The Mask: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel

by Taylor Stevens

  They were close now, and in this Akio Tanaka in his genius was years ahead of the rest. They’d done two transplants, a culmination of the six years he’d spent perfecting the inherited technology. In the most technical sense, the transplants had been failures, but Sato knew them for the successes they were. They’d come so far, and they had learned, and they would move on to the next phase.

  Sato wiped condensation off the incubator glass, then stood and left the room within the room and sealed the door, shutting the shoji to hide the room. She’d harvested her own cells, grown her own cellular soup, and stolen from other labs what she couldn’t create herself.

  The day Tanaka successfully printed a heart she would print one of her own, and when the first human transplant trials started, she would arrange a trip to Thailand and, honoring Mother as a daughter should, become Mother’s own donor. The danger was in staying, and she’d stayed too long. Pride had kept her here, and now this sacred life-giving place had been violated.

  Sato glanced up at the cameras, pointed toward the ceiling.

  This wasn’t the address on her paperwork at the facility. This wasn’t the address to which her vehicle was registered. There wasn’t a way, in any meaningful sense, for someone to have found her and followed her here without her knowing about it, and yet they had.

  Whoever had done this, knew what they were doing.

  Whoever had done this had left a message.

  Sato dragged a chair from the kitchen and stood on it to readjust the camera angle, then stalked over to her computer and went back through the footage.

  Only one camera still functioned, on the third floor, leading to the unused bedroom. Sato ran up the stairs for the futon closet, to the false floor that hid the money box. She pulled hard, pried the board up, and stared into an empty hole.

  If she could have screamed, she would have shattered glass.

  She’d only had a month’s pay in that safe, but that wasn’t the point.

  Someone had known where to look, had taken what was hers, had taken just enough to cause her pain and wanted her to know they’d done it.

  Sato clenched her hands and gritted her teeth, then spun around.

  She slogged down the stairs, into the empty dining room, and stared at the floor and the sheet of paper she’d laid down. Her food was cold, but what did that matter, she had no appetite. She grabbed the whisky glass, still half full, and tossed the smooth liquid into the sink. Then she sat, and with the fever burning, she stared some more.

  Good warriors sought effectiveness in battle through momentum, not from individual people. The ambush had failed, but this map was momentum.

  Munroe found temporary refuge and a few hours’ sleep on a futon in a manga café cubicle and was on her way again before the workday began. She took the train to the city center and walked the awakening streets, following directions she’d mapped out a week earlier when threats to Bradford’s lawyer had seemed appropriate and reasonable.

  She stopped at the western entrance of an eighteen-story building that filled an entire corner, shadowing sidewalks and portions of the wide multilane intersection from the morning sun. She dialed, glancing up, and waited through the tones.

  When the line connected, there were no receptionist lies.

  Soon the lawyer answered, and Munroe said, “Has your client been indicted?”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  With those two words, the reality of the present washed in, bringing weakness, bringing loss and longing with the dread she’d not allowed herself to feel. Munroe pushed it all away. This was a lapse, a momentary lapse.

  She had a client, she had a goal.

  Until the contract was fulfilled, there was only that and nothing more.

  She said, “Has he confessed?”

  “I’ve not received notification of such. There has also been pressure from important people on my client’s behalf—my client has many friends.”

  This was good. Perhaps Warren Green had pulled rank. Or someone Sam Walker had drawn in from among those who owed Bradford favors. Regardless of who or where the influence was coming from, it would minimize Bradford’s suffering. Abuse of power had a way of dissipating when those in power realized that the seemingly helpless had powerful friends.

  “Have you seen him?” she said.

  “Briefly, together with a representative from the U.S. embassy.”

  “I promised to get you what you need to help your client,” Munroe said. “I have material for you.”

  “I have an appointment in thirty minutes.”

  “I’m outside your office,” she said. “Give me those thirty minutes.”

  Munroe took the elevator up to the sixteenth floor. An assistant greeted her at the door and walked her through a narrow tiled hallway to a corner office, where a bookshelf lined one wall and the floor space was barely enough to squeeze in a desk and chairs, but the view was nice.

  The lawyer was a small man, quick on his feet, oozing the type of energy that came packaged in cans and bottles. He stood when she entered, sizing her up from top to bottom in a blink. He motioned to a chair. “We only have a little time.”

  Munroe sat, pulled a box from her pack, and placed it on the desk.

  “The murder weapon,” she said. She’d scuffed the belt and for what it was worth rubbed the buckle with Bradford’s dirty laundry, then wiped the leather down to remove prints as a plausible explanation for why Bradford’s weren’t on it. The lawyer looked into the box, harrumphed, and then capped it again.

  Munroe followed with a piece of paper that she laid out flat.

  The lawyer took his chair. Munroe picked up a pen.

  Convincing him wasn’t the same as convincing a judge, but in a system where informal negotiations outside the courtroom were what guided the process forward, she would give him a way to adjust the timbre.

  Human nature begged for simplicity, for easy answers within already established beliefs. The more complex the truth, the further a scenario strayed from what was commonly accepted to be true, the easier it became to reject the truth. Belief mattered more than fact.

  Belief was effortless, like belts and foreign killers.

  She said, “I’m going to throw a lot of information at you—motives and connections—I’ll do it in as few words as possible, but it’s messy.”

  “Is it provable?”

  Munroe met his eyes and held his gaze.

  “Yes,” she said, “but not with the money you’re being paid. I’ll give you the facts, you figure out what you can do with them.”

  She drew a circle in the middle of the page.

  “ALTEQ-Bio Gaisha,” she said. “A cutting-edge leader in the biotech field. The executives believe someone on the inside has been stealing trade secrets and selling them to a competitor.”

  She blocked out a square on the bottom left of the page.

  “Yuzuru Tagawa, head of operations for ALTEQ,” she said. “Six years ago a security flaw at Kinjo Ichi Gaisha, which was ALTEQ’s chief rival at the time, resulted in data theft on a valuable, tightly controlled project. Two months later ALTEQ announced a breakthrough with the same technology. Tagawa’s brother, responsible for maintaining Kinjo Ichi’s security, was fired. He committed suicide. A year later Yuzuru Tagawa began working at ALTEQ.”

  Munroe blocked a square in the top left corner.

  “Jiro Sasaki,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you know who he is. One of his legitimate businesses is also in the biotech field, and starting a year after Yuzuru Tagawa began work at ALTEQ, his company has twice beat ALTEQ to the market with identical products.”

  She drew a line connecting the two boxes and drew an X in the middle.

  “If you look hard enough and ask questions of the right people, you’ll be able to connect Sasaki and Tagawa through clandestine meetings.”

  The lawyer, protest and objection written on his face, opened his mouth.

  Munroe held up a hand. “I’m just getting started,” she said.
“Wait until I’m finished.”

  She drew a square in the bottom right corner.

  “Miles Bradford,” she said. “Hired on by ALTEQ to uncover the thief.” She traced a line from Tagawa’s box to Bradford’s and drew an X in the middle. “Meilin, the murder victim. If you talk to her family, you’ll discover that she was Yuzuru Tagawa’s clandestine lover. This lead, a plausible motive and a potential suspect, was dismissed and then abandoned by Tadashi Ito, the lead investigator.”

  She drew a second X between Tagawa and Bradford. “The belt, the murder weapon,” she said, and drew arrows to both Tagawa and Jiro. “Again, if you ask the right questions of the right people, you’ll learn that Miles Bradford had been invited by ALTEQ employees to a hostess club in Kitashinchi, also owned by Jiro Sasaki. Two weeks before the murder there was a fight at the club in which Jiro’s men took the belt from Miles Bradford.

  “Lastly,” she said, and she drew a fourth box on the page and placed a question mark within it. She drew a line between Jiro’s box and the question mark and scratched another X between them. On the X she wrote in Tadashi Ito.

  “The man who investigated the murder your client is said to have committed, the same man who dismissed the fact that the murder victim had a lover at the facility, who never looked beyond the crime scene at the facility or put resources to anything other than establishing your client as the guilty party. Look hard,” she said, “and you’ll find a link between him and Jiro Sasaki. I got my information from a private investigator, so it shouldn’t be difficult for you to do the same. I have met Tadashi Ito and I believe he has a circumstantial detail that points away from your client as the murderer. In the United States we call that exculpatory evidence, and the prosecution, if honest, will turn that over to the defense.”

  “What is this circumstantial detail?” the lawyer said.

  “There’s been a second murder at the facility.”

  The lawyer glanced up, his expression washed in surprise. “When did this take place?” he said.

  “Six days ago.”

  “You only tell me now?”

  “I’ve been busy trying to not get killed,” she said. “Technically, I shouldn’t have had to tell you at all.”

  “It’s different here,” he said. He glanced down at the page and pointed to the empty box in the upper right corner. “What about the question mark?”

  “Yuzuru Tagawa has been stealing and selling company technology, but so has someone else. He initiated hiring your client as a way to eliminate his competition within the company. Presumably your client uncovered damaging information and the murder was a way to remove your client from the facility.”

  “You’re saying Yuzuru Tagawa killed the woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that he acquired the murder weapon from Jiro Sasaki?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the question mark?”

  “I only know that it exists,” Munroe said.

  The lawyer crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, leveling accusation and suspicion in that one movement.

  “The second murder,” he said. “Who did it?”

  “That’s for the investigator to determine,” she said. “But it wasn’t your client.”

  “You evade.”

  “My concern is your client.”

  The lawyer continued studying her and then leaned in toward the paper again. The silence was filled with the beat of a metronome on the wall and soft voices from down the hall, while he examined what she’d drawn. At last he nudged the page in her direction. “This presents a very clear theory,” he said, “but even if every detail is accurate, without a way to prove the connections we remain in the same position.”

  “What do you need?” she said. “What would be enough to convince the prosecutor that your client isn’t their man?”

  The lawyer blew out a long exhale and stared out the window.

  He wouldn’t say it, but she knew the sigh.

  If those investigating the case were in bed with special interests, they couldn’t predict who else in the justice food chain might be as well.

  “Use the information as best as you can,” she said, and stood. “I’m going to get you a confession.”

  “From my client?”

  “From the killer.”

  “How?” he said.

  “Don’t know,” she said. “But there’s a good chance I’ll get arrested in the process, and if that happens, you’ll get a call. You’d better come find me.”

  Nakamura’s anteroom was filled with the hush of vacancy and the repetitive clicks of the keyboard. His assistant looked up when Munroe entered, and seeing her, the woman stood. Hands placed on her thighs, she bowed and then with a gentle sweep of one hand she invited Munroe to the sitting space as if Munroe was a person most welcome.

  “Nakamura-san is in a meeting now,” the assistant said. “Please wait if you can.”

  “Will he be long?” Munroe said.

  The woman’s bow dipped lower and her head bobbed in time with the apology. “I’m unsure,” she said. “I’m sorry, there are many appointments today.”

  Munroe sat and the woman brought the tray with water and the doily, and the clock ticked around, burning off minutes as though they mattered not. Munroe drank in measured sips and the assistant replaced the empty glass with a full one. Munroe was on the third when Nakamura finally returned, wearing the harried look of a man running late.

  He paused midstep when he saw her, then diverted to the seating area.

  Munroe stood, shook his hand.

  “Sadly, I’m on my way to another meeting,” he said.

  “Ten minutes,” Munroe said. “It’ll be worth your time.”

  Nakamura glanced at his watch and then, with a nod, invited her into his office. She sat without waiting for an offer. Her eyes focused on the desk in front of her while her ears tracked his movements about the room: jacket to coat rack, briefcase to receptacle, and then finally water poured into a glass that he carried to his desk.

  “Tell me then,” he said, “what do you have for me?”

  Munroe placed a file on the desk containing printouts and maps and copies of translated documents culled from her own material—together nearly an inch thick. She folded her hands atop it and said, “You told me once that industrial espionage has a long history and that if one refuses to adopt the weapons of his enemy, one will lose the battle.”

  Nakamura took a long draw of water and set the glass on the desk.

  She said, “The battle has come back around to you.”

  He leaned into his chair, body angled away, and ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “Is that meant to be taken as metaphor or literally?” he said.

  “You’ve pointed me toward foreigners and foreign interests,” she said, “but it appears the culprit is one of your own—within the executive ranks.”

  Nakamura winced as if she’d nicked him. He swiveled around to face her and stared at her long and hard. “This is a serious accusation,” he said.

  “Yes, very serious.”

  “When suspicion is cast, it is cast forever,” he said, “left to grow like weeds in a garden that put down deep roots. Knowing a thing, whether it’s true or not, gives that thing its own life. Before you divide from within my company, tell me, do you have evidence for what you will say?”

  Munroe reconstructed his question into a promise of outright denial and rejection if he didn’t like what she’d brought. She said, “I’m confident enough that I consider my job finished here. Unless you have a reason to keep me on longer, I’ll need a day or two to tie up loose ends and then I’ll turn in my security badge.”

  Nakamura glanced at his watch and then turned back to her and nodded at the documents beneath her hands.

  “Will you leave those papers with me?”

  “They won’t mean anything to you. The explanations are in here,” she said, and tapped her head.

  As if the folder contradicted her
words, he said, “Only in your head?”

  She’d offered him the lie as an opportunity to silence her before she could share the information with others: a preemptive move against the possibility that Tagawa had merely been the most obvious player in a conspiracy of several.

  “No one else in the facility is privy to this information,” she said, “if that’s what you mean.”

  Nakamura took another sip of water and said, “Not exactly, but that certainly helps in damage containment.”

  “I’ve already kept you past your meeting,” she said. “If you wish, I can return when it’s more convenient.”

  Nakamura tilted his wrist to check the time again, but his focus was on the papers beneath her hands. “May I see them?” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “But if you want them to mean anything, it would be better if I explain them as you do.”

  He stood and loosened his tie, then walked from his side of the desk to hers. Her body tensed, ready to shift if he moved too close, and she tracked his hands and feet as he crossed the room.

  Nakamura stepped out and shut the door.

  Voices, muted and hushed, filtered in through the door; not whispers, but guarded speech that could have easily been spoken in her presence or on the phone if he’d not been concerned about her listening in.

  The door opened. Nakamura’s footsteps carried him back to his desk and, once again in his seat, he said, “We won’t be disturbed, so take your time and tell me everything you’ve learned.”

  Munroe opened the folder, and fingertips resting lightly on top of the documents as both tease and promise, she said, “Please withhold judgment until I’ve had a chance to lay out the facts as I know them.”

  Nakamura folded his hands, matching the way hers had been, and he leaned forward to see better. She spun the first page around and pushed it toward him. His focus settled on the picture just long enough to register the face and then, eyes wide, his head jerked up and he pushed himself ever so slightly backward.