“Arrangement?”
“He gets twenty four hours head start. That’s all.”
“Dai,” Chika breathed. “That’s jail time if you’re caught.”
“Well, even if we get Mai out of there she isn’t exactly out of the woods. We’re all putting it on the line here, Chika. Everyone in this room.”
Chika made a huge effort to hold back the tears, knowing it would ruin her garish makeup. “Thank you.”
Drake touched her arm. “Be safe.”
Hibiki turned toward the door. “Let’s go.”
On joining the group of girls bound for the Yakuza stronghold, Chika sensed immediately that her job was going to be much harder than even Dai had imagined. The problem was the girls themselves, of course. Chika should have guessed. It wasn’t that they were abusive or violent in any way; it was the suspicion. These girls ran in relatively small circles — somewhere along the line one always recognized another — but when nobody in the large group of thirty women acknowledged Chika some of the more attentive ones noticed.
Whisperings began.
And she didn’t move like they moved, didn’t speak like they spoke. Conspicuous to say the least, she kept herself in a corner as men directed them to their limos. She spoke to no one. All she had to do was gain access, pair off, and drug her suitor. Her mind ran over the blueprints Alicia had made her memorize. That was all good, except they didn’t map out any lower levels. Time was short. Life might be even shorter. Chika kept her mind on the blueprints and Mai, and kept her silence.
The limos drove smoothly through the heart of Kobe, threading traffic and sticking to the main roads. Four in all, they kept together, obeying stop lights and staying courteous to other drivers. Inside, the girls helped themselves to drinks from the onboard bars — mini and chilled, jiving to the loud music and swapping stories. Chika followed their lead, taking a tumbler and pouring two measures of whisky. The warm liquid helped shore up her dwindling self-confidence.
Fight.
She checked the time — 9 p.m. According to the chatter the girls were provided after the ‘businessmen’ had concluded their daily affairs — mostly local guys but also some visiting dealmakers and gang members. The visitors would have their pick and then the locals would choose from the rest. Chika gathered that this was almost regarded as a ‘night off’ for the working girls; it was certainly better than roaming the streets and sleeping in what amounted to nothing more than a filthy hostel.
A woman leaned forward from her place opposite Chika, her PVC skirt squeaking across the limo’s leather padding. “Wrong with you, baby? Looks like this your first time.” She squealed with laughter, almost spilling her drink.
Chika lifted her tumbler to her lips, gaining an extra moment to think. “First time back,” she said. “Been a few weeks.”
“Beat up?” the woman speculated. “Someone gave you otoko no ko?” She reached out to pat Chika’s belly. Chika flinched. The woman’s eyes narrowed until they were slits.
“You not like being touched, eh? Maybe you in wrong car? Wrong place?”
Laughter filled the confines of the vehicle. Chika turned away from it, watching the passing lights and darkened structures. People on the sidewalk stared at them, some enviously, not knowing that they were the lucky ones.
The woman touched Chika’s knee, tapping hard. “I am called Asa. I watch you. I watch you close.”
Chika embraced an urge to do battle. “So watch, bitch. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
Asa backed off, but turned to the other girls. “Something wrong there, mark me. She ain’t one of us. You know it. I say we turn her in to the boss.”
Chika thought about striking out. Isn’t that what a street girl would do? Defend her honor or something? Care a bit less?
Be stronger.
“Leave her the fuck alone, Asa.” A voice spoke up from the far side of the four-person seat. “She got her own business, that fine. Nothing to do with a troublemaker like you. Keep it to yourself, bitch.”
Chika turned a grateful look upon her savior but received only a cold glare in return. They wanted none of her, and Chika didn’t blame them. The limos pulled up outside a modern high-rise with walls as flush and white as paper, its windows gleaming. Men came forward from a covered entrance to open their doors.
“Move,” they said gruffly. “Out. Now.”
Chika exited and drifted apart from Asa and the others, thinking it best to enter with a different group. With only minutes to practice she watched them walk, listened to them talk, and prepared as best she could. Mai’s life depended on her acquiring a certain competence. Gaining entry would surely be the hardest part of her night.
The doors were held open as the girls walked into a small lobby, divided and bordered by smoked glass screens. Chika kept her gaze straight, her head slightly lowered. She fell in behind a girl who looked just like her. Should it worry her that her boyfriend and Alicia Myles had, at least outwardly, turned her into a street girl in less than forty minutes? They shuffled toward an elevator bank, each girl having to pass through a metal detector and then enter separate rooms. Armed guards surveyed them without emotion. Chika held strong to her mission, clenching her fists. Around her the girls chatted. Through the lobby-height windows the streets outside appeared normal. Chika wondered if Dai and the SPEAR team were out there, planning their entry.
The line moved forward, and she passed through the metal detector. Her visit to the closed-off room would be next.
Drake readied himself. If Chika was going to come through it would be within the next few hours and the team wanted to be ultra-prepared. Hibiki’s plan to get them inside the Yakuza HQ was good, but relied on several unknown factors.
The first of which was Karin Blake’s skill.
Back in DC, the young genius was tapping away at a computer, analyzing records and infiltrating security systems. Her own omnisciently designed shadow program was sniffing its way around the digital highway of Kobe, searching every rooftop, underground garage and blind corner. Drake left her to it, gearing up with Dahl, Alicia and Hibiki. Grace watched it all in silence, ignoring even her cellphone and favorite social media sites. Yorgi knelt in a corner, casting a careful eye over the equipment he had brought with him from the States.
Drake drifted over, pistol in hand. “Ey up, pal. What ya got there?”
Yorgi sat back on his haunches. “PDMS sheets. Pretty new invention, not at all associated with buildering and forced entry but still quite useful and effective.” He showed Drake a palm size sheet of plastic. “Sheet is covered in fibers just like hairs on a Gecko’s feet. The hairs produce what is called… intermolecular van der Waals forces, which let them stick to surfaces. Walls. I can attach them to my pads,” he pointed out the handheld device, “And climb any wall, vertically.”
Drake touched one of the sheets. “Had any problems with letting go?”
Yorgi grinned. “Not yet, my friend. This is first time I’m using them.”
Alicia, overhearing, also drifted over. “Yogi, I never even thanked you for helping us out in Paris last week. You pull this off I might even let you…” she nodded suggestively.
Yorgi smiled. “And follow in Beauregard’s footsteps? Not likely.”
“Not adequate enough for me?”
“Not crazy enough for you.”
Drake fought a strange urge to question Alicia as to the Frenchman’s intentions by shouting out to Dahl. “Any news?”
The Swede was chatting to Hibiki. “I’d say so. For you at least.”