Rain Fall (29 page)

Five seconds went by, then another five. I drew in a few hitching breaths.

What the hell,
I thought.
What the hell did I land on?

I grunted and sat up. I was on a large sand pile to the left of the tracks. Beside it were two hard-hatted Japanese construction workers, looking at me, their mouths slightly agape.

Next to the sand pile was a concrete floor that the
workers were repairing. They were using the sand to mix cement. I realized that if I had let go of the train even a half second later, I would have landed on concrete instead of a soft pile of sand.

I slid over to the ground, stood, and began brushing myself off. The shape of my body was imprinted in the sand like something from an over-the-top cartoon.

The construction workers hadn’t changed their posture. They were still looking at me, mouths still agape, and I realized they were in mild shock at what they had just seen.

“Ah, sumimasen,”
I began, not knowing what else to say.
“Etto, otearae wa arimasu ka?”
Excuse me, do you have a bathroom?

They maintained their frozen postures, and I realized that my question had discombobulated them further. Just as well. I saw that I was only a few meters inside the tunnel and started walking out.

I considered what had happened. Yamaoto’s men must have seen me go into the tunnel hanging on to the back of the train, but not seen me slip, and I was going too fast for them to expect that I’d let go deliberately. So they were figuring that, in three minutes, I would be deposited at Mita station, the end of the line. They must have bolted out of the station to Mita to try to intercept me.

I had a wild idea.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the earpiece I had pocketed before Flatnose and his crew had caught me in the van, slipped it into place. I felt in my pocket for the adhesive-backed transmitter. Still there. But was it still transmitting?

“Harry? Can you hear me? Talk to me,” I said.

There was a long pause, and just as I started to try again the earpiece came to life.

“John! What the hell is going on? Where are you?”

It felt great to hear the kid. “Relax, I’m okay. But I need your help.”

“What’s going on? I’ve been listening to everything. Are you in a train station? Are you all right?”

I hauled myself up onto the platform. Some people stared at me but I ignored them, walking past them as though it was perfectly natural that I had just emerged filthy and bruised from the depths of one of Tokyo’s subway tunnels. “I’ve been better, but we can talk about that later. Is the equipment still up and running?”

“Yes, I’m still getting a feed on all the rooms in the building.”

“Okay, that’s what I need to know. Who’s still in the building?”

“Infrared says just one guy. Everyone else left right after you.”

“Yamaoto, too?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the guy who stayed behind?”

“Very last room on the right as you face the building—where the three men took you. He’s been there since you got out.”

That would be Flatnose or one of his boys—must not have been in condition to come after me. It felt good to know.

“Okay, here’s the situation. They all think I’m on the back of a subway to Mita, and that’s where they’re
going to converge in about four minutes. It’ll take them maybe another five to figure out that I’m not there and that they’ve lost me, and another five after that to get back to the Conviction building. So I’ve got fourteen minutes to get back in there and plant the bug.”

“What? You don’t know where they are. What if they didn’t all go to Mita? They could come back while you’re still in there!”

“I’m counting on you to let me know if that’s going to happen. You’re still getting a video feed from the van, right?”

“Yeah, it’s still broadcasting.”

“Look, I’m practically at the building now—still all clear?”

“Still all clear, but this is crazy.”

“I’m never going to get a better chance. They’re all out of the building, nothing’s going to be locked, and when they get back, we’ll be able to hear everything they say. I’m going in.”

“Okay, I can see you now. Do it fast.”

That advice I didn’t need. I went through the stairway doors and turned right, then jogged down the hallway to the entrance. As I expected, they had left in a hurry and it was wide open.

Yamaoto’s office was three doors down to the right. I was going to be in and out in no time.

The door was closed. I reached out for the knob, tried to turn it.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathed.

“What is it?”

“It’s locked.”

“Forget it—put the bug somewhere else.”

“I can’t—this is where we need to listen.” I examined the lock, and could see that it was only a regular five-pin tumbler. Not a big deal. “Hang on a minute. I think I can get in.”

“John, get out of there. They could come back at any time.”

I didn’t answer. I slipped out my keys and detached one of my homemade picks and the dental mirror. The latter’s long, slim handle made for a nice field-expedient tension wrench. I slipped the handle into the lock and gently rotated it clockwise. When the slack in the cylinder was gone, I eased in the pick and started working the fifth tumbler.

“Don’t try to pick the lock! You’re no good at it! Just put it somewhere else and get out!”

“What do you mean I’m no good at it? I taught you how to do it, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, that’s how I know you’re no good.” He stopped. Probably figured it was useless to try to stop me so he might as well let me concentrate.

I felt the fifth tumbler click, then lost it. Damn. I turned the dental mirror another fraction, tightening the cylinder against the pins. “Harry? I miss your voice. . . .” Another tumbler slipped.

“Don’t talk to me. Concentrate.”

“I am, but it’s so hard. . . .” I felt the fifth pin click and hold. The next three were easy. Just one more.

The last pin was damaged. I couldn’t feel the click. I worked the pick up and down, but couldn’t get anything.

“C’mon, sweetheart, where are you?” I breathed. I held my breath and jiggled the pick.

I never felt the tumbler click into place. But the knob was suddenly free. It twisted to the right and I was in.

The office was the same as when I’d left it. Even the lights were still on. I knelt down next to the leather couch and felt its underside. It was covered with some kind of cloth. The edges were stapled to what felt like wood. Good backing to attach the bug.

I pulled the adhesive covering off the transmitter and pressed it into place. Anyone talking in this room was going to come through loud and clear.

Harry’s voice in my ear: “John, two of them just got back. They’re coming up the walkway. Get out right now. Use the side exit—the one at the left side of building as you face it.”

“Shit, the transmitter’s already in place. I’m not going to be able to respond to you once I leave this room. Keep talking to me.”

“They just stopped at the end of the walkway to the front entrance. Maybe they’re waiting for the others. Go down to the side entrance and stay there until I tell you you’re clear.”

“Okay. I’m gone.” I relocked the door from the inside, then backed out and closed it behind me. Turned and started to move in the direction of the exterior corridor.

Flatnose was coming down the hallway. His shirt was covered with blood. The table must have caught him in the face and broken his nose again. It hadn’t improved his appearance. Hoarse animal sounds were rumbling up out of his chest.

He was standing between me and the entrance. Nowhere to go but through him.

Harry again, a second late: “There’s one right in front of you! And the others are coming up the walk!”

Flatnose dropped his head, his neck and shoulders bunching, looking like a bull about to charge.

All he wanted was to get his hands on me. He was going to come at me hard, crazed with rage, not thinking.

He launched himself at me, closing the gap fast. As he lunged for my neck, I grabbed his wet shirt and dropped to the floor in modified
tomo-nage,
my right foot catching him in the balls and hurling him over me. He landed on his back with a thud I could feel through the floor. Using the momentum of the throw I rolled to my feet, took two long steps over to him, and leaped into the air like a pissed-off bronco, coming down with both feet as hard as I could on his prone torso. I felt bones breaking inside him and all the air being driven from his body. He made a sound like a balloon deflating in a puddle of water and I knew he was done.

I lurched toward the corridor, then stopped. If they found him like this in the middle of the hallway, they would know I’d been back here, maybe figure out why. They might look for a bug. I had to get him back to the room at the other end of the hallway, where it would look like he’d died by a freak shot from the table.

His legs were pointing in the right direction. I squatted between them, facing away from him, grabbed him around the knees and stood. He was heavier than he looked. I leaned forward and dragged him, feeling like a horse yoked to a wagon with square wheels. There were bursts of pain in my back.

Harry’s voice in my ear again: “What are you doing? They’re coming in the front entrance. You’ve got maybe twelve seconds to get clear of the corridor.”

I dumped him in the room at the end of the hallway and raced out into the corridor, sprinting toward the side exit.

I reached the entrance to the side stairwell and heard the door on the opposite side of the corridor opening. I yanked open the door and threw myself through it, pulling it shut behind me but stopping it before it closed completely.

I squatted on the landing, fighting the screaming need to breathe, holding the door open a crack and watching as three of Yamaoto’s men walked into the corridor. One of them was doubled over—the guy I had nailed with the can of coffee. They walked into Conviction’s offices and out of my field of vision.

Immediately, I heard Harry: “They’re back in the office. The front of the building is clear. Walk out the side exit now and head east across the park toward Sakurada-dori.”

I went down the stairs quietly but fast. Stuck my head out the exit door at the bottom, looked both ways. All clear. I shuffled down an alley connecting Hibiya-dori and Chuo-dori and cut across the park. The sun felt good on my face.

Now . . . they resolved to go back to their own land; because the years have a kind of emptiness when we spend too many of them on a foreign shore. But . . . if we do return, we find that the native air has lost its invigorating quality, and that life has shifted its reality to the spot where we have deemed ourselves only temporary residents.

 

Thus, between two countries, we have none at all . . .

 

—N
ATHANIEL
H
AWTHORNE
,
The Marble Faun

“Y
OU ARE A
maniac with a death wish, and I’m never working with you again,” Harry told me when I got to his apartment.

“I’m never working with me again, either,” I said. “Have you been getting anything from the transmitter?”

“Yes, everything that went on while you were there and a short meeting that just ended. It’s stored on the hard drive.”

“They say anything about the guy I ran into on my way out?”

“What do you mean?”

“I had a little encounter with one of Yamaoto’s men just after I put the transmitter in place. They must have figured it had happened earlier, or you would have heard them say something.”

“Oh, that. Yes, they thought it happened when you busted out of interrogation. They didn’t know you’d been back. You know, the guy is dead.”

“Yeah, he didn’t look too good when I left him.”

He was watching me closely, but I couldn’t read his
eyes. “That was fast. You can do something like that, that fast, with just your hands?”

I looked at him, deadpan. “No, I needed my feet, too. Where’s Midori?”

“She went out to get an electronic piano keyboard. We’re going to try playing what’s on the disk for the computer—it’s the only way to discern the patterns in the lattice.”

I frowned. “She shouldn’t be going out if we can avoid it.”

“We couldn’t avoid it. Someone had to monitor the laser and infrared and save your ass before, and she isn’t familiar with the equipment. That didn’t leave a lot of alternatives.”

“I see what you mean.”

“She knows to be careful. She’s wearing light disguise. I don’t think there’s going to be a problem.”

“Okay. Let’s listen to what you got from the transmitter.”

“Just a second—tell me you didn’t leave the van.”

“What do you think, I went back for it? I’m crazy, but not that crazy.”