Secrets and Lies: Chapter 19
Yusaku Kudo was very concerned which was a little unusual; normally he didn't turn a hair in dangerous situations- not even when his wife believed that he was cheating on her. He hadn't even had any concerns about leaving his only son to live in Japan by himself apart from worrying that he was going to max his credit card.
Only now, when confronted with a devious and murderous Organisation and the lives of everyone he cared for in danger, did he think twice about his ideas. If one part of his plan was less than perfect the entire plan would come crashing down around him and everyone involved would be captured or killed. To say the least, those weren't his usual stakes.
He wasn't too elated with his current plan. There was too much danger for everyone and some of it was based on assumptions and deduction of facts.
He was sitting, disguised in a car parked in the underground car park of the Metropolitan Police Department. For the sake of his disguise he had sacrificed his precious moustache that he had treasured for a number of years. He knew that if his plan succeeded his moustache would have been lost, but his son would gain his life back along with Shiho Miyano, Kaito Kuroba, Saguru Hakuba and Aoko Nakamori. It wasn't a high price to pay, but it would be if he and Yukiko lost their lives in the process.
His musings were interrupted by the vibrating of his mobile phone.
Sato-keiji, Takagi-keiji and Chiba-keiji have just left the office.
The text was from Yukiko who was also in disguise. She was a cleaner and was posted outside the office of the 1st Division with a bucket and a mop. She and Hakuba, who was disguised a Police Officer swapped observation posts at regular intervals.
Aoko had waited for Chief Hakuba's secretary to leave and had searched his office to find any incriminating evidence against him or any evidence about either Anokata or the Black Organisation. Kaito, like any normal boyfriend, had supplied her with lock picks and a computer program so she could hack into his computer and she was currently copying the contents of his hard drive.
Megure- keibu just had a phone call and left. Only Shiratori-keibu is still there.
Yusaku read the text and felt some misgiving and hesitation about his next move. It was just past 8 and Kaito, Shinichi and the others should have been captured and Anokata would have been informed and was likely to be going to the Hakuba residence to gloat or Shinichi would be taken the headquarters of the Organisation. Anokata was unlikely to be at the Hakuba residence from the start in case the trap had misfired on the Organisation.
Either way Megure-keibu was now the primary candidate for being Anokata. Yusaku couldn't believe that of his old friend. He reminded himself that Vermouth herself had informed his son with her last breath that he knew Anokata. He had to stop letting his emotion cloud his judgment.
Now it was time to greet Anokata. Yusaku got out of the car and with a heavy heart and a gun he stood behind a barrier and listened for the footsteps of one of his oldest friends.
It had been half an hour and Anokata still hadn't arrived yet and Chief Hakuba's threat was steadily losing face. He had sent an agent out of the vicinity of the signal jammer in desperation to call Anokata for information.
A lot of unpleasant thoughts surfaced in his mind like dead bodies floating to the surface of rivers. Anokata could have been caught by the Police. He could have been killed by the fugitives that were left. Or he could just be late.
The boy Shinichi just sat on the sofa, not saying a word which was unusual for a teenage detective; in his experience they never stopped deducing facts that weren't even their business. To console himself he told himself that the boy was just terrified and couldn't think of anything to say and there wasn't anything threatening about that stare.
A short time later the agent that he had sent to find out what Anokata was doing returned.
"The message is that he had been held up by an important matter and won't be coming here this evening. He'll come as soon as his business has finished which might take until the morning."
"Did he say anything regarding the prisoners?" He enquired, glancing at Conan and thinking of his son locked in his wine cellar.
"Nothing. He said he would get rid of the pawns before moving onto the King."
"There will be no reply to that. Get the prisoners from the cellar with a couple of other agents, but leave my son behind."
"Yes, sir."
Chief Hakuba turned to Conan again. They were going to be together in this room for a while if Anokata was going to arrive until the following morning. He might as well make some conversation with the boy even if he was going to be ignored.
"Kudo-kun," he began. "Can you guess why I, why anyone joins the Organisation?"
He could see that the boy wasn't interested and he was just about to answer his own questions when the boy said in a low voice, "Greed."
Chief Hakuba shook his head. "Maybe at first. However more commonly it is family ties. Once you're in you can't get out and neither can anyone in your family. One day you just learn to embrace it rather than fight it."
There was no reply from the boy who simply continued staring at him with a deadpan gaze.
"My father was in the Organisation as was his father, you can't fight it. If you do you put everyone you care about: your friends and family in jeopardy. I've seen it happen," he smiled sadly. "Plans were made for my son once he showed great potential at 16- the tradition was going to continue once again. I protested against the decision, I didn't want to corrupt his sense of justice and my wife paid the price which had kept me in line ever since. Saguru believes that I caused his mother's death and he's right. I have stalled for time and said that he can be forced to join when he is 20. But he's got out of it himself. Now he is going to be killed unless I do something. I want to save him, even if it is at the cost of my own life."
He looked up again at Shinichi who was still staring at him, but this time with an understanding and sympathetic gaze.
Their mutual understanding was interrupted by the door to the room being flung open by Jodie Starling and Andre Camel who marched into the room, armed with weapons stolen from their captors. The door to the cellar had been bolted and Kaito hadn't been able to do anything to unlock it so they had bided their time and waited for someone to come and drag them off to their deaths before escaping.
"But. What? How?" Chief Hakuba stuttered before putting his hands up in the air after having a gun brandished in his face boy Jodie Starling.
"All those men in black suits and dark sunglasses are useless at fighting," Jodie complained, wiping someone else's blood off her chin.
"It helps to have a magic criminal mastermind on your side," Camel explained gloatingly, handcuffing his arms behind his back.
As if on cue Kaito entered the room holding his blonde wig and card gun. His eyes were dancing and his hair was very ruffled.
"Sorry for the delay. Everyone else on the premises is now unconscious and had pink hair. Sorry for everyone having to do so much fighting. I didn't have access to my full paraphernalia and I knew we would be searched when we were captured. Just don't ask where I hid the gun and hair dye."
"Where's Saguru?" Chief Hakuba asked sharply.
"Hakuba? He's at the Police Department," Kaito answered unthinkingly.
"What?" he exclaimed. "That's the worst place to be if Anokata is there flushing out the rest of your band of fugitives."
"Shit," Kaito cursed. Then his mind went somewhere else. "Aoko... She's there too."
"This is bad," Jodie said panicking and turned to the little boy in front of her. "Cool Kid- I mean Kudo-kun, have you got any clever plans. It urgent."
The boy looked blankly at her before replying.
"I'm not Kudo-kun."
Sorry that this chapter is a little short. I'm short on writing time and I haven't done any creative writing for a while. All my work that I do in English at school in analytical writing so I am out of practice.
Can anyone guess who "Conan" is?