The Mask: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Taylor Stevens

“I think so,” Okada said.

  “He never mentioned anything unusual?”

  Okada shook his head and then paused, as if he wasn’t entirely sure, and she allowed him time to think back and count the days.

  “Maybe yes, but not with words,” Okada said. “He behaved differently.”

  “Explain differently.”

  “It’s not possible to explain,” he said. “The difference was air, something felt but not touchable.”

  “When did that start?” she said, but she knew the answer before Okada spoke it. The last time they’d discussed this, in the takoyaki seating area the night Bradford had been arrested, Okada had said Bradford had changed, had become more private, after she’d come into the office. But her day in the office had also been the final night Bradford had gone to the hostess club. He hadn’t changed because he’d learned something from her, he’d changed because the belt had been stolen.

  Confirming this, Okada said, “The last time.”

  “Do you know the men he went with?”

  “If it’s important, then it may be possible to learn.”

  “Without bringing trouble on your own head?”

  Okada smiled slyly, as if she’d pleased him by acknowledging his predicament, and he gave a curt nod.

  “That would help,” she said, and then in a long-shot reach, “For certain you have no idea who Miles suspected?”

  Okada’s hands tensed, as if he committed some discomforting betrayal. “We spoke of many things, insignificant things, but he never mentioned suspects.”

  “It must have been hard, being taken away from your department.”

  Okada shifted, as though her concern embarrassed him. “I received honor in learning from someone with such experience.”

  “And to spy on him? Report his movements to your own boss?”

  Okada didn’t respond.

  Munroe stood and took a step away from the bench. “I like you, Tai,” she said. “Miles liked you. You know more than you think you know, so watch your back, okay?”

  Munroe leaned into a moss-covered wall at a corner near the street’s dead end, insides itching at the stillness and the passing time. Across the road, a bird screeched, chasing a rival from a favored perch. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. And far down the block, in the shade of trees overhanging the consulate wall, two police officers conversed with the casual indifference of men who’d not yet experienced the urgency of danger and, at their current post, didn’t expect to.

  Only the passport stood in the way of freedom—hers and Alina’s both.

  It had been thirty minutes since she’d dropped Alina off at the consulate gate. In the wait Munroe had taped over the Ninja’s license plates, a precaution she’d undo outside the neighborhood if they got that far without incident.

  She was close, so close to cutting the woman loose.

  In a preempt against further delays, predictable and corruptible, she’d sent Alina inside with air ticket in hand—providing proof of today’s departure and a sense of desperation—and enough money to ensure they wouldn’t be coming back for another round.

  Munroe checked the time. Alina would call; should have called by now. And although the gesture was pointless, she checked for missed calls, too, then stiffened at movement far, far down the street.

  Two black European-made cars turned the corner.

  The neighborhood was a matrix of roads hosting any number of houses and apartments. The vehicles could have come for other reasons, but it didn’t take a life spent living on the edge to know that they hadn’t.

  Inside her chest the first drumbeats tapped out faint and quiet.

  The cars crawled in the consulate’s direction, the lead car stopping when it reached the police van. The window rolled down. Conversation ensued and Munroe measured body language between law enforcement and occupants.

  One of the officers motioned down the road, in Munroe’s direction.

  Her hands tingled and she clenched them tight.

  The cars reversed and then parked just far enough beyond the van that they weren’t directly in front of the consulate’s property, and anyone passing to or from the consulate would be forced to slow and run the gauntlet.

  The phone in Munroe’s hand vibrated.

  The arrangement had been a call from the consulate’s phone, just a few rings to signal that Alina was ready for pickup. Munroe answered instead.

  Alina said, “Oh.”

  Munroe said, “Are you in a place where you can talk?”

  The smile in Alina’s voice faded. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “There are issues outside. We can still catch that flight, but only if you do exactly as I say.”

  Alina, voice choked, said, “Jiro.”

  “Do you have your passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Check your purse. Make sure your money and ticket are there. Tuck them inside your passport and secure it all together inside a zipper where nothing can fall out. Tell me when you’ve done it.”

  There was a pause and Alina’s heavy breathing, then Alina said, “Everything is secure in the purse.”

  Down the street, the doors to the rear car opened.

  “You’re going to have to move quickly,” Munroe said.

  Four men stepped out. Two waited beside the hood, while the others walked toward the lead car, to the rear passenger side, where the window rolled down again. Munroe said, “You’ll need to convince someone that you have to go out the staff exit, to the parking-lot gate, and you’ll have to convince them to walk with you. Can you do it?”

  “Yes.” Alina said.

  “Call me when you’re ready.”

  Munroe straddled the Ninja, shoved off the kickstand, and thumbed the ignition. With the bike rumbling beneath her, she waited, counting off time in her head. Move too soon and Jiro’s men would come after her and she’d have to fight her way through them to reach Alina; move too slowly and they’d reach Alina before she did.

  The phone vibrated. Alina said, “I am ready.”

  Munroe said, “Do you trust me?”

  Alina whispered, “Yes.”

  “Make sure your purse strap is over your head, not just your shoulder. I’ll reach the gate when you do. Get through. Grab the helmet. Get on the bike. We’ll be rolling before you have a chance to sit fully.”

  Alina responded with the heavy breathing of panic and then hung up.

  Munroe shoved the phone into her pocket and the helmet on her head.

  There had to be someone on the inside, someone who’d known Alina was soon to finish and called them to come and collect their package, and who hopefully wasn’t the one walking her out the door.

  Munroe eased slowly into the street, a big black and red mark on what had otherwise been empty pavement.

  The four men standing outside the cars straightened and faced her.

  The doors of the lead car opened and two more men stepped out.

  Munroe guided the bike in their direction, riding an imaginary line down the middle of the road. She stopped as close to them as strategy would allow.

  Boots to the pavement, she balanced the machine while four of the men strode toward her and beat by beat the inner count continued.

  The taps of adrenaline turned another rotation. Closer they came, and her focus shifted between them and the gate and then them again.

  Timing meant everything.

  On they walked, four in a line, past the police van, past the consulate’s pedestrian gate, past the metal gate that closed off access to consulate staff parking, past the neighbor’s property line.

  Munroe gripped the throttle, measuring movement.

  The two men beside the car whipped their focus toward the consulate. The parking gate began the slow slide open.

  Munroe punched forward. The four men froze, a heartbeat of hesitation and indecision. Munroe cut left, around them, for the gate. Cut too close. Clipped the nearest man in the line of four but heard nothing, felt nothing, her focu
s entirely on the opening, on the need to get to it and to reorient the bike’s nose to the street before Alina stepped fully through.

  The four men spun and ran back, past the neighbor’s property line, toward her and the opening gate. The two men at the car came at her from the opposite direction, both sides closing in.

  The policemen had disappeared into the van.

  Alina grabbed the helmet from its straps, took its place, and shoved it in her lap.

  All six men pounded forward.

  Out of time, they were out of time.

  Munroe peeled around, tires spinning, leaving black against the pavement. Alina clutched Munroe, throwing the bike’s balance.

  Hands reached out, grabbing for Munroe, grabbing for the handlebars, grabbing empty air; hands reached for Alina to pull her off.

  The engine screamed; Alina screamed. Munroe fought to keep the bike upright and lurched forward against hips and legs and arms, and then the front broke through, over a torso, past a blur of bodies. In the mirror three men were on the ground. To the right, from behind the window on the lead black car’s passenger side, eyes stared out. Jiro’s eyes: angry eyes on an indifferent expression, on a good-looking face, a young face.

  The bike careened down the opening between the vehicles.

  In the mirror, the lead car pulled out after them, scraping a wall in making the tight turn, pausing to let running men into the passenger doors.

  One tight corner to the next, Munroe sped out of the neighborhood, toward the airport. Jiro would follow. He didn’t need to see her to know where she was going, the passport told him that. It didn’t matter that he followed, only that she got Alina inside the terminal where there were cameras everywhere and security was jumpy, and Jiro and his men knew better than to enter on a mission of kidnap or kill.

  Munroe diverted down side streets, taking random turns at will. She stopped long enough to unclamp Alina’s frozen hands from off her shirt, pull the spare helmet from between them, and stick it on Alina’s head so they wouldn’t get pulled over along the way.

  She stayed off the freeway for safety and to avoid attention, though the slower roads cost her time, and followed lane changes to the airport until she was forced to enter the bridge and ride out in the open.

  On the departures ramp black flashed in her mirror.

  She sped up and cut off a small van in a dash for the sidewalk. She braked hard and elbowed Alina.

  Alina slid off the bike and attempted to unbuckle the helmet.

  The black car stopped beside Munroe, blocking her in.

  Munroe pushed Alina toward the sidewalk. “Take it,” she said. “Run!” The woman glanced up and, seeing the car, bolted.

  Behind the dark window were Jiro’s eyes. He jabbed a finger at the glass and smiled a knowing smile, a mocking smile.

  The black car’s doors opened. Feet hit pavement and gave chase. Alina slipped beyond the terminal’s sliding glass entry. Having lost her, the men turned back for Munroe while the car with Jiro’s laughing face blocked her from the side and vehicles front and back kept her from pulling free.

  Munroe took the bike up onto the sidewalk, guiding the front wheel around carts and bodies: people too preoccupied with their own departure and belongings to look up and notice the danger until she was already upon them.

  The black car followed her progress alongside. The men on foot gave chase from behind. The crowded sidewalk was a course of moving obstacles and she could do this for an hour and never pick up enough speed to lose the men behind or get free of Jiro. Munroe swerved and bumped down to the road between the luggage of two cars unloading at the curb. Her tires hit the pavement just behind Jiro’s vehicle and she followed the pedestrian crosswalk against the light. Horns blared and car brakes squealed. She wound into the parking garage, down a level, and out the entrance against the traffic, to the nearest junction, where she braked, reoriented, and slipped into the airport’s outward flow.

  The black car was nowhere in sight. No police lights yet, either, though that could change. Adrenaline charged through her system, narrowing her focus to the point of danger. Munroe followed the traffic and turned off the road, down a side street where bicycles and mail carts and vending machines mixed with pedestrians walking where they would in the absence of sidewalks.

  Munroe pulled tight against a corner and shut off the engine, waiting, breathing, allowing her heart rate to settle.

  Alina was free, promise fulfilled, burden gone.

  The last of this thread waited in the hotel room, things left abandoned after the fight with the boys with pipes. She needed to collect them and close out the bill before she was truly able to return to the facility and focus on Bradford.

  Munroe ripped the tape off the plates and waited longer still, then finally started up again, turning for downtown, where she could stash her ride for a few hours. She could run this final errand while killing time measuring the response, if any, to the airport drama. She found parking at Osaka station, placed her belongings in a locker, and continued to the hotel empty-handed and on foot.

  Lobby air-conditioning was a balm against the heat and the clerk’s smile a warning that sent the inner timpani back to pounding war drums. The tell of threat came within the shadows of discomfort in his pleasant welcome.

  Prudence said to turn around, to abandon what remained, but the heady rush of need and want pushed her forward.

  This was the fight she’d been denied in defending Alina from Jiro’s chase.

  Munroe took the stairs at a run and dumped into the hall in time to hear the muted ring of a phone. Footfalls soft against the carpet, she approached her room and knelt, ear to the door. A male voice spoke words of acknowledgment and then came a minute of conversation between two men.

  The desk clerk had notified them that she was on her way.

  Now they waited.

  Munroe scooted out of the fish-eye’s range. Patient in the drawing silence, she invited the men inside to make the first move. Her absence would create agitation, then anxiety, and the desire to see for themselves.

  Vibration came toward the door. Whoever was behind it turned to speak to his companion, close enough that Munroe could make out the conversation as they mocked the desk clerk and dickered back and forth. They’d waited through the night. They were hungry and tired and ready to finish business.

  Want built tight inside her chest, her skin tingling, itching for the pain to follow and for the violence that would scratch the itch. She had no fear of fists, or blade, or blood. Nothing could be done to her now that she hadn’t already survived. The only caution, muted against the want, was Bradford not yet set free.

  The door handle moved. Her heart fluttered in ecstasy.

  The door opened. A foot stepped through.

  A head leaned forward to peer into the hallway.

  Munroe lunged upward, the full brunt of her momentum connecting beneath the jaw. The force of the impact set her ears ringing, bones transferring the crack of violence as his head snapped back. His legs buckled. She grabbed his collar and shoved him inward, using his body as a shield.

  Six steps forward, against the window, the second man pulled a knife.

  Knife as weapon of choice meant no gun.

  Instant assessment, instant strategy change. Firearms laws, a gift to the predator, created of her speed and lack of fear a god among mortals.

  Munroe plowed into the tight space between bathroom cube and wall, and heaved the body into the knife man.

  He pushed the deadweight aside, buying her a microsecond lead.

  The unconscious man hit the desk and bounced backward. In that same heartbeat Munroe went around his legs, up on the bed, and threw herself feetfirst into the knife man’s knees, twisting in midflight, her hands clamped onto the cutting arm before her boots fully connected.

  Her opponent was shorter than she, but stockier, heavier. He had muscles and street-fighting smarts, his arms and legs writhing and struggling to gain the upper hand.
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  They tumbled to the floor, between chair legs and bed legs and desk legs.

  He folded in half, scissor-locked around Munroe’s hips.

  She forced pressure points on his wrist, his elbow, and yanked the arm with the knife hard out of place. He screamed, and in that scream of anger and rage he punched with his free hand, blows to her rib cage, her back, her head.

  She found relief in the pain and laughed, crazy and blind, forcing more pressure onto his arm. He yelled and hit harder, faster, and she stole his knife, eliminating his bulk and strength, because a knife didn’t need power, only contact, and he would bleed the same as every other man.

  Munroe twisted and plugged the blade beneath her, low into his side. He kept swinging and she drove hard again, and when he kept punching, she stabbed his legs and with the cutting forced a break in his hold.

  She kneed his groin and still he didn’t let go or stop punching.

  Behind the grunts and yells came shuffling: the man with the broken jaw rising up to continue the fight. Munroe kneed again and shoved hard, throwing her weight forward at the same time her opponent pulled. She slammed a leg backward, boot to the knee of the broken-jawed man.

  The force of her thrust popped the knife man’s arm out of joint, and she stabbed the knife into his unwounded shoulder, yanked hard through cartilage and back again as she pulled the knife out and then pressed the blade tip up under his chin in that sweet soft spot, with just enough force for the point to cut skin. And with that movement, he froze.

  Panting, Munroe reached an arm up off the floor, yanked the ceramic flower vase off the desk, and slammed it into his head. The knife man went limp and she turned to the broken jaw, who’d already started crab-crawling for the door. She stomped on his chest and boosted over him. With her back to the door, she turned to face him, knife ready to work again.

  He stared up at her, eyes glassed over, and for the first time she was able to see—truly see—him and his companion. She smashed an elbow down into his head and he slumped over. Knifepoint to his shirt, she sliced the material open. Tattoos covered his shoulder and his chest. She kicked him in the ribs, for herself, for Alina, for the stupidity of them having waited out last night in the wrong place, for their crappy boss and his attempted ambush, and the time all of this had stolen from her freeing Bradford.