’s direction, but even the few bullets which hit her did not cause so much as a flinch. She called in reinforcements as she gave chase through the kitchen entrance at the back of the room, but she had little hope of actually catching up to her quarry. The Funabashi gang was leaderless again, and the killer had, once again, got away.

10th September.

Viktorov had been declared dead at the scene along with eight of his colleagues. Another fifteen had been taken to hospital, six of those in critical condition. These were all men in the upper ranks of the Funabashi mafia, and the lower ranks were now in disarray, easy targets. The Shiroi mafia and the Huádōng tong were hitting Funabashi territory from two sides, though the Shiroi were not doing as well because the Císhàn tong were using the confusion to hit their flank. It was now a large-scale, multi-sided war and the police were having trouble keeping up with it.

It was not helping that the Shiratori-rengō were pushing across the border into Funabashi territory. That was confirmed because Tatsu was watching a group of them involved in a three-way battle in the docks. The Shiroi gang had almost free rein to hit any Funabashi target they wished at this point, and they had chosen a warehouse being used for drug storage. They had already been engaged when the Japanese contingent had moved in to take out both sides.

‘We’re going to need crowd control here,’ Tatsu said over comms. ‘There are too many of them. The best we can reasonably hope for is to break up the fight and maybe grab a few as they run.’

‘Our aim should be to arrest as many as possible.’ That was Superintendent Hiroko Hisakawa, the boss of Chiba’s TYMPD contingent. Chiba HQ should have had an assistant commissioner at the top, but it was Chiba.

‘I don’t disagree, Superintendent, but we need to stop this before we end up with too many body bags. Please order the drones in.’

There was a short pause and then, ‘Four are coming in from central Funabashi. You’re sure that the yakuza are now involved?’

‘I’ve just got confirmed identification of Yū Koizumi. His records confirm membership. Apparently, his day job is selling insurance, but he seems to be alarmingly good with a coilgun.’

There was a sound which might have been a sigh. ‘That’s going to cause problems with Sakurada Gate.’

‘Especially if there’s pushback. Maybe you should talk to them and see if they can get Shiratori to pull in her horns.’

‘That is never going to happen.’

It was Tatsu’s turn to sigh. ‘No, probably not.’

~~~

It had been light for five hours and Tatsu had not been to bed yet. The driving factor seemed to be the yakuza who were still hitting various Funabashi mafia locations and stirring things up. It looked like today was going to be the worst day of the week. Unless tomorrow was worse.

If anyone had spoken to HQ about reining in the Shiratori-rengō, and if HQ had spoken to anyone in the yakuza, it had had no effect. Monitoring the police tactical network for the zone was showing signs of growing conflict across the western side of Chiba, especially in the Funabashi gang’s territory. The Denshitoakuma had become involved when their western territory had heated up just before dawn. They overlapped with the Funabashi gang there and, it seemed, some of the attacking forces were not distinguishing their targets too well.

‘There are people outside shooting at each other on the street,’ Sachiko said over the call she had put through to Tatsu. ‘Russians and Denshitoakuma, I think.’

‘They’ll be down from Shiroi,’ Tatsu replied. ‘The Russians. Stay away from the window.’

‘I’m sitting in my shower cubicle. I figure it’s not likely a stray bullet can get to me through the window and the cubicle screens.’

‘Probably true. That fight’s been noticed. You’ll probably hear drones flying past soon.’

‘You sound tired.’

‘I am tired,’ Tatsu replied. ‘Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll get much rest today. Stay inside and keep safe. Don’t answer the door to anyone.’

‘You’re scaring me, Tatsu.’

‘If it keeps you away from what’s going on outside, I’m fine with that. On the plus side, I don’t think they can keep this up for too long.’

‘How long?’

‘That, my dear Sachiko, is the billion-yen question.’

‘Right. Oh, the drones are here. I can hear the engines and… missile launchers?’

‘Riot gas.