Fujikawa Hikari looked up at the ornate facade of the building in front of her. The gaudiness of it struck her as funny considering the clean lines of the surrounding structures.
"Nouveaux riche." She muttered with a wry shake of her head. "They can't help but be obvious, I suppose."
"Talking to yourself again?" Lincoln asked as he stepped in beside her. He grinned at her scowl. "What are we thinking then?"
It wasn't unusual for her sometimes partner to take the secondary role in their work and considering how far from home he was, it only made sense for her to take the lead.
"There's something up there." She pointed at an unusual indention in the facade by a window. "Might be a gunshot."
"From a nearby building? Everything seems shut tight from what we've seen." Lincoln chewed on his pen as he glanced around at the glass panelled walls that encased the condominiums across the street.
"A sniper, maybe." She answered shortly.
"That could be from anywhere." He sighed in reply. "Matsumura wants this guy caught yesterday, and to be honest, I don't think I can handle door to door questioning right now."
"Yeah, your Japanese is atrocious." She poked him in the arm. "Let me see if I can't narrow the field a little."
"Hey! Hika… and she's gone." Lincoln muttered as Hikari walked towards the fire escape on the neighboring building.
Still calculating just how she was going to get from one building to the other without ending up a mangled mess on the concrete, she overheard a group of detectives from the local precinct muttering amongst themselves.
"Why the hell is Interpol involved in the first place?" A rather short, stocky man in a bad brown suit grumbled. "This is just a standard assassination attempt on a two bit politician, right?"
"The less work I have to do, the better." A taller guy with bed head and a mouthful of cigarette shrugged.
"Maybe there's more to it than the captain let on to us." A younger detective with spiky brown hair suggested.
Ding ding ding. Hikari smiled faintly. At least one of them is smart enough to figure that out. Not that it was an unusual circumstance for a politician to have his thumb in a few international pies. This guy, however, had tried to take the cake and ended up falling face first into it.
"He might think twice about double dealing with Sunnis and Shi'aites from here on out, if he makes it to tomorrow." She thought aloud, looking back at the detectives and catching eyes with Tall Dark and Smokey. His eyes narrowed momentarily before he turned back to his colleagues.
"Huh." She thought, pushing the fluttery feeling in her chest down as far as she could and turning back to the task at hand.
The crack in the facade was three stories up, narrowly missing a window close to the east corner. She cursed whoever decided not to put a fire escape on the building in question as she climbed the creaky steps next door. The alley between was at least six feet wide and while she didn't have much of a fear of heights, she didn't relish the thought of falling to her demise over some rich guy's poor business decision.
"This is the last time I let Lincoln talk me into a job just because 'we'll be in the neighborhood anyway'." She muttered, forcing herself not to look down as she psyched herself up for the jump. "3. 2. And…" She leapt from the railing of the fire escape and landed on the faux balcony across the way, barely an inch from the edge. "You'd think that with all of that money, he could afford a real fucking balcony." She sighed, grasping the facade with the tips of her fingers as she edged her way around to the window.
"Hey, Link?" She asked the air tentatively, hoping that she'd remembered to turn on her comm before ending up somewhere she couldn't use her hands.
"Right here, kiddo." He answered. "And just so you know, I can totally see up your skirt right now."
"What?" She clamped her legs together, nearly making herself fall. "Not cool, Lincoln!"
"It's not my fault you decided to show off your pretty purple panties to everyone in Tokyo." He chuckled.
"Fuck off." She growled. "Anyway, this looks like a 7mm Remington Magnum cartridge. So the shooter had to be within a 1000 meter range."
"That narrows it down… a little… I guess." He sighed and she could picture him looking forlornly at the expanse of buildings in the area.
"It's in pretty deep so I think we can safely say that he's no farther than 500 meters awa…" She stopped short. Her eyes had been scanning windows based on the direction of the lodged shot and her eyes suddenly met another pair. These were sharp and sun wizened, surrounded by wrinkles and creases brought on by constant furrowing. And they were furrowed now, locked on her and she froze as their intention dawned on her.
Her hand slipped. A second later she saw those narrowed eyes shake slightly and she knew that he'd pulled his trigger. Either way she was falling. A bullet wound wouldn't really help or hurt her now. 'Fuck.' Wait… 'Fuck?' Was that really going to be her last thought? "Not much I can do about it now." She sighed aloud, closing her eyes tight.
"Ow."
Ow is right. Wait. She wasn't dead. A little shaken up maybe, but…
Her eyes flew open and she was face to face with Tall Dark and Smokey.
"You caught me!" She exclaimed in a shocked whisper.
"I kind of wish I hadn't now." He groaned.
"Oh," She realized that he had taken most of her impact. "I am so sorry!" Then she remembered the man with the squinty eyes. "I'll make it up to you, but right now I've got to… Thank you!" She called as she stood up and ran off into the city. "Lincoln! I know where he is! Put out the call to surround the XX building! He's got to be on the run by now!"
There was a sharp pain in her hip, but she pushed through it, rattling off a description into her comm as she pressed into the crowded street. Stopping for breath as she reached the XX building, she looked around through the chaos of police cars and officers ushering civilians out of the way as they blockaded the entrances.
Then she saw him, a man, shoulders hunched as he made his way through the crowd. He glanced back and she recognised his eyes immediately. He saw her coming and broke into a sprint.
Giving chase, she cursed the number of drinks she'd downed the night before and vowed never to get drunk again. "Hah!" She panted. The crowd had dissipated and the man was only a few meters in front of her now.
She pushed herself as hard as she could, closing the gap between them, but he pulled something out of his pocket and chucked it over his shoulder. Clouds of smoke billowed in front of her and she closed her eyes to protect them from the sting. Pressing her arm over her nose and mouth, she ran blindly into the smog, hoping that he didn't veer off in her confusion.
Suddenly she found herself tripping. She could barely make out what she'd stumbled over in the smoke, but after a moment, she realized that it was a person.
"I am so sorry!" She coughed. "Wait!" She grabbed the person's arm. "It's you!" She held on firmly as the sniper tried to escape, trying not to breathe in the noxious fumes in the struggle. She pulled him out of the reach of the smoke bomb and pressed him face first into the grass. "Your sorry ass is under arrest." She told him in Farsi, cuffing his hands behind his back and plopping down beside him with a huff.
It didn't take long for the local officers to arrive and take the man away. Hikari watched it all from her spot on the grass, accepting an oxygen tank from a paramedic but no other assistance.
"The paperwork is probably going to be pretty awful." Lincoln said as he sat down beside her.
"Well, that's what I keep you around for." She grinned at him.
"Sheesh. And I thought I'd be able to take a little vacation while we were here." He let his shoulders slump in a mock pout.
"This job was your idea." She reminded him. "Besides, as soon as I get the call about the real reason we're here, I'm not going to have time for petty pencil pushing."
"Yeah, yeah." He rested his chin in his hand and looked at her. "You sure you're up to that right now? You look awful."
"This is nothing." She brushed away his concern with a shake of her head. "A little more of this sweet sweet oxygen and I'll be as good as new."
"Well, you did just fall from an third story window." He pointed out.
"Then ran a few miles to shake it off." She shrugged.
"Seems like a lot of effort to waste protecting a politician, don't you think?" A voice asked and she looked up to see the detective who'd caught her looking down at her with a slightly concerned but mostly bored expression.
"Maybe, but the pay is good so I guess it was worth it." She shrugged.
"Huh." He said, taking a hit of his cigarette and walking away.
"That was weird." Lincoln muttered.
"Meh." Hikari shrugged, watching the man's retreating figure. "He seems nice enough to me."
"Oh God. Don't tell me you've found love at first sight." Lincoln exclaimed in mock horror.
"Uh huh." She poked him in the arm. "You know, if you're gonna be jealous, you can just come out and tell me."
"I'm not jealous." He huffed.
"Uh huh."
"Wait, you didn't deny it… do you really… don't tell me…"
Hikari's phone buzzed and she answered it while Lincoln continued to stumble over his words.
"Fujikawa." She said brightly. "Uh huh. Got it. I'm close by. Right, I'll be there in twenty." She hung up and looked at her partner who was hanging his head dejectedly. "Why don't you cheer yourself up with some paperwork? I've got to go finish this other job up."
"Right." He nodded absently.
"Then we can go see Hideki!" She offered cheerfully. "We'll gamble our sorrows away… and drink! We will gamble and drink our sorrows away tonight!"
"Fine." Lincoln conceded.
"Good boy!" Hikari patted his head fondly before standing up. "I'll see you later then!"
"See you." He replied to her retreating form.