by Taiyo Fujii
Chance shook Nash’s body, stabilizing him in his kneeling stance.
Nash was carrying only the equipment ready at hand. He didn’t even have a radio. The agent must have been requisitioned in a hurry, just moments earlier. So it would not be unusual for the two of them to miscommunicate occasionally.
The agent kicked the snow in apparent frustration, then crawled through the gap in the shutters into the warehouse. That suit of his probably meant that he was more of an investigator than a soldier. He would be no match for her in a game of cat and mouse.
She would have preferred to kill him while he was still outside the warehouse, but if she missed and he fired back, a round from his M4 would go right through Nash’s body and into hers. Going up against his rifle with only a pistol would be foolish.
Chance produced her smartphone and pressed a white app icon that read simply “Fire.”
The app came up on the screen. Inside the warehouse, if all had gone well, a lightbulb hanging just beside the fire alarm had just lit up. The surface of the bulb had been scored with a file in a crosshatch pattern and covered in tar. Within minutes, the tar would start to vaporize from the heat. The fire alarm would interpret the smoking tar as a fire and trigger the sprinkler system, the tanks of which had been emptied of water and filled with gasoline instead. After the sprinklers had had a chance to spray the warehouse full of gasoline, the lightbulb would break and its exposed filament would set the whole thing alight.
That moment would be Shiraishi’s only chance to escape.
After watching to make sure that the CIA agent wasn’t coming back out of the warehouse, Chance took Nash’s M4. She knelt, using the slowly stiffening body as a shooting bench to aim the rifle at the service entrance.
She licked the resin cover on her left index finger and touched it to the trigger. A red dot flickered on the shutters of the service entrance. Using the laser scope, even firing with her left hand she should have no trouble hitting whatever came out of the door.
When the fire alarm went off, the shutters would rise. If she could shoot everyone except Shiraishi then, the two of them could escape. As long as that CIA agent didn’t try to shield him …
“Better make your way out,” she muttered. “I’d rather not have to kill you.”
She let her index finger move off the trigger and dug her knees into the snow, stabilizing the gun’s barrel. Her back caught the worst of the pelting snow, inadvertently sheltering Nash’s body below her.
Wed, 16 Dec 2020, 12:24 -0800 (2020-12-16T20:24 GMT)
Pier 37 Warehouse, Seattle
Stepping inside the warehouse with Daryl following closely behind, Kazumi covered his face against the pungent smell. The smell of gasoline, blended with the rose perfume of the D-Fi cables, filled the air. A container sat square in the middle of the dim warehouse, with a bed, a television, and other furnishings piled up beside it. The far wall had what looked like a service entrance set in it, with external shutters that were currently raised just enough to allow the wind and snow into the room.
“Why did you leave Japan, Uncle Ageha?” Akari screamed, shaking the snow off her clothes.
“Go home, Akari. You’re going to get yourself killed this time.”
The voice carried surprisingly well from inside the container.
Daryl tapped Kazumi on the shoulder and pointed with his hatchet at the right side of the container, suggesting that they split up and approach the container from both sides at once.
Kazumi waved at Akari and pointed at Daryl’s back. If something went wrong, the soldier would be the one they looked to for help. Akari nodded and stepped behind Daryl.
“Shiraishi-san, please hand over control of the space tethers,” Kazumi said in Japanese.
Daryl glanced his way. He probably would have preferred that Kazumi use English. But Shiraishi was Japanese, as were Akari and Kurosaki. Daryl and the CIA agents would just have to watch a recording of the video call later to catch up.
Kazumi slowly walked toward the left side of the container.
“I’ve got Kurosaki-san on a video call,” he said. “You can talk to him. We’ve been watching those space tethers you have up there, Shiraishi-san. We know …” He caught himself before he said “almost.” There was no need to underplay their hand here. “We know everything about them.”
Akari turned toward Kazumi, wide-eyed.
“No one’s been harmed in orbit yet,” Kazumi continued. “It’s not too late. Come out of hiding. Join Dr. Jahanshah and make the space tether system public.”
Daryl and Akari disappeared around the side of the container.
“The picture of the Earth you took from orbit gave me chills, Shiraishi-san. An eighty thousand–camera light-field image of our planet—one look at that is all the proof anyone would need that the space tethers are going to change everything. Spacecraft that can orbit forever without even needing any fuel! The whole world will have ideas about how to use them.”
Kazumi paused. There was no sign of movement.
“Please, Shiraishi-san—”
There was a rustle from inside the container and then a man’s voice said, “That’s far enough. Stop where you are.”
Kazumi froze in place.
A man wearing a coat emerged from the container carrying a black blueprint case. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger.
“Kazumi, was it? Not bad. Only a couple of days and you got as far as the light field?”
“Yes. We’re eavesdropping on all of the telemetry the tethercraft send back. Akari stitched the images together.”
“Eavesdropping? So the CIA is working with you? Maybe the NSA? Not bad at all!”
Shiraishi put his hand in his pocket. Kazumi suddenly realized how vulnerable he was. Did Shiraishi have a gun?
As if sensing Kazumi’s unease, Shiraishi took a step toward him. “This isn’t the sort of party you should come to empty-handed,” he said.
“I came here to talk,” said Kazumi. “That’s all. Stop the tethercraft and come out of the shadows.”
“I’ll pass on that one,” said Shiraishi. “I took out the Wyvern’s reentry vessel and Japan’s entire IGS fleet. I’m a wanted man.”
“Kazumi, let me talk to him,” came Sekiguchi’s voice. Kazumi held his phone up. “Shiraishi-san, can you hear me?” Sekiguchi said. “This is Sekiguchi from JAXA. Please do as Kazumi says. It’s not too late. Seek asylum in America. The Japanese government won’t go after you there.”
“And then?”
“The space tether plus some intelligence on the North Koreans should be enough to get you a place on the Witness Protection Program.”
“I’m not talking about me. If I give up now, what happens to the people cut off from space altogether?” Shiraishi took another step forward. He held up the black case he was holding, showing the white lettering: great leap for the rest of the world. “Can you read that, Sekiguchi? As I recall, JAXA was just a stepping-stone for you—you’re really more the international type. You should know as well as anyone how fortunate Japan is.”
Lips curling into a sneer, Shiraishi pointed his finger at the phone.
“Is that Kurosaki there with you? You’ve put on a few, Kurosaki. But if you leave Japan and its wealth behind, you start to notice things. The rocket men in North Korea know that whatever they manage to put into orbit will be labeled a weapon or a missile, but they keep clawing for the stars anyway. What little pay they do receive all goes to bribes to keep them on the space program. But do they give up? “
Shiraishi’s finger began to tremble.
“There’s a man out there doing cutting-edge research without even an Internet connection. Kazumi, you know him too, right? I’m talking about Jamshed. He’d do anything to get his spacecraft off the ground. It’s my job to make that happen.”
Kuro
saki coughed. “You haven’t changed a bit, Shiraishi,” he said. “Can’t bear to see a technician in trouble.”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“But you can’t sacrifice yourself for their sake. It starts to go to your head. Are you serious about what’s written on that case?”
Shiraishi glanced down at the lettering on his black blueprint case.
“Neil Armstrong meets Apple,” Kurosaki continued. “I like it. You always did have a way with words. Almost enough to take me in as well.”
Shiraishi turned the case around and hugged it to his chest.
“Shiraishi-san,” Kurosaki said. “Please. Stop doing this to yourself. There are people here right now who need your help. Give Kazumi what he wants. He’s got a knack for this stuff. He can help you.”
There was a brief pause.
“No,” said Shiraishi finally. “I don’t need anyone’s help. I mobilized a nation all by myself to get those forty thousand tethers up there. No one else could have done that.”
“You’re wrong, Shiraishi,” said Kazumi, stamping his foot. “Your Cloud is just a bunch of debris boosted into low Earth orbit.”
“You think that’s what the Cloud’s for too? Don’t move!” Shiraishi glared at where Daryl and Akari were standing beyond the container, then turned back to Kazumi. “The Cloud is the first step in freeing all the countries denied access to space. Developed countries will be forced to withdraw their satellites from orbit, and launching new ones will be pointless. With tens of thousands of tethers up there, we’ll be able to knock their satellites down as fast as they can send them up.”
“You want to close off orbit altogether?” Kazumi said.
“That’s right. Not forever. A few years should do it. That’ll be enough time for North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, and the countries of Africa to advance their space-development programs. Engineers will flock to them from all over the world. Orbit doesn’t belong to America and Europe. We’re going to clear the decks and start again. That’s the Great Leap.”
A slightly overdramatic sigh came from Sekiguchi over the speaker. “Is that what the Great Leap was all about?” he asked.
“You’d heard of it already?”
“Only the name. I didn’t know the details until now. Sounds pretty stupid, to be honest.”
“What did you say?”
“He said it was stupid!” shouted Akari from behind the container. “Uncle Ageha, what’s happened to you? You always hated enclosure and monopolies. The greater the flow of information, the better, you said. What are you going to achieve by shutting out the people making the most effort?”
“Space development isn’t like the IT industry,” Shiraishi said. “You think someone like Ronnie Smark could come out of Ethiopia or Iran?”
“That’s not what I mean! No one’s saying that where Ronnie was born or where he grew up doesn’t mean anything. You know this, Uncle Ageha!”
“Shiraishi-san, I can tell you exactly what the Great Leap will achieve,” Sekiguchi said coldly. “Most of the new projects will just be poor imitations of what the developed countries are already doing. The engineers you’ll ‘save’ will be stuck reinventing the wheel with fewer resources and worse technology.”
“You’re wrong,” Shiraishi snarled. “I’ll feed them fresh ideas, better ones. The space tether is just the beginning.”
“Come out of hiding and do it, then!” Kazumi cried. “The space tether is enough to excite anybody. It’s a dream come true. It deserves to be used for more than orbital terrorism.” He reached out to Shiraishi with one hand. “Shiraishi-san, come with me. I want the whole world to learn what you can do.”
“Please, Uncle Ageha,” said Akari. “It’s not too late.”
Shiraishi knocked Kazumi’s hand back and turned away from them.
There was a screech as the shutters across the warehouse began to move. Shiraishi smiled.
“I always enjoy catching up with old friends,” he said. “But I’m afraid my ride is here.”
“Isn’t there anything I can say to convince you, Uncle Ageha?” pleaded Akari.
Shiraishi glanced up at the roof with a look of concern but continued to retreat toward the service entrance. “Take care of yourself, Akari,” he said. “Don’t try to follow me. The woman I’m seeing wouldn’t like that very much.”
Turning toward the exit, Shiraishi froze. A figure was crouching before him.
Bruce was down on one knee with his M4 at the ready.
“So you’re Shiraishi,” Bruce said. “CIA. Take that hand out of your pocket and put both hands above your head.”
Shiraishi withdrew one hand from his pocket, still gripping his phone. He raised both hands high, holding his phone in one and his blueprint case in the other.
“Where’s your minder?” asked Bruce.
Shiraishi shook his head. Bruce rose to his feet, drew a pistol with his left hand, and slid it across the ground to Daryl.
Akari pointed at the service entrance. “A woman just ran past there,” she said.
“So she’s circling around to the front,” Bruce said.
That was where Nash was. Bruce wished he’d joined them in the warehouse, but at least this way the front was secure. They should be able to capture Shiraishi safely.
“I didn’t catch everything you said in Japanese, but I advise you to take Kazumi up on his offer,” Bruce said. “Tell us what you know and seek asylum in the States. I’ll get you into Witness Protection. You can continue your research—just not in public. Daryl, search him.”
Daryl jogged over to Shiraishi and patted him down. He was as unarmed as he looked.
“Think about it,” Bruce said. “You say no, we’ll still get the information out of you one way or another. The only difference is whether or not you go to prison. Now slowly crouch down and put what you’re holding on the floor.”
“You think about it,” Shiraishi sneered. “If you shoot me, your only hope of stopping the space tethers vanishes too.”
Bruce slammed the stock of his M4 into Shiraishi’s abdomen.
“Bruce, stop it!” cried Akari.
Shiraishi’s glasses went flying. He fell to his knees.
Bruce grabbed a fistful of Shiraishi’s hair and forced his head down to the floor before pinning him down with one knee in his back.
“Don’t get cocky,” Bruce said. “Kazumi will take care of the space tethers for us. What’s that?”
The warehouse was suddenly bathed in flashing red light. The fire alarm. Bruce looked around but saw no sign of smoke or flames.
“So this is it,” Shiraishi groaned under Bruce’s knee. “About time, Chance.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Run, you idiot,” Shiraishi said. “Unless you’d rather burn.”
There was a hollow thunk and the groan of a motor. The sprinkler system sprang into life, spraying the warehouse with a foul-smelling liquid.
“Gasoline! Everybody out. Daryl, open the shutters.”
“They’re opening on their own!”
Daryl was right. The shutters were rising, letting in ever more of the howling wind and snow.
“It’s a trap! Run toward the service entrance and stick to the wall close by. Scatter!”
Bruce dragged Shiraishi to one side of the entrance, Kazumi following closely behind. Looking back, Bruce saw Akari still standing in the middle of the warehouse, apparently dazed.
“Daryl! Get Akari down!”
A bright-red dot had appeared on Akari’s lower back. An M4’s laser scope. Nash?
Looking out through the service entrance, Bruce thrust out his open palm, the signal for Stop. Next he raised his head and brought his hand to his throat: Civilian/Hostage. Outside he could see Nash still leaning against the tire, his hands dangling at his sides. The red gl
eam of the laser scope was coming from just above his shoulder.
Not Nash. Someone behind him.
“Wai—”
Shiraishi shoved Bruce aside midword, running past him. “Chance!” he screamed. “Don’t shoot!”
He had just passed Akari when there was a sudden cloud of red mist.
Bruce leveled his M4 at Nash and fired a hail of bullets in that direction. A figure holding an M4 slipped out from behind the jerking corpse and ran for cover behind the truck.
Kazumi tried to push past Bruce. “Shiraishi!” he cried.
Bruce caught Kazumi by the belt and pulled him back. Shiraishi was lying on the floor, neck bent at an impossible angle and blood pouring from a throat wound.
They heard a burst of gunfire. Sparks fell on the container.
“Daryl! Three shots out through the door!”
Bruce moved his M4’s selector to burst. Daryl fell back, supporting Akari as he fired his pistol. Three, two, one. Now it was Bruce’s turn. He leaned out and checked for any sign of another person behind Nash. Nothing. Whoever it was didn’t even seem to be behind the truck.
Bruce burst out of the service entrance and dropped to his stomach to survey the parking lot from between the wheels of the truck.
A woman in high heels was running through the snow.
Bruce fired a controlled burst of three rounds at her. She stumbled in a spray of snow and red mist. He caught one glimpse of her bright-red lips in the white flurry as she glanced his way before rising to her feet again and firing a burst into the tires of Daryl’s Chevy. Then she leaped into a Porsche Cayenne, gunned the engine, and sped away.
“… Ageha. Uncle Ageha! Somebody, stop the bleeding!”
Bruce turned his head at the sound of Akari screaming and saw heat haze rising from the haphazard pile of D-Fi boxes in the container. Gasoline—sparks—
“Everybody out!” Bruce yelled. “Away from the warehouse!”