Chapter 8:
"Playing For Keeps"
Light Yagami's new apartment had the same configuration and space as his old apartment only it was now eight floors above on the sixteenth floor. It had taken weeks, but the Kira Task Force was once again all full operation with new equipment. Light's insurance was more than enough to pay for all the furniture that was destroyed in the explosion Beyond Birthday set.
Some data had been lost when the epicentre had been blown-up, but Light had saved a great deal of the task force data on external servers, so they didn't lose much.
Light had survived the explosion by running back into the bedroom and pulled the bed mattress over himself to hinder much of the blast. He was lucky Beyond Birthday hadn't planted an even more powerful explosive or the building would have to be condemned. Luckily, the damage was only focused to his apartment, which was obviously Beyond Birthday's plan.
The birthday card Beyond Birthday had hand delivered as a warning was destroyed in the fire. Light needed to obtain Beyond Birthday's real name and then kill him! It was personal now.
The Kira Task Force had gathered for its daily briefing on the on-goings and media cover of Kira. Despite the incident with Beyond Birthday, Light still managed to do his judgements. Kira still needed to do his job. The criminals of the world needed to pay. Light was building a brand new world, and justice waited for no man—or god!
Light sat at his usual place at his computer station while the other task force members looked over information gathered over the last couple of days. There wasn't much to deal with, the usual killings of criminals, that's all.
Just then, a knock came at the apartment door. Light turned, put a finger to his lips, paused, then said, cautiously, "Hello?"
"Detective Light Yagami of the NPA and Kira Task Force?" came a voice with a French accent, but he spoke English.
Soichiro Yagami silently directly the task force to spread out across the apartment in strategic locations. Despite not being allowed to possess guns, the recent incident with Light's old apartment gave everyone pause for caution to anyone outside the door.
Light switched on a wireless mini-camera that that he installed in the peephole and brought the face of the person who knocked on a computer screen. He was a young looking man with dark hair wearing a trench coat, but his facial features instantly said foreigner.
"Identify yourself," Light asked in English, speaking through the door. The young man reached into his trench coat and pulled out an ID card: A. Lafayette. The man seemed aware that the peephole had a camera and he flashed his ID in front. Light it on the computer screen.
"Interpol? Here?" Ide expressed. "Why would an agent of Interpol be here?"
"There are no agents of Interpol," Light said, "only liaison's that help enforce the law."
"More to the point," Aizawa said, "how did he know Light lived here and that this was the Kira Task Force base of operations?"
"What do we do?" Matsuda poised. "Jump him?"
"I can hear you through the door," said the Interpol liaison. "And even though I may be able to speak it well, I do understand Japanese," he added, but in English. "The Chief of the NPA gave me this address. I'm here to investigate the incident that took place a few weeks prior with a certain someone who will remain nameless. Please, it's tedious talking through the door."
Light stood and opened the door. The Interpol liaison still had his badge in hand. Light looked at it more closely. All the official signs that it was authentic were there, he could tell. The Interpol liaison looked at everyone in the apartment. "Greetings, I'm a liaison from the ICPO, Switzerland Branch, or more specially from the General Secretariat's office, here to—"
English now became the preferred language.
"Yeah, we heard you through the door," said Aizawa curtly. "We're a little weary with strangers right now with what took place a few weeks ago. We were tricked by someone posing as an Australian Federal Police officer, who then ended up blowing up our headquarters, and nearly killing one of our best people. So, forgive us for being careful and suspicious."
"I completely understand," said Lafayette.
Light handed the ID card to his father who verified it again, as the former Chief of the NPA, and who had attended more than a couple ICPO conferences, one of which was L's introduction to the Kira Case with Matsuda. The ID card was handed back to the liaison.
"You're a little young to be from Interpol," remarked Matsuda said.
The other eyed him with conceitedness. "And what age should I be, detective…"
Matsuda was about to say his name when Soichiro waved him off. Matsuda immediately got the message to shut his mouth.
"Forgive us," Light said. "The people on the task force must remain anonymous. The Chief directed you here through Internal Affairs, I assume. We provided all viable information of the incident with the criminal that calls himself 'Beyond Birthday' to the proper divisions, I don't see what else we can tell you about him or what happened?"
"Do you happen to know where he is?" asked Lafayette. "Or did he provide any clue to where he may have gone? I read the report about the incident, but I came here directly so you could provide more insight. I was in Japan on other business. Beyond Birthday is wanted on multiple warrants. He called in a bomb threat on The Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile and demanded a ransom, but it was a ploy and we wasted our efforts. He escaped France in the melee."
"No, we don't know where Beyond Birthday is," Light replied straightly. "We also want him."
Lafayette nodded. "Well, thank you Detective Yagami," he said. "Please, if you have further information on Beyond Birthday, or any of his associates, please let me know." Light was handed a business card with a phone number. "When it comes to Beyond Birthday, we at the ICPO don't play around. And I personally want him in custody. I'm playing for keeps."
Lafayette thanked the Kira Task Force members for their efforts to help keep crime in check in the world, and then left. He was watched vie camera until he was out of view.
Light turned to the others.
"Well, that short and sweet," Aizawa said.
"And highly unusual," Ide added.
Light was on the phone immediately to the Chief of the NPA.
After a minute of conversion, the Chief confirmed that A. Lafayette of Interpol did come by his office and asked for Light's address to get further information on the criminal incident a few weeks ago involving Beyond Birthday.
Light ended the call. "Lafayette is legitimate," he stated. "He was triple checked. And the Chief was asked for his participation in Interpol's investigation. Since I was the target of Beyond Birthday, I'm the prime identifier to contact, as well."
"I saw his ID," Aizawa said. "I didn't catch his first name."
"He never gave it to us," Ide said.
"Auric," Light said. "He's a French national, but his father was Indo-European, from Latvia, according to what the Chief provided me about his credentials over the phone. He moved to Switzerland some years ago and then joined the ICPO. He's been with them for seven years."
"He looked awfully young to be with the ICPO, but he looked like he meant business," Matsuda commented. "I wouldn't want to get on his bad side."
"Hey, by the way," Aizawa said, "anyone else get a look at Lafayette's watch? It was a genuine Rolex, it must have cost a fortune."
But no on else had noticed. Light did notice, but he paid it little mind.
Suddenly, Light recoiled back and then folded forward as two projectiles struck him in the chest and lower torso, two small holes penetrating through a near-by window—on the sixteenth floor. Light collapsed and hit the ground at the base of his computer station, his head turned to the right. Blood suddenly began draining from his mouth, two holes in his shirt.
He lay unmoving, dead to the world.
"Light!" his father shouted.
It was the last thing Light heard.
Auric Lafayette got into his car that was parked at the curb just outside Light Yagami's apartment building. The moment he shut the driver's side door, his cell phone rang. He answered it, and a male voice on the other end said: "It's done."
"Good," Auric Lafayette replied. "Now let us get back. There are plans to be made." He ended the call, started his vehicle, and smiled with a wickedness that was insanely evil. "I got to him first, brother. This is now between you and I. Bring me your best, but more importantly, bring me your worse. And our final conflict will be one for the ages."
Auric Lafayette, or "A" as he had once been known as, laughed. It was such a malevolent one and loud, that one passerby even looked at Lafayette's car as it sped off into the street.
To be continued...
