Power and Empire

The single apartment elevator was Old World — style, with a wooden door and an accordion gate that had to be shut manually before the car would operate. There was only enough room inside for four at a time, so Chavez, Ryan, and Adara squeezed in with the Japanese woman, leaving Midas to bound up the stairs.

The car chugged upward slowly with the weight of four passengers, and the former Delta commander was leaning against a plaster-covered wall when Jack pushed open the door.

“You’re staying alone,” Chavez asked again.

Yukiko held up her little finger, bending it at the knuckle. “Yubikiri,” she said. “I promise.”

Midas and Adara went through the door first, clearing the room before allowing Yukiko inside.

“I guess you really weren’t expecting company,” Midas said when he came back to the door. “You’re as messy as my young friend.”

Chavez’s phone buzzed. He answered it, nodded a few times, and then motioned for Yukiko to hold up her right hand, thumb extended. She did, revealing a crescent scar on the web.

“Looks like it’s her,” Chavez said. “Thanks, Mr. C.”

Yukiko smiled. “Mr. C? My father knew a man named John who was sometimes called that.”

Chavez winked at the others in the group. “That’s what Mr. C said.”

It took more than a phone call to be completely accepted, but the fact that John Clark apparently knew her father put Monzaki Yukiko well on the road. The IC world was often a multigenerational affair, with children following parents into the business. Clearances could be somewhat easier to obtain when a relative had already been scrutinized to the nth degree during a security background check.

Free now to move as she pleased without getting shot, Yukiko wasted no time in retrieving a spare mobile phone from a bag on her dresser and dialing up what was presumably a GSM bug like the ones Campus operators often deployed.

All of them were accustomed to the boredom of monitoring a bug and took up comfortable positions around the small efficiency apartment. Yukiko sat on a cramped loveseat beside Adara, elbows on her knees. Midas and Ding took up positions in the two wood slat chairs covered with quilted pillows, while Jack sat on the edge of the hastily made bed.

The device was active, picking up the periodic clang of pots or the sound of someone belching.

“Kitchen?” Adara asked.

Yukiko nodded. “The microphone is directly against the window. Cheap glass is very good at conducting sound. There is a large table approximately five feet from the wall. If Chen holds a meeting, there is a good chance it will be at that table.”

Jack rubbed a hand over the top of his head. “I don’t get it, Yukiko. What’s the Japanese connection?”

“Please call me Yuki,” she said. “That is a very good question. Have you heard of Chongryon?”

“Sounds Korean,” Jack said.

Chavez nodded. “Isn’t that the political arm of the DPRK in Japan?”

“Precisely that,” Yuki said. “My organization has linked members of Chongryon to acts of espionage in Japan. Kim Soo, a Korean woman with strong ties to this group, is one of Vincent Chen’s many paramours. My research leads me to believe Chen has many female contacts around the world — Amanda Salazar as a case in point. He is quite charming, but mixing work with pleasure will be his eventual downfall. I would not have been aware of Vincent Chen if he’d had better taste in women.”

Midas took a deep breath. “This is a cruddy thing to bring up, but it impacts operational security. If we’re working together now, we need to know about the blonde who was shot.”

Yuki tilted her head to the side, her face passive. “Beatriz Campos was also from Paraguay. She is… was a known assassin and a terrorist, already convicted in absentia for the murder of two Japanese businessmen during a visit to Peru. My organization believes Kim Soo is complicit in a plot to disrupt the upcoming G20 Summit. I was sent here to follow her and glean any useful intelligence. Suspicions against Kim are just that, suspicions, but the evidence against Beatriz Campos is irrefutable. I had no idea she would be here, but when I found out, I simply seized the opportunity…”

Midas pressed the issue. “So you carry the suppressed .22-caliber rifle around, just in case?”

“Another fair question,” the Japanese woman said. “There must be trust if we are to work together. Were the intelligence on Kim to reach a high enough standard, I would contact my superiors with the information, and then proceed as ordered. Such orders may include the use of a rifle.” She shrugged. “Your country has been known to put the faces of certain… high-value targets on playing cards.”

The group nodded.

Midas said, “Targets, indeed.”

“High value, indeed,” Yuki said. “Beatriz Campos was not our ace of spades. She was, however, an ace.”

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