by Matt Lincoln
“No,” he claimed. “Only reason I even know there are others is that the group asked me to kill one once.”
I had to stop myself from physically reacting to that bit of information.
“They asked you to kill one of your own members?” I asked, careful to keep my voice void of emotion.
“I told you, you either do what you’re told, or you’re dead,” he sneered, looking up at me darkly. “He wanted to leave the group. Said he was starting a family, and he couldn’t be in that line of work anymore. They didn’t like that. They couldn’t let him leave, knowing so much. So they asked me to get rid of him. Just like someone is going to be sent to get rid of me.”
We fell into silence after that, and I honestly wasn’t sure what to say.
Part of me wanted to assure him that we would do everything in our power to ensure that he was placed in some kind of protective custody. Another part of me wanted to howl that he deserved it. That a monster like him shouldn’t expect anything other than to be killed by monsters. In the end, I said nothing and simply stood up and walked out of the room.
I walked through the police station until I came upon an empty conference room. I walked inside and locked the door behind me before sitting down and closing my eyes. I counted slowly in my head, focusing only on my breathing and the quiet stillness of the room. I’d taken up meditation a few years ago as a way to decompress after a long day, and I found that it was one of the best ways for me to calm down in almost any situation.
After a few minutes, I opened my eyes. I no longer felt the desire to attack Otsuka, or to cry for the family that had lost its father, or to scream in rage over the fact that Fiona had almost been killed by this pathetic excuse for a man. I took my phone out of my bag and called Wallace. We hadn’t actually learned anything that we didn’t already suspect, and we still didn’t know who the driver of the car was. Ultimately, I felt like the interrogation had been a failure.
20
Fiona
I jumped as the television remote slipped off the bed and onto the floor with a thump. I’d told Junior that I would be alright here by myself, and at the time, I had meant it. The longer I stayed here alone, though, the more anxious I felt. After I’d tracked down the location of the suspect Junior had asked me for, I hadn’t had much else left to do. Until they contacted me with more information, I was basically just on standby. I had decided to try to watch some TV to get my mind off of what Junior had said, but basically, every channel was in Japanese. The one channel playing in English was currently airing a horror movie. I was beginning to regret the decision to watch it now since it didn’t seem to be helping with my anxiety at all.
I glanced at the door for the third time in the past ten minutes. Ever since Junior had called and told me that he thought he’d spotted someone watching them, I’d been expecting someone to come bursting through the door at any second.
“This is stupid,” I sighed to myself before swinging my legs over the edge of the bed and marching over to the door. Once I was standing in front of it, though, my courage started to wane. I leaned forward slowly and took a deep breath before rising onto the balls of my feet to glance through the peephole. There was nothing there, and I felt a little silly for having expected there to be.
“That’s kind of anticlimactic,” I mumbled as I double-checked that both locks were securely in place. Not that I wanted someone to be waiting on the other side, of course. I just felt like I was sitting around, waiting for something to happen. Every minute that passed by quietly somehow made me feel less comforted and more unsettled.
I’d told Junior and Charlie that I would stay here, but I felt tempted to go out and take a walk. Even just a quick trip to the convenience door a few steps away from the hotel for a snack might be enough to settle my nerves. Back at home, I never would have longed for the opportunity to go out. Typically, I preferred to spend my days inside behind the cold glow of a computer screen. Right now, I just felt anxious, and it seemed like a bit of a waste to have flown to the other side of the world just to sit in a hotel room all day.
Of course, I knew that would be dumb of me. I walked back over to the desk where I’d set up all of my equipment and sank into my chair. Until I got an update, I didn’t have anything to do, but maybe I could look a little more into Goda in the meantime.
I froze when I heard a knock at the door and swore under my breath. I stood up quietly, careful not to make any noise as I stepped toward the door. I double-checked to make sure my gun was securely in place before glancing through the peephole again. Standing outside was a young man wearing a bright green polo shirt bearing the hotel’s logo and pushing a cart filled with cleaning equipment. He looked like he was in his late teens or early twenties, and he was bobbing his head as he listened to something through a set of headphones. I watched through the peephole as he lifted his hand to knock again.
“Housekeeping,” he called in a bored tone.
I exhaled and let my shoulders droop as I relaxed. It was just a kid trying to do his job. I was about to yell that I didn’t need any before I remembered that he probably wouldn’t understand me if I did. I reached to open the door but stopped as I realized something before I could unlatch the cold metal lock. The man had said ‘housekeeping’ in English.
Ever since we’d arrived in Japan, we’d been struggling to communicate. I distinctly remembered how last night we’d had to walk to the hotel from the train station because we couldn’t figure out how to get a taxi. Everyone we’d encountered so far had initially spoken to us in Japanese, and the few people who had spoken English had done so with an accent. The man outside had spoken with perfect diction. Even if his ability to speak English well was a coincidence, it still didn’t explain why he’d spoken English in the first place. Unless, of course, he had already known who was in here.
I took my hand off of the lock and leaned down to grab my shoes from the entryway before creeping away from the door. I snatched my phone and wallet off the desk and moved as quickly as I dared into the bathroom. I walked to the shower and turned both knobs until they were at full blast. Now that any noise I made would be covered by the sound of the water, I rushed to put my shoes on before tiptoeing back out of the bathroom. I closed the bathroom door behind me and walked quietly to the door that separated mine and the guys’ room. I could hear the man knocking more incessantly now as I opened the door and made my way into the other room.
Once inside, I rushed to the front door of this room and stood against the wall. Any moment now, whoever was out there posing as a housekeeper would break into my room and start looking for me. Hopefully, the shower would divert his attention for long enough for me to make my way out of this room and down the hallway to the stairs. I closed my eyes as I tried to remember exactly where the stairwell was located. We’d taken the elevator up, but I could remember seeing a sign for the stairs. I was almost certain they were down the hall and to the left.
I didn’t have time to second guess myself, as a moment later, I heard a loud crack and a thump as the door in the next room was kicked open. I took that as my cue and threw the door open. I rushed down the hallway and heard gunshots ring out just as I rounded the corner to the left. They sounded muffled, and I assumed that the man must have shot into the bathroom. That meant that he knew now that I was onto him and making my escape.
I broke into a run and threw myself against the stairwell door to get it opened without having to slow down. I couldn’t afford to stop right now. I ran down the stairs, gritting my teeth as every step caused the metal steps to clang loudly beneath me. I was extremely conspicuous, but I couldn’t move any more quietly without slowing down. I counted the flights as I went. We were on the fifth floor, so it should take ten flights to get to the lobby. Halfway down the ninth, I heard a bang as a door above me was thrown open.
I looked up and could see the same young man that had been pushing the cart peering down at me from over the railing. The next second, he pulled a gun fro
m behind his back and shot at me. I screamed instinctively as the bullet ricocheted off the railing a few inches away from me. The tinny sound reverberated all around the enclosed space of the stairwell, and I took off running with renewed vigor.
Once I made it to the bottom of the stairwell, I pushed open the door and sprinted through the lobby. The woman behind the counter yelled something at me, and several people turned to look at me as I raced by. I yelled for them to call the police as I pushed open the main doors of the building. As the doors swung closed behind me, I could hear the sound of gunshots and people screaming.
The street outside was packed with people, and I fought against every instinct that told me to run. Instead, I forced myself into a casual stroll and lowered my head as I walked through the crowd. I was short enough that most of the surrounding people were my height or taller, and I hoped that I’d draw less attention by moving slowly and surrounding myself with other people. A few yards away from the hotel, I followed a group of women into a store, standing close enough that I might have been mistaken as part of their group.
Once I was inside the store, I moved behind a clothing stand so that I would be obscured from sight to anyone walking by the front of the store. I peeked out from behind the stand, and from my vantage point, I could see people walking past the large glass windows that made up the front of the building. Unfortunately, it seemed as though the man had had the same idea as me because I couldn’t spot him in the crowd. If he’d changed the bright green shirt that he was wearing, then it would be nearly impossible for me to recognize him in the sea of people moving swiftly by.
I looked down at my own clothes. I was wearing a short-sleeved, beige-colored top and jeans. I looked around the store I was in and quickly picked out an oversized black sweater and a long, dusty pink skirt. I took them to the register without bothering to check the price or even really paying attention to what I was buying. I needed something that looked completely different from what I was wearing now, and the sweater had a hood that would help me hide my face as I moved around. The woman at the register told me the price in yen, but I was too distracted to calculate how much it translated to in dollars. I handed over my credit card, mentally telling myself that however much it was, MBLIS would reimburse me when I got back. If I got back.
I pushed that thought down with a shake of my head. My breathing was getting shallower, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to think straight if I started to panic. The woman behind the register seemed to notice my distress as well, as she stopped ringing me up for a moment to ask me something. I didn’t understand what she was asking me, but her inflection and the concerned look in her eyes made it clear I worried her.
“I don’t speak Japanese,” I told her in Japanese, giving her the best smile I could manage under the current circumstances. It was the only phrase I actually had learned how to say. The woman nodded and continued, but she kept glancing up at me every few seconds as if to make sure I wasn’t about to burst into tears. That only further cemented the fact that I needed to get myself under control. I couldn’t be calling any more attention to myself like this.
Once she finished checking me out, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and used the translation app to ask if there was a bathroom in here. She nodded and led me to a tiny room at the back of the store that was only big enough for a single person. I quickly changed into the clothes I’d just purchased before stuffing my old clothes into the shopping bag the woman had just given me. If I just kept moving along with the crowd, I wouldn’t look any different from any of the other people out shopping.
I looked at my reflection in the small mirror above the sink and realized how terrible I looked. My face was ashen, but my eyes and cheeks were red. I splashed some water on my face and took a few deep breaths before exiting the bathroom. I left the store and started walking away from the direction of the hotel. I stared down at the phone that I had clenched in my hand as I walked. I wanted so badly to call Junior and Charlie, or Wallace. I knew it wasn’t safe yet, though. I hadn’t spotted the man, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still around here somewhere. I also couldn’t be sure that it was even safe to use my phone. The fact that they’d found me again, just a day after arriving in Japan, meant that I couldn’t trust anything or anyone.
I walked straight for five minutes, then turned left down a random street. After another five minutes, I turned right. Once I felt satisfied that I’d moved far enough away, I ducked into a small restaurant and took a seat by the window. I watched through the window for a few minutes, and once I felt safe that I hadn’t been followed, I turned to my phone.
I couldn’t be as thorough without my computer, but it was still possible for me to run a diagnostic to see if there had been any security breaches. I was extremely careful with all of my gadgets, and before I joined MBLIS, it had literally been my job to make sure that security systems were as un-hackable as possible. A week ago, I would have scoffed at the very idea that someone would try to break into any of my systems. It had already happened once, though, and now I couldn’t be too careful.
Everything came up clear, but I still felt nervous. If they hadn’t tracked me via my phone’s location, then how had they done it? After taking another look around the restaurant and out the window to ensure I wasn’t being watched, I called Wallace.
“Hello?” Wallace asked after a few rings.
“Director Wallace, they found me again,” I croaked, my voice cracking as I said the words out loud. Now that I was talking about it, I could feel tears threatening to spill. I cleared my throat and quickly wiped at my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater. There was no way I was about to cry while on the phone with my boss.
“Are you okay?” Wallace asked. “Where are Hills and Chapman?”
“I’m fine,” I asserted, as much to myself as to Wallace. “I managed to get away. I had to leave pretty much everything behind, though. They somehow figured out where we were staying. Charlie and Junior are in Kyoto. They got a lead that someone related to the case was there, and they decided to catch the next train. I was attacked right after they left.”
“That doesn’t sound like a coincidence,” Wallace postulated.
“Maybe it’s not,” I agreed, feeling calmer now that I was talking to Wallace and not walking alone through the streets of Tokyo. “I can’t figure out how they found me again. No one should even know that I’m not in Vegas right now. I checked my phone, but I couldn’t find anything that would suggest a tracking device or program. They might have used the computer I brought with me, but it’s not the same one from the office, so that wouldn’t really make sense either.” It really was strange, now that I thought about it.
“Regardless, I’m glad you’re alright now,” Wallace replied. “Are you currently somewhere safe?”
“I’m at this restaurant about fifteen minutes away from the hotel,” I mumbled, taking another glance around the room. I stiffened as I noticed a server nearby watching me. I reached for my gun on instinct, but I realized that he was probably just waiting for me to finish my call so he could take my order.
“Gardner? Agent Gardner?” I heard Wallace calling my name through the phone, and I snapped back to attention.
“Sorry, Director,” I apologized. “I’m still a little worked up. I got distracted.”
“I said that I would have Nelson arrange for a new hotel room for you as quickly as possible,” Wallace repeated. “Stay where you are, but remain alert and keep your phone on. I’ll call you as soon as everything is ready.”
“Okay, I understand,” I responded before ending the call. I glanced back at the server out of the corner of my eye and flinched a little as he began to move toward me. He set a menu down in front of me and began to say something in Japanese. He must have noticed the blank look on my face because, after a second, he trailed off.
“English?” He asked.
I nodded, and he turned and walked away from me and through a door at the back of the restaurant. A moment
later, he returned and smiled at me before producing an English language menu. I smiled back, and he left me again to tend to the other tables. I opened the menu and pretended to look through it. Truthfully, I couldn’t concentrate on the words I was reading and kept glancing over to the phone lying on the table in front of me. I hoped Wallace would call back soon.
21
Charlie
I was still on edge as I thought about what Junior had said he’d seen back at the train station. He wasn’t one to jump to conclusions or panic easily, so when he’d said he’d seen something, I immediately believed him. He’d ultimately decided that he must have just been seeing things, but I wasn’t so sure.
Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the ride on the train. In the three hours that it took for us to get from Shinjuku to Kyoto, I got to see everything from towering skyscrapers, to rolling green hills bisected by rivers, to wide, expansive fields of every kind of crop. Even though I’d planned to spend the majority of the ride napping, I actually ended up spending most of it just looking out of the window.
The train itself was more impressive than I thought it would be. It was wider than an airplane and significantly more comfortable too. It was also faster than taking an airplane when you accounted for the amount of time it would take you to get through the airport. After Junior had told us that he thought someone might be following us, I’d looked up how long it would take to get from Kyoto to Tokyo in a plane. If they were after Gardner, too, I wanted to know the fastest way to get back. It had surprised me to discover that taking the bullet train back would still be the fastest way.
There were also food and drink carts that passed through the train. They walked by so quickly, though, that I was unable to get the woman’s attention before she sped by. The next time she came by, I was ready, and I managed to stop her. I fumbled a little as I tried to communicate with her, but fortunately, she had a poster with pictures of all the offerings. I felt a little stupid just pointing at things like a caveman, but it did the trick.