A/N: Hey look it's the plot! There are a few useful cultural notes in the end note, but no serious content warnings. Some unpleasant speculation from the detectives, at the very worst. Enjoy!

Chapter 12

A little less than a week since KID's disaster of a heist, things had settled back to normal. Except, of course, Shinichi reflected, for the looming deadline—in a few days, solved case or not, Hattori would have to go back to Osaka and attend school. Shinichi would be headed back to kiddy school himself, and at this point, he rather suspected that KID was in much the same situation. The man couldn't look that much like him out of costume and be past college age.

They were all feeling the pressure at this point, but there wasn't much they could do to hurry along their investigations.

At least KID was looking a little better. Granted, he'd still shown up in the guise of a sick housewife, facemask and all, but he was moving more naturally now.

Shinichi sighed to himself. In the end, either they'd get a break in the case, or they wouldn't. He turned back to scanning his browser's translations of the headlines of the news coming from Omsk.

Police preparing to raid warehouse in downtown Omsk, the first result read. The second, Omsk citizens asked to remain inside during mysterious police operation.

Shinichi's breath caught in his throat. "I've got something," he said, half unbelieving.

KID, who had claimed Hattori's chair by way of injury, suddenly sat up straight.

"What, exactly?" Eisuke asked, even as Hattori loomed over Shinichi's shoulder.

"Warehouse raid, downtown," Hattori said, before Shinichi could. "Police ain't givin' details. This looks good."

"So say he's in Omsk," KID said. "It's a big city. And we aren't there. How do we get to him?"

"We'll need to draw him out," Shinichi said, thinking furiously. If there's a raid, if he was part of setting it up…either he impersonated a plainclothes officer or called in a tip to start this. Which would he do?

"KID—if you were going to start something like this, would you call in a tip, or impersonate an officer and then 'stumble' onto it?" Shinichi asked.

"I'd call it in," KID said. "Less risk, to me and to the poor guy I'm impersonating, if it goes south."

"So he calls in a tip and they investigate," Hattori started.

"Not just any tip, though," Eisuke said. "They're keeping it quiet. He must have warned them not to give details of the reasons for the raid."

"Do you think he told them the truth?" Shinichi asked, confused.

"If I were him, I woulda checked out the police while I was doin' everything else," Hattori said.

"But if there's enough members of Them that my contact mentioned it, there almost have to be members in the police," KID said. "Even if I'm sure he was careful to go to the clean police officers, he shouldn't have been bold enough to risk them letting something slip to their dirty colleagues. So…maybe he gave a false reason for keeping the reason for the raid quiet?"

"Russia's government doesn't have the best history with cover-ups," Shinichi said. "If he implied the national government didn't want it whatever was in there to be publicized…"

"And there are some legitimate reasons to keep a police raid," Hattori said. "If he convinced 'em there were weapons, 'specially big ones, in there—they might be trying to avoid scarin' the civilians into a riot."

"But that doesn't help us track him down," KID said, frustrated.

"Data, data, data," Shinichi quoted absently. "I can't make bricks without clay. We need to know the plan, not just what the plan is most likely to be."

"Are you planning to call Hakuba and ask him?" KID asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No," Shinichi said. "I'm planning to ask the Chief of Police in Omsk." He glanced down the page. "Komarov Wassily, it looks like." He glanced up again, holding the eyes of the other teenagers. "We can only do so much with speculation. Once we know what the plan is, we should be able to figure out what Hakuba was trying to do, and maybe where he is."

"We can't jus' call an' say, 'We're unofficially lookin' fer a missin' kid who's unbelievably good at disguises, I'd ask ya if you've seen 'im but you probably wouldn't know if you had an' neither would we because we ain't seen his real face,'" Hattori said.

KID perked up. "Are you suggesting we lie?"

"I don't see how we can avoid it," Shinichi said. "In this case, we're protecting KID as a witness, and the police themselves, since the truth about Hakuba and his disappearance involves a dangerous amount of Them."

"Then there's two options," Eisuke said. "Either we say that he's a criminal, or that he's an innocent informant the Japanese police want back. Either way, we have to be careful. I don't see how we could do this without claiming we have the police on our side, but if we do that and mess it up, we could screw up relations between the Russian and Japanese police long-term."

"If we say he's a criminal, they'll be ready for what he can do," Hattori said, frowning.

"It doesn't sit right with me," KID said, actually looking a bit uncomfortable. "He is a critic, after all."

"If we say he's a criminal, we run the risk of them deciding to arrest him under their laws," Shinichi said.

"An' then we wait fer the Superintendent-Gen'ral to kill us," Hattori said.

"Pretty much," Shinichi said. "Innocent informant it is."

"I'm assuming you plan to do the talking?" KID asked.

Shinichi nodded. "I don't know Russian, but my English is pretty good—and at least some officers should speak that, to deal with tourists. And I've solved a few cases overseas, so I'm the most likely to have an international reputation that isn't for grand theft."

KID looked back at him with eyes alight, unrepentant.

"My English is still better," Heiji grumbled.

"Um, Kudou-san, not to be impolite, but, you're a child," Eisuke said. "He…might not take you seriously."

Shinichi blinked. "Oh, that's right, you've only seen me use the voice-changer for Mouri!"

"It is in the bowtie, right?" KID asked. "I've kind of wanted to watch you do this for a long time now, honestly." He settled into his seat, eyes bright with anticipation. "Anyone have popcorn?"

"Voice-changer?" Eisuke asked weakly. "Bowtie?"

"Professor Agasa made it for me," Shinichi practically chirped, relishing Eisuke's widened eyes, as he took it off and then dug in his pocket for his "Shinichi" phone.

"I knew it was ventriloquism, but, honestly…" Eisuke muttered faintly.

"Anything else before I make the call?" he asked the room.

"If ya want ta give us time to make a plan, we'll need an excuse for that, too," Hattori said.

"I can say I'm gathering information for the actual police," Shinichi said. "I'll say I need to report to them, hang up, and we can call them back once we've figured something out."

"That makes it more plausible that you'd be the one calling, too," Eisuke said with a nod.

"Okay, then, I'm making the call," Shinichi said.

He glanced at the computer screen for the police department's number, dialed, then wedged the phone between his shoulder and his cheek as he listened to the phone ring. Flicking the voice-changer to his own voice was so familiar it practically didn't require thought anymore; the slight bitterness at needing a gadget just to sound like himself was just as familiar.

A rush of unfamiliar consonants greeted him.

"Hello, does anyone speak English?" he asked, enunciating carefully.

There was more conversation he couldn't understand, some rustling, and then, an answer. "My name is Officer Medvedev," a deep-voiced woman said. "Can I help you?"

"Hello, my name is Kudou Shinichi," Shinichi said, and just the act of saying that was at once satisfying and just a little nervewracking. "I am a representative of the Japanese Police, and I need to speak with Chief of Police Komarov."

"Chief Komarov is very busy today," Medvedev said. "Please call again later."

"I am sorry, but this is very urgent," Shinichi said. "I need to speak with him right away."

The woman was silent for a few seconds. "You can talk to Chief Komarov. I will get him. Please stay on the line."

He was waiting for at least a minute before an older man's voice crackled through the phone's speakers. "I am Chief Komarov. You are Shinichi?"

Right, name order, Shinichi thought with a wince. "Uh, Kudou, sir," he said. "I work with the Japanese police. They asked me to call because we think an informant for one of our cases is in your city."

"What do you want me to do about this?" Komarov asked. "I am very busy today. There is a big operation; you have read the news."

"Exactly," Shinichi said. "We need to get our informant back right away, if we can. We have only just tracked him to your city, and we were about to ask permission to send our people in to search for him when we heard about your operation. We do not want to interfere with your plans, so we wanted to ask what exactly you are doing, so we know how we can proceed."

"How do I know that you are really with the Japanese Police?" Komarov asked, suddenly suspicious. "This is a very sensitive operation. If details go to the wrong people…"

"I understand completely," Shinichi said. "If you are near a computer, you should be able to search my name. In the Roman alphabet, it's spelled, er, K-U-D-O-U S-H-I-N-I-C-H-I."

Komarov was silent for a few seconds. "Quite a record for a young person," he finally said. "I will explain. We received an anonymous tip about a number of linked criminal operations in the city. Mostly drugs and smuggling. After that, a file from an anonymous email address, filled with case files that look like they could have come from inside the station—enough evidence to arrest at least fifty people. We try to trace both, but nothing works, so we check the files and they are good. These are the basis for what we are doing.

"All the police in Omsk have been brought in, except for the bare minimum needed for patrol," he continued. "Some of the files implicated police, so they will be separated into a squad with officers I trust and then arrested in the station, after the rest have been sent out. The other police will be divided into four groups, one for each location we have. Each group will have riot police to surround the exits, while other officers enter the locations and make arrests."

"The tipper gave us a time to make the raid," Komarov added. "Precise down to the second—about an hour from now, to be exact. He also recommended protective clothing, and advised us not to publicize the raid, because the people we were targeting had the means to leave the country if they knew what was going to happen."

"Was going to all the locations at the same time your idea, or the tipper's?" Shinichi asked.

"I was under the impression that Japan was a polite nation," Komarov said stiffly.

Shinichi felt his cheeks heat. "I am sorry, I know that was rude, but it is important."

"If you feel it is that important, yes, that was his idea," Komarov said.

"Thank you so much for the information," Shinichi said. "I need to share it with the rest of the team. Is there a number you can be reached at, once they've made a decision?"

Komarov gave him a number; Shinichi ran it through his head a few times so it would move into his long-term memory. He managed a few more pleasantries before hanging up, scrawling the number onto the nearest available piece of paper, and then looking up at everyone.

"It's definitely him," he said, switching back to Japanese. "Hakuba, that is. He must not be expecting people to be after him; he's being obvious."

KID blinked. "Obvious how?"

"He gave times down to the second," Shinichi said, smirking.

KID's reply was jubilant. "We found him! So, what else do you know?"

Shinichi carefully summarized what he'd been told, minding his word choice and making certain not to forget the details. Framed by the edges of the phone screen, Eisuke leaned forward, brows furrowing, while KID crossed his arms and let his disguise's bangs fall to shade eyes that had instantly turned serious. Hattori, meanwhile, just gave a tight grin of determination and turned his cap around.

"We know where he is an' what he's doin'," Hattori said. "The ball's in our court, now." He let out a small huff of air. "Exact times aside, though, this ain't like 'im. That many simultaneous raids—that's reckless as h***. If he isn't hittin' the power centers, exactly, that city's gonna pay for it."

"No, it's exactly like him," Shinichi said. "How many times have you called him arrogant? He thinks he's found them all, and he's hitting them all, so that no one's left to get the others out or retaliate."

"Unless it ain't all of them," Hattori said.

"How much research did we get done in the last month?" Eisuke asked rhetorically. "And how much more could he have done, even alone, considering that he was probably doing it all the time and not through legal means?"

"Okay, okay," Hattori said. "Say this is all of them. What's the point, though? There's still more o' Them out there. Taking all of Their people in a city out in one day's just gonna attract attention to Omsk."

"Or scare Them," KID said quietly. "If he really was trained the same way I was…this is a mind game. It's a show of power. He could've done it anywhere; the point is to say, 'You can be beaten.' To make them doubt their invulnerability."

"They aren't going to like that," Shinichi said.

"If that's the point, then the exact time thing might not be Hakuba being Hakuba," KID said. "There are a lot of tricks that require timing."

"You think he's going to set off smoke bombs or something?" Shinichi asked.

"This ain't KID, we don't know for sure they're gonna be smoke," Hattori said darkly.

Shinichi swallowed, throat suddenly dry. That's right. KID's skills…but we don't know if he's particularly concerned about people getting hurt.

"He said the police should be wearing protective clothing," Eisuke pointed out.

"He's a police officer's kid, like me, he'd know they always would for an operation like this," Hattori said. "I hate ta say it, but it might be something like that."

KID blanched.

"At least he's protectin' the cops," Hattori said.

"I'd much rather no one needed protecting," KID said stiffly.

"Okay, okay, so he might be doing something dangerous," Shinichi said. "He would disguise as a plainclothes cop under those circumstances, right?"

KID nodded, slowly. "If Tantei-han is even vaguely correct, he'll be onsite for wherever the most people are in danger and have cameras at the other places. He…if he would be any less careful with explosives, I don't even…no. He wouldn't." He took a breath. "I honestly can't believe he would. Using explosives isn't—" He broke off, shaking his head, eyes shaded by the bangs of his wig. "But your deductions make sense, and I guess it's worth being prepared for the worst."

"He got some kind of baggage with explosions?" Hattori asked, eyes narrowing. "Or is that jus' you?"

"If you try to broach that subject right now, I will come to Osaka and cover everything you own in orange and black glitter," KID said, eyes just a bit harder than they'd been a second ago.

"I was jus'—" Hattori started.

"Now's not the time," Eisuke interrupted. "So, plainclothes cop disguise."

"That means he's in the station right now," Shinichi said.

"An' that if he gets out, we lose 'im—because we don't have enough information ta know which location he'll go to, and Komarov won't give it ta us, either," Hattori said, leaning back with crossed arms. "So we gotta get him now."

"He's probably already in disguise," Eisuke said, frowning.

"Then we just need to get him out of it," Shinichi said.

KID raised an eyebrow. "I'm ignoring the innuendo I could've made there in favor of reminding you that Nakamori has enough trouble getting people to strip down when he has a note from me as evidence that there's probably someone in disguise around."

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "There's no way we're convincing Komarov one of his people is in disguise. Not when he barely knows who I am and thinks I'm a little rude. Hakuba's got to be the one who takes off the disguise, himself, willingly. The trick is convincing him to."

"He's jumped continents illegally and dumped all of his legal identification," KID said. "I don't think saying 'please' is going to work."

"I was thinking something more like telling Komarov that we think he's likely to be near the warehouses and that they should search around them before they actually do the raid," Shinichi said.

"That'll tip Them off," Eisuke said, voice hushed.

"Hakuba will either have to pop out of the woodwork or watch the whole plan go up in smoke," Hattori said. "I like it."

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, you're scary, Tantei-kun," KID said. "If your plan doesn't work? We don't have Hakuba, and you just flushed weeks of his work against Them down the drain."

"How else do we get him, then?" Shinichi asked.

KID didn't reply.

"Call 'im," Hattori said. "Now. Raid starts in an hour, but Komarov didn't give locations an' we don't know how long it takes 'is people to move out."

Shinichi nodded and started dialing. His heart was thudding in his chest, and he was trying desperately not to forget any of the English he'd need for this exchange.

He could feel the others watching. There was a hint of disapproval to KID's gaze, but Shinichi shrugged it off—the man was easily the most soft-hearted criminal he'd ever met, and sometimes, soft-hearted methods weren't enough. Eisuke's worried eyes weighed a bit more, because Shinichi was aware of the gamble he was making, and the disaster he could be creating if this all went sideways. Hattori's stare was determined and intent, and the confidence weighed just as much—Hattori backing his plan up with this little argument was unusual. Shinichi had to make it count.

Once again, he wedged the phone between his shoulder and cheek and picked up the bowtie. Time to be Shinichi again.

"Hello again, Kudou," Komarov said. "Have the Japanese police reached a decision?"

"Yes," Shinichi said. "We think our informant probably went to one of the areas around the places you're planning to raid. If you would have your men check the surrounding areas before you conduct the raids, we would be very grateful. "

"So the informant is a criminal?" Komarov asked.

"No," Shinichi said. "He is a normal person who helped with a case. But he is likely to have noticed the criminal activity in these places, and he might even be trying to find out about it. He left Japan because he thought he was in danger, not because he didn't want to work with the police."

"I understand," Komarov said. "Can you give me a description?"

Shinichi froze, then remembered that if his plan worked and Hakuba showed up, it would be disguised in his normal appearance.

"He is tall," Shinichi winced as a paper airplane hit him in the shoulder. He glanced at it, saw writing on the wing, and amended, "He is 180 centimeters tall, half-Japanese and half-English, with brown eyes and dark blond hair."

He glanced up and glared at KID as Komarov made a soft humming sound.

"I'll have my lieutenant give the order," Komarov said.

Something brushed against the speaker—probably Komarov's hand—and Shinichi could just barely make out a bit of talking. Then, Komarov was back.

"The order is going out," Komarov said. "We will contact you as soon as we are able. What is the best number to use?"

Shinichi rattled off the digits, throat dry.

"I appreciate your help," he said slowly.

"You are welcome," Komarov said curtly. "Now, if you will excuse—ah, it seems a person who fits the description you gave has turned up in the station. I suppose this is what you expected?"

A/N: It's been awhile since my last cliffhanger, hasn't it?

The "Data, data, data," quote is, of course, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories—specifically from "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," I think.

As for the cultural notes, when Shinichi mentions the Roman alphabet, he is specifying the alphabet used in English and the Romance languages, as opposed to the alphabet Komarov would normally use (Cyrillic) or the character sets Shinichi would normally use (kanji, kana, or hiragana). Orange and black, the colors of the glitter KID threatens Heiji with, are the colors of the Yomiuri Giants, the rival baseball team to Osaka's Hanshin Tigers.

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