Shiraishi chuckled. "I'd expect so, sir."

He frowned at Shiraishi and the latter's grin vanished. "Go and find them. If they're out there, they're most likely hiding. And possibly scared. Try to imagine how you'd feel if you had a bunch of giggling wh.o.r.es trying to kill you."

"Yes, sir."

He stood up and walked around the ward. Five of the schoolgirls were conscious and resting comfortably. Six were still unconscious.

One was missing.

He turned to Shiraishi. "Where is the twelfth girl?"

"Sir?"

He waved the report in Shiraishi's face. "Twelve girls. There are eleven here right now. That means one is missing unless I somehow managed to graduate without knowing basic math skills."

"Yes, sir. One is gone, sir."

"Where is she, Shiraishi?"

"Radiology, sir. They wanted to take an X-ray of her skull. To make sure she didn't have any lasting damage."

Lasting damage indeed. He turned and strode from the emergency department.

If he was in their position, it's exactly how he would have chosen to do it. Isolate and extract the information.

It was risky, of course. But then again, these people didn't strike him as being scared of such risks. They would no doubt understand that the risk would outweigh the benefit to getting timely and accurate intelligence.

Now the job was getting really complicated.

He needed to make sure the girl didn't talk.

He knew that soon enough, the other girls would silently make their way out of the hospital and dissolve back into their regular boring teen lives. It was why he had recruited them in the first place. It always amazed him exactly what he could purchase if the money was right.

Even j.a.pan, with its supposedly rigid moral values and strict code of ethics, wasn't impervious to the whims of greed and l.u.s.t. Offer enough money and codes, morals, and ethics went right out of the window, never to be seen again.

Or at least long enough to make sure the check cleared.

But this twelfth girl concerned him. Alone and isolated from the rest of her friends, she would no doubt crack under whatever strain they intended to put her under. She would tell them what little she knew. And while he'd been as careful as he normally was, there were a few choice tidbits she might know that could put them on the right track.

And the right track would mean he would be identified as having his hand in something he most definitely didn't want people knowing he was involved with.

He banked left at the elevators and kept striding down the hall. The look on his face must have convinced everyone he pa.s.sed that talking to him simply wasn't a good idea.

He didn't care about being remembered. The latex makeup on his face would come off easily enough with hot water and soap. He could vanish within seconds, just by using the restroom.

But the girl knew his true ident.i.ty.

And that was dangerous.

Maybe he'd gone too far in recruiting twelve of them. But he didn't want to underestimate Ogawa and Annja Creed. With Ogawa's deadly skills as a ninja and Creed's skills as a resourceful and wily warrior, using less than a dozen could have been disastrous.

He grinned.

Not as if this had been a great day out by any means.

He saw the radiology department doors ahead. He frowned. Automatic. That meant a motion sensor nearby, which would trigger the doors and cause noise. Noise that would alert them to the presence of someone outside.

He shook his head.

He backtracked until he found a side door. It was locked but he removed an electric pick from his pocket and slid it into the lock. He pressed the trigger and listened as the rake caught the tumblers and then he twisted.

The door opened.

He knew how hospitals were laid out. And he knew they always had multiple entrances and exits to every department. It simply didn't make sense to build a hospital and not have other ways out in case of an emergency.

He hoped they hadn't taken notice of other doors leading into their area.

It was the only chance he had to catch them off guard.

The corridor ran fifty feet and then at the end he saw a small unmarked door. Looking up at the ceiling, he guessed that this had to be the back door. He tried the door and found it locked so he used the electric pick again.

This time, he gently pulled the door back, praying that the hinges wouldn't squeak and alert his prey inside.

The door opened without a sound.

He glanced around one final time, but found the area deserted. Smiling, he withdrew his pistol and from his left pocket, he produced a suppressor, which he screwed on to the threaded barrel.

He entered the radiology department.

Hushed voices reached his ears. He paused, trying to distill the nature of the room's set up. He expected to hear the girl's voice and he did. And the harsh whisper belonged to a man.

Interesting.

He nosed around the corner and took a quick glimpse.

The schoolgirl faced him in a chair. Her eyes were closed and she was bound hand and foot to the chair. Tears streamed down her face. He could see the fear and shock and despair in her features.

The man crouched close by, whispering in her ear. His back was to the back door, as was the lithe form of the woman standing nearby. Both of them were dressed in hospital staff clothes.

He was glad he'd opted for the police uniform.

The schoolgirl whimpered, muttered something about how she didn't know who it was that hired her. This didn't please the man. He said something to the woman with him and she nodded.

The schoolgirl saw the scalpel and started sobbing.

He leveled the pistol on the point between the schoolgirl's eyes and squeezed the trigger.

As his gun spit once, the girl's head snapped back, a black hole punching its way into her skull.

In that instant, the woman pivoted and flung something at him.

He jerked back as the thin black throwing spike embedded itself in the wall.

He ran to the rear door and tore it open. Racing down the hall, he thought about how unfortunate it was to have to kill someone so young. All of the schoolgirls were eighteen years old, so legally, they were adults. But it did little to make him feel good about what he'd just done.

It was a necessary evil, and nothing more.

At the end of the corridor, he banked left, then right and then through the doors. In an instant, he was gone.

17.

Nezuma regarded the dead schoolgirl's corpse and then looked at Shuko. "Did you see who it was?"

She frowned. "No. But he was huge. Too big to have been a j.a.panese, even though he looked like one."

Nezuma nodded. "You think he wore makeup?"

"Along with the police uniform, yes. It would be a good way to get in here and not have to answer any questions."

"I wish we'd thought of it." Nezuma nudged the schoolgirl's body back. "It's time for us to go. Our friends will be waking up soon and they'll make a commotion. It will be only a small matter of time before they're found. And then they'll find the body here. Once that happens, they'll lock down the facility."

"We don't want to be trapped inside," Shuko said.

"Definitely not."

Nezuma stood and stripped off the white coat and Shuko did the same. They exited through the front of the radiology department and kept walking as naturally as possible. They pa.s.sed a nurse wheeling a patient toward radiology.

Nezuma risked a glance back and then nudged Shuko. "Faster."

"You don't think we would have time to go to the emergency department and find another girl we could question?" she asked.

Nezuma shook his head. "That doesn't strike me as very smart. The police will be all over the place. We'd never make it. And once that nurse back there walks through the doors of radiology, this whole place is going to light up."

They pa.s.sed the elevator bank and Nezuma guided Shuko out through a side door. They kept moving purposefully toward the parking lot. "We need to get out of here. That nurse will remember two people and if we're spotted together, they'll know," he said.

Shuko walked away without being asked. They'd had to split up in the past and Nezuma wasn't concerned about her safety. Shuko could take care of herself. He'd trained her that way.

They would rendezvous back at the train station, hoping to catch Ogawa and Creed on their way to wherever they were headed. It was always a gamble, but Nezuma felt certain they would head out of Osaka soon. The dorje dorje was not here in the city; that much he knew. He suspected it was probably concealed somewhere in the rural lands to the east, home to the ancient ninja families that had sprung up during feudal j.a.pan. was not here in the city; that much he knew. He suspected it was probably concealed somewhere in the rural lands to the east, home to the ancient ninja families that had sprung up during feudal j.a.pan.

Nezuma himself had spent plenty of time in those fog-enshrouded mountains in his past. His own hunt for the dorje dorje had been an overwhelming obsession with him ever since he was a youth. had been an overwhelming obsession with him ever since he was a youth.

And now, he was close to acquiring it at long last.

He just hoped that whoever was trying to kill Ogawa and Creed would not get to them until Nezuma had the dorje dorje in his possession. in his possession.

Only time would tell if that would happen.

FROM THE SHADOWED DEPTHS of the delivery van he watched the man and woman split up. He marveled at how they both seemed to be in perfect rhythm with each other. There were no stutter steps or pauses for conversation and the discussion of potential what-ifs. The woman simply changed direction and it was as if they had no knowledge of each other. of the delivery van he watched the man and woman split up. He marveled at how they both seemed to be in perfect rhythm with each other. There were no stutter steps or pauses for conversation and the discussion of potential what-ifs. The woman simply changed direction and it was as if they had no knowledge of each other.

He frowned. He knew the woman could certainly throw shuriken shuriken with unerring accuracy. It was only thanks to his lightning-fast reflexes that he hadn't caught the sharpened spike in his skull or worse, his eye. He might be dead if that had happened. with unerring accuracy. It was only thanks to his lightning-fast reflexes that he hadn't caught the sharpened spike in his skull or worse, his eye. He might be dead if that had happened.

The man he knew well enough. He was a trained killer even if he did his best to obscure that fact every time he entered a tournament. He figured the woman then must be one of his employees or lovers.

He was well aware of how a teacher-student relationship could turn into something more. But somehow, he couldn't see the stocky Nezuma letting himself fall into such a situation.

But stranger things had happened.

He raised the telephoto-lens camera and squeezed off several shots of the woman as she made her way across the parking lot. Twice, she seemed to look up and around and he thought she might have sensed him. He'd leaned back, deeper into the shadows and then cursed himself. There was no way her eyes would be able to penetrate the darkness of the van's interior.

She glided up to the four-foot fence and climbed over it with such ease that he almost jumped in surprise. It was only when she stopped at a pay phone to make a call that he turned his attention back to Nezuma.

NEZUMA'S EYES SWEPT the parking lot. the parking lot.

Something didn't feel right.

With all these cars, he wondered if someone was watching him. He chalked it up as paranoia resulting from a botched job. His ears had already picked up the roaring alarm bells from inside the hospital. Soon enough, more sirens would join the cacophony of sound.

As long as we're gone, he thought, that's all that matters.

He knew Shuko would make her way back downtown and from there, take a circuitous route back to the train station. Undoubtedly, she would meander, doing her utmost to lose anyone who might be interested in following her.

And if they stayed glued to her, she would simply kill them.

Nezuma's stomach growled and he realized it had been many hours since he had eaten anything.

On the way to the hospital, he recalled seeing a comfortable-looking restaurant that advertised fresh seafood.

His mouth watered.

A nice meal might be just the ticket to restoring his confidence in the overall mission.