A Clean Kill in Tokyo

was halfway inside.
    I broke the connection with the unit and input her number on the mobile phone. Her phone rang three times, then an answering machine cut in.
    I hung up and repeated the procedure using the redial key, then again. And again.
    I wanted to make them nervous, to give them pause. If someone tried to get through enough times, maybe they would let her answer it to allay potential suspicions.
    On the fifth try, she picked up.
“Moshi moshi,”
she said, her voice uncertain.
    “Midori, this is John. I know you can’t speak. I know there are men in your apartment. Say to me ‘There isn’t a man in my apartment, Grandma.’”
    “What?”
    “Say ‘There isn’t a man in my apartment, Grandma.’ Just say it!”
    “There isn’t… There isn’t a man in my apartment, Grandma.”
    “Good girl. Now say, ‘No, I don’t want you coming over now. There’s no one here.”
    “No, I don’t want you coming over now. There’s no one here.”
    They’d be itching to get out of her apartment now. “Very good. Now, just keep arguing with your grandmother, okay? Those men are not the police. You know that. I can help you, but only if you get them out of your apartment. Tell them your father had some papers with him when he died, but they’re hidden in his apartment. Tell them you’ll take them there and show them. Tell them you can’t describe the hiding place, it’s a place in the wall and you’ll have to show them. Do you understand?”
    “Grandma, you worry too much.”
    “I’ll be waiting outside,” I said, and broke the connection.
    Which way are they likely to go?
I thought, trying to decide where I could set up an ambush. But just then, an old woman, bent double at the waist from a childhood of poor nutrition and toil in the rice paddies, emerged from the elevator, carrying out her trash. The electronic doors parted for her as she shuffled outside, and I slipped into the building.
    I knew Midori lived on the third floor. I bolted up the stairwell and paused outside a metal fire door, listening. After about half a minute of silence, I heard the sound of a door opening from somewhere down the corridor.
    I opened the fire door part way, then took out my key chain and extended the dental mirror through the opening until I had a view of a long, narrow hallway. A Japanese man was emerging from an apartment. He swept his head left and right, then nodded. A moment later Midori stepped out, followed closely by a second Japanese. The second one had his hand on her shoulder, not in a gentle way.
    The one in the lead checked the corridor in both directions, then they started to move toward my position. I withdrew the mirror and eased the door shut. There was a CO2-type fire extinguisher on the wall, and I grabbed it and stepped to the right of the door, toward the side where it opened. I pulled the pin and aimed the nozzle face high.
    Two seconds went by, then five. I heard their footsteps approaching, heard them right outside the door.
    I breathed shallowly through my mouth, my fingers tense around the trigger of the unit.
    For a split second, in my imagination, I saw the door start to open, but it didn’t. They had continued past it, heading for the elevators.
    Damn. I had expected them to take the stairs. I eased the door open again and extended the mirror, adjusting its angle until I could see. They had her sandwiched in tightly, the guy in the rear holding something against her back. I assumed a gun, but maybe a knife.
    I couldn’t follow them from there with any hope of surprising them. I wouldn’t be able to close the distance before they saw or heard me coming, and if they were armed, my chances would range from poor to nonexistent.
    I turned and bolted down the stairs. When I got to the first floor, I cut across the lobby, stopping behind a weight-bearing pillar they’d have to walk past as they stepped off the elevator. I braced the extinguisher against my waist and eased the mirror past the corner of the pillar.
    They emerged half a minute later, bunched up in the kind of tight formation you learn to avoid on day one in Special Forces because it makes your whole team vulnerable to an ambush or a mine. They were obviously afraid Midori was going to try to run.
    I slipped the mirror and key chain back in my pocket, listening to their footsteps. When they sounded only a few centimeters away, I bellowed a warrior’s
kiyai
and leaped out, pulling the extinguisher’s trigger and aiming