Remember Tokyo

by Nick Wilkshire

  At the far end, he paused again and checked his phone. Nothing. He kept walking and took the path to the left, veering away from the little restaurant that lay off to the right. He was almost at the secluded rendezvous point that Kobayashi had selected when he glanced to his left and saw the outline of someone descending the stairs from the hotel. Even from this distance, and in the dim light, there was no mistaking the man he had seen at the bottom of the escalator and on the subway. He checked his phone again — still nothing from Kobayashi.

  Something’s wrong.

  His instinct was to head back to the safety of the better-lit area closer to the hotel. The only problem was that the man following him lay on the direct path — or did he? Looking up from his phone, Charlie saw no sign of the man who, only seconds before, had been headed toward the red bridge. He set off down the path back to the bridge, reassured as each step drew him closer to the relative security of the bridge, yet troubled by Kobayashi’s absence.

  He was twenty feet from the bridge when a blur to the right of his field of vision alerted him — too late — to the presence of the man from the hotel escalator. Charlie froze as the other man blocked his path, his initial shock transforming into terror as he noticed a glint in the dim light from the long steel blade extending from the man’s right hand. The dark eyes staring back at him were only slightly less terrifying, and when they glanced up the path Charlie had just come down, he obeyed automatically, slowly retracing his steps as the Japanese man followed a few feet behind.

  “What do you want?” Charlie heard himself ask, as they approached the darkest part of the garden trail.

  “Stop.”

  “Who … who are you?”

  “I am Furuno.” The self-assured tone made it clear that Charlie should recognize the name, though it meant nothing to him.

  “What do …?”

  “Silence.”

  Charlie turned and faced him, taking in the tall man’s menacing glare. He was obviously one of Miyamoto’s men, and while drawing him out had been part of the plan, Kobayashi’s absence was not.

  “Where is it?” Furuno’s tone was brusque, and alerted Charlie to the fact that he had very little time. His eyes darted around and confirmed the obvious — that there was no one within earshot or sight. If he was going to get out of this alive, he was going to have to do something himself.

  “Where’s what?” he said, taking a subtle step back and assessing his situation. He was facing a man who looked very comfortable with the knife in his hand, which was Charlie’s main concern. There was nothing around him that he could use to fend off an attack, unless he was planning on using a bonsai tree.

  “You will tell me now, or you will not leave here alive,” the man said, raising the knife to emphasize his point.

  “I will give Miyamoto what he wants at midnight, not before,” Charlie said, stalling as he racked his brain for a way out, and taking another step back. He was taking a mental inventory of his pockets when it occurred to him that the thick leather of his belt might hold up to a slash of the knife. He had bought it at a market in Havana and the iron buckle, although not overly large, might actually do some damage if he managed to swing it hard enough. Noticing that the other man had chosen not to close the gap between them, Charlie unclasped the buckle and quickly slid the belt off, as the man looked on, bemused. His eyes narrowed as Charlie took a few practice swings, the swish of the buckle cutting through the cool night air.

  “Do not be foolish.” Furuno took a step forward, his right arm extended, the knife blade glinting in the dim light of the path. Charlie stepped back and swung the buckle again, though it seemed a pathetic gesture in response to a six-inch blade in the hand of someone who looked like he knew how to use it. As Charlie took a second step back, he realized that the khakis he had bought a couple of years ago when he was a size larger at the waist were beginning to slip. He tugged them up as the man continued to advance.

  “You need to back up,” Charlie warned as Furuno did the opposite and assumed a crouched position that looked like the first stage of an attack. It suddenly occurred to him that as desolate as their surroundings seemed, they were still in the New Otani private gardens, and he had seen hotel secur­ity guards at various other locations — surely someone was patrolling the gardens.

  “Help!” he yelled, prompting a flash in the man’s eyes that was immediately followed by a frontal assault. Charlie grabbed both ends of the belt and managed to block the other man’s stabbing motion.

  “Over here!” he yelled again as Furuno regrouped and lunged a second time. This time, the knife thrust was to the opposite side, and Charlie got just enough of it with the belt to deflect it into the side of his jacket, slicing a hole in the fabric just above his ribs.

  “Silence,” the man hissed as Charlie stared at his side, wide-eyed.

  His pants had begun to slip again, but that was the least of his worries as Furuno came at him a third time. Realizing he was at the edge of the trail, he took a step forward, a move that seemed to surprise Furuno, and Charlie’s decision to go on the offensive with the belt was looking like the right one, as the little iron buckle whipped through the air toward his opponent’s face.

  Unfortunately, its arc was interrupted as Charlie’s momentum took him forward over a tree root — a stumble he would have recovered from easily, had it not been for his khakis slipping down to almost mid-thigh, cinching his legs together and compounding his stumble. Suddenly, Furuno, who had instinctively thrust his knife hand high to fend off the iron buckle, found all of Charlie’s off-balance weight bearing down on him at chest level.

  As Charlie’s shoulder hit Furuno in the chest, he dropped the belt and flailed for the knife that was somewhere in the melee as their bodies twisted and fell to the ground. Charlie felt the air leave his chest as he landed on top of Furuno, who was on his side on the gravel path.

  Still unaware of where the knife was, Charlie grabbed his attacker in a bear hug to pin the other man’s arms at his side. He squeezed with all of his might and was surprised to hear an odd gurgling sound from Furuno, whose face was half in the gravel. His strength running out, Charlie let go and scrambled back on his hands to a safe distance, then stood.

  He continued to stare at Furuno, who lay motionless on the path, and then slowly approached, noticing a dark stain by the prone man’s mouth that he realized was blood. As he came closer, looking for the knife, he caught sight of the black handle sticking out of the base of the other man’s neck and gasped in shock.

  He was about to step forward for a closer inspection when he heard footsteps on the path from the direction of the bridge and spun around in time to see Kobayashi, followed by a man in a leather jacket.

  “Charlie, what —” Kobayashi’s breathless inquiry was interrupted as she spotted the motionless man on the ground. “What … happened?”

  “I … I don’t really know. He attacked me.” He pointed at the dead man, as Kobayashi’s companion knelt down to get a look at the face, prompting a puzzled look from Charlie.

  “He’s with us,” Kobayashi said, gesturing to the man crouched over the body. “We were delayed before we got to the hotel —”

  “Nanda ittai!”

  “What’d he say?” Charlie looked on as Kobayashi and the other man had an exchange in Japanese, before he looked at Charlie for a moment, shook his head, and gave him a wide berth before disappearing down the path, headed away from the bridge. “Are you going to tell me what the hell’s going on?”

  Kobayashi knelt and searched the dead man’s pockets, coming out with a phone. “Come,” she said, gesturing to him as she grabbed the man’s legs. Charlie took his arms and they walked him over to the darkest part of the path and swung him into the bushes. “We must leave here — quickly,” she said, pulling a stunned Charlie by the arm, leading him in the same direction the other man had gone. When they were back on the street a few minutes later, she began to talk.

  “The man with me was a membe
r of the Yamaguchi-gumi.”

  Charlie knew the name well. “Miyamoto’s rivals? But why?”

  “I needed to bring him to prove that Miyamoto is desperate.”

  “I still don’t understa—”

  “The man you … the dead man, back there,” she continued. “His name is Taro Furuno. He is one of Miyamoto’s top assassins. I don’t believe he was sent to kill you, though,” she said, “just get the account information, but his presence is more than enough proof.”

  Charlie’s head was swimming as they approached the Metro station. “Proof of what?”

  Kobayashi’s response was interrupted by an unfamiliar ring tone that they both realized was coming from the phone she had retrieved from Furuno’s jacket. They exchanged glances, then Kobayashi put the phone to her ear as they approached the pedestrian crossing at Aoyama-dori. Charlie waited, watching Kobayashi’s expression for some sign of what was going on, still confused by the events of the past twenty minutes. As Kobayashi continued to talk, he looked down at his wrist and saw a speck of dried blood.

  You just took another man’s life …

  He was still reeling when Kobayashi put the phone in her pocket and walked over to him. “Are you all right, Charlie?”

  “I just want to know what the hell’s going on.”

  “I’m sorry, Charlie. The men who held me up earlier — I’m pretty sure they were sent by the 7th division.”

  “They were Tokyo Police?”

  Kobayashi nodded. “I’ll deal with them later. That was Miyamoto. He was … surprised to hear about Furuno. But he’ll be at the meeting.”

  Charlie frowned. “But if I understand what you’re saying, some of your colleagues in the 7th division know all about the meeting at —”

  “I just changed the meeting to Shibuya, and it’s at eleven, not midnight.” Kobayashi smiled.

  Charlie looked at his watch. “But that’s in less than thirty minutes.”

  She nodded. “Exactly. Not enough time for them to move whoever they had waiting for us into place at Shibuya, at least not without our noticing.”

  He looked at her, his mind still whirring at all of the recent developments. “Our?”

  “Come. I’ll explain on the way.” She grabbed him by the hand and pulled him toward the entrance to Akasaka-mitsuke Station.

  CHAPTER 41

  Charlie and Kobayashi stood outside the entrance to Shibuya Station, scanning the crowd for any sign of Lepage, Miyamoto, or Kimura. It was nowhere near as crowded as the last time Charlie had visited the crossing, but there were still thousands of people crossing to and fro, many emerging from the last subway trains of the evening. Charlie watched as the crowd near the crosswalks swelled while the cars whizzed through the intersection. Then the lights changed and the crowd was released, like lemmings over a cliff, to cross the street for a few seconds and disperse, until the lights changed again and the process repeated itself.

  “Do you think he’ll really show?” Charlie checked his watch for the third time in the past few minutes, growing more and more anxious with each minute that ticked away. It was almost five past, and no sign yet.

  “Be patient, Charlie. He has every reason to come.”

  Charlie sighed and resisted the temptation to glance at his BlackBerry. He was actually afraid to look, guessing that there were likely a series of dire warnings from Denault, Hudson, maybe even the ambassador himself, of what would happen to him if he didn’t check in immediately. If he wasn’t already fired, that is. He tried to push all that aside for the moment, preferring to fall back on the rationale that circumstances gave him little or no choice than to act as he had. Tell that to Denault, he thought.

  “There.” Kobayashi gestured toward the east side of the crossing.

  “Where?” Charlie followed her finger but couldn’t see anything until he spotted Lepage, his tall, blond profile standing out in the sea of dark hair. “Let’s go.”

  He took a deep breath as they walked toward Lepage, who was accompanied on one side by Miyamoto and his scar-faced guard, and Kimura on the other.

  “I see you have decided not to come alone.” Miyamoto gave a disapproving look to Kobayashi.

  “Are you all right?” Charlie asked Lepage, ignoring Miyamoto’s remark. Lepage nodded silently, looking sheepish. Maybe it was the strain of the past few days catching up with him, or something else — Charlie wasn’t sure. He noticed Miyamoto’s guard was carrying a thin laptop.

  “How do I know that half of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police force is not part of this crowd?” Miyamoto asked.

  “The same way you knew tonight’s meeting at the shrine was a bust,” Charlie countered. “You probably know more about their activities than we do,” he added, sensing Kobayashi cringing slightly, but remaining stoically silent next to him.

  Miyamoto seemed to concede the point and move on. “You have the account number?”

  “Come here, Rob,” Charlie said. Lepage looked to Miyamoto, who hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?” Lepage whispered to Charlie as the scar-faced man opened the laptop and handed it to Charlie. The Global Bank page was already up and waiting for a code.

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie said quietly, as he entered the digits representing the various codes and the account number, then hit the return key. Everyone stood in silence, oblivious to the people passing by as the worry circle spun in the middle of the screen, then a large green check mark appeared on the page and the account information came up. Miyamoto took the laptop and scanned the screen.

  “It seems your activities have been very profitable, Mr. Lepage,” he said with a grin, which vanished as quickly as it had appeared when he returned the laptop. “Now, the transfer.”

  “Transfer?” Charlie said.

  “We’re not going to let you just walk away without being sure that the funds are under our control,” Miyamoto said, prompting an exchange of looks between Charlie and Kobayashi.

  They had little choice at this point, and after a rushed exchange of whispers, Charlie turned to Miyamoto. “Fine,” he said.

  Lepage took the laptop and started a series of keystrokes that ended a few seconds later. He passed it back to the scarred man, who entered the destination account number. There was another breathless moment as they all watched for the confirmation screen, which appeared to be taking longer this time. After thirty seconds, the tension was unbearable.

  “Is there a problem?” Charlie asked, but before anyone could respond, the confirmation screen was up.

  “Are we good?” Lepage looked to Charlie, then Miyamoto, who was looking at Kimura as the other man folded up the laptop.

  “One last thing,” Charlie said. He saw a slight hesitation in Miyamoto’s eyes, and an expression that for the first time didn’t convey utter confidence that what was about to happen hadn’t been anticipated and planned for — the cardinal sin. Charlie pressed on. “In case you were thinking of not honouring your side of the bargain and letting us out of here,” he said as Miyamoto’s eyes narrowed further. “We’re not exactly alone here.”

  Miyamoto glared at Charlie for a moment before his smile returned, but it was forced.

  “You have no police to help you here.” He shot Kobayashi another look of disdain.

  “I didn’t say anything about police. You asked me where my friend was earlier.” Charlie gestured to Kobayashi. “And I told you she was watching my back. I wasn’t lying — it turns out she managed to negotiate protection from your competition. I don’t know what she offered in exchange but she’s apparently very persuasive.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kimura spoke for the first time, eliciting a terse order from Miyamoto to be silent.

  Kobayashi met Miyamoto’s stare and moved her head in the direction of the opposite sidewalk, where two men stood watching. Unlike the rest of the crowd, they were stationary. Even from a hundred feet, there was no mistaking their menace. He followed her gesture to a
nother pair in front of the Metro station, then a third by another crosswalk. Miyamoto’s eyes burned like embers, but he retained his pasted-on smile. He seemed to be making a great effort to avoid eye contact with either Kimura or his scar-faced bodyguard and had the body language of a cornered rat, which Charlie knew meant danger. Miyamoto continued to look at Kobayashi and seemed to be considering something, then he shrugged his shoulders.

  “I have what I came for, Mr. Hillier. You are free to go,” he said, gesturing to the scar-faced man and turning on his heel, leaving Kimura standing there, looking shocked. She stood motionless on the sidewalk, watching as Kobayashi hailed a cab and the three of them got in. As soon as they were away from the intersection, Lepage spoke.

  “What the fuck just happened? Why did they let us go?” he asked Charlie, who had pulled out his BlackBerry to make a call. He turned to Kobayashi.

  “It’s a long story,” she said.

  Hudson answered and Charlie spoke into his phone. “Did you get it?” The inside of the cab was silent for a few seconds, then Charlie turned from the front seat, looked at Kobayashi and smiled. “Yes, we’ve got him. We’re headed to the embassy right now. We’ll be there in ten.”

  “Is somebody going to tell me what happened back there?” Lepage was looking at Charlie, whose face broke into a broad smile as he tucked his phone in his pocket and leaned back in his seat.

  “Let’s just say we did something … unexpected,” he said, glancing over at Kobayashi. It wasn’t exactly a smile that appeared on her face, but there was an unmistakable twinkle in her eyes as Lepage looked on with confusion.

  EPILOGUE

  Charlie had the same eerie feeling of calm that he had first felt as he followed the wide path through the old-growth forest leading to the Meiji Shrine. The only difference this time was that he wasn’t walking it alone.