Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense

by Elizabeth Wilkerson

  “ALISON ALI ALISON. DO YOU MISS ME? I VISIT NISHI AZABU. YOU LIVE IN NISHI AZABU. I SEE YOU.”

  A woman’s voice sounded through the computer speakers. “No. Don’t! Stop!”

  “Kiyoshi, I’m getting spooked by this. Let’s log off, OK? I want to contact the system operators here, see if there’s anything else to do.”

  “Of course. See you tomorrow.”

  Alison entered the World NetLink tech support area and initiated a real-time online chat with a network administrator. It wasn’t as good as a phone call, but it would have to do. She could type fast.

  “I have been having constant problems with annoying, anonymous messages and communications being sent to me. I tried changing my screen name, encoding my messages, but still the harassment persists.”

  The network administrator replied.

  “Hello, TokyoAli. I’m sorry about the problems you’re having. If you know the user name of the person sending you the messages, you can block email transmissions from them. Good luck!”

  Good luck?! What was this, a lottery? Alison fired back.

  “I have zero idea of who this guy is. That’s my problem. This creep seems to know what I look like, even where I live. Do you release personal information about your online users?”

  “Not at all. As explained in the Terms of Service, all of the membership information you provide when you join World NetLink is considered confidential. But occasionally we provide members’ profiles to a select group of marketing companies.”

  Alison had spent too much time in law school not to recognize legalese double-talk.

  “You mean you sell personal information about WNL users to outside companies?”

  “It helps keep down user costs.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “Names, addresses, clickstreams usually.”

  “Clickstreams? What’s that?”

  “The path the user navigates through the network, the areas they like to visit on WNL as they click on the mouse. If a user doesn’t want to participate in our marketing program, they can opt out of it.”

  Yeah, if they even know about the program.

  “Consider me opted out.”

  She exited the chat.

  What nerve World NetLink had selling personal information. WNL had details about its users that more than marketing companies would be eager to know. Mr. Smith spends five hours each week in the gay men’s chat room. Ms. Jones regularly posts questions in the substance abusers message center. Mrs. Doe posts to the battered spouse help board every month. All of it was nobody’s business but their own.

  Alison was sure the online users assumed they were as anonymous as they wanted to be. Now she knew better. But the damage had been done. The creepy freak knew her name, knew what she looked like, knew where she lived. But she still hadn’t the foggiest idea who he was.

  01000101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101100

  Bent over his computer keyboard, his two index fingers pounded in commands. He sat up, looked at his monitor and examined the results. Kuso! Shit! He was having more trouble than usual breaking into this software.

  None of his favorites in his digital bag of tricks was doing the job. His picklock programs, his de-encryption programs, his key code emulators, and his link-level decryptors all failed at breaching the FYEO encryption software that American bitch was using for her messages. Kuso! Did she think she could outsmart him? Stupid foreign cow. She’d learn.

  This little roadblock she’d set up was making things even more interesting. Teased his anticipation. But, of course, in the end, he’d take her down. She’d join his collection, just like all the others. It was inevitable. But he appreciated a good challenge. She was working hard to play the game, make it fun for him. He liked her spirit. Just a little roadblock.

  He closed his eyes and sat back in his chair, scanning his brain for another way in. There had to be a way to get in. If he could completely sidestep the encryption process, if he could intercept her transmissions direct from the terminal, that would solve all of his problems. But how the fuck could he do that? Think. Think.

  Frustrated by this rare experience of being shut out by a computer, he decided to call his favorite phone-sex line. A good jerking-off would take his mind off of things until he figured out a way to hack the encryption program.

  He rooted under a pile of discarded Styrofoam instant ramen noodle bowls that had been tossed short of his trash can and dug out a cell phone. He hit the speed dial, and the phone-sex line’s computerized operator offered him a menu of people eager to talk with him. Nymphomaniac housewives. High school girls sitting on the toilet. Naked elementary school girls in their bedrooms. Quite the smorgasbord.

  When prompted, he punched in a credit card number — some dumb fuck’s stolen JCB card number — and entered the code to be connected to an English-speaking foreign woman under thirty years old. Nothing was as relaxing as hearing a foreign bitch tell him how badly she wanted to lick his balls and rub his sticky zamen on her cunt.

  “Hello, there,” a woman said. “I’m Cassidy.” Her breathy voice sounded like a teenager’s. A young Marilyn Monroe. This would be great. He cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear while he unzipped his trousers. “How can I make you feel good?” Cassidy asked.

  “You can suck my dick, taste my come.” He reached across his desk and slid a box of tissues closer.

  “You got it. Lie back. Close your eyes. Can you feel my tongue circling, exploring your—”

  The phone line went dead.

  Kuso! Shit. Had that bitch hung up on him? When he was spending as much money as he was on her services? Somebody’s money, anyway.

  He redialed the phone sex line. His cell phone didn’t connect to Cassidy’s erection-saving purr, but instead to the muffled voices of two men.

  Kuso! The fucking phone was always picking up somebody’s connection. He repeatedly poked the redial button, but he couldn’t get rid of the two guys. It was getting impossible to get a clear line in Tokyo. Too many cell phones, too much electronic noise in the air.

  He jumped from his chair. “Atta!” he shouted. “That’s it! Got you, you bitch.” He had found his way in.

  22

  Flue-gas desulfurization in Laos.

  Alison yawned, added the article to her list for Green Space’s website and pushed back from the computer. She flopped onto the living room sofa and turned on the TV.

  The Japanese newscasters’ noisy badinage blared through the room. Alison picked up the remote and switched sound bands. An English-language interpreter delivered the newscast in an efficient, but slightly stilted, manner.

  Japan’s governing body, the Diet, announced campaign reform. An agricultural trade mission from the U.S. would arrive next week. The police were widening their search for the missing English teacher from Canada, and the teacher’s school was offering a reward for information. Iranian workers camped out in Ueno Park were being deported for overstaying their visa.

  Alison stiffened as if she had been shocked by a live electrical wire. She sprang from the sofa, dashed into the bedroom, and dug out her passport from the nightstand drawer. The pages seem to stick together as she flipped through the pages looking for the entry permit into Japan. Shit. Her visa had expired two weeks earlier.

  How the hell could she have been so forgetful? Lawyers knew better than to miss deadlines. Was she losing her edge already?

  She’d been absorbed in her work for Green Space. And that online creep had been a major distraction. Kiyoshi had been a distraction, too. A good kind of distraction.

  But those Iranian workers had overstayed their visas, and now they were being deported. What would happen to her?

  Things in Japan weren’t exactly going the way she’d hoped, but she wasn’t ready to leave yet. Especially not because of some legal technicality.

  And she had to complete the research assignment for Yamada-san. Professional ethics dictated she finish the work she’d been paid
to do, work that her client was relying on her for. Or return the money. Except that Alison had already spent a huge chunk of her advance on that computer.

  Alison’s stomach felt heavy, as if she had eaten a lead ball. She was fucked. What to do?

  Charles would be able to help her. He would know how people dealt with overstaying their visa. Surely it wasn’t uncommon. Not such a big deal. She called Charles at his office.

  “Charles, it’s me.”

  “I’m really busy right now. Can this wait?”

  “I’m being deported!” Maybe overstating it a bit, but she needed to get Charles’ attention.

  “What?”

  “I mean, my visa’s expired, and I—”

  “You didn’t write the date on a calendar? Not a smart move.”

  “I thought I’d call the embassy, and—”

  “The embassy can’t help you. You’re going to have to go down to the immigration office, fall on your sword, beg for mercy. Did you get a re-entry permit stamp back in the States like I told you?”

  “I called the consulate in San Francisco, and they said that Americans don’t need visa stamps anymore. Just a passport.”

  “You don’t need a stamp, but if you have a re-entry permit, you can renew it and extend the time you can stay. You’re going to have to go to immigration.”

  The leaden weight in Alison’s stomach felt heavier, like gravity bearing down against escape velocity. Another hoop to jump through to justify her existence in Japan. “Will you go with me? I don’t know about the laws here, and you can speak Japanese.”

  Charles hesitated. “Look, I can’t get away from the floor. Besides everyone at immigration speaks English. Just explain to them what happened.”

  “Okay,” Alison said, disappointed that she was being left to fend for herself and that Charles didn’t seem too concerned. “They deported some Iranians. They won’t arrest me or deport me, will they?”

  Charles laughed. “No way. You’re an American. They won’t be booting you out.”

  “Are you sure you can’t get away to meet me there?” Alison hated the whining tone she heard in her own voice, but the image of the Iranian visa violators being hauled off by the police stuck in her head.

  “You’ll be fine. I promise. And I’ll take you out to dinner after, OK?”

  “All right,” Alison grumbled. Pouting didn’t become her, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “We can have some people over this weekend,” Charles said. “Nothing elaborate, just a little get-together. Take your mind off of this visa mess. What do you say?”

  Alison was still sulking over feeling abandoned in her time of need. “I don’t know, Charles. How many people are you talking about?”

  “Small. Around fifteen people.”

  “When do you want to have this soirée?”

  “What about Saturday? Short notice, but it’ll be casual, like an open house.”

  “Oh, all right, what the hell. But I don’t want everybody to be from your office. I want to invite some of my friends, too.”

  “But you don’t have any — I mean, sure, invite whoever you want. Gotta go. Talk to you tonight.”

  Alison hated the thought of having to entertain all of Charles’ work colleagues. If Charles wanted a party, she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to enjoy it, too. She’d invite everyone she knew in Tokyo. She’d invite Ms. Yamada. She’d even invite Jed. And why not invite Kiyoshi, she mused devilishly. Running through her own mental guest list made her feel better.

  She could straighten out her visa trouble tomorrow. And if she had any problems at immigration, she’d go to the American Embassy. They could help her. It wasn’t like she was a criminal or anything.

  23

  Alison woke up early and taxied to the immigration office in Otemachi. It was first thing in the morning, but already a United Nations of languages and peoples spilled out of the huge complex. Despite the wide variety of nationalities represented, everyone’s face wore the same expression. Worried concern tinged with fear.

  Alison maneuvered her way inside to an information counter staffed by an older Japanese man. His mouth looked pinched with the taste of impatience, as if he were barely able to endure the remaining days until his retirement.

  “Hello,” Alison began, “I need to speak to someone about a visa problem, and—”

  “Room 7,” the man snapped. He waved to summon the next person in line.

  Alison knew when she’d been dismissed. She moved to the side to consider the next step in the visa scavenger hunt. Room 7.

  She walked further into the lobby of the immigration office and saw a map. Room 7 was on the second floor, in the rear. She looked up the stairwell. A jumbled mass of people snaked along the hallway and crowded down the stairs.

  Was that her line, the line to room 7? Couldn’t be. Alison climbed up the steps, excusing herself as she pushed through the wall of waiting people.

  Halfway up the staircase, Alison spied a twenty-something-year-old woman wearing Birkenstock sandals. The navy-blue passport stuffed in the back pocket of the woman’s jeans was Alison’s beacon. Chin to chest, the woman was engrossed in a paperback wrapped in Kinokuniya’s signature paper.

  Alison approached her. “Excuse me, are you an American?” Asking the obvious.

  The young woman looked up and smiled broadly. “Born and bred!” A silver stud adorned her tongue.

  Alison appreciated the Haight-Ashbury chic. “I’m trying to renew my visa and they told me to get in this line,” Alison said. “Is this the right place?”

  The woman laughed. Her stud glinted in the light. “If you’re not here by eight o’clock, count on spending the day. Once I got here at nine and still didn’t get through. Had to come back the next day and start all over again. Japanese efficiency, neh?”

  “This is some kind of hell,” Alison moaned.

  “Hey, you want to get it done without coming back tomorrow, stand in line with me.” The woman tugged Alison’s sleeve and encouraged her to join the line. “I got here at a little after eight, so we should make it through.” The woman held up crossed fingers and smiled at Alison. Did that stud in her tongue hurt?

  Alison felt only a moment of guilt before cutting in the line to join her new friend.

  “I really appreciate this. By the way, I’m Alison. Alison Crane.”

  “Hey. Zoe Brown. Originally from Albuquerque, now on my third year in Ogikubo.”

  “Nice to meet you, Zoe. Looks like we’re going to be fast friends before the day is through.”

  Time crawled. A young Filipino woman stood behind Alison and Zoe. The woman carried an infant who wouldn’t stop wailing. Alison prayed for someone to produce a pacifier to shut the kid up. Or an aspirin to give her nerves some relief.

  The man in front of her lit up a cigarette, filling the already stuffy air with noxious tobacco fumes. Didn’t he see the “No Smoking” signs?

  Alison tapped the man on the shoulder. He turned his head and scowled. Pointing to the sign, Alison spoke slowly. “No smoking.” She was sure the guy understood her, but he clicked through his teeth and went back to his nicotine. Asshole. Alison hoped a sadistic bureaucrat would snatch the cigarette out of his mouth and send him to the back of the line. Would serve him right.

  Another hour dragged by, and the line barely inched forward. Alison felt sorry for the women whose small children were now fussy with boredom, hungry or had to go to the bathroom. Alison was all three. She stewed while the morning wore on.

  At the stroke of noon the visa processing came to a complete halt. Lunch time.

  Hundreds of anxious people had been standing, waiting for hours. No chairs, no break. Why couldn’t the immigration office come up with extra workers to keep the line moving during lunch?

  Alison tried to keep her temper in check. Charles had cautioned her to keep it together, be polite with the immigration officers no matter what. They held all the cards, controlled her fate. But she was getting hungr
y. And angry.

  “I’m going to grab something to eat,” Alison said to Zoe. “You want anything?”

  Zoe shook her head. “I’m cool. Brought some onigiri. Want one?”

  “Onigiri?”

  “Rice balls. I got a shrimp and mayo and one with fish eggs.”

  Alison was hungry, but the combination of shrimp, mayo and cigarette smoke sounded like a recipe for nausea. “Thanks, but I’ll see what I can find.”

  Zoe held Alison’s place in line while Alison foraged for grub at the vending machines on the first floor. Lunch selections ranged from hot canned coffee to something labeled Pocari Sweat. Alison didn’t even want to speculate as to what Pocari Sweat was. She dropped in coins and pressed the button for coffee. A delicious and nutritious meal.

  Back in line, Alison said, “I’m going nuts here. I would’ve brought something to read if I’d known it’d take all day.”

  “I’ve got another book,” Zoe said, reaching into her knapsack. “I haven’t started it yet, but it looks pretty good.”

  “Thanks,” Alison said. Embossed and gilded letters on the paperback’s cover promised an epic story of true romance. Not Alison’s usual reading material. She wished she had a Kinokuniya cover to hide the book jacket. Nevertheless, Alison was soon absorbed in the star-crossed exploits of the lowly but proud hero and the raven-haired patrician beauty. Anything to break the tedium.

  By 3:15, Alison was shifting from foot to foot like a prizefighter getting ready to enter the ring. Her nerves were a hot jangle and she vowed never to fuck up and end up in visa trouble again. “I’ve got to get some air, Zoe. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “Sure, OK. But don’t pull a disappearing act like that girl from Canada. You don’t want to miss your place when we get to the front of the line.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

  Zoe pointed down the stairs to the most recent arrivals in line who were dripping wet. “Looks like you’re gonna need an umbrella.” Zoe pulled a collapsible plastic umbrella out of her knapsack and handed it to Alison.

  “Thanks. You certainly came prepared.”