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The Company
Time: Saturday, August 7, 2010 (predawn).
Place: Tokyo, Japan.
Last Event: Buying illegal electronics in Yokohama.
On returning from the night's activities, most of the Agents retire to their hotel rooms for some much-needed rest. Before Jili hits the sack, she buzzes Hamid awake, hands him the crate of electronic gizmos, and informs him that he's on duty. Hamid spends the early morning hours preparing equipment for tracing cell calls, cloning phones, and setting up false numbers. He intends to wait until Anabel is present before putting a call through to Asuka's phone, however, because she's the only team member who speaks Japanese!
About six hours later – just before noon – Anabel is up and about. She grabs a quick cappuccino and joins Hamid to make the phone call. Hamid explains that the procedure he has in mind works a lot like a conventional trace, except that Anabel will initiate the call rather than receive it, and of course it will involve a cell network. He needs Anabel to keep the call going for as long as possible, which means that she'll have to dream up something that would interest the kidnappers who've likely confiscated Asuka's phone.
Since it's evident that Asuka's father (and Chaturvedi's contact) is a Yakuza figure, Anabel feels confident that she could make the most headway posing as a representative of a rival syndicate – a Mexican one, she decides – that's on bad terms with him. Her angle will be that in the course of tapping the man's phones for other reasons, her organization learned of his daughter's kidnapping. She will explain that her people have no interest in the kidnappers' beef, but want to buy the girl to settle another score once the current business is settled. Anabel will offer a "down payment" to sweeten the deal . . . but also warn that the girl must be alive to be worth anything, and that somebody from her side will need to confirm this. The others suggest a few refinements, and then Anabel picks up the phone.
As expected, it isn't Asuka who answers, but a man with a Filipino accent – most likely one of the kidnappers. Anabel quickly manages to convince him that she's neither the police nor the girl's family, but another interested party. She talks him into handing the call over to his immediate boss, and soon finds herself cutting a deal with somebody who claims to have the power to negotiate. The gangster is plainly tempted by Anabel's offer of €1 million as partial payment for the girl, and says that if her organization can have the cash ready in 12 hours, his will arrange for the courier to see the girl. He indicates that he'll call back in 11½ hours to specify a meeting place, and then hangs up.
Hamid confirms that he managed to localize the cell node that Asuka's phone used; it's somewhere down in the port. He explains that fix is good to within about a city block, and that he and Jili could easily pinpoint the phone's exact location if they went down there with handheld gear. He also notes that the people on the other end didn't ask for a contact number, which means that they traced the call's (falsified) origin number. This isn't a big deal in 2010, but it does mean that there's a small chance that the kidnappers have electronic assets of their own.
With that done, Wen calls Chaturvedi and fills him in on the situation. The handler is surprised to hear that the abductors are probably Filipino, and that it's his contact who's Yakuza, but he takes it in stride. When Wen asks Chaturvedi whether he can get €1 million of the team's funds in cash on a Saturday, just in case the Agents actually need to flash money, he seems confident that won't be a problem. He's less certain that he can fulfill Wen's request for a bunch of TASERs to use in a silent assault on a location somewhere in Tokyo's bustling port, but he promises to try.
The Agents have their own doubts when it comes to the port; simply getting in might prove challenging, as it's very busy and reasonably secure. After some brainstorming, the sketchy plan is for Anabel to locate a truck that's headed into the port but stopped for whatever reason (traffic, rest, lunch, breakdown, etc.), and to approach the driver. Her pitch will be that she's a stripper hired by some dockworkers to surprise a buddy on his birthday, and that she'll cut the trucker in on the deal if he gets her past security. Hopefully, her distraction will buy her associates enough time to board the vehicle – and with luck, the truck will avoid a spot check and drive right through the gates. This scheme leaves a lot to chance, but the team has less than 11 hours to get into the port, locate Asuka's phone, and deal with her abductors, so some gambles are inevitable.
The next order of business is to procure equipment. Vinnie drives Anabel, Wen, and Zhang to Yokohama once again. Wen and Zhang hit the local Chinatown and buy break-and-enter gear on the local black market: balaclavas, bolt cutters, lockpicks, electronic probes suitable for bypassing security systems, and even a one-man police ram. They also purchase a bunch of knives, a few pairs of sap gloves, and of course a tonfa for Zhang. Meanwhile, Vinnie hits a legitimate hardware store and picks up duct tape, rope, and black spray paint. And Anabel visits a sex shop to obtain clothing (especially above-the-knee boots and a transparent plastic raincoat) and accessories (cuffs, whip, lasso . . .) suitable for her cover story.
Given the nature of these purchases, Vinnie also buys a bunch of suitably plain rucksacks so that the group won't attract suspicion carrying burglar's tools, weapons, and sleazy clothing up to their hotel rooms. When the four meet back at the car, Vinnie stashes the afternoon's shopping carefully so that nobody looking in the car windows will see it. The drive back to the hotel goes without incident. By mid-afternoon, all of the gear other than Anabel's getup is in Vinnie's room.
Vinnie announces that he plans to use the rest of the afternoon to pack everybody's kit carefully – he knows what attracts suspicion, so he wants to do things by the numbers. The team members agree on who will carry what, and tell Vinnie. Hamid and Jili make sure that Vinnie has the electronics they'll need to locate the phone, and remind him that this gear must be easily accessible. While Vinnie hides knives, lockpicks, and so on in rucksacks, and even sews on little backpacker's flags (Canadian for Ben, Swedish for Klas, and so on), the others grab a nap. Except for Qoqa, that is; she assembles over-the-counter medical gear into a reasonably complete but totally nondescript medic's bag.
At around 18:00, Chaturvedi buzzes Vinnie from the lobby and asks him what room he's in. When Vinnie tells him, the handler says he'll be right up. A few minutes later, Chaturvedi is knocking on Vinnie's door. He has a small luggage cart in tow with two bags on it. The aluminum attaché contains €1 million in cash; the bulky suitcase holds a bunch of TASERs. Chaturvedi mumbles, "Don't ask me where I got this stuff," wishes Vinnie and the others good luck, and departs.
Vinnie packs the TASERs into the rucksacks last, right on top. The cash goes in the room safe. This is a nice hotel – the case full of money could probably be left sitting on the desk – but Vinnie feels better with it quietly stashed.
As soon as Vinnie is done, he systematically calls up his associates and asks them to come fetch their bags. Zhang's rucksack is largest, and contains the ram. Vinnie's is also bulky, as it contains Anabel's gear in its own, smaller bag. The only last-minute addition to the kit comes from Wen. She adds a collection of photos of the group members, her logic being that if the team manages to grab identity documents off someone, it might prove useful to be able to change the face on them.
Once equipped, each Agent walks off alone. The plan is to use public transportation and taxis to reach an agreed-upon rendezvous point not far from one of the port gates. With everyone acting casual, and with the help of Vinnie's expert efforts at hiding the most suspicious gear in innocuous-looking packs with little flags on them, nobody attracts the wrong kind of attention – although Klas' height draws some stares. By around 19:30, everybody but Anabel is in place. They disperse around the area, making calls, buying food, looking at maps, and so on.
Anabel arrives last, by taxi. She certainly looks the part of a stripper! She buzzes the others to inform them that she's in place – not that anybody failed to notice her, given her getup. The Agents fan out over the area, looking for a suitable truck. Ben and Jili luck out, spotting a man pulled over and tinkering with a tire. Jili calls Anabel and identifies her mark, and then messages the others to converge on the truck casually.
The trucker is kneeling next to his vehicle when Anabel shows up. The first thing he sees is Anabel's boots. Looking up, he gets a considerable eyeful. In good Japanese, Anabel informs the man that she needs a ride into the port – illegally, past security – to perform a striptease for somebody's birthday. She suggests that she can make the risk worth his while, promising him a bit of her fee and perhaps something more.
What follows is the fastest tire change in the Far East. Afterward, Anabel looks at the trucker's greasy hands and suggests that if he wants to touch the goodies, he'll need to wash up. He dashes to a nearby restaurant to take care of this. As soon as he does, the other 11 Agents steal over in ones and twos. Vinnie has the trailer unlocked in no time, and he and his associates climb in the back and hide amidst the cargo (which proves to be cheap Japanese-themed souvenirs, made in China and destined for the U.S.). When the driver returns, everybody is aboard, the truck is closed up, and Anabel is pacing and looking at her watch.
With Anabel keeping her head down (in the trucker's lap, not that he minds), the truck makes its way into the queue at the port gates. There's a bit of a wait, but fortunately, there's no search. The papers are in order and the truck pulls into the port area without a cargo inspection. Just before 21:00, the Agents are where they need to be, with about two hours to spare. The driver is rather enthusiastic about claiming his reward in goods rather than cash, however, so the team has more like an hour and 45 minutes left by the time they're assembled and ready to act. Anabel's distraction up front does make it easy for 11 people to sneak out the back, though!
As the others lurk in the shadows, Anabel bids "Hideo" farewell and thanks him again for his help. On a whim, she gets his cell-phone number – it might just prove useful, if he's still in the area when the group needs to leave. The others mostly tap their toes through all this, although Paul is a little surprised at how casual his new coworkers are about Anabel's sexy antics.