"Stand him up Galahad, stand him up" Sato asked. He unloosened his collar and removes his tie – one collar already popped – and wraps it around his hand.
"Where did you take her?"
The man was weary but unbowed and stared back, face lit by the ambient light from the moon and the streets.
Sato swung at his face – a glancing blow across the cheek – knocking him to the side.
"You ain't got damn thing, cop. Just you wait, these cuffs can't hold me. I'll get out and I'll pay you a visit"
Sato swung again, and again; one into the stomach and one below the neck. He gasps and chokes when Sato takes a step to the side, glances to Megure and Morimura, and stomps the man in the chest knocking him to the ground.
"We're not getting anywhere with this. He doesn't seem to want to talk" Megure warned Sato.
"Seems like this weasel will go to the other world before you make him blab" Morimura looked over his shoulder, checking the man was still there. He was curled up, coughing and wheezing.
Sato wasn't fazed by the feedback from his fellow officers "You're right. Maybe he is prepared to go to the next world. But what if he stayed here. And I know there's some things no man will want to lose when they're still living"
Morimura responds to a radio check, affirming command they were occupied. He silences the radio, and lifts the man up. Sato unwraps his tie from his hand, and forces it around the mouth of the man, gagging him. Sato removes and folds his shirt, now wearing his base layer approaches the bound man and gets to work.
It was a quiet down town. Nobody would bat an eye to a maniac screaming late at night. It was just another junkie, another tweaker having an episode. But behind the old industrial buildings and rotten wooden fences, Sato tortured him as Megure watched and Morimura held him down.
By the second or third scream, the man was broken enough to howl a name for the stars to witness. It didn't take a long time, but felt an eternity for everyone involved.
"Dthock theventheen tha Maethk conthaner nine theven altha" glubbered the man, blood and saliva spitting from his mouth, Morimura and Megure drags him to the police car, dumping him in the boot as Sato cleans himself up, and puts on his uniform.
Drowned out by the roar of the engine and wail of the siren, Megure – who was sat at the back – could hear the gibbering screams of pain in his seat. Disturbed by the indifferent reaction of Morimura and heel turn of the once kindly Sato he stared out through the front, witnessing an unfocused gaze that captured eyes of pure hatred from Sato whose eyes darted back and forth from the mirror to the road.
The distance between the dockyards and the downtown wasn't a long distance. With Sato high on adrenaline, he forces the car wheel left and right, sliding and drifting around the corner until they reach the dock entrance, screeching brakes at the entrance.
Without turning off any lights or sirens, Sato charges out of the vehicle into the dock area, vaulting over the short barrier leaving the two trailing behind.
Scouring the docks, several workers stood by and watched as the officer sprinted from dock to dock past the massive cargo ships that towered over him.
Dock seventeen. His eyes darted upwards and took the long walk across the access ladders, torch in hand.
The containers were stacked and bound for overseas export. All locked to a standard, Sato ran between the rows and rows of stacked prisons desperately looking for an M for Maersk, ready to fight off anyone who stood in his way, any cohorts of the man he had just beaten within an inch of his life.
He felt someone around the corner, light shining and making his way with some distance. They round the corner and Sato goes for the takedown, charging straight into the stone pillar that is Morimura.
"Finally found you. Take it easy Sato, we've got the shipping records, come on"
The container sat in the bottom two rows of the stacked columns of containers, covered on both sides. A small plaque reflected off a beam of light from the torch. Sato checked the plaque. 97A.
He ripped at the container but found it was locked. He shook the lock and stomped on it. If she was there, she must have been behind this thin wall of steel. He walks over to a ship cabin wall, retrieves a fire axe and swings at the lock, without effect.
His final swing falls short, and impacts the locking bar, breaking it and loosening the door. A cry from within the container pierces the air, and the exhausted Sato takes in a second wind. With renewed vigor, Sato cleaves the locking bars, pries open the container and slides himself in.
With what light could leak through the creaked gaps of the door, a pretty pair of eyes with skin as pale as snow stared at the rescue team. Morimura now swung the axe, and with each clang and clunk the girl recoiled until he was finally through and beside Sato.
Backed against some cargo boxes, she was petrified in a dirty, ripped white dress barely covering her chest. Staring back like a deer in headlights, she closed her eyes and sat down on the cardboard littered container, her mouth and lips still bloody.
Sato dashed forward to check on her. Her skin was frigid and her body frail but not starving. Her sobbing didn't produce tears. He reached down to pick her up, embracing her against himself when he sees another child crawl out from behind the crate.
"There's another child. There's another-" Sato spoke, repeating himself, his voice panting with as he breathed out what fire he had in his system.
"What're you waiting for Galahad, pick her up!"
"Me? Juzo you know I'm not good with children!" Morimura protested as he hauled the second child from behind the container.
"Easy kid, easy"
The child bit at Morimura, who snatched his hand back.
"Why you!" Mori slapped the child and carried him over his shoulder as the child helplessly kicked and swung with what little strength it had.
Megure led the long march back to the police car. He and Morimura spotted the car boot had been opened. Morimura glanced at Megure, lowered the child into Megure's arms and charged forward.
The man didn't get far. Bloodied and cuffed on both arm and leg, he could only limpidly hop step by step, dripping blood on the ground leading Morimura to a bush.
He hauls the man out of the bush, lifts him over his shoulder, and tosses him into the ground breaking a bone.
The man sags to the ground into unconsciousness, he wrenches his arm and drags him back to the car. Sato still had the girl sleeping in his arms.
"What happened Galahad?" a perplexed Megure asked.
"He slipped".