Ninja Assault. Don Pendleton

happening?” he asked the soldier who stood blinking in his grasp. “Who is attacking us?”

      “I do not know, sir,” came the reply.

      Of course the young man didn’t know. How could he? He was stunned, brain scrambled, and the enemy would not have introduced himself. Machii stepped around his useless flunky, finding new courage in his own ability to move with purpose toward the battle.

      With his finger on the shotgun’s trigger, he was prepared to kill his adversaries or die trying.

      * * *

      BOLAN HAD KILLED five gunners since entering the house, which made it seven altogether from the patio until he reached the modern, institutional-sized kitchen. Three had been together in the rec room when his first HE round detonated there, one more or less beheaded by the blast and shrapnel, while the other two were shaken to the point of immobility and sat there, staring at him, while he put them down for good.

      The other two came charging in as he was moving through the smoke and dust from the explosion toward a door connecting to the kitchen. Sighting him, they both gave out kung fu–type shouts and leveled pistols in his general direction, but their zeal did not equate with combat readiness. One bullet hissed past Bolan’s ear, a foot or more off target, and the second shooter didn’t have a chance to fire as Bolan’s M4A1 carbine answered, stuttering short bursts and gutting them with 5.56 mm manglers.

      The NATO rounds were made to yaw and fragment at their cannelures, shredding a target’s vital organs with a storm of shrapnel while the main part of the slug tumbled through flesh and muscle, carving out a devastating wound channel. The two gunners went down, flailing, out of action in a heartbeat, likely dead before their slayer cleared the kitchen door.

      The large room, mostly stainless steel and copper, had three exits. Bolan had one covered, while the others, he supposed, would serve a dining room and, possibly, a hallway running through the house to other rooms. He had the kitchen to himself for ten or fifteen seconds, then his ears picked up the sound of more hardmen closing from the right, beyond a swing door. Bolan crouched behind a serving island in the middle of the kitchen, carbine angling toward the door.

      When it flew open, Bolan glimpsed the formal dining room beyond—something from Better Homes & Gardens—then three gunners blocked the view, crowding the doorway in their rush to meet the enemy. Two of them carried submachine guns, and he couldn’t see the third one’s hands.

      Instead of wasting bullets on the trio, Bolan let them have a 40 mm HE round, ducking behind the heavy wood-and-granite island as it blew, unleashing thunder in the kitchen with a storm of brick dust, plaster, ventilated pots and pans. When Bolan looked again, two of the attackers were down, the third no longer visible, either propelled back through the doorway by the shock wave or—a slim chance—quick enough to save himself.

      Bolan rose from cover and proceeded toward the dining room, uncertain where he’d find Machii in the house, now that his probe had turned into a running firefight. Some commanders, in that circumstance, would lead their soldiers by example; others, a majority, would be content to issue orders, all the while intent on looking out for Number One. The samurai mind-set might help determine how Machii acted, but he couldn’t count on that to put the Yakuza boss in his rifle sights.

      First thing through the door into the dining room, he saw that the third shooter had escaped, leaving a trail of blood across beige carpet and along the nearest wall, likely from trailing fingertips. With no one else in sight, Bolan went after him, the smears and splashes leading to another door six yards in front of him. There was a blood smudge on the doorknob, verifying that his quarry had passed through it in his flight from the explosion.

      He hesitated at the door, listened and heard nothing beyond it. Careful to avoid the bloody knob, he eased it open, started to lean through—then jerked back as a sudden movement to his right warned Bolan of a trap in waiting.

      He recoiled, crouching, and grimaced as a shotgun blast shattered the door frame, heavy buckshot pellets drilling wood and drywall. Bolan waited for a follow-up that didn’t come, while calculating odds of getting nailed if he proceeded through the exit to the corridor beyond.

      A shotgun gave his adversary an advantage. Marksmanship was secondary, with a scattergun, to nerve and steady hands. If Bolan rushed the doorway, he could wind up getting peppered, and the gunner was loading double-0, at least. One hit, much less a pellet cluster, could be fatal or debilitating.

      On the other hand, if he stayed where he was, it could mean reinforcements coming down the corridor or through the kitchen at his back. They might come both ways, trap him in the dining room and finish him, if they had guns and guts enough to pull it off.

      Given the choice, Bolan would almost always choose attack, and this was no exception.

      But he had a little something different in mind.