something. The boy was so small that it was not hard to find a girl of his height.
He had an intriguing plan, worthy of Prince Yamato in the tales of old. Now that is a fine thing to think of a samurai, Nene thought. How many men today could be likened to Yamato himself? Like the legendary prince, Daigoro was courageous and cunning. But fortune had always sided with Yamato; not so with Daigoro. She feared this time the boy might be too clever for his own good.
It was a pity, sending a boy his age into that valley—especially a boy as brave and unlucky as this one. But if anyone stood a chance against Shichio, Daigoro was the one. She hoped he would survive. He might make a fine ally for her husband one day.
In any case, he was still an excellent subject for a haiku. The bear that was a bear trap. But better to wait until after the battle at Obyo Falls before she wrote it. She had to know whether the bear survived.
BOOK NINE
HEISEI ERA, THE YEAR 22
(2010 CE)
40
“You do understand,” Mariko said into the phone, “I’m not fucking killing anyone.”
“You’ve made that quite clear,” said Furukawa.
The son of a bitch sounded like he was smiling, as if he found her moral principles cute. Mariko hated this idea more than ever, but she didn’t know what else to do. On her own, she had no resources to bring down Joko Daishi or to find the thousand-and-some-odd first graders he’d kidnapped. The news anchors bumped up the number by the hour. Mariko had a sneaking suspicion that the final tally would be 1,304.
She mussed her still-wet hair with a towel; a quick shower had woken her up a bit and cleared her mind. A stripe of pain sang out when she ran the towel over the stitches in her scalp. “Ow. So what happens next? Thanks to you, I don’t have a badge. Kind of hard for a detective to do much detecting without one.”
“Not to worry. I can provide whatever resources you require—including a badge and sidearm, if carrying them illicitly doesn’t offend your sensibilities. If it’s computer access you need—”
“I get it. You’ve already hacked the department’s system. That’s a felony, you know.”
“Oh, quite.”
Mariko could think of a few things she’d like to do with invisible access throughout the TMPD’s network. Ending Captain Kusama’s career would be a good start. Furukawa had the hackers to do that sort of thing—assuming, of course, that Kusama hadn’t already done the deed himself. The press wouldn’t forgive him for bullshitting them about Jemaah Islamiyah and covering up what he knew about the Divine Wind. At the moment he sat safely in the eye of that particular storm; this mass kidnapping made everyone forget about everything else. It was just his style to find some positive media spin even in a crisis like this.
“I told you before,” Furukawa said, “I sought you out because you are ideally placed for our purposes. First, if your departed sensei was right, then your destiny is to kill Koji Makoto with Glorious Victory Unsought—”
“Which I’m not going to do.”
“Yes, yes. Second, you have unique connections with police, drug dealers, and yakuzas—”
“Which you have too, so why drag me into this?”
“We’re king-makers. Street-level criminality is not our milieu.”
“So much for ‘no place you cannot reach.’”
“On the contrary. We have you.”
She heard crystal clink against crystal—a decanter gently bumping a whisky tumbler, if she had to guess. “This crisis will not be resolved in the halls of power,” he said. “It will be resolved when someone sees a panic-stricken child waving frantically from a window. Your people make their living by knowing what happens on the streets. Talk to them. Find out what they’ve heard, what they’ve seen.”
Mariko didn’t need to think about that for long. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have disgraced me with my department, huh? A lot of cops won’t want to take my calls right now. I can talk to my CIs, but I have to tell you, my guys know dope, not kooky cults.”
“This kidnapping was a massive effort. Koji-san must have employed hundreds of people to carry it out—”
“And you’re hoping for a blabbermouth in the group. Keep hoping. These are cultists. Fanatically loyal. Some are willing to blow themselves up.”
“Detective Oshiro, you have a pernicious habit of interrupting people. I must say I don’t care for it.”
“Gee, sorry.”
He took a sip of whatever he was drinking. “As I was