Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense

by Elizabeth Wilkerson

  TOKYO FIREWALL

  Elizabeth Wilkerson

  Philadelphia, PA

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Wilkerson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First paperback edition November 2018

  Cover design by Rafael Andres

  Print and ebook layout by booknook.biz

  Names: Wilkerson, Elizabeth (Elizabeth S.), author.

  Title: Tokyo firewall / Elizabeth Wilkerson.

  Description: First paperback edition. | Philadelphia, PA : Contrafish Media, LLC, [2018]

  Identifiers: ISBN: 978-0-9994329-0-7 (paperback) | 978-0-9994329-1-4 (ebook) | LCCN: 2018910577

  Subjects: LCSH: Americans—Japan—Tokyo—Fiction. | African American women—Japan—Fiction. | Hackers—Fiction. | Online chat groups—Fiction. | Cyberstalking—Fiction. | Cyberterrorism— Fiction. | Online sexual predators—Fiction. | Computer crimes—Fiction. | Data encryption (Computer science)—Fiction. | Fugitives from justice—Fiction. | Japan—Fiction. | Romance fiction. | Suspense fiction. | LCGFT: Thrillers (Fiction) | Detective and mystery fiction. | Romance fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / African American / Mystery & Detective. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / International Mystery & Crime. | FICTION / Thrillers / Technological. | FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense. | FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Women Sleuths.

  Classification: LCC: PS3623.I5458 T65 2018 | DDC: 813.6—dc23

  www.elizabethwilkerson.com

  For Tetsuki, who asked me to do it.

  And told me that I could.

  The ’90s

  1

  The calliope carnival tones of Tokyo’s five o’clock song burst from the public address system and bounced through the streets of Akihabara.

  Shit. He was really late. They’d be starting without him.

  The icy bite of the late-autumn evening air prompted him to pick up his pace. Head lowered against the wind, he hugged the oil-treated paper bag close to his chest and elbowed his way past the pack of bargain-hungry gaijin tourists rummaging through electronic parts crammed into the sidewalk arcade.

  Akihabara. Stall upon stall, row upon row, street upon street of computer parts, accessories, peripherals and pieces. A high-tech candy land of overwhelming proportions. Akihabara’s alleyways were a black market of guts for the computer industry those Americans had long ago lost control of. He was sure there was nothing to rival Akihabara in Silicon Valley.

  Damn foreigners in their baseball caps and T-shirts — they infested Akihabara like roaches, looking for discounts on electronics they could show off to their friends. Idiot Americans. Happy to pay full retail price for last year’s junk. Didn’t realize that Akihabara was the one place in Tokyo where you could — where you were expected to — haggle over prices. Explained why the Americans were always on the losing end of the trade imbalance.

  A hulking linebacker blocked the passageway in front of him. Guy looked as oblivious as a dumb cow grazing. American meat was so full of hormones and steroids, it was no wonder they grew to the size of obese cattle. Even he had gained over five kilos during the semester he was in school in Boston.

  He prodded the cow in the back as he made his way through the blockade. The big guy yelled “Hey!” and stared. Too slow. Steroids must have gotten to his brain. Moo.

  He edged past the hawker giving away tissue packs with an ad for a new phone sex service. Trotted past the pawn shop that still held one of his server computers hostage until he paid up. Fuck them. Ducked into a nezumi-dori, a rat street, the footpath that ran behind a discount ticket broker and was the shortcut back to his “mansion” apartment.

  Train tracks overhead formed a ceiling and trapped the smell of urine in the back-street corridor. With a slight adjustment of his earplugs, the deafening clatter from the trains was reduced to a muffled annoyance.

  If he hurried, he’d be home in twenty minutes. His small apartment was conveniently located near the Akihabara district, but off the beaten path enough to be affordable for him. Affordable with a little help he’d had to squeeze out of his dear old dad. Those tightwads at the post-production house where he worked had refused to lend him the reikin key money and shikikin deposit money. Seven months’ rent, upfront and in cash. Just for the privilege of moving in.

  His apartment was far from swanky, but at least it was quiet. So quiet that he could sometimes do rough edits of the sound tracks for his commercials from home. Or he used to be able to before that obnoxious couple with their shrieking baby moved in upstairs. The soundproofing he’d installed helped.

  He turned onto his street and raced down the block. His apartment’s bamboo window blinds, closed tight, offered no hint of what was inside. He waved at the motion-activated surveillance camera he’d hidden above the windows, opened his door and entered his apartment without turning on the lights.

  The blue glow beacon from a 27-inch Sony monitor guided his way as he removed his earplugs, loosened his tie and walked across the tatami mat, stepping over the shoebox-size plastic bins labeled with their contents: coax cables, circuit boards, RAM cards, anything else he could get his hands on to go into the next box he’d build.

  A bank of five server computers weighed down a metal table in the middle of his apartment. Without stopping to see who was on his Bulletin Board Service or what whining email complaints they had sent to him as SysOp, the system operator for the BBS, he pulled out a chair and logged onto World NetLink using an anonymous backdoor connection he’d hacked.

  Luv2Blow, DaikonDik, SweatySue, RodSukr. The regular gang had already gathered in the “It Really Happened to Me” sex fantasy chat room. Tonight’s chat was already underway.

  SWEATYSUE>>: The cockpit is filled with glowing instrument panels. I sit down in the jump seat and the pilot fastens a shoulder harness restraint around me really tight. He’s says it’s in case of unexpected turbulence.

  LUV2BLOW>>: Safety first!

  SWEATYSUE>>: The pilot says he has to check the harness straps and he reaches under my blouse and rubs against my tits. My body trembles at his touch. He unfastens his belt and pulls out his Boeing.

  LUV2BLOW>>: So that’s why they call it the *cock* pit ;-)

  He slid his hand into the paper bag he’d brought home, pulled out the bundle and untied the silk casing that protected his new gun. His gun. The Yakuza guy he met online had sold it to him cheap. Who cared if it could even shoot straight? He liked the way the gun felt in his hand, its commanding weightiness. When he held the gun, its cold metallic song energized his whole body.

  He watched DaikonDik and RodSukr leave the group and enter their own private chat room. Just the two of them. As the SysOp, he was undetectable, looking on while their virtual foreplay antics scrolled by silently on his screen.

  He unzipped his tight pants. One hand on his crotch, the other hand stroking the cool smoothness of the pistol, he sat back and watched the online chat.

  The screen flashed, announcing the arrival of a newcomer in the main group chat room. YokohamaMama. The SysOp fingered her and learned she was a foreign woman logging in from Japan. Perfect.

  He’d make his approach, slow at first, then reel her in. Who should he be tonight? Why not Kawasaki8?

  Kawasaki8 s
ent an instant online message to YokohamaMama:

  “HELLO YOKOHAMAMAMA. ARE YOU CALLING FROM JAPAN?”

  “Yes. I’m in Yokohama. I bet you guessed that, huh?”

  “HAVE YOU BEEN IN JAPAN LONG?”

  “I moved here from Vancouver two years ago. How about you, Kawasaki8?”

  “I’M FROM NAGOYA. WHAT DO YOU DO IN YOKOHAMA?”

  “I teach English to high school kids. How about you?”

  “I WORK WITH COMPUTERS. LET’S GET A ROOM.”

  “OK.”

  With a simple, friendly online chat, an unsuspecting YokohamaMama had taken the bait. The foreign women always did.

  2

  “Who is that man?”

  “Sono hito wa dare desu ka?” Alison repeated the language lesson along with the voice on the tape.

  “Who is that man over there?”

  “Ano hito wa dare desu ka?”

  “I don’t give a damn who that man is over there.” Alison stopped on the sidewalk, snatched the headset from her ears and turned off her Walkman. She massaged the stiff muscles in her lower back. She hadn’t wanted to be late for the interview, so she’d skipped her usual morning stretches. What a waste. The interview had been a disaster, she had a long hike back to the train station and now her back hurt.

  The help wanted ad had said the language school was looking for a part-time English teacher. Native speakers only. The school could even sponsor work visas. Alison had thought her chances were pretty good, and a bona fide work visa was hard to come by in Japan, as she had quickly learned from her job hunt. So she’d donned her power-lawyer suit, complete with pumps and pantyhose.

  But when Alison met the school’s director, he didn’t say a word of greeting or even look at her résumé. While Alison stood, ready to shake hands or answer questions, the director gnawed on his lip and inspected her gray eyes, curly auburn hair and olive-brown complexion. Her cheeks burned as his glance moved over her body as if she were a dog show entrant of questionable pedigree. A shelter mutt trying to sneak into the Westminster Kennel Club show.

  After this painstaking examination, the director leaned in toward Alison and accused as much as asked, “Are you from Brazil?”

  Alison knew that she didn’t look like the stereotypical blue-eyed, blonde American, an image created by Hollywood and exported around the world faster than supersized fries and Coke. But just by looking at her, the director had assumed her English wasn’t good enough — wasn’t native enough — for his crummy language school. Their help wanted ad had failed to mention one thing: Only Whites Need Apply.

  She dropped some coins in the vending machine and bought a train ticket. Why had she thought it would be easy to find a job? Or, more to the point, find a job before her money ran out. The American law firms she’d approached had politely declined even to meet with her, claiming that her background wasn’t quite what they were looking for. Alison could read between those lines: they wanted an Ivy League corporate legal drone and not a graduate of Golden Gate Law’s night program.

  She slid her ticket through the wicket’s automatic feeder and paused before the shifting labyrinth of escalators climbing up and staircases cascading down. Whistles screeched and conductors shouted. The unrelenting din engulfed Alison, and she felt light-headed as her eyes darted in search of a sign in English pointing her to the Tokyo-bound train platform.

  Charles had told her that if she ever needed directions, she should ask a teenager since English classes were compulsory in Japanese schools. Searching the swarm of passengers, Alison targeted two girls who looked to be about sixteen years old. Dressed in the black public school uniforms that reminded Alison of Buster Brown sailor suits, the girls wore white anklets, scuffed-up black shoes and carried the ubiquitous dark leather book bag.

  Alison waved. The girls looked at each other and stopped. She approached them and spoke slowly. “Sumimasen. Where do I catch the express train to Tokyo?” Alison prayed they understood her. “Tokyo train,” she repeated.

  The girls giggled behind hands raised to their mouths. “Ehh to…,” volunteered one of the girls. She closed her eyes in deep concentration before responding. “Bitch. Fuck you.”

  The girls burst out laughing and sauntered off.

  Alison stood, dumbfounded. Had she heard what she thought she’d heard? She tried to breathe in a deep yoga cleansing breath to calm herself, but after a few ragged inhalations, Alison still felt an urge to chase down the snotty-ass kid and punch her out.

  And what the hell kind of compulsory English class was the girl studying? The lesson plan seemed to come from one of those misogynistic rap music videos broadcast across the planet. “Lesson #1: A Black Woman Is Referred to as a ‘Bitch’ or a ‘Ho.’” And the kid had evidently been paying attention in class: her pronunciation was perfect.

  Without venturing to ask any other students of the English language for help, Alison spied a sign for the train she hoped was the Tokyo-bound express and rode the escalator up to the platform. Judging from the small number of waiting passengers, Alison guessed that the train’s arrival wasn’t imminent. She stopped at the kiosk to buy the afternoon edition of the English language Yomiuri newspaper, some chocolate-covered almonds and an Asahi beer. Sitting down on a bench, she levered open the can and chugged the beer so fast that she choked.

  Alison opened the newspaper and skimmed the headlines. A Canadian English teacher from Yokohama was missing. A native of Vancouver, lived with a roommate, twenty-four years old, had only five more months on her teaching contract, then she was planning to return to Canada.

  Missing women all over the planet. How high a priority would the Yokohama police give to a foreign woman’s disappearance? Probably not red-hot urgent. So sad.

  Another short article caught her eye. A local environmental group, Green Space, was protesting a real estate development plan that would destroy an endangered coral found only off the coast of Japan.

  “Go get ’em guys!” Alison pulled a pen out of her purse and circled the story. Next she turned to her required reading, the help wanted ads. English teachers. Once more unto the breach? Alison drew a star next to the ad. Hostess at a bar, guaranteed 5,000 yen an hour. What did you have to serve up for fifty bucks an hour? Pass. She wasn’t that desperate. Yet. On the bottom of the last page of classifieds was a small listing for a 24-hour English help line. “Call us anytime about anything. We’re your line of help.”

  Help. She needed help all right. Help remembering why the hell she had thought it would be a good idea to drop her law practice and follow her boyfriend to Japan. She drew a star next to the help line’s phone number.

  Clusters of people were forming at strategic locations on the platform. Hoping to be able to snag a seat, Alison got up and joined the end of the nearest line, straight and orderly and already twenty people deep.

  She tried to imagine New Yorkers queuing up to get on the uptown IRT. What a concept. “After you. Oh no, you were here first. Please, after you.” She laughed out loud imagining the scene, and the people standing near her turned to stare at the gaijin foreigner draining a can of Asahi.

  The train arrived, and the orderliness of the line disintegrated into a frenzied mob jostling to get on board. Strangers’ bodies pressed against her from every direction. Alison found a space on a strap to clutch for support. She grabbed high enough up so that she didn’t have to touch anyone else’s hand. Until the fourth straphanger added himself to her hold. He wrapped his clammy fingers on top of Alison’s, and she cringed at the feel of skin on skin.

  She closed her eyes and tried to visualize herself in a happy, open space before her claustrophobia got the best of her. While the train thundered back into town, Alison was enjoying the view of Lake Tahoe from the top of Heavenly Mountain.

  The train’s brakes squealed, and the undertow of passengers scrambling to push out of the train dragged Alison along and swept her out the doors. End of the line.

  Back at home, Alison kicked off her
shoes in the entry foyer and dropped her purse on the floor. She peeled off her snagged pantyhose, wadded them in a ball and threw them in the burnable trash bin. Her worn-out insulated slippers from L.L. Bean were a welcome change from her dress-for-success pumps.

  The house that Morgan Sachs & Co. was renting for Charles felt deceptively American with its living room, dining room, study, three bedrooms plus Charles’ office. But even at a whopping $25,000 a month rent, the house didn’t have the one American luxury Alison was homesick for on a chilly evening like tonight: central heating.

  She turned on the remote thermostat control for the heated carpeting and stretched out. The warmth from the floor seeped into her back and loosened up her tight muscles.

  Another day wasted trying to get a job she wouldn’t want to include on her résumé. This wasn’t how she imagined it would be, wasn’t what she’d planned. Not with Charles, and not with her career. Alison got up, went into the kitchen and poured herself a tall glass of merlot.

  Maybe it was time to call it quits, to go back home. Go to a place where people didn’t stare at her, a place where she was literate. A place where she could get a goddamn job.

  She wished she had somebody to talk to. But who? Her brother wouldn’t understand. He’d never been a fan of Charles. And her old roommate Jennifer had thought Alison was a fool for dropping her enviable job at Save-A-Tree and moving halfway around the world to be with Charles. Especially since Charles had a little problem with the “C” word. Commitment wasn’t in his vocabulary.

  Maybe Alison had been a fool, but she didn’t want to give up so soon. She’d only been in Japan a couple of months. And she didn’t want to have to hear the “I told you so’s,” not from Jennifer and not from her brother. She didn’t want to crawl back to Save-A-Tree and ask for her old job back. And she certainly didn’t want to have to admit that maybe she had been the proverbial fool for love.

  Alison opened her purse, took out the newspaper she’d bought and stared at the ad. English Help Line.