Before he could get her pinned, she bucked her legs up to throw him off-balance. Then she grabbed his shirt with a free hand and pulled him down hard, smashing the bony part of her forehead into his nose. He rolled off her, grunting and gurgling blood as he went. Other than that, he didn’t make a sound.
She rolled the other direction, getting unsteadily to her feet and crouching down low in her starting jiu-jitsu stance. He sized her up with a quick glance. They feinted and lunged a few times, neither connecting. Then, spotting a weak point, her attacker came in fast and low. She went for a grab, only to have him instantly sidestep her move, grab her wrist, and slam her body into the wall. When she tried to break free, he twisted her wrist. It wasn’t hard, but it was enough to send a bolt of pain radiating throughout her whole arm.
“Hold still,” he said, quickly cuffing one hand and then the other behind her.
“Shit!” she hissed.
He didn’t say anything. He just marched her down the hallway and into the kitchen. The first thing Mei saw was Vasili’s other assistant leaning against the wall in the corner. She had her arms folded against her chest and a twisted grin on her face.
The next thing Mei saw was Vasili’s hulking mass sitting behind her kitchen table. He eyed her impassively before motioning for her to sit down at her own table.
“Please!” he said amiably.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“… but really, aside from getting shot at, it’s not such a bad gig. I’ve been driving for Yamata Security now for about eight years, and I’ve only been attacked three times. Or actually, my bagmen were attacked two times, only once for me in the vehicle. Dumb fuckers must not have known we can electrify these bad boys. Let me tell you something, you have no idea what that much electricity can do to a human body. Let’s just say it put me off barbecue for a while! And that’s saying something, because my wife makes the best …”
Hino glanced over at his driver for the night and sighed to himself. His earpiece crackled to life.
“Hey, Hino, think you can turn the speaker off back here? Tired of listening to this guy.”
“What’d Tomioka want back there?” asked the driver. He wasn’t wearing an earpiece of his own.
“Said he can’t hear you that well. Wanted me to turn the volume up for him.” Hino gave the knob a crank.
“You absolute dick,” Tomioka said in his ear.
“Now my brother-in-law works on the Barrier, and let me tell you, those guys have it rough. You think the fog is bad here in the city? You should see it out there! He says that sometimes they’re pouring concrete and can’t even see five feet in front of them. You know, because most of the heavy industry is out that way, the ones pumping this shit into the air. He told me about this one guy who got turned around in the fog and actually fell into the mold while they were pouring a foundation. At least that’s what they think happened, never found the guy …”
Hino started to tune him out again. God, this guy could talk. He almost hadn’t wanted to take this job, but they were paying time and a half plus a hazard bonus for a single drop-off. What could go wrong?
He tuned into the driver for a bit to make sure he wasn’t missing anything important, but then quickly tuned out again. Now the guy was going on about the politics of the Barrier, and Hino heard enough uninformed opinions on that every time he went drinking.
Instead, he turned his attention out the window towards the highway. It was largely deserted at this time of night, with only a few other cars here and there. The only other thing out there to break the monotony was the streetlamps, which spread a circle of yellow light over the pavement every hundred feet or so.
Just then he caught sight of a tow truck off on the wide berm of the road to the left. The tow truck driver was readying a winch on the back of his vehicle to haul up a clunker. It was gone in an instant as the armored vehicle hurtled by, too fast to get a good look. But there was something about it that bothered him, even if he couldn’t exactly put his finger it.
“Hey! Kid! Hey, Hino! You listening to me?”
“Huh? Sorry, must have drifted off there for a second.”
“I can start my story over, if you need me—”
“In a minute. Did anything seem strange to you about that tow truck back there?”
As soon as the armored vehicle passed, Takeshi scrambled up onto the truck’s flatbed. There he hooked his harness into the carabiners attached to the end of the crane’s arm.
“Go!” he shouted into his headset.
Up front, Johnny put the truck into gear. He began accelerating as fast as he could, abandoning the junker car they had brought as a decoy.
“Smoky, this is the Bandit,” Johnny said into his own headset. “Target is heading your way. Fast.”
“Roger that, Bandit,” Pura said.
Pura put his own truck in gear and pulled onto the expressway about two miles ahead of the armored vehicle. Satoshi sat on the back of the truck cross-legged, mentally preparing himself for the coming battle. He had taken a Dextro-MXE capsule a few minutes back. The effects were already beginning to kick in.
Dextro-MXE (commonly pronounced “DextroMex”), a combination of dextromethorphan and methoxetamine, could induce in the user an altered perception of time. That is, when it was dosed correctly. Getting just the right amount to avoid side effects was nearly impossible.
Users experienced a marked slowing of time. For some, like Satoshi, it was like experiencing each moment in time as a single, discrete frame. Perfect for high-stakes situations. Other people saw the user’s response time as being slightly faster. Having a few extra milliseconds of reaction time when someone started swinging their gun your way, for example, could make the difference between getting shot and getting the drop on the other person.
It had taken Satoshi a great deal of trial-and-error to get to the point where he could dose properly to achieve the desired effect. Even then, from time to time he still suffered some of the undesired side effects (dizziness, nausea, anxiety, even dissociation, hallucinations, and paranoia at times).
Satoshi was trying to center himself now that the plan was in motion. They had gone through every step in great detail and laid everything out in sequence. Satoshi and Takeshi had foregone their usual respirator and Demron overcoat ensemble for lightweight bulletproof vests and goggles. Takeshi had a small handgun strapped to his thigh, while Satoshi had his own handgun plus a large shotgun strapped to his back via a tearaway strap. Both of them had large duffel bags and an assortment of other tools affixed to the end of the truck with rubber bands. That way they were secure, but would tear away easily when needed.
Now, as Pura brought the truck up to full speed on the highway, Satoshi saw the road disappearing behind them as a series of fast-moving single-frame snapshots. The major discrepancy in each frame was the red-and-black armored vehicle fast approaching them. He breathed in, then out. Calmly. In, and then out, as the armored vehicle loomed larger.
“You ready?” Pura said over his headset.
“Ready.”
“Then let’s rob this stagecoach.”
All four men raised the bandanas bunched around their throats up over their mouths and got into position.
“Hang on, something isn’t right here.” Hino was sitting up straighter in his seat now. “Hey, Tomioka, get ready back there. We might have trouble.”
“Roger.”
“What is it?” the driver asked.
Hino unhooked the clasp holding his gun in place and did the same for the shotgun sitting in a standing rack on the floor.
“That truck back there. The one gaining on us fast.”
“The tow truck? What about it?”
“It’s not a tow truck, it’s a flatbed. And we’re coming up on another one just like it.”
“Oh, fuck!” yelled the driver.
Before he could slam on the brakes, the two trucks converged. They smashed into the armored vehicle from each side, wedging it up between the
two vehicles.
“Stop!” Hino shouted.
“I can’t!”
“Go!” Pura and Johnny shouted in unison.
“Going!” came the responses from Satoshi and Takeshi.
Both men stood up from their crouches at the back of their trucks and ran to the ends of their respective cranes. The crane arms had each been fitted with swiveling attachments that were locked so that they would only move in a forty-five-degree angle inward towards the armored vehicle. Working with some spec sheets of the armored transport company’s vehicles, they had calculated exactly where their drivers would need to hit the vehicles to give them the optimal range of motion. Both Pura and Johnny had largely hit their marks, though Johnny was about a foot behind where he wanted to be, giving Takeshi a bit of a reach to get to the armored car.
Once clipped in, both men pushed off from the trailer hitches at the ends of their trucks, sending them flying in towards the armored vehicle in smooth arcs from the ends of their swiveling crane arms. They quickly set two explosive charges each, one at every corner of the door. Then Takeshi set a fifth charge over the door handle as Satoshi swung back to his truck, where he removed the shotgun that had been strapped to his back. He looked over to see Takeshi swing back away from the door, just as all three vehicles lurched hard to the right.
“Clear!”
Takeshi nodded and blew the door. The force of the blast was nearly enough to blow the door off. It hung on a single hinge at its lower left corner for a few moments before falling away. The heavy metal door sent sparks flying as it bounced and clattered down the highway. Satoshi was about to swing back when the vehicle lurched again, this time to the left, making him lose his footing.
“Keep it steady now!” Satoshi yelled into his headset.
He lined himself up to swing back over.
“Trying!” came the reply. “He’s not making it easy!”
Yeah, why would he? Satoshi thought as he swung back towards the door.
“Radio, this is vehicle forty-three, we’re under attack. Repeat: we’re under attack on the Metropolitan Expressway Route 5 just beyond Misono. We are unable to stop. Requesting immediate assistance. Attackers appear armed and dangerous.”
“Roger that, vehicle forty-three,” crackled the reply over the radio. “Assistance is on the way. Stop as soon as you can and deploy the defense system.”
“Roger that,” Hino said.
“I don’t know if we can.” The driver was sweating, apparently on the verge of panic.
“Can’t you stop?” Hino asked, removing his gun from its holster.
The driver slammed on the brakes, causing the vehicle to lurch hard. But it didn’t slow them down much.
“They’ve got us wedged up somehow! I don’t have much contact with the ground!”
“Can you electrify us?”
“Not unless we’re fully stopped!”
“Dammit!”
“Well, do something about it!”
As the driver yelled, he threw himself into the wheel, causing the vehicles to shudder.
Hino slid open the small window that served as a gun port on his side of the vehicle. He angled himself to take aim at the fat dude driving the other truck, who was just a few feet away. The other driver was leaning into his own wheel, glancing back and forth between the armored vehicle and the road ahead. He glanced over and seemed to notice Hino taking aim for his head, but his face didn’t register any fear. Hino fired.
The glass spiderwebbed where his bullets struck, but the glass held. All he was doing was making it harder for the other driver to see. And that wasn’t good enough.
“It’s bulletproof!” he shouted, starting to panic.
“Of course it is!” the driver shouted, frantically twisting the wheel. “Shoot the tires!”
Hino looked out. The front of the vehicle had been retrofitted with metal plating that stuck out and over the front tires. This made it nearly impossible to hit them from his angle.
“Shit, they’ve covered it! I don’t have a clear shot.”
“Can you get a better angle? Or ricochet a shot off the pavement?”
Hino hadn’t thought of that. He angled himself as best he could and fired.
Satoshi swung back in front of the gaping hole in the back of the armored vehicle, then instantly kicked himself back over towards his truck. As expected, several rounds of gunfire followed him as he swung back. When it stopped, he tried again, this time hooking his feet under the armored vehicle’s bumper. He raised his shotgun and pulled the trigger.
He didn’t have to be a master marksman with a shotgun at this range to take out his target. The rubber round caught the man right in the chest. Even with a round of rubber ammunition hitting him in his bulletproof vest, the sole defender in the back of the vehicle went down instantly.
“We’re good!” he said. “Let’s start unloading.”
With that, he unclipped and pulled himself into the cab of the armored vehicle. He was followed quickly by Takeshi.
“Hey, that guy’s still moving!” Takeshi said, pointing to the guard writhing on the floor.
Satoshi looked down as he unfolded one of his duffel bags, then removed his shotgun from his back again. He pumped it once and then fired another rubber round directly into the guard’s stomach from point-blank range, sending him into a fresh spasm.
Given the guard’s body armor, it wouldn’t be enough to kill him. But the shotgun had enough kick to break a few ribs at such close range, rubber pellets or no. This was Satoshi’s compromise to get the guard out of the picture without killing him. After all, he was just doing his job. Same way they were.
Satoshi and Takeshi set about scooping the large shrink-wrapped bricks of cash into their bags from the shelves on either side of the vehicle. The constant lurching made it difficult, but they were able to quickly fill three of the four bags they’d brought despite the movement of the vehicles.
“Start taking these out! I’ll fill the last one!” Takeshi said into his headset.
“Roger!”
Satoshi went to clip himself and the first bag into the crane. Suddenly, the armored car lunged sharply to the right, sending him sprawling into the shelving on the side of the vehicle.
“Fuck!” Pura shouted.
That was the moment when things stopped going right slowly and started going wrong very quickly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Vasili eyed Mei placidly for a long while without speaking. She refused to break his gaze. After a moment, Vasili’s attention was drawn to his assistant, who was now busy hawking up blood into her sink and washing his face. When he turned around, Mei got a slight hit of satisfaction from seeing that his face was still smeared with blood. Looked like she had broken his nose too.
“You alright?” Vasili asked in heavily accented English.
“Fine, fine.”
“And her,” Vasili said, nodding his head in Mei’s direction. “Your assessment?”
His assistant smiled appreciatively and nodded his head. “Yeah, not bad! A little slow, maybe, and her style’s a bit orthodox. But certainly creative when pressed.”
Vasili grunted and turned to Mei. “That is most I hear Jun say in one stretch in long time. You made quite an impression, it seems.”
Mei remained impassive.
“Eh, you speak English?”
Mei just glared at him. He sighed.
“Very well, we shall speak Japa—” Vasili started to say in guttural Japanese.
“Jesus, yes, I speak English.”
“Oh good,” he said, slipping back into English like a man putting on an ill-fitting glove. “Well, I will dispense with formalities. Is like we are good friends already.”
Mei said nothing. She was regretting her decision to let him speak English. His Japanese was ugly, but his English was a bloodbath. Just articles being massacred left and right.
“I will get to point. You are trying to catch serial killer. I also want him caught. So I pr
opose we work together to accomplish this. Not directly, of course, but through my associates, if you will.”
“I will not.”
“I have many contacts, many friends, many people who tell me many things. My resources can be of assistance in your investigation.”
“Thank you for your offer. But you’ve got to understand my reluctance to accept your help.”
“Which is?”
“You’re a criminal. It would be a deal with the devil.”
“Nothing is proven. Is rumor and lies. I’m foreign businessman in Japan, people say things that aren’t true to hurt me.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Besides, even if I were criminal, there is long history of cooperation between criminals and police in Japan. Think back to Mitsuru Asuhara. He cooperated with police for years, turning in criminals, giving information, bringing them gifts. They said he was on first-name basis with everyone at local police station. In exchange, police agree not to enforce some bad laws, let him operate in peace.”
“Of course they cooperated. He had the families of two cops that wouldn’t go along with him murdered. Kids and all.”
“Eh, I don’t know this side of story. Point is, we can help each other more by cooperating than by fighting.”
“And what if I say no? You’re going to kill my family?”
“Why bother? Is just father now. Besides, if you say no, you will not be troubling me. Not from Fukushima.”
There it was. He wasn’t even playing coy anymore. Endo was just a puppet, with Vasili pulling the strings—making his voice come out from Endo’s mouth.
“And why would you help me?” Mei asked. “What do you get out of it?”
Vasili laughed. “Do not be stupid. What do I get out of it? He killed close personal friend and business associate of mine. I owe him for that. Plus, earnings suffer when people are afraid to go out for fear of getting killed. Is bad for business.”
The Drowning City (Tokyo Noir Book 1) Page 14
