Ratio: A Leopold Blake Thriller (A Private Investigator Series of Crime and Suspense Thrillers)

by Nick Stephenson

  She considered her options for a moment. On the plus side, the sprinklers hadn’t gone off, so at least she wasn’t soaked to the bone. The heat of the blast must have been contained to a small radius, helped in no small part by her uninvited guest’s body getting in the way. June was lucky to be alive, but she sure didn’t feel it. Looking down, she noticed her clothes were covered in bits of bone and flesh. Blood splatter covered her face and arms. She squinted at something protruding from the skin of her forearm. Grabbing it with her fingertips, she pulled it free; a piece of bone. Must have struck her in the blast. She flicked it away, but couldn’t control what happened next.

  Before she could take a step toward the bathroom, June bent forward and emptied her stomach onto the carpet.

  Chapter 55

  KANEZAKI FROZE AS a deep rumbling noise filled the stairwell. A split second later, alarm bells sounded, a high-pitched wailing noise that seemed to fill every inch of the hotel. He checked his watch. Three-fifty-seven and change. No way Yamada’s pathetic attempts would have done the job, but at least it provided a temporary distraction. Only a few minutes until the gas would be released, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it now. Even if they found the detonator, no way anyone would figure out the code. A shame, all things considered. Kanezaki had been looking forward to playing a few mind games, make the Kato bitch suffer a little before she choked to death. It had all seemed so poetic, but no matter. Results were results.

  He increased his pace a little, heading back toward the ground floor. While the remainder of the hotel guests crushed their way through the main doors, Kanezaki would head for the loading bay. The ventilation system didn’t feed that part of the building, which would buy him some time while he figured out how to get the doors open. With all eyes on the lobby, nobody would notice him slipping out. Isa and Kimura would pick him up as planned and then they’d wait for Yamada. Assuming he made it out alive. Death by poisonous gas was probably preferable to the alternative methods of dispatch Kanezaki had in mind. But definitely not as much fun.

  Voices ahead, and Kanezaki slowed. There was someone coming toward him up the stairs. Sounded like two pairs of footsteps, just about audible over the alarm system. Both falling heavy, the sound echoing through the stairwell. Kanezaki turned and headed back up, feeling his pulse quicken. He slipped one hand into his jeans, wrapped it around the handle of the knife. The footsteps grew louder. He could make out what the voices were saying.

  “…Seventh floor,” one voice said.

  “Less than five minutes to get her out,” another, much deeper, voice replied.

  Kanezaki sped up, taking the stairs two at a time. He didn’t seem to be pulling ahead. The footsteps were getting closer.

  “Elevators locked out. We’re going to have to use the stairwell.”

  “If the lobby isn’t cleared, we’re all screwed.”

  “Doesn’t mean we don’t –” The deeper voice paused mid-sentence.

  Kanezaki gripped the knife a little harder. Kept moving.

  “Who’s up there?” the other voice shouted.

  The footsteps seemed to speed up again, breaking into what sounded like a run. Kanezaki resisted the urge to turn around, heading for the fifth floor and, hopefully, an empty room to hide in. He reached the top of the next flight and ducked to the side, pushing through the heavy door into the fifth floor hallway. His pursuers followed close behind, crashing through the door just as Kanezaki reached one of the rooms.

  “Freeze!” one of the men said. He was the shorter of the two, but still pretty tall. A white guy with short, black hair. Probably Secret Service. He held a gun up, pointed right at Kanezaki. The other guy, a massive black man dressed in a nice suit stood nearby.

  “I l-l-look for my w-wife,” Kanezaki said, in his best Japanese-tourist accent.

  “Hands on your head,” the white guy said.

  The black guy didn’t say anything.

  “M-my wife?” Kanezaki repeated.

  The two suits walked toward him. The white guy kept his gun up.

  “You a guest in the hotel, sir?”

  “Yes. Here with my wife.”

  “Yeah, we got that, sir. You need to come with us. Down to the lobby.”

  The black guy was glaring at Kanezaki’s right hand. He’d noticed the missing finger. A yakuza tradition, of sorts. The man’s eyes narrowed.

  Shit. Kanezaki felt his chest tighten. The white guy stepped forward.

  “Don’t –” the other guy warned, but too late.

  Kanezaki dashed forward, pushing the agent’s gun arm out of the way. With his free hand, Kanezaki whipped out the ceramic knife, flicked open the blade, and went for the stomach. Three jabs to the lower abdomen, and the agent doubled over. Dropped his gun. Kanezaki kicked it away, knocking the agent to the floor. He lay there alive, but bleeding. Looked up at the other suit, muscles tensed.

  “Probably shouldn’t have done that,” the black guy said. He looked calm. Hadn’t drawn a weapon yet. Probably didn’t have one.

  “Maybe should have gone for the throat, huh? I made a judgment call. Don’t worry, in a few minutes I’ll finish him off. After I’m done with you.”

  “I meant kicking the gun away.”

  “Never liked guns much.” Kanezaki lunged, aiming the knife at the big guy’s chest. A slash to the throat would be more lethal, but difficult at this range. Center mass was always the safer bet.

  The big guy moved faster than expected, dodging to the side as Kanezaki tried to land a blow. He felt something connect with his ribs, knocking the breath out of him. A sharp pain in his side, and he tumbled sideways into the wall. Dropped the knife.

  Gasping for air, Kanezaki looked up. The big guy stood over him. Reached into his suit jacket, drew a handgun. Pointed it at Kanezaki’s head.

  “That’s where you and I differ,” the man said. “I happen to really like guns.”

  “Then why the hell didn’t you pull one,” Kanezaki said, the pain in his side reaching a crescendo.

  “And waste perfectly good bullets? I need you alive, dumbass.” He stepped closer, gun still up, put his foot on Kanezaki’s ribs.

  The pain was unbearable.

  The man smiled. “Looks like you and I have a lot to talk about.”

  Chapter 56

  “GET THOSE GODDAMN alarms off!” Harper’s voice strained over the sound of the bells and the clattering generators. “We don’t need everyone panicking. They’ll be crushed to death.”

  One of the agents nodded and ran out of the room.

  Harper turned her attention back to the ventilation system. “Can’t we shut this damn thing down? Kill the power?”

  Leopold rubbed his temples. “It won’t matter. The generators are picking up the slack, but they’re not the only source of power. With the hotel and convention center at full capacity, they’ve been working in tandem with the city grid to keep the juice flowing. If we shut them off, there’s still a battery backup system. There’s no dead switch.”

  “Sounds like a major design flaw.”

  “I guess the architects never anticipated a sarin gas attack.”

  “So much for optimism,” said Harper.

  Movement behind them, and Leopold whipped around. The door crashed open and Jerome lurched inside, holding someone up by the collar. Looked Asian, maybe Japanese. Dressed in jeans and a leather jacket.

  “What the hell?” Harper reached for her weapon. The two remaining agents did the same.

  “Relax,” said Jerome. “I found this guy heading upstairs. From the looks of his missing finger, this might be the Yakuza connection we’ve been looking for.”

  “You sure he’s a threat?” Harper said. “Just from a missing finger?”

  Jerome smiled. “That, and his intense desire to cut me into pieces with a knife, kinda tipped me off.” He looked at Harper. “One of your agents took a few hits to the stomach. I sent some of the hotel staff up to get him. Looked like the knife missed the renal arte
ry, so hopefully he should be fine once they stop the bleeding and get him patched up. Assuming any of us get out of here in time. Speaking of which...” He tossed a cell phone at Leopold. “This might help.”

  Leopold caught it. “Let’s take a look, shall we?” He scrolled through a list of recent numbers. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Agent Harper, but isn’t this the number for Harborview Medical Center?”

  Harper studied the screen. “Yeah. Called that place enough times today, I should know.”

  “Now, why would our friend here be so interested in Harborview? Maybe there’s a certain patient in there he’s particularly concerned about?”

  The Japanese man glared back at him, but didn’t say a word.

  “Maybe you should get out of here, Agent Harper.”

  Harper turned to look at Leopold. “And why the hell would I do that?”

  “Our new friend looks like he might not be in the mood to talk.”

  “If he knows something, he’s not going to risk getting stuck here when the gas hits. He’ll talk.”

  Jerome shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure. The Yakuza aren’t exactly known for their sensitivity when it comes to informants.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning getting a lungful of sarin is probably better than the alternative if they ever catch up with him.”

  The Japanese man mumbled something. Spat on the ground.

  “What was that?” Harper said. “Jesus Christ, I can’t hear a damn thing.”

  The agent reappeared in the doorway as the alarm systems shut down. Leopold smiled with relief. Even though the generators still rumbling in the background, at least he could now hear himself think.

  “That’s better,” Harper said. She turned her attention back to the suspect. “Now, why don’t we try this again?”

  “Jigoku e ike,” he repeated, a little louder. He tried to wrench himself away from Jerome.

  Jerome punched him in the ribs. The man howled in pain and dropped to his knees.

  “Such language,” Leopold said. “And with a lady present.”

  Harper folded her arms. “You understood that? What did he say?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “You really speak Japanese?”

  Jerome smiled. “Linguistics is a hobby of his.” He looked at Harper. “Mostly to read menus.”

  “Three minutes, gentlemen,” Harper said. “If you think you can get any useful information out of this guy, you can go ahead and see what you can do to persuade him. This is the Secret Service, not the Goddamn boy scouts.” She paused. Turned to look at the two agents. “Forget everything I just said.”

  They both nodded.

  “And get upstairs.”

  “Ma’am?” one of them said.

  “Officially, this man is going to talk to us of his own accord.” She pointed to the door. “Unofficially, get the hell out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” They left the room.

  “All yours,” Harper said.

  “I think I’m beginning to like you, Agent Harper,” said Leopold.

  “I’ll try to contain my excitement. What’s the plan?”

  Leopold looked down at the suspect. He was still on his knees, clutching at his ribs.

  “I think we might be able to squeeze a little information out of him,” Jerome said. “But I think there’s someone else who might be able to help.”

  Leopold nodded. “I’ll make the call.”

  Chapter 57

  JUNE PICKED HERSELF up and left the bedroom, forcing herself not to look at the mess on the bed. Shutting the door, she collapsed onto the sofa, her stomach in knots. She grabbed a glass of water from the kitchenette and downed it, feeling a little better before slumping back onto the couch, her mind spinning. She felt her cell phone vibrate and picked up the call. Jerome came on the line, the same clattering noises as before going on in the background.

  “What’s going on?” June asked.

  “We think we’ve found a friend of yours,” Jerome said. “Japanese guy, missing a finger. Ring any bells? We’ve linked him to the suspects who planted the device in the ventilation system.”

  “There’s more,” June said. “My uninvited guest just had a little accident.” She tried not to think about it. “Someone stuffed the pillows with explosives. They just went off. He was on the bed at the time.”

  “He alive?”

  June felt her stomach roil. “Not exactly.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. For the time being, anyway.”

  There was a commotion on the line.

  “Jerome?”

  “I’m still here. Listen, we don’t have time to go into any detail, but I think our Japanese friend might be behind this whole thing.”

  June sat up a little straighter. “Can he stop this?”

  “We think so. But he’s not feeling particularly cooperative.”

  “And you want me to speak to him?” June listened, trying to make sense of what was going on downstairs. It sounded like there was a scuffle, followed by Jerome’s phone being dropped, and a struggle with a lot of grunting.

  “Only three more minutes!” a woman’s voice called out.

  “Jerome?” June shouted down the phone. “You there?”

  Leopold’s voice came on the line. “Sorry about that,” he said. “We’re having to resort to a little physical persuasion.”

  “Leopold, rip that guy’s shirt off. Are there cherry blossom tattoos on his shoulder or down his arm?”

  “Yeah. That’s Yakuza, right?” Leopold said.

  “Yeah. Put the phone up to his ear. I want to talk to him.”

  Leopold obliged. There was another howl of pain from a fourth voice. A scuffling noise and she heard breathing on the line.

  “Ne, pansuke ka?” a male voice said. Is this the little whore? The words were filled with hatred, the speaker almost spitting them down the phone.

  June gritted her teeth. “You’re Oguchi Clan?” she asked, in Japanese.

  “Go to hell.” There was another noise and the man screamed out.

  “Why are you doing this?” June said. “You came for me? You’re here to kill me?”

  The man laughed hoarsely. “You can’t run from Oguchi this time.”

  “You came for me? All this is to kill me? You put a bomb in my room to kill me, put toxic gas in the ventilation system, knowing others would die too?”

  “Two minutes!” The woman’s voice again.

  “Those damn bombs in your room are nothing,” the man continued. “Just a distraction, something for the police to obsess about. Once the gas is released, nobody’s getting out of here alive. The whole world will think the North Koreans had something to do with it, trying to take out your President. The Yakuza and Oguchi won’t even come up in conversation, and the only people who know the truth are going to die in this room.”

  June gripped the phone tighter. “You’re insane.”

  “Nobody will ever suspect you were the one that was meant to die. Nobody else matters to us, as long as you’re dead.” He laughed again, a high-pitched squeal. “You should’ve died a couple years ago when you had the chance.”

  “I almost did.”

  “Now you get a second chance to do it right, yariman.” Another scuffling noise and the man howled again.

  June could still hear him breathing on the phone. “The detonator for the sarin bomb is down there with you?” she asked.

  “Yeah, and in two more minutes, the convention center and hotel will fill with gas. What do you think of that, Miss Go-run-do Rei-shoo?”

  June sucked in a deep lungful of air, her brain whirring. She knew she was missing something. “What’s the combination to the detonator?” she asked. “Save your life and tell me.”

  “Well, the burnt ratio woman’s body is disagreeable,” he said back, cryptically. “A shame you never got to give your speech.”

  June heard him get slugged again, but she was done talking with him. It
was pointless to ask for the combination to the safe from him. He’d only give a hundred false numbers before giving the correct one, even if he stopped talking in riddles. She knew the Yakuza’s methods well, especially their fondness of mind games.

  Mind games. The thought lingered with her, nagging at the edge of her mind. They must have tracked me here, studied my movements. They knew I was due to give a speech next door. She stood up, phone still in her hand.

  “What did he say?” Jerome asked her.

  “Just keep quiet for one minute,” she said back.

  “We might not have that long.”

  June ignored him. Somehow, they figured out who I was. Somebody must have told them about my alias. They followed me to Seattle. But why here? What’s significant about this conference?

  June paced the room. She knew the President would make it easy for the authorities to believe the North Korea story. Everyone would assume he was the target. But it wasn’t like the Oguchi family to resist the urge to put their personal stamp on their work. Somehow, there was still something she wasn’t seeing.

  The conference, she thought. Something about the conference.

  Something tugged at her consciousness, but June just couldn’t hold on.

  “One minute!” the woman’s voice again, getting louder.

  It was no use. There wasn’t enough time. June collapsed onto the sofa, set the phone down in her lap. The smell of blood and burnt flesh hung heavy in the air. She had a decision to make, and needed to call her sister, possibly for the last time. Even if rescuers made it upstairs in time, she would never get out of the building, especially with a bruised ankle.

  Time to say goodbye, she thought, lifting up her phone. One quick phone call to Amy. The last call she’d ever make. Whatever secrets the Yakuza bakayaro had, he was taking them to his grave.

  Secrets.

  The word danced around in her brain.

  Really secret.

  She froze.

  Fibonacci. Goro-awase, or Japanese word play. Her mind spun, connections forming. Zero, one, one, two, three, five, eight. Ma, hi, hi, fu, mi, i, ya. Ma, hihifumi, iya! Well, the burnt ratio woman’s body is disagreeable!