Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense

by Elizabeth Wilkerson

  As a precaution against any future legal entanglements or latex-gloved strip searches, Alison stopped to examine her passport’s new visa stamp. Everything looked good to go. She resolved to mark her visa expiration date on her calendar with a thick red circle. Nobody could call her a slow learner.

  She joined the fatigued travelers pushing luggage carts and toting suitcases while waiting in line to clear customs, the final checkpoint on their entry into Japan. The green sign hanging overhead read “Aliens with Nothing to Declare.”

  39

  Alison rummaged through her purse, examined every corner of her briefcase. Where were they? She was sure she’d packed them. What had she done with her house keys?

  She dug through the pockets of her overcoat yet again. She remembered having the keys in Hong Kong, remembered removing them from her evening bag because of their bulkiness and weight. After that, she wasn’t so clear.

  Could the person who broke into her hotel room have taken her house keys? Why would they want them?

  She took out her cell phone and called Charles’ number at the office.

  “Morgan Sachs.”

  “Charles Gordon, please. It’s Alison Crane.”

  “Gordon’s in Osaka. Hang on, I’ll transfer you.”

  A tinkling Casio keyboard rendition of “Greensleeves” played while Alison was on hold. What was with Japanese telephones and “Greensleeves”? And “Home on the Range”?

  “Morgan Sachs de gozaimasu,” a Japanese operator said.

  “Hello,” Alison ventured in English, “I’d like to speak to Charles Gordon.” Winning the arm-wrestle over the governing language for communication was the all-important first step.

  “Eh to — Gordon-san is not here.”

  “Do you know how I can reach him?”

  “Not here.”

  “Is there someone there who speaks English?”

  “Thank you very much.” The phone went dead.

  “Dammit! Dammit!”

  Alison pummeled her wheeling bag and slumped on the ledge of the front door step. All she wanted was to take a hot shower — no, a hot bath — and soak away all memory of prying fingers and exploring hands. Her abdomen contracted when she thought of the violation. Strip-searched. How demeaning. And now she was locked out of the damn house.

  Who could she call to help her? Charles wasn’t reachable, but she could try Yamada. She had the number at Green Space, and she needed to tell Yamada about her bungled disk delivery job.

  Alison was certain to impress Yamada. In all the wrong ways. She imagined the call. Hello, Yamada-san, this is Alison Crane. I’m locked out of my house. Can you help me? And by the way, you remember that disk you entrusted me to deliver to your office in Hong Kong? Well, I have no idea where it is. It was guaranteed to be an awkward conversation, but Alison was out of options.

  She dialed Green Space and heard the same exasperating answering-machine message. What the hell were they saying? In a flash of brilliance, Alison called the English information line and asked them to try the Green Space number for her. They could get through and translate the answering machine message.

  Alison waited on the line while the operator called Green Space.

  “Ma’am,” the operator said. “The number you gave me, are you sure you have the correct phone number?”

  “Yes, I’m quite sure.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” the operator hesitated, “but the phone number has been disconnected. That is what the message on the recording said.”

  Disconnected? How could the Green Space number be disconnected? Alison still owed Yamada a lot of research work. Or she owed Yamada a lot of money for work not performed. What had started out as an extraordinarily shitty day was now taking a turn for the absurd.

  If the Green Space phones weren’t working, the only way Alison could reach Yamada would be to swing by their office. Their heavily guarded office. Alison wouldn’t be surprised if they took their phones offline because of some nutcase threat. She’d follow up in the morning, after she’d had a chance to take a hot bath and things returned to normal.

  “Thank you for trying, operator.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  “Oh, operator!” Alison had another flash of inspiration. Or inspired desperation. “I have a bit of a problem. I got locked out of my house. Do you have a number for a locksmith?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I can call a lock company for you. What is your address?” Alison told the operator her ku, her block number and the lot number on the block in Nishi-Azabu. If only Japanese houses had real addresses like in the States. Definitely an idea worth importing.

  “And your name, ma’am?” Alison told her, and the operator placed her back on hold.

  The cement step she was sitting on felt like a block of ice. Alison’s butt was going numb waiting for the operator to get back to her. Was Tokyo already so deep into winter, or was it just that she had gotten used to the gentler climate of Hong Kong?

  She drifted back to thoughts about hot water, a hotter tub, and lavender verbena bath salts. She’d managed to “borrow” a few packets. Souvenirs. Kiyoshi had enjoyed their shared morning bath as much as she had. Maybe more. She’d made sure of it.

  The operator’s voice whiplashed Alison back to bone-chilling reality. “I’m sorry, ma’am. The lock company said that your name is not on the police registry. They are not allowed to replace the locks. Perhaps you could call a—”

  “Thank you, operator. I’ll figure something out.”

  The rules, the endless rules. When would she ever learn the interminable rules of life in Japan? Point her chopsticks to the left, not the right. Turn her shoes to face the door when she stepped up from a genkan. Wear slippers inside but take them off before walking onto a tatami mat. Don’t pour her own sake, wait for someone to do it for her.

  Kiyoshi had dutifully kept her champagne flute filled. Alison had assumed he was trying to nudge her toward the tipsy side of good judgment, but maybe he was just being polite, in keeping with Japanese custom. Perhaps the Japanese strictures didn’t stem from robotic compliance with random rules, but rather an acknowledgment of basic courtesy.

  It was obvious who she should call. Alison dialed Kiyoshi and waited. With each passing second of ringing, her hope of finding Kiyoshi waned and then died along with her cell phone battery.

  Kiyoshi wasn’t answering. Charles was unreachable. Her cell phone was out of juice, and her ass was anesthetized from the frigid steps.

  The rule-bound lock company wouldn’t change the bolt on the house, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t get in. There was always the utility room door in the backyard. Alison slapped her legs to get the blood flowing, stored away her computer, and wheeled her bag to the side of the house.

  A dense thicket of towering bamboo blocked entrance to the backyard from the street. The grove had looked like a picturesque landscaping feature, a nod to the location of an ultra-contemporary Western house incongruously sited in Asia. But now the gargantuan grass was the enemy that denied Alison entry.

  She fought through the bamboo, sidling between stems that grabbed her pantyhose and scratched her skin. Emerging from the grove, she examined her now bedraggled power suit. Finding a new interview outfit would be a challenge in Tokyo, where the clothing wasn’t cut to accommodate her long arms, long legs and Black girl butt.

  The setting sun and the falling temperature reminded her that she had more immediate concerns than worrying about her wardrobe. She needed to get into the house.

  The backyard, a poured concrete deck edged with maple saplings staked to poles, offered no comforting nature energy, no welcoming urban sanctuary. But even this sterile patch of artificial outdoorsiness could provide the equipment she needed. A rock. If she wanted to get home, she’d have to break in.

  Alison searched around the artfully stamped and acid-stained terrace, but came up empty-handed. Whoever heard of a backyard without a rock? She could find one if she raided a neighbor’s yar
d. But if they spied her snooping in their bushes, they might call the cops. And she’d had more than her fill of dealing with cops.

  Alison studied the house’s exterior and saw the mission-critical problem with her comic-book heroine plan to smash through the utility room’s window with a rock and scramble through the opening. The door was windowless.

  She twisted the knob and yanked. The mechanism didn’t yield. The solid door was locked tight as a bank vault. She wasn’t Wonder Woman, and she wasn’t getting in.

  Alison tromped back through the bamboo, stood at the front door and pondered her options. If the alternatives were spending her own money to check into a hotel or sitting in the dark as night fell hard around her, she could do it. She had no choice.

  Alison kicked off her shoe — her favorite lawyer dress-up Ferragamo pump — and examined its heel. A rock would definitely do the trick, but an Italian shoe? She hoped so.

  Grabbing the shoe by its vamp and closing her eyes, Alison swung hard, aiming for the middle of front door’s windowpane. The glass didn’t break, but the heel of her pump did. Shit. Since she would be going to the cobbler anyway, no harm in trying again with the other shoe.

  She stepped out of the pump and immediately realized her error. She didn’t have proper grounding to swing the bat the first time. Yoga class 101. Solid grounding with the earth and proper breathing equals power. This time it would work.

  Alison inhaled sharply feeling the connection of her pantyhosed feet on the cold steps. On a powerful exhale, she batted at the window with her remaining shoe. The pump bounced off the window intact. Those Italians knew how to make some sturdy footwear.

  Barefoot and shivering, Alison reassessed her situation. Charles was MIA. Kiyoshi was who-knows-where. And the locksmith was not inclined to do her any special favors. Smashing through the window had seemed like the best course of action, but with no rock and no more shoes, she was at a loss. And the evidence had established that she was no Wonder Woman.

  Alison rummaged through her suitcase for something with enough heft to break the glass. Lightweight travel clothes and hotel bath salts weren’t going to cut it. She eyed her computer case. No way was she going to use her precious Mac as a battering ram. But maybe there was some other part she could sacrifice.

  Alison opened the case and took out the computer’s power adapter. A mini electronic brick, the device was small enough for her to get a good grip yet weighty enough to mean business. She might be able to lob it through the window. And if its delicate electronics broke into pieces on impact, she could always ask Jed to get a replacement.

  Holding the power adapter with its dangling cord, she remembered a TV show on NHK about Olympic athletes preparing for competition in the hammer throw. The national Japanese network’s programming could be dry viewing, but since they often simulcast in English, it was Alison’s most-watched channel.

  The hammer throw competitors had swung a big rock attached to a wire over their heads, lasso style, circling with increasing momentum before releasing the rock and hurling it into the distance.

  Alison unwound the scarf from her neck. Silk fibers were supposed to be strong, and the scarf looked long enough. It was a crazy idea, but she was desperate. And no one was watching on her quiet residential street. It was worth a try.

  She shrugged off her battle-scarred jacket, stretched her scarf out on the step and placed the power adapter on top. Right over left, left over right. Alison drew on knot lore acquired at summer camp to cinch one end of the scarf tight around the adapter.

  Clutching the tail end of the scarf in both hands, she took a deep grounding breath before whipping her improvised hammer throw weight over her head. Around and around, the lassoed mass gained centrifugal force. Alison envisioned the pig-faced Customs woman who had invaded every inch of her personal space, and on the count of three, directed her payload toward the window.

  The glass, designed to be earthquake-safe, shattered into tiny, harmless cubes. Alison reached through the smashed window and unlocked the door. Wonder Woman would approve.

  She toted her belongings inside and hung the travel burglar alarm on the doorknob. At least she’d have an early warning if someone tried to surprise her. An early warning, and then what? She’d think about that later. Charles could get the window repaired. Once he reappeared.

  Dropping her ruined pumps in the genkan, Alison stepped into slippers. It had only been a few days, but her own living room felt as unfamiliar and impersonal as a hotel room. Colorless, utilitarian, lacking in coziness. Vestiges of her fight with Charles hung thick in the air and pulled her back to the unresolved state of affairs. But he was absent now. And she had something to look forward to.

  Alison opened her suitcase and removed the plastic laundry bag from the Regent Hotel. The loot she had scored at Happy Camera and deposited in the bag was waiting for her.

  A prickle of paranoia made her glance at the closed blinds. Of course nobody was watching her, but still she felt on display. There was nothing flagrantly illegal — she hoped — about the goods she’d purchased in Hong Kong. But unloading her spoils in the private study would feel more comfortable.

  Alison carried the bag to the secluded office and switched on the desk’s reading light. The room was dark except for the pool of illumination spotlighting her gear.

  Like a child on the afternoon of a bountiful Christmas morning, she reexamined her haul. The little Tracer box had a reassuring bulk and metallic hardness. She enjoyed the quaintness of the rubber bands binding her stacks of unlabeled floppy disks. No instruction manual needed, the guy had said. He better be right.

  Alison positioned her laptop on the desk. Her new supplies offered power, control, admittance to a cordoned-off community. She was kitted out with equipment that was possibly illicit, or at least of curious origin. Who cared? Whatever it took to reclaim her life, her own space, her own thoughts.

  She’d begin with hooking up the Tracer box. The instructions for the Tracer were minimal. Alison mulled over references to SCSI chains and external terminators. What were they talking about? The instructions assumed that the user knew what he — she — was doing. An erroneous assumption. She hoped that the simplest way to hook up the box would be the right way. It was her only way.

  Holding the cable that came with the Tracer, Alison poked around the ports in the back of her computer, looking for a match. The cable only fit snugly in one hole. Thank God for idiot-proof design. Alison connected the Tracer box’s power cord to an electrical outlet. She was off to a good start.

  Installing the PeepHole software on her computer was easy and uneventful. Bolstered by her success, Alison picked up the FireAx program designed to give her protection from snoops trying to break into her computer. Or enable her to nose around in their system, Alison remembered.

  She removed the rubber bands from the stack of FireAx disks and, one by one, copied the contents onto her hard drive. Some of the disks loaded up easily, while others got spit out by her computer. Quality control, where’s the quality control? Alison tried installing the last floppy three times before her computer would accept the disk. The entire operation took her nearly forty minutes. A slow start, but a successful install. A smile spread across her face. She was back in the game and ready to rock.

  Alison booted up the new software and flipped on the Tracer box. Nothing happened. She slapped her forehead. Wake up, Crane! Of course nothing was happening. She wasn’t online.

  She logged onto World NetLink. No mail was waiting for her. The little red light on the Tracer box didn’t flash on. FireAx wasn’t spitting out reports of attempted system break-ins.

  She didn’t know for sure what she had bought at Happy Camera. In her eagerness to fortify her defenses against the cyber freak, had she been rooked? A gullible tourist who’d been sold crap? Maybe so. Caveat emptor.

  But until someone came at her online, she couldn’t be certain that her gear was legit, so to speak. She’d have to make herself vulnerable to at
tack. Only then she could test just how powerful the software was, if the Tracer device was advanced microcircuitry or merely a box of wires.

  Alison didn’t relish the thought of hanging around online, waiting for someone to stroll by and try to break into her system. Not her idea of fun.

  But it might hasten things along if she were to hold herself out as bait. She could test PeepHole by going to one of the more lively chat areas and getting approached.

  Alison knew which chat areas got the biggest play — the seamier chat rooms. It felt kind of sleazy hanging out in an Adults-Only chat, but she wanted to know if the software worked. Maybe even the cyberjerk himself would make an appearance. She’d have to try.

  TokyoAli logged out of World NetLink, and Alison created a new screen name for herself, just for the occasion, and logged back on. Tokyo Ali was now PartyAnimal. In her new persona, Alison cruised over to the Adults-Only section.

  Checking out the active rooms, she decided to enter the “Looking for Love” chat area.

  Alison was online only a minute before she got a direct message from KimDwong.

  “Hello, PartyAnimal. MOF?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Are you male or female?”

  “Female.”

  “Do you cyber?”

  “Yeah, sure.” What the hell was he talking about?

  “Let’s do it!”

  Alison hit the “OK” button and joined KimDwong in a private chat room. How long would she have to have a connection for the software to work?

  “Tell me what you look like, Miss Animal.”

  “I’m five foot seven, I have long blond hair down to my curvaceous hips, and I’ve got huge tits like watermelons.”

  “You sound hot. I’m getting hard.”

  Yuck. How long did she have to keep this up?