Again, all locations are as authentic as it gets. However, the address at North Avenue is actually the Port of Elizabeth... so don't go looking for Tsukamoto Printers there. :-P
This might not be as comedic as you'd expect, but I'm having too much fun writing a crime drama to care. Props to all the loyals, you know who you is. Props especially for entertaining my little side project here. The next one I'm planning will be an actual Comic Party fanfic, not a crossover.
Mad props also to Marivel, for looking up King Jacky's real name after I loaned her the mangas.
This'll be my last update this week; I'm going down to Florida to spend Yom Kippur with my grandfolks, aunt, and uncle. I'll be doing the fast on Saturday, so fill my stomach with your criticisms, comments, and reviews.
On with the show!
Chapter 2: Investigation
Forensic Analysis Lab
One Police Plaza
3:20 PM
Reiko and Asahi flashed their badges to the desk clerk, who signed them in with the perfunctory safety speech and visitor tags. Neither of them were strangers to the central police complex, and it was only a few turns and a flight of stairs to get to the old Chemical Division facilities.
"Are we in the right place?" Asahi asked Reiko as they stood in front of a door that looked like it was out of an old private eye's office. It looked like it once had "Chemical Division Laboratory" written in gold-leaf over a scalloped glass door straight out of a Sam Spade film, but the gold-leaf had mostly flaked off and the doorknob hung by a thread.
Reiko shrugged. "I'd think you'd be here with IAB. Aren't cops notorious for bouncing checks off of each other?"
"Hey, I was investigating corruption, not the Knicks," Asahi joked, knocking on the door.
"You must be Haga and Asahi," a voice said from inside. "Come on in."
Asahi opened the door and held it for her partner, following in herself. The interior of the lab belied the door; it was sparkling clean and packed with sophisticated, confusing-looking equipment. It ran the gamut from Sherlock Holmes-esque beakers, pipettes, and inverted tubes to what appeared to be a scaled-down supercomputer. A handful of analysts were clustered around a machine making a loud whirring noise, supervised by a dark-haired girl with glasses who wore a purple bow tie to complement the lab-coat look.
"Nice to meet you both," the girl said above the whir, setting down a sample she was looking at and brushing off her hands. "I'm Kaken Musume, CD lab supervisor."
"Nice to meet you. I'm detective Reiko Haga, this is detective Asahi Sakurai," Reiko said by way of introduction, both of them shaking Kaken's hand in turn. "Man, I never get tired of using that line." Reiko chuckled.
"She loves her job a little too much," Asahi observed to Kaken in sotto voce.
"I know the feeling," Kaken said with a smile. "Anyway, you're here about that counterfeit dojinshi, right?"
"That's the one," Asahi said. "What's the big find?"
"Well, we tried to break down the dojinshi to its components. We had to use a high-speed pulper/extractor to reduce it, but that didn't work. The techs are working on it right now, trying to use different settings. If we can extract and analyze the ink and paper, we can trace it to a source, which will at least give us a producer and then a distributor." Kaken led them to the cluster of lab technicians, but neither of the detectives were able to see the actual device at work.
"How much does one of those pulper thingies cost?" Reiko asked over the whir, which had kicked up in volume and intensity.
"Oh, only about twenty bucks if you get it on sale," Kaken replied, reaching under a lab table and pulling out an empty box, emblazoned with a picture of a stainless steel-accented blender.
"Kitchenaid?!" the two detectives exclaimed in unison.
"It's finished!" four voices exclaimed as the whirring of the Kitchenaid blender cut off. In a flash, they had donned extravagant straw hats, sunglasses, and fake plastic flower leis as they poured out margaritas from the blender. Someone pulled out a boombox, and loud tropical music started to play.
"That doesn't look like ink analysis," Reiko said flatly.
Kaken sighed. "Detective Sakurai, this might be a case for IAB... wait, where'd she-"
"Sorry!" Asahi exclaimed, quickly stepping away from the blender. "Someone ask for me?" She tried to tuck the plastic lei she wore around her neck under her coat.
"Well... anyway, that aside..." Kaken led them into another wing of the lab, where some robotic-looking machines worked over another sample page of the dojinshi. "We're performing a vapor analysis to get some indications of ink toxicity and chemistry while the pulper/extractor is... well... realigned. We have some preliminary results."
Kaken handed a dot-matrix printout to the detectives, who promptly scrutinized it.
"Wow..." Asahi remarked.
"Yeah..." Reiko replied.
"This makes my brain hurt," they said in unison.
"Oh, sorry," Kaken said with a sheepish grin. "I keep forgetting that hydroxylate octane bonding isn't something that many people are really highly-studied on. All that this means is that these inks were printed where the air is dense with heavy industrial pollutants and jet exhaust."
"Jet exhaust?" Asahi asked. "So you mean this was done near an airport?"
"I'm no aviator, but I think that this has to be under one of the takeoff areas," Kaken said, flipping through some other printouts. "Ah, here: our analysis indicates very high concentrations of octane that are similar to type JP-A jet fuel. This is used in large commercial aircraft, according to our research. The amount of concentration in parts per million indicates that this dojinshi has received a good-sized amount of octane residuals from jet exhaust. The levels are high enough to hypothesize that this was directly under the path of jet engines operating at high thrust levels."
"In other words, the print shop is located under where airliners are taking off!" Asahi exclaimed, pounding her fist into her palm.
"Bingo," Reiko grinned. "Kaken, any problems if we take this printout?"
"Be my guest. I'll let you know if we find anything else, but this should at least narrow down the source. Once they're done in there, I'll see about pulping down the comic again and extracting the inks."
"Hey, girls! Wanna join us?" an already-inebriated voice called from the main lab.
"Are you two sure you don't need any target practice today?" Kaken asked.
Tsukamoto Printers
125 North Avenue East
Elizabeth, NJ
10:17 AM, April 26th, 2005
"Tsukamoto?! The same Tsukamoto?!"
"Same Tsukamoto as what?"
"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me." Reiko leaned on the side of their unmarked black police-issue Impala, checking the street map she had bought at a nearby Exxon. "Yes, this is North Avenue... and that's the right block..."
"Reiko, what's so bad about this place? Who's Tsukamoto?"
"Oh, you probably never had to go to court that much with IAB," Reiko said, folding up the map. "Chisa Tsukamoto is an assistant district attorney. She's the baby of the bunch up at the offices, but she's really capable. If this is in any way her relatives, she's probably going to be right off the prosecution team, and ADA Kuhonbutsu'll have to go solo. They're like peaches and cream the way they work."
"Well, we can't ignore it. We've been to the print shops under the other big airports: Kennedy, La Guardia, even Teterboro. They didn't recognize the dojinshi. This is one of the last, here under beautiful Newark Liberty International."
"Don't remind me," Reiko grumbled as the shriek of turbofan engines exploded over their head, indicating another airliner taking off. "Let's just hope that there's more than one Tsukamoto family in Jersey, and if there isn't, let's just hope that these are distant cousins on the very, very far side of the family."
Asahi knocked this time.
"Can I help you?" a college-aged blond man with a scraggly beard answered.
"I'm detective Sakurai, this is detective Haga, NYPD. Is this Tsukamoto Printing?"
"Uh, yeah, it is," the guy said, scratching his head.
"We're investigating what may have been an unauthorized dojinshi printing, and we're just asking a few questions of print shops in the area. May we come in if you have a minute?"
"Yeah, sure," the guy said, stepping aside and holding the door open. The print shop itself was full of printing machines, buckets of ink, stacks of paper, and several new-looking catalogs. "C'mon into the conference room. I'm Genji Tsukamoto; I'm not the manager or anything. That's my dad; I can get him if you need."
"Well, all we need to know is if you've seen this dojinshi before," Reiko said, handing Genji a copy of the counterfeit, sealed in an evidence bag.
"Yeah, I've seen this one," Genji said, turning it over. "It was a pretty big order. I wasn't the one who took it, but we printed this."
"Do you have the billing information, orders, anything like that? What about the person who dropped off or delivered the order?"
"Oh, I was the one who delivered it. Dropped it off to some girl. She had a signed thing from Ms. Oba that she could pick it up."
"What did she look like?" Reiko was feverishly scribbling notes in her pad.
"Tall, kinda. Long hair. It was kinda early in the morning and I didn't have my coffee, so I couldn't pick out too much."
"Mr. Tsukamoto, would you be willing to attend a line-up once we have a suspect in custody?"
"Sure, no problem. You wanted the invoices and stuff too, right? Be right back."
Genji disappeared into the back of the shop and came back with a handful of photocopies. "Okay, we've got the pre-printed drop off order, which means that they must've come to us already. We have a service where busy clients can just slide their original and order request in the mail slot and we print it up and bill 'em. This was prepaid in cash, though."
"Cash? You don't verify your payment sources?"
"Saves us all on sales tax, I guess," Genji shrugged again and scratched his beard. "Anyway, here's the delivery receipt. It's been stamped by Ms. Oba."
Reiko and Asahi briefly scrutinized the receipt. It had a square-bordered stamp seal on it, with "Eimi Oba" written in kanji characters.
"Mr. Tsukamoto, are you at all related to Chisa Tsukamoto, a prosecutor in Manhattan?" Reiko asked.
"Uh? Oh, yeah, she's my cousin. My father's brother's daughter by marriage. My dad's paternal name is Rokuro Hoshino, but he took my mom's name when they got married. Rokuro Tsukamoto."
"Okay. We were just curious," Reiko said with a visible sigh of relief.
"Here's our card," Asahi said, handing over hers this time. "Please give us a call if you're contacted by Ms. Oba again, or if you remember anything, if you have any questions..."
"Yeah, I'll do that. We don't need shady clients. Just because we're a print shop by an airport in Jersey doesn't mean we're crooked, y'know?"
"We appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Tsukamoto. We'll see ourselves out. Have a nice day."
"Looks like our big break," Asahi remarked. "If he's telling the truth, that is."
Reiko looked the seal over. "Who's to say this is Eimi Oba's stamp itself?" she said under her breath. "You can carve something like this out of a potato..."
"Well, if we're dealing with undergrounders, we're at yet another dead end," Asahi sighed, getting into the passenger side of the car as Reiko got behind the wheel. "Bleecker Street and Chinatown are rife with small presses and fake ID places." Asahi flipped through the photocopies as Reiko turned back onto North Avenue for the trip up to the Holland Tunnel. "According to these documents, Eimi Oba resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and we know that she lives in Manhattan. Curiouser and curiouser, no?"
"Ann Arbor? Great. If this turns into something across state lines, it goes right to the Feds and it'll get lost forever."
"That's just what the ID says. And he doesn't really remember much either."
"Best thing we can do is wait. Let's call this in to the LT and see what transpires."
As Reiko reached into her pocket for her cell phone, it started ringing. "Timing for ya," she remarked, pressing the Talk button. "Haga."
She listened for a moment, nodding. "Great. We'll be there soon." Instead of putting her phone back into her pocket, Reiko tossed it gently to Asahi.
"Reiko, wha-WHOA!" Asahi's quizzical inquiry was cut short as Reiko hoofed the heavy police car into a U-turn, rear tires squealing, and flipped on the lights behind the grille. She gunned the engine, the car now heading south on the highway.
"That was the LT herself," Reiko said over the roaring engine. "125th Precinct on Staten Island just responded to an explosion, and they found charred copies of our friendly neighborhood counterfeit. We're getting first crack at the scene."
"Shouldn't this go to the 125th's CSI people?"
"Well, the LT wants us to stop off at Chin Chin Palace for her lunch. They're the best Chinese food outside of Chinatown."
"Let's thank our serial counterfeiter-slash-exploder, then."
1675 Forest Hill Road, Staten Island, NY10:40 AM
The site of the explosion was a rather shoddy house on a heavily traveled street spanning Staten Island from end to end. The police had already closed off traffic for the block that the explosion was on, but Reiko and Asahi's badges got them through fast enough. A fire truck was sitting idly with its engines on and hoses hooked up in case of a flare-up, but the house seemed to be stable enough. Uniformed and plainclothes officers were already taking down notes and photographs of the shabby house, mistreated enough even before the explosion.
"Okay, nobody's been inside yet?" Reiko asked loudly, getting the attention of other officers on the scene.
"Nobody yet, ma'am," a uniformed officer replied with a thick Italian accent. He unclipped a large Maglite flashlight from his pistol belt and handed it to the detectives. "You'll need this. Whatever blew up knocked out the power to the block. ConEd'll have it back up in a few hours, but this block ain't gonna be watchin' much Adult Swim tonight."
"Thanks," she said. "Okay, let's go have a look. Basement first. We're dealing with dojinshi artists here. They flock to dark and quiet places like moths to a flame."
Reiko led the way into the basement, stepping carefully over pieces of debris, not moving anything from where it was lying. Asahi moved to the right, shining another borrowed flashlight over other bits and pieces. It wasn't long before she found the source of the explosion, surrounded by scraps of paper.
"I think I found a work area," she announced, running her light over the remnants of debris. "Normographs, fountain and sketching pens... hell, looks like this is an entire spectrum chart of Copic markers fused together from the explosion."
"But look at the explosion point," Reiko said to herself, shining her flashlight at the remnants of the boiler, on a support pillar just behind the destroyed art supplies. "The metal of the boiler seems to have sunk inwards a little. It looks like somebody punched it..."
"What happens when a boiler explodes, anyway? Most of this damage looks as if it came from steam heat, not fire."
"That's probably what happened..."
Reiko turned and faced the boiler, spreading her hands out, palm-down, looking at the floor. "The suspect, being a dojinshi artist, is hanging out in the basement, seeking solitude while he tries to think something up. In a rage, his Burning Dojinshi Passion comes out as he's trying to envision an idea or something like that. He punches the boiler..." Reiko mocked an uppercutting punch to where the boiler stood. "He punches it hard enough to cause some of the steam pressure to change. It starts to swell from the sides, he figures something ain't right, and he bolts from the explosion, lucky to survive."
"Reiko, how do you know all this?"
"Ever have writers' block, Asahi?"
"Point. So you think that this is our culprit's residence?"
"You think they were stupid enough to use their real name?"
"Let's find out. Grab a few copies of the counterfeits, too."
"Only if you fill out the paperwork this time."
Reiko headed off to the sergeant in charge of the crime scene to account for the evidence she was removing and to fill out, in triplicate, the requisite NYPD forms.
"Here's the landlady, Mrs. Myrna O'Doyle." the Italian-accent patrolman said, producing a tall, willowy woman who kept wringing her hands. "We've already gotten the reports from her for the investigation, so she's all yours.
"Ma'am, I'm detective Asahi Sakurai, NYPD Midtown South. I'll be brief. We need to know anything you can tell us about whoever was renting this house from you."
"Well, I only know his first name—Yataro—and he always mailed in his rent three days beforehand. He worked during the daytime and rarely ever left the house... although one time I did see a delivery truck from an Asian market there, unloading crate after crate of God only knows what," Mrs. O'Doyle said, wringing her hands and looking upwards in recollection.
"Most likely ramen noodles," Asahi said, taking down notes. "Dojin artists rarely eat a well-balanced diet. Do you remember anything else about him?"
Mrs. O'Doyle shook his head. "He had strange people coming to his house, but they always looked so scary. They looked like they were wearing gas masks."
Asahi's hand froze as she heard that line. "Mrs. O'Doyle, can you say that again? Are you absolutely sure they had gas masks on?"
"Well, they had some sort of masks. Wearing all black, too."
"Thank you very much, Mrs. O'Doyle. We appreciate your time. Please don't hesitate to call us if you remember anything else or have any questions."
Mrs. O'Doyle accepted the card and walked back to the other officer, obviously somewhat perturbed.
Asahi turned on her heels and dashed back to the sergeant's car that Reiko was using as an impromptu writing desk. "Get everyone out of here and call in the bomb squad," she said quietly as not to incite a panic.
"Bomb squad?!"
"Yeah. I got a description of our suspect. First name is Yataro, and he's had people wearing suspicious-looking masks and headgear visiting at strange hours. Works all day, never leaves the house all night."
"Damn!" Reiko pounded the roof of the car in frustration. "I'd read about King Jacky, but I didn't know his Yellow Card had expired so soon!"
"Not even Judge Makimura can overturn the New York Circuit Court of Appeals," Asahi said, shaking her head sadly.
Reiko whistled loudly through her fingers and flagged down the sergeant. "Get ESU out here right now and pull everyone out of the building, quietly. We may have explosives at the crime scene."
"You think that someone blew up their own boiler?"
"You ever hear of King Jacky?" Reiko asked back.
"Point. I didn't think he operated outside of Comic Party."
"Well, this may have been his house."
The sergeant, a young-looking woman with dark auburn hair tied back into a bun, nodded sharply and reached for her radio in the cruiser.
"Emergency Services should be here with explosives-disposal teams in twenty minutes," she said after a brief, staticky chatter. "My people haven't even gone in yet."
Reiko nodded. "ESU'll clear you in and then you can do whatever you need. We have to get back to Midtown South and start looking for our culprit. He may have tried to fly the coop."
"Yeah, we'll keep you posted. Thanks for your help, Haga."
"No problem. Asahi, let's hurry back. You drive. I need to talk to the LT."
Gowanus Expressway, Brooklyn11:34 AM
"I guess I can forgive you guys for not bringing back lunch," Lieutenant Inagawa's voice said over Reiko's cell phone speaker. "We've got an APB out for Yataro Kanamori, AKA King Jacky, and let me say that we lucked out BIG on this one."
"I read about the case a while back, lieutenant," Asahi said loud enough for the phone to pick up. "It's still so hard to believe that you were working with ADA Kuhonbutsu... hell, even District Attorney Mikage back then. You guys saved lives."
"Well, it's what we had to do," Lieutenant Inagawa replied over the phone. "But now, we've got our suspect and classic situtation. I just can't believe he's out so early. It's only been a couple of years, and he tried to kill people."
"Thin blue line between the system and chaos, LT," Reiko piped up. "We're about to get into the Battery Tunnel, so we'll probably lose you soon."
"Okay, no need for more updates. Come on back to the precinct. We'll work on tracking Jacky down there if-"
The phone beeped, cutting off as the police car went under the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.
"So what do we do now?" Asahi asked.
Reiko shrugged. "Last time Jacky's plans went awry, he tried to flee through the roof of Comic Party. Chances are he'll try to take off again. We'll be watching the airports and train stations."
"Shouldn't this go over to Special Investigations? I mean, King Jacky is a serial bomber. We're not trained to deal with serial anything. We just deal with dojinshi."
"Make no mistake, King Jacky is a dojinshi criminal," Reiko said with a growl, her eyes narrowed in anger. "Besides, when that jerk struck, I had the perfect cosplay going on, and when he caused a panic, they had to evacuate everyone before I could premiere it!"
"You mean that really skimpy thing?"
"All the fanboys were drooling..." Reiko said, making exaggerated whines.
"Lucky you. Try being on stage and voice-acting sometime if you want your fanboys!"
The debate over skimpy cosplay vs. pop stardom raged on as the police car went through the tunnel and exited, promptly hitting traffic on the West Side Highway just as it started in lower Manhattan.
"Aw, dammit..." Reiko said with a sigh. "Let's see how long this goes on... is it an eight or one?"
"It's 11:40," Asahi said, turning on the car's stereo. "Should be a traffic update on 1010 in a minute."
"-ing down to forty-seven degrees in the suburbs. If you'd like to set your clocks, the 1010 WINS news time is exactly eleven forty." The radio station let out the time-setter beep, and the all-news radio station went into business news, then traffic at 11:41.
"We'll start off in the Five Boroughs; the Cross-Bronx Eastbound is backed up with a multi-vehicle accident on the Third Avenue off-ramp; westbound traffic is starting to back up with rubbernecking as well. East Side, the FDR Drive is backed up from the 80s all the way to the 30s, take 8th or 10th Avenue to get downtown, but they're not moving anytime soon. The West Side Highway is backed up from the mid-30s all the way back to the Battery Tunnel with a minor riot in the streets; apparently several hundred copies of Cat or Fish?! dojinshi has found its way into the streets and people are clamoring over it. Nobody's getting out of there for a while. Central New Jersey, 287 is-"
"Cat or Fish?! dojinshi?!" the two detectives exclaimed in unison. They shot each other a look.
Asahi sighed. "I'll call lieutenant Inagawa and request some backup," she said, reaching for Reiko's cell phone. "I don't want another high-speed chase today..."
"Glad you called in," Yuu said over the cell phone just as it connected. "You two up for a little cosplay?"
"Cosplay?!"
"We have one Yataro Kanamori who was dumb enough to buy an American Airlines ticket five minutes ago, while you guys were stuck in the tunnel. We know about the drop of comics. Turns out someone was up on the USS Intrepid Museum and just started throwing counterfeit Cat or Fish?! dojinshi off the flight deck. People pounced on it. Eyewitnesses described our friend King Jacky clear as day. He tossed 'em, made a rather spectacular rappelling off the deck of the ship, and headed cross-town. Probably to the subway. The dojinshi disturbance was called in at 11:38, so he must've been on the subway all day getting around. Nice and anonymous."
"When did he have time to buy the ticket?"
"Don't know, but his name cropped up on the passenger list. He's on a flight to Toronto leaving in three hours. God knows where else after that. He probably made the reservation from a pay phone."
"So where do we go, LT?"
"Get to Kennedy Airport, now," Yuu ordered. "I mean we need you there ten minutes ago. That's where you'll be cosplaying."
"Let me guess, we're ticket agents?"
"You're 36-34-38, right?"
"Hey, not so loud!"
"Relax, so what if you're not stick-thin. You work out too much for that," Yuu teased. "Asahi, I won't even say your measurements. Didn't you go through puberty?"
"Lieutenant! That could be qualified as sexual harassment!"
"Take it easy, Asahi, just busting your chops. Contintental'll have ticket attendant uniforms for you. We'll go over the details when you get to JFK. I'll meet you there."
There was a click as Yuu hung up the phone.
"High-speed chase?" Asahi almost whined sadly.
"As close as it gets in dojin investigations," Reiko replied, flicking the switch for the cruiser lights and reefing the car left into opposing traffic, then up onto the median of the West Side Highway.
"REIKO! THIS IS NOT GRAND THEFT AUTO!!"
"Can't hear you, I'm trying to rack up style points here!"
John F. Kennedy International Airport, Terminal 8Queens, NY
12:30 PM
"You two look just smashing," Yuu said dryly, looking Reiko and Asahi, resplendent in blue American Airlines ticket agent blazers and nametags, up and down. "So, Ms.... Fulton?" Yuu raised an eyebrow, checking out Reiko's nametag.
"Well, I usually feel better in a costume that I made myself," she said, looking at a mirror in the employee changing lounge. It had been cleared out and filled with five uniformed officers from Midtown South, along with lieutenant Inagawa, who was coordinating over her radio.
"I already see him on the cameras," Asahi said, adjusting her ascot-like uniform necktie and looking at the monitors. "Do we have any plainclothes in the ticket line?"
"We have one in line in front of him, about ten spots ahead," Yuu said, walking over and pointing out an undercover police officer in the ticket line. "Here, that's Connolly. We REALLY lucked out and got someone directly behind Jacky, too; Ramirez, on loan from Narcotics. He's the ghetto boy in the purple Yankee cap."
"I see them," Asahi said with a nod. "I ran the union racket bust last year with Ramirez before he got sent to Narco and I got sent here. He's damn good at blending in."
"Looks like he's doing it well enough. He's right behind Jacky and he doesn't seem to suspect a thing."
King Jacky indeed did not suspect a thing, as he was nervously reading a magazine in line. His bulky, oversized-with-muscles torso made him stand out more than a little in line, but he seemed to believe that the long, slow ticket check-in line was standard fare for the busy international airport.
"Well enough indeed." Reiko hiked up her navy-blue American uniform skirt high enough to strap on a tactical holster to her thigh. "Uch, I hope I never have to run with this thing on. I like cosplay, but I hate when I can't carry a gun anyplace else."
"Yeah, I hear that," Asahi remarked, smoothing the front of her skirt down to cover up her own holster.
"They're going as normal out there. The ticket agents working the line know the story and they're playing ball. We couldn't get enough of our people in to replace them all, so for God's sake, be careful. There are too many people to endanger. Just process his ticket, give it to him, and Connolly'll make the arrest just as he exits the line. Keep it as quiet as you can."
"Right," the two detectives replied in unison.
"Suspect is three back in line," Yuu's radio crackled. Reiko looked up at the monitor, and King Jacky was indeed the third person up in the ticket queue.
"Haga, you take station D. He'll be coming to you. Sakurai, you're at E. Ramirez'll come up. Sakurai will delay Ramirez as long as possible to make sure he stays behind. Connoly will be on the other side of the metal detectors. Roth, Ramsaran, and Schwieder--" Yuu tossed her head to indicate the three uniformed officers—"will come out from the lounge to back you all up. Remember, this man is a bomber. He is to be considered armed and dangerous. We don't want an airport full of panic. Keep it quiet."
"Suspect is two back."
"We're on it, L-T," Reiko said with a mock salute.
Yuu chuckled darkly. "You look like you're out of 'You're Under Arrest' in that uniform, Haga," she said with a grin. "Get on out there."
The two detectives nodded, double-checked that their weapons were on safe (While avoiding giving the three uniformed cops an eyeful) and they trotted out, pretending to chat amicably like two co-workers.
Their ticket queues opened up just as King Jacky stepped to the front of the line, and he went right for Reiko.
"Good day, sir," she said cheerily. "May I have your photo identification, please?"
"Sure," Jacky said with nervous gruffness. Reiko maintained her smile as she dutifully punched his name into the ticketing computer system. His worried look was partially masked by a pair of dark, fake-Oakley sunglasses. The scars on his pale white face seemed to throb with nerves.
"Okay, Mr. Kanamori, I have you down for flight 406 to Toronto, leaving at 2:30, in seat 23-D. Will you need any special accommodations at this time?"
"No, just my ticket," Jacky said gruffly. "I'm in a rush."
"Of course, sir. Just one moment, I'll get that ticket printed out. How many bags will you be checking today?"
"None."
Jacky was visibly starting to get nervous, tapping his hand against his hip to some unfathomed rhythm. Reiko went through as many motions as she could imagine a ticket agent going through, in a surprisingly user-friendly environment. She ended up booking a ticket for herself to visit her family in Tokyo for the Christmas and New Year's holidays. Just for kicks, she threw in a seat for Asahi as well, first-class seats all the way. She quickly kicked out a legitimate ticket for Jacky after fiddling with the system a little more.
Wow, the benefits of cosplay extend beyond drooling fanboys for once...
"Okay, Mr. Kanamori, here you are. You'll be leaving from gate 14; that's just through the metal detectors, take a left, and it's down two moving sidewalks on your right side." She handed him the boarding pass, which was already voided in the system and would not scan in at the gate.
"Thanks." Jacky took the pass gruffly and marched off towards the security checkpoint. Asahi, seeing him move, gave Ramirez her own 'Here's your ticket' shpiel and sending him on his way. The detectives stepped away from their terminals, about ten paces behind Ramirez and Jacky. They stopped at the divider separating the ticketing areas from the security checkpoints, watching Ramirez's back disappear.
"Excuse me," they heard a voice say in a well-faked Spanish accent. "I no good with English... how to get him to gate, ah, ochenta?"
"Huh?" Jacky's gruff voice exclaimed. There were three beeps from the metal detectors, not at all challenged by the security screeners.
"That's probably Connolly coming through the detectors," Asahi whispered. She reached under her skirt and pulled out her pistol, keeping it out of sight from the line of passengers. "You ready to go, Reiko?"
"I never like drawing my gun," Reiko said, pulling and checking her weapon. "I'm ready."
"Yataro Kanamori?" a deep voice came from around the corner.
"Who wants to- !!"
The abrupt question was cut off with a quick gasp.
"He's turned around. Let's go!"
Reiko and Asahi dashed out from the corner, bringing their police-issue pistols to bear on King Jacky. From ten feet away, he was an easy target, and the three uniformed officers and three undercover detectives already had their guns trained on him.
"Police. You're under arrest for counterfeiting, leaving the scene of an accident, and violation of Yellow Card parole. Put your hands on top of your head and turn around, now!" Officer Connolly was making the call, with the three uniformed cops coming out from behind her. Ramirez had already taken out his gun, holding it to point at the ground, with his badge open in his other hand. Just as Jacky turned around, probably in an attempt to run, he was staring down the badges and guns of Ramirez, Reiko, and Asahi.
"It's over, King Jacky. Give it up." Connolly side-stepped a few steps to cover Jacky's left. The other detectives had already encircled the criminal. "You don't want to make it any worse on yourself. Put your hands on top of your head, now."
Jacky glanced around quickly, balling his hands into fists. "Dammit, you're not taking me alive!" he screamed gutturally, letting out a war cry as he turned around and dashed towards Asahi, easily the least-intimidating looking out of all the other police on the scene.
Looks deceived King Jacky once again in his criminal career. As he had been thrashed soundly at Comic Party during his serial-bomber days, he made even less of an attack against detective Asahi Sakurai. With a swift sidestep, she grabbed Jacky's arm, slid her leg in front of his knee, and flipped him to the floor, pinning his left arm back in a painful submission hold. Reiko quickly dashed in, caught a pair of handcuffs that a uniformed officer threw to her, and grabbed Jacky's other arm. She wrestled it into place and clasped the handcuffs around his wrists.
"You have the right to remain silent," Reiko said as she and Asahi pulled King Jacky to his feet. "If you choose to waive this right, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, and to have an attorney present at questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed without cost or obligation to you by the court. Do you understand these rights that I have just read to you?"
Jacky was roaring with rage during the entire reading of his rights, thrashing about rather ineffectively thanks to the four officers holding the big, muscular crook down. "LET GO! LET ME GO!!!" he screamed, effectively drawing all attention in the check-in area of the terminal to him, as if the arrest itself had not yet done so. The uniformed officers hauled Jacky off to a waiting patrol car at the terminal entrance area, lights flashing. Reiko and Asahi tucked their guns into the waistbands of their skirts and headed back to the employee lounge.
"Job well done, ladies," lieutenant Inagawa greeted them, planting a hand firmly on each of their soldiers. "Feel free to strike a victorious pose before we head back and fill out some paperwork."
"Heh. No problems whatsoever," Reiko said, winking and holding her fingers up in a V-for-victory symbol.
"One less bad guy in the world!" Asahi said, tossing her hair about, grinning, and planting her hands on her hips.
A camera flash stunned both of them. "Perfect," Yuu said, tucking a small digital camera away. "I think all the boys at the station will have a nice new pinup once I get this mailed out."
"We won't forget this, Lieutenant Inagawa," Asahi said angrily, not able to help the grin across her face.
"Yeah. Don't you know it's polite to ask before you take a cosplayer's photo?"
"Let's head back. I'll buy you guys a drink after we get off."
To be continued...