Japantown (31 page)

Tomita sensed my urgency. “You got it. But be warned. The pressure is intense. Any pro-Hara story gets killed. Dirt gets printed. Until the family got shot, any dirt on them saw print as well.”

“When that happens, who’s behind it?”

“Guesses are useless, Brodie-san. Top of the heap is your best bet, though.”

“You say you have guys watching. What kind of guys?”

“Other reporters like me. We back each other up. We know who strolls through the park and who lingers. If anyone crosses the square with purpose, we’ll know that too.”

“You’ve done this before, then?”

“Not for this story, but for others just as sensitive. I write it now, I lose my job. Got to time it so they can’t shut you down, or send you to terra incognita to report on the cherry blossom front.”

“Teq QX. Tell me about it.”

“It’s based in Taiwan, founded by two whiz kids. One American computer jock educated in Israel, and one Taiwanese software engineer schooled at Stanford. They developed a number of chip improvements. Patent fees to Sapporo and back. Then rumors started: they were on the verge of the next generation chip
and
revolutionizing microprocessor design; future of computers, wireless, ‘smart’ everything. Pachinko
central. The Double Flower Jackpot. Then the acquisition battles began. The Chinese, Dutch, and a trio of Korean chaebols all have markers in. From your country, Intel’s leading the charge. But we Japanese are waging the biggest campaign, which is where you come in, right?”

Chaebols are Korean family-owned conglomerates. The Big Five control most of the Korean domestic market.

“Yeah, a walk-on part. Is Tokyo in deep?”

“Government’s swinging away with the blessing of the Iron Triangle.”

“You sure about that?”

“Gossip is not my business, Brodie-san.”

Japan’s Iron Triangle was a secret network of high-echelon bureaucrats, industrialists, and politicians. The ministries and the pols rammed through laws and funding to support the triangle’s conglomerate needs and the companies returned the favors with large campaign contributions for pols and lucrative postretirement positions for bureaucrats.

“Yeah, sorry. So who’s winning?”

“Game’s not over yet. There are rumors that the Taiwanese government will step in to keep its native son home and more rumors that the Iron Triangle tried to buy off the chaebols with promises to share the technology, which just made the Koreans mad. At the moment, the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese are the main contenders. In Japan, Hara’s CompTel Nippon, NEC, Fujitsu, and Toshiba are leading.”

Great. I was in search of Soga’s client for Japantown and Tommy Tomita had just added most of Asia to the suspect list. “Aren’t the Japanese companies working together on this? They usually pool resources to lock up the technology.”

“Yeah, they are. The ministries forced them. But Hara’s gone renegade. He’s ignoring the ministries, their regulations, the whole system. The big man figures it is
the
future, or at least a major piece in the jigsaw of global telecommunications for the next few decades. Americans and Dutch don’t figure it that way. They have other options.”

Hara had always been a trailblazer, rising against all odds while fighting Japan Inc. in the trenches. Among the everyday citizenry he was a folk hero to be emulated, but the powers that be hated his lone-wolf tactics.

“Who’s right?”

“Doesn’t matter. If the Taiwanese government doesn’t intrude, it’s supposed to close any time now.”

“With?”

“Hara’s CTN.”

From the moment Hara had gone after Teq QX on his own, the pressure must have been immense. Not only from the competition, but also from the Japanese government. According to Tommy, Hara had rebuffed all comers. According to Lizza, her father had hired a bodyguard once he’d become enamored of the Taiwan chipmaker.

“So Hara’s a tiger or a spoiler, depending on who you talk to.”

“My sources say the Japanese ministries are rabid. Foaming at the mouth.”

The rebel Hara had gone against the tribe and a dozen-plus competitors, and one of them sicced Soga on him. Yet they chose to leave him standing. Why?

“Has anyone put a price tag on Teq QX’s future earnings?”

“Between two and five billion dollars U.S. annually within ten years.”

More than enough motive. “But you have no idea who called the press blackout on Hara?”

“None, Brodie-san. Sorry.”

“Who might hate him enough to . . .”

“Wipe out his family? I don’t know, but that’s what you’re after, aren’t you?”

“That’s what I’m thinking, is all. Thanks for the help, Tomita. I owe you the story if it breaks.”

“You mean
when
. How about a taste now? I hear rumors you’re working for Hara.”

So word had spread. “Keep it to yourself?”

“Atarimae da yo.”
Naturally.

“You heard correctly.”

Tomita grinned. “You’re the man, Brodie. Stay in touch, you hear? But watch yourself with Hara. You’ll get burned if you don’t.”

Another spot-on warning delivered too late.

“One last question,” I said. “What do you know about Goro Kozawa?”

Tommy’s eyes glittered. “He involved, too?”

I kept my mouth shut. Tomita got the message.

“He’s
hara guroi,
a black-hearted one. If you’re dealing with him, watch your back, your pocketbook, and don’t trust a word out of that snake’s mouth.”

Tension furrowed the lining of my stomach. My client was out to get me, and now Tommy was saying our latest ally was even more slippery.

Tommy’s cell phone buzzed once. The next instant a single word in Japanese scrolled up its small screen.
Nigero!
Run!

“Trouble,” Tommy said.

Then it buzzed a second time.

“Go! Get out of here, Brodie. Now!”

I dashed for the corridor of shops Tommy had mentioned. In my peripheral vision, I caught rapid movements off to the far right. My attackers were twenty yards away and closing. A great flapping sound rose up as a cloud of pigeons launched itself. Two men cut through the birds, charging straight at me.

I ran faster. Behind me I heard footsteps pounding the pavement. My cell phone rang. Noda had seen them also, but a beat too late.

The shopping lane was crowded with foot traffic. I looked over my shoulder. A third man joined the chase, cutting in yards ahead of the first two and taking advantage of the path I cleared through the crowd. From three yards back, he drew a gun. He aimed. I sluiced left. A woman coming toward me with boutique shopping bags on her arm crumpled. I didn’t hear the shot, didn’t see a wound.

I kept running.

I figured Noda was around and closing—if he hadn’t lost me.

In seconds, I knew the other two would be on me. Three men would be hard to handle on my own.

I veered left down an alley and stepped into a crevice between buildings. The man with the gun raced past. I leapt out on his heels and brought the 9mm down on his skull. He folded. I ran on. The other two turned the corner and high-jumped over their fallen crony. I took a quick right, plowing between two men in gray suits. My pursuit gained. Their guns came out. I zigzagged. A pedestrian facing me wilted, his
eyes rolling up in his head. I still didn’t hear anything or see a wound. What were they firing?

I took another right and found myself in front of a ramen shop whose back end opened on the passage I’d just been in down. I flew through the restaurant past a dozen startled customers slurping noodles from oversize bowls and charged out the back, then circled around the corner again and came out three dozen paces behind my pursuers. I’d accomplished the turnaround in thirty seconds, a counterintuitive South Central move taught to me by a middle-school-friend-turned-petty criminal now serving time in San Quentin.

The pair ran on for another half block before they slowed, their eyes scanning the pedestrian traffic rapidly but calmly.

I shifted my gun to my left hand.

The men stopped. The taller of the two spoke and turned to glance back over his shoulder. I was on him then, smashing my right fist into the middle of his face. He dropped. His partner half-turned. I said, “Lose the gun,” in Japanese, the weapon in my left hand digging into his spine.

He let his piece fall and I kicked it across the pavement.

I heard another set of footfalls charging fast. I looked around.

A fourth man, gun drawn, was five yards away and closing.

Noda blindsided him from the left. They tumbled over each other and hit the pavement with a dull thud. Noda jammed an elbow in the gunman’s eye. He screamed and grabbed his face.

My prisoner stirred.

“Move again, I pull the trigger.”

My captive eyed me with contempt. I pistol-whipped him before the contempt sprouted into rebellion. He buckled to the pavement.

Noda was on his feet, his man motionless.

People cowered up against storefronts, warily assessing the fallen bodies and our firearms. There was a police ministation two hundred yards back. No doubt someone had alerted them to the disturbance, or was about to. Either way, uniformed officers would arrive momentarily.

Noda grabbed my elbow and shepherded me away from the scene. “Nice takedown.”

“Good to be appreciated by a pro.”

Noda frowned. “Stay focused.”

“Am. What was that about?”

We blended into the stream of people heading for the station.

“Kidnap attempt.”

Kidnapping.
My chest muscles tensed. Soga was not content to wait until I left town, as they had with Noda’s friend. With no tricks to lure me away from Tokyo, they’d turned to abduction—with disposal elsewhere.

“You sure about that?”

“Firing drugged darts.”

That clinched it. My chest tightened some more. We were as big a threat as Noda feared.

“Got any thoughts on why the full-court press?”

“They want you dead sooner,” Noda said. “Probably me too. Did you fire the Beretta?”

Translation: Noda was worried about the firearms law.

“No, but . . .”

“Good. We’re safe.”

I stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

CHAPTER 51

T
RAILING
three guards in our wake, Noda and I burst through the door of Brodie Security. Three more men stood outside the building on the street, and another four roamed the area in pairs at staggered intervals. Before returning to our Shibuya office, Noda had called ahead and Brodie Security operatives had secured the area and set up a safe perimeter in case Soga decided to make a second play closer to home.

Murmurs of relief spread through the room as soon as we crossed the threshold. Then the blinds were drawn and the front door was locked and shuttered from the inside. Furtive glances slid my way as detectives and support staff gauged how well I was handling the crisis. I resented their clandestine inspection, but it went with the job—mine and theirs.

Noda briefed Narazaki and George, and his assessment was brutal: thwarting a determined advance by Soga bordered on the impossible. They had circumvented his backup position until the last second. It was Tommy Tomita’s people who saved us, because Soga hadn’t expected the journalist’s team—no pattern for them to follow. Even so, as in the village, the margin of safety could be measured in seconds. I placed an emergency call to Renna, and this time he broke from whatever meeting he was attending to come to the phone. I told him of the attack, implored him to alert the cops guarding Jenny, and urged him once more to track the buyer of the dealerships. Tracing the transfer of the car lots was the only fact to date that we might be able to use to unravel things from the back end.

After the conversation, I emerged from my office to find everyone huddled around Toru’s machine.

“You going to be okay, Brodie?” Narazaki asked.

“Fine, thanks,” I said, feeling the heightened effects of the adrenaline rush during the attack even now. “What’s going on out here?”

“Toru’s got a bite.”

“More than a bite. We’re rocking. Mari, switch to the beta version for this move.”

Noda clamped a hand on Toru’s shoulder. “Got me a name?”

“Not yet.”

“Address?”

“No.”

“Then you’re not rocking. You’re doing a slow waltz.”

Fingers flying over the keypads, Toru cocked an aggrieved eye at the dour detective. “Should be soon.” He drilled in a few more commands, then turned to Narazaki. “We’re setting up for the final leg. Backtracked him through Istanbul, Morocco, London, Madrid, then New Zealand, Berlin, Hong Kong, Mexico. Now Arizona. What a ride! Cool texture in the Berlin grid.”

Teased spikes bouncing, Mari nodded. “You should have seen it. Yellow-and-black chrome and rainbow fractals.” A warning box appeared on Mari’s screen. She typed a response. “I’ve got an alert.”

“What kind?”

“Wait for it . . .”

Toru said, “I see it. What
is
that?”

His screen exploded in a blinding white field and then began pulsating with concentric green circles bursting forth from the center. Next, red waves flooded his monitor.

“Whoa. Green doughnuts I know, but never seen these red babies before. Mari, run a low-profile ID program. I’ll do site analysis.” He typed in a few commands. “This is it! We’ve nailed him. Our black hatter’s home ground. Mari?”

“The red is his artillery, the rings his firewalls. We penetrate the green, we’re in.”

“Then what?” Noda asked.

Eyes glued to the digital fireworks on his screen as he typed in commands, Toru shrugged. “Hard to know until we penetrate. Those are kick-ass firewalls, though. Not one, but flanks.”

Narazaki said, “What’s a firewall?”

“Electronic barriers, sir,” Mari answered. “Security software to protect a system. They guard a site and search incoming information packets and stuff.”

In a sudden flurry of flying fingers, Toru peppered his screen with commands. The next instant his monitor froze—then a bright yellow flash exploded across it.

He let out a whoop. “We’re in, man! Piggyback sucker punch.”