Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense

by Elizabeth Wilkerson

  An answer to her unspoken prayers. Sake was just the thing to defrost her bones. Alison snagged a sample, downed it, and had another. The fresh, sweet fragrance of the cup’s unfinished wood — some type of cedar, Alison guessed — blended perfectly with the sake. She had one more cup for good measure then started for the door.

  “Hello! Hello!” called a voice. It must be Kiyoshi. Alison turned. From across the convention hall floor, a man seated behind a computer monitor waved at Alison. On top of the computer monitor sat a gizmo that looked like a baseball with a big lens in the middle. Alison smiled and waved back. The man pointed the baseball device in Alison’s direction, and the ball flashed a red light.

  Alison climbed through the crowds and walked over to the man. “Kiyoshi, it’s so good to meet you at last!” She extended her hand. He didn’t rise from his chair.

  “Kiyoshi? It’s me, Alison. I’m glad we found each other.”

  His face was an expressionless mask, eyes as milky and lifeless as the eyes of a dead fish.

  Alison glanced at his computer monitor and stopped. On the screen was an image of a bikini-clad woman worthy of a centerfold. It took Alison a moment before she realized that the centerfold’s face was familiar. It was hers.

  “What the hell are you doing!?” She pointed at the monitor.

  “Sorry, I do not speak English,” the man said. He dropped his head and busied himself at the keyboard.

  “What the hell right do you have to do this?” Alison poked at the image on the monitor. She looked around. The roar of the expo floor had deadened to a silence. All eyes turned to gaze at the scene Alison was making.

  “Some other man call to you. Not me.”

  Alison felt a tap on her shoulder and she reared around, ready to fight.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” A petite man in a Compu-Expo jacket stood behind Alison. When she turned, he gave a shallow bow, gaze lowered, hands folded in front of him.

  “Yeah, you can help me. This guy here,” Alison moved to point out the paparazzi, but he had taken off when her back was turned. Alison sighed. “Forget it,” she said. “Look, is there any way to leave a message for somebody here?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The man gestured to a bank of keyboards lined up beneath small monitors. “You can leave an email with the party’s name on it, and they can check messages.”

  “Thanks.” Alison waited in line for a keyboard to free up, all the while keeping one eye on the convention hall entrance. Kiyoshi might turn up, and she didn’t want to miss him. When she got to the front of the queue, she despaired to see that the keyboards were in Japanese. What a night.

  She spun on her heel to head out when she noticed next to the keyboards stood a good old-fashioned, analog, three-dimensional bulletin board bearing a sign — in English — reading “Messages.” Folded pieces of paper were pinned to the board, and a small table held pens and Compu-Expo scratch pads.

  Alison tore a piece of paper from a pad and wrote a note. “Waited for you. Did we get our signals crossed? What happened? — T. Ali.” She folded the paper in half, wrote Kiyoshi on the front and pinned it to the board. When Kiyoshi came to the convention center — if Kiyoshi came to the convention center — he would probably go looking for her, just as she had looked for him. And he would see the message on the board. Her note was the only one written in English. It stood out. Like her.

  Alison decided to call it a night. She regretted that she and Kiyoshi hadn’t exchanged cell phone numbers, but he was, after all, an unknown guy she’d only met through the internet. And she knew that a prudent woman was supposed to meet an unknown stranger in a public place, and that said prudent woman didn’t give out her cell phone number to said stranger. Just in case.

  But the bottom line was that she was all dressed up with no place to go but back home. But not before downing two more glasses of sake. For the road.

  Alison bought her subway ticket and joined the line waiting for the next train. She was near the front of the queue and would be certain to get a seat and relief for her throbbing feet. Her pumps definitely weren’t made for walking, let alone standing any length of time. She felt herself swaying. Too much sake on an empty stomach. She focused on a sign on the far side of the platform to ground herself.

  Alison heard the train coming before she could see it. A recorded message warned passengers to step back behind the white line, or at least that’s what Charles had said the message meant. But rather than draw back away from the arriving train, the line of waiting passengers compressed itself in anticipation of the fight to get on board.

  The train light was in view. Alison stood ready to push on while at the same time trying to brace herself in her tottering heels as the train neared. The sake didn’t help her sense of balance.

  On unsteady legs, Alison felt a sharp shove between her shoulder blades. She lurched in her stiletto heels and screamed as she fell onto the tracks between the rails.

  The train horn blasted. A man yelled. Alison scrambled to stand, to haul herself up onto the platform.

  “Help! Somebody help me, please!” She cried out to the waiting passengers, but those nearest to her slid away.

  Alison jumped at the platform ledge and clawed for a handhold. Her fingers grasped at air, and she fell back onto the tracks. Again, she tried to boost herself up. Again, she fell short.

  The oncoming train’s horn screeched. Alison turned to look at the train. Its bright light, unstopping and inevitable. She observed the light with an awareness that felt disembodied from the woman trapped on the tracks. The light was getting bigger. And the woman wasn’t moving.

  A burning pulse of adrenaline slapped Alison back to reality and demanded that she take immediate action.

  Alison pounded the edge of the platform walls with her hands. “Please help me!” she wailed. “Somebody!”

  A faceless pair of strong hands grabbed Alison by the elbows and lifted her, depositing her on the cold cement of the platform. Alison looked up to thank her Good Samaritan, but the do-gooder had disappeared into the crowd.

  The train pulled into the station. Right on schedule. The doors opened. Passengers got out. The doors shut. The train departed. Not one moment late, not one second lost. Business as usual.

  On the rough pavement of the station’s floor, Alison sat. Blood trickled from her scraped palms, and she had lost one of her treacherous pumps. Her nose was running with tears she hadn’t shed. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. What a fucked-up night.

  Still, Alison reminded herself, it could’ve been worse. If it hadn’t been for her savior. If that anonymous stranger hadn’t snatched her up…Alison shuddered. The evening news story wouldn’t be about a missing Canadian woman — it would probably be about her.

  01101000 01101001 01100100 01100100 01100101 01101110

  Sitting on the train, he took her note from his pocket, unfolded it and read it again. “Did we get our signals crossed?”

  No, he hadn’t. He knew exactly where and when to meet her. And she was easy to spot in the crowd. He wasn’t the only man looking at her tits in that tight dress. And legs. Foreigners had long legs, but hers were like a model’s. She must work out, legs like that. He couldn’t wait to feel those legs. To inch his fingers up those legs to her hot cunt. While he sucked on those tits. She’d really like it.

  He put the note back in his pocket and moved the Compu-Expo Land bag onto his lap to hide his hard-on.

  He wanted her, and he would have her, but he had patience. And in the meantime, he would do all he could to get to know her better. Study her, tease her. Wait until she was panting, drooling, wet for him. It really wasn’t a wait at all, but rather a tantalizing crescendo building up to an orgasmic fortissimo climax. Foreigners were always in such a hurry. But he could wait.

  He was off to a good start. He was sure he’d made a memorable first impression, had gotten a good digital image of her. When he got home, he could upload her picture to his computer network and share his
artistry with the world.

  She was right — she did look Brazilian.

  13

  “Where were you, Kiyoshi? I waited over an hour!”

  “I was right next to the DVD display in the entrance. You didn’t hear your name being paged? I thought you changed your mind about meeting me.”

  “I didn’t hear any page. All I could hear was Beethoven’s Ninth. They blasted it through the speakers the entire time.”

  “Alison, that was the SOUND Pavilion. Not the Digital Pavilion. I think you were at the wrong place.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry about the confusion.”

  “At least I had some really good sake while waiting.”

  Too much sake. Alison didn’t want to tell Kiyoshi that she’d guzzled so much sake that she’d stumbled in her stilettos and fallen into the path of an oncoming train.

  Or that maybe she’d been pushed onto the tracks.

  In the sober light of morning, she still wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. She’d been tired, drunk and pissed off after being stood up. She hadn’t felt up to filing a police report. Not in the state she’d been in. And not now. She’d lucked out that Charles wasn’t home when she’d gotten back. Charles didn’t need to know any of the details of her misadventures on the train track, that she hadn’t been out meeting Ruth from law school.

  And there wasn’t any need to mention the incident to Kiyoshi, either. He might think that she was a paranoid nutcase.

  “I’ll be back in Tokyo soon. We can try again.”

  “I’m really sorry, Kiyoshi. Let me know when you’re heading back here. Meanwhile, I’m a modem call away.”

  “I AM EVEN CLOSER THAN THAT!!! CLOSER THAN YOU THINK. CLOSER THAN YOU KNOW.”

  A bossa nova beat lilted in the background while the sound of a woman’s voice panted hard.

  “Our friend has returned, Alison.”

  “I sent an email to my brother. He might have some ideas of what we can do to lose him.”

  “I hope so. Same time tomorrow, Attorney Crane?”

  “Of course. Ja ne.”

  Alison had jumped to the wrong conclusion about Kiyoshi. She had been ready to come out with guns of accusation blazing, but he hadn’t stood her up. She should have guessed that her ineptitude with the language was the cause of their screwed-up meeting. And he’d taken her no-show well. Kiyoshi was an OK guy.

  But “Attorney Crane”? How had he known her last name? Alison was sure she hadn’t mentioned it. She’d decided earlier that there wasn’t any need for him to know. Just in case. Yet somehow Kiyoshi had known. And she’d forgotten even to ask him his last name. Regardless of what Kiyoshi thought, she didn’t have Perry Mason’s knack for interrogation.

  01100111 01100101 01101101

  Idiot Americans. So trusting, so blind. Why the hell can’t they go back home and stay there? They aren’t welcome in Japan. Never were. Sayonara, Commodore Perry. Domo arigato, General MacArthur.

  Dumb Yanks tried to castrate a warrior culture. To demilitarize Japan. Instead, the dim-witted foreigners created a fierce industrial powerhouse. And now those self-proclaimed conquerors were eating stale raw fish in Kansas, jerking off with their Nintendo and dreaming of one day being able to afford a Lexus. Jiu jitsu this, MacArthur motherfucker.

  14

  Charles checked his Rolex. Yuko was late. The towering buildings of Ebisu Garden Place created a wind tunnel whipping nighttime gusts through the deserted urban canyon. He blew into his hands to generate some heat and sat on a bench. He’d give her five more minutes.

  A keening whine echoed through the multilevel courtyard. Charles jumped up, looking for the source of the sound. At the top of a long staircase stood two white wolves, their fur glowing in the light from the street lamps. They howled again and raced each other down the steps to the ground-floor level toward Charles.

  What the hell were wolves doing in the middle of Tokyo? He leaped onto the bench for tactical cover and was considering his defense strategy when he heard a shrill whistle. The charging wolves stopped cold and sat.

  A petite woman laughed and bounded down the stairs. She knelt to pet the wolves. Her white fur vest coordinated with the creatures’ pelts. She looked like a member of the pack. The alpha dog.

  The woman tied a leash around each of the wolves’ collars and strolled into the middle of the courtyard. As she approached, Charles realized that the woman was Yuko Yamada. She waved when she spotted Charles and headed his way with beasts in tow.

  “It’s good to see you again, Charles. Thank you for meeting me here.”

  “Hi, Yuko. You brought some friends.” The animals nudged Charles’ legs, depositing clumps of white fur on his trousers. He backed up a few paces and made a mental note to send his pants to the dry cleaners.

  Yuko smiled. “Meet Luna and Susie. They’re sweet but very spoiled girls.” Yuko rubbed their heads. “This is their favorite place to go for a walk. Very dog-friendly.”

  “Dogs? What kind of dog?” Charles had never heard a dog howl the way those creatures had. They sounded — and looked — like wolves under a full moon in Transylvania.

  “Samoyeds. Don’t be afraid. They’re trained to not bite.”

  Charles had never been a dog person, but he knew you could never be sure what a dog would do. Especially when they looked as dangerous as these mutant wolves. He would keep his distance.

  “You said you wanted to talk to me about something, Yuko. A financial problem?”

  She nodded. “Let’s walk while we talk. Do you want to take one of the dogs?”

  Charles waved his hands to decline. “I’m sure you’ve got them under control.” He prayed she did.

  They covered the length of the courtyard, climbed the stairs on the opposite end, and toured the second level of the garden space. Charles noticed how well the she-wolves heeled and obeyed their owner’s subtle commands.

  Charles spotted other dog walkers prowling around. With big dogs. He wasn’t used to seeing dogs in Tokyo. Not like San Francisco, where dogs had their own parks, and people would take their pooches to restaurants, inflicting them on the other diners. Japan was different that way, thank God. But how could people in tiny Tokyo apartments live with such large dogs? It must be some sort of status symbol. A big dog meant a big house.

  Yuko slowed to look at Charles. “What I want to talk to you about, I didn’t want to discuss on the phone. It has to do with — with private matters.”

  “I’m used to handling private matters. It’s all part of my job.” Charles had one eye on the dogs.

  Yuko stopped and the dogs sat on their haunches. “This involves something that would be — how should I say? It would be different from your usual work. Because it’s highly confidential. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “I deal with confidential information every day. Keeping secret things secret goes with the territory.” Charles braved taking a step closer to Yuko.

  “It involves international finance. Large amounts of money.” The dogs stirred, and Yuko reached down to quiet them.

  “That’s what I do.” Charles tentatively reached one hand out toward the dogs, but quickly withdrew it when they snarled and bared their teeth. Fangs, really. He didn’t care what Yuko said. Those were wolves.

  “I have a problem,” Yuko said.

  “Tell me more. I’m good at making problems go away.”

  15

  Asia was big. And there was a surprising amount of environmental work going on. Alison had to remind herself that green activism was a good thing even if it did mean she had a continent of data to dig through for her research.

  Indonesia. Done. Singapore. Check. Alison refocused her eyes as she ticked countries off her list. She promised herself a stretch break and a glass of wine as soon as she finished investigating marine pollution in India.

  She typed in another internet search and unearthed an article about Green Space making a $1 million contribution to an environmental outfit
working to protect the beaches in Goa. Hiro Yamada was the chairman.

  Again, Hiro Yamada. He was a busy man. Like a green Santa Claus, traveling around Asia delivering gifts of cash to needy environmentalists.

  Could Green Space take donations and spend the money however it wanted? Ms. Yamada had certainly been blasé enough with the yen she had advanced to Alison. “No need for a receipt,” Yamada had said.

  At Save-A-Tree, despite all the brash acts of environmental derring-do they embarked upon, the organization was never so brazen as to spend its money in violation of its bylaws. They could risk losing their precious nonprofit status and even face criminal sanctions.

  In Japan, there must be some restrictions on how charitable organizations could use their funds. Or at least, didn’t the organization have to answer to its donors? Ms. Yamada had said that most of Green Space’s contributors were private individuals. And in Japan, the benefactors didn’t get any tax break for their donations — just warm fuzzy feelings.

  Save-a-Tree had an entire department devoted to hunting down deep-pocketed do-gooders in need of some warm fuzzies. And once found, those golden-egg-laying geese were coddled and pampered. They were the organization’s financial lifeblood. And yet Green Space seemed to be throwing its money at all manner of offshore groups.

  Something didn’t sit right with Alison’s lawyerly instincts, but she couldn’t pinpoint what. She understood that the rules for charitable organizations might be very different in Japan. But did the organizations have no accountability? No government oversight of their spending?

  Alison needed to learn more about Green Space. And what she wanted to know, she wasn’t going to find through World NetLink. It was time to call in the Marines.

  16

  “Picture identification, please, ma’am.”

  A burly Marine with the beginning of a spare tire rolling over his belt buckle stood in the American Center’s doorway and blocked Alison’s entry to the library of the United States Information Service. Or was it the United States Information Agency? Alison could never remember which one was the CIA organization and which one was the front. Regardless, she suspected both the USIS and the USIA had defense-budget dollars at work collecting all sorts of worldwide factoids about people, places and things. Today she would access some of those factoids, and by the afternoon, she’d know as much about the Green Space group as any government functionary.