Rainfall

Boeikyoku. Holtzer handles the liaison. He just told me to take him to your apartment so we could question you.”

    The Boeicho Boeikyoku, or Bureau of Defense Policy, National Defense Agency, is Japan’s CIA.

    “Why were you following me in Jinbocho?” I asked.

    “Surveillance. Trying to locate the disk.”

    “How did you find out where I live?”

    “Holtzer gave me the address.”

    “How did he get it?”

    “I don’t know. He just gave it to me.”

    “What’s your involvement?”

    “Questions. Just questions. Finding the disk.”

    “What were you supposed to do with me after you were done asking me your questions?”

    “Nothing. They just want the disk.”

    I pinched shut his windpipe again. “Bullshit, Benny, not even you could be that stupid. You knew what was going to happen afterwards, even if you wouldn’t have the balls to do it yourself.”

    It was coming together. I could see it. Holtzer tells Benny to take this “Boeikyoku” guy to my apartment to “question” me. Benny figures out what’s going to happen. The little bureaucrat is scared, but he’s caught in the middle. Maybe he rationalizes that it’s not really his affair. Besides, Mr. Boeikyoku would take care of the wet stuff; Benny wouldn’t even have to watch.

    The cowardly little weasel. I squeezed his balls suddenly and hard, and he would have cried out if I hadn’t had the grip on his throat. Then I let go in both places and he spilled to the ground, retching.

    “Okay, Benny, here’s what you’re going to do,” I said. “You’re going to call your buddy at my apartment. I know he has a cell phone. Tell him you’re calling from the subway station. I’ve been spotted, and he needs to meet you at the station immediately. Use my exact words. If you use your own words or I hear you say anything that doesn’t fit with that message, I’ll kill you. Do it right, and you can go.” Of course, it was always possible that these guys used an all-clear code, the absence of which indicated a problem, but I didn’t think they were that smart. Besides, I hadn’t heard anything like an all-clear code on the call Benny got in my apartment.

    He looked up at me, his eyes pleading. “You’ll let me go?”

    “If you do this letter-perfect.” I handed him his phone.

    He did it, just like I told him to. His voice sounded pretty steady. I took the phone back when he was done. He was still looking up at me from his knees. “I can go now?” he said.

    Then he saw my eyes. “You promised! You promised!” he panted. “Please, I was only following orders.” He actually said it.

    “Orders are a bitch,” I said, looking down at him.

    He was starting to hyperventilate. “Don’t kill me! I have a wife and children!”

    My hips were already swiveling into position. “I’ll have someone send flowers,” I whispered, and blasted the knife edge of my hand into the back of his neck. I felt the vertebrae splinter and he spasmed, then slumped to the ground.

    There was nothing I could do but leave him there. But my apartment was already blown. I was going to have to find another, anyway, so the heat the body would bring to Sengoku would be as irrelevant as it was unavoidable.

    I stepped over the body and took a few steps back to the parking area I’d passed. I heard the door to my building slam shut.

    The front of the parking area was roped off, and the ropes were strung across pylons that were planted in sand. I grabbed a fistful of sand from around one of the pylons and returned to my position at the corner of the wall, peeking out past the edge. I didn’t see Benny’s buddy. Shit, he’d made a right down the narrow alley connecting my street with the one parallel to it, about fifteen meters from my apartment. I had expected him to stick to the main roads.

    This was a problem. He was ahead of me now, and there was nowhere I could set up for him and wait. Besides, I didn’t even know what he looked like. If he made it to the main artery by the station, I wouldn’t be able to separate him from all the other people. It had to be now.

    I sprinted down my street, pulling up short at the alley. I flashed my head past the corner and saw a solitary figure walking away from me.

    I scanned the ground, looking for a weapon. Nothing the right size for a club. Too bad.

    I turned into the alley, about seven meters behind him. He was wearing a waist-length leather jacket and had a squat, powerful build. Even from