“Chief?”
The dark lenses looked up. Yuuki put both hands on the desk and leaned in close.
“I’ve got a scoop.”
“On what?”
As Todoroki glared at him, Yuuki silently pleaded that the local news chief wouldn’t kill it this time.
“The cause of the crash.”
Behind the lenses, Todoroki’s eyes widened.
“Is it a sure thing?”
“Pretty much. I’m just waiting for corroboration.”
Todoroki turned to look at the wall clock.
“Will it be late?”
“Probably.”
“What do you plan to do?”
“I want the deadline extended an hour to one a.m. And if we don’t make that, then another half an hour. That’s what I told them up at the crash site.”
He’d worded it so that Todoroki was free to make the call. His boss folded his arms.
“One thirty—so you’re going to have two proofs ready.”
Yuuki nodded. The first galley proofs would be made with the Nodai Niko High School story as the lead, and they would go to press. The pages would be collated and loaded into the delivery vans. This had to be done, otherwise there would be substantial delays in the deliveries to remote locations. This was all going to happen right after midnight. But the moment he heard from Sayama, the printing press would be halted. The front-page galley proof would be replaced by a new one headed CAUSE OF CRASH RUPTURED BULKHEAD, and the rest of the copies would be printed. It all depended on what time Sayama called, but it was probable that only about thirty percent of the prefecture would receive the second edition with the scoop headline. If the call came really close to half past one, then only Maebashi City would get the second edition. If they were lucky, maybe some of Takasaki, too.
That was the problem.
“But if the second edition doesn’t make it to Fujioka or Tano, then there isn’t really much point in the scoop,” Yuuki pointed out.
“That’s true. But if the delivery van going to Fujioka and Tano is the last to leave—if the copies come off the press at two a.m. and they use the Kan-Etsu Expressway—they can be up in Uenomura in two hours. The papers would be with the newsdealers by four.”
“I think it’d be worth doing.”
“Circulation will be furious.”
The plan was exactly what Yuuki was hoping for. His expression communicated as much to Todoroki.
There was a moment of silence.
“Okay, then. Deadline’s one thirty,” said Todoroki briskly. “Just one thing: the first edition goes to print at twelve fifteen. The scoop goes out to Maebashi, Fujioka, and Tano only.”
Yuuki had no objection.
“And you’re going to need to detain the Fujioka and Tano van.”
“I’ll use the old-fashioned method.”
“You mean…?”
“Yep.”
“It’s a whole new era now.”
“I can’t think of any other way of doing it.”
Yuuki turned and left. He’d gone only a few paces before Todoroki’s voice stopped him.
“Yuuki!”
He turned only his head.
“Have you spoken to Kasuya and Oimura about this?”
“No.”
The eyes shifted slightly behind their lenses. Yuuki knew that now he’d paid back the debt from earlier in the day.
Time to banish idle thoughts and focus everything he had on getting that scoop.
32
It was 11:30 p.m.
The newsroom was eerily quiet. Everyone was sitting, waiting for a single telephone call to come in, with Yuuki right there at the center of it all.
The date was about to change. Lots of nervous eyes turned to watch the wall clock and, just at that moment, Yuuki’s desk phone rang.
The tense voice came over the phone.
“Tamaki here.”
“Did he get into the inn?”
“Yes. He managed to slip in through the side door.”
“The investigators?”
“Still in a meeting.”
“Got it. Go back to the hill. Watch them for another fifteen minutes, then call me again.”
“Okay.”
The public phone was fifteen minutes’ round-trip from the inn, so the next call would come at half past midnight. Of course, if Sayama came rushing out of the inn before that time, there would be no need for Tamaki to check in.
“Sayama’s inside the inn,” Yuuki told Kishi. In the total silence of the newsroom, his words carried all the way to the copy team’s island. It caused a small commotion, and Kamejima pumped his fist in the air.
The door opened and Yoshii came running in. He’d been down to the Production Department on the first floor. His cheeks were bright red from the exertion, which made his face look even more boyish than usual. He was clutching the rolled-up proofs of the front page.
They spread the mock-up of the second edition out on the desk. Usually they’d run off ten copies; today, there were only three—one for Yuuki, one for Kasuya in the editor in chief’s office, and one for Yoshii. All three copies had “not to be removed” stamped in the top right-hand corner. Kishi and Nozawa leaned in to read.
RUPTURED BULKHEAD PROBABLE CAUSE OF CRASH
The size of the headline was unprecedented, a full-on assault to the eyes.
Yuuki read carefully through the article below, checking each sentence. He felt a clammy sweat break out on his forehead.
“This is going to be amazing,” Kishi muttered to himself.
Tomorrow morning, this front page was going to be revealed in its full glory. Every newspaper throughout Japan would publish their own version of the story. It would be distributed to news agencies all over the world, translated into hundreds of different languages; people of all nationalities would read an article by the North Kanto Times …
Kishi beckoned Yoshii over.
“It’s good.”
“Okay.”
Yoshii rolled the proof back up awkwardly, and set off again, running out the door.
There was a rumble from below. The press had begun to print the Nodai Niko High version.
The phone rang. Yuuki glanced up at the clock. It was exactly twelve thirty.
“Tamaki here.”
“How’s it going?”
“I caught a glimpse of Sayama.”
“Where?”
“In the toilet. The one near the lounge.”
“The rest of them?”
“They’re still talking.”
“Got it. You—”
He was cut off by a loud crash. He recognized it as the sound of the newsroom door being flung open.
Ito marched into the room, accompanied by several of the Circulation Department’s junior employees.
“Someone tell me what is going on up here.”
Teeth bared, Ito stood and surveyed the room. He hadn’t spotted Yuuki yet, as he had his back turned.
“Printing’s delayed by fifteen minutes yet again! Yet again!”
Yuuki frowned. He’d screwed up. When he’d met Ito earlier that evening, he’d relayed the news that the deadline would once again be delayed. This had put Ito on his guard. He must have stayed back late in order to keep an eye on the Editorial Department.
“And the keys? Where are the keys to the van?”
Yuuki held his breath. They were in his pocket. The keys to van number 5—the vehicle heading for Fujioka and the Tano District.
Oimura and Todoroki came running out of Kasuya’s office, followed by the editor in chief himself, who was looking rather worried.
“Get out!” Predictably, it was Oimura who barked the order. The Firecracker was definitely lit. “The newsroom is off-limits. You Circulation schmoozers can’t just wander in here at will!”
“Who are you to talk to me like that? I don’t take shit from the chairman’s little Chihuahua!”
“You’re one to talk! Iikura’s pet puppy!”
“You’re nothing but a bunch of thieving animals. Give back the keys! We know you’ve got them. It’s not the first time you’ve pulled a childish stunt like this.”
There was loud jeering from close to the newsroom door. Any moment, people were going to come to blows.
“Yuuki. Go downstairs!” called Kishi. “We’ll move the crash desk to the first-floor production area.”
It was a good plan. Yuuki nodded and got up from his desk. He was still holding the telephone receiver. He put it to his ear and found he was still connected.
“Tamaki, from now on, call me on extension 3301.”
He replaced the receiver and turned around, only to be caught in the seething Ito’s direct line of sight.
“Yuuki!”
His oily voice reverberated through the office.
“It’s you, isn’t it, you little fucker? Give me the keys!”
Ignoring Ito completely, Yuuki began to walk toward the door, Kishi and Nozawa on either side of him. But the opposition also made their move. Two of the junior employees from Circulation moved to block their exit.
“Get out of the way!” Yuuki barked, and instead of slowing his pace, he walked straight at them, maintaining eye contact. The two men faltered.
“Stop him!”
This time it was Ito’s command. The young Circulation staff desperately tried to cut Yuuki off, but Kishi and Nozawa advanced on them, like young sumo wrestlers protecting their yokozuna. The junior members of the copy team also joined their ranks.
The two sides came together. But the Editorial Department had the superior number. Somehow, a space was opened up, through which Yuuki saw he could pass. He dodged to one side and slipped through the doorway. It was right then that he heard it.
“Son of a whore!”
Yuuki stopped dead. He turned back to see a vulgar grin on Ito’s face, and suddenly his head felt fizzing hot. All he could see were his own tiny, shivering kneecaps as he cowered in that storage shed. He ran at Ito, fists raised. In an instant, a couple of people had grabbed him by the shoulders, others by the chest and waist. Kishi was among them.
“Yuuki, save it for later.”
“Let go of me!”
He struggled to get free, but the arms were wrapped too strongly around him. The entire Editorial Department swarmed in a single mass out into the corridor, Yuuki being swept along in the center of the throng. It felt as if his feet were barely touching the floor. The staff of the Circulation Department chased after them down the stairs. The employees of the first-floor Production Department, clearly intrigued by the uproar, came running out into the corridor.
“Stop the Circulation guys!”
In response, the junior Production staff positioned themselves just inside the doorway. As Yuuki and the rest of the Editorial Department poured through the door, they threw all their strength against it and shut it tight.
“Don’t let them in!”
“Lock it!”
Yuuki shook himself loose from the grips on him and sank into the nearest chair. He was out of breath. His throat was dry. His face felt like it was on fire and he was sweating bullets.
From the other side of the door, he could hear the voices raging.
He slowly leaned back in his chair and looked around the Production Department. There was quite a crowd of young staff there from the Editorial and Production Departments. Just you try and break in here. That was the expression on everyone’s face. He was safe here. Everyone was his ally.
Nevertheless, he felt truly alone.
“Yuuki?”
Kishi was beckoning to him from in front of the worktable. Yoshii was at his side. It seemed the second version of the front page was ready.
As Yuuki moved to join them he looked up at the clock. It was 12:55 a.m. There was only just over half an hour left. As he walked he noticed something strange about his trousers … Surely he hadn’t dropped the keys? Panicked, he stuck his hand in his pocket. His fingers came into contact with something cold and metallic. But at the same time his brain registered the texture of leather. All of a sudden, Anzai’s voice was there inside his head.
“I climb up to step down.”
He saw a flicker of light. If only he could just have some peace, some time to think, he was sure he could solve the riddle that Anzai had left him.
33
Extension 3301 was silent. The phone in question sat on a desk close to the middle of the office. Yuuki sat waiting, his arms and legs crossed. A crowd of roughly twenty people was gathered around him. The room felt stuffy and overheated.
1:15 a.m.… Yuuki stood up. Fifteen minutes to the deadline. He couldn’t sit still any longer. His chest was on fire and it was all he could do to stop himself from exploding.
What was Sayama doing? How many times had he screamed this inside his head?
Yuuki approached the wall that held the air conditioner, but never took his eyes off the clock. 1:16 … 1:17 …
Todoroki was sitting on a metal chair. He’d taken off his glasses and his exposed eyes were glued to his wristwatch.
Kasuya and Oimura were nowhere to be seen. They were probably still outside in the corridor, facing off with Ito and the rest of the Circulation Department. The distant sound of angry voices could be faintly heard.
Yuuki tore his gaze away from the clock and looked at Todoroki.
“What’s going to happen to the five hundred copies for the families in the standby facilities?”
Todoroki looked up.
“They can drop them off on the way back. We don’t need to use the delivery system. It’ll be good enough.”
Todoroki turned his attention back to his wristwatch, and Yuuki turned his to the wall clock.
1:19 … 1:20 …
Maybe we’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Try again. Go for it then instead.
1:22 … 1:23 …
His prayers weren’t working. But he knew that the moment he gave up, fortune would fall in his lap. When he was working cases out in the field, this was always what happened. He allowed himself a momentary, rueful half smile.
The telephone rang.
Yuuki turned his head, and suddenly the eyes of all the people crowded around extension 3301 were on him. Nobody moved. Then Yuuki was on his feet and running. He snatched the receiver off its hook.
“Sayama here.”
His voice was calm and low.
“I got to speak to Fujinami.”
“And?”
“If he were a police officer, it’d be a yes.”
Yuuki groaned. Sayama had asked the lead investigator, Kanae Fujinami, about the bulkhead, and got a probable yes from him. But Fujinami had refused to confirm absolutely that the cause of the crash was the rupture of the bulkhead. Intimation, facial expression, manner; Sayama had only been able to draw his conclusion from these signs. And what Sayama was saying was that it seemed to be a positive response. If Sayama had gotten the same response from one of the police officers he normally dealt with, officers famous for their perfect poker faces, he could safely have read this as a conclusive yes. That was what Sayama was telling him.
However, Sayama’s problem was that this was someone he had never interviewed before. A man with the unique post of accident investigation specialist. Sayama had no existing data, no baseline reaction, to which he could compare this man’s responses. In other words, no matter how close to a definitive yes this might appear to be, Sayama was not able to fully confirm.
Yuuki sank down into his chair and repositioned the receiver against his ear. It was already slick with his own sweat.
“So you’re saying you can’t be one hundred percent sure.”
“Right.”
“How about the others?”
“The Mainichi seems to be up to something.”
“I see.”
The other press bodies were moving on the story. Normally, telling this to the editor was a favorite ploy of a reporter desperate to get his own scoop into print. And normally, the
editor would take it with a grain of salt. But right now there was no trace of raw ambition, no restless impatience. Sayama’s words were to be taken at face value; the Mainichi newspaper could very well be sniffing around the bulkhead story, too.
1:26 … 1:27 …
You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Could they run the story? Yuuki ran over all the possibilities in his head.
On one hand, the story was probably accurate. And a chance like this would never come around again. They had to print it. If it turned out that the cause of the crash was not a ruptured bulkhead, it could, at the very best, be said that the investigators were presently looking into the possibility that it was. To write the piece as conjecture would probably be acceptable. And the cause was very likely to be confirmed afterward. The language used in the headline, and in the article itself, would have to be diluted to “probable” and not “definitive.” But that was okay. It was doable.
And yet, having made its decision, his mind was now beginning to backpedal.
Five hundred and twenty dead. The biggest single aircraft disaster in history. This article would be read all over the world. Was it acceptable to make this kind of decision to publish a major news story about such a momentous event this flippantly? The reporters, the desk chief, the editorial staff were all about to put the information into print without definitive proof. Was that really okay? What if it took investigators more than a year, or even three years, to come up with a proven cause? If the North Kanto Times published an incorrect theory now, the consequences of the false alarm they triggered could continue to affect the investigation indefinitely.
So what should he do?
He was afraid. It was extremely unlikely that they were wrong. Were they about to let this chance slip from their grasp? It wasn’t only Sayama and Tamaki but the man in command of the JAL crash desk—Yuuki himself—whose names would go down in North Kanto Times history along with this scoop.
He looked at the clock. The minute hand was pointing directly downward. The deadline had arrived.
Do it!
Yuuki leapt to his feet and, as he did, something clattered to the floor. It was a set of keys. The keys to the number 5 van, the one that headed up to Fujioka City and the Tano District. They’d fallen out of his pocket.
Seventeen Page 25