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

‘The brass won’t like it. It could be seen as harassment.’

‘Better than letting her slaughter more people.’

Nakano gave a small grimace. ‘Not sure slaughtering mafia gang members is going to be seen as a good enough excuse for watching a teenager twenty-four/seven.’ He held up a hand as Tatsu looked at him. ‘Not saying I agree. But they have Yukiko’s confession and they may think the charges Kaede will be facing are enough.’

‘I can try.’ Tatsu frowned. ‘Are you saying you don’t think Kaede will try again?’

‘No. Pretty sure she will. I just wanted to be sure of your reasoning. The question is: when?’

‘Not sure. I’m a little surprised she’s held off for this long.’

‘All that iaijutsu is supposed to build willpower.’

‘It’s a point. And she’ll want a big target. There are no VIPs left among the Funabashi gang and there aren’t many big groups of survivors she can hit. Maybe I don’t need to watch her. Maybe I need to watch them.’

~~~

‘There are only three major groupings of ex-Funabashi gangsters,’ Tatsu said. She had a virtual map display up for Superintendent Hisakawa to look at, and three flashing dots appeared on it. Two were down in the docks; the third was up in the Kamagaya area. ‘She’s going to hit one of them.’

‘You seem very positive that Kaede Shiratori is the killer,’ Hisakawa said.

‘I am. Her mother’s lying.’

‘But Sakurada Gate refused your request for surveillance.’

‘Yes. It’s all politics and public opinion over there, Superintendent. You know that. They don’t want it getting out that we’re watching a teenager who’s just about to lose her second mother. Not that she’ll be a teenager much longer, though I doubt the news channels would mention that. This way, we’re watching the remnants of a gang who may be violent. Who have been violent very recently.’

‘That is where my problem lies. We are already watching a lot of these people. We have too much resource deployed to spare equipment for specifically watching three locations which are, frankly, of lower priority than the Shiroi and Huádōng areas.’

‘Things are quiet. They’re all licking their wounds and getting ready to fight over the Funabashi territory. My evaluation says that those three locations are going to attract the attention of the Shiroi and Huádōng groups anyway. Concentrating on them would probably be a good way of heading off major incidents.’

Hisakawa frowned. ‘That’s not what the analysts say, but… A week. You’ve got a week. I’ll reassign some patrol routes until Sunday morning. If she hasn’t done anything by then, you’ll have to wait for her to mess up in some other way.’

It was not really a week, but Tatsu was not going to complain too much about that. ‘She’ll snap before Sunday. Thank you, Superintendent.’

‘Don’t thank me too much. If Sakurada Gate catches wind of why we’re really doing this, I’ll throw you under the bus.’

Tatsu shrugged. ‘Seems fair.’

17th September.

It took until Thursday morning for Tatsu’s plan to pay off, though not in the way she had wanted. At four in the morning, she found herself in combat gear working through a supposedly disused apartment building in Kamagaya. Mostly, she was stepping over bodies, but there were still a few people in the building with some fight in them, and Tatsu and a riot squad were working on changing that.

Superintendent Hisakawa was talking in Tatsu’s head while she worked. ‘Sakurada Gate will probably stop believing this is related to the Shiratori case now. You were right about the Shiroi gang attempting to clean up in Funabashi.’

‘I’ll try not to let my success go to my head.’ Heat signatures appeared around a corner in the corridor Tatsu was on – definitely one, maybe two. She could just see them through the thin walls. ‘Excuse me for a moment, Superintendent.’ Rather deliberately, she put her foot down hard on her next step.

Two men with shotguns burst out ready to fire, but Tatsu was already shooting. Needles sprayed across the hallway in an arc and both men went down, one of them managing to blow a hole in the ceiling as he fell. Tatsu walked over and checked their pulses. The first she had hit was alive, but barely. The second was bleeding from about five new holes, but the projectiles seemed to have missed his major organs; he was just unconscious.

‘Are you okay, Sergeant?’ Hisakawa asked.

‘Yes. Two Shiroi goons aren’t. This was stupid of them. Too big. I think they’ll get more subtle from now on. Maybe even try to recruit the remnants.’

‘Personally, I can live with that.’

Tatsu nodded and signalled for a paramedic team to come up to the fourth floor. ‘Yes, I suppose I can too.’

~~~

The building had been originally constructed as a short-occupancy hotel for ship crews. Sailors sometimes needed a place to stay for a few nights before they shipped out again. Of course, that had been before the docks basically closed down. So, the place had been sold and refitted for a different kind of short-occupancy hotel. It had become more of a ‘no-tell motel’ than a love hotel; love had more or less nothing to do with the activities carried out there. But even that had failed and, after a brief stint as a full-on brothel, the hotel had closed to customers.

The Funabashi gang had run the brothel. They had left the place neglected since abandoning it, but it was structurally sound, and the power still worked, even if connecting it back into the grid was illegal since no one was paying the bill. It still had a water supply and sewerage outlet. Even the security system still operated. It was a good choice for a group of surviving Funabashi mafia to hole up in once suitable – if