Less Than Human (31 page)

Funo raised her eyebrow. “To state the obvious, yes. It also interests me how they communicate with each other.”

“Telepathy?” said Beppu carelessly, then caught Funo’s eye. “You’ll be wanting that train timetable …” He passed her the printout
quickly.

“He might come back by car,” said Ishihara.

“I hope so,” she said. “We’ve notified all rental companies, and Shikoku is easy to roadblock. Now, we’re bringing in all
the known Silver Angels we can find for interviews. I’ll need you both soon for that.”

“We’re looking for information about the group’s plans?” said Beppu.

“I doubt the ordinary members know the group’s plans.” She frowned. “Mostly we want to know where Adam lives, preaches, works,
anything. Even the smallest clue.”

“Quiet!” yelled a detective from the other end of the room. He cupped both hands over his ears, nodding, then jumped forward
and ran his eyes over a monitor configured for visual input.

“Inspector Funo?” he called. “I’m routing this to the super’s office.”

Funo swept out, her face tense, her heels tapping.

Everyone else in the room turned to the detective who’d taken the call. He was lighting a cigarette, his face somber.

“From the lab at Tokushima. They found a discrepancy between the actual amount of toxin in storage and what’s on record.”
He met their eyes in turn. “And the person in charge has disappeared.”

“Shit,” said Beppu. “Not another runner.”

“That’s not all,” said the detective, his voice lower. “When he left, he took a batch of rescopal with him.”

Beppu and Ishihara looked at each other. Rescopal, like sarin, was one of those substances well-known to police all over Japan,
and for a similar reason. A group calling themselves Swords of God had used it several years ago to gas almost an entire block
in Tokyo, with thirty fatalities.

The fax machine and two networked printers whirred into life.

“That’ll be the background info now,” said the detective.

“When did this person leave?” Ishihara asked. It was nearly ten.

“The last anyone saw him was about five o’clock.”

Silence, as everyone realized the man and the poison could be in Osaka or Tokyo or even Hokkaido already.

When he first became a detective, Ishihara had worried constantly about every detail in each case he worked on. He tried to
see the whole picture, to second-guess what had to be done by everyone in order to solve the crime. Now he found it comforting
to know that all he needed to concentrate on was his own particular corner of the crisis.

So while a national police and public network alert went out for Harada and the man from the chemicals lab, Yasuo Inoue; while
public transport authorities and national organizations went into high-security mode; and while police toxicologists contacted
hospitals and advised them how to treat rescopal poisoning. Ishihara and Beppu interviewed the pitifully few Silver Angels
members whom the police could find.

Most of the Silver Angels were missing, including McGuire’s niece and her friend. They’d tentatively identified the boy, however.
Based on McGuire’s description, the geography club convener thought it was Shin Takagi, who’d been once or twice to the club
with Mari Kitami. The convener didn’t know anything about him except that he’d made everyone uncomfortable.

The National Data Network found several Shin Takagis between eighteen and twenty-five living in Osaka. Phone calls accounted
for all but one, the son of a small factory owner who’d committed suicide six years earlier, when Shin was fourteen, after
the business was bankrupted by a cartel of larger companies.

The widow, Shin’s mother, didn’t know where her son was. He moved between jobs, never settled down, and only came home occasionally.
The last she heard, he was working as a courier based in Sakai, south of Osaka.

The courier company said Shin Takagi quit in May and left no forwarding address.

Of the four suspected Silver Angels the police did find, one couldn’t be questioned because she was an anorexic girl of seventeen
who collapsed in panic when she saw police uniforms and had to be rushed to hospital.

Of the other three, one worked as an intern at Osaka Central Hospital, one studied at the same university as the two dead
boys, and one was the girlfriend of this student.

Ishihara interviewed the intern and Beppu the student. Afterward, they compared notes.

The intern was brought in because he’d talked about the Angels by name in a well-known chat room, using his real name backward
as an alias. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a Silver Angels member—he’d only heard about the group from a friend, another doctor
who couldn’t be found.

The student knew a bit more—he recognized Harada’s photograph from his one visit to the geography club. He liked the ideas
some of the members were talking about, such as meditation and renouncing consumerism, but he thought the bit about Adam saving
the world seemed weird. He thought they might be stuck in a role-playing game that got too real. He didn’t know where any
of them lived.

“Neither of them has met Adam.” Beppu tossed the disc with the recorded interviews onto one of the desks. “And neither of
them knows how to contact him. Waste of time bringing them in.”

The incident room was peaceful again. Headquarters for the investigation had moved upstairs, and the superintendent had taken
direct control. Funo was coordinating alert status in Osaka public areas.

Beppu stretched and wriggled his shoulders irritably. “Do you want to do the girl?”

Ishihara nodded. “Might as well. It shouldn’t take long.”

“I told my boyfriend he’d better avoid them.” The girl wound a strand of long, bleached brown hair around her finger as she
spoke. “They gave me the creeps with their fancy implants and shaved heads.”

“Shaved?”

“Yes, even the girls.” She flicked a long purple fingernail through the strand of hair as if looking for nits. Her small,
thin body hunched in the chair and bright button eyes reminded Ishihara of a monkey.

“They only talked about stuff like meditation and self-cleansing and computer games.”

Ishihara swung the monitor to face her across the desk. He ran through several photos—Harada, the four dead students, and
the chemist Inoue. Harada’s photo came from university files, and Inoue’s from his driver’s license photo in the national
database.

The girl shook her head at Harada, Inoue, and one of the girls, but correctly identified the other students.

“Can you go back?” she said.

Ishihara replayed the photos in the opposite direction.

The girl pointed at Inoue. “Maybe … maybe not.”

Ishihara had an idea. “Wait a minute.” He fiddled with the image controls and finally produced Inoue without hair or glasses.
The studious-looking young man with longish hair and a vague expression was transformed into an ascetic priest. Even his expression
seemed more intense.

The girl reacted instantly. “Samael, that’s what they called him. I remember because he came to Tsuneo’s room once, and they
all practically kissed his feet. Pretty dishy he was.”

Samael. Wasn’t that one of the names the old priest Gen had mentioned when he and McGuire visited? One of Adam’s disciples.

“You found him attractive?”

“Not really. He looked an S and M type. Not my thing.” She grinned at Ishihara’s expression. “Uncle, you’re a bit old-fashioned
for a cop.”

Her casual “Uncle” made him feel about eighty. He asked her a couple more questions without getting any further useful information,
then sent her home.

“Samael, huh?” Beppu added the name to the Inoue file.

Ishihara’s phone buzzed.

“Constable Aratani speaking. I’m in Tachibana North Betta, Amagasaki. I have a bit of a problem with one of the other voluntary
informants. The, er, person involved will only talk to you.”

Ishihara shook his head irritably. “What are you talking about?”

“When I went to ask McGuire-san to come to the station…”

“Why?” Ishihara interrupted. “What’s this about?”

“Inspector Funo wanted everyone with a possible Silver Angels connection…”

“Brought in, I know.” Ishihara looked at Beppu.

“Maybe because of the niece?” Beppu guessed. “Or the foreign connection?”

“What’s the problem?” Ishihara asked the constable. McGuire was probably demanding an explanation or refusing to move. Funo
should have told him.

“McGuire-san’s husband says she hasn’t come home yet. He wants to talk to you about where she might be.” The constable nervously
overlaid two mutually exclusive polite expressions.

“Tell Tanaka-san he’d better come over to the station.”

“He’s already waiting in the car,” said the constable.

E
leanor didn’t grasp the slim man’s words for a moment, why he was calling Akita “Adam.” Then she remembered talking about
the Silver Angels to the old priest Gen with Ishihara, and it made sense. Akita was Adam, and these young men were part of
the cult. Shit, and Akita thought she’d joined them …

She might find Mari this way. The thought formed itself without warning and held her to her chair instead of obeying her first
impulse to run out the door.

“I had to discipline Niniel. He has endangered us all.” The new arrival’s words spilled out quickly, as if he’d been waiting
desperately to tell someone. His voice was quiet, but the precise way he said “discipline” made Eleanor shiver.

Fujinaka had stood up immediately when the other man entered. He cleared his throat and gestured at Eleanor.

“We have a guest,” he said.

The slim man put the briefcase down and strode closer to stare at Eleanor. “Is this the foreigner you talked about?” he asked
Akita.

They won’t let you leave, Eleanor told herself. You’ve seen their faces. You can stay as a prisoner or you can try and bluff
the other way. She grabbed a business card from her bag, stood up, and offered it to the new man with a bow.

“Eleanor McGuire, from Tomita Electronics. Glad to m … meet you.”

He stared at her, mouth half-open. Closer up, he was a striking young man, with sharply angled eyebrows and large, clearly
lidded eyes. His collar-length hair was curiously flat and black, probably a wig.

“I’m…” He glanced at Akita, who nodded happily. “I’m Samael.”

Beside her, Fujinaka murmured discontentedly. Did he suspect her? She sat down again, trying to look relaxed.

“Settle down, Samael.” Akita pointed to the kitchen. “Get yourself a drink. You look hot.”

Samael didn’t budge. “We must implement Operation Debug immediately. I have had to leave the lab permanently, due to Niniel’s
carelessness in using the fujirin to discipline his acolytes. They will eventually trace the connection between you and me,
and find you here.”

Akita received this news with an impassive face, but Fujinaka cursed and took out his phone.

“I’ll need help setting this up.” His thumb danced over the keys.

“You’ll be fine,” said Akita calmly. “Just do as you practiced.”

Samael paced nervously beside the kitchen. “What about her?”

“She comes with us.” Akita sounded surprised to be asked. He smiled at Eleanor in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring
way.

Eleanor tried to smile back. She felt sick, and her heart wouldn’t stop racing. “What’s Operation Debug?” she said brightly.

“We leave here and regroup,” said Akita. He leaned back, comfortable to let Samael and Fujinaka do the work. Fujinaka had
gone into the kitchen and was talking to his phone. Eleanor could hear isolated words such as “transport,” “detonator,” “masks,”
and “synchronize,” that didn’t make her feel better. What did Ishihara say … that the group could be dangerous if pushed too
far?

“Are you taking the interface hardware?” she asked. “That’s a delicate job. Shall I help?”

“No,” said Samael sharply. He was tapping a message on his own phone. “You will go in the first van.” He snapped the phone
shut and bent down to the briefcase, behind her.

“It’s not that we don’t want your help.” Akita leaned forward. “We must keep our destination a secret, that’s all.”

Despite what she knew about him by then, she wasn’t frightened by his nearness. His bloodshot eyes were desperately sincere,
and his rather petulant mouth twisted in another emotion, she couldn’t quite tell what. It certainly wasn’t sexual attraction—looked
more like guilt.

He looked up at something above her head, then lunged forward, grabbing both her arms at the elbow, his knee across her thighs
so she couldn’t move her legs.

The attack was so sudden that Eleanor had barely sucked in bream to scream when she felt a hand on her neck and a sharp pain
in the muscle of her shoulder. The scream came out as “Ow!”

Samael chuckled behind her.

Akita let her go. “My apologies, McGuire-san. I will show you the wonders of the Macrocosm, but not tonight.”

Eleanor scrambled off the couch and pushed past him, but her knees gave way, and she dropped to all fours on the carpet, then
slumped on her face as her knees and elbows gave way as well. The bastards had drugged her.