She was a trained professional with an analytic lawyer’s mind. It was time to be logical, systematic. Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.
On the first floor, two units. One had the evening laundry out. Looking at the frilly clothes hanging up, Alison decided a woman lived there. The other ground-floor apartment was dark. Maybe her guy? She couldn’t definitively rule it out.
Alison tiptoed up the stairs to check out the two units on the second floor. In one unit she heard a television show with an overly cheery host and maniacal laughter from a studio audience. She also heard a baby crying. Probably not her guy’s place. Her guy wouldn’t be anybody’s idea of Father of the Year. She moved on to the other upstairs unit.
The second unit had a sign on the door that Alison couldn’t read, but two names seemed to be listed. A couple? Joe Sato and Mary Sato? A stack of three dirty ramen bowls were piled outside the door waiting for pick up from the restaurant that had delivered the food. Three bowls meant three people. Alison’s gut feeling told her that her friend lived alone. He certainly wasn’t one-half of any couple. Pass. Must be an apartment on the first floor.
Alison crept back down the stairs, aware of the fact that Fairfax and his entourage would be arriving momentarily. She’d better pick up the pace of her surveillance lest the embassy squad catch her in the act of snooping.
Only one unit remained unexamined. The dark apartment on the ground floor. There were no telltale signs giving her a clue as to who lived inside. The unit felt anonymous, generic, unremarkable. Process of elimination. This would have to be it, she deduced.
No lights on, no sound, no movement. It looked like nobody was home. She’d take a glance to see how the guy lived, observe the beast’s native habitat. Just a quick look, and then she’d retreat to her hiding spot under the stairs and wait for Fairfax.
She inched up to the apartment window and peeked in. The blinds were shut but angled in such a way as to give her a partial view. Alison couldn’t detect anything inside other than a gray-blue light emanating from a far corner. A television?
She positioned herself at another vantage point. Peering through the blinds, she could make out two computer monitors. The electric glow of the monitors silhouetted a person sitting in front of the screens. Daremo.
So there he was in his lair. Seated in front of a computer screen, head profiled against the light of the monitor. The very position where he regularly tormented and teased her.
Alison had expected to feel rage at seeing the freak, to feel a rush of righteous anger unleashed. Instead, she observed him with the clinical detachment of a pathologist. He had no idea what was coming, that his minutes as a free man were dwindling. But Alison knew, and the knowledge soothed her.
Daremo — Sogo — would soon be arrested. Exposed, uncloaked and naked. His torturing of her would stop. And she’d know that she was the one responsible for bringing him down. Rough justice.
Alison turned and began retreating to her lookout under the stairs when Sogo’s door blasted open. Hands clamped down on her arm and yanked her inside the apartment.
51
“Let go of me!” Alison fought to wrench her arm out of Sogo’s grasp. He twisted her arm in its socket and dragged her inside his apartment.
Thrashing in protest, Alison banged her left knee against the door jamb. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer, and she barely noticed the pain splintering through her leg.
How could she escape from the clutches of this madman? “Help! Somebody, help me!” Would anyone hear her cries? If they did, would they understand English? Most importantly, would they bother to come to her aid?
Sogo booted the door shut and hauled Alison up the step of the genkan entry and into his flat.
Immobilizing Alison’s arms, he used his shoulder to switch on an overhead fluorescent light.
For a hellish eternity, he’d been a stalker without a face. But now Alison saw him. Deep-set eyes, long straight nose. Surprisingly good-looking. For a nutjob. And that face was familiar. The recollection crashed into Alison’s awareness.
“I remember you, you pervert! You were at my party!” Alison tried to break free from Sogo’s vise-like grip. “Help me! Somebody call the police!”
“Shut up. No one can hear you,” Sogo said. “And you’re hurting my ears.”
Alison studied the walls and ceiling of the apartment and saw that they were lined with thick corrugated foam tiles. Hollering for help wasn’t going to do her any good.
Sogo bent down and pulled coaxial cables from an open storage bin. He wrapped the cables around Alison’s wrists and knotted the cords taut.
Alison kicked the Sysop. The thick sole of her winter shoe made a solid hit to his shin. He scowled, and pushed her so hard that she fell to the ground. Before she had a chance to sit up, he’d tied her ankles with another coax cable. Alison struggled, trying to loosen the restraints, but she was bound up tight as a calf at a rodeo.
Her best-laid plans had gone way, way awry. All she’d wanted was to take a quick peek inside Sogo’s apartment before the embassy arrived. Now, as a nosy trespasser who’d been outed, she’d landed herself in the makings of an International Incident.
What did Sogo’s twisted mind have in store for her? Looking at her bound limbs, she knew she needed an escape plan. Alison was no Houdini, but she remembered a lesson she’d learned at law school: When in doubt, keep talking.
“I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing, but the cops know all about you. They’re on their way over here. Right now. You better let me go.”
Sogo sniggered. “Really? I’m sure they’ll want to know why you were spying on me.” He chuckled as he unclipped the strap on Alison’s shoulder and set her computer case on a table.
“Me spying on you? Are you kidding me? You’re a fucking electronic Peeping Tom.” Alison rolled to her side and pushed up on her elbow until she was sitting.
“You gaijin think you’re so clever. My security camera recorded you hanging around outside my door.”
Alison jerked at the cables. “Untie me. It’ll look better for you when the cops get here if you aren’t holding me captive.”
Sogo grabbed Alison’s arms. “Get up.” He hoisted her to her feet. Keeping a firm grip on her combative hands, he reached out and stroked Alison’s hair. She jerked her head away from his touch, but he grabbed a handful of her curls and yanked her toward him, crushing her against his chest.
Sogo buried his face in Alison’s hair and inhaled. “Coconut. Nice. I like this hair. Unusual color. Even for a foreign bitch.”
His fingers inched inside Alison’s pants and flirted with the skin of her pelvis. Alison squirmed at his groping. “Is your hair down here the same color? The same as your head?” Sogo said. “I want to see. Take off your pants.”
“No!” The word shot from Alison’s mouth like a spew of vomit. She didn’t have an exit plan, didn’t know how to escape, but there was no way she was going to strip off her clothes for this freak.
“You don’t understand,” Sogo said. “I’m in charge here.” He stepped away from Alison, reached under his shirt and brandished a handgun. “Take off your pants. Now.” He nudged down Alison’s waistband with the gun’s muzzle.
Alison’s breath caught in her throat. Blood pounded in her temples. Kiyoshi was right. The guy was unhinged. And now he was armed. And rapidly proving himself to be dangerous. Not to mention stupid, concealing his gun with an inside-the-waistband carry. If there were bullets in the chamber, he could shoot his own dick off carrying that way. It would serve him right.
Maybe there weren’t any bullets. Sogo probably didn’t plan to shoot her. Just scare her. He’d certainly accomplished the latter. But Alison didn’t want to further antagonize him. She’d have to cooperate if she wanted to survive until the embassy arrived. Where were they? Had they gotten lost?
“I can’t take off my pants like this.” Alison held up her arms. Sogo pointed the gun at her while he untied the cables with one hand. She
kicked off her shoes, slid out of her pants and faced the guy.
“Now your coat and sweater,” he said. Alison did as she was told. Shivering in her bra and underpants, she folded her arms across her chest. Alison ground her teeth as Sogo’s eyes crawled over her body.
“Come here!” Sogo gestured with his gun. Alison shuffled forward. “More.” She moved closer. His body odor reeked of mildew and bay leaves. Where the hell was the embassy?
Sogo spun Alison around so that her back pressed against his chest. His warm breath tickled Alison’s neck. He held the gun to her stomach while he caressed the curve of her breasts. Creeping fingers slipped under her bra and rolled her nipple.
“Stop it!” Alison tried to break away but Sogo jabbed the gun barrel into her ribs. Molten tears of fear and anger threatened to flood down Alison’s cheeks. She closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath. There had to be something she could do, some way to wake up from the nightmare. “Stop it,” she said. “Please.”
“We’re not finished, yet,” Sogo said. “We haven’t even started.”
Stripped down to her underwear, Alison stood trembling — whether from the cold or from the fright of being held at gunpoint, she didn’t know. Probably both.
Sogo snatched a microphone from a table loaded with computer parts. He also picked up something that looked like a purple banana. On closer observation, Alison realized that the banana was a dildo. What the hell was going on?
He brought the gear to Alison. “This will be really easy. I want you to play with yourself. Pretend I’m your boyfriend. Tell me how good it feels.” He extended the dildo for Alison to take.
“I’m not touching that thing.” Alison’s upper lip curled in disgust. Who knew where that dildo had been? What crevices — whose crevices — the sex toy had explored?
“Take it!” Sogo thrust the dildo at her and dragged it across her lips. Alison wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, but Sogo poked her with his gun. She took the dildo and held it at arm’s length, dangling it from two fingers as if it were a dead rat.
“I heard you, TokyoAli. I saw you. You and your boyfriend fucking,” Sogo said. Alison couldn’t help but notice the bulge in his pants. “You like it rough,” he said. “I like it rough, too. We have a lot in common.” His teeth gleamed in a lustful grin.
“We have nothing in common,” Alison said. “You’re a goddamn freak.”
Sogo’s eyes flared in rage. Alison swallowed dry saliva. It could be suicidal to provoke an unstable psychopath. Especially an armed, unstable psychopath.
The anger washed away from his face as quickly as it had appeared, and he seemed back in control of himself.
“I’m going to record you now.” He pressed a button on a shoebox-sized machine and held the mic up to Alison’s mouth. The gun remained leveled at her chest. “Play with your pussy, make yourself come. I heard your orgasm, that scream.” His gaze drifted far, focusing on a horizon only he could see. “I have to record it. That scream.”
What an idiot she’d been to deliver herself to Sogo’s front door, to get ensnared in his perverse game of abuse and degradation. He had a gun. She had nothing. But if she wanted to get out alive, she’d better think of something. Fast.
Her hope that the embassy would show up and save her faded. They were noticeably, tragically, absent. She’d given Fairfax Sogo’s address — all the same information she’d gotten from Jed.
Jed! That was it! That was the plan. A Hail Mary of a long-shot plan, but it just might work. And it just might keep her alive. If she could play it right.
Alison raised her hands in surrender and forced a laugh. “Hey, I came here to meet you, face-to-face. You don’t need that gun.”
Sogo wagged the microphone in Alison’s face. “I’m recording,” he said.
She tried to take a deep breath, but terror gripped her rib cage. Her breathing shortened and stuttered. This was no time for stage fright. The show must go on. And she had to give the performance of a lifetime. Her life might depend on it.
Alison tilted her head and made an effort to smile. “I was thinking about you—” She ran her tongue around her lips.
“So I wrote you a little message.” Alison dragged the dildo along the inside of her thigh. “I’d wanted to share it with you online—” Her hips swayed in seductive figure eights.
“But I can read it to you now.”
Sogo’s gaze followed her fingers, which were stroking between her legs.
Eyes half-closed, Alison purred with pleasure. “I’ll read you the message,” she said. “It’ll make me come, and I’ll scream. Loud. The way you like it.” She traced the sex toy along her throat. “I just need my computer. The message is on it.”
Sogo blinked. He looked at his gun and back at Alison. And blinked again. He lowered the microphone.
Holding Alison at gunpoint, he marched her to the table, unzipped her computer case and booted up her Mac. “Read it,” he said.
Alison’s computer waited dumbly for her to do something. Do something. Do anything!
“The message is on World NetLink,” she said. “I need to connect my modem—”
He poked her with his gun. “You think I’m stupid?”
Alison’s heart hammered in her stomach. She hoped he wasn’t so stupid that he was jabbing her with a loaded gun. She took a breath. On with the show.
She pulled down the waistband of her underpants and massaged the dildo across her labia. She had no concern about the germs. Germs wouldn’t matter if she was dead.
“I’m getting wet. Let me get online to read you the message. I’ll scream. Good and loud.”
His pinched brow registered his internal confusion, the quick mental calculations of what he should do.
Sogo thrust a cable into the back of her computer, punched in a phone number and nodded.
Alison smiled. “Give me a minute,” she said.
Logging on to World NetLink, she browsed for the message she had prepared for Sogo. Earlier at her house, when she had the opportunity to send it, conscience-stricken, she had hesitated. But this time there was no delay. She pulled up the message and hit the Send button. The message was signed, sealed and instantaneously delivered.
In the corner of the apartment, a computer monitor beeped and flashed that he had mail. Then another monitor squawked and flickered. The computers announced, “You’ve got mail! You’ve got mail! You’ve got mail!” like a scratched record caught in a skip. The email poured in.
Sogo dashed to his computer and entered commands, but the keyboard was stuck. No commands went through. He tried another keyboard. No response. One of his monitors shut down while another computer announced mail. And more mail. An endless torrent of mail. He set his gun down and pounded out keyboard commands to defend against the attack on his network.
“A little mailbomb just for you, asshole! Kaboom!”
Alison couldn’t wait for the embassy. She had to take a chance — maybe her only chance — now. While Sogo hammered at the keyboard, she lunged for his gun. Sogo careened around and glared at Alison who was now holding the pistol on him. One finger on the trigger, the other hand steadying her aim, Alison sighted down the barrel.
“Konoyaro!” Sogo charged toward her.
Alison squeezed the trigger.
A bullet zinged over Sogo’s shoulder and lodged in the heart of one of the server computers.
She squeezed the trigger again. Sogo fell to his knees.
She squeezed again. And again.
The bank of server computers exploded in a tangle of twisted metal and broken shards of plastic.
She fired until there were no more bullets.
“Put the gun down,” said a man’s voice behind her.
Alison wheeled around. In the doorway to Sogo’s apartment stood Kiyoshi. He wielded a pocket knife.
“Are you all right, Alison?”
“What are you doing here?”
Kiyoshi knelt down to examine Sogo’s prone body on the tata
mi mat floor. After a quick inspection, Kiyoshi stood up and kicked Sogo’s leg. Sogo grunted and turned his back to Kiyoshi.
“You’ve got to get out of here, Alison. I’ll talk to you later, but you need to go.” He gathered up Alison’s clothes and handed them to her. “And give me that.” He reached out for the gun she was still holding. Alison surrendered the weapon, took her clothes from Kiyoshi and quickly dressed.
Curled up in a fetal position, Sogo lay moaning on the floor. Kiyoshi growled at him, and Sogo immediately was silent.
Alison zipped up her computer case. “Kiyoshi, what’s going on? Are you—”
“Not now. I’ll take care of things here, but you’ve got to go.”
Charles had fed her a steady diet of lies and deceit. Sogo had toyed with her like she was his marionette. And now, Kiyoshi, a person she trusted, was not the person she thought she knew. She was tired of playing the dupe, and she wasn’t budging, not without some answers.
Alison closed in on Kiyoshi, stopping when her nose was inches away from his. With hands on her hips, she stood planted.
“Who the hell are you, Kiyoshi? Tell me. Tell me the truth.”
She heard distant sirens, the two-tone whine, which made her think of air-raid warnings in old war movies.
Kiyoshi’s eyes glanced toward the apartment door. “There’s no time. They’re on their way and you don’t want to be here when they arrive. I’ll explain later, but you’ve got to go. Please.”
Alison locked Kiyoshi in her gaze. Lines of worried tension ringed his eyes. She was livid that Kiyoshi had misrepresented who he was, but something in her still wanted to trust those velvet brown eyes that looked at her with such tenderness. And Kiyoshi was right. She didn’t need to be present center stage when the embassy arrived.
With a final glance at Kiyoshi, she hitched her computer case up on her shoulder and raced out the door toward the main thoroughfare. The sound of sirens grew louder. Alison flattened herself against the wall bordering the narrow street as two vehicles sped by.
The cars stopped at Sogo’s flat and a crew of uniformed Japanese police got out. Kiyoshi met the men outside Sogo’s apartment and exchanged words. The officers bowed to Kiyoshi then stormed inside the door.
Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense Page 29