by Kotaro Isaka
"T hey say it took oft from somewhere on to|) ol the lextl)ook Wiirehouse," said the moderator, bringing out a k>rge i)hoto that showed the luTicopter in
REMOTE CONTROL
front of a brick building. '"How far away could you stand and still control its flight?"
The men looked at one another for a moment, as if trying to decide who should answer.
"Well, it would depend on the transmitter and the antenna," said the older man, "but you could be at least two kilometers away without any problem. But you really can't do much unless you can follow the flight visually, so they were probably standing where they could see it. You control these things by keeping track of their position in the air, and that would be hard to do if you were too far away to see."
"There was no wind today," added the kid in the T-shirt, "so it was probably a pretty easy flight; but bad weather would have made it much trickier. They also had the extra weight of the bomb. You'd need somebody who knew what he was doing." The rest of the group nodded. Then they took a closer look at the photograph and pointed out where the silhouette differed slightly from that of a normal Ooka Air Hover—no doubt where they had attached the bomb. It was a shame, everyone agreed, that the machine had been vaporized in the explosion since it would have revealed additional information.
"So it's safe to say that this flight could not have been managed by a novice?" asked the moderator.
"It would depend how much practice they had at hovering."
"You could probably manage if you practiced every weekend for a few months."
"Perhaps," said the white-haired man, "but I think it would still be impossible for a beginner, especially with the destabilizing weight of the bomb and the problems involved in such a dangerous undertaking. I suspect this was done by a fairly experienced flyer."
"Are there many people with these skills?" asked the moderator.
"Oh sure, lots," they said, like a Greek chorus.
"But"—the white-haired man again had a reservation—"there aren't so many places you can fly, so right here in Sendai the number is actually fairly small. Nor are there lots of shops where you could get an Ooka Air Hover. It should be possible to find out who bought one recently."
"Could it have been secondhand? Or could someone have brought it from elsewhere?"
THE AUDIENCE
'That's certainly possible."
"In which case, it might be difficult to determine where this particular machine came from."
"I suppose so."
"And anyone who planned something like this would be careful to cover his tracks," said the moderator, obviously satisfied that he'd made a point.
Ichitaro Sasaki of General Intelligence showed up on the program late that evening. "We have a number of promising leads, and we're following up on every one of them," he said. "But we will still need to keep the city under tight security, and in particular the area around Higashi Nibancho Avenue will be closed off for several more days, so we ask for your continued cooperation." Somehow, as he spoke, Paul McCartney, who had looked so unimpressive, began to seem reassuring, someone to be depended on.
After the interview, the news special came to an end. Perhaps everyone was simply worn out from all the excitement, or maybe they had finally begun to feel guilty about replaying the same few seconds of the bomb exploding for the umpteenth time. But as soon as the show ended, the station began to run a hastily assembled video biography of Prime Minister Kaneda, covering his life from the early years, through his days in business, and on to his political career. T here were shots of him looking almost heroic as he announced his first run for parliament, tapes of eloquent speeches, debates with crafty political opponents, coverage of the primaries, his dramatic win in Sendai, his debate with Ayukawa in the general election, and his inauguration, all leading up to the climax—today's parade through the city and the appearance of the model helicopter. Knowing the ending. Torn turned off the TV and dosed his eyes.
Day I wo
He checked the clock: 7:00 a.m. But when he |)ulletl aside the curtain that divided the room, Hodogaya was already watching TV.
"Now it's really getting interesting," he said, twistitig to look at lom and j)ulling one earbiid out. He seemed to leel sorry lor this roommate who was
REMOTE CONTROL
late for the show. 'The police held an emergency news conference a couple of hours ago, while we were asleep."
"To say what?"
"They seem to have a suspect."
Torn turned on his own TV: a face and the name Masaharu Aoyagi flashed across the screen. Toru's first reaction was that the man didn't look particularly dangerous, but then it occurred to him to wonder how they had this picture if he hadn't been arrested yet. The date running under the image was about two years ago—a still from a popular news show. Why would the suspect, Masaharu Aoyagi, have been interviewed on a TV program back then? In the picture, he was wearing the familiar blue and white uniform of a well-known delivery company. The man was tall and lean, and the photographer had apparently caught him off guard, because he was frowning slightly and scratching his head. Torn finally figured out where he had seen the picture.
A couple of years ago, a very popular young actress had got into a nasty situation in the city. She was originally from Sendai and was in the habit of sneaking back to an apartment she kept there when she had time off. She had been home alone when a man had forced his way into the apartment and attacked her. Fortunately, this Masaharu Aoyagi had been making a delivery at just the same time.
When no one answered the intercom, he'd decided to leave a printed message; but he thought he heard a crash and a woman screaming inside the apartment, so he pressed the buzzer again. Still no answer. Very cautiously, he turned the knob and pushed open the door—to find a man attacking a woman. He managed to pull him off and hold him down until the police arrived.
"Did you know the apartment belonged to Rinka?" asked a reporter.
"I had no idea." He sounded a bit shaky as he answered.
"But when did you realize it was her?"
"I'm afraid I don't know much about celebrities," Aoyagi muttered. "I don't even watch TV," he added, obviously embarrassed. The reporters burst out laughing.
"She's very well known. You really don't watch TV?"
"No, I'm busy with work." Aoyagi looked down and barely whispered his answer. The reporters surged closer. With long, tousled hair and a deadpan expression, he might have passed for a slightly eccentric movie star himself.
THE AUDIENCE
but there was something fresh and unaffected about the way he dealt with the media. From soon after the incident, he attracted a great deal of attention, and in due course became a minor celebrity in his own right, if only for a short time.
The news shows sent film crews to cover him at work, and there were interviews with his coworkers and his boss. Once, when his delivery route became known in advance, a crowd gathered along the way in the hope of catching a glimpse of him—and that, too, was reported on the news. Worried that all of this disruption would affect business, his employer initially asked the media to keep their distance while he was at work, but when the furor continued they started thinking about using him in a commercial. He turned them down cold, however, and the idea was dropped; but the excuse he gave, that he didn't want anything to interfere with his job, only made his stock with the public go up.
"Weren't you frightened when you realized the attacker had a knife?" The reporters were still asking their questions on the old videotape.
"It all happened so fast," he said.
"They say you had no problem subduing Rinka's attacker. Have you done judo or something?"
"No," he told them, scratching the tip of his nose, "it was just a move a friend taught me when 1 was in school. . . ." His unease in the face of all this attention was enough to make anyone feel protective. "A leg sweep. You bring him down with a leg sweep and then kick the shit out of him—that's what my friend said."
Hut now, two years later, he was back in the spotlight, a sus|)ect in an assassination. Or so it would seem.
"It's hard to believe he could have done it," said the announcer as the archival lootage came to an end.
"It certainly is," agreed a woman who specialized in leneting out cek'hrity scandals. "1 covered the story, and he seemed to be a very sweet hoy, though he was a bit jumj)y sometimes."
REMOTE CONTROL
The announcer nodded as a piece of video that had played earlier came on the screen again. A tense and embarrassed Masaharu Aoyagi stood talking into a microphone, but this time the technicians managed to zoom in on his right hand, showing his fingers twitching violently. Then they panned down his legs, which were shifting and fidgeting. The tape was in slow motion at the end of the interview, focusing on the way his mouth went slack as he finished talking. His lips seemed frozen in a smile, his eyes wary, as though he preferred his own company to these people here in front of him. The expression passed almost instantly, caught only by the slow-motion photography, but to Tom it felt as if he'd had a glimpse of something dark and cunning behind the driver's pleasant face.
Someone on the news show said that Aoyagi had quit his job at the delivery company three months ago—which was, no doubt, the lone piece of good news for a company in an otherwise embarrassing situation. There was some comfort that the suspect was at least a "former" employee.
"Torn!" The middle school boy said loudly as he spotted him in the smoking area and came to sit next to him. "Getting interesting, don't you think? The police must be pretty desperate if they've already named a suspect."
"Well, when somebody kills the prime minister right in front of them, 1 guess their asses are on the line. Td say they're desperate. But," he added, bringing up something that had been bothering him, "we don't really know that this Aoyagi did it yet, so it seems a little soon to be shouting his name all over the place."
"1 bet they have plenty of proof already; or maybe, since it's an emergency, they just want to arrest him as soon as they can and worry about his rights later."
"You think they really have proof?" Toru said.
"Well, they seem to be able to check phone records and stuff with the Security Pods. They should be able to come up with something if they use them right."
"Sounds like you actually like the idea of a 'surveillance society.'"
"Not me! It's like 'Big Brother Is Watching You.'"
"Pretty much," said Toru.
THE AUDIENCE
There was some new information in the morning at Sasaki's press conference. He reported that another, smaller explosion had occurred just after the one that killed Prime Minister Kaneda, this one on a side street nearby. A car had burned and a concrete wall had fallen over. At first, it was thought that the damage had been caused by the blast from the remote-controlled helicopter, but the investigation had revealed that the explosion came from inside the car. A man's body was discovered in the driver's seat.
"There was a bullet wound to the head of the body. We are trying to get a positive identification now, but the driver's license recovered from the car belonged to Shingo Morita of Aoba Ward in Sendai. Furthermore, we have learned that Mr. Morita was a college friend of the suspect, Masaharu Aoyagi."
"Can you tell us what evidence led you to Aoyagi?" asked a reporter.
"An officer encountered a man behaving suspiciously in the vicinity of the textbook warehouse immediately after the explosion. While he was running an identity check, the man managed to escape. Several officers in the vicinity pursued the suspect, but he eluded them and is still at large. The owner of a liquor store was attacked some time later," Sasaki added. His face was nearly expressionless, though the hangdog eyes looked a bit strained.
"Anything else?" prompted another reporter.
"Several hours ago, we received a tape from the surveillance camera at a shop selling remote-controlled models here in Sendai."
"T he helicopter?" called another reporter. Sasaki nodded significantly.
"It shows a man purchasing a hcTicoj)ter like the one used in the attack . . . a man who bears a strong resemblance to the j)erson who tied from the scene of the second bomb."
"Was it Masaharu Aoyagi?"
"T he shoj)keej)er has identified him," Sasaki said. "Furthermore, according to our investigation, Aoyagi had a j)art-time job at the 'Fodoroki Pyrotechnics Factory in Sendai while he was in school."
"Todorcjki Pyrcjtechnics?" echoed another reporter.
"They make fireworks," Sasaki explained. "In other words, he would have s(jme familiarity with the use of explosives."
"Is that how he made the bomb?!"
"We're iHJt prepared to say at this time, but we are seeking the cooperation of Aoyagi's former employer."
REMOTE CONTROL
"Were there other factors that led you to Aoyagi?"
"Well," Sasaki said, as though throwing one last bone to the dogs, "there was the matter of a phone call we received from him." A clamor rose from the press pool. "Tm not at liberty to reveal the details, but he has been in contact with us by telephone and has confessed to the crime." He went on to announce that the police were relaxing the security measures around central Sendai to some extent and that transportation was beginning to function normally again. But the reporters had lost interest in highways and trains, their attention now focused on Aoyagi.
The program broke for a commercial. "Try our special bechamel sauce!" chirped a man clutching a frying pan and smiling from behind a thick beard. "From our kitchens to yours." He was a well-known chef from a fancy French restaurant that had a branch in Sendai. Toru was surprised to see him hawking sauce on TV, a sign, he thought, that the man was reaching the end of the line. Should have stuck to the restaurants, he thought indifferently.
The program picked up again after the commercial. Up to this point, the producers had little but the footage of the explosion to work with, but the addition of Aoyagi gave them new material. Old tapes from his days as a hero deliveryman were played one after another—with particular attention given to a brief scene showing Aoyagi gesturing angrily at a group of girls who had followed him on his rounds. He might have been chasing off a pack of dogs. T he camera lingered on his face, and at normal speed it appeared unremarkable enough, but the slow motion replay caught a hint of wildness in it. Even Toru could see that Aoyagi was good-looking, but it occurred to him that there was something menacing about him as well.
At this point, the coverage switched to a news conference hastily called by the senior staff in the delivery company where Aoyagi had been working. Everybody's getting in on the act, Toru thought. Next they'll be holding one to announce there weren't enough reporters to cover all the news conferences.
The proceedings began with the company president reiterating that Aoyagi had quit three months earlier and was no longer their employee. "But it would be a terrible shame if he is indeed involved in this incident," he concluded noncommittally. The manager who had supervised Aoyagi was asked whether there had been anything in his record that might have aroused his
THE fiUDIENCE
employers' suspicion. With apparent reluctance, he admitted that there had been some trouble. “What sort of trouble?" a reporter wanted to know.
“A number of packages were sent to addresses on his route but it was never clear where they'd come from; it seems the delivery receipts showed Aoyagi himself as the sender." The camera came in for a close-up of the manager's face, his serious e.xpression contrasting oddly with the cartoon cats on his tie.
“Aoyagi's name was on the receipts?"
“But we had no reason to think he had written them himself, so we assumed it was some form of hara
ssment, that he was being targeted somehow."
“It never occurred to you that Aoyagi might have sent them?" asked a reporter. “You never had any suspicions?"
“We had no reason . . . ," the man mumbled, fidgeting nervously with his cat-tie. “It seemed too odd. ..." The reporters began firing questions at him, their tone growing increasingly insistent.
The cameras also cut repeatedly to shots of the front of the building where Aoyagi had been living. The police were searching his apartment, so the media were kept at bay for the moment, but the building was surrounded by photographers.
One of them had found a perch in an office building across the way and was probing the apartment with a telephoto lens, though very little could be seen through the crowds of police and crime scene investigators. The one thing he did turn up was a small photograph hung on the back wall of the room, and a pulse of excitement went through the T V studio when an enlargement of this image revealed it to be a portrait of Prime Minister Kaneda with a crude “X" drawn over his face.
“What could he have had against Kaneda?" somebody wondered aloud.
One of the men on the j)anel of experts, identified as a retired detective from the Metrop(ditan Police, spoke u|): “About a year ago, there was a campaign to relieve congestion in urban areas by prohibiting on-street parking, and Kaneda was a major supj)()rter. Maybe Aoyagi saw him as an enemy of delivery drivers who j)ark on the street in the course ol doing their job." T he other |)anelists seemed imj)ressed by this analysis.
It was unclear whether it was the same footage the |){)lice were using, hut the T V station also aired a taj)e from the security camera at the remote-control
REMOTE CONTROL