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The Company
Time: Sunday, December 11, 2011 (evening).
Place: Tokyo, Japan.
Last Event: Preparing for fun and games surrounding Asuka's inheritance claim.
The evening before show time, the Agents elect to stay out of sight. Only Anabel has preparations to make: putting together a pair of disguises. This is because the team's plans involve an initial "legitimate" call on the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department lab as Darmatech employees – during which time they'll assess security measures, steal entry passes, and compromise computers – followed by a clandestine visit to tamper with DNA samples. As Anabel's expertise is necessary on both runs, she intends to make herself up as a stereotypically fair German for the tech demo and with Japanese features when she sneaks in later, hoping to use extreme contrast to positive effect. After perfecting these looks, she calls it a night, as does everybody else.
On Monday, Anabel, Jili, Qoqa, and Wen take off for the TMPD lab, leaving Vinnie and Zhang at the hotel to guard Asuka. The four women are met by one Captain Yoshida, a skinny, middle-aged man with thin hair and thick glasses, definitely more "geek" than "cop." However unprepossessing Yoshida's appearance, his manner is polite and professional. He hands the Agents guest passes and informs them that their cargo (the Darmatech equipment) arrived earlier in the morning, as planned. It's clear from the Captain's words and body language that he's fond not of Anabel, the predictable target of male interests, but Qoqa.
Yoshida shows the women to a lab where they can set up their demonstration. Anabel, in her role as the team's sales rep, attempts to distract the Captain from Jili, Qoqa, and Wen's activities so that those three can take an unguided tour of the floor, but her sales pitch falls flat. Yoshida really is a geek, and cares little about service contracts, efficiency estimates, and costs! Fortunately, he does find technical specs interesting, so Qoqa is able to rescue Anabel by talking shop, although this means having a policeman hanging around during setup, denying the Agents the chance to look around.
The demo is ready to run at noon, but the Agents scheme to have lunch with Yoshida first, so that they can send someone back to look around the lab unescorted, under the pretext of fetching a "forgotten" item. Convincing the Captain to take a break is easy enough; if anything, he seems to like the idea of dining with four women a bit too much. However, he isn't adventurous, and proposes nipping down to the cafeteria to keep things efficient and on schedule. As it happens, that's a good fit to the team's plans. Wen deftly "misplaces" her satchel on the way out the door.
Lunch isn't all that bad; it might be cafeteria food, but at least it's different from the fare at the Darmatech refectory. Anabel has designs on pinching Yoshida's entry pass and handing it to Wen, whose task would be to take the ID token back to the lab and copy it with the gear stowed in the demo unit. The whole team is complicit in this, and Qoqa attempts to distract Yoshida by faking a food reaction, which she pulls off convincingly. Yoshida catches Anabel in the act anyway. Fortunately, because Anabel looks like sex on a stick, he cluelessly assumes what men often do: "She was making a pass at me!" He politely removes Anabel's hand and spends the rest of the meal keeping a nervous eye on her.
After lunch, it's time to return to the lab to give the demo. Yoshida's people file into the room and stand around faking interest, tablet computers in hand. When everybody is ready, Qoqa runs the machine, Anabel delivers the presentation, and Jili and Wen fade back like good assistants should. The whole production goes well, and ends with a question-and-answer session that's easily handled with the canned responses prepared by Staedert's people. As the TMPD technicians leave, Jili distributes USB keys containing documentation . . . and custom-made rootkits.
At the end of the session, Anabel approaches the senior forensics technician and asks her whether it would be possible to get a tour of the facility to see how the TMPD does its work now, so that she can better work up comparisons with the Darmatech hardware. Yoshida gives his subordinate the okay, and the Agents get ready to take a walk around. Anabel arranges to bump into the technician on the way out of the room, whereupon she slickly takes the woman's entry pass and palms it off to Wen. Then she orders Wen to go back and start breaking down the demo setup.
Before long, Wen is alone in the lab with the ID token in hand. She pops the panel in the demo unit, takes out the forgery gear that Qoqa stashed there, and scans the stolen pass as quickly as possible. When she's done, she rejoins Anabel, Jili, and Qoqa, and returns the ID card to Anabel while making a show of requesting Jili's help with the breakdown. In her best managerial voice, Anabel orders Jili to assist Wen. As Jili and Wen brush past Anabel's tour guide, Anabel clips the entry pass back on the woman's lab coat.
Wen and Jili return to the demo area together and resume breaking things down until they're alone once again. As soon as the area is quiet, Jili grabs her laptop bag and sneaks out. She walks the halls – telling anybody who asks that she's looking for a restroom or a vending machine – until she spots an office with an open door and an unattended computer in plain view. Then she darts inside and gets to work, leaving the door open so that she can hear people coming, but staying out of sight behind the desk.
Jili quickly taps the Ethernet cable under the desk and attaches a cell phone modified to work as a kind of bug, which she stashes out of sight. Then she loads some cracking software onto the computer. Her guesses about the TMPD's hardware and software prove correct, so she's able to use her "canned" solutions instead of having to improvise, and is done in minutes. She sneaks out as smoothly as she got in, and then heads back to rejoin Wen, once again lying to anybody who asks where she's going.
Eventually, Wen and Jili finish stowing the machinery in its crates. Wen also takes the forgery gear out of its hiding place and stashes it in her satchel. When Anabel and Qoqa return, everything is boxed up and Jili and Wen are waiting with their bags packed. Anabel thanks Yoshida for his time, and invites him out after work this evening, on Darmatech's dime. He agrees to this, whereupon the Agents take their leave to visit the hotel and change into something more stylish than business attire and lab coats.
The evening goes well. Yoshida is again thrilled to be in the company of not one, two, or three, but four women – this time at an expensive restaurant filled with businessmen, some of whom look distinctly envious of him. The Captain proves to be more easygoing when he's off the job, and the Agents manage to steer conversation to what it's like to be a police scientist. Eventually, Anabel gets him talking about unusual assignments, one of which is an inheritance case, which wouldn't be police business except that the father was a homicide victim, the two sons making claims have Yakuza ties, and the lone daughter mysteriously vanished for a while. This is clearly a reference to Asuka's situation, so learning about two likely hostile rivals is worth the price of dinner.
After a lot of food, drink, and karaoke, Anabel, Jili, Qoqa, and Wen return to the hotel. Checking in with Vinnie and Zhang by phone, they learn that their day passed uneventfully. Anabel shares what she learned from Yoshida, and then everybody turns in for the night.
Tuesday starts with the phone ringing in Vinnie and Zhang's suite. Vinnie picks up and finds himself being talked at in Japanese. He tries English to no avail, and eventually hands the call over to Asuka. Asuka converses for quite a while, her voice growing serious and assertive. After hanging up, the girl explains that the caller was a lawyer, and that she has to be at a court downtown for early afternoon to give a personal disposition needed for her claim on Toru's estate.
Vinnie is uncomfortable with this unexpected phone call, and decides to call the emergency number that Staedert gave him. Speaking with someone who's clearly more Company middleman than Darmatech staff member, he inquires as to the legitimacy of the Tokyo court date. As it turns out, everything is on the up-and-up. The team of lawyers retained by Staedert has been working the case for months, and only just got Asuka a chance to speak for herself this afternoon. The contact's explanation for why Vinnie's caller spoke only Japanese is "Well, you are in Japan."
Still, because the whole thing seems rather last-minute, Zhang decides to take a trip downtown to scout out the court building and its surrounds. He tells Vinnie that he'll call in his findings rather than return to report. His plan is to remain in the area and keep an eye on things. He asks Vinnie to call him when he's about to pull up with Asuka, so that he can meet the car and escort the girl inside.
The courts prove to be in one of several towers full of government offices in a bustling civil-service quarter. There are police officers and building security personnel all over the place, which worries Zhang. He fought a lot of police corruption back in the day, and knows that if any of these guys have been paid off, then the whole place could be one big trap. Of course, he's also acutely aware that there's little he can do to mitigate this. Smuggling Asuka in would look fishy enough to give even honest cops and guards cause to ask questions and hold things up, which certainly wouldn't help the girl's inheritance bid.
Even more worrisome are the three men Zhang sees atop a tall building across the plaza. They're clearly not maintenance personnel – window-washers and repairmen don't wear suits – and thus probably not supposed to be where they are. Zhang realizes that to get up there, they likely had some kind of pass that he lacks, so checking things out in person isn't a viable option. Without binoculars, he can't even see whether they're armed. They could be legitimate architects, engineers, or officials as easily as Yakuza spies or shooters.
Zhang phones in a report to Vinnie, warning him about likely sources of trouble. Vinnie says he'll do his best to stay out of sight of the men on the roof, and pull up as close to the court entrance as possible to minimize the number of guards and policemen who get a look at Asuka. Then Vinnie bundles Asuka into the car and sets out. He keeps an eye on his mirrors and the traffic, but sees nothing to worry about. If he has a tail, then the driver must be very good.
Upon arriving within a block of the courts, Vinnie calls Zhang, who strolls down to the street to meet the car. Fortunately, as it's an uncharacteristically damp day, Asuka is wearing a scarf and a long coat, and carrying an umbrella, making her fairly hard to recognize. Zhang escorts her up the stairs to the door without noticing anybody much taking an interest. However, as Asuka enters the building, Zhang notices a man in a gray suit taking pictures with his cell phone. The mysterious stranger takes off in a hurry when Zhang spots him, and Zhang decides to stay with Asuka rather than give chase.
Asuka and Zhang ride the elevator up to the floor where the day's proceedings are to take place, where they encounter a mixed crowd of German and Japanese lawyers. After the attorneys establish their credentials to Zhang's satisfaction, he lets Asuka join them. The lawyers explain to Zhang that the upcoming meetings are to be private, meaning that he cannot sit in on them. He acknowledges this and says that he'll wait in the hall – all day, if necessary.
By now, Vinnie has parked the car nearby. Before going to join Zhang, he calls Anabel, and asks her to rent another car for him and park it at a location he has in mind. Anabel agrees, and sets out to take care of this, leaving Jili to fuss with computers and Wen to manufacture false TMPD entry passes.
The day is largely uneventful. Vinnie joins Zhang on guard duty in the hall, but it's a boring post; Asuka's enemies aren't desperate enough to want to cause trouble in a courthouse. Meanwhile, Anabel rents a nice, speedy, and (anticipating Vinnie's biases) Italian car – a Lancia – and parks it in the spot Vinnie designated. Back at the hotel, Wen carefully manufactures a TMPD ID card for Anabel, who adjusts her disguise to match the photo perfectly.
Toward evening, a tired-looking Asuka reappears with her gaggle of attorneys. The lawyers take off, leaving Asuka standing in the hall with Vinnie and Zhang. Telling Zhang to stay with Asuka in the brightly lit tower, Vinnie walks off to fetch the car. He notices several thuggish-looking fellows following him on the street, but he easily loses them and reaches his parking spot without incident. He drives carefully back to the court building, taking care not to pick up a new shadow. Once he's out front, he calls Zhang.
Zhang escorts Asuka down to the car without running into any trouble. Vinnie tells Zhang that some men tried to follow him to the car earlier, but neither Agent sees anybody worrisome lurking nearby. Vinnie hits the road, keeping an eye out for tailing vehicles – but once again, it seems that nobody is trying to follow him. Nevertheless, he detours to the vehicle that he had Anabel position and switches to it for the drive back to the hotel. It's dark when Vinnie and Zhang pull in with Asuka, but as far as they can tell, they made the trip without picking up any unwanted company along the way.