Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense

by Elizabeth Wilkerson

  Regards, TokyoAli

  What to do next? As she was thinking, her computer announced, “You’ve got mail!”

  Kiyoshi was online. She opened the message.

  TOKYOALI, ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMEONE??

  There was no name attached to the message, no way to reply. It had been transmitted anonymously.

  What kind of joke was Kiyoshi playing? She paged him again, but there was no answer. Weird. Maybe there was some mistake.

  Since she was online, she decided to drop Rob a little note.

  My dear little brother:

  Look who’s online now? There goes the virtual neighborhood!

  love, Ali

  Alison was about to log off when her computer again announced: “You’ve got mail!”

  Kiyoshi must be online. She opened her new mail. It had been posted by an anonymous sender.

  DON’T WORRY ALI ALI ALI. HE’LL BE BACK TOMORROW. ME TOO!!!

  The message faded on the computer monitor and the screen flashed a strobe of Day-Glo colors. A woman’s breathy voice announced, “I’m coming. I’m coming. Three, two, one.” The voice screamed and the screen went dark.

  What was that? Alison punched in commands at the keyboard, but the computer had crashed.

  Shit. How could she explain to Charles that his computer had just up and died? Would he believe her if she said she hadn’t touched it? Not likely. It was time for self-help.

  She dug out a computer magazine she’d bought and read how to reboot Charles’ Mac. The computer came back alive, auto-dialed into Morgan Sachs’ intranet and the pulsing pyramid reestablished itself. All looked normal.

  But what the hell had happened? Such odd, perverse messages. And it wasn’t random spew being hurled her way. The sender knew her name. Her World NetLink user name, anyway. But it probably was some teenage hacker wannabe getting his rocks off. Bothersome, but relatively harmless hijinks.

  01000011 01101001 01110100 01111001

  He didn’t want to make it too easy for her at first. Didn’t want to be too predictable. He knew from his experience with the others that once she had a taste of the attention, she’d crave more, come back for more. Junkies needed their fix.

  But this one was turning out to be almost too easy. She was already lowing, grazing, looking for him. The slut. Where was the sport in that?

  He preferred it when they were a challenge, when they resisted, put up a fight. Because then when they finally came around, they really wanted it and would do anything for it. Those were the ones it was sweetest to break.

  8

  Her legs burned as she trudged uphill after heartbreak hill. The physical exertion felt good and was a welcome distraction from the gloom she felt in her heart.

  How could she get any work done if the computer kept crashing on her? And always after she got those weird messages. Was that guy Kiyoshi such a freak, or was it something — somebody — else? She needed to clear her head, and there was nothing like a good run.

  Reaching the summit, she began the steep descent. Her left knee was getting sore. Which meant it was going to rain soon. A barometric reminder of her accident at Tahoe when Charles had fallen off the chairlift and dragged her down with him. Her knee hadn’t hurt much at the time. Little did she know that years later, it would still act up.

  A speeding Jeep, too big for the narrow road, zoomed by too fast, too close. Alison leaped to the edge of the street and pressed herself against the stone barrier wall. Would it be asking too much for the Japanese to build some sidewalks? Lest she become a hit-and-run victim, she decided to get off the road and cut through the park.

  A cold rawness pierced the wind, but bright late afternoon sunshine illuminated the maple trees’ fiery crimson foliage. Alison ran past a young mother pushing a baby carriage.

  Kids needed fresh air. When she had kids, she’d tuck them into one of those jogging strollers and take them running with her. When she had kids. Charles said he wanted kids, lots of kids. But at the rate things were going with their relationship, kids would be a fertility clinic miracle. Surely Charles understood that time’s a-wasting. Or at least her time was.

  Alison passed a group of little boys — four, maybe five years old? — all wearing the shortest of shorts, inadequately covering their bare legs. The boys’ cheeks, ears and knees were bright red with cold. How could their mothers dress them up with so little concern for their warmth? Alison filed it under “cultural differences” and kept on running.

  She rounded a corner to head home and collided with a man on a bicycle who surprised her coming from the left side of the path through the park. Her knee broke the impact as she landed hard on the ground.

  Alison had been walking on the right side — which in Japan was the wrong side — of the path. When would she remember that foot traffic followed the same flow as cars? Driving on the left side, walking on the left side.

  She tried to apologize to the guy in English, in Japanese, in gestures, but the man, apparently unhurt but inconvenienced, yelled at her as he mounted his bicycle and sped off. The only word Alison could understand was gaijin. He turned around spat the word over his shoulder as if it were the filthiest of insults. Alison knew that gaijin meant “foreigner,” but Charles had tried to explain how gaijin carried a certain pejorative sense that was hard to explain exactly. Whatever. She’d been hailed with enough pejoratives at home in the States that it didn’t bother her much. Or at least not too much.

  What did bother her was her knee. Her left knee. She stretched and tested it out to see if she could make it home, but her knee buckled underneath her.

  A woman came trotting toward her from a nearby park bench. “Are you all right?” The petite woman with blonde hair going gray spoke with a thick Australian accent. She carried a tennis racket case over her shoulder.

  Alison shook her head. “I’ll be fine. Just a bit surprised, is all.”

  “You’re bleeding.” The woman pointed to Alison’s hand. Her knee had been rubbed raw in the fall and was sprouting rivulets of blood. “You need to bandage that up. My clubhouse is right behind the courts. Let’s get you some sticking plasters and fix you up.”

  Alison limped along with the woman as they entered the warmth of the athletic club’s front room. “She’s with me,” the Australian woman said to the attendant at the front desk. “Just one moment, dear.” The woman went into a side room and returned with bandages, cotton balls and alcohol wipes. “Try these,” she said, handing Alison the supplies. “The loo is the second door on the right.” The woman pointed. “By the way, my name is Rachel.”

  “Hi, Rachel. I’m Alison.”

  “So nice to meet you. Now you go get yourself straight, and I’ll get us a nice cup of tea.”

  When Alison returned from washing off her wounds, Rachel was sitting at a small table and had set out teacups and saucers along with a thermos of hot water. Next to the thermos was a small cut-glass bottle of Suntory whiskey. Rachel put an Earl Grey tea bag in each of the cups and filled them with water.

  Rachel poured milk in her cup, added a healthy splash of whiskey and took a sip. “So, Alison, what brings you to Japan?”

  Alison tore open a paper tube of sugar and poured it into her cup. The tea tasted good, but she was glad to add some whiskey to take the edge off of the pain that she was beginning to feel creep from her knee into her lower back. “My fiancé got transferred here for work, and I came along with him.”

  “Do you have a job, too?”

  “I’m doing a little legal research.”

  “You’re a solicitor?”

  Why did everyone look so surprised when they learned she was an attorney? “I’m an environmental lawyer.”

  “Oh, my. How nice.” Rachel had more tea. Alison could see the gears in Rachel’s brain trying to process the fact that Alison was a lawyer. By the way Rachel was biting the side of her cheek, the cogitation must have hurt. She set down her teacup and smiled at Alison. “So how do you like Japan?”

&n
bsp; “Most of the time I feel like I’m stumbling around in culture shock.”

  “Do you speak Japanese?”

  “No, but my boyfriend is fluent. He helps me get around.”

  “That’s makes it easier.”

  “Yes, but it’s still hard doing the most basic things. Reading a map, taking the subway, grocery shopping. And Charles — that’s my boyfriend — fiancé — he’s always so busy. Too busy to spend much time with me.” Alison closed her eyes hard against the threat of tears. She found some Kleenex she’d tucked up her sleeve and wiped her nose.

  “Sounds like culture shock, all right,” Rachel said. She added more whiskey to Alison’s cup.

  Alison had a deep drink. She wasn’t used to drinking hard liquor. But it put things in a pleasant haze. “I thought that Charles and I would get closer if we were actually living together.” Why was she telling a stranger all this? Must be the whiskey talking.

  “You weren’t together before?”

  “We lived together in San Francisco, but then he got transferred to New York. And then transferred again to Japan.”

  “Most businessmen who get transferred to Japan leave their wives behind. Alone in Tokyo and living the expense account life of an ex-pat bachelor. A different Japanese girl every night.”

  “Charles isn’t like that.” Was he?

  Rachel snorted. “Well, now. Do you have any friends here besides your boyfriend?”

  “Not close friends.” Not any friends. Alison took a big swallow. A splash of tea dribbled down her chin. “There is a guy I talk to on the internet.”

  “You met someone online? Be careful. Some Japanese men have a special fetish for foreign women. You heard about that Canadian girl who disappeared?”

  “I’m completely safe. It’s all online.”

  Rachel shook her head in dismissal. “I’ve lived in Japan for eight years, and everyone goes through an adjustment period. Get out, meet some new people, you’ll be fine.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” said Alison. “Thanks for listening. I’m not usually so fragile.”

  “No worries.” Rachel poured more whiskey into her own teacup and drained it. “Alison, may I ask you a question? It’s rather personal.”

  “Of course. Shoot.”

  Rachel leaned forward in her chair. “Are you just a little bit — colored?”

  Alison blinked. Colored? What century was this? “Yes, you could say I am. One hundred percent Black.”

  “Oh—I… But your skin is still pretty.” Rachel glanced at her watch and did a bad double take, furrowing her brow. “Look at the time. I have to go. Please stay, finish your tea. Perhaps we’ll meet again.” Rachel grabbed her racket case and started for the door.

  Alison stood. Pain radiated from her coccyx to her knee. But thanks to the whiskey, the soreness didn’t register as intensely as it might. “Yes, perhaps we will.” When pigs fly.

  Alison watched the door close behind Rachel. So much about life in Japan felt exotic and odd. And yet so much felt altogether too familiar.

  9

  Home alone the next morning, Alison appropriated Charles’ desk and took control of the computer mouse. Like a seasoned pilot, she strapped herself in, adjusted the flight controls, and ran through the sequence of commands that would transport her off into cyberspace. Alison started up the engines, got the propellers going, and then lifted off into the freedom, the soaring ecstasy, of flight through virtual space and time.

  The computer recognized her commands and greeted her. She was in.

  Her Green Space research was moving forward slowly, and she worried that she had an embarrassingly small amount of information on Indonesia. Through a stroke of luck, also known as bumbling, she came across a website that promised to be a motherlode of information: an online newsletter about Asian environmental activism. Alison cruised to the site and scanned the headlines.

  One title grabbed her attention: “Green Space Donates $500,000 for Indonesian Copper Cleanup.” Alison read how Green Space had pledged funds to set up an advisory group in Indonesia that would counsel indigenous people on how to counter the effects of toxic by-products left behind by foreign mining companies. Hiro Yamada was leading the effort and would be working closely with Green Space in Tokyo.

  Hiro Yamada. Maybe he was related to Yuko Yamada. Alison added the URL to her research report and made a mental note to ask Ms. Yamada about the advisory group.

  Alison was about to move on when the computer announced she had a message from Kiyoshi.

  “Hiya, Kiyoshi. What a surprise to catch you online at this hour.”

  “I’m on the road.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I was in Seoul, now I’m in Shanghai.”

  “Do you travel a lot for work?”

  “I used to go to the U.S. a lot, but now that I’m based in Kobe, I usually just travel in Asia.”

  “You said that you worked in marketing. Tell me about it.”

  “I’m in the international division of Tai Tsu, Pacific Communications. We help foreign companies doing business in Asia.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “Yes. Most of my clients are from the U.S., and I like working with Americans. I’ve answered your Perry Mason questions. Now it’s your turn. How did you decide to be a lawyer?”

  “It runs in the family. Dad was a tax attorney, and Mom was a judge in family court, so I had it in my blood.”

  “No lawyer jokes from me.”

  “Despite the bad publicity we lawyers get, we can have a positive social impact. Especially environmental lawyers.”

  “And what do environmental lawyers do?”

  “I worked as a staff attorney for an organization devoted to preserving virgin forests. We were kind of controversial in our tactics. It was fun.”

  “Sounds fascinating.”

  “It was, but I gave up my job when I moved here. I can go back, but for now I am, as they say, ‘between jobs.’”

  “You have time to enjoy yourself.”

  Alison’s computer screen flashed, accompanied by the sound of a woman’s voice moaning in orgasmic ecstasy.

  “I ENJOY MYSELF ALL BY MYSELF!!!”

  Alison was bewildered.

  “What was that, Kiyoshi?”

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. Did your computer just send a message?”

  “Yes. I thought it was from you.”

  “No, not me. Maybe some telephone lines got crossed.”

  “NO CROSSED LINES!!!”

  There was the message again, the orgasmic voice again.

  “Kiyoshi, really, is that you?”

  “Absolutely not me. Let’s get a different room and see if we can get some privacy. I’ll meet you in the KIY-ALI room, OK?”

  “See you there!”

  Alison entered the commands to move to a different private chat room.

  “Let’s hope we’re alone now.”

  “I think so, Kiyoshi. You know, the strangest thing happened to me when I was online the other day. I kept getting these weird messages being sent anonymously. Kind of like today.”

  “Did you report it to the SysOp?”

  “The what?”

  “The System Operator. They manage the network.”

  “Good idea. I’ll do that.”

  “HELLO AGAIN!!!”

  This time the posting was accompanied by a trumpet fanfare.

  “Kiyoshi, did you see that?”

  “Yes. What a bother.”

  “This feels kind of creepy. How about if we meet tomorrow at our usual time.”

  “OK. Meanwhile, I’ve got some news I’ll email to you.”

  “I look forward to it. Cheers!”

  “Goodbye.”

  They broke their chat connection and went their separate ways on the network.

  Still agitated by the gall of that online intruder who wouldn’t leave her and Kiyoshi alone, Alison sent an email message.

  To the Netlink System Opera
tor:

  I have been harassed online by an anonymous person sending me irritating messages and interrupting private chats. Please advise me as to what I can do to stop this annoyance.

  — TokyoAli

  Alison was preparing to log off when the computer announced incoming email. Another message from the weirdo? She hesitated before she opened the email.

  Hello, TokyoAli!

  I hope we can get rid of our online visitor but at least we can talk through email even if it takes longer.

  My news is that I will be coming to Tokyo for business. May I invite you to dinner next Thursday evening? I would like to meet you in person. I hope you feel the same way.

  Yours truly,

  Kiyoshi

  That Australian woman Rachel might be an atavistic piece of work, but she was right about one thing — Alison needed to get out and meet some new people, make some friends. And Kiyoshi was her first friend in Japan. Her only friend in Japan. And even though they hadn’t had a proper introduction, if she met him in a public place, if she kept her wits about her, and if she lined up an exit route, what could be the harm in getting together? She sent Kiyoshi a note back accepting his invitation.

  After posting the email message, Alison noticed that her online mailbox icon was still blinking. She had mail waiting from the NetLink System Operator.

  Dear TokyoAli:

  Thank you for your message. Occasionally we get news of online users abusing the network. Please be assured that we are investigating your problem. In the meantime, we suggest you change your password often and make sure it is a non-obvious word. Foreign words or passwords containing numbers are recommended.

  Happy to help you.

  Alison was unimpressed. Yeah, big help. Translation: They’re clueless. But at least she and Kiyoshi could send each other confidential email even if they couldn’t chat directly without interference. That way their online rendezvous would be solely their affair. “Freudian slip, Alison,” she warned herself.

  Kiyoshi, formerly Kiyoshi346. With a face-to-face engagement imminent, he began to take on real human proportions. She wished she had gotten some of the nitty-gritty details about the man. What did he look like? How old was he? Was he married? Did it matter? She was with Charles, and that wasn’t stopping her from having dinner with Kiyoshi. It was only dinner, no big deal.