Disciple of the Wind (7 page)

“Holy shit,” Han said. “Mariko, you got demoted?”

“Uh, yeah,” Mariko said, finding her voice again. “Lost my temper with Kusama.”

Now Han was dumbstruck. She could see the wheels working in his head. He’d lost his detective’s rank during a case they’d worked together, when she served not only as his partner but also his shift sergeant. This was Japan; guilt by association was the law. For Han, the only question was why she hadn’t told him already that his own misconduct had damaged her career.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It had nothing to do with you—”

“And it doesn’t fucking matter, even if it did,” Sakakibara said, as polite as ever. “Look around, both of you. You and I are standing in a bomb crater. That means everything has changed.
Everything
. So today is not the day I lose one of my sergeants because she’s got a discipline problem.”

He stabbed her in the shoulder with a long, callused finger. “Don’t misunderstand me, Frodo. On any other day, you’d get what you had coming. But today the TMPD needs every detail sergeant it can find, and that means that if you keep your damn mouth shut, maybe I can save your career. Understand?”

Mariko nodded and bowed. “Thank you, sir.”

“And you, Buzz, I’m going to shoot for getting you reassigned to detectives again. But listen to me: if you ever stray outside the lines again, I swear to you, I’ll mount you as a ramming prow on my car.”

Han nodded, chastened. Losing his assignment in Narcotics was a mistake he’d always regret, and one Mariko figured he’d never recover
from. Then again, she supposed it was only fair that the TMPD reshuffle the deck in the light of a major terrorist attack.

A sudden shift in background noise drew Mariko’s attention. A gaggle of voices all shouted at once, their tone insistent, not inquisitive. It could only be that last burst of reporters’ questions as someone called a press conference to a close.

Sakakibara caught it too. “All right, here comes His Majesty,” he said. “Both of you, just shut the hell up and let me do my job.”

Captain Kusama became a different man as soon as he got out of sight of the cameras. His cheerfulness and vigor were just a masquerade for the press; once he joined Sakakibara behind the big, blocky Unimog, his shoulders slumped and he breathed as if he’d just come up for air. He didn’t have a word to spare for anyone until he got a cigarette in his mouth.

“Detective Oshiro,” he said, eyeing her up and down. Suddenly she was self-conscious about the state of her uniform. She couldn’t even guess where she’d left her jacket and cap. “You’ve been hard at it, haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good for you. I’ll see to it that a reporter gets to you for a couple of quotes. I know just the one, a very sympathetic woman from NHK. She’ll make you look good.”

Mariko didn’t know how to take that. All the makeup in the world couldn’t make her look pretty. Then she realized Kusama only had thoughts for repairing her smeared reputation. All she could think of to say was, “Thank you, sir.”

“Think nothing of it. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been giving press updates every half hour all night long. These ten-minute catnaps in between aren’t doing the trick anymore; I’ve got to find a place to sleep. Lieutenant, you look like you mean business. Let’s make this brief, shall we?”

“Absolutely,” Sakakibara said. “Two things, sir. First, I want Buzz Lightyear and Woody here to be reinstated at their former rank.”

Kusama studied Mariko and Han with a critical eye. “If I’m not
mistaken, Officer Watanabe faced an internal review board and was lucky to come away with his skin. Got a covert informant killed, as I recall.”

“I did, sir,” said Han.

Kusama nodded, apparently appreciative of Han’s forthright confession. “And I can’t see how Detective Oshiro could be any less temperamental today than she was yesterday afternoon.”

“Sir, I apologize—”

Sakakibara cut her off. “They’re both smart cops. We’re going to want every good head we’ve got assigned to this Haneda detail. We’ll need detectives, and we need sergeants for them to report to. It streamlines everything if you reinstate these two; they already know the job.”

Kusama sighed. “All right. If I weren’t this tired, I’d fight you on it, but damn you, I
am
this tired.” He fished in his pocket and produced a gold-and-silver pin. Mariko’s sergeant’s tag. Mariko hadn’t realized he’d picked it up as they’d left his office. He looked at it, resting in his soft-skinned palm, then looked up at Sakakibara. “You do understand I’m doing this against my better judgment.”

“Mine too, sir. These two are a royal pain in the ass.”

“
You’re
the one who’s answerable for their mistakes, is that clear?”

Sakakibara fixed his eyes on Han and Mariko. His glare could have melted steel. “Crystal clear. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” Han and Mariko said in unison.

“Done,” said Kusama, stifling a yawn. “Your second item?”

“I could use an update like the ones you’re giving the press,” Sakakibara said. “I wouldn’t say we’re all in the dark about what happened, but we sure as hell aren’t in the light yet, either.”

Kusama craned his head to peek through the crack between the Unimog’s cab and its trailer. He didn’t seem to like what he saw—too many microphones, perhaps—because he motioned for his three subordinates to follow him. He led them deeper into the airport, past where the security checkpoint used to be, back among the darkened storefronts.

“We have very little to go on,” he said. “I’ve announced early reports that Jemaah Islamiyah has claimed responsibility, and that investigations are under way to verify those reports.”

“Sir,” Mariko said, “begging your pardon, but this isn’t the work of Islamist extremists. This was the Divine Wind.”

Kusama sighed, this time out of exasperation, not exhaustion. “I wasn’t aware we had any women on the bomb squad.”

“And I thought we agreed that you were going to shut the hell up,” Sakakibara said.

Mariko bowed, and kept her gaze fixed on her captain’s feet. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It’s just—well, I don’t need to be on the bomb squad to know how Joko Daishi thinks.”

“Aha,” Kusama said. “Do enlighten us.”

“Joko Daishi means ‘Great Teacher of the Purging Fire,’
neh
? This guy sees society as being impure, and he wants to burn away all our sins. He thinks comfort and stability are obstacles to enlightenment.”

“I remember the file.”

“Well, that’s why he detonated his bombs
outside
the security gates.”

“Explain,” said Kusama.

“He’s telling us safety is an illusion. The security screens are supposed to make flying safer,
neh
? But they don’t—at least not according to Joko Daishi. They just create a bottleneck. They give him a target.”

Kusama looked at her over the top of his smoking cigarette. “Then why not bomb the checkout line at a grocery store? Isn’t that a bottleneck?”

“It is, sir. But the purpose of the cashier isn’t to keep us safe. Look, back in the sixties, the bottleneck was right at the airplane’s door. A crowd of hundreds turns into a single file,
neh
?”

“Sure.”

“So with fifty years of hindsight, fifty years of new technology, all we’ve managed to do is move the bottleneck. Now it’s the next stage after the ticketing counter. Thousands of people on dozens of flights, all lining up nice and neat.”

Kusama puffed on his cigarette. “You’re saying detonating the bomb outside the security gate sent a message. It says there’s no security at all.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Mm-hm. And why couldn’t Jemaah Islamiyah or al-Qaeda send the same message?”

“They could, but they didn’t. You said that you’ve
announced
they claimed responsibility, not that they
did
. They haven’t, have they, sir? You said that just to appease those reporters.”

Sakakibara growled like a bear. “Frodo, do yourself a favor—”

“It’s all right, Lieutenant.” Kusama waved him off. “Sergeant Oshiro, you of all people ought to understand why I haven’t mentioned Joko Daishi to the press. Tell me, did you approve of it when I did the same thing with the Divine Wind’s subway bombing?”

“Yes, sir.” Mariko hoped all the dust caked to her face would keep him from seeing her blush.

“Yet you were the only one to suffer the consequences. Why approve of denying the Divine Wind’s involvement in that case but disapprove of it here?”

“Because the subway story could be contained. This one can’t. It’s too big, sir, and when the truth leaks out, Joko Daishi will say the people can’t trust their police department. His goal is to erode the pillars of our society. We’re one of those pillars, sir. If we compromise ourselves, we make ourselves an easy meal.”

That got Kusama’s hackles up. He stepped up in her face, and since he was a good fifteen centimeters taller than she was, when he locked eyes with her he was staring down at her. “You will
not
question my loyalty to the TMPD.” He waved his hand in her face as he spoke, jabbing her sergeant’s badge at her like an angry schoolmaster’s ruler.

Mariko cast her gaze to the floor. “Terribly sorry, sir. That wasn’t my intent. It’s just—”

“Frodo, goddamn it, keep your mouth shut.”

“I’ll have her speak her mind, Lieutenant.” Kusama didn’t bother looking in Sakakibara’s direction; he kept his eyes fixed on Mariko.
She could feel him staring holes into her head. “Sergeant, I don’t care for subordinates questioning my judgment, still less when they do it in front of other officers, and especially when they don’t provide a single scrap of evidence to back up their claims. Why should I believe—no, why should I even entertain the
notion
that your beloved Joko Daishi is responsible for this attack?”

“Occam’s razor and sheer optimism, sir.” Mariko swallowed. “We released a terrorist mastermind from prison this morning. A few hours later, the bombs went off. So either this is Joko Daishi’s work or else we’ve got two mad bombers running around Tokyo, and no leads on either one of them.”

“It’s a little too convenient, isn’t it? You’re obsessed with this man. You are by your own assessment our best expert on him.”

“Not just me, sir. Me and Han. Um, Watanabe, sir.”

“Just so. And lo and behold, you and Officer Watanabe come to me looking to get off my shit list by claiming it was your guy who orchestrated this attack. That doesn’t sound contrived to you?”

“Sir, we let him go. Against my advisement. Because I knew something like this would happen. If it’s contrived, it sure as hell wasn’t contrived by me.”

“That’s enough!” Kusama’s cigarette breath hit her in the face. “Is respect a foreign concept to you? Do you even listen to the words coming out of your mouth? I’ve got to hand it to you, Detective: I never thought I’d demote one of my sergeants twice in twenty-four hours.”

He presented her sergeant’s pin to her between his thumb and forefinger, gave her a good last look at it, then dropped it on the floor and mashed it with his shoe. “Lieutenant Sakakibara, you’re authorized to restore Officer Watanabe to his status as a detective. Detective Oshiro, on the other hand, will not retake the sergeant’s exam for three years. Moreover, she’s not to be reassigned from Narcotics.”

He snorted at Mariko. “Have no doubt, Oshiro-san: Haneda will prove to be the most important case in the history of Tokyo law enforcement. You will have no part in it. Policemen will define their
careers on this case, and you will stand off to the side, with nothing but the occasional petty pot bust to feed your massive ego.”

He pulled an about-face and walked off in a huff. Mariko watched him go in shock. Three years. She’d graduated from police academy at the top of her class, and professionally speaking, she’d stayed there. That would never be true again. By the time she could take the sergeant’s exam again, even the most incompetent candidates would have passed her by.

She couldn’t care less about how prestigious the Haneda case would be. Not that Kusama was wrong. If anything, he’d understated the case. Haneda wouldn’t define a career; it would define a generation. Ten years from now, twenty years, fifty, you could ask someone where they were when they heard about Haneda and they’d be able to tell you. It was one of those moments. And Mariko knew who had plotted it. She knew more about him than anyone else in the country, and she couldn’t put that to use.

Sakakibara and Han had reached the same conclusion. Han tried to shrink into himself, to pretend he hadn’t heard, to be anything other than a mirror of Mariko’s shame. Their lieutenant looked like a disappointed father, more disgusted than angry. “I’ve got to hand it to you,” he said. “You got his attention, all right. So congratulations, Frodo. I didn’t think it was possible, but you’re actually more annoying than terrorism.”

6

M
ariko borrowed Han’s phone before she left. Lines were tied up all over the city, so it took her nine tries to get through to her mom and her sister. Mariko kept the call short, partly out of respect for all the others who were on their ninth or tenth attempt to complete a call, but mostly because she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Her demotion had crushed her like a freight train. Just thinking of it made it hard to breathe.

So she checked in, told her family she was all right, and arranged to meet them at her mother’s apartment around lunchtime. Normally the subway could get her there in less than an hour, but Mariko had no way of guessing how many trains would be running on time in the wake of the bombing. The National Police Agency might well have shut down half the city.

But they hadn’t. In fact, even the monorail to Haneda was still up and running; it just stopped at Terminal 1 instead of at the terminus underneath what was now Ground Zero. When Mariko got to the train, she found it was even departing on schedule, which, she was certain, could only have happened in Japan. Only Japan Railways was fastidious enough to guarantee on-time departures even in the wake of a terrorist attack.

The train roared as it barreled through the underground tunnels, then rose out of Tokyo Bay like a Bond villain’s personal monorail. Its
single track skimmed over the water on broad concrete trestles, their blocky silhouettes totally at odds with the sleek, streamlined angles of the train cars. The morning sun glittered on the bay, leaving dazzling spots in Mariko’s eyes.