April 12, 2008
Misaki hardly slept at all that night, despite her exhaustion. She didn't know whether it was due to the visions of Hourai's corpse that invaded her dreams, or the stiff and awkward goodbye that her father had left her with. It was with dragging feet and an almost painful craving for coffee that she arrived at headquarters the next morning.
Her office was now up on the twelfth floor. It was only a temporary office, as she was only Acting Director; she'd wanted to stay downstairs with the rest of her team, but Superintendent Kan had insisted that she take the room that had been Hourai's for the past ten years, as she now had three other sections to supervise in addition to her own.
In her former role, Misaki had always spent the first half hour of every morning debriefing her team and getting up to speed on their various open cases and assignments. Now, however, she resisted the urge to swing by the fifth floor on her way upstairs. Aside from their being seven floors down from her own, her showing up in the office so early could be taken as a sign that she didn't trust them. They were perfectly capable of handling the legwork themselves; they didn't need her watching over their shoulders.
Instead, she hit the number twelve on the elevator panel and headed straight to her own office. Currently it looked exactly the same as it had when Hourai had occupied it: sparse, impersonal, and utilitarian. There was no point in taking the time to personalize a place where she would be spending only another month or two, if she was lucky. The only change was that now Hourai's gray trenchcoat was missing from the coat rack; Misaki hung her blue rain coat in its place.
She dumped her purse under her desk and sat wearily behind the computer. There was a long list of emails waiting in her inbox; she dealt with the most urgent issues and questions from the other section chiefs first, leaving the press requests and PR notes to read over later - Toda, the reporter from Yomiuri Shimbun, had sent her five messages in the past eight hours, she noted with annoyance. Well, he could wait until she sent out an official statement like everyone else. She'd decided not to make the announcement of Hourai's death until they had a more solid lead to go on, but she couldn't only hold off for so long.
Moki was still emailing her on a daily basis, as if he thought that not checking in frequently would lead her to arrest him - as she'd arrested his superior, the former chief of Section One. She supposed that it was better he be too open rather than not, but still, this was getting excessive. She'd chosen him for the position because she'd worked with him on several cases previously and thought that he could handle the responsibility. She would have to take him aside after their next Foreign Affairs status meeting for a private word.
Jouda of Section Two had sent her a quick note to advise her on an unusual increase in intelligence chatter around Shanghai and Hong Kong. Misaki read it over with interest. She hit the reply button, but found herself picking up the phone instead of typing.
"Jouda," the section chief answered on the second ring.
"What's going on in Shanghai?" she asked without preamble.
"Good morning to you too, Director," he grumbled, but he didn't waste time getting to the point. Misaki liked that about him, though little else. "Bounty hunters, if you can believe it. The Chinese government has been keeping an eye on rumors that some serious players had entered the country and converged on Shanghai."
"Contractors?"
"Some contractors; some the old-fashioned kind of hitmen. Astronomics data confirmed the contractors - a couple didn't make it out alive."
Misaki had seen that data too. "Any idea what they're after?"
She could almost hear Jouda shrugging. "Nothing concrete. But we're starting to hear something similar out of Hong Kong now, and there's been a sudden…rearrangement of traffic in and out of the island in the past two days."
"Rearrangement? What do you mean?"
"I mean flight and train timetables being adjusted, that sort of thing. It looks like someone is trying to facilitate entry to the city."
"Someone in the Chinese ministry, it sounds like," Misaki mused. "You said you weren't sure who these hitmen are after; but if you had to put money on it, what would be your bet?"
"I don't bet," he said curtly. "But my team reviewed the star analysis coming out of southern China this week. There's a lot of activity in general, and most of it seems to be centered around your old friend BK-201. And it's pretty clear that he's headed in the direction of Hong Kong."
Damn. "It's clear from the star analysis," she repeated. "But China doesn't have anywhere near as sophisticated an Astronomics system as we do."
"Not to our knowledge, no," Jouda clarified.
Misaki continued, "And those analyses are classified. So how is the government mobilizing before he's even arrived?"
"It sounds like there's still a leak in Astronomics, and a Syndicate member in the Chinese Ministry of Transport. The investigation of which is your department. Sorry, I mean, Section Four's responsibility."
"And anti-Chinese espionage is your responsibility," Misaki said, trying her best to keep her tone even. "Thank you for the update, Chief Jouda. Please keep me informed on this issue." She hung up the phone and rubbed her temple in frustration. She never liked to be that short with anyone below her, but Jouda had not been happy about her promotion, temporary though it was. He was older than her, senior to her, and - important in his mind - male, all of which combined to give him an air of superiority in all of their interactions. He'd always been cold and almost snide with her during their Foreign Affairs update meetings under Hourai; she'd dealt with it by ignoring it, and Hourai had dealt with it by responding coldly and curtly right back whenever Jouda had tried to discredit Misaki. She hated to emulate any aspect of Hourai's methods, but she couldn't deny that it was effective in this case. So far, anyway.
Her mind returned to the issue at hand. An influx of contractors and hitmen into Hong Kong, ahead of Hei. She wished that she could get a message to him somehow, to warn him. But even if she knew of a way, there was always the chance of it being intercepted. Every time she thought that they had plugged the leak for good, three more cropped up. What she needed was that server, and the list of Syndicate members that it supposedly contained. But with Hourai dead, and no other leads…she sighed to herself. Maybe when they found his murderer, they could track back to the person who had hired him or her. It couldn't be a coincidence that Hourai had died right after agreeing to talk.
She glanced at the clock; just after nine. Was that too early to head down and check in with her team? Matsumoto would probably have called her if he and Navid had found something interesting on the surveillance tapes, but that didn't mean that they hadn't picked up some little detail that they could discuss.
Out of habit she took a quick look at her calendar to make sure she was free to stop by the fifth floor early - and sighed in annoyance when she spotted the reminder that she had left for herself. She'd been awfully forgetful lately, and it was driving her crazy; post-it notes and scrawls on scraps of paper littered her computer monitor and floated around in her purse. This was one reminder that she wished she hadn't thought to write down: Call Kaede re: Hourai.
That note had been intended to remind her to fill him in on how her interview with the former director went. She hadn't told him about the death yet. Wishing that she was back down on the fifth floor and absolved from this responsibility, she picked up her phone and dialed his mobile number.
Kaede picked up on the first ring, despite it being nearly one-thirty in the morning in Geneva. "Misaki, finally!" he exclaimed. "I was expecting you to call this morning. Any news? I have a breakfast meeting with the deputy to the General-Commissioner tomorrow; I'd like to be able to give him an update on the progress of the investigation."
"I thought this was supposed to be a policy summit," Misaki stalled. "The Syndicate has nothing to do with drafting contractor regulation guidelines." Representatives from nearly all the United Nations members were attending, along with field experts from their own countries. The Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs himself had asked Misaki to go; she still wasn't sure whether it was because he thought she would do a good job, or if he just wanted to get her out of the spotlight after her first controversial press conference. Regardless, she had declined - she couldn't abandon her team at the very beginning of their crackdown on the Syndicate. So she'd recommended Kaede instead, and he'd jumped at the chance to publicly represent the nation and make himself known in the international community. Though right now, she was almost wishing that she was in Geneva, rather than dealing with this nightmare of a case.
"Of course," Kaede said dismissively. "But he was asking me the other day how our two teams were getting along."
"Fine. I mean, we're mostly working on two separate cases; they do their work, and we do ours." She wished that she could leave it at that. However, he was still acting as temporary replacement to his former superior, Tsukuda Jiro, in Intelligence. She had to let him know what had happened. She sighed. "We're working closely together on the Hourai case now, though."
"Oh? Did he actually give you something good then?"
Misaki closed her eyes at the optimism in Kaede's voice. "No," she said. Then taking a deep breath, she explained what had happened the day before.
"Shit," Kaede swore, then added a few more curses for good measure. "How the hell could you let this happen? Hourai's intel was key to finally taking out the last of the Syndicate! If -"
"What do you mean, how could I?" Misaki snapped. "I did absolutely everything in my power to get that intel, and I almost had it! I have no idea how a contractor was able to get to him, but one did. What we need to focus on now is how to find that server without Hourai."
Kaede heaved a sigh. "You're right. I'm sorry. You're sure it was a contractor, and not suicide?"
"I'm sure."
"Well, you would know best, I suppose. Is there anything you need from Interpol? I won't mention this setback to the deputy, but I can put in any request you have that you can't get from the team that's there."
"We're fine," Misaki said wearily, leaning back in her chair.
"So no leads on the server, then?"
She ignored the sardonic tone. "No. I'll update you as soon as we have anything solid to go on; I just thought you ought to know."
He sighed again. "Well, thanks, I guess. Hey - I'm sorry for snapping at you. Good luck with the investigation."
"Thanks." Misaki hung up the phone and stared at the clock on the opposite wall, watching as the minute hand slowly ticked around its face. Fifteen minutes had gone by before she'd even realized that she'd zoned out. She took off her glasses and rubbed her face briskly to get some blood flowing again, then sighed at the sight of the foundation that had rubbed off onto her fingers. Time to stop dwelling on things that she couldn't change, and get back to work.
~~~~o~~~~
Hourai's office hadn't changed in the past month; but Section Four's offices on the fifth floor had. One set of cubicles had been broken apart from the others and set up on the other side of the room for use by the Interpol team. Despite there being only three members, they had brought quite a lot of equipment and had commandeered over half the space. Misaki had let them have it, despite quiet grumblings from her team. As she strode through the double doors from the elevator lobby, she had the distinct impression that she was walking though the demilitarized zone between two warring countries.
She nodded a good morning to Navid and Francesca, a red-haired European woman who was one of Interpol's star analysts, and crossed to Section Four's side of the room. "Anything new on the hotline?" she asked Ootsuka.
Ootsuka looked up from her computer, seemingly unsurprised by Misaki's early appearance. "Saitou and Kouno are out on a tip right now; other than that, it's just been the usual false alarms and over-worried citizens."
"A tip?" Misaki asked, perking up for the first time that morning. "What about?"
"A pharmacy five kilometers from the prison was broken into the night before the Director - Hourai's death," Ootsuka said, the name of her former superior without his title clearly uncomfortable to her. "The alarms went off, but owner didn't see anything suspicious on his security camera."
"Hm, that doesn't exactly say 'contractor' to me. Still, could be promising," Misaki mused. "We haven't had much luck with the hotline otherwise; it would be nice to have a payoff at last."
"It would be nice," Matsumoto said without looking up from his own computer. "That hotline is more trouble than it's worth."
"That hotline exists so that the public can feel safe," Misaki reminded him. "And so that we don't have to spend all day fielding phone calls from paranoid citizens. Even if we never get any useful information, its existence is well worth it for that reason alone." Captain Gmerek of the Interpol team had been the one to recommend it in the first place; Misaki was pretty sure that that was the only reason why her team was pushing back on the idea. A dedicated team - rookies, mostly - manned it twenty-four hours a day and reported the relevant tips to Section Four.
"What about you, Matsumoto," she continued. He had been ensconced at his computer since the previous evening when Saitou had brought the tapes over. His rumpled shirt and unshaved face told her that he had been there probably all night. "Have you found anything interesting?"
"Nothing," he said grimly. "Not even a shadow. How sure are we that it wasn't suicide?"
"Don't give up," she told him, refusing to accept the possibility that she might be wrong. "This was a contractor, I know it. We just have to find the proof."
"Right, Ch - Director. I'll keep - hang on." He leaned forward, squinting at the computer screen.
"What is it?" Misaki asked at once, leaning over his shoulder. It was footage from some time after Hourai's death; she could see him still hanging in the shower. The sight was enough to send a wave of nausea through her stomach, but she forced herself to look anyway. Nothing unusual stood out.
Matsumoto froze the frame, then pointed at a small smudge just in front of the shower. "That. I swear it wasn't there a second ago. Hang on." He backed the tape up a couple of seconds. "There - look."
"That's hardly clear," Misaki said, but hope had already flitted into her heart. "Play it frame by frame." Ootsuka leaned over too, and the three of them watched as two barely perceptible smudges appeared in front of the shower. When Matsumoto skipped ahead to when the guard opened the cell, they were gone.
Ootsuka frowned. "I didn't see anything."
"They almost look like footprints," Matsumoto said carefully.
"Almost," Misaki agreed. "Well, it's not much, but it's something. Keep combing through the tapes, and talk with Navid - maybe he's noticed it too. Have a report ready before our meeting at noon."
"Right, Director."
Just then, the sound of arguing voices reached them from the elevator lobby. "I'm telling you, it was a false alarm. Nothing was stolen."
"Nothing that he wanted to admit to having possessed. We should have searched that cabinet."
"He was the victim, Kouno, not the suspect. We couldn't search the cabinet."
"Come on, a pharmacy with a mysterious break-in, and a locked cabinet?"
"All pharmacies have locked cabinets. And there was no sign of a - oh, Ch- Director, you're here," Saitou said in surprise as he and Kouno entered the office.
"No luck on that tip, then?" she asked, disappointed.
Saitou shook his head. "Looks like a false alarm."
She glanced at Kouno, but he just shrugged. "Yeah," he said grudgingly. "Total waste of time."
"Oh well," Misaki said, "thanks for checking it out." She checked her watch. "I have to run back upstairs; I'll see you at the meeting."
~~~~o~~~~
Misaki had gotten into the habit of making a cup of tea before every joint meeting with the Interpol team. She was perpetually cold these days, and the hot paper cup felt good between her hands.
It also gave her an excuse to be nearly late. By the time she arrived, everyone else was already seated and she didn't have to fight with Captain Gmerek for preeminence at the head of the table. At their first meeting, she had taken her customary seat on the right hand side of the head, which they had traditionally left empty; Gmerek had taken this to mean that she wanted him to take charge, and he had done so. As a fifteen-year veteran of Interpol, Boris Gmerek was used to heading up task forces. Even though it galled slightly to play second fiddle in her own conference room, Misaki had always known when it was best to just shut up and listen. Gmerek technically didn't have any authority over her, and she was free to direct her own team however she saw fit, regardless of what he said.
The four members of her team were arranged along one side, all wearing identical blank expressions. Along the other side were the other two members of the Interpol team, Navid and Francesca.
"Alright folks, what do we have?" Gmerek asked as Misaki took her seat at the foot of the table. Despite his lack of official authority, she felt less subordinate to him when she sat there.
Navid spoke up first. "Forensics on the Acting Director's lanyard came back with nothing," he said. "The composition of material coupled with the water from the shower made it impossible to get any fingerprints. As far as the site goes, there was no sign of forced entry, and no sign of contractor activity."
"So exactly what we already found," Kouno said under his breath. Misaki shot him a look.
"Both medical examiners have agreed to sign off on 'self-inflicted strangulation' as cause of death," Navid continued as if he hadn't heard. Maybe he hadn't. "That the lanyard was used as the method of strangulation is in no doubt. The next question that needs to be answered is: how exactly did it pass from Acting Director Kirihara's pocket into Hourai's possession without the cameras picking it up, and without Kirihara apparently noticing?"
The Interpol team all turned to look at her. She'd already explained that she hadn't felt anything when her lanyard had disappeared from her pocket, and they'd all seen the tapes. But there was still a skeptical note in Navid's voice.
"Had to have been a contractor," Saitou said. "Some kind of telekinesis ability, maybe."
"Perhaps," Gmerek agreed slowly, steepling his fingers. "But he would have had to have been in the room, or at least had line of sight on the Director. And unless the tape was somehow doctored, it appeared that the Director's hands stayed above the table during the entire conversation."
Of course they did, Misaki thought. Hourai had been cuffed - then she saw the daggers that Saitou was shooting in Gmerek's direction, and realized that he was referring to her. He couldn't possibly suspect her? But then again, why not? It would make sense, she supposed, to go after Hourai if she herself was a member of the Syndicate. Whether Hourai was guilty or not didn't matter; he made a perfect scapegoat. And dead, he couldn't contradict any claims that she cared to make.
Well, there was nothing she could do about that. The evidence was the evidence.
"What about the tox report?" she asked.
Saitou started to speak, but Navid cut him off. "According to our medical examiner, tox came back clean; your guy thought he could see trace amounts of a muscle relaxant, but the levels were too low for any degree of confidence."
"Kurosaki has nearly a decade of experience working in contractor forensics," Matsumoto put in mildly. "He knows how to look for things that most others would miss."
"He does," Misaki agreed before any of the Interpol team could speak up. "But trace amounts aren't anything to go by. Was there any kind of needle stick on the body?"
"None that either doctor could find," Navid said.
"Then we should keep it in mind, but move on." Her team cast her slightly betrayed looks, but she continued, "What about the star analysis?"
She looked at Ootsuka, but it was Francesca who spoke. "Three stars showed activity during the two-hour time frame of Kirihara's visit and Hourai's death, in that vicinity. CL-982, HG-139, and RS-334. None of them look promising, however."
"Why not?" Gmerek asked before Misaki could.
"CL-982 displayed one short burst at fourteen fifty-five, which was during the interrogation, but that's all. HG-139 was continuously active throughout that time, extending both prior to and beyond Hourai's death. The levels were overall rather low and unvaried. RS-334's activity pattern was intermittent over the course of the two hours."
"Could be a contender then?" Matsumoto suggested.
But Francesca shook her head, copper curls bouncing. "Each segment did overlap with our time points of interest, but during my research I noticed that this star has shown a very similar pattern for the past year; nothing about this particular day stood out in any way. It's therefore unlikely that RS-334 was involved."
"Do we know anything about any of these three stars?" Gmerek asked.
Francesca began to explain that no, they had no data either from the Interpol database or Section Four's own records, when Misaki noticed that Ootsuka was pressing her lips together tightly.
"Ootsuka, do you have anything to add?" Misaki interrupted, trying to injecting an encouraging note into her voice.
The Astronomics liaison turned pink at suddenly being the center of attention. "Well, Ms. Michaels is right about RS-334," she said. "Um, I mean, I saw the same thing in the activity pattern, that it's looked the same for the past year. But I cross-referenced all the activity from the past month, as well as selected time points going back two years, with Astronomics' triangulation data. That pattern started about eleven months ago, and the star hasn't changed position even once."
"Meaning that it's been over Tokyo this whole time?" Francesca asked. "That's hardly surprising; Tokyo is a contractor hot spot, many are stationed here long-term. It was especially common in the past year, with the lead-up to the Tokyo Explosion."
She turned to her captain to start discussing Interpol's logs again, but Ootsuka, still red in the face, interrupted. "Actually, our system here is much more sensitive than most other observatories. The data that we share is converted with the same software as everyone else so that it's compatible; but two years ago when Chief Ishizaki took over Astronomics data collection, she changed the standard operation procedures so that the data from the more sensitive system was saved as a backup. We can go back into those logs and rerun the analyses to narrow a contractor's location to within ten square kilometers, within the major Tokyo area."
Francesca blinked at her. "You have that kind of resolution?"
Ootsuka nodded shyly. "Only in the city."
"That's good to know," Navid put in, "but if it doesn't tell us anything -"
"Let her finish," Misaki shot back, arms folded.
Ootsuka looked as if she wanted to crawl underneath the table and hide for the remainder of the meeting, but she said, "RS-334's position hasn't changed in the last eleven months even within those ten kilometers."
Misaki raised an eyebrow. "So either all of his assignments have been in the exact same place for the past year, or -"
"Or he's one of the prisoners!" Kouno said excitedly.
"But how can a prisoner be using his power in prison?" Saitou said. "He can't have been using it to try and escape, because he's still there. And the guards would have noticed and put a stop to it."
"Unless it was something relatively harmless," Matsumoto mused.
Misaki nodded. "Or unnoticeable." Low levels of synchrotron radiation didn't always show up on certain types of recording devices, a fact that had stymied Section Four more than once. Cameras couldn't be relied upon to record a contractor using their power.
"An interesting point but largely irrelevant," Gmerek interrupted, causing Misaki to blink. Caught up in the familiar atmosphere of brainstorming, she'd almost forgotten that the Interpol team was there. The captain continued, "It's still very unlikely that this contractor had anything to do with Hourai's death - less likely, if he is indeed a prisoner himself."
"Or herself," Misaki interrupted, unable to let the thought go now that it was in her head. "Saitou, Kouno, Navid - remember that prisoner we saw on the surveillance cameras?"
Kouno grimaced. "The weird one, who was walking around with a magazine on her head?"
"The one who looked as if she could see into the camera," Misaki nodded. "Maybe she wasn't involved, but what if she was watching?"
"It is possible, of course," Gmerek conceded. "Worth checking into, at the very least. Navid and Saitou, why don't you two head down to the prison this afternoon and speak with this prisoner."
"I'll go with Navid," Misaki said suddenly. Gmerek looked like he wanted to argue; but it was after all her case. Superintendent Kan would probably give her another lecture about delegation, but she didn't care. She had a pressing need to be involved in this case every step of the way. She knew that it wasn't her fault Hourai was dead, and yet - her lanyard had been used as the murder weapon.
Navid pursed his lips, a habit that was beginning to annoy Misaki. "I'm not convinced that there was a contractor involved at all," he said. "So far all of the actual evidence points to suicide. I saw nothing on the tapes. Mr. Matsumoto has gone through hours of footage and reported nothing but a momentary shading that could perhaps be a pair of wet footprints that faded immediately. The only thing that is unclear at this point is how the deceased obtained that lanyard." He gazed down the table at Misaki.
"On the surface it does look like suicide," Misaki admitted. "Hourai spent a month in that cell with no access to anything with which to kill himself; then I show up with my badge on a lanyard and suddenly he has the perfect opportunity. But this wasn't suicide; I know it in my gut." Also present in her gut was a roiling guilt: regardless of whether the murder was planned or spontaneous, if she hadn't gone to the prison yesterday, would Hourai still be alive?
"The three of you didn't know him. However, we worked with him for years. Matsumoto," she turned to her subordinate, "think about his death - does it line up at all with the Hourai that you knew?"
"It does seem a little…beneath his dignity," Matsumoto said slowly. "I can see him killing himself, but not like - not like that."
"And why wait until he was taking a shower?" Misaki continued. "He could have done it at any time, once he had the lanyard. Why then?"
"Maybe he didn't want the guards to think something was up by varying his routine?" Saitou said. "He couldn't know when they were watching on the camera or not."
"Maybe," Misaki agreed. "But why bother covering his hands with the plastic gloves? If he was going to die, why would he care if they were ruined by the water? I watched hours and hours of those tapes too, and do you know what the one thing I didn't see was?"
Both teams looked at her blankly.
"Him holding the lanyard. I never saw it leave my pocket. I never saw him remove it from his jumpsuit, and it wasn't in his hands when he entered the shower."
"Maybe he put it, ah," Kouno began, then trailed off and blushed when she met his gaze. "Uh, you know. Where it can't be seen." He coughed.
"Crime lab would have found evidence of that. They didn't. And there's no way he could have hidden doing...that…from the cameras."
"So, almost definitely a contractor then," Matsumoto mused. "But which one?"
"My money is on HG-139," Misaki said. "The activity started right before I arrived at the prison, and ended after they found Hourai's body. He must have been doing something to hide his presence; continuous activity would be expected then. But we can't rule out RS-334 either."
"Wait, what about the dolls?" Kouno said suddenly.
Ootsuka frowned. "What about them?"
"Did they see anything? Ishizaki's got a couple of them talking now, right? She can ask."
"They're not talking, Kouno, they're interacting independent of their programing through a digital interface."
"Whatever, you know what I mean. She can still ask them about it."
"No, she can't. The prison is on its own power grid. No Astronomics specters can enter."
"Eunice jumped to Pandora's independent grid once, during the Tokyo Explosion," Misaki said, tapping her pen against her wrist. "It's unlikely that she happened to be poking around the secure facility at the exact time of Hourai's death, but I suppose it's possible. It wouldn't hurt to ask."
"Yes Chief. Director, I mean."
Misaki suppressed a sigh of exasperation. All of her team was quick to correct any outsider who called Misaki by her previous title, yet they were so used to calling her Chief that they were perpetually getting it wrong themselves. She was looking forward to the day when Superintendent Kan would finally appoint a new director, and Misaki could have her old title - and job - back.
The sudden clearing of a throat made her jump. She'd forgotten about the Interpol team again.
"This new triangulation system sounds very interesting," Gmerek said. "Perhaps Ms. Ootsuka wouldn't mind showing Francesca how it works. Maybe while you and Navid are interviewing the prisoner."
"Of course," Misaki said, embarrassed by her lapse.
Gmerek nodded. "Then let's get back to work, and reconvene at seventeen hundred." The two teams filed out, but as Misaki collected her tea and stood, the captain caught her eye.
"Director Kirihara, could I have a private word?" Gmerek asked. Saitou cast her a worried glance, but she shook her head slightly and returned to her seat, sipping her tea calmly. Gmerek took a seat beside her, rather than at the head once again. She had no idea what the man wanted to say that he couldn't say in front of the others. Maybe he was going to berate her for taking control of the meeting. Well, let him; this was still her investigation.
"I want to apologize for Navid," he said. "I hope you didn't take offense to his insinuations. He was out of line; I'll speak with him about it later."
She blinked in surprise. "Thank you."
"Will it be an issue if he goes with you to interview the prisoner? We can always send Francesca if so, but Navid does have more experience with interrogations."
"No, it shouldn't be a problem." She picked up her notebook again, preparing to leave, but Gmerek wasn't finished.
"I also wanted to say that I'm sorry for Hourai's death. Not just because of the setback to the investigation; he was your mentor for several years, and his death must have been almost as shocking as the discovery of his betrayal."
"I - yes, I guess it was, in a way," Misaki admitted, still surprised by Gmerek's sudden compassion. Her interactions with him thus far had been bland and almost perfunctory.
"I wish I had had the chance to interview him in person before he died." He held up a hand to forestall an argument, though she hadn't been about to make one. "I know why you wanted to keep Interpol out of it, and I completely agree. That sort of man would never allow himself to be goaded by strangers in an organization in which he had never held any power. The subversion that you proposed made perfect sense - and, in fact, seemed to work beautifully. You knew him best, after all. But before I joined Interpol, I was a negotiations expert with the FBI. I learned how to read people. There is so much more that you can learn from someone's body language in person than you can by merely watching on a screen. He probably wouldn't have talked to me, but I still might have learned something. In any case, you did a fine job."
"I don't know," Misaki said, a little confused by the unexpected praise. "I thought I was good at reading people too; but I worked for him for five years and never suspected a thing." She'd thought that she'd known Hourai, and he'd turned out to be a rat bastard. She'd thought that she'd known her father; but instead of the forthright, just man she had been imaging, he was just as focused on self-preservation as any contractor.
Gmerek raised an eyebrow. "But you were the only one who suspected him. There wouldn't have been any investigation at all if not for you."
"I had outside information that led me to suspect him in the first place, and I was too late to make a difference."
"Hm, your informant. BK-201." Gmerek steepled his fingers beneath his nose. "I would never have believed it - I mean, contractors turn against their own organizations at the drop of a hat, but joining a vigilante group? Risking themselves for the greater good. I still almost can't believe it. There's no way that I would have trusted such a contractor to the extent that you did, but you were right to. Our files on him are very sparse; everything that we do know comes from a single incident that we investigated at our own office branch in Bangkok. That case…" Gmerek's face went slightly pale. "Well, based on that information alone, there's no way in hell that I'd trust any of his information, especially if he came to you of his own accord."
Misaki tried not to flinch at that little white lie. Explaining exactly how BK-201 had come to be her confidential informant had not been easy; but the story that he had developed a conscience fit with his actions in the Gate, and so far both her team and Interpol had bought it. "It was a risk," she hazarded, "but he let me live once when he could have killed me, easily. I thought I could trust him based on that."
"Well, your intuition about him was right."
She thought back to her last conversations with Hei; the fights and the arguments. She'd ignored her intuition, accused him of terrible things, and he'd left.
"I suppose so," she said.
Gmerek stood. "Let me know if you need anything from Interpol; good luck at the prison today."
"Thank you," Misaki said, standing as well and bowing to hide the damned tears that were teaming behind her eyes yet again.