One of the young undercover detectives said, “Everyone was worried about radiation, so we checked into it.”
“From the trucks coming back?” Hiroshi asked.
The other young detective said, “New Geiger counters were all sold out. But we found a big old metal thing in storage. I strapped it on my motorcycle and pulled up next to the trucks.”
“What was the reading?” Hiroshi asked.
“Off the charts.”
“Where did the trucks go?”
“I dropped a GPS on a couple of them. Our tech guy tracked those back up to Fukushima.” The two young detectives knew what they were doing, Hiroshi thought. Their jackets would look absurd in Tokyo, but along the coast, they would help them blend in.
“None went south?” Hiroshi resettled himself, twisting to at least move the pain around.
“Yes, but not the same trucks,” Hirano said. “The military trucks went there to here, and Japanese trucks went from here south.”
Sakaguchi held up his hand to cut in. “Let me contact that blogger, that young guy who was with Higa in the bookstore.”
Sakaguchi scrolled through his cellphone to find the number and made the call to Iino, the pale-faced, intense blogger he met at the twins’ bookstore. Sakaguchi reached in his pocket and pulled out the book Higa authored, the one the bookstore twins gave him and showed it to Hirano.
“Wish I had time to read.” Hirano sipped his tea. “A journalist I drink with, or used to until this blood pressure thing, is doing a book on the bases. Talk with him.” He nodded to one of the young detectives to be sure that happened.
Hiroshi said, “Do you remember the name of the Diet member who pressured you to leave the bases alone?”
Hirano rubbed his bald, dappled head, trying to remember. “Old money, legacy district, pretty woman…”
“Shinobu Katsumura?” Hiroshi asked.
“That’s it.”
“Was it Katsumura Transportation trucks going in and out of the base?”
“We might have some of the old footage saved.”
Akiko said, “The forms are done.” She handed them to Hirano.
“Can we hire you down here? We’ll raise your pay.” Hirano took the forms from her and tapped them on his forehead in a gesture of thanks and respect.
Akiko smiled as she stood up. “Thanks, but I’m good where I am.”
“If we can’t get on the base, we better find Jamie. With Trey in the open, she’s now in real danger.” Hiroshi moved towards the door. He was talking out loud about everything now, like Takamatsu.
Sakaguchi pushed himself out of the chair and looked at Hiroshi. He paused, looked out at the hall and then back at Hiroshi. “The guys lost her.”
“What? How could Jamie—”
“She gave them the slip.”
Hiroshi looked at him quietly.
Sakaguchi checked his cellphone. “Takamatsu’s waiting in Yokohama. Wants us to pick him up.”
Chief Hirano stood up, stretched his back. “I thought he was on disciplinary leave?”
“More like leave from discipline,” Hiroshi said.
“He’s always been that way,” Hirano said.
Sakaguchi spread his arms to herd everyone out the door. “Ueno’s out front, so let’s let these guys get some sleep. We’ll need some ourselves with the conference coming up.”
Hirano gave a curt nod. “We’ll keep watching the front of the base. If he moves, we’ll know. That kind of guy thinks he’s untouchable. But he’s not.”
Chapter 39
Jamie got out in front of Tokyo Station. Hurrying under the quaint cornices and western windows of the old entrance, she followed the signs for the shinkansen bullet train. Right in front of the ticket machine, she stopped abruptly, whipping around to scour the area behind her. Her father and Setsuko knew when they were being followed. But when she went to the archives, or anywhere else, she had never noticed anyone after her.
She stood in the large, open entryway of the station waiting to see if anyone would appear.
When they didn’t, she looked up at the colorful spiderweb of Tokyo’s rail lines but bought the cheapest ticket to get through the station to the shinkansen bullet train counter on the other side. Inside, the omiyage souvenir stalls, bento lunchbox counters and kiosks were already closed. When she got to the shinkansen ticket counter, she bought a ticket to Fukuoka and headed towards the platform.
At the next ticket gate, her cellphone rang. It was Hiroshi. She watched the message record. When it finished, she clicked to listen. He insisted she not go anywhere alone. He demanded she wait for him, call him back, and stay in the house.
She rubbed her finger over the callback button, but Hiroshi had helped her enough already. From here, it was her turn to take charge.
Instead of calling him back, she called his office, ready to hang up if he or Akiko answered. When his message recorder clicked on, she spoke slowly, “Hiroshi, Trey is leaving tomorrow. I was supposed to meet him at the military liaison office in Narita Airport. For an afternoon flight to Guam. I’m not going. I’ll call you when I’m safe in New York. And explain everything.”
She turned her phone off and scanned the few passengers outside the shinkansen gate. She saw nothing and no one out of the ordinary, but she didn’t even know what to look for. Crowded or empty, Tokyo seemed to hide people easily.
The departure board’s list of departures rotated up one line, the bottom line listing a morning train seven hours later. She remembered telling Shinobu she was leaving on the last train to Kyoto. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she took the escalator down to the ticket counter and asked to switch her ticket. The ticket seller changed the ticket without a word. The first train left at six a.m., and she would be on it.
She went to the information booth and asked about nearby coffee shops that stayed open twenty-four hours. One was just outside the station, so she walked there, checking behind her on the wide, empty sidewalk. Once inside the bland, antiseptic space full of travelers, night owls and people killing time, she felt safer. She texted Setsuko to let her know where she was and settled into the plastic-covered banquette, ordering a sandwich and coffee, and closing her eyes for an upright snooze like she’d seen Tokyoites do.
At five a.m., she paid her bill, walked across the cold, empty expanse of bus boarding lanes and the taxi line. A few early morning commuters headed to Tokyo trains, fewer still went into the shinkansen boarding area. From the platform, Jamie watched the cleaning crew reverse the seats, wipe down the arm rests and inspect the cars to be sure they were spotless. It was hard to imagine how Japanese spent so much energy on cleaning, and yet, let something like radiation go unchecked.
With only minutes to departure time, the barriers slid aside and the train doors opened. Jamie got on and found her seat, pushing her suitcase in front of her. She would be in Fukuoka in five-plus hours, get in a taxi to the airport and take whatever flight got her out of Japan the soonest, just as her father advised.
She settled in to her seat in the brightly-lit, silent train car. She was the only passenger, though others had been waiting on the platform. She put her bag against the wall and the travel bag in the seat beside her. She kneeled in the soft chair with her arms on top of the headrest, waiting and watching both doors.
When the conductor came to check her ticket, he had to turn around for two lanky men who got on right before the doors closed. They were carrying bento boxes—an early breakfast. The conductor walked back to where they sat at the back of the car, and with his handheld ticket machine issued them new tickets and took the added charge. When he finished, he doffed his hat, checked the ticket of one other passenger, dressed in traditional Japanese clothes, who had got on after them, and then walked up the aisle towards Jamie.
After her ticket was stamped, Jamie sank down into her seat and let her head loll back as the bullet train picked up speed. Her eyes drooped with the soothing rocking of the train but kept fluttering open. In t
wenty minutes, Tokyo’s urban clutter turned to fields and she snuggled in, her leg on top of her suitcase, willing her eyes to close.
She thought of all that had happened since she heard of her father’s death. It was one contorted, confusing dream, welling up into her mind, keeping her awake. She gave up trying to sleep and stared out the window at the rice fields and small towns flitting by in the pastel light of the sunrise.
What had her father written her? Following his instructions was one thing, but what else did he have to tell her on the scroll? She shook herself awake and dug in her bag. Her father’s scroll fit on the foldout table in front of her. She rolled and unrolled it as she read.
Right away, she was impressed that her father had done so much. She had been the one who read her book in bed while her classmates snuck out of the dorm to meet boys, smoke pot, or play truth or dare. Maybe that’s what he wanted for her—a life far from turmoil, but also far from challenges.
His power to accomplish things, and the directed, principled anger that motivated him, startled and confused her. It was so unlike her and her New York friends. They’d never been angry at anything. Didn’t really know how.
As she read, she realized his life had been full of drama. Unlike hers, it was real drama—political conflicts and policy decisions, forging alliances and drafting treaties. He wasn’t bragging about it, just letting her know. She tried to piece his story together, but there was too much history she didn’t know. She knew few of the dates and almost none of the people or places he wrote about.
He was unforgiving of himself about drinking, bemoaning the opportunities and energy wasted. At first in New York she went out every night with friends to the city’s best bars but ended up with more forgettable hangovers than memorable experiences.
He never did anything halfway. She herself had done everything that way—except this—taking his manuscript and running with it.
She wiped her tears off the scroll and rolled forward.
She was startled by the sharpness of what he remembered about her as a girl, his words stirring the memories of the pandas at Ueno zoo, museums with ghost ukiyoe exhibits, and old workshops where her father talked with the craftsmen before buying her a kite, wood toy, or hand fan. She had forgotten about the handmade boxes he bought her, dozens of them in all sizes, made of paulownia, paper, cherry bark. She stacked and re-stacked them endlessly, rearranging her bracelets, barrettes, and omamori charms. She wanted to find those boxes. She’d been a spoiled Tokyo girl, spoiled by him, and she had spoiled herself in New York, at least until her credit cards topped out.
When the announcement came for Osaka Station, Jamie got out of her seat and stretched. It’d be better to get a flight from Osaka instead. She didn’t want to ride two or three more hours. She wanted to get on a plane and be gone. Jamie put the scroll back in her bag. She had to pee and wanted to throw her trash away. She got up from her seat and was halfway down the aisle to the toilets before her New York instincts kicked in and she went back for her suitcase.
She pulled on her father’s jacket, rolled up the sleeves and tucked the travel bag over her shoulder so she could maneuver her suitcase. She left the seating area, looking back once to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She’d soon grab a taxi to Kansai Airport and be gone.
As the automatic doors slid shut behind her, Jamie tugged her bag past the luggage rack, exit doors and washroom to the toilet. She didn’t see the Korean man in black pick up his hardshell backpack and follow her. As the automatic door opened for him, he looked back at his partner and nodded yes.
Sitting on the toilet, holding the handrail for balance, Jamie thought it odd that someone fiddled with the lock on the toilet from outside. She made sure the door was locked and pushed her bag away. The rocking of the train had jiggled it up against her legs, making the small confines of the plastic-lined compartment feel even tighter.
As she flushed and stood up, the door pulled aside and she felt a hand around her throat. She gasped for breath and heard her own head smack the hard plastic wall before an ear-ringing slap on the side of her head made her blank out.
She let her jeans fall but thrust both her arms upward, trying to block another blow. She shook her head and through eyes wild with panic and blurred by tears she saw a short man with a mustache like dried grass raising his hand to hit her again.
She ducked and he shoved her harder against the wall as the door slid shut with scarcely room for the two of them and her bags inside. She tried to scream but choked and coughed as he slapped her again and again. She ripped at his face with her fingernails, but he bent her wrist hard to twist her around.
Then, she felt the grey duct tape across her mouth.
Ignoring her kicking and bucking, he looped tape around her arms and legs and the handrail. She dropped to the toilet floor, breathing deep and fast through her nose.
Her eyes dripping with fury, Jamie watched helplessly as he sliced open her bag with a knife and tossed the scroll on the floor. He pushed his hand down into the bag and pulled out her underclothes and the thick stacks of money, opened the box with the tea bowl, dropping them one by one, taking his time.
The past few days, she’d gone over the assault in her father’s house a thousand times in her mind, replaying the scene until she figured out she should have pushed out when they taped her to create slack she could loosen later. This time, she had extended her limbs against the tape.
As the short Korean dug through her bag, she flexed her arms and legs in and out until she could feel the tape wrinkle and loosen enough for her to wiggle her fingers into her front pocket for the pepper spray Shibata gave her. She twisted the small can in the right direction until she could get her thumb on top of the button, waiting for the moment when his eyes moved her way again so she could let him have it.
Chapter 40
Hiroshi barely nodded at Takamatsu when they pulled up to where he was waiting in front of a convenience store near Kannai Station. He was too sore and too tired to do anything other than stare as Takamatsu put out his cigarette in a rusted ashtray, tossed out his can of coffee, and pulled off his camelhair overcoat, folding it neatly. Takamatsu leaned in to set his coat on the backseat next to Sakaguchi and got in.
“What took you so long?” Takamatsu asked.
“He almost got killed today,” Sakaguchi said, nodding at Hiroshi up front.
“Sword.” Ueno looked back at Takamatsu in the rearview mirror before pulling out of the streets around the station onto the Shuto expressway, a long twisting ribbon of highway devoid of traffic in the desolate hours of the morning.
“Street smarts is one thing you can’t teach,” Takamatsu said, peering over the seat at Hiroshi. “Was it the American? I know where he’s going to be this morning,” Takamatsu said, barely able to conceal his glee.
“I don’t think so,” Hiroshi said. “We left him inside Yokosuka Naval Base.”
Takamatsu loosened his tie. “Did you know the Katsumura family is one of the oldest political dynasties in Japan?”
“What are you talking about?” Hiroshi was getting irritated.
“I’m talking about where we’re going. Diet office building. Promptly at seven.”
“Seven in the morning?” Hiroshi groaned, inventorying his body’s aches, wondering if he could stay awake.
Takamatsu leaned to the side and caught Hiroshi’s eye. “You tried bottom up, it didn’t work, so let’s try top down.”
“The top’s not so easy,” Hiroshi said.
“Just the opposite,” Takamatsu smiled. “They have more to lose. Reputation is everything for them. That woman I’ve been working for, Saori Ikeda—”
“The divorce case?” Hiroshi barely muffled his sarcasm.
“She owns and runs the Kaiko Shukan, Silkworm Weekly.”
“I thought that was a horse racing paper,” Ueno asked.
“That’s Kaiko Shumatsu. Same company. Weekday is investigation. Weekend is racing and porn stars.”
>
“And don’t tell me, the owner is pretty and grateful and…” Hiroshi looked out the window.
Takamatsu smiled, pausing to think. “I’d say more handsome than pretty. She’s going to Shinobu Katsumura’s office this morning for a meeting. He’ll be there.”
“Gladius?” Hiroshi rubbed his face.
Ueno looked back at Takamatsu in the rearview mirror and said, “You’re suggesting we go into a government building and interrogate a Diet member without prior approval?”
“Why not? We catch the killer at the end of the meeting. Everyone’s happy.” Takamatsu hummed a satisfied note or two.
Irritated with Takamatsu’s smug, unruly approach, Hiroshi started to twist in the seat to say something, but the pain made him give up and settle back forward in the seat.
“Your body starting to set up?” Takamatsu asked. “You should keep moving. Don’t stay in the same position. One time, I—”
Sakaguchi interrupted. “Chief Hirano is watching the base. The American can’t get in or out without being seen, he assured us. So, it’s better we catch some sleep, wait for him to poke his head out.”
“There’s a lot of ways he could get from the base into the city,” Takamatsu said.
Everyone waited for him to explain, but he said nothing more.
“Mattson’s daughter mentioned Katsumura, too.” Hiroshi spoke to the ceiling to avoid twisting again.
“Of course, she did,” Takamatsu said. “They have their fingers in everything. Her grandfather got elected to the Diet after the war. Family owns a fair bit of Okinawa and another chunk of Yokosuka, publishing, transportation—”
“I know all that already,” Hiroshi said. “How does the magazine woman know her?”
Takamatsu cracked the window and lit a cigarette. Hiroshi rolled his window down to stream the smoke out of the car and Ueno cracked his, turning the car instantly, bracingly cold.
The Moving Blade Page 24