by Barry Lancet
Jenny gawked at both. Rie explained to her that the funny golden carrot atop the Asahi building was really a sculpture of a flame shooting sideways by a famous artist called Philippe Starck, and that the needle-shaped Skytree was, at two thousand feet, Japan’s tallest structure, with an observation platform so high you could see the curvature of the earth.
My phone rang. A scrolling message tag informed me that Noda was on the other end. I stepped toward the front of the boat, out of earshot of Rie and Jenny.
“Ask the girl about her Chinese connections,” Brodie Security’s chief detective said.
No greeting. No small talk.
“The girl?”
“The woman cop. She’s there, isn’t she?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?”
“Sure. Whether her connections are any good.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Poking around all the edges.”
Before I could request an update on the more promising edges, the dial tone was buzzing in my ear.
Jenny ran up and tugged my arm. “Daddy, you said no work today.”
Over the PA system, our guide began her narration: “We are passing under the first of thirteen bridges spanning the Sumida River between here and Hamarikyu, our first port of call. Hamarikyu, now a public garden, was once a shogun family villa . . .”
“Well, others are doing the work, but I have to stay in touch in case they need to tell me something. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
She puffed out her lips in a pout as she considered my question, then turned to Rie. “Do you do that too?”
We stood on the bow, which acted as a viewing platform. Now we headed downstairs into the seating area, an elegant indoor picnic setting with deep leather booths, spacious wooden tables, and gleaming brass fittings around wide windows with expansive views of the river and the city beyond.
“Yes. I’m on call even on my off days, just in case,” Rie said, as we all slid onto the cushioned benches of a booth.
“In case of what?”
Oops. Afraid of spooking Jenny, Rie glanced my way, her eyes wide.
“In case her boss needs her,” I said. “Police stuff.”
Jenny nodded. “Okay, Daddy. I guess that’s just the way the world spins.”
Rie looked at me with questions in her eyes and Jenny jumped in, breathless, to explain that the phrase was our private take on how the world worked. Good things and bad things came and went and you had to live your life the best way you could, letting both wash over you. You could enjoy the good, but shouldn’t cling to it, just as you shouldn’t let the bad drag you down, because before you knew it the good would come around again.
“That’s a very sensible philosophy,” Rie told Jenny. “I like it.”
“Thank you. It’s Daddy’s and mine.”
Jenny smiled proudly and Rie smiled back. Without missing a beat, my daughter hit me up for ice cream money. I doled out some bills. Remembering an earlier lesson in manners, she asked Rie what she’d like, then me, then off she rushed.
“So much energy,” Rie said, watching Jenny’s mad dash for the food counter.
“Too much, sometimes. Listen, you don’t by any chance have any good Chinese connections, do you?”
She looked startled. “Yes, I do. How’d you know?”
“Noda. Best not to ask any more.”
She shrugged. “I did a home stay in Hong Kong my senior year in high school.”
“Can’t imagine that would be of much use.”
“It was a prominent family. The father owned a five-star restaurant and a chain of supermarkets. The family loved sushi and made me teach them the names of all the fish in Japanese. We’re still close. Their son is about my age. He went into international finance and came to Tokyo. He’s a rising star here.”
“Hmmm.” How the hell had Noda unearthed this tidbit?
Rie smiled. “Would you like me to contact him?”
I said yes and told her what I wanted. I talked fast because Jenny would be rejoining us any second. When I finished, I added that I was surprised she hadn’t tapped the source herself.
Rie’s answer was firm. “I don’t involve friends in my work. It can get tricky. But if we go through you instead of the department, I don’t mind.”
“Makes sense. One more thing. Could you ask him if any of his acquaintances know a doctor called Wu?”
“Do you have a full name?”
“No. He was in Manchuria around the time Miura was. If he’s still alive, he might be able to give us background.”
Rie frowned. “That’s awful vague.”
“That’s all I’ve got. But Triads are the priority.”
Jenny returned holding a cardboard box with rings punched out to keep the cones upright. She set the carton down, grabbed a double chocolate tower, and began licking furiously.
I said, “You’d think you hadn’t had ice cream for years.”
Rie laughed and Jenny said, “I haven’t! Not since two days ago!” Her tongue had turned dark brown. “Can we go to the front of the boat again? I like the view there.”
“Sure.”
I passed a cone to Rie and we headed up to the bow. Above a row of cushioned benches, the front was open. The wind buffeted our faces and felt good on my skin.
Jenny delighted in gazing at everything on the river. She followed the progress of a fishing boat heading home with drying nets glistening in the sun. She repeated the name of every bridge as it was announced, and since each one had a distinct color she memorized the shade and recited the whole string of colors with every new sighting. As we passed the sumo stadium in the Ryogoku District, she made me promise to take her to a tournament.
Rie and I fell into small talk. When my phone rang a second time, I made apologies and dug it out of my pocket. Noda had sent me an email with an attachment. My reaction must have shown because Rie said softly, “What is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
I’d yet to open the attachment, but the subject line had startled me: Get somewhere safe, now! I tapped open the attachment.
In the rectangular frame of my smartphone was a headshot of a bloodied Hamada. His usual good cheer was nowhere in sight. His gaze was unfocused and lifeless. The bulbous nose was ice-blue.
I zoomed out and nearly dropped the phone.
Affixed to his brow with a six-inch ice pick was a passport-size photograph of me.
And his head wasn’t attached to anything.
CHAPTER 29
THERE were three of them and they came on fast.
They had boarded from the stern, maybe steering a speedboat alongside the ferry’s blind side and affixing a portable nautical ladder to the hull.
A crewmember moving calmly but swiftly toward the rear alerted me first. By that time the second intruder was on deck. An argument began.
None of the passengers in the cabin noticed. Those on the stern benches watched the exchange grow heated. A moment earlier they had been enjoying the riverside scenery. The next instant, strangers appeared and a tempest unfolded before them.
Even now, no one in the cabin seats had noticed. Except the serving staff.
Then, without fanfare, the two intruders flung the crewman overboard. At the same time the head of a third man appeared at the rail.
The first man scanned the cabin. His eyes locked onto mine, then the scanning stopped, and he said something out of the side of his mouth to his companions.
From a distance they looked Japanese but didn’t. They moved forward. A bit closer and they looked Chinese but didn’t. Though my visual sense seemed scrambled, my survival instincts kicked in, as clear as ever.
Looking upstream and down, I said hurriedly to Rie, “Can you swim?”
“Yes. Why?”
She hadn’t seen them yet. She’d be of more use with Jenny.
“Forgive me. Take good care of my daughter.”
Only the beginnings of a puzzled expression had formed before I
lifted her 110-pound frame over the rail and released her.
Her arms flailed wildly as she tumbled head over heels and landed on her stomach.
I swept Jenny up next, saying, “The world’s spinning, Jen. Time for a swim. Take a deep breath.” I waited a beat as she inhaled. “Good. Head for the shore.”
Before she could respond, I dropped her feet-first over the edge. My heart clutched in my chest the way it had the first time a doctor had administered a vaccination shot and—too young to understand—Jenny had cried out in pain.
But now, as then, it had to be done.
She took the drop like the fish her swimming trophies had led me to believe she was. Recalling her work on the springboard, Jenny instinctively spread her arms for balance and pointed her toes downward.
I watched her hit the water feet-first.
For the moment, my daughter was safe.
I ran.
CHAPTER 30
IN the fraction of a second before I acted, I’d considered alternate scenarios. Rie and I stay and fight. The three of us jump overboard.
But neither would work.
The first exposed Jenny to a high-risk situation, especially with Rie’s skills unproven. The second opened the possibility of being attacked in the river. The three men could—conceivably—follow us over the side. And they had a boat, which meant at least one more person. If any of them caught up with Jenny in the water, it was a moment’s work to drag her under and drown her. Or signal the boat to run her down. Being a good swimmer would mean nothing.
I saw only one option. Stay and fight alone.
Maybe Rie could have covered my back. Maybe she couldn’t. There’d been no time to find out. Whether she could or not, if I’d asked she’d have insisted she was capable, or she’d want to wave her badge. I had no time to explain the photo of Hamada’s head. And since it was likely that the new arrivals had chopped up Hamada, who was a former Osaka policeman, flashing her credentials would only get her knifed or shot.
Further, Rie hadn’t been attuned to the newcomers’ arrival, which suggested her experience was still limited and didn’t yet extend much beyond her police training. So I’d sent her into the water to watch my daughter.
There would be hell to pay later. I could see the fury in her eyes as I released her over the side—fury and shock and hurt and bitter disappointment. Regret tugged at my conscience.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
In that instant, the thing budding between us had withered and died.
* * *
I watched them advance toward the bow.
They were fifteen yards away, and closing. People were staring now. The three men moved in unison, swiftly and without words. In a wedge formation. One in front, two in back. They zeroed in on me. Murmurs went up. Part-time serving staff roamed the lower deck, but minimum wage didn’t buy help in this situation. The intruders pushed an old woman aside and she shrieked.
A knife came out.
On the front deck there was a long cushioned bench for passengers. It traced both sides of the bow and came to a point in the middle. A low wall topped with a shimmering brass rail contributed back support. A gunwale stretched about ten inches beyond the rail, providing a slim walkway around the perimeter of the vessel.
The gunwale was my only option, so I took it. Springing over the rail, I circled around to the starboard side of the boat.
The three boarders caught my move mid-cabin and ran to the nearest window to cut me off. Luckily for me the big square Plexiglas panes were battened down with decorative brass bolts.
Safe for the moment, I paused to see what my pursuers would do next. They clawed at the plastic, which did them no good. They ran their hands around the window frame, looking for an instant-release latch. They found none. After a quick consultation, they split up. One man headed toward the bow. Two headed back to the stern.
In a moment I would be trapped.
So I went up, a delaying tactic at best.
I’d discarded the idea of joining Jenny and Rie in the river. The ferry was moving relentlessly toward Tokyo Bay, but at a leisurely pace. The men wanted me, so the more distance I put between them and my involuntary castaways, the better.
I clambered onto the roof. It was long and white and peppered with a row of skylights running down the middle. When I peered through them, I saw bewildered passengers gazing up at me. I edged toward the front of the boat, where I expected a single assailant.
His head came over the edge. Our eyes locked. He grinned and pulled himself up. I surged forward, gauging the distance. His chest appeared, then his waist. I kept going. He noticed my approach, knew he couldn’t raise himself upright in time, and began backpedaling down the side.
But it was too late.
I veered just before contact so I wouldn’t run over the side and straight into the water. I struck him with a roundhouse kick, swinging my hips and leg toward the bow.
I hit the center of his chest with the outer padding of my right foot. His rib cage collapsed and his grip broke. He flew back, limbs spreading wide like some human starfish. The thrust of my kick sent his body up and out, then gravity took over as his momentum slowed and he tumbled backward into the Sumida River.
I heard shouts from his mates at the stern. The first was on the roof, the second right behind him.
And they both wielded blades—a knife and a cleaver.
The guide’s disembodied voice reached my ears. “Up ahead is the Kiyosu Bridge. Raging fires devastated the area in the aftermath of the great earthquake of 1923 . . .”
A shadow blanketed me. The bridge loomed. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the support structure, with its I-beams and industrialsize bolts. Had I wanted, I could count the bolts. I was that close.
Before I knew it the bridge was overhead, only eighteen inches away. I jumped up and seized an I-beam.
My shoes now hovered above the ferry’s roof. The plan called for a simple gymnastic maneuver: wrap my legs around the beam, scamper away upside-down to the end, then climb up the side of the bridge. Enough of the structure was exposed to accomplish the feat. But when I snatched a look at my attackers, I saw they were too close. Sticking to the plan would get me a blade in my back.
From ten yards away, the closest man lunged at me with the cleaver raised over his head. I swung away, brought my knees to my chest, then pushed forward. With the boat’s help my feet slammed into his chest a beat before he could bring the steel down.
He flipped over on his back and banged his head hard. The collision propelled me abruptly backward again as his friend sidestepped the fallen body and raced in. My momentum shifted forward. The third man aimed his knife, but the combination of the boat’s speed and my forward motion upset his timing and he ran past me before the arc of his attack could be completed.
The timing was tricky.
But now my last opponent was behind me.
I performed a quick hand shuffle to reverse my position. Right hand to left side of the beam, left to right side.
He pivoted and made ready to come at me again. We faced off. Then he looked beyond me. It didn’t take a genius to see that the end of the roof was fast approaching, so he sheathed the weapon and took a running leap, flinging himself into the air and latching on to my waist as the last of the roof sluiced away underfoot.
We both hung over water.
His hands were wrapped around me. His eyes wandered longingly toward the sheathed knife, but he couldn’t snatch the blade without surrendering his grip, so the gutless dickweed turned his head sideways and bit me. I winced and jerked away, then swung my hipbone back and smacked him in the nose.
Call it an improvised headbutt. Same idea, different part of the body.
I hadn’t been able to get much force behind the move. The blow would smart but the impact was not enough to discourage an experienced fighter, so I pulled my hip away once more and kneed him in the groin. His hands went instinctively to his crotch and he plummeted into the
swirling river thirty feet below.
Hooking my heels over the lower flange of the I-beam, I inched forward along the bottom of the bridge until I reached the end, then worked my way up the side, grappling with the open structure for holds. A minute later, I tumbled over the guardrail onto the pedestrian walk, startling a young couple strolling hand in hand.
They jumped back. Other people stared.
I ignored them all. I was stiff and sore and felt the aches from the beating at the kendo club pulse anew with my extracurricular exertions.
I’d pay for the rooftop skirmish too, but for the moment I was free of pursuers—with my head still attached.
I needed to find Jenny. Had she made it to shore?
CHAPTER 31
YOU’VE destroyed my career,” Rie said.
The first words out of her mouth left me speechless. I could think of a dozen retorts after her forced dunking, but that wasn’t one them.
She trembled with rage and despair. “In one thoughtless, uncaring moment you’ve crushed everything I’ve worked to accomplish. I will not be part of the third generation in my family to join the police force. I will not be the first woman. I will not get my detective’s shield.”
Rie and Jenny had reached the riverbank two minutes after I’d flung them into the water. Safety was only forty yards away. Once ashore, Rie had hailed a taxi and directed the driver to follow the river access road until they caught up with the ferry.
As I’d trotted toward the west end of the bridge in search of them, they surprised me by leaping from the cab. Jenny ran into my arms and Rie started in. Before I could thank her. Only later did I learn from Jenny that Rie had apologized in advance for what she would say when they met up with me again on the bridge, which explained my daughter’s uncharacteristic calm during the confrontation.
I said, “Maybe I saved your life. Did you ever think of that?’
“That’s arrogant and chauvinistic. I can handle myself. I have training. Did you think of that?”