Hiroto's workplace was a nondescript office building with the mysterious words of Nikai Company emblazoned above the entryway in English letters, but no other indications of what the company was for or why it required a whole building to itself. From past conversations, Saguru recalled that the company worked a great deal overseas, presumably globally from the shifting hours Hiroto seemed to hold depending on what conferences were needed when. Hiroto was an intermediary of sorts, presenting ideas back and forth across language barriers if Saguru remembered correctly, but not in charge of leading ideas. That would mean access to a large number of projects with at least casual knowledge of what those projects entailed. For the life of him, Saguru couldn't remember if Hiroto had ever mentioned what, exactly, his company's business was. There were dozens of anecdotes about lagging Skype calls, mistranslations, and paperwork failures that came to mind, but nothing on products or anything particularly useful in having a clue about what he was walking into. Even the business card Hiroto gave him only briefly mentioned financial services. Which might or might not tie in to the business contracting Hiroto just mentioned on the phone. Saguru would have liked the chance to look the company up a bit more but he'd never thought to do so before tonight.
Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. Even more surprisingly, the front desk was currently unstaffed. Saguru eyed the bright glow of a computer screen on the other side of it. Not away long enough for the computer to go to sleep, but no sign of anyone otherwise. The security cameras blinked tiny red pinpoints of light from the corners of the ceiling. He ignored them and walked with purpose to the elevator. If he'd learned anything from Kuroba, acting like you belonged and knew what you were doing often times worked just as well as if you were actually supposed to be there.
The elevator was small and full of overly bright brass fittings that were a tasteless design choice. Saguru stopped the elevator a floor below his stop and took the stairs the rest of the way. The lights in the hallways were dim, only the emergency exit signs glowing, and a few emergency lights here and there to lead the way. The whole place had the hair rising on the back of Saguru's neck, tripping his gut instinct that something wasn't quite right. He couldn't put a finger on what, aside from the missing secretary at the front desk. Nothing was out of place for an office, fake plants and real ones interspersed outside of offices to try and brighten up the atmosphere and rows of doors with name plaques on them. The only sound in the stairwell was the sound of Saguru's footsteps interspersed with his breath, made a bit short by the exertion.
There were a few lights on in this floor, and Saguru used them as a guide, cautious. Empty office, bookshelf behind a desk with a desktop computer, screen still lit. He recognized it from a photo, the one Hiroto sent of a small child staring at him from the corner of the room. And there were childish drawings done in red and black and blue pen taped up on one wall. His boss's office then.
The break room had one light on above the sink and a coffee pot half full with a red light showing it was still hot. The bathroom lights were off.
"Hiroto-san?" Saguru said, voice soft as he pushed open the bathroom door; it wasn't one that locked from the inside, but was full of stalls with urinals along the one wall. No feet under the stalls, but if he held still...the sound of breathing a bit too rapid and panicky to be quiet. "It's Saguru."
There was a long pause before the end stall door creaked open further and Hiroto all but fell out of it. He was at Saguru's side in an instant, grabbing his arm like it was a life preserver and he was drowning.
"You're here," he said. "You're actually here thank goodness I wasn't sure if you would actually come or if you'd make it up but you're here and not a-a-a killer or something."
"I know we didn't last talk on the best of circumstances, but I wouldn't have left you waiting if I didn't intend to come," Saguru said. Hiroto let out a breath and leaned against him for a moment. Saguru steadied him. "Are you alright?"
"Fine," Hiroto said. He took another breath, already steadier. "Sorry. Just. A little freaked out."
"Understandable." When Hiroto pulled back, Saguru let his concern melt away into seriousness. "Could you show me what you found?"
"Yes. Yes just...come with me." Hiroto darted out into the hallway, looking around sharply before leading the way back to his boss's office. The computer screen had turned over to a screen saver, colored lines flashing across a black background.
"It's... I put the file folders onto a flash drive, but I don't know if that will work or if they'll be corrupted with the number of passwords to get to them... I don't know much about computers beyond what I need to know for work." He clicked through files, keying in codes to bring up more and more sub-folders. Hiroto bit his lip as Saguru glanced at the folder names—dates, all of them, numbers going back years. Each year was separated into month, then by week and day, the files themselves just numbers that had no immediate meaning to Saguru's eyes.
"How did you even find these?" It wasn't something that you just stumbled on from the look of it.
Hiroto flushed. "I told you I was cleaning up documents right? Well I noticed that there was too much data in a file for it to be normal and so I checked to see if there were hidden files... There's a lot of them. This is just one of them, but there's files mixed in with regular things too. With invoices and project files." He clicked around a bit more, showing translucent file icons amidst bold ones. "I wasn't expecting so many. I thought..." He blushed harder. "I thought maybe they were just something inappropriate for work or something but..."
"But they weren't." No one would have this many hidden documents or such organized ones if it were merely pornography or something similar.
"No. Then I thought maybe my boss was skimming company funds but..." Hiroto pulled up a file. It was in English, surprisingly, bold letters listing out a date and location with a clinical report following that detailed some unfortunate person's death.
Saguru clicked on a few more, bringing up similar reports or transferred resources, stolen research data, and results from tests that the reports assumed were already known. It was chilling. "Who has access to these files?"
"They're only on this computer," Hiroto said softly. "I checked a few others in my office for hidden files, but it was only my boss that had these. I don't know about the higher ups though. The only one with passwords for this computer are my boss and me, and I only know them because I sometimes cover his work when he's on trips."
"And password protecting files is common practice here?"
"Only on my boss's computer. It didn't seem weird; he has sensitive information on the company and employees so of course he wouldn't want just anyone looking at it..."
Saguru was only half paying attention, eyes caught on a file. May tenth of last year. Not significant, perhaps, as there were documents dated a few days before and a few after the date, but... it was the day before Mel was shot. Saguru clicked on it. Progenetics...stolen research on project Mercury... Saguru's own name stood out at him, the words incapacitate or kill leaving him with a rushing sound in his ears that was probably his heartrate spiking.
"Is that...is that your name?" Hiroto whispered. "Is this a kill order?!"
"Or something," Saguru said, feeling words leave him as if from a great distance. He'd looked for clues, the London police force had looked for clues for months and here this was in Japan of all places and— And he didn't have time for the emotions any of this had boiling up in him, sharp and hot and ragged. He breathed in, out. "If these files are only on this computer, it would be ideal if we could take the hard drive with us."
"What, the whole thing?" Hiroto asked, wide eyed.
"I don't think you quite understand the magnitude of what you just found," Saguru said, already pulling the computer tower toward him. He had a spare flash drive that he used to hold documents for work, on his keychain. He fished it out and handed it to Hiroto. "Put as many files as you can on this, please. Delete what is already on it; there's nothing irreplaceable and this is more important."
"Saguru?" Hiroto said, hesitating and scared again.
"Please." This felt like too much of a windfall after everything, too good to be true that Saguru would stumble across the order that had signed Mel's death, albeit as collateral. It had every instinct screaming at him that something was wrong.
"I'm going to be fired for this," Hiroto said, mostly to himself, as he set to copying files.
Saguru started opening drawers looking for something that could be used as a screwdriver to open the back of the tower. This was not technically legal, but he couldn't find it in him to care considering the circumstances. There was a very real chance that by the time he forwarded the information and the police got a permit, then the information could be erased. There, a small pair of scissors, the blades just wide enough to catch on the screw head.
"They're transferring," Hiroto said. "As much as will fit. Um, I included the file you were looking at."
"Thank you." Saguru handed Hiroto his phone and went at the screws. "Please text that incriminating documents were found and that I am in the process of trying to secure the hard drive to contacts 'Aoko' and 'Kudo.'"
A light in the hallway flicked on. They both froze, two screws in Saguru's hand and Hiroto's fingers white knuckled around Saguru's cell phone as a man stood in the doorway.
"I had such high hopes for you, Nakahara-kun," the man said. He was dressed in a neatly pressed business suit, hair combed back from his face, and a semi-automatic pistol in hand.
"Hanaka-kacho..." Hiroto trembled.
Saguru gripped the scissors in the palm of his hand as Hiroto's boss walked further into the room.
"I give you my trust and you look through my personal files." His eyes flicked to Saguru. "And you try to steal them. The company has a pretty strict policy about that sort of thing." Hanaka spoke like he was having a friendly chat, but there was no hesitation in his steady aim at Hiroto's chest.
"Strict as in an early grave I take it," Saguru said, dry and caustic.
The man turned toward him and his business neutral expression flickered to one of distaste. "The British detective. For someone supposedly retired, you seem to have your hand in a bit of everything at the moment."
"Retirement never seems to stick," Saguru said. "The world seems to enjoy throwing me into situations where certain skillsets I have are required." It was strange, the lack of panic he felt at the moment. Considering how recently Takumi had almost been shot and Kuroba had been shot, staring down a man with a gun should have his heart hammering and his hands shaking. Instead, he'd never felt steadier. The scissors were reassuringly heavy in his hand.
"You'd have a much more peaceful and long life if you just learned to mind your own business." Hanaka looked back at Hiroto. Hiroto was shaking so badly it looked like he was going to fall over in a faint. "I could say the same for you. Your work was good. It will be difficult to replace you."
The man's eyes shuttered, closing off in a way Saguru recognized intimately of a person steeling themselves for an unpleasant task. Saguru shifted, pulling attention away from Hiroto before the trigger could be pulled, desperate to keep him talking just that bit longer, to lower his guard, something. "No one even realizes yet that this company is related to the others from the info drop, do they?" Saguru said, because it was true. Who would suspect it as it wasn't a cosmetics company, wasn't connected to pharmaceuticals or chemical research or longevity research at all. At what little he'd gleaned from glancing at files, it was a company that worked as a go between, an international link up, the middle man for many other countries venturing into overseas trade, and as such had a hand in a little bit of everything, but not so much so that it would stand out. It would be the perfect sort of place to use seeding agents globally though. A hub in a branching web, the communication core connecting all the other branches with each other yet safe if any one of them fall. Because they didn't have stake in the race for immortality. Perhaps managing behind the scenes and picking off any perceived threats. No one would look to a supposedly unrelated company if someone died investigating a different one.
Like Mel. Like Saguru was shot years ago. Kill or injure and generally make it too expensive one way or another to look any deeper into the matter.
Hanaka gave Saguru another once over, eyes lingering on the scissors and the cane just out of reach where Saguru's leaned it against the desk, dismissing them as a threat—too much distance when a bullet could kill him before he had a chance to complete a lunge.
Saguru took another steady breath. "No one realizes how much your company is involved in at all. Is it just this organization you have ties with?" He tilted his head, moving just a bit to the side...get attention on him, Hiroto out of peripheral vision, get the gun on him. "You must have a lot of people coming and going from Japan. How many of those people are office workers, Hanaka-san? And how many of those are killers?"
"You'd like if I answered that, wouldn't you?" Hanaka said. "Laid out all the messy details like some kind of cartoon villain." He scoffed. "The only reason you're not already dead is because I don't want blood on my carpet."
Yes, actually, that would be very convenient, Saguru thought a bit sarcastically. "I imagine it would be equally incriminating to shoot us in a stairwell or somewhere else that blood will get everywhere."
"But then it would be someone else's problem," Hanaka said, eyes half-lidded and dangerous. "And I'm not even back in the country yet; I'm not due back until tomorrow."
"I'm sure the security cameras would be surprised about that revelation."
Hanaka frowned and jerked the gun in Saguru's direction. "Stand up. Both of you walk toward the door."
Saguru made a show of complying very slowly, playing up how stiff his knee was and the need for a cane he was too far away from to grab. It kept Hanaka's eyes on him right up until Hiroto's shaking legs gave out and he crashed to the ground.
"Sor-I'm, I'm getting up I'll just—" Hiroto babbled, hands grabbing at the desk to pull himself up. Saguru caught a glimpse of his hand swinging past the flash drives and as one vanished into Hiroto's mess of flailing, he realized what Hiroto was doing.
"Pull yourself together, Nakahara-kun," Hanaka said, exasperated and missing the act completely. "Try to face your death with more dignity; I know you're not that pathetic. If you can handle closing a deal with a Russian oil company, you can handle having a gun in your face."
"Being shot is a bit more final than failing to negotiate a business deal." Saguru helped Hiroto to his feet, blocking him from view long enough for him to slip the flash drives into his pocket. He still had Saguru's phone too, hand clutched so tight around it that it was a miracle the screen hadn't fractured. In the second their eyes met, Hiroto's gaze held a mix of terror and determination.
"You would know, wouldn't you, detective?" Hanaka drawled. He nodded to the door. "Go."
There was no moment that Saguru could take advantage of and try to turn the situation around—Hanaka made sure to keep his distance and his weapon at the ready. That said, Saguru wasn't sure he could have subdued him even if there had been an opening. Saguru still had Judo skills, but those required a more solid stance than he had most days. And despite being taller than Hanaka and outweighing him, the cut of Hanaka's suit hinted at a fit body; he probably would have been able to overpower Saguru anyway. It would be worth it anyway to get the gun from him, but with the distance, Hanaka would shoot and probably hit one of them before Saguru could hit him. Hiroto filed out first. Saguru was the one that had the gun pointed at him now, right between his shoulder blades.
"Planning to take us to the roof?"
"Why would I do that when there's such a fitting scenario that could take place already?" Hanaka herded them toward the bathroom. "I'd heard a few rumors that you were seen in Shinjuku Ni-chōme, Nakahara-kun. I admit I'd wondered about you a few times, you confirmed you were interested in men when I gave you a bit more...singled out attention." Hiroto went that much paler. Saguru wondered what those interactions must have been. "And here we have a detective known to be gay. It creates such a perfect story, don't you think? A lover's spat gone wrong after hours."
Scarily, considering his and Hiroto's history, that was a believable scenario.
"And of course Nakahara-kun is so distraught at how things went that he takes his life." Hanaka smiled like a wolf, all teeth and promise of death. "Murder suicide. A far more poetic death than either of you deserves."
Hiroto's breath hitched toward hyperventilation.
As Hiroto pushed open the bathroom door, Saguru realized that this was the only chance he'd get; there was no escaping once they were all in the bathroom. As the door started to shut, he stumbled, playing on his bad leg to make it realistic.
"Just get in the—" Hanaka said, but he didn't have a chance to finish as Saguru turned the stumble into a blind dive in his direction.
Please don't be shot, he thought, please let Hiroto be smart enough to get away from the door. The gun went off as Saguru collided with Hanaka's knees, and either he'd missed or Saguru had too much adrenaline in his system to feel pain at the moment. As the gun moved down and Hanaka's face contorted with a snarl Saguru's ringing ears failed to hear, Saguru stabbed blindly with the scissors he'd palmed earlier.
They sunk into the meat of Hanaka's thigh, jerking free when he staggered back, yelling. The hand with the gun hit Saguru in the forehead, cutting above his eyebrow. Saguru stabbed again, got a glancing blow to Hanaka's hand, and the gun clattered to the ground, miraculously not going off a second time. Saguru managed to kick it toward the potted plant down the hall before he was tackled. The scissors skidded off somewhere as a blood-slick hand grappled at his throat, trying to choke him.
A twist, fail to throw him off. An elbow to the gut and Saguru could breathe again for a moment. There was blood in his eye, couldn't see, bared teeth set in a snarl centimeters from his face. Saguru caught his assailant's wrists before fingers could dig into his throat again, struggled to shift balance and overpower his opponent like he'd learned, knee aching aching and a grown man's weight trying to pin him down.
Hanaka jerked with a sudden force, smacking down and almost head-butting Saguru in the process. Another dull force sounded above him and Hanaka went limp. Saguru pushed him off to find Hiroto standing over them with a plastic toilet seat gripped in white knuckled hands.
Hanaka groaned, only half unconscious from the blows to his head. Before he could recover, Saguru ripped Hanaka's tie free and used it to tie his hands behind his back. Only then did he sit back, panting. There was blood streaked all over the tile floor between Saguru's head wound and Hanaka's stab wounds.
"Fuck," Saguru said with feeling.
"You're not dead," Hiroto said, dropping the toilet seat and sliding to the ground as his knees gave out. He started giggling, head in his hands. "We're not dead."
"Surprisingly," Saguru agreed. Head wounds bled too much. His sleeve wasn't making much headway in stemming the flow. "A toilet seat?"
"It's the sturdiest thing in the bathroom I could pry free," Hiroto said. He grabbed Saguru in a sudden, tight hug and kissed him. "We're not dead!"
"Um." Saguru blinked as he was released as quickly as he'd been grabbed. Hopefully that was just relief acting and not Hiroto actually still being interested. He pressed his handkerchief to his head. "Do you have my phone still?"
"Yeah," Hiroto said, giggling petering out. "I called...uh. Somebody. I didn't hang up either." He held up the phone where a counter showed a call connected to Aoko that had been going for the last seven minutes. Had it only been less than ten minutes? It felt much longer.
Saguru took the phone from Hiroto. "Aoko."
"What the fuck is going on over there, Hakuba?" Aoko asked. "There was a gunshot and screaming and just now there was laughter."
"It seems that there is organization involvement at the address I texted you after all. There is a suspect with stab wounds who had possession of a gun and I have a head wound. I am not sure if there is anyone else to worry about or not. The suspect is currently incapacitated however."
Hiroto sat up, looking around like he expected someone to manifest from the potted plant with a gun.
"Wonderful," Aoko grumbled. "Stay where you are, I was already on my way over. I got a search warrant pushed through fast. That's the only reason I'm not there already."
"You got a search warrant in the middle of the night?"
"You underestimate just how much the police wants to get this internal investigation over with. If there's even a hint of it being connected, papers are going through no matter where and when."
"Ah." The pain was catching up with him, knees and shoulders and hips aching from landing on them and his neck where Hanaka had bruised and scratched, and the throbbing point of pain on his brow where the blood was finally slowing.
"Secure the weapon and the suspect, but don't contaminate the scene any more than needed," Aoko said.
"Of course. There's a witness with me, the one who sent the tip."
"Got it. I'm going to call in an ambulance as well."
"Thank you, Aoko."
"Don't die in the meantime," she said. They didn't hang up, but Saguru set the phone down, all the focus and abnormal calm that had filled him draining away. It just left exhaustion and pain in its wake.
"Are you hurt?" Saguru asked Hiroto.
"No." Hiroto tried to smile but stopped when it wouldn't quite form. "No, you did a good job keeping him away from me."
"Good. Good thinking with the flash drives."
"That's the most terrified I've been in my life." Hiroto stared blankly at his boss. "Well. I guess if I can face down a man with a gun, going to job interviews when I lose my job won't be scary at all."
"You might not lose your job."
"They're going to tear the company apart looking into what is and isn't legal business deals," Hiroto said. He sounded pretty calm about it, but as he said, it wasn't as scary as having a gun pointed at you. "There might not be a company left after this. I'd probably be better off leaving tomorrow if I can and figuring out things from there."
Well. There wasn't really anything Saguru could say about that. Hanaka groaned again staring blearily around at them before squeezing his eyes shut. He might have a concussion. Saguru couldn't bring himself to care much when he'd almost been killed a few minutes earlier. He did have to wonder what the man's motives were. He had family, an ideal work life for all appearances. What had drawn him to the world's underbelly?
After a few moments, Saguru managed to drag himself up and shove an upended trash bin over the gun so it wasn't as easily accessible. He wasn't sure what to say to Hiroto to make any of this better. They were alive, at least. They were alive, and they'd gotten files enough that would hopefully sink the organization the rest of the way. Files that would solve cold cases and give closure.
