Quid Pro Quo

The room was rather sparse. It consisted of what seemed like canned furniture: things you would expect to see on a display for first-time home buyers. But there was a kotatsu in the middle of the room.

“Please come in. I’m the owner of this house, but your embassy sends staff here for when they need to do work outside the office.” Ikumi said.

Cliff and Sable made themselves at home before realizing something was wrong. As if sensing it, Ikumi spoke up.

“Your boss came by as well with some more permanent wardrobes. You’ll find them in your room,” she added.

“Thank you,” Cliff said without looking at her.

“I’m going to make some food. You two look tired. You should turn in early. It’s hard to get used to a sudden change in timezones.”

Cliff was about to protest, but a yawn prevented him from doing so. Without so much as another word, he left and disappeared upstairs. Ikumi looked to Sable.

“By the way. There’s only two bedrooms here. It’s up to you on who you want to share your room with. I won’t be upset if you choose to be with him, but you might want to give a man his space.”

Sable thought about it deeply for a moment before nodding.

“Take the right. His room will be on the left.”

“Thank you,” Sable said, rendering a polite bow.

Ikumi watched the girl follow Cliff and head upstairs. When she was alone, she finally cracked a smirk across her lips.

“These two are going to be fun,” she muttered to herself as she went off to fix herself some gyoza.

Getting used to the jetlag so soon was definitely going to be a challenge. Cliff adjusted his watch to the clock by the bedside and tried to get some sleep. Sable sat on her bed and meditated for a good hour before she followed suit.

The following day, the alarm clock woke Cliff up. He didn’t remember setting it, and he didn’t feel at all refreshed with the amount of sleep he got. Then again, he rarely did. He hauled himself out of bed and stretched his aching limbs. The time was seven in the morning, and he vaguely remembered the clock reading something like 1am when he last saw it. Not that he paid too much attention to the clock after hitting the pillow anyway.

Cliff walked over and put on some plain clothes from the wardrobe that had been provided. A button-up shirt, a pair of slacks, and a leather jacket. It looked very snazzy, but still muted enough to not draw attention. He wondered if their handler had gone ahead and provided a hand-picked wardrobe to keep them from being spotted too easily. Of course, his camouflaged field jacket would be a dead giveaway. He might as well have been holding a sign saying “I am prior enlisted.” He itched his head and put on some socks. The day was going to be easy, he hoped.

After getting dressed, he walked out and knocked on Sable’s door. Nothing. He knocked a little harder and called her name. This time he heard a bit of shuffling. The door creaked open, and he saw her standing there in a pair of sweatpants and a plain camisole. He took the slightest second to appreciate her figure before clearing his throat. She was rubbing her eyes.

“Get dressed. We gotta meet in an hour.”

“Okay…” Sable replied in a tired voice before she closed the door.

Cliff left her to get dressed and proceeded down into the kitchen. He was pleasantly surprised to find a coffee maker and immediately went to work getting a pot going. Not even the earliest of mornings could stand up to the power of coffee. It had kept him going through so many hard days back in the service. America, and by extension much of the modern world, ran on coffee. Good or bad, it still kept him going when he needed it. No doubt, it helped Sable get through her studies as well. He figured she could use a cup too.

Abashiri Prison, Abashiri, Hokkaido Prefecture

A man stood in a line. His hands were shackled, as were his ankles, leaving him to simply shuffle along the ground. Symbols were engraved into the cuffs. His mouth was muzzled and gagged. As the line moved ahead, he was flanked by two active members of the National Police Agency’s Security Bureau. They were both armed with MP5s and dressed in full kit for this special duty.

They approached the outer gate where a bus was waiting. Other prisoners were being transferred out, but this man had one all to himself. The bus driver took notice.

"What’s the deal with this guy?" he asked in his native tongue.

"This one’s going to Osaka. Special detail."

The driver nodded. The Security Bureau guys were scary enough as it was, so he didn’t want to press them for any further information. In fact, as far as he was concerned, it was just another transfer. The three of them boarded the bus and made no further comments. In a few minutes, the bus was rolling and heading down towards Osaka. The plan was to board a barge without having to change vehicles. They’d head to Hakodate and take it down to Aomori for a relatively quick trip across the Tsugaru Strait.

The police suspected that any real danger on the trip would be during this time. It was when the bus was at its most vulnerable. It would be a textbook play, of course. Seize the vehicle on the open ocean where they could make a clean getaway on water and be gone before the Maritime Safety Agency could respond. It was a totally perfect opportunity, and the police were expecting it. That’s why a helicopter had been prepared ahead of time for the escort, nipping that problem in the bud.

Yes, that was the exact play they’d been hoping would happen. It was the obvious move. And because it was the obvious move, they didn’t see the garbage truck speeding towards them until it was too late. The bus was sent flying off the road and into the fields as soon as they left the Kitami city limit. The bus rolled over and the garbage truck was totaled. Two masked men jumped out and rushed the wreckage with pistols in hands. They moved faster than normal and scaled the overturned bus with ease. Shots rang out as the Security Bureau officers were ruthlessly executed before they could defend themselves. They nabbed the prisoner and left, carrying him to a waiting white Subaru Impreza WRX STI that had roared up from its hiding spot. The men stuffed the prisoner in the back of the car, got in, and took off down the road at a blazing speed.

Shizuoka

Cliff and Sable arrived a few minutes before the designated meeting time and found their case officer sitting down at the counter with no one else around her. They flanked her on each side and took their seats. Susan wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue, and Cliff resented her and her demonic blood for that as he rubbed his crusty eyes. Sable stifled a yawn to be polite as Susan leaned off the counter and smiled.

“So how’d it go?” she asked.

“We were able to get a bit of information, but not too much.” Cliff replied.

“In this business, you learn to make inferences. Trust your gut, like I told you yesterday. So what does your gut say?”

“My gut says it’d like some breakfast before it does any critical thinking.”

Susan giggled and batted her eyes at Cliff, “You need to try better than that, Rakkasan.”

Cliff sighed and said, “Alright. They definitely have something weird going on. The snow woman runs the place, but she gets ‘special guests’ from different prefectures. What I want to know is this: What other onsens have supernatural proprietors?”

“Not many, my friend. I personally looked into that angle and if there are any others, they’re keeping it way on the downlow. I doubt being a yokai gets you a lot of good business.”

“So then why this one? Why go out of the way for this specific establishment?”

“Because they’re also supernatural beings.” Sable told her.

Cliff nodded in agreement.

“Okay,” Susan said as her ramen bowl was delivered and she ordered two for the both of them, “so they’re supernatural as well. But what else?”

Cliff leaned in and whispered into her ear, “They’re yakuza.”

Susan’s eyes went wide as she stopped mid-slurp on her noodles. She looked at him and then finished stuffing the noodles into her mouth. “You’re sure about this?” she asked.

Cliff gave her a grim look. “Sable translated but I heard that from the snow woman’s mouth. No mistake.”

Susan thought deeply for a moment. Then she went back to her noodles to help give her some more time.

“What’s all this mean?” Cliff asked impatiently.

“It means we need to move on to the next step,” Susan replied, taking out a box and handing it to Cliff.

“What’s this?”

Susan gave him a playful smirk. “Our good friends at Suzuki cooked this up, and it’s been my favorite toy ever since I got one. It’s called the Echo 8.”

Cliff opened the box and looked inside. He was a bit puzzled by what he found. “It’s a…a zippo lighter?”

“Not just a lighter, Mister Parsons. It’s also a camera.”

Cliff whistled in astonishment. It was truly amazing that the Japanese managed to shrink a camera to fit into a lighter and still have room left over to make it function like one.

“We’ll need to find out where these guys are and what they look like. I’ll have Brooks stakeout the onsen and tail them. You smoke?”

“Not anymore,” Cliff replied.

“Wrong answer,” Susan shot back. “You’ll need to get up close to get their picture. Hit ‘em as they’re coming out of a bar or some place. Play the dumb American and ask for a cigarette. That’ll get you to get the photos without raising a fuss.”

“Whatever you say, bosslady,” Cliff said.

“I’m paying for your breakfast as a gesture of good faith. Get this done.” Susan chided as she called the noodle shop owner over and fronted enough yen for the three meals. She finished her bowl and let the staff take it back. “Alright, I gotta go talk to the station chief.” She flipped out a piece of paper with more of her scrawl on it. “Go to this address when you’ve got the pictures taken. Instructions are written there on what to do with them.”

Cliff took the paper and folded it up before putting it into his pocket. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Keep a low profile and don’t hang around too long. Eat and go back home. Here’s two pagers for the both of you. Keep an eye on them so that we can get you the information for the location to meet these guys at. Ciao!”