You amateur. No operator of style ever, ever harms an animal.’
‘Style? Importing uninspected shitferbeef burgers from the US and killing off Wakayama schoolchildren with O-157, and then getting your Ministry of Agricultural poodles to blame the radish farmers, is this “style”? Blackmailing bank executives over the figures you made them cook by refusing to pay back your bubble-economy loans: “style”? You call the “pay up, Mr Food Manufacturer, or pay for a razor blade in your baby products” scam “style”?’
‘Your failure to grasp the fact that the world has progressed since 1970 is why I inherited and expanded Tsuru’s interests and why you are still drawing your operational revenue on scaring loose change out of Shinjuku bar owners. How, oh how, do you suppose you will still be alive in five minutes?’
‘You forgot my two secret weapons.’
‘Did I! I am ablaze with curiosity.’
‘The first weapon is your blazing curiosity, Nagasaki. Even in the old days, you spoke before you shot.’
‘Is your second secret weapon as terrifying as your first?’
‘I present to you, ladies’ – it is hard for me to catch the next word – ‘NimQ6.’
‘“Nim – Q – 6”? A magic pissing goblin? A drain unblocker?’
‘A plastic explosive developed by the Israeli secret service.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘Of course you never heard of it. The Israelis do not advertise in Time. But microcells of NimQ6 are imbedded in the triggers of the guns your dumb fucking apes are holding. The casings of your swanky Kevlar helmets are peppered with the stuff. My colleague here, Mr Suhbataar, oversaw the customization of your equipment when he diverted them from his Russian military supplier.’
Some of Nagasaki’s men turn to look at their boss.
Nagasaki folds his arms. ‘In the sad history of sad dumb bluffing fucks with no real cards in their hands, Morino, you are the saddest, dumbest bluffing fuck of them all. Which weapons do you think I used to wipe out Tsuru, for fuck’s sake? If there was a gram of truth in this booby-trap shit we would have found out by now.’
‘You did not find out, because I needed you to bury the Tsuru faction. For this, I thank you—’
‘Thank me when your lying guts are leaking through bullet holes. Now, I have a city to run. Stand away from the motors, you puppy dogs. I ordered those cars myself via our mutual Mongolian and I don’t want to damage the paintwork.’
Morino stubs his cigar out on the paintwork. ‘Shut up and learn. A gram of truth, you said. NimQ6 microcells weigh one twentieth of a gram. A dot on a page. It is a perfectly stable explosive, even under repeat-fire ricochet conditions, until – here is the beauty of the piece – it is oscillated by a specific VHF frequency. Then the microcell explodes with a force ample to blow away body parts. The single oscillator east of Syria is built into my mobile phone.’ To me, shivering with cold heat thirty metres up, probably with a sniper aiming at my head, this does not sound overly convincing.
Nagasaki acts bored. ‘Enough of this pseudo-science wank, Morino, I—’
‘Humour me for ten more seconds. NimQ6 is the stuff of the future. I enter the code – I took the precaution of doing this prior to your arrival tonight – and simply press the dial button. Like this—’
Blossoms of explosions boom and flame and thunder.
I duck.
Shock waves scalp the air.
The reboom echoes off the mountains.
Finally I peer over the parapet. Nagasaki’s men are scattered around where they were standing. The men who are out of the glare of the headlights are shadowy piles, but the ones who fell in the light – red as a slaughterhouse floor. Most of the torsos still have their legs attached, but the gun hands are blown away. And their heads – imploded by their combat helmets – are nowhere. I never learned the vocabulary I need to take this in. Only in war movies, horror movies: nightmares. The Cadillac door opens and Popsicle falls on to her knees. She gives a yelp of disgust, as if surprised by a spider in the bath. ‘Yaaa!’ Lizard bounders around. ‘Yaaaaaaaaa! Fucking yaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaay!’ Nagasaki is still alive – no helmet to remove his skull – and trying to get to his feet. Both arms are shredded stumps after the elbows. Morino struts over and puts the megaphone into his enemy’s ear. ‘Isn’t science wonderful?’ Bang!
The megaphone turns to me. ‘Seasonal fireworks, Miyake. Now listen. Midnight has passed. So the