“They’re heading for the other building.” Drake’s voice was low and tinny, fed through two sets of comms and finally through Hibiki’s cell. “Where are you?”
“About to start my check,” she said. “Providing the party’s ended. I’ll be in touch.”
Without further comment she finished the call, slipped the phone back into her bag and checked the door. Happily, the handle turned freely. Butterflies flickered through her stomach, though if they saw her she still had a way out even now. She cracked the door an inch, saw only empty corridor. Another inch.
Rooms across the hall were closed, every one. Before, they had all been standing open. That was good. She pulled the door further and poked her head around the frame. The corridor all the way to the party area was clear, though figures moved slowly through the room, most likely cleaners. Chika waited two more minutes. Nothing stirred.
With the restroom next door, Chika played her last card and headed for the door. Beyond it, as she knew, stood the door to the staircase and the elevators. Still, she was alone. If there were cameras at this point she was lost, but none were in evidence. Maybe they limited their surveillance to the main areas. In her head, reasoning to keep herself brave and sane, it made sense.
Chika passed beyond the restrooms and entered the stairwell. Silent and chilled at this time of night it was an alien environment, fraught with danger. Uncarpeted, the risers echoed at her first footstep. The far wall was a vertical line of one-way glass, affording her a view into the outside world, more a hateful taunt now than a comfort. She steeled herself and padded down the first switchback, pausing on the landing to listen.
No sound. The Yakuza building could be a morgue.
Slightly lifted, she pressed on, descending the second switchback and arriving at the lowest level. The door that faced her was as bland as they come; nothing screamed Yakuza Prison and Torture Level! but at the inner sanctum of their highly guarded stronghold would they really need bells and whistles? The only people foolish enough to be down here were the careless and the already dead.
Mai had been careless, she thought. Yes, even her seemingly indestructible sister had failings. What did that say for Chika?
Ignoring the self-deprecation she opened the door, expecting alarms but hearing nothing. Moving on she listened hard. The space beyond the door was the mirror image of the one above, except that the row of doors that lined the corridor all looked reinforced and possessed a Judas window at about head height. This was where Chika scored a small victory. The Judas window might give the guards the facility to check on their captives at any time but it also gave her the chance to effectively search for Mai.
She moved into the center of the corridor, ignoring any fears now as she came closer to her goal. There was no turning back, no easy way out. Even the mighty SPEAR team were depending on her. The first tiny window looked onto an empty cell as did its twin across the hall. The third showed her a small, thin man curled up on a bare bunk, knees tucked up to his chest. She recognized him as the youth from earlier, but closed the window quickly when she saw him start to stir. At this point she paused, thinking it prudent to check the shadows at the far end of the corridor. On her level this was a recreational area; down here she didn’t like to speculate, but the inky darkness at least told her that it wasn’t in use.
The next two windows looked onto barely clothed men in varying forms of health, neither of them good. But it was the sixth window that made her catch her breath and stare with widening eyes.
Oh help us…
Mai was chained inside, kneeling on the floor and facing the window, arms outstretched to the wall and loops at her back. Her black hair fell over her skull, hanging down so that it almost scraped the floor below. The muscles in her arms were taut, strained. Her knees were red raw. For a dreadful moment Chika saw no movement at all, but then made out a slight rise and fall near her spine.
Mai was down but she was not out.
Chika bit her lips hard, drawing blood. Every sinew, every instinct in her body wanted to cry out, wanted to at least make some kind of contact. But the mission was clear — no time to waste. Dai and Drake and the rest needed Mai’s exact position as soon as possible. They could already be on site.
Chika withdrew fast, fumbled about in her bag and made the call.
Drake answered. “I’m running ops. Did you find Mai?”
Chika gave him the location.
“Bloody good work. Mai would be proud.”
Chika fought the tears back and the urge to tell Drake how Mai looked, that he had to hurry. They knew the situation and it would only slow things down. Her job done, her situation still precarious, she backed away and made for the stairwell.
Now, it was out of her hands.
Back up the stairwell and across to her room she trod lightly and carefully, feeling a deep sense of relief and now hoping that Lover Boy remained in his comatose state. Hopefully the girls would be made to leave before their suitors awoke. A reasonable assumption given some of their identities.
Inside the room all was quiet. Chika let out a sigh of absolute relief. Maybe she could now begin to breathe properly again.
Until Asa’s nasty little voice made her heart leap. “Knew you were trouble, bitch. Where you been?”
The guard she had summoned stepped out from behind the door. “See this big fucking gun?” he said, waving it from left to right. “Answer her. Or it will make a real mess of that pretty little body.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Alicia struggled in the grip of her two captors. They had made the bonds on her wrists tight, but not enough to stop her blood flow. They held her upper arms firmly, bruisingly hard, but she knew she could take it. Dahl fought to make her move forward from the right, Hibiki from the left. When she didn’t move fast enough the Swede threw her up against a brick wall, pressing in close.
“Quit it. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Alicia, her face squashed by the brick, mumbled. “Oh, Torsty, what’s the first thing you think about when you have a girl up against a wall?”
“Stop with that swaying. We’re here.”
As Dahl pulled her away from the wall they saw the small squat building ahead, barely lit, its lobby shrouded in shadow and its upper floors completely black. No guards were in evidence, no human presence of any sort.
Dahl propelled Alicia toward it. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Hibiki.”
“My girlfriend and my friend are inside. So do I.”
Though Karin had identified the Yakuza-owned building wherein Hibiki speculated the Yakuza preferred to admit their more ‘precious guests’, she had not been able to identify any entry protocols. That problem was left for Hibiki to deal with. Using the only cops he could trust in Kobe and one of their informants, he had been able to put together a good idea of the etiquette and procedure.
But first he’d had to use the hours since Chika left to pass for a member of the Yakuza.
Tattoos had been painted around his neck and on the backs of his hands. Behind his ears. Anywhere that the skin was exposed. The ink would resist water but wouldn’t exactly stand up to a good scrub. Despite his reservations, Hibiki was happy with the quality of the tats in the time they’d had available.
Alicia had taken a picture on her cellphone. “For later,” she said. “For blackmail.”
Now, they approached the barely illuminated frontage, a set of glass doors. Hibiki put his hand on the vertical, brushed metal handle and paused, looked up to the top right where a tiny, inconspicuous camera watched.