"Do you have any idea where we're going?"
Despite his despairing comment, Yoshiya couldn't help but feel slightly relieved by Katsumi's sudden change of mood. He wasn't behaving in anything like the same way as he had before they'd been arrested, but it seemed to be a slight shift back to his normal behaviour patterns. Maybe he wouldn't ever be totally back to the way he had been, but for now it seemed to be enough for him just to be out of that damn camp. Yoshiya had to admit to feeling a slightly hysterical relief at being free, maybe Katsumi felt the same way about it. Or maybe Katsumi was just more of a survivor than he had assumed.
In truth, Katsumi was forcing himself not to think of what had happened. Maybe if he could fool everyone else that everything was alright with his world the way he always had before, when it so plainly was anything but, he could carry on fooling himself.
"I wonder what happened to that captain…" Yoshiya began quietly. "I hope he's alright."
***
As far as Izumi was concerned he was fed up with this mission already. He'd done all he could to make it a success, but he wasn't sure it was enough. He didn't feel entirely happy with letting Shibuya and the other guy with him (Izumi realised he couldn't remember what the man's name had been) go it alone, but what else had there been for him to do? This man Nanjo didn't look like he would be satisfied with a brief conversation then thank you and goodnight. It had seemed to Izumi that extricating himself from the situation would take some time. In the event he hadn't been able to do it at all.
The gun. He hadn't felt able to fire. It was one thing to kill someone in the heat of battle, but quite another to shoot someone who looked you in the eyes as if he could read your mind and smiled calmly in spite of the gun levelled at their chest. The other man was totally in control of the situation, it was obvious even at a glance. As for Izumi, he was very quickly losing it. If it hadn't been for the gun he dreaded to think what would have happened the moment that they met.
He had lost it, even though he had been the one with the gun. He could only thank God that the Shibuya kid had the presence of mind to get away. That would have been too ironic: getting the kid out of one prison only to have him get in even deeper trouble with some blonde psychotic.
But Koji hadn't been interested in Katsumi or Yoshiya. If he had he'd have stopped them from leaving, but he hadn't. He was totally indifferent to them. It made no difference to him where they were, as long as Izumi stayed where he was.
***
"General Nanjo!"
Koji half-turned, a look of mild irritation on his face, to face the new arrival. Not now! This pushy little man couldn't intrude on him now! There were so many things he still needed to ask the strange, wild-eyed young man in front of him. So many things that he suddenly had to know. The interruption, for all that it was far from deliberate, seemed to Koji to be a personal slight and a deliberate attempt to keep him from achieving his aims.
Koji didn't like it when someone tried to stop him from getting what he wanted.
He had been about to yell at the arrogant guy who thought he knew what was happening when he stopped himself. Just in time. This situation could work to his advantage. If these soldiers hadn't intruded, the boy in front of him would have tired with their little battle of wills. He had the gun; therefore he supposedly had the advantage. Koji had no doubt that the boy was capable of using it and supposed that he would eventually have used it on him had these three men not intervened. He had no idea of Izumi's own reluctance to shoot him.
But now, he had no choice but to stay.
He stood back and watched as the first man, flanked by two other soldiers who were both aiming their guns at the stranger, succeeded in disarming the boy, then dragged his arms roughly behind his back and handcuffed him. Koji saw no reason to intervene as of yet. He did not wish the boy to find out his intentions. He would conduct this deal in private. If all went well, no-one but himself and a few of the men on this base would even know that this arrest had taken place. Akihito would certainly not hear of it. Much to Akihito's chagrin, the secret police held no power over prisoners of war. Koji had never really thought much of this minor bureaucratic loophole before, but now he was thankful for it.
His and his alone.
***
Akihito sat sprawled in an armchair in the room he jokingly called his study, in actuality the place where he did most of his computer hacking, received his few official visitors, or chose to interrogate those of the Secret Police's prisoners he took an especial interest in.
He held the telephone to his ear, the cord, which came from the phone on the desk, stretched almost to its limits. He didn't care overmuch. He only sat behind the desk when he wanted to use the computer, or when he wanted to look official. He remembered his father sitting in much the same manner when he received visitors. Hirose did the same thing. To Akihito's mind, Hirose was far more impressive than his father had ever been. Akihito knew his father was dying and wanted him to get on with it so Hirose could become the head of the family. Several times, he had toyed with the idea of speeding up the process a bit.
"I see." He said quietly into the phone (a rare occurrence. Those who knew Akihito well would not have listed quietness as one of his qualities), and listened in mild interest to the squawking garble that came out from the other end. He knew it to be the voice of his second-in-command, reporting on the arrest of Eri Ijima. He had ordered it yesterday afternoon, the order had been carried out last night.
He thought he would conduct some of the interrogation himself. It would help pass time until he got the reports back on the whereabouts of the delinquent Koji. Or until Koji got back himself. Koji normally found his own way back home after a while. He got bored quickly.
"Send me a copy of all the files on her computer." Akihito enjoyed virtual detective work. It would be interesting to see exactly what Miss Ijima had been doing with that machine. On the other end of the phone his second sighed, but knew better than to interfere. Akihito would insist on being the one to go through the computer records of his 'pet cases'. Those suspects and prisoners he took an especial interest in, such as Eri Ijima. The man had no idea why Ijima was so important, but knew better than to question his boss. People who questioned Akihito's orders tended to mysteriously vanish, as his predecessor had.
Akihito had long suspected that there was a spy in the government offices. Yet it couldn't just be Ijima. Ijima had arrived out of nowhere too recently, and her incompetence suggested that there had to be others. She would be very useful - hopefully, she knew the identities of some of the other spies. Even if she didn't, he could make an example of her. He intended to make an example of her. Maybe a show trial, followed by a public execution. She deserved something more than a simple 'disappearance'.
***
Many miles away, Takasaka stood outside a garage and shivered. He'd intended to get a plane out of the city, but there'd been no flights due to a severe blizzard less than twenty-four hours ago. He hadn't wanted to risk waiting in the airport. By the time it was safe to fly again, the secret police could already have extracted a confession from Eri. He had phoned into work sick, which would explain his absence for a few days at least, but questions would be asked soon enough, he knew. Someone in the secret police would probably make a connection. His sudden absence from work the day after a secretary was arrested for spying, the conversation they'd had a few days before her arrest… enough to justify looking closer into his circumstances, and when they did…
It wasn't just the cold that made Takasaka shiver.
He just hoped that the few days he had bought himself by calling in sick, coupled with Eri's natural defiance, would give him long enough to get out of the country before anyone realised exactly why he wasn't there anymore. Maybe he should have held off his departure for a few days, but there was no way he could have done. It was too dangerous. The secret police worked very fast.
He'd caught a train into a nearby town, and from there he had rented a car using a false name and cards. Thankfully they had been accepted. When the threatened crackdown began in earnest, he would have to resort to paying with cash, which had always seemed to Takasaka to be the last resort of the desperate. Last night, he had got into contact with his boss and explained the situation as concisely as he was able, and had been relieved to discover the older man agreed with his decision to leave.
Climbing back into the hired car, Takasaka looked through the bag he kept on the passenger seat, and breathed a sigh of relief on seeing that everything was still there. Once again, he discreetly checked the gun he'd been given all those years ago when he'd arrived in the country. He hadn't had to use it yet, but suspected that he would probably have to before he managed to leave, if only on himself. He wouldn't let the secret police arrest him. The clampdowns he had sat through had really frightened him.
He remembered the show trials of the so-called traitors. They'd screened them on the television; it had been all the papers could talk about. Akihito Nanjo's speeches (during the first of these scares, he had been newly appointed, eager to show what he could do. Determined to make a name for himself. He'd done that all right), denouncing known traitors and promising tighter security, better surveillance, more arrests. The executions. They'd executed those they had found guilty in public, and not a single one they had so publicly tried was acquitted. People Takasaka had known for a fact had nothing to do with spying had suddenly disappeared. No-one ever spoke of them again. He'd been terrified that someone would speak of him to save themselves, but it had passed over. In time people seemed to forget but Takasaka couldn't forget. He couldn't have made it through another of them. There was no way anyone's luck could hold that long. Six years was a good length of time when you were a spy.
He had chosen as inconspicuous a make and colour of car as possible, the agency hadn't asked questions, much to his relief. He drove away from the garage feeling relieved-every time he managed to leave a town he had stopped at without being spotted, it felt like a real achievement. Takasaka knew he was on borrowed time, relying on his own anonymity. There was a value in being considered practically invisible by your workmates.
***
Koji put his foot down on the accelerator of his car, which unlike Takasaka's was far from discreet, and yelled happily as the car sped forward. Driving gave him a thrill. He loved the feeling of freedom it gave him, and for the young man who saw himself as a prisoner of privilege there was no greater feeling in the world than that of being able to do what you liked without anyone telling you not to. In actuality, people seldom told Koji what to do. He was too rich to be told 'no' by anyone but his father and Hirose, and even then he seldom listened.
Izumi was finding it out the hard way. He sat in the back of the car looking down at his handcuffed wrists, angry at what he saw as his own stupidity. After that Shibuya kid and his friend had decided to make a run for it, he and Koji had continued their stand-off. Too long. Izumi should have realised. He should have backed off, run, caught up with the other two (how they would survive alone he did not know. If they died, it would be his fault-they had been his responsibility). But he could not run. This man would have seen such an action as displaying a weakness, he suspected, and he had stood his ground. Pride. A dangerous emotion.
Too long.
Although Izumi was well aware of what could happen to attractive young men who had the misfortune of being arrested (it clearly had happened to Shibuya, judging by his friend's reaction when Izumi had first met them), he couldn't help but wish he was taking his chances in that dingy prison. Whatever this General Nanjo wanted with him, (the young man seemed totally unlike all the high-ranking officers Izumi had ever seen in his own army-he assumed the position was to do with the man's family connections rather than his military skill) it would probably be just as bad as what he would find in prison, if not far, far worse.
He wanted to ask the man driving the car where he was taking him, what he wanted to do with him, but he knew that he couldn't possibly. You couldn't do things like that.
***
Yoshiya and Katsumi had been walking for over a day, following the sound of gunfire but still totally alone (and, Katsumi suspected, totally lost), when they came across the abandoned town and proved to Yoshiya that however bad you think a situation is, it can easily get a lot worse. They hadn't intended to go there-even from a distance there was obviously something very wrong about the place-but there was nowhere else to shelter and it was coming on for evening. The night before it had been bad enough, plus they hadn't eaten for hours and Katsumi was now very obviously unwell despite his repeated claims that he felt absolutely fine.
Arriving in the town, however, Yoshiya couldn't help but wish they'd taken their chances elsewhere.
"What the hell is this place?" Katsumi asked in mild alarm.
The town was dead, deserted, but not the bombed-out ruins they had passed, remains of places that had the misfortune to be too near to the front line. This place was practically intact, but totally uninhabited. That was somehow worse than the bombed-out ruins had been, and Yoshiya hadn't liked them either.
Despite his own problems, curiosity had got the better of Katsumi and he left Yoshiya standing in one of the streets and looked through the window of one of the houses, then turned back to his friend.
Weird seemed about right. The house was empty, but through the window of the house everything looked pretty normal, probably exactly as it had when it had been inhabited, but it had just been left. Whatever it was that had occurred in this empty town, it had left the houses untouched. The inhabitants couldn't have had a clue what was happening beforehand. It was a frightening thought to Yoshiya. Katsumi, however, seemed more confused than anxious.
"Why hasn't this place been looted?" he asked rhetorically.
Taking Yoshiya's continued silence as an affirmation of his belief, Katsumi pulled a face and walked off. He couldn't afford to stand around whilst Yoshiya finished whatever deep thought he was occupied in. Katsumi couldn't help but be painfully aware of his own physical condition and the need to find somewhere to shelter and get some rest. There had to be some place in this stupid town which was slightly less creepy.
***
Later that same evening, Akihito Nanjo arrived at the headquarters of the secret police. He didn't go there all that often, and almost always arrived unannounced. He took a perverse pleasure in the surprise of the men and women that he considered his underlings, and their frantic scrambling to appear as if they were busy always made him laugh-even if he was only laughing to himself. He certainly hadn't announced his intentions of arriving this evening, but he wasn't there to savour the discomfort of the divisional commander. He was there to see Ijima.
Normally, it would take at least fifteen minutes for someone to be allowed to see a prisoner, whatever their reasons for it may have been (of course, relatives and well-wishers never came near this particular prison, and those members of the public who contrived not to ignore the building altogether tended to Takasaka's views). Unsurprisingly, Akihito got straight through the security clearances and the bureaucracy.
The lateness of the hour did not deter him from starting his interrogation of the stupid girl. After all, irregular hours and uncertainty as to what the time was were a well-established disorientation tactic. Akihito kept irregular hours himself, and the nights suited him-he tended to go to bed late and get up even later. And what Eri thought of late nights didn't really matter-all the better if she hated them.
***
"God, that dumb kid!" Yoshiya muttered angrily. He hadn't noticed Katsumi's absence for at least five minutes after the boy had wandered off in search of… well, whatever it was he'd been in search of. Yoshiya doubted it was excitement. He had no idea where Katsumi thought he had been going-neither knew the layout of the town and they could both have wandered around in the stupid place for ages without once encountering each other. He hoped that wherever it was Katsumi had gone, he at least had the sense to stay there.
He wondered what the hell his companion had been thinking in wandering off alone, only to realise that it was probably because he'd needed to find shelter. Several times in the last few hours Yoshiya had suspected he'd been near collapse. He had no idea how it was that Katsumi was still standing. Taking all that into account, it seemed far from likely that he had left the town altogether. So where the hell was he likely to be?
From somewhere nearby he heard gunshots. Katsumi had not been armed.
It took fifteen bad minutes to find Katsumi. Fifteen minutes in which Yoshiya constantly asked himself how he could have been so stupid as to let the kid go off alone. Fifteen minutes of feeling angry with Katsumi and himself. Fifteen minutes of speculation as to what could have happened, once again finding himself hoping for an innocent explanation to what had happened, and once again finding there was none.
There seemed to be something about Katsumi that attracted the wrong kind of attention.
Arriving in another eerily deserted street, Yoshiya finally found his friend lying on one side in the snow, blonde hair falling over his face, eyes closed, one hand resting on his left shoulder. Red on white.
