Less Than Human (33 page)

Ishihara dragged Akita’s photo beside the others and told the computer to make it clearer. Akita looked more like a motor
mechanic or a plumber. A totally ordinary face except perhaps for the intensity in the deep-set eyes. You might guess at a
drinking problem, too, from the high color and bulbous nose. Even doctoring the photo to remove his hair didn’t make him look
much different.

Akita might have helped the four dead kids get into the Betta where they died. Was it possible to use specialized knowledge
of one Betta to get into another?

Beppu snored.

If McGuire suspected Akita was anything to do with the Silver Angels, she wouldn’t have gone to meet him. Her contrition at
not calling the police to her niece’s apartment on Wednesday had been genuine, he would swear. McGuire always called her husband
if she was going to be late. She hadn’t called, so she must have walked into a trap.

He rubbed his face, suddenly tired and stupid. Better take the rest while it was offered. He pulled the cotton blanket off
Beppu and made a pillow on the desk. It felt as soft as goose down.

“Ishihara.” Funo’s voice in his ear. He sat up, his eyes smarting, but the voice came over the interoffice phone, which functioned
as an intercom.

He fumbled the return switch. “Yes, I’m here.”

Beppu stirred behind him.

“Get up here.”

He groaned and went to the hand basin, where he sloshed water on his face and wiped it off with a paper towel. It was nearly
five.

“Get up.” He poked Beppu as he passed and took the elevator upstairs.

There were tired smudges around Funo’s eyes but she moved as briskly as ever. “Take Beppu and Fujita and meet the local police
in Okayama. Your mate Mikuni thinks they’ve found Akita.”

Yui had confessed to Nakamura’s murder and given them the information to reduce his sentence. He said that he’d got the research
data from Akita, who was working as systems manager at the Zecom Betta under another name. Mikuni, knowing Osaka police were
looking for information about Akita, called immediately.

“We checked McGuire’s e-mail, too,” said Funo. “She’s been communicating with Akita for months.”

“About what?” Ishihara still didn’t believe McGuire was guilty.

“Technical stuff only,” Funo admitted. “Oh, and an e-mail to you yesterday, asking why we’re tracing her calls. How did she
know that?”

Ishihara cursed himself for not checking his e-mail last night. Not that it would have made any difference.

“I think if you find Akita, you’ll find McGuire there, too,” she said.

“It’s possible Inoue is there, as well,” he said gloomily. “And the rescopal.”

The shadows around Funo’s eyes deepened. “I know. We’ve told emergency services to stand by.”

* * *

Ishihara, Beppu, and Fujita, a young detective with an eye for detail and a permanently blocked nose, got out at the Zecom
stop before Okayama City. It was a new station with high ceilings and streamlined passageways, like being inside a translucent,
metal-pyloned box. Ishihara preferred solid concrete.

As they descended the stairs to transfer to the monorail platform, they were met by an extraordinary sight.

People poured out of the train from the Zecom Betta. Many of them were dressed in pajamas. Crying children clutched toys,
and women held babies. All the faces were twisted in fear.

A siren began to whoop and a voice called over the station’s PA system,

“Please proceed out of the station in an orderly way via the exit stairs. Do not run. There is no danger. Please obey police
and station staff directions. Do not go to the fast train platform.”

The message repeated itself. The authoritative voice calmed the crowd a little, but the siren didn’t help. Ambulance and fire
engine sirens outside the station added to the hubbub. The three detectives tried to force their way along the platform against
the flow of the crowd. A station attendant blocked their way.

“Only emergency services authorized on the train,” he yelled.

Ishihara showed his badge. “What’s going on?”

“They’re evacuating the Betta. Gas or something.”

Ishihara exchanged a look with Beppu, whose normally red face had gone pale. Inoue must have brought the rescopal here.

A constable ran along the edge of the crowd, followed by ten paramedics carrying bags. The constable carried gas masks. He
gave one to the station attendant, who snatched it in relief.

Ishihara showed his badge to the constable. “Is Inspector Mikuni here?”

“At the Betta.” The constable passed the detectives a gas mask each. “You can go on this train.”

They got onto the empty train with the paramedics. Another, full train pulled in beside it at the opposite platform. The doors
half closed, then wheezed open again as farther down the carriage three people tried to maneuver cameras and recording equipment
through the closing doors and onto the train. A woman was talking to a hidden microphone.

Ishihara cursed the media. He motioned Fujita to stay put and ran down the carriage with Beppu. The constable and the station
attendant ran down the platform.

“Come out of that.” The constable grabbed one of the camera crew before he could get in the train. The woman kept talking
into her mike as Ishihara pushed her back onto the platform. Beppu took the other man by surprise and shoved him out, too,
and hurled the camera equipment after him. The man bent over the stuff and yelled a curse at Ishihara.

Ishihara waved to the station attendant, and the doors closed. “Bloody ghouls.”

Beppu wiped sweat off his upper lip. “Too stupid to realize they’re in the way.”

The paramedics got out at the first stop, Betta East. A few people tried to got in from the crowd on the platform but most
of them waited obediently as the doors closed.

More people waited at the second stop. Ishihara only just managed to squeeze out as they all rushed in. Like old-time Tokyo
rush
hour, he thought. The siren blared, and the PA system urged everyone to stay calm. The train would reverse and take them
to safety.

The constables on this platform wore their gas masks. Ishihara couldn’t smell anything like the distinctive rotting-petal
perfume of rescopal, but he put on his own mask. Beppu and Fujita did the same. Then he had to take it off to yell a question.

“Which way to system management?”

The constable pointed to an exit, jabbed his thumb downward, and held up two fingers. Two floors down.

Ishihara adjusted his mask as they jogged to the exit, dodging people running for the train. He hadn’t worn a gas mask for
years. The way this model sat over his nose and mouth was different from the old ones, and he struggled to get the strap tight.

“Stay calm and walk to the neatest exit,” said the PA in a deep, reassuring male voice. “If you can, wrap a damp cloth over
your nose and mouth. Do not crawl along the floor. Carry children as high as possible.”

Beyond the exit door was a long corridor. More people running. A man in a blue tracksuit tripped and sprawled headlong. Something
moved on the floor as he scrambled up. A cleanbot, turning in small, aimless circles. Other cleanbots, similarly disabled,
hugged the walls. Ishihara wondered about the building’s automatic protection functions. Would the air circulation shut down
to prevent the gas spreading? Could people be trapped inside apartments if the doors wouldn’t open automatically? He wished
he had read his own Betta’s emergency rules more carefully.

“Stairs over there.” Fujita lifted his mask to shout and pointed to the emergency exit signs at the end of the corridor. The
crowd flowed toward those stairs. All their faces were terrified, but they made surprisingly little noise. A door next to
the main exit said ACCESS STAIRS NO ADMITTANCE. Ishihara put out his hand to open it and at the same moment a fireman pulled
it open from the other way. They both jumped in surprise.

Ishihara held up his badge, and yelled, “Police.” The fireman nodded and kept going. Three more firemen ran up the stairwell,
playing out a huge, flat hose as they went. The detectives flattened themselves against the wall to keep out of the way and
followed the hose down four flights to the bottom floor. The door was propped open.

The siren sounded fainter. Open ducts ran along the walls and ceilings, and the ceiling was lower than upstairs. A sweet smell
permeated slowly through the mask.

They followed the sound of voices around a corner and saw a group of men in suits and some in uniform clustered in front of
a double door. One of the men waved. Ishihara waved back and saw it was Inspector Mikuni. Several of the policemen held phones
to their mouths. The firemen all wore masks with radio comm units built in.

Mikuni beckoned them closer and they all bent their heads to hear, like footballers before a scrum.

“Just as we arrived the alarms started,” Mikuni yelled. “The automatic environmental systems aren’t working properly. We can’t
get into the main control room from the front, so they’re going to break in through the systems manager’s rooms. That’s here.”
He pointed to the double door. “If this Akita is part of the group, he could have sabotaged the system so the gas was more
effective.”

They’d never find any Silver Angels in the crowd, Ishihara thought disgustedly. All the criminals had to do was wear pajamas
and walk out of the building with everyone else.

“No sign of your gaijin,” Mikuni went on. “It’s possible they’re still in there, but unless they have masks they’ll be in
trouble.”

“Aren’t there any other entries?” shouted Beppu.

Mikuni shook his head. “The manager’s apartment is locked, too. The firemen are going to try breaking down doors from this
side and from the apartment side. They’re trying to decide whether it’s safe to use cutters or not.”

Ishihara looked down. A yellowish miasma gathered along the floor.

Mikuni followed his gaze. “It’s heavier than air. They’re going to pump it out. Apparently it will lose potency in twenty-four
hours or so.”

“Isn’t there a central control for all the Bettas?” said Fujita. “We could turn off the airflow from there.”

“No central control.” Behind the mask Ishihara could see Beppu grimace. “So we don’t get someone doing this in all the Bettas
at the same time.”

Running footsteps pounded, and a squad of police in black flak jackets and helmets jogged into view—the anti-terrorist squad.

Their leader saluted. “Squad leader Ikoma. I’m authorized to secure this scene.” He barked the words so rapidly Ishihara had
trouble understanding them.

“We think suspects in a murder case may still be in there,” Mikuni returned loudly. “And possibly a hostage.”

We’ll handle it. Clear the corridor, please.”

Mikuni hesitated, then nodded to his team. They all retreated slowly down the corridor, with many backward glances.

“If your damn cultists screw up my murder case …” Mikuni growled to Ishihara. “There could be evidence in there to back up
Yui’s confession.”

Ishihara hoped McGuire was in the apartment and that the squad would get her out. But then again, what if Akita had left her
there without a mask? He felt sick, and not from the stuffy air. Death from rescopal poisoning was particularly unpleasant.
He hated whoever had done this with desolate intensity.

The mist in the corridor looked thicker.

The firemen shouted, then everyone started running toward the exit. A clatter of boots behind them indicated the antiterrorist
squad followed. A different, shrill alarm sounded above the siren.

“What is it?” Ishihara yelled to one of the firemen.

“Fire in the apartment,” he yelled back. “We need different hoses.”

Ishihara sent Beppu and Fujita to help Mikuni and emergency services, telling them to keep an eye out for Akita or Inoue.
He went back to the monorail platform and helped the constable direct people onto the train, scanning the faces as he did
so for … what? Inoue’s narrow cheeks and shaved head? Akita’s heavier-than-average frame? Any face that seemed wrong, out
of place. Like a small, pale face below red hair.

Don’t get involved with your cases, that was the most basic rule of all. If you let yourself feel for individuals, you couldn’t
do your job. The rule was a good one; it had proved itself to him many times. Like now—he couldn’t care less what happened
to the case, if only McGuire wasn’t in that basement room.

E
leanor hadn’t had this bad a hangover in years. The pounding in her head spread from a point on her left temple and echoed
through her whole body. She shifted her legs, and all her joints and muscles protested. She must have done something stupid
while she was drunk. Run a marathon, by the feel of it Her throat was so dry she couldn’t swallow, and the inside of her mouth
tasted like she’d eaten rotten eggs.

She kept still, her eyes closed. If she moved or saw the room sway, she’d throw up. Masao must have turned the air conditioner
down because everything was very quiet. Maybe if she kept completely still she’d fall back to sleep …