[Thomas Caine #1] Tokyo Black (22 page)

As its blood red glow chased away her shadows of concealment, she spotted something she had missed in the darkness. A makeshift cooking stove. It was little more than a homemade valve and a length of metal tube, attached to a small canister of propane gas. The contraption sat in a rusted shopping cart. A thin sheet of bent, charred metal served as a cooking surface.

Two sets of footsteps moved closer, and Bernatto called out to her. “This is bigger than Caine, bigger than you…. We’re talking about America’s future here, Rebecca.”

Rebecca grabbed the flare and slid over to the shopping cart on her hands and knees.
Just keep, talking you bastard.

She tossed the metal grill aside and grabbed the propane tank. She forced herself to be careful as she unscrewed the metal hose from the makeshift burner. As she worked, she heard the two men advancing towards her.

“Rebecca, this is your last chance,” Bernatto said. “Work with me. We can do some good here, I promise you. Just hear me out.”

A part of her knew what she was attempting was crazy … suicide, even. But as far as she could see, Mr. Douglas was right. This wasn’t a fight she could win. Unless she changed her tactics.

A barrage of gunfire exploded behind her. She ducked down low, but a red hot pain lanced through her back. She cried out and fell to the ground.

Her breath turned to a series of ragged gasps. She could feel hot blood pooling beneath her back on the cold concrete floor. She hugged the fruits of her labor to her chest, as if she were clinging to life itself.

The shadowy outlines of Bernatto and Mr. Douglas stepped out from behind two columns at opposite ends of the room. The figures sharpened as they moved closer. Mr. Douglas’s perfect, cherubic face and cold smile made him look like a fallen angel in the hellish red light. Bernatto’s angry scowl was amplified by the shadows that moved across his face. He was the fallen angel’s master, the devil himself.

She tried to roll away, her brain jumbled with panic and fear. The pain in her back, the numbness in her torso … she realized she couldn’t move her legs.

She was paralyzed from the waist down.

“Rebecca, I’m disappointed. This is foolish.”

Mr. Douglas stopped six feet away from her. “I’m not disappointed, Ms. Freeling. I’m just curious. One bullet left … what do you do? Shoot me? Shoot Mr. Bernatto?  You know, when I was in the SEAL teams, we always saved one bullet for ourselves, just in case. Maybe this bullet has your name on it. What’s it gonna be, Ms. Freeling?”

Rebecca choked back her tears. She was damned if she would let them see her cry. She let her arms fall to her sides. The small, dirty white canister rolled out of her arms, stopping just a few feet away from Mr. Douglas.

The flare was tied to the top of the canister with the length of metal hose. Its red glare burned away the shadows; in its crimson light, she saw Bernatto’s features shift from an annoyed scowl to shock. She had just enough time to smile before he turned and ran for the door.

Mr. Douglas lifted his MP5, but he was too late. Her gun was already aimed straight at the canister. She pulled the trigger.

A massive fireball filled the room, lifting her and the two men and tossing them through the air. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Douglas’s face as the fire tore at his flesh. Then she fell to the ground. She felt as though all the air had been sucked from the room.

The darkness spun around her as she slipped into the cold, black space of unconsciousness.

The interior of The Space Age karaoke bar was quiet and subdued. Brief flashes of loud music would drift through the dark hallways, as customers entered and exited their private rooms. But when the doors closed, the only sound came from the quiet movements of cocktail waitresses and hosts. They glided through the corridors, balancing trays of empty glasses, bottles of sake, and platters of deep fried snacks.

The hostess at the door bowed to Caine as they entered.

“
Irashimase
.” She greeted him with a flirtatious smile. “Do you have a room reservation?”

Caine smiled back. “We’re meeting a friend.
Arrigato gozimasu
.”

The hostess bowed again. Her eyes flicked over to a new set of customers entering the busy bar behind them. Caine and Mariko stepped into the labyrinth of dark hallways and muted music.

Caine looked up at the numbers above the private karaoke rooms. “Back this way.” They pushed past a crowd of drunken party girls and made their way to a red leather door. Caine scanned the crowd. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mariko making her own assessments.
She’s a pro
, he thought.
Might be difficult to shake her loose if I have to run with Hitomi. 

He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. He would deal with that later. For now, she seemed like she could be useful.

Once they were satisfied they had not been followed, Mariko nodded to Caine. “It’s clear.”

He opened the door and stepped into outer space.

A high, curved ceiling rose above the dark room. A hidden projector beamed an image of stars and planets onto the dome above, while an eerie song played. The effect was startling and realistic, like a miniature planetarium.

Caine closed the door after Mariko. If the strange room fazed her at all, she didn’t show it. She looked up as an image of Saturn streaked above them.

“Hitomi?” Caine called out into the darkness, shouting over the music.

The song’s volume dipped. “I am here.”

Caine didn’t recognize the girl’s voice. Then he remembered: when they last spoke, Hitomi had been using the Masuka Ongaku avatar. Her voice was no longer a robotic chirp. It was softer, human … a curious combination of bored and scared.

Caine looked around. Unlike other karaoke rooms he had seen, this one was circular. Chairs were arranged around the walls, and the musical lyrics were projected on the ceiling, amidst the stars and planets.

His first glimpse of Hitomi was just a bright outline. He saw a halo of light, surrounding the dark shadow of a feminine form. She was sitting in front of the room’s projector.

“Who is she?” Hitomi asked. Caine looked back at Mariko, as she took a step forward.

“My name is Mariko Murase,” she said. “I’m working with the
Keisatsu Cho
, Public Security Bureau.”

Hitomi’s shadowy form twisted in her chair. “Then you work for my father, whether you know it or not.”

“Hitomi,” Caine said, “we’re here to help. You can’t keep running. You said so yourself. These men chasing you are dangerous. It’s only a matter of time until they find you. Unless we can stop them.”

“I was almost free of him. Then you showed up. For all I know, you led them to me.”

Mariko pressed a button on the wall. With a quiet mechanical hum, metal blinds rose up from the floor, uncovering the windows and revealing the city outside.

A shaft of darkness crawled across the room, chased away by the glow of the colorful lights outside a large, curved window. Hitomi appeared in the reflection as the darkness receded to the edges of the room.

She looked different from her picture. A bit older, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. Her hair was no longer a rich, dark brown. She had dyed it a pale, almost silver blonde, and it shimmered in the glow of the city outside.

Her skin was pale as well, either from makeup or hiding indoors. Her eyes were soft pools of brown in the luminous white landscape of her slim face. Slashes of dark eyeshadow gave them a strange, alien look, like the lifeless eyes of a kabuki mask.

She wore a white sequined bustier and a long matching skirt. The shimmering fabric clung to her body, stretching as she crossed her legs. Expensive-looking heels adorned her tiny, pale feet. She had unbuckled their ankle straps, and one of the shoes dangled as she bounced her foot up and down.

She looked like a ghost, a pale figure of death sitting alone in a dark room.

“Not exactly playing it subtle, are we?” Caine remarked.

The girl smiled and sipped a cocktail.

“I’m hiding in plain sight. My father knows what I look like. A more extreme look makes men like him and his followers uncomfortable. Maybe they will not look at me so closely this way.”

Mariko stepped forward, looking the girl up and down.

“Who are you?” she asked. “Who are you really?”

“You know who I am.”

“Arinori Kusaka has no children,” Mariko snapped. “I don’t have time to play guessing games with you, girl!”

Mariko stormed forward and swiped Hitomi’s cocktail glass off the chair. The girl flinched as it shattered against the wall.

“Mariko!” Caine grabbed her by the arm. She shrugged out of his grip and turned back to Hitomi.

“People are dying. Kusaka has this city in a chokehold of corruption and bribery. Whatever he is planning, it is dangerous. It must be stopped. I must stop him. And you WILL help us. Do you understand me?”

An angry glare replaced Hitomi’s peaceful gaze. “Kusaka-san is my father.” She spat out the words, as if they tasted bitter on her tongue. “He may not acknowledge it any more than you do, but it is the truth just the same. You think I am playing a game? You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what I had to do to get here. What I went through to find him. And now, what I’ve had to do to escape.”

“If Kusaka-san is your father, you must be one of the richest girls in Japan. Why would you want to escape?”

Caine stared at the two women. There was a severity about Mariko that bothered him. He was beginning to get the feeling there was more to her interest in Kusaka than she had told him. As they argued, he moved to the window and surveyed the street below.

“You know nothing,” Hitomi said. “I was not born here. This is not my home. And he does not see me as his daughter. He sees me as….” Her voice trailed off.

Caine saw a stream of flashing red lights in the distance. They formed a long line in the street and were heading straight for the intersection where The Space Age bar was located.

“Mariko?” Caine called over his shoulder. “Did you report in to your superiors before we came here?”

Mariko looked back. “No, why?”

“We’ve got a problem. Look.”

She stepped over to the window. The line of lights was closing in. It was a row of police cars, snaking in and out of traffic, making a beeline for their location.

“
Kuso
,” she cursed. “It must have been my partner, Taro. He’s worried he’ll be suspended, too, for helping me. I should have known he’d crack. Now he’ll probably get a commendation.”

Caine hit the button on the wall, and the blinds began to close. “Hitomi, we have to go.”

The girl stood up. “It’s my father, isn’t it? I told you he’d find me.”

“No, it’s the police.”

She sighed and draped a black leather jacket over her shoulders. “I keep telling you, it amounts to the same thing. Money, power, connections … my father is Tokyo. Do you understand? He controls everything in this city.”

Caine touched her shoulder, guiding her towards the door. Mariko poked her head out into the hallway.

“It’s clear. Let’s move.”

The headed for the exit. “Hitomi, I know your father is a powerful man. But he doesn’t control everything. Or everyone.”

Hitomi looked at him as she stepped out into the corridor. She stared into his eyes, tilting her head slightly. Her pupils were wide and dark. She was clearly on something.

“You look familiar to me,” she said in a dreamy voice.

“You saw me at the concert, on your camera, remember?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not that. It’s your eyes. They look like mine. I can see the pain in them.”

She touched his face with her slim hand. Her fingers were cold. “Pain and betrayal. You have suffered these things. Haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Caine said. “I have.”

She looked away. “Then you should know better than to think we can escape my father. There are some things no one can escape.”

She turned and followed Mariko out into the hall. Caine paused for a brief second, wondering what she meant. Then, as the sirens grew closer, he stepped into the darkness outside.

Behind him, the projected cosmos of twinkling stars and spinning planets continued to dance across the ceiling.

The tiny blip on the air traffic control screen pulsed brightly. Natsumi sipped her coffee as she watched the green dot inch closer and closer on the radar screen. She grimaced. The black liquid in her cup had turned cold and bitter.

“Looking good, 1168. Maintain this approach vector. Please transmit IDENT code now. Repeat. Please transmit IDENT code now.”

Haruki, her handsome assistant controller, leaned over her shoulder and set down a fresh cup of coffee.

“
Arrigato,
Haru-kun. It’s been a long day. My shift was supposed to end an hour ago, but this one is a real pain in the ass.”

The young man smiled. “Oh, someone important?”

Natsumi shrugged. “We’ll see. All I know is they made me give this flight double the normal clearance. Had to move all other flights into the next safe zone.” The terminal next to her screen began to beep and flash numbers. The plane was sending its IDENT code, identifying the flight. Natsumi submitted the code to the tower control for clearance.

They waited a few minutes, staring at the screen as the blip began its final approach to Tokyo Narita Airport. Then the terminal flashed again. Natsumi squinted at the result. “Well, well, what do you know…?”

“What?”

Natsumi turned to her mic and once again spoke in English. “Roger that, 1168, IDENT received. You are cleared to land. Please follow the approach coordinates I am sending you now. Thank you, and good evening.”

“Well, who is it?” Haruki asked.

Natsumi took another sip of her coffee and smiled. “US State Department flight. Wasn’t on any of the logs. Apparently, the Secretary of State is making a last-minute visit to Tokyo.”

“Oh, that’s interesting. I wonder what she’s doing here?”

Natsumi stood up and stretched. She grunted in pain as she arched her back, then she slipped on a worn wool coat. “I have no idea, but once that plane’s on the ground, something very important is going to happen.”