Vasili shook his head. That wasn’t it. He glanced back over at the bank of monitors. Those on the second floor were hazy, as if a cloud of smoke hung in the air. Then he saw it. There, on the club’s first floor.
“Is fire,” Vasili said.
Kameko looked up at him, wide-eyed.
“Hyperion is burning.”
Chapter Thirteen
Satoshi saw the elevator door open glacially, as time had slowed to a crawl with the Dextro-MXE. He saw the two men standing there, arms upraised. Realized there was only one reason for them to be standing like that.
Without thinking, he pushed Masa away to the far side of the elevator, using his body to spring towards the other side. He barely got out of the way in time. For in the next instant, he heard the bullets smashing into the glass of the elevator behind him.
When the glass gave way, he suddenly felt exposed, like he was standing at the edge of a giant cliff. A strong wind lashed him through the gaping hole now in the elevator, almost knocking him off-balance. As he recovered, he noticed the look of shock on Masa’s face. But before he could do anything else, Masa was off, diving out of the elevator and plunging through the heavy velvet curtains to the right.
Satoshi heard another volley of shots fired after him. According to his mental count, the shooters were nearly out. Well, one still had one bullet. But he could live with that.
He removed the shotgun from his back with one hand, caught it with the other, pumped it, and stepped into the elevator doorway in a single motion. One of the shooters had him covered while the other peered through the curtain looking for Masa.
He fired, noticing the other man’s eyes go wide before his shot caught him in the neck and upper chest. The man’s hand jerked when he was hit and his shot went wide. The other man looked up.
Pump.
Fire.
Now the swinging curtains beside them were tinged with crimson fluid.
Satoshi looked down. The cuffs he had placed on Masa were on the floor. Shit.
He looked up to see the second man he had just shot disappear, dragged under the curtain. His gun was still in hand, along with any other weapons he might have. Satoshi pumped and fired at the spot where the man’s blood trail led to. He was probably too late to hit Masa but figured he might get lucky with the shotgun’s spread.
That meant Masa could be on the other side of the curtains waiting for him. And now he was uncuffed and armed. Cursing his bad luck and stupidity, Satoshi screwed up his courage and quickly ducked behind the curtain with his shotgun leveled.
No Masa. Just the crumpled body of the shooter on the floor. The next curtain was swinging, so he figured Masa must have gone through. If memory served, there were five total curtains, which created four snakelike lanes for the clubbers to queue in while waiting to get to the ticket counter.
Steeling himself once more, he pumped his shotgun, then ducked through a gap in the curtain. Nobody. Wait. The same curtain was swaying further down. Masa must have backtracked.
Moving as quietly as possible, Satoshi ran to the other end and quickly ducked around the opening at the end of the aisle. Now the curtains to either side were swaying. With his shotgun still at the ready, he deftly removed a magazine from his jacket pocket and tossed it down the aisle. It landed with a clatter as he aimed the shotgun. A bullet tore out from behind the curtain. He fired directly at where it had come from.
He heard a muffled cry of pain. A hit. He ducked through to see a man he didn’t recognize, who definitely wasn’t Masa. Shit. Who else was here?
No time for that now. He ducked through the curtain again, then went around the next bend. Nobody. Trying to look up and down the aisle at the same time, he made his way to the next bend in the curtain. He was peering around it when he heard a gunshot, followed by splintering plaster as the bullet tore into the wall beside his head. He dove across to the next aisle, bringing his shotgun up as quickly as he could and aiming at where the shot had come from. But he heard nothing. He waited, glancing back the way he had come to make sure Masa wasn’t coming around that way.
He waited, trying to hear over his pounding heart and the rush of blood in his ears.
There. The curtain twitched. That didn’t make sense. Masa must have figured he’d still be here. Was this a trap?
As if to answer his question, the curtain swelled up where someone tried to run under it. Satoshi fired for the center of the bulge. He pumped the shotgun and fired again as the curtain began pulling back to reveal the figure.
It was Masa, carrying the dead man from before in front of him like a shield. Satoshi’s first shot had torn the dead man’s chest open, and the second one had blown his head apart like an overripe melon. Masa tore through into the next curtain, firing on Satoshi as he went. Luckily, carrying all that extra weight and firing while moving put his aim off. His shots went wide. When he disappeared behind the next curtain, Satoshi sprang to his feet and gave chase.
Then he stopped at the last curtain. Masa was already on the other side. As soon as Satoshi came out, he was probably going to start blasting away. There, at the end of the aisle. He picked up a cylindrical metal trash can with an ashtray in the top. This he tossed at the curtain at a point a few feet away. As soon as the curtain bulged out, a bullet dented the can. As quickly as possible, he leveled the shotgun and fired.
“Fuck!” Masa bellowed.
This was followed by the sound of sneakers screeching against the floor as Masa took off. Satoshi ran around the curtain. Masa was gone. But there was a trail of blood leading around to the staircase. The blood came in dribs and drabs of crimson that stood out on the black floor in little puddles. Nothing substantial, probably just a flesh wound.
He followed the trail of blood, entering the stairwell cautiously. The blood went down the winding staircase, and so Satoshi followed. He put his shotgun back in its back holster. The narrow space was too tight for such a large weapon. He drew a handgun and proceeded down.
The blood stopped halfway. Damn. Masa must have realized and plugged the leak.
As he carefully made his way down, Satoshi thought through his plan of attack. This staircase led out into the bar area, a square room with a square bar island set in the middle, and chairs, tables, and wall-mounted ledges for drinks around the side. The far corner opened into the lounge area, with two rows of booths with tables and seating to either side, beyond which was an open counter for a kitchen. To the right of the booths was a lounge with a small DJ stand and more seating. Not a great setup, considering it gave Masa plenty of places to hide.
Satoshi peered into the bar, then instantly ducked back. He didn’t see Masa, so he made a dive for the bar. He made it to the far side as a cluster of bottles exploded on the counter above him. He didn’t see where Masa was firing from, which gave Masa the advantage. Another bottle exploded on the bar a few feet down from him, as if to emphasize the point.
“Look at us, Satoshi. Two sides of the same coin, each one with a gun to the other’s head. It’s sad. How did we get here?”
“You killed Hisoka! And my unborn daughter!”
“Well, fair’s fair!” Masa shouted back.
Satoshi had to will himself to stay collected. Masa was trying to goad him into making a mistake. He had to remain calm.
His calm lasted until the first exploding bottle landed a few feet from him. The first thing he heard was breaking glass, followed by a whoosh as the flaming rag stuffed in the bottle as a wick ignited the alcohol. The flame spread to cover the liquid from the bottle seeping into the wooden floor, soon igniting the alcohol-soaked floor. The heat radiating off it was intense, and Satoshi crab-walked away from the flickering flames.
“I never wanted any of this, you know!” Masa shouted. “I’m only ending what you started! But I never wanted to go down this road. Not with you!”
Another bottle exploded on top of the bar. The flame instantly raced down the length of it, engulfing it in fire. Satoshi had to move fast; his position was quickly becom
ing untenable. Flaming chunks of booze-soaked glass dribbled off the bar in molten droplets that nearly singed him. And as soon as Masa landed one in the center of the island, where most of the liquor bottles were kept, the whole bar would go up in flames.
Moving quickly, Satoshi ran to the far wall. From this angle he couldn’t see the kitchen, where he suspected Masa was now. It was just as he was steeling himself to open himself up to take a shot that he saw it. He froze. Because as soon as he saw it, he knew. It was perfect.
He saw it in slow motion, a result of the Dextro-MXE.
It was a crystal-clear bottle of vodka, with a flaming rag sticking out from one end. It was turning end over end as it spun through the air, the liquid inside sloshing from one side to the next, catching the reflection of the flames as it moved.
It was beautiful.
Liquid fire spinning and dancing through the air.
Everything about it.
Just.
Perfect.
The momentum.
The arc.
The trajectory.
The flames.
Beautiful.
The bottle landed in the center of the island full of liquor bottles.
In the next instant the flames shot up as the bottle exploded against the others.
And suddenly Satoshi’s world was on fire.
Chapter Fourteen
The lock tech swung the door open on Mei’s order and then got the hell out of the way. She and Kentaro took the lead in entering the deserted bar, with the others in tow behind them. The five of them did a quick sweep of the downstairs. They checked the booths and the bar area in the center to make sure the place was empty. Better safe than shot in the back of the head.
Watanabe pointed upstairs through the ceiling. Mei listened and could hear faint shuffling noises upstairs. She nodded, but motioned for them to check the rear of the building first. She stationed Ina and Kato in front of the stairs and indicated that they were to wait before proceeding upstairs.
Then she and the other two checked the back area. The restrooms were empty, and the storage room in the back was likewise deserted.
“Clear,” she whispered to the others.
But it was as they began making their way back to the bar area that she heard shots being fired upstairs.
She cursed under her breath as she and the others began running towards the sound of the shooting.
“Let’s do it!” Kato whispered as soon as he saw Mei and the others disappear.
“You want to go up now?” Ina hissed.
“Fuck yeah! We can take them now, they’re not expecting us.”
Ina began nodding, with visions of commendations in his head. “Alright!”
They crept up the stairs. Kato peered around the corner, then gave the all-clear signal. They rounded the corner into the hallway, moving as quietly as they could. It was deathly silent. The hallway had two doorways open off to the right. They reached the first one, staying close to the wall to reduce the chance that a loose floorboard would give them away. There was only some slight creaking from the old wooden floor, but probably not enough to betray their position. Or so Kato thought. They held their guns in close against their bodies as they quickly turned the first corner.
The room contained stacks of liquor boxes around the outside. A ping-pong table stood in the center of the room, with a small kitchen off in one corner and an arcade game in another. But there were no people as far as they could see.
They moved down the hall to the next room. Ina took the lead this time, waiting just beyond the open door. He signaled to Kato, then turned into full view of the doorway with Kato right after him.
“Fre—”
That was as far as Ina got before a high-caliber bullet knocked the wind out of him through his armor. The second one took his head off and splattered it against the wall behind him.
Kato tried to pull back, but his momentum carried him forward into the doorway after Ina. He felt the wind knocked out of him before he heard the report from the weapon. Then a man was over top of him, smashing his face in with the side of a handgun. The next thing he knew, he was being dragged to his feet, with the oily gunmetal of the handgun’s barrel being forced into his mouth.
He struggled to breathe around it. He was already short of breath from the blast he had taken to his ribs and chest. The vest he was wearing had stopped it from killing him, but he felt like he had been hit head-on by a car.
“How many?” the man hissed at him.
Kato gagged on the gun barrel when he tried to talk. He held up three fingers. As he did, he looked into the room the man had just come from. It looked like a slaughterhouse inside. There were two other bodies that he could see, plus streaks of blood on the walls.
“Move! Downstairs!” the man said, shoving him forward.
Kato rounded the corner to see Mei and the others with their weapons aimed straight at them from the bottom of the stairs. The man holding Kato spat against the wall, then chuckled darkly to himself under his breath.
“Well, this day got interesting quick.”
“Drop your weapon!”
Mei shouted up at the man holding a gun to Kato’s head. She recognized him as Kaza from her file.
“Nope!” came his reply. “You drop yours!”
“There’s no way out of this for you,” Mei said. “The building is surrounded. Cops in every direction. There’s no escape.”
“We’ll see.”
“Ina?” Mei asked Kato.
“Shot.”
“Fuck,” Mei hissed. “What about—”
“What about you shut your mouth and move out of the way. We’re coming down.”
With that, the assailant pushed Kato ahead of him, following close behind. He stayed right behind Kato’s head so as to not give them a shot. Slowly, the three at the bottom of the stairs backed off. Kaza moved slowly and deliberately. When they got to the bottom, he began edging backwards towards the rear storage room.
“I’ll stay on him,” Mei said to Kentaro and Watanabe. “You two check upstairs. Make sure no one else is coming to surprise us.”
“You sure?” Kentaro said, never taking his eyes off Kaza and his hostage.
“Sure. I got this.”
He nodded, and the two of them began slowly ascending the stairs.
She followed after Kaza and Kato, keeping her weapon trained on him.
“There’s no way out of this for you,” she said again. “Your only way of surviving this is by putting down your weapon and coming with us peacefully.”
“Yeah … no. I wouldn’t last long in custody. I think I’ll try this my way. But thank you for your concern.”
“No problem,” Mei said.
He slowly shuffled his way back through the storage area to a door in the far wall. Mei followed as close as she could, while still taking cover where she could find it.
“Sniper two, stand by,” she said into her headset.
“Standing by.”
Kaza backed into the door, pushing it open with his hip. Checking both ways and finding the alleyway clear, he dragged Kato out into it. Mei closed the distance and caught the door with her elbow, then followed them out.
As she came out into the alley, her earpiece crackled to life.
“I’ve got a shot,” said the sniper. “Sometimes. When he moves his head far enough away from his hostage.”
“What about our guy?”
“It’s risky. And getting harder the farther he moves away.”
“Alright.”
“Alright, take the shot?”
“Hang on.”
“I’d decide soon. He’s moving out of safe range.”
“Let me think.”
“Do it quickly. The window is closing.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jun forced himself through the narrow duct. The air inside was stale and hot, as the air conditioning only ran when the club was crowded. Now the hot air packed in this metal tube smelled of stale
sweat mixed with the musty-sweet smell of old booze. Even for a professional like Jun, it was a lot to handle.
He had removed his shoes some ways back to make it easier to move without banging on the bottom of the vent. Now he was moving as carefully as possible, but it was hard to avoid making noise entirely. The vent he was in was taking him around the stage outside of Vasili’s office now. He could hear Chobei and his men talking as he crawled around. Which meant they would be able to hear him if he made any loud noises.
The wall here was thinner than the one in front of Vasili’s office (which was reinforced just for such eventualities). That meant that any bullets sent his way would probably punch through the wall into the vent, then into his body. He had to be as quiet as possible as he crawled through the confined space, which wasn’t easy. It was pitch-black inside, meaning he had to move by feeling his way along.
He would slide his hands along the sides of the shaft, then wedge them to either side to pull the rest of his body along behind him.
Slide. Wedge. Pull. Slide. Wedge. Pull.
It was a laboriously slow process. Or at least it felt that way to him. Because every minute he was in here was a minute that Chobei came closer to breaching the wall.
Slide. Wedge. Pull. Shit!
At one point, he pulled himself forward, only to feel the floor below him suddenly give way. He was left dangling half off the ledge of another shaft that intersected this one from below. He pushed both hands out to wedge himself in place. But the heat from the shaft was causing them to sweat, and he slipped. He caught himself on the far lip with both hands and hung there motionless.
He heard something outside. Shuffling feet as people approached. He could hear them moving around outside. Jun held his breath.
“What is it?” came a muffled voice.
Pause.
His muscles started burning from holding his body weight in that position.
“Nothing. Thought I heard something.”
Chobei screamed something, and he heard the pair shuffle away. He resumed breathing. His muscles were screaming now, and he struggled to pull himself back up into the horizontal shaft.
Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season Page 75