Yonezu turned into an alley and pulled up alongside a two-story residence lit by a streetlamp. A red door waited.
“Knock one time, then three time quick. You answer, ‘yoyaku’ to the question. Ha ji may ma shitay. Nice to meet you.”
Austin pulled the door closed and the van rolled off into the humid summer evening. They stood holding their briefcases, listening to muted chatter from families in surrounding buildings.
“Hope she got the directions right.” He went to the door and knocked as instructed.
A metal mail slot next to the door opened slightly. A female voice asked, “Onamae wa?”
“Yoyaku.”
The door swung open and a striking Asian woman stood in a pale jade dress, motioning. “Come in, please.”
They stepped up and inside into cool air and a room with brick walls. He realized the outside of the building had been built as a shell around an older industrial building to create the appearance of a modern residence. Surely cheaper than razing the old building and starting over. Each interior window had a matching window on the façade outside. In the living room, European furniture contrasted with Japanese art and electronics. A tight spiral staircase led upward and a downstairs hallway extended to what looked like a dining room.
“I am Constance. You are both hungry and tired. There is food prepared and your room is upstairs. But first,” she opened a folder taken from the coffee table, “a moment, please. You are?”
“Daniel Harutaka, my father’s only son, vacationing in Hong Kong. I’d planned to visit him before we left. He suffered a heart attack and we are on our way to hospital.”
“Please study your father’s dossier carefully. Your updated papers are included.” She handed him the folder and turned to Anki. “And you are?”
“Vickie Harutaka, his wife of three years, no children. Never met father.”
“Very good,” she nodded once. “There is additional background for you to read, as well. Please, if you would both spend a minimum of one hour with those documents. Daniel, you have a protein drink waiting in the kitchen. Edward offers best wishes for a successful outcome. Your room is the first door on the left upstairs. A bathroom is across the hall. Please, I will need your decks to update them.” She smiled. “Do you have questions?”
He shared a look with Anki. “Uh, what’s for dinner?”
Chapter 16
A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894, American Author
The taxi slipped through Tokyo’s morning traffic. The driver timed his lane changes perfectly and took side streets, honing in on their destination. Austin watched and admired his efficiency to keep his mind off his nerves.
“This isn’t so bad.” She smoothed her hair and ran a hand down her arm.
His eye twitched. The underlying tissue and muscles were cinched unnaturally to form his Asian appearance. Constance had applied gel to his face that caused localized swelling. The biocats’ work combined with his swollen pale olive skin made him a body double for Daniel Harutaka. When he spoke, his voice box tickled from the unfamiliar resonance.
“It could be worse.” If only the stomach gymnastics would stop. He countered them by reviewing the dossier from memory, focusing on the details he’d most likely need to use.
“Relax, Daniel. It’ll be alright.”
Twenty minutes later the taxi pulled up in front of St. Luke’s Hospital. They emerged into the shadows of the twin towers of St. Luke’s Garden across the street. The taller of the two skyscrapers rose fifty-one stories over the city with a connector walkway at the thirty-second floor. The hospital’s eleven stories were dwarfed by comparison.
“They don’t mess around, do they,” he said.
“No,” she replied, immediately aware of eyes upon them. “I suppose they don’t. Let’s hurry, I’m concerned for your father. Time could be short.”
Inside, a volunteer at the desk found Mr. Harutaka’s room for them. “High Care Unit on the fourth floor. Elevators are there.”
Sleek and modern, the hospital lacked the typical chemical sterility and boasted more of a Four Seasons feel. Two hospital workers and an older Japanese man dressed in blue waited for an elevator with them. Off to the side, two suits stood by the stairwell like guards.
Anki rubbed his hand to comfort him. “Maybe he’s come to by now.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“You know you care about him. Why be so difficult? This is the perfect time to let the past go. He needs to hear you say it. Give him some peace.”
The elevator car arrived and the doors slid open. He removed his hand from hers. “I’ll be fine. He’s my father.”
Put off slightly, she remained quiet as they rode the elevator. He went passive and extended to the three strangers. Something about the man suggested aggression. He probed further and found it to be only strong American disdain. The two workers got off on the third floor.
The doors opened on the fourth floor and they stepped out. The man in blue brushed past them.
“There.” Anki pointed to the HCU sign.
Another sign pointed the opposite direction, to the ICU where the crime lord was situated. A yakuza suit stood against the wall, surveying them as they passed.
At the HCU nurse’s station they showed identification and were taken to Mogami Harutaka’s room. Light from the window softened the old man’s slack face and bald head. The room stood bare of any personal effects, as if he were just a prop. In a sense he was. A callous thought, one he immediately regretted.
A woman approached and greeted them.
“I am Niwa Uchime, physician’s assistant to Dr. Tomoe. I am sorry that Dr. Tomoe is not available right now. However, I can provide you information. Your father remains in coma,” she looked at her watch, “thirty-two hours after the cardiac event. We have conducted EEG scans on the brain as recently as this morning. The findings are considered grade three, which unfortunately offer no definite positive prognosis.”
“Grade three?”
“Yes. We see dominant theta activity in the brain with no detectable normal alpha activity. To have grade-three EEGs at around thirty hours is concerning but not indicative of a final prognosis. The chance for brain damage increases dramatically the closer to seventy-two hours coma gets. Further testing is scheduled for later this evening.”
He asked, “So he could already have brain damage?”
Niwa nodded. “It is possible, yes.” The silence grew awkward and long. “That’s all the information I have for now. Do you have questions?”
He shook his head.
“There is a restaurant and ATM on the first floor and a convenience store at the basement level. St. Luke’s Garden is across the street and has many restaurants. A connecting walkway is on the second floor. We have special rates available for you at the hotel, as well. If there is anything you need, please see the nurses’ desk and they will be glad to help you.”
“Thank you, Niwa,” Anki said.
“Of course.” She withdrew graciously.
Austin took a chair across the room from the old man. Halfway to brain damage. Anki sat down near the door, the same concern for the man on her face.
He rested his head in his hands and proceeded to seek calm. Two men’s lives hung in the balance, neither regarded as important save for extracting knowledge from one of them. Once extracted? Edward’s instructions were clear but limited: keep Sakuma alive until called and told otherwise. Memories of Marcel’s grilling DFA scenarios bore a whole new dimension as he listened to the soft wheezing of Mr. Harutaka. Would they even try to revive the old man? Could they?
Anki cleared her throat, a sign he needed to get started. He sat back in the chair, crossed his arms, and extended his legs. Anki produced rosary beads and began to pray silently.
“I should have taken those sleeping pills,” he muttered. “Didn’t sleep at all last night.”
; Further relaxed, he waited several minutes before letting his head tilt to one side, as if asleep. He extended passively, a small dome of awareness at first. Good thing. Someone nearby was heavily scanning for meta sentience in the grid. Riding the feedback from that scanning, he extended further, bit by bit, until a direction came clear: the ICU. They had someone near Mr. Sakuma – near the target – actively scanning people for threat. One radar to fool? How many more hands on deck? To find out required the next step which, as practiced as he’d become at it, still felt like a drop off the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Just a little walk.
The step-by-step approach to traveling still worked best. From a top corner of the HCU room, he saw the fuzzy image of Anki sitting near the glass door, working the beads. His own form, stretched out in the chair, lacked a face. The next instant he stood by the bed.
Mr. Harutaka’s face was blanked, a reminder of his hostage status. Briefly, images of his father locked up in a cell came to mind. Also hostage? He buried the thought and moved into the hallway. Anki looked up and nearly at him, as if sensing him, before resuming her prayers.
He drew himself inward to hide before venturing out. Past the nursing station and down the hall towards the elevators, he eyed every person in sight for recognition of his movement. The guard remained posted by the signs with no indication of energy blob or other awareness. However, something... big lay ahead in the ICU wing.
The elevators chimed. Doors slid open to reveal a group of men with bulky sport coats. An uncomfortable hospital administrator emerged first and led them towards ICU.
Austin relaxed. They were the SAT units, the counter-terrorist defenses Constance said would be in place. He followed them past the reception counter, still trying to resolve the feeling of bigness looming. A SAT peeled off and entered the waiting room. One of the men appeared to be a commander because he issued instructions as they went.
The hallway hooked right. The intensive care unit lay on the left side, the critical care unit on the right. The special teams spread out and took up positions.
At a central nursing station, a SAT joined sentry near an Ookami-shita suit. They looked awkward – anti-terror police and the syndicate working together. Austin followed the commander into the ICU to Mr. Sakuma’s room. Two SATs took up sentry outside.
Austin passed into the room and found the crime lord’s face blotted out. Various tubes ran into his arms. Life support systems blinked and bleeped softly. An Asian woman sat on the edge of the bed with her hands wrapped around her husband’s. Mrs. Sakuma nodded to the SAT commander. She spoke in Japanese but it was clear she was thanking him.
The commander bowed slightly, an unexpected gesture. Mrs. Sakuma seemed to swell. He turned to leave and Austin followed him into the corridor.
That they could possibly need his help seemed remote. Only the feeling of something big still bothered him. Something big...
He moved around, looking in various rooms. The closer he got to the east-facing windows, the heavier the feeling became. It didn’t make sense. What was so big? The feeling of death? He stepped through plate glass windows to inspect the area outside. Nothing. Sliding up into the fifth floor he found administration offices. Only two women worked there, a receptionist busy with paperwork and the other in a large office studying a computer. He sank down into the third floor, apparently a dayroom of a psych ward. A woman in pajamas rocked with arms around a pillow.
“Yureeeeeiiii!!” The woman screamed, threw her tissue box at him, and ran for the nurses’ station to pummel on the glass.
He recoiled through the ceiling and into the fourth floor again. She’d seen him or some aspect of him. He’d have to run that by Sean. Way too much commotion, in any case. Still the feeling of something big loomed. He retreated from the windows and the feeling lessened. Anki might know what to make of it.
With the thought, he opened his eyes.
Anki was gone. Her rosary beads lay on the floor.
• • •
The comm sounded. CoreOps again. Director Tomov answered and listened, slowly nodding his head.
“Yes. Understood. Of course. I agree. Confirmed.” He closed the connection and marveled at what he’d just heard. An agent had taken up position at the hospital and found that whoever had Sakuma locked down wasn’t aware of the underlying meta resonance technique. That suggested the Korda’s new and powerful controller was not fully trained. The agent would start the resonance via Sakuma’s body. Whoever had him locked would become a beacon, broadcasting that signal. They had only to detect it.
“Ops, establish an open relay channel across all units, authority code U42, mandatory. Schedule execution for ten minutes from now with a sliding go-slot no wider than three minutes. And send a runner with some blues and a Coke.”
He itched his nose. They had no idea where the controller was so the resonance would be sent globally. A massive and risky undertaking. Interrupting so many units, so many operations. An unprecedented and aggressive strategy. Outside the box.
Something Overseer might come up with.
• • •
“Damn. Still can’t reach him. He’s completely cut off.” Edward cursed softly. He rose and removed the shùil. “He isn’t monitoring Sakuma’s core meta feed. They’re going to use it.”
Sean stared at Johan’s sleeping form. “He’s too strong. We need better control.”
“I’m quite aware of that. They’re going to set up a pulse at St. Luke’s. Get Austin involved. Clear access through the SAT commander. Get at least five of Rodelli’s best to try and reach Johan. If you can’t get them try the Tedesco family. If a pulse goes out we’re in trouble.”
Sean indicated Johan’s prone figure. “Shall we try to move him?”
“Not yet. However, have the van readied then send staff home.”
“Williams?”
“Him, too. Cullstone’s stables will be his to clean if he balks.”
• • •
At 2:17am Greenwich time every available unit in G2 went passive, sensing. Given a ten second sample of what to feel for, hundreds of sensitives around the globe expanded their reach to their effective limits and beyond.
Within fifty seconds, the command to cease and resume was broadcast: a unit had located the resonance.
• • •
“Signus status?”
“Signus 8 is formed with the reporting agent who will be airborne in five minutes. We’ve already got north of London in a vector and will begin narrowing it down when translocation begins.”
Director Tomov shared a glance with his Ops officer. “What do you think?”
She shrugged. “Could be big.”
“Get every aero team we have in line with that heli’s twenty. I want them half a mile back and ready for AMS. Have Oscar prepare a scenario for local authority but I want to see it first.”
“Confirming aero support with All Methods Strike readiness. Engaging Overseer analysis.”
• • •
Austin fiddled with a pen at the counter and waited for one of the nurses to get off the phone.
“Please, ah, yes. My wife, did she say where she was going? Maybe the restroom?”
The nurse said she’d headed in the direction of the bathroom and the elevators.
“Thank you.” Panic fell back a few notches. He headed that way. One of Sakuma’s men stood near the stairwell across from the restrooms. On impulse he asked, “Excuse me. Did you see an American woman with blonde hair go in there?”
He nodded towards the stairwell. “She left. With a man.”
“No, she wouldn’t have. Blonde, about this tall?”
He nodded. “Left in a big hurry.”
Panic flushed. “What did he look like, the man? Did they go up or down?”
“Tall man. Blue suit.”
“Up or down?”
“Up.”
He raced up the stairwell, rejecting terrible thoughts. Kidnapped? Gunpoint? Mind control? Pent up tension and f
ear collided with frustration. To strike out at the enemy would feel so good. The air in the stairwell suddenly flooded with potential, responding to his urges.
He stopped at the fifth floor landing, trying to arrive calmly. Up, or in? The question hammered the moment. Energy... her energy had passed by, leaving a trail. He extended out into the stairwell and listened, feeling for Anki.
Full in the doorway, empty up the stairs.
Basic, imprecise, but it was all he had. He pulled open the door. Another of Sakuma’s men looked over, surprised at the sudden movement.
“A blonde woman with a man in a blue suit, which way did they go?”
The guard shook his head. He appeared offended at having been surprised. “Don’t know.”
Frustrated, Austin extended, feeling for her energy. It was there but spread out. The guard looked on, ready with his suit unbuttoned. Cover or no, Anki’s life was on the line and perhaps Sakuma’s as well.
“It is my wife and I fear for her safety. Please tell me where she went.”
The guard spoke dismissively. “No clue.” What are you gonna do about it?
What the guard saw was a rice cracker staring helplessly at him, pulse throbbing in his temple. What he didn’t see was him sizing up his 9mm SIG-Sauer and the unlatched holster it rested in. Meta brushed against the weapon. A round in the chamber, safety on.
He looked around then said in a low voice, “Mrs. Sakuma wouldn’t approve of you being so rude to a friend.”
The guard’s suit flapped open as the pistol broke free and slipped into his waiting palm. He thumbed the safety off. “Now which way did she go, baka?”
Shock and fear replaced cockiness. “That way.”
Austin let the clip drop to the floor, ejected the round, and handed the gun back. “Stay quiet. I’m on your side, asshole.”
He strode into the administrative wing with the guard’s confusion and disbelief at his back. Exhilaration mixed with anxiety and fear. The hall forked. Right or left? To the right was east, where the big feeling had been. He strode in that direction. A woman emerged from an office but sank back at the sight of him. So much for arriving calmly.
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