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The Company
Time: Wednesday, July 20, 2011 (pre-dawn hours).
Place: Tokyo, Japan.
Last Event: Shooting Toru dead, dead, dead.
With Toru dead on the floor and his girl hostage fleeing to join the other non-gangster members of his household, the Agents decide to take their leave before vengeful Yakuza thugs show up. Anabel and Qoqa carry the injured Wen to Asuka's apartment – which is just one level down – via the stairs. Zhang is far less gentle with Georgi, dragging the unconscious crime lord by the collar. Downstairs, Asuka is waiting and ready to go, remarkably unfazed by the shooting and explosions in the penthouse.
Vinnie remains upstairs to prepare a few surprises for Toru's men. Gathering Georgi's machine gun and grenades, along with the spool of wire the Russian used to set his own trap, he works quickly and efficiently. He lashes the machine gun to the stair rail, pointed at the entrance to the penthouse's private elevator, and rigs a trigger line to the elevator door. Then he positions a tripwire-activated grenade near the top of the stairway. Finally, he stretches a taut wire across the darkest part of the stairs, to trip up any survivors who come running. The elevator arrives with a "ding" as Vinnie is finishing up.
Opting not to hang around to see his handiwork in action, Vinnie dashes downstairs, where he finds the rest of the team waiting with Asuka in tow and Georgi duct-taped into a rolling chair. Behind him are the sounds of machine-gun fire and shouting. The moment Vinnie appears, Zhang uses the keycard he took from one of the Yakuza goons to call the regular elevator. None of this activity is likely known to Toru's men, as the cameras on this level are dripping with colored hair spray thanks to Asuka's earlier antics. Still, the Agents point guns at the stairs and the elevator door, just in case.
The elevator arrives quickly, before the Yakuza men upstairs have sorted themselves out. To everyone's relief, it's empty. Vinnie spots and covers a camera in there, hopefully fast enough that nobody saw him do it, and then punches the button for the second floor. Fortunately for the Agents, it seems as if Toru's hoods really are confused, as the elevator doesn't stop on the way down and there's nobody waiting at the other end. Anabel presses the button for the lobby as she gets out, figuring that any distraction will help.
The second floor is one of the building's larger, "plaza" levels, and a confusing maze of office suites rather than residential apartments. Qoqa has a good sense for the layout of large buildings, however, and leads the group to the nearest fire stairs. Vinnie easily fouls the alarm on the staircase door and then silently pushes it open. Once again, there's nobody in the way. The Agents dash downstairs – carrying Wen and dragging Georgi – and stop next to an exterior fire exit.
Vinnie warns that this door has a fire alarm that he cannot quickly disable. It's likely to summon the TFD in short order and noisily draw attention in the meantime. Since the Agents have no desire to have the locals – or worse, firemen – calling in reports of people running around with guns and grenades, they ditch all of their weapons save for their one compact pistol (in Qoqa's possession) and their knives. They also cut Georgi out of his duct-tape cocoon so that he looks less like a kidnapping victim, and Qoqa instructs Zhang on how to carry him in a way that makes him look like the victim of a fire, not an assault.
Once everything is ready, the squad exits the building, tripping the fire alarm on the door. There are no heavies waiting out there, but trouble is surely on the way. Anabel's first instinct is to shout "Fire!" in Japanese, on the theory that Toru's men aren't likely to show up shooting if there's an audience. Unfortunately for her, just as she opens her mouth to scream, she swallows a huge bug! That puts an end to her gambit, so the Agents simply head toward the street as quickly as they can while carrying Wen and Georgi.
As the group moves out, everybody looks for a vehicle to steal – preferably one large enough for seven, two of them none too mobile. Vinnie has the best eye for such things, and quickly spots a decent-sized minivan. Luck may have abandoned Anabel, but not Vinnie: The van isn't even locked! As Anabel, Qoqa, and Zhang load Wen and Georgi into the back (and as Asuka looks on unhelpfully), Vinnie works on getting the engine started; in less than a minute, the team is ready to roll. Vinnie hits the gas as soon as the doors slam shut.
Within seconds, Vinnie spots trouble in the rear-view mirror: two large, expensive black cars and a black van. Nobody has any doubts that the occupants are Toru's people, bent on vengeance. Given that the Agents are largely unarmed, and that the team's best shot, Wen, is injured, Vinnie decides that escape makes more sense than confrontation. He floors it and drives as evasively as possible, taking tight corners and sudden turns.
For a brief instant, it looks as if the Yakuza goons might get into shooting distance; Qoqa hands Zhang her pistol, just in case. Even handicapped by a clunky minivan, though, Vinnie is an impressively capable driver. He soon leaves the gangsters in his dust. When his wild maneuvers attract police attention, he manages to lose the cops as easily as he ditched Toru's men. Once the coast is clear, he screeches to a halt beside a running delivery truck making an early morning call. The group hastily switches vehicles, Zhang dragging Georgi, Anabel and Qoqa carrying Wen, and Vinnie glowering at Asuka to make her move quickly and quietly.
After that, things calm down. Vinnie drives toward the team's hotel, while Qoqa treats Anabel's scratchy throat. Once Anabel can talk, she calls ahead to alert Hamid and Jili, letting them know that Wen is wounded and that Georgi is now the Company's prisoner. Neither the police nor Toru's boys put in an encore appearance.
On reaching the hotel, Vinnie pulls into the underground parking garage, where the Agents immediately spot something unusual: two large gray box vans that weren't there earlier, along with several fair-haired Caucasian men in coveralls doing a bad job of pretending to be a cleaning crew. Anabel suspects that these are V's people, and decides to get out and approach them. She brings Zhang along for backup in case she's wrong. Vinnie is also in a cautious mood, and keeps the engine running and his foot near the accelerator. Qoqa hands Wen the little pistol and props her up in the door.
All the caution proves unnecessary – after a brief exchange of code words, Anabel ascertains that the strangers are V's operators, and signals this to the others. The Russians explain that they've come to take Georgi into custody and exfiltrate the team. Anabel calls Jili again, and tells her to grab Hamid and get down to the garage immediately. When Qoqa says that she wants to "clean" the stolen delivery truck before leaving, one of the FSB men hands her a grenade-like device that he claims will disperse enzymatic foam that destroys DNA evidence. It's hard to say whether it works, but it's certainly smelly.
Before long, all seven Agents and Asuka are in the back of one of the gray vans, while Georgi is locked away in the other. The Russians waste no time getting on the road, one of them explaining that their destination is the port. It seems that the FSB officers have all the necessary paperwork, because they're able to drive into the port, up to the docks, and onto a cargo vessel with only the briefest of stops and without any kind of inspection. It's obvious that important strings have been pulled at a high level.
Aboard the ship, the Agents are shown to a large, barracks-like cabin that's adequate but hardly luxurious, and separate from the crew's quarters. Qoqa immediately gets to work cleaning an area where she can treat Wen. Anabel decides to go in search of food for the group. At some point during all this fussing, the vessel gets underway.
With Jili assisting as a nurse and extra pair of hands, Qoqa extracts the three bullets from Wen and sews her up. Georgi didn't nick anything vital, thankfully; it looks as if Wen should make a complete recovery. Asuka watches the surgery with almost perverse curiosity. When Wen awakens, she claims the slugs as her own, declaring that if she's going to get shot repeatedly, she might as well keep souvenirs. Her plan is to string them on a necklace, along with any future gunshot-wound mementos.
The cruise to Vladivostok is short and uneventful. The Agents mostly use the time to rest and recover. Qoqa keeps a close eye on the wounded, especially Wen, while Vinnie busies himself in the galley, ensuring that his people get good food. Asuka starts to show signs that the reality of what happened in Tokyo is sinking in, and Anabel and Qoqa keep an eye on her. Jili's efforts to do the same involve ill-advised attempts to share her collection of mood-altering brain candy with the girl.
On Saturday, July 23, the ship docks at Vladivostok. There's no pretense of legitimate shipping at the Russian end of the trip – uniformed FSB personnel take Georgi into custody and escort the Agents to waiting ground transportation. The officer in charge is the same woman who handled the team during their submarine trip to Vilyuchinsk in March. She seems uncommonly happy to see Anabel again, but Anabel doesn't swing that way.
Within an hour of making port, the team is aboard a greasy old military jet that's older than some of them, waiting for clearance to take off. Georgi is aboard the same plane, now conscious and crated in what can only be described as a heavy cage. Qoqa goes over to him and utters something that only the two of them can hear. Nobody is sure what passes between them, but when Qoqa rejoins her associates, Georgi is visibly shaken and looking rather pale.
Eventually, the venerable transport plane gets airborne, headed west for Moscow. The flight is long, cold, and uncomfortable, and just about the only Agent whom the soldiers aboard seem to like is Wen – probably because she's wounded. To kill time, Jili plays a few movies on her laptop. As her tastes run to dreadful monster flicks that feature giant crocodiles, sharks, snakes, squid, and even whales, this isn't everybody's idea of a good time.
In Moscow that night, the team is once again escorted by uniformed FSB officers. They're driven into the city, to a fairly pleasant hotel. The last they see of Georgi is at the airport, where he's spirited away to what are doubtless considerably less luxurious accommodations. Wen immediately turns on the television and looks for news from Tokyo, but Toru's fate doesn't seem to have made waves as yet – the best she can find is a brief item about a fire at a tower in one of the city's wealthier areas.
Despite the late hour, V shows up in person to meet with the Agents. She thanks them profusely for their work, declaring that Georgi was the real mastermind behind the crime syndicate ostensibly run by Grandfather. She explains that Georgi was among the most dangerous of Russian criminals in the post-Soviet era, arming some seriously scary bad guys worldwide. Given what she knows about the team's previous efforts, she claims that this may well be the nastiest person they've ever brought in. To hear her tell it, his capture genuinely makes the world a safer place.
V doesn't seem to have issues with the team's status as mercenaries, either. She says that internationally, the difference between espionage and law-enforcement isn't nearly as clear-cut as governments would like, and that hired agents do much of the real work. In light of this, the FSB fully intends to keep its promise of transferring some of Grandfather's frozen funds to an account of the group's choosing. She implies that there could be future paying jobs, too.
Anabel calls up Chaturvedi in London and asks him for account information, after which the funds transfer goes through immediately. Chaturvedi echoes V's feelings about Georgi, but is even happier to hear about Toru's demise. He seems rather keen on making the point that those who betray the Company come to a bad end. Just who, exactly, is going to receive this message isn't clear. It's obvious to Anabel that Chaturvedi took the Toru incident rather personally.
Changing the subject to Asuka, Anabel asks Chaturvedi to pull the necessary strings and foot whatever legal bills it takes to ensure that the girl inherits as much of her father's legitimate business empire as possible. Her reasoning is that if Toru's resources were valuable to the Company before, then they may still prove useful. A grateful Asuka is far more likely to be a trustworthy backer than her devious dad! Chaturvedi says that he'll have to check in with Staedert and some others, but that this strategy makes sense to him.
Chaturvedi suggests that the group return to London for the time being. He asks that they keep Asuka with them and out of the sights of Yakuza assassins while he deals with the delicate matter of her inheritance. He says that he'll have Ben make sure that Klas, Lev, and Paul make it back from Las Vegas. After that, he recommends keeping a low profile until the wounded Agents are back on their feet. Once everyone is healed up, he feels that the best thing to do would be to work as Luna-Tech for four or five months, until the group's trail in the U.S. and Japan has cooled off some.