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The Company
Time: Monday, July 18, 2011 (mid afternoon).
Place: Las Vegas, NV, U.S.A.
Last Event: Taking off for Tokyo.
It seems that paying more than $70,000 a head for false papers and a matching plane ticket means flying first class. It's Monday, July 18 when Anabel, Hamid, Jili, Qoqa, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang catch their plane, and Tuesday, July 19 when they deplane at Narita – but the flight seems like it's over too soon. Everyone is able to get some sleep. Even the food is good! The Agents arrive refreshed and ready to work.
The fake passports work as well in Japan as they did in the U.S.A. There are a few puzzled glances when the ethnicity implied by a name doesn't especially match a face, but the bored Immigration Bureau officers decide not to make anything of it. Before long, it's time to look for accommodation. The immediate plan is to stay at one of the many hotels near the airport. The Agents trickle in one and two at a time rather than registering en masse.
Everyone has a shower and then the group convenes in Anabel's room. Anabel uses Skype to call Ben and request that he get V on the satellite phone, ask her to provide a fix on the other phone, and inquire about FSB assistance in Tokyo. Ben complies. It turns out that the phone in question is at coordinates that correspond to the big residential tower where the Agents met with Toru on their last trip to Japan. The FSB has no information on the building, however, and no local assets it can divert to the team's assignment.
After the call, the Agents plan their next move. They know that Toru's organization has a "family" structure, so the boss gambling with and losing the lives of 20 "sons" – sending them across the Pacific on an extravagant suicide mission – is doubtless the cause of significant internal strain. Another consequence of the Wyoming slaughter is that all Yakuza in the U.S. will have to keep a much lower profile. Toru almost certainly has many bridges to mend inside and outside his business. The iron is hot, making it a perfect time to strike.
Sans specialized equipment and support, however, the team's options are limited. Strutting in the front door of Toru's criminal HQ and asking to meet with the boss seems unwise. As Toru lives on the top floor of a 20-storey building owned and operated by his organization, a violent raid seems equally ill-advised. Hamid confirms via Google search that the tower has a helipad, which would be ideal if the group had a helicopter and a qualified pilot – but they don't. It looks like some extremely vertical break-and-enter work is in order.
Tokyo being the world's largest city, and one that never sleeps, the Agents figure it should be easy to get the necessary gear. They fan out at once to procure what they need:
• Anabel and Vinnie have the job of buying dark clothing (jumpsuits, gloves, hoods, etc.) and sticky climbing shoes for everyone, as well as lots of rope. They end up visiting several sports shops to find everything in all the right sizes, but they succeed. Anabel picks up a number of backpacks, too – including some Hello Kitty-themed ones. On the way back, Vinnie makes a side trip for electrician's tools.
• Qoqa heads to the local pharmacies for first-aid gear. She lucks out and finds everything she needs on her first stop. Indeed, much of it is smaller, lighter, and better than what she expected, confirming the stereotype of Japanese technophilia in her mind.
• Wen takes the long trip to Chinatown to acquire some less-than-legal items that the group needs: a few sets of lockpicks, plus a good selection of brass knuckles, knives, and tonfas. She has no trouble doing so. She also stops off for several orders of dumplings.
Everyone is back at the hotel by 21:30. After a brief discussion, consensus is that Anabel, Qoqa, Vinnie, Wen, and Zhang should leave for Toru's building at midnight, leaving Hamid and Jili behind to handle comms as necessary. With those decisions made, it's time to pack for the job and makes sure the new clothing fits. After that, alarm clocks are set and everybody tries to grab a couple hours of sleep, figuring that they'll want to be well-rested for the next step.
It's just after midnight on July 20 when the five infiltrators leave the hotel and board public transportation. To avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention, they dress in street clothes, carry their dark outfits and climbing equipment in backpacks, and play at being tourists riding in from the airport. This goes well. After a number of waits and transfers, the Agents arrive in the right neighborhood, four blocks from Toru's building.
The plan is to have Zhang – who is by far the stealthiest and most athletic – scout the objective alone. He dashes off into the night while the others grab some tea. About 30 minutes later, Zhang returns. The other four greet him as if he had found the place where they're spending the night, and then the whole squad saunters off.
On the walk to Toru's building, Zhang reports on what he saw: The place consists of an 18-storey concrete tower jutting up from the center of a broader three-storey structure. It's surrounded by a rather arty array of stairs, ramps, and shrub-filled planters, which somewhat insulate it from the street – although this being Tokyo, the margin is fairly narrow. Besides the obviously guarded front door, there's an underground parking entrance. However, Zhang spotted a better option: a fourth-floor door open onto a balcony just above the protruding third-storey roof.
Once the five are out of sight of gawkers, they hop over a low wall, change into their dark clothing, and prepare their equipment. Then they creep over to their objective, keeping to darkness and concealment. Before long, they're across the street from Toru's tower, facing the side where Zhang saw the balcony entrance. The door is still open, but the climb looks more challenging than Zhang made it sound! Vinnie points out that there are lots of little camera domes along the edge of the third-storey roof, too.
After a hasty huddle, the Agents conclude that if they're quick and stay in shadow, they should be able to get flat against the building's exterior without showing up on camera for long enough to matter, unless the security staff are remarkably good. After that, it's "just" a matter of staying wedged between jutting concrete ridges for a three-storey chimney climb. Of course, there's also the need to avoid lit windows and keep flat enough not to appear on camera. It's a good thing that everyone has gloves and climbing shoes!
Zhang leads the way, heading toward Toru's building in a running crouch and then disappearing behind some shrubs. The others follow closely, staying low and keeping as much concealment as possible between themselves and the camera domes. Before long, all five Agents are flattened against the wall of the building, listening for trouble. After a few minutes without alarms, footfalls, or voices, it's time to head up.
Each infiltrator takes a separate vertical course, bracing feet and back against vertical concrete ridges that are just barely close enough to permit a climb, using windows and other horizontal relief for extra stability. It isn't easy! While hardly on a par with scaling the overhangs and roofs of that cliff face in Greece, it's only thanks to experiences like that one (including climbing countless fences and boarding several ships) that the Agents are up to the challenge. Even so, Anabel and Vinnie have a hard time, and it's mostly luck that their clumsy scrambling doesn't bring an army of Yakuza gunmen.
Eventually, everyone is on the third-storey roof, which is a sort of gravely plaza. They then cross quickly and quietly to the balcony with the open door. Getting onto the balcony is a matter of a simple pull-up – although Vinnie has trouble with this as well, and needs Zhang's assistance. Everyone agrees that Vinnie needs to hit the gym more often.
Wen is the first one to reach the balcony door. Parting the curtain and peering past it into a room lit only by a television, she sees a tattooed man in bed with two girls who are either extremely short or underage. Between the bedroom activities, the sound of loud pornography on the television, and the room's low light level, it looks like slipping in would be trivial. Signaling for the others to hang back, Wen disappears into the room.
In Wen's mind, the man is likely a Yakuza type, possibly molesting schoolgirls and undoubtedly the biggest threat, so he deserves no mercy. She runs, leaps onto the bed, and kicks him very hard in the exposed testicles. When he collapses in agony, she kicks him more, until he stops twitching. Standing over the two girls, she gestures for silence. One cowers under the bedclothes, while the other faints.
Hearing the violence on the other side of the curtain, the other Agents rush in to join Wen. Vinnie and Zhang immediately bind and gag the room's three occupants, assisted greatly by the presence of interesting bedroom hardware intended for the purpose. Qoqa, concerned for the girls' health, checks them out. Fortunately, they aren't in terrible shape, although she estimates that they're at most 14 years old – hardly suitable playmates for a Yakuza thug. Vinnie draws his knife and mutters something about pedophiles.
Meanwhile, Anabel and Wen search the place. Though doubtless spacious by Tokyo standards, it's a small apartment, barely the size of a Western hotel room. It doesn't have a lived-in look. There's no food in the kitchen, no clothing in the closets, and no personal touches (like photos) anywhere – just the bed, the sex toys, and the television, which is sitting next to a mountain of scattered porn DVDs and the crate it came in. Anabel does find a small pistol and a collapsible baton, however.
Qoqa, being the group's expert at threats and interrogation, takes the pistol on the grounds that she might be able to use it as a negotiating tool. Wen decides that if the order of the day is to be subtlety, then she might be able to pull off a schoolgirl look – that was one of the goals of her surgery in Darmstadt, after all. She dresses in the girls' clothes and Anabel helps her get the details right. The results are disturbingly accurate.
Then it's time to move again. Anabel hears nothing at the door to the hallway and sees nobody through the peephole – it seems clear. Zhang then opens the door a crack and sneaks a peek to his right. He immediately backs up, shuts the door, and hisses that there's a camera outside, pointed down the length of the corridor. Leaving that way means being seen for sure!
To be continued . . .