Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Takahashi Sango arrived at the Yoshida Accountancy Firm. She knew she was late to the party because a blockade had already been erected around the entire perimeter. Something was off about it. It took a minute's walk from where she parked her car to the fence line for it to hit her.

There were no ambulances. The entire police presence consisted of the perimeter, and they didn't look to be bobbing in and out of the building like she would have expected.

Sango flashed her badge to a uniformed policeman and passed through. It wasn't hard for her to spot the officer in charge. He was the one who was giving orders but looked like he had nothing to do at the same time.

“Hello. Sergeant Takahashi, from central. Can you tell me what happened, sir?”

“Inspector Niwa. Not much to tell. Drones alerted our station that there were shots detected for this place. We revved it into high gear to get here once we got the report. I'm sure you can understand why. By the time we showed up, whatever happened was over. There were no skirmishes or shots, and no injured. We're being told it was an attempted break-in. Some punks tried to blow their way inside, presumably for getting at the electronic dough. What's your interest, Sergeant?”

“I'm on a triple homicide. There's a chance the suspect I'm after had a hand in this. I want to be in on interrogating your perps.” Sango said.

“We don't have any perps. They're all a bit lacking a pulse. Building security wiped 'em all out.”

“Isn't that convenient? Makes it a lot harder to figure out what happened.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I assume I don't need to tell you whose place this is,” Sango said.

“Much as you have to tell me how to breathe. The Yoshidas. But, what are you gonna do? Robbery's the story we've been given, and it just happened. We might ferret out something to let us call 'hooey,' but I wouldn't hold my breath. Maybe we'll get somethin' from the interior footage.”

“You might as well watch it at the pictures. You'll be getting a movie either way.”

“And we'll rip it apart to try to prove it. Believe me, this is bumped right up to the top of the list. This could turn into our best shot at old man Yoshida ever.”

“I wish you luck.”

“If we get anything, we'll let you know. I can let you have this now. One of the prowlers engaged a suspect fleeing. We didn't get him, but the car's lens picked up some shots.” Inspector Niwa said.

He took out his smartphone and let Sango take a look. The snapshots gave her a clearer view of who might be her suspect than she'd seen yet. She now had a dead-on look at his face. She thought his eyes resembled that of a crazed tiger.

“Hmm.” She grunted.

“Anything wrong?”

“No. Just thinking.”

Sango handed the inspector his phone back, while she removed hers from her inner pocket at the same time. They exchanged information and pictures through a wireless line of sight.

“Please forward me a copy of the security footage as soon as you have it.” She said.

“Sure, sergeant.”

They both gave a respectful bow to the other and parted. Sango winded her way back to her car. Sitting in the driver's seat, she brought up the picture of the rider's face on her phone. She stared at the face for quite a while, seeing what she could make from it.

“I wonder.”

I've got no idea how long it took me to come to. All I know is that when I regained my self-awareness, there was a dull ringing in my ears, and I felt like I had an ice pick jabbing into my temporal lobe. I climbed my way out of the black trench of unconsciousness to open my eyes.

What I saw when the miasma faded from my eyes was not what I'd been expecting. Standing directly in front of me was probably the most drop-dead looker of a girl I'd ever seen in my life. She was tall, not even half a head shorter than myself, and looked like she might be almost even.

Right off the bat, I could see she was likely of European descent. Her skin, what I could see of it, was a flawless, creamy white. It looked like all her ancestors had probably been Caucasian for at least a few generations back. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail high on her head, the descending curl just peeking over the crest of her head and descending halfway down her back in a torrent of loose, red silk. It wasn't any normal red hair I'd ever seen before, and even deeper than blood red. It was the truest, most purely crimson hair there had ever been, and did not give a single sign it was anything but natural.

Her eyes were like the blue glow of a computer screen in a dark room. The almost navy orbs were studying and appraising me in a way that displayed her intelligence before she'd ever spoken a word. By her looks, I would have pegged her age in the general vicinity of twenty-two, but I wasn't committed to an exact number. She certainly had the aura of a mature, experienced woman.

She had on a woman's pantsuit that strode the line between casually professional, and all business. From what I could discern of her body through the clothes, she was powerful. I couldn't say one way or the other if she had any muscle definition, but she looked like a girl who could run ten kilometers without breaking a sweat, and I had the suspicion that she could also throw a good punch. She was decidedly on the well-endowed side of the buxom scale, but not artificially large, hanging somewhere just above the d-cup range.

Altogether, my first impression was of a competent young woman, likely blessed with several gifts, the least of which would be her beauty.

“He's coming to.” I heard her say.

For another surprise, she had a Scottish accent. It lined up nice and neat with her looks, but it was still unexpected. You didn't usually run into Scottish people in Japan, and she was the first I'd ever seen. The only reason I recognized it was because, during the rare times when I could kick back, I'd liked to space out watching old BBC shows from the last century. I'd found the different culture and ideas interesting, and it'd taught me English better than school ever had.

My mind had pretty much sailed clear of its fog by then, and let me remember something. Just before everything had gone black up in the old man's office, I'd caught the briefest glimpse of red. I'd thought it possible, but that cinched that the girl right there had been the one to floor me.

It was only then I noticed that Yoshida and his other associate from the office were there too. Feeling the ache in the back of my head, for all the good it would do, I tried lifting my hand to hold it over the spot. A chain I hadn't noticed was cuffing my wrist to my chair, keeping the hand in place.

I turned my head to try to get a look at it, but what grabbed me instead was the tile on the floor. It was the stainless kind that would burn away all traces of everything down to the microbial level with just a little heat. If what I'd read was accurate, it worked too. All it'd take would be for a guy to throw in a few Molotovs, let them burn, and that would be it.

“No misunderstanding what I'm in here for,” I said.

I had hoped to hold the following talk on my terms, but there was no use whining about it.

“Who are ye?” The girl asked.

That confirmed she was Scottish. The accent was thick, but not to the point of being indecipherable.

“Before I talk, and I'd like to say I have every intention of answering all your questions and telling you everything, I'd like to ask one, very small question.”

The girl glared at me, eyes squinting, debating how authentic, or full of it I was.

After a time, she asked, “Aye?”

“I just want to know how long it's been since I was knocked out.”

All three of them couldn't stop their puzzlement from shining on their faces. They couldn't see why I'd want to know something like the time considering the state of things. It took a few seconds, but the girl gave a shrug like she couldn't see how it could hurt or matter.

“Ye've been unconscious for about three hours.”

“Thanks.”

“Who are ye?” She repeated herself.

“My name's Yamato. If I'm not somewhere in your records, then I'd suggest a séance to yell at the guys I was working with. I've been doing manifest erasures and file alterations for you guys for a year and a half.” I filled them in.

The girl hadn't seen that coming. Without a word, she turned and stepped closer to Yoshida. I couldn't key in on what exactly they were whispering, but I didn't need to. There was nothing else they'd be talking about. I saw Yoshida hand over his phone to her, and she instantly started going to town on it. The old man took point in the questioning. His face was that of an angry bulldog.

“You were the one leading that attack back there, weren't you? Just what were you hoping to get out of that?”

“That wasn't a real attack,” I responded casually.

Yoshida's eyebrow arched up. “What would you call that if not an attack?”

“An audition.”

Some of the salt drained from his scowl.

“Audition for what?”

“A job. I want you to hire me.”

“What?”

The word came out in a squeak, showing crystal clear how taken aback Yoshida was.

“I've got him.” The girl announced.

She stepped forward again, coming even with Yoshida.

“He is on your books. Name: Yamato. Given name: Unknown. Address: Unknown. Affiliation: Freelance. These entries were made by a 'Yukimura.'”

She gave a wave of her hand in my direction.

“He matches the description your man gives in the file. He's been doing what he claims. Your man sights a perfect performance from him with file erasing on every account, saying that all the shipments he worked on cleared with no issues. He notes here that he tried to bring Yamato into the organization more than once, but he always refused, even with the promise of more money.”

“So, we got a freelancer who got greedy and tried for more. That's it, isn't it? It went sideways, and now you're trying to spin something so we don't kill you.”

It was the other guy, Yoshida's number two. He stepped closer like he wanted to finish me right then.

“I killed the guy I was working with right in front of you. If that were a real assault, why would I have killed my ally?”

“Greed. Oldest motivation in the world. You wanted it all for yourself, but Ms. Mackenzie here got to you before you could do it.”

I shook my head from side to side.

“Try and think through that. Your guys outnumbered the guys I brought by, probably about five to one, I'm guessing based on the number of offices and cubicle space in there. I'm also assuming you two were coming out because you'd gotten the word that most if not all of them were dead already. So, with that in mind, how would I have realistically done the hack, finished it, and gotten out of there alive all by myself?

Take one of you hostage for a human shield? Never would have worked. One of your goons would have gotten stupid sooner or later and tried something. Maybe it would have killed me right off, maybe it would have just lost me my shield, but the point is I would have been surrounded every step of the way, and no matter what happened, I'd die as soon as the slightest opening presented itself.”

The number two guy scoffed, not buying it at all. I guessed logical pragmatism probably wasn't his strong suit.

“He makes a good point. And if he is the one who planned that little escapade, along with his computer hacking means he's a right intelligent one. I can't imagine someone like that trying to pull off such a daft stunt.” The girl said.

Ichiro gave a telling scratch of his cheek, thinking it over.

“Okay, I'll indulge this for a minute. If that wasn't meant to be a real assault on us, then what was that supposed to be? What is this all about?”

“As I said, it was more an audition than anything else. I'm sure you all know about the police raid at the docks four nights ago. I was there, doing my job when the cops came in. That suspect the cops are looking for, that's me. I've been managing to evade them and throw them off so far, but it's only a matter of time until they catch me.”

“What does any of that have to do with this?” The number two guy asked.

“The cops will catch up to me eventually, and I'm not very likely to see the inside of a courtroom. I need to get out of the country. To do that, I need money and a lot more than I've got, but I need the connections too. I'm no fool. I keep up with how things work. Boarder control in most countries is so closely monitored these days that money and even the very best fake papers aren't going to get you far. There's so much risk in it that the guys who'll take a bribe won't do it for someone without any clout, someone they aren't told ahead of time they should let through. I need someone to do that for me. I did all this to show you what I bring to the table; what I can do.”

“What do you mean?” Yoshida asked.

“The Yoshida own Tokyo, everyone knows that. You guys haven't been challenged since before Yoshida senior handed over the reins, but those guys have been hitting your businesses. They even took a tiny bit of turf from you guys. In just two days, I found out who you'd want gone, infiltrated them, and got them to mount an assault that I had planned to go wrong for them from the start. It was my intention to serve them to you on a silver platter.”

“A silver platter? People died in that building.” The girl said.

“Any of them yakuza? Or the regulars?” I asked.

“No. None.” She said it as though the fact hadn't sunk in before.

“Because of me. I set it up so your people got the alert before the bikers were set to go. I made sure they were all stationed where I guessed there'd be guys to take care of them. Before the office, I even had my piece turned down so it wouldn't get through flesh and bone. I know three of your guys woke up wondering why they were covered in fake blood.”

“How did you even set that up? You've said why, but how?” Yoshida asked.

So, I told them. I told them pretty much everything I'd done to get the Black Mist marching as my personal cannon fodder. Even the number two guy, who just wanted to clam his ears up, was looking impressed by the time I finished. The girl looked to have something not far from wonder in her eyes.

“With all that in mind, imagine what I might be able to do for you if I was sufficiently motivated,” I said.

“What is it exactly you're proposing?”

“Ichiro, you're not considering this, are you?!” The number two guy exclaimed.

“I just want to hear what he has in my mind, Daichi!” Yoshida shouted back.

It had more menace fueling it than I'd heard from him yet. Daichi shrank away, a little kid reprimanded. Ichiro gave me a nod of his chin to continue.

“What I'm talking about is an exchange. For the last year, Hamada's had enough pull to get her policies pushed through. She's been giving the cops more power and chipping away at you. Nothing close to endangering your clan, but in another four years, who knows? I wouldn't want to be the lowbrow to send a yakuza clan of sixty years swirling down the flusher because I couldn't reign in a former soccer mom. So, I deliver Hamada into your pocket, and you give me the whole nine yards outside of Japan. Safe travel, papers, and a modest amount of funds. I'm not greedy, I can make my own money when I get there. That's the deal I'm offering.”

Yoshida gave me a look that I think was supposed to make me feel like a bug under a microscope. He was trying to get me to shrivel up and bow to him, but I could read it plainly that he was considering the deal.

“You just owned up to planning to backstab the last guys working with you, and now you want us to trust you?” Daichi thought he me all pegged.

“The man makes a fair point. What kind of assurances do we get that you won't be tryin' to turn around and bite us on the rump?” The girl asked.

“Because I need you guys. Trying to follow through with those bikers would've been a half measure, and they would've tried to off me, anyway. You guys have got my name, you'll know where I'm going, I'll even give you my address in the city and won't huff about the escort I'm sure you'll want hounding me.”

“You think you own up to that boast? Put Hamada in my pocket?” Yoshida asked.

“In a day.”

I had to make it sound good. I was talking for my life.

“Why the theatrics? Why not just come in and make this pitch to my face?”

“I'm eighteen. Would you have believed I could set something like today up if I'd just said so?”

Yoshida visibly considered the question for a moment.

“Daichi, you think we oughta just bury this little snot-nose and be done with it, right?”

“Kid reeks of trouble to me.”

“To be honest, he's gotten the curiosity bug biting me. I want to see what kind of Hail Mary he can scrounge up. So, we'll let him loose, but with Ms. Mackenzie holding his leash. Any objections?” Yoshida asked.

“Mackenzie is the most consummate professional I've ever seen. I still don't like this, but I can trust she'll do what's necessary.”

“Ye've retained my services, Mr. Yoshida, so I will do whatever it is you require,” Mackenzie said.

Yoshida nodded and turned his head to look back down at me.

“Alright, boy. You've got yourself a bargain. Hamada for your freedom. Ms. Mackenzie, please free him.”

Forgetting the manners to say “sayonara,” the two men left us alone. Mackenzie circled behind me on legs that moved with the grace of a gazelle. An electronic chirp sounded, and my bindings fell away. I stood up, fighting not to rub at the irritation on my wrists.

The girl came back around to face me. Normally, people gave some kind of reaction to me. After all, only the rich were supposed to be tall, and it was easy to see that I wasn't. I didn't know what the deal on nanos was in the European Union, but she wasn't the least bit fazed. It didn't surprise me at all.

“Well, it seems we'll be working together for a spell, so I believe we should be on good terms. My name is Sarah Mackenzie. Ye may call me 'Sarah.'”

She stuck her right out to shake hands with me.

“Don't want to be rude, but not my thing. And you can call me 'Yamato.'”

She pulled her hand back and gave a knowing little smirk.

“Now, why do I get the feeling that name is pure shite?”

I shrugged, because it didn't matter what she called me. Even so, I was impressed.

“Now, where would you like to start?” She asked.

“With a bite and a bed. I've had a long day, and I don't expect the next couple to be any different.”

“Ye do realize that given the nature of this arrangement, I will be accompanying you day and night until ye've delivered.”

“Does that mean I should ask if you snore?”

Her eyes narrowed closer to slits, letting me read her disapproval.

“Mr. Yamato, I would prefer if ye did not attempt to flirt with me.”

“Just Yamato is fine, and I wasn't flirting. I wanted to gauge your reaction to something you didn't see coming, and puzzle out just how closely you mean to stick.” I explained.

The displeasure left her face, proving inconsequential. Her lips made the third transition I'd seen yet and became an amused smile I would have called friendly if we hadn't first set eyes on each other ten minutes earlier.

“That's not a bad ruse. Good way to figure things without giving away your intent. It's quite clever, but I'm wondering why ye would offer up the truth like that.”

“Because I assume since you'll be mimicking my shadow for a while, you'll have to help me with the job. I don't take you for a babe who'll buy into a grift for long, so I wanted to show I can play things on the up and up. It'll do us both a favor if things turn sticky.”

“A real strategist, are ye now?”

“I wouldn't be standing here if I couldn't plan ahead. And with that bit of rapport established, I'd like to ask when I can get my gun back. It's a custom piece, and I put a lot of work into it.”

“I'm sure I don't have to explain how poor a judgment it'd be on our part to give ye a weapon. When you need it, it'll be returned to you. But, you can rest assured that we did bring both the heater and that motorcycle of yers along with us.”

That was all the obvious preliminaries checked off.

“Now, do you think we could get out of this modern dungeon?”

Sarah turned and led me over to the door. She let the blood-reader do its job playing Dracula, and the door rattled open on its own. We stepped into the belly of an overly opulent monster, wreaking of mountains of money burned for its conception.

It wasn't a subterranean level, which threw me a little. The walls were dark, polished wood. There was a painting lining the wall to my left that any idiot could have told you was expensive. Intricate moldings ran along the edges of the ceiling.

I could see the night through the window in front of me. We were obviously on the outskirts of metropolitan Neo Tokyo because the darkness wasn't light polluted. An expansive sea of grass sprawled out until it met a wall of centuries-tall trees. I'd already guessed the answer before Sarah told me.

“Mr. Yoshida's private residence, far outside the city.”

I gave her a nod to acknowledge. We didn't say anything as she led me through the halls. What was there to say? Small talk about the weather or recently released movies would have been a tad out of place. Although, if I hadn't had her with me or had tried to make a break for it, I wouldn't have gotten far before one of the many apes masquerading as humans we passed made me into their punching bag. All of them looked like they might do it regardless.

We reached the room, and Sarah used another blood-reader ingrained in the wall to open it. The interior was just as overdone as the rest I'd seen. I had to admit, be it a cell or not, it was still nicer than every dive I'd lived in since birth.

“The washroom is that door on the south corner there. Ye can use the phone to call for food, but it's strictly an internal system. There are no external lines. And just to make you aware, the windows are locked, and triple reinforced, wave proof glass, so don't even bother. I'll be back with the cock crow, and ye should be ready to get to work.” She said.

“I'll be here. Not like I'm going anywhere. I'd like to get my tablet back, and an internet connection set up. Since I'm sure you can spy on every move I make, it shouldn't be a deal breaker. Need to plot out tomorrow's moves.”

“I think I can fix that up without the death squads coming. It'll be here shortly.”

“Thanks. And come back first thing in the morning. We'll need to get moving straight off.”

She nodded, and left me all alone, shutting the door behind her. I stepped over and floundered onto the bed. It was the softest, most luxurious thing I'd ever oozed into. I'd meant to stay up for a few more hours and make a plan like I'd told Sarah, but the plush prison of the bed kept me from outrunning the weakness that'd been chasing me all day. I was out again before I knew it.

She'd received an alert from the tech department saying they'd made a breakthrough. She'd raced over with wings on her feet, hoping it might finally give her something to go on. This was the toughest case Sango had worked yet in her stead as a gumshoe. She'd never before had any investigation with more evidence on hand, but so little to follow up on.

The station's tech department reminded Sango of those research and development labs from those old spy movies, but a lot less chaotic. Nothing ever randomly exploded or crushed you against a wall there. Their primary responsibilities were data cracking, and reconstructing what evidence was available from cybernetics after the coroner was done with them.

Stepping through the door, the smell of heat, sweat, and oil assaulted her nose. Sango never got used to coming down there. For some reason that was beyond her, the air conditioning seemed to have some conscious aversion to cooling just that department. She saw the usual cast of faces as she progressed through, swiping diagnostic info from arms, skulls, and other various body parts.

She found the head of the department working with a full-sized laptop held balanced on one arm, wired up to some poor unfortunate's spine. Maeda Okimi was a sixty-year-old veteran of the police force. The woman was a genius, with PhDs in computer science, cybernetics, and forensic cybernetics.

She was a touch on the rounder side of the weight curb but was otherwise in good health. Her hair had been dipped in silver for some time and was done up in a wild, messy bun, held together with chopsticks. She sported glasses that could have doubled as submarine portholes. With her kind and open personality, the woman always made Sango think of a friendly, mad scientist.

“Hello, Okimi.” Sango said.

At Okimi's insistence, the two had used each other's given names since their first meeting. The older scientist swiveled around like her feet were gyroscopes, and issued a sunny, inviting smile.

“Sango! How lovely to see you again! Oh, dear, you have bags under your eyes. Are you not sleeping again?”

Sango couldn't help but smile back. Okimi was like that with everyone, and for Sango, it never failed to make her balloon of stress deflate on the quick.

“I'm on a case, Okimi, and tough one. It can't be helped.”

“You shouldn't push yourself so hard, dear. Sleep is a vital necessity for both of your systems.”

“Depending on what you had me double-time it down here for, maybe I can sneak a short sixty after we're done. You did say you had something for me.”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

Okimi set the laptop down on the table beside the spine. Walking with her, Sango thought to herself that she hoped to be this woman when she reached that age. Okimi always looked as full of pep and zest for life as someone half her age. In a job that forced you to sift through every vile, duplicitous, or perverted cruelty the human mind could come up with, someone like Okimi was more treasured than a baseball-sized diamond.

“Chocolates, Sango?”

“No, thank you.”

Okimi reached into an open bag at her workstation and popped a handful of colorful chocolates into her mouth. She always had one of those nearby.

“So, that microdot phone the forensics boys found on the boat. We finally hammered into it a little while ago, but my, it was a tricky one! Whoever programmed that little bugger really knew what they were doing.”

“It was tough for you? I find that hard to believe. But, I guess it's never taken you this long before to come up with something.” Sango said.

“As I said, this person is good. They replaced the standard-issue security with multiple, military-grade firewalls. Wasn't easy, but we managed to find the access point and sneak a worm through. After that, the data was shielded by adaptive encryption that rewrote itself every time we tried to access the data. That one was even tougher. Took everything I know to crack it. I had to write an algorithm that would try to guess how the encryption would change in the next incarnation, and then create a key to try to decipher when the change happened. Took three days of running before my program finally learned the patterns well enough to crack the code.

But when I got in, there was nothing there. There were a few, random bites of data that didn't amount to anything, so I thought I'd accidentally triggered a fail-safe and erased everything. Truthfully, dear, that was this morning, and I was trying to build up the gumption all this time to let you down.

But then, I got a tsunami of a brainwave. Placing the microdot into the disassembler, I carefully took it apart, and I found it. Whoever modified this phone took out and reworked some of the components to make room for a second CPU. All the data transferred when I broke the encryption, leaving just enough to make it look like it'd been trashed. Using what I'd learned the first time, I was able to get into the second CPU without tripping the real fail-safe I'd assumed, and found lying in wait.”

Sango was floored. She beamed a ray at Okimi filled with nothing save respect and adoration. The woman may have been sixty, but she never failed to dazzle.

“Okimi, that's incredible.”

“Oh, no dear, I'm not that good. The truth is, whoever pulled the trick with this phone had me thrown for a loop. I'd called it quits. I wouldn't have thought of checking, except I saw one of my assistants change into a new pair of socks after they spilled some joint grease down their leg. It's what gave me the idea.”

“It's still a great job, and it'll help me nab the hitter. What'd you find?” Sango asked.

“Still not much, I'm afraid. Whoever had this phone, he made to sure wash, rinse, and repeat every time. There weren't any numbers stored in the memory. The GPS function has been removed entirely, and it seems the calls were routed through the internet, and several of those so-called 'fire and forget' VPNs. But, I did get something.”

Okimi shifted to her desktop and made a location blip onto the screen.

“A recent call it made used the WiFi of this diner in Minato-ku as a proxy to bounce off of. I couldn't find an IP address for either the point of origin, or destination, but the caller had to at least be in proximity of this shop when the call was made.”

“Thank you so much, Okimi. This is the first tangible lead I've had to sink my teeth into. When this case is over, I'm treating you to dinner, any place you want!”

“I'd enjoy that, Sango. It'll be nice to have the time to catch up.”

Sango and Okimi each offered the other a bow. Sango had to fight the impulse not to give her a loving hug. She couldn't speak for anyone else, but Okimi had that effect on her. Sango had never received the chance to know either of her grandmothers, but she liked to think they would have been just like Okimi.

Yoshida Ichiro sat in his lavish, overstuffed armchair in the corner of his penthouse bedroom in the mansion. The house had also been designed and built by his father, who Ichiro was sure without a doubt had overcompensated for his humble beginnings. The bedroom was twice as large as his already expansive office.

It was quarter to four a.m. Since they'd put the issue of the kid to bed for a minute, Ichiro had taken the opportunity to recover himself through quiet, and solitude. For comfort's sake, he had on nothing but his silk robe, and a pair of boxers underneath.

He'd been lightly sipping at a bottle of shochu for hours. It was Kamigami Gold, the most well-made, refined, and expensive shochu on the market. Ichiro reflected how in English, “Kamigami” loosely translated to, “Of the Gods.” He thought the smooth texture and the light, impurity-free taste of the liquor allowed it to live up to its name.

Ichiro had only sipped enough to let himself get half drunk. He hadn't been seeking oblivion, just a little happy cloudiness to take the edge off. What with getting attacked for the first time in his whole career, and feeling certain he'd find he and his father reunited a lot sooner than expected, he'd thought he deserved it.

Ichiro's pleasurable numbness was cut shorter than he would have liked by a knocking at the far door. He'd been close to just yelling to whoever it was to come in and get it over with but decided not to tempt fate into repeating itself. He begrudgingly stood up, and only half lumbered to the door.

He made sure to peer through the wall-screen first, and then swung it wide.

“What is it, Daichi?”

Daichi pushed past his boss and entered the room.

“Daichi, what do you want? I was just about to call it and conk out.”

“I've been trying to dig up something on the kid.”

That got Ichiro's ears to perk up. He may have been sleepy, but he was more interested in finding out something about his newest house guest.

“What do you mean 'trying'?”

“I mean, either that kid's more paranoid about who he is than most spies, or we've got a poltergeist snoozing in that room. I had the geeks in the basement run an internet scan with that picture we took while he was out. As far as Japan is concerned, the kid's face isn't anywhere on the web.”

“Kid did say he's a hacker, so it makes sense. Considering he was workin' for us, and what got us here tonight, isn't far fetched to say he's a good one.” Ichiro said.

“No kidding. And there's no point in runnin' a search in 'Yamato.' Clear to me it's an alias, with just the one name, it wouldn't get any valuable hits even if it did have meaning.”

“So, how do you want to handle it?” Ichiro asked.

“I've had the geeks send out his pic to all of the guys I think we can trust enough, asking if they got any info about him. Still too early to give them a ring, but I plan on hitting up the moles we got in the cops and the DAs. If I can get some kind of confirmation on that apartment address he gave us, I'll go give it a once over. I'm not gonna run any risks with this kid.”

“Sounds good to me. Anything we know about him might help.”

“Ichiro, I gotta ask, do you plan to let this kid work? Yeah, none of our guys got an early grave, but he admitted to screwing those bikers over from the beginning. Even if he pulls it off, are we gonna hold up our end?”

“I've never welshed on a deal before, Daichi. But, I have been thinking. That kid's a wild card. We've been there, in that room doing that enough times that I've lost count, but I can't remember ever not being able to read someone so much. Kid was like a statue. Nothing vibed off of him at all.”

“So, we'll give him a little incentive in the morning. Show him the clips. We've got already got him caged, and I don't think he can try anything with Mackenzie watching him. Otherwise, if he does deliver, well, we'll play it by ear.”