Ninth Step Station
Season 1, Episode 9

The Assassin's Nest
Fran Wilde and Curtis C. Chen

A few late azalea blossoms clogged the southwest corner of the reflecting pool at the Diet’s North Garden, giving the gray slate basin a pink-and-purple tint. In the warm breeze, white tablecloths fluttered, and the half-filled champagne flutes chimed softly as the air brushed their rims. Iris blooms arrayed on the tables shifted in the wind, their divided stems turning this way and that as if captivated by the beautifully dressed crowd.

On three sides of the reflecting pool, officials and celebrities were taking their seats. The side closest to the imperial palace park, just across the road, had already filled: among them, the new National Diet president and his spouse; three members each of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors; the heads of Rakuten and Sony; Iwakichi Kayako, the director of Nippon Hoso Kyokai; and the heads of Tokyo’s police and the Japanese Self-Defense Forces.

Across from the Japanese tables, before the dark frame of the high-flung Kenseikinenkan Separation of Powers Clock Tower, a neatly dressed public relations officer from the Diet adjusted a microphone at a small platform. Micro speakers placed around the reflecting pool and in the garden sounded a sour note, quickly squelched. But the sound served its purpose, as Chinese officials and representatives from the ASEAN delegation and the US peacekeeping forces also took their seats, at opposite sides of the reflecting pool. Various security staff took up positions nearby.

No one stopped talking, though. The young public relations staffer was sweating through her dark jacket. Emma sympathized from behind the scratchy collar of her Tokyo police dress uniform. This government function had a very strict formal dress code, but Emma wouldn’t have felt right in her US military garb. She wasn’t here as a foreign peacekeeper—she was here as city police, as Miyako’s partner. After all they’d been through over the last few months, the fact that the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had offered Emma one of their uniforms to wear seemed like a gesture of great respect.

Emma continued scanning the crowd for anything out of the ordinary. Tensions had been high all week, following more protests against the new anti-foreign mischief law. On the way over, Miyako had made her partner listen to the broadcast with her. For Emma, Tokyo news lacked the intel she was used to getting from her US case officers, and she found the constant drone of “nothing too terrible has happened lately” frustrating. For Miyako, it seemed soothing. But now, at the governor’s public banquet, For All of Tokyo, as a kickoff to the Iris Festival, they were both on high alert. Even if no crimes occurred here today, the chances for diplomatic faux pas were great.

As the public relations officer shifted uncomfortably by the microphone, Emma watched her mentor and commander from when she’d been with the peacekeepers, Major Santiago Vargas, quietly begin clapping. A few moments later, others at different tables clapped too, all while looking to see what they were clapping for. The trick worked, and soon conversation waned and the assistant was able to be heard.

“The governor of Tokyo will say a few words in greeting before dinner,” she said, and left the platform, relief obvious on her face.

Governor Sakamoto Masahuru passed before the clock tower. “Today is an excellent day, within sight of the imperial palace, and near the central geodetic point for all of Japan, to welcome members of each section of Tokyo for a meal. Meals are a time of coming together, a time for nourishing community.”

Emma looked around as the governor spoke. Motion among the tables caught her eye, and Miyako’s, and Emma opened her mouth to check in with her partner across their shared radio link. But the movement was merely the catering staff placing the first small bowls of soup down, followed by plates of tempura vegetables and soy-sauce-brushed yakitori.

“Welcome, and may this meal symbolize a more unified and peaceful Tokyo,” the governor said, and then took his seat next to his wife and the head of the Diet.

“How is this supposed to represent unification if they’re all sitting on opposite sides?” Miyako subvocalized in Emma’s earpiece.

“It’s a start,” Emma whispered back. “Just getting everyone into the same space is an achievement.”

“As long as that’s what we want . . .” Miyako began to whisper.

“What?” Emma asked. But her partner didn’t reply.

The mood had been tense as each group arrived in the park; many of the Chinese had come in full military dress, or complementary fashions with flap pockets and tactical-style details, and that hadn’t helped. When the last omakase samplers were finished and cleared away, the diners rose. Smaller dessert tables had been placed strategically throughout the gardens and people began to mingle across borders.

Emma and Miyako relaxed a little as the mood lightened while the sweets and wine did their magic. “So many people are here! Even—” Miyako subvocalized. When she went silent, Emma searched the crowd until she spotted a few members of the Chinese delegation presenting athletes to the peacekeepers.

She recognized a familiar face from the photo disk in Miyako’s apartment.

“Fujida Kaori is one of our Olympians,” a Chinese general said, clearly audible to Emma over Miyako’s mic. “China’s support for athletic heroes—especially those in the military arts—is part of our shared culture with Japan. Even our retired athletes. For instance, Ms. Fujida took a gold medal in archery.”

Curious, Emma moved closer, converging on Miyako’s position. As she did, she saw Fujida Kaori wiggle a few fingers in subtle greeting from her hip. She was looking at Miyako when she did it. Emma turned to her partner, who was trying to hide a blush, and subvocalized, “Is that your friend?”

Miyako shrugged off the question. “You’re off your corner, partner.” Miyako’s tenseness triggered all of Emma’s alerts. Even as dusk fell in the park, and the lanterns were lit, Emma worried. Her partner’s girlfriend from the Chinese zone—here? How was this going to affect Miyako?

Emma tried not to hear Charles’s voice in her head, saying that there was a traitor at the station. Instead, she listened in through Miyako’s feed as Santiago greeted Kaori warmly. She heard Miyako swallow loudly on the subvocal audio from her dress uniform collar, and worried some more.

And then she heard Charles’s voice, after a loud trilling sound that signaled the chief liaison was using his embassy override on her communication channel. “Emma, I need you to send up one of your drones.”

“Charles, give me back my radios. I can talk to you just fine without lockout.”

He didn’t respond immediately. Then, “I need your attention on the bigger picture.”

“And you have it. With my radios.”

There was a click and she heard Santiago speaking to the Chinese delegation. His friendly voice lifted her heart. Then Charles’s drawl soured it again. “I need one of your drones on point out by the Uchibori Dori. Now.”

“Just one?” Emma knew she probably should have felt bad about growling at her boss on the American side, but he’d just overridden her comms and she was pissed. “What position?”

“Coordinates incoming,” Charles said, and her sleeve lit up with a map of the road, a car accident highlighted. The map could have overlaid Emma’s sleeve detail of the park with a transparency, but Charles chose to go fully opaque. “That’s a junior member of the special council for anti-mischief. She seems to be all right, but I want to watch her until she gets to safety. The timing is too coincidental.”

“Fine.” Emma activated one of the drones from her quiver, and the small white camera whirred into the air, skirting the trees. It looked like a small moon once it got high enough. Emma grumbled silently. “I have eyes on her. Anything else?”

“Just that.” Charles clicked out, and the map disappeared too.

“I’m not your maid,” Emma said to the silence, suspecting Charles had more than a passing interest in the young politician standing by the car. She was pretty.

Emma almost pushed a joke to Miyako, but she saw her partner circling toward her. She’d tell her in person. The smell of tea, mochi, and sweet plum treats filled the air as another round of dessert came out to the tables. The mood eased further and Emma was delighted to see even Nishimura laughing with someone from ASEAN.

But a moment later, a familiar, cloying scent—blueberry cigarettes—made Emma turn away from the tables. Against the small stone building housing the geodetic point, out of the way of most of the dessert tables, leaned their old friends, the Chinese detectives Liu and Wong.

Wong’s smoke filled the space between them as Liu sized Emma up. “Look here, it’s our favorite police ladies,” he said, and grinned. “You’ve certainly filled out your uniforms since we saw you last.”

“They sent you two as part of the honor guard? Did somebody lose a bet?” Emma snapped back. Wong looked at her curiously and Emma sighed. She hated when her jokes fell in a cultural chasm of her own making.

Emma checked her drone and saw that the junior politician was being helped to safety, so she recalled the small peacekeeper robot. As it rose above the treetops, the drone’s automatic proximity alarms went off. Emma piped its radar to her sleeve and saw several other drones crowding into the airspace above the garden.

Then four gunshots rang out.

Emma heard each shot twice: first with her own ears, which began to ring, and then transmitted through her earpiece as Miyako, now almost in speaking distance, dropped to cover the governor and his wife.

Lanterns sputtered and fell as people began to panic. Teacups crashed to the pavement. A few people toppled into the reflecting pool, and the banquet crowd flattened itself against anything it could, ducking under tables, hiding against the giant clock tower. Emma crouched protectively over a young delegate from China.

Among the panicked screams, there was chanting: “United under any flag!” Over and over again. Emma didn’t recognize the slogan from any previous protest, and she couldn’t pinpoint where the chants were coming from. She turned her head wildly, dizzyingly, as the drone camera spun in her eyepiece as well. No shooter. No chanting crowd.

Miyako murmured over the comm, “They’re using decoy recordings!”

Emma tacked her drone up and left, sharply, crashing it into the nearest enemy drone and dragging it to the ground near the Separation of Powers Clock Tower. The chanting suddenly became noticeably quieter. Good ear, Miyako.

“You’re okay,” Emma told the Chinese delegate. “Stay down.” She attempted to repeat herself in halting Mandarin. The young woman nodded.

Emma rose and sprinted toward the clock tower, but it was too late. The enemy drone glowed blue at the seams, and Emma smelled the sharp carbide smell of something toxic. “Get away from it!” she screamed at her partner and everyone else nearby, just before the drone exploded, scattering pieces everywhere.

The honor guard made up of the Tokyo police had already begun locking down the park. “No one leaves!”

Emma knew the lockdown wouldn’t do any good if the drone command was never found, so she quickly deployed the rest of her quiver, casting their radio frequency search on a wide band setting. Nothing.

Headcounts rang out in three languages as each faction’s security rounded up their people. Names checked off lists, then called, then shouted.

As Emma monitored her drones and the crowd, one name rang in her ears above all the others: “Major Vargas!” A crowd of peacekeepers was gathering on the other side of the clock tower.

She tried to raise Charles on the radio, but there was no answer, so she grabbed the white sleeve of one of the peacekeepers. “Maldonaldo! What is happening?”

“The major’s been shot!”

Act I

The lobby of the hotel was almost as chaotic as the Diet’s North Garden had been. Since being taken over by the US peacekeepers last year, the Hilton had served as their base of operations and nothing else, meaning the staff had gotten used to receiving few and routine service requests. The Americans handled much of their own supply chain due to security concerns—even though Tokyo was nominally a friendly city, there was always something roiling below the surface.

And now that submerged turmoil had burst forth, taking the shape of motile crowds of angry, sad, confused people. They surged through the streets, and it made the journey from the garden to the hotel nerve-racking. Nothing looked to Miyako like an actual mob, but the faces she saw through the back window of the ambulance were not far from it.

Emma hadn’t spoken to Miyako once during the whole ride. She had been vocal, certainly: shouting questions and orders to her fellow peacekeepers, speaking in low, gentle tones to Santiago as he lay on the gurney, his breath faintly fogging the air mask over his nose and mouth. Miyako couldn’t stop thinking about how much his chin jutted out from the bottom of the clear plastic. Major Vargas had always seemed so strong, so solid, so—tall.

But he was still human.

He had been rushed into surgery as soon as they’d arrived, and Emma had disappeared behind a phalanx of armed guards who politely acknowledged Miyako’s Tokyo MPD identification and just as politely informed her that she had no jurisdiction and would have to wait for her partner to return.

Normally Miyako would have listened to a newscast to pass the time, but she wanted to keep her ears clear so she could eavesdrop on anything the peacekeepers might say near her. So she opened a text-only newsfeed on her sleeve, watching various “unconfirmed reports” and information from “sources at the scene” scroll by in what quickly became a blur of useless speculation.

None of her fellow police officers at Ninth Step Station were responding to her messages. Dispatch was doing the best they could, but the news was now reporting that protestors had begun gathering at the police station, outside the peacekeepers’ hotel, and at various Chinese border checkpoints. Whatever time Nishimura could spare away from routing his officers was surely spent calming politicians and bureaucrats.

The governor of Tokyo had also been injured in the shooting—shrapnel in his leg—but had refused hospitalization. There was some speculation that the governor had been the actual target, and Miyako had to put away her sleeve and think about that for a moment.

The attack had seemed so organized—she hadn’t doubted that Santiago was the target. The self-destructing drones, the broadcast message—how do you set up all that but get a shooter with lousy aim? But what if even that detail had been orchestrated, designed to put investigators off the scent? Miyako and Emma had certainly encountered their share of subterfuge and deception recently.

Miyako took a deep breath. She couldn’t work with speculation. She could only work with evidence. The forensics. Motive, means, opportunity. That was what they had to look for. Even if they eventually had to peel back an entire onion’s worth of lies, they could only follow the clues they had.

Her sleeve buzzed, and she raised it, hoping to see a message from the station. Instead, she saw the icon that indicated a text from Kaori, and she froze for a second.

This is from her personal number; it has to be her. That means she’s alive and well. That’s good. But I didn’t check on her in all the confusion at the scene—that’s bad. Is she angry with me? Can I deal with that now if she is?

The buzzing continued. Miyako bit her lip and unlocked her sleeve.

Miyako, it’s Kaori. Where are you?

Miyako exhaled with relief and texted back: I’m safe. Are you? Sorry we couldn’t talk more at the banquet.

I understand. I’m okay for now. Borders closed so stuck on Japanese side. Are you busy investigating crime?

Miyako hesitated, remembering that this was an insecure communication. Working on it.

If you can get away for a minute, can we maybe talk in person?

Maybe. Where are you?

Kaori sent her some map coordinates, and Miyako plotted them on her sleeve, checking the distance and current traffic conditions. It wasn’t far. And she really wanted to see Kaori, to see that she was alive and well.

But what about Emma? Kaori might have been shaken up, but Emma’s colleague—and her friend—had been shot. Miyako didn’t want her partner to think she had been abandoned. Even if she was surrounded by fellow soldiers. Miyako didn’t want Emma to fall back into the arms of the military.

This could simply be a crime. A police matter. Nobody had started a war. Not yet.

One of the peacekeepers called out Miyako’s name from the other side of the lobby. She stood up and sent one final message to Kaori: Can’t talk right now. Police business. Will contact you as soon as I can. Then Miyako put her sleeve in standby mode.

“I’m Inspector Koreda,” Miyako said, walking over to the peacekeeper and holding up her police identification.

The man nodded and waved at the elevators. “I’ve been asked to escort you upstairs.”

“Is Lieutenant Higashi up there?” Miyako asked, following him.

“I don’t have that information, ma’am,” the man said, not looking back as he walked out of the lobby.

They traveled the rest of the way in silence. The elevator let them out on the second floor, the main conference center of the hotel, and Miyako wondered why they hadn’t just taken the stairs. Probably to limit her own visibility among the other Americans, who might wonder about a Japanese police presence in their midst.

Miyako was surprised, when her escort opened the door to a conference room, to see Emma, Nishimura, and Charles Yardley all standing around the same table. She stepped inside, and the door closed behind her. Even more unsettling than this unusual combination of people was the stony silence between them. To top it all off, Emma had removed her Tokyo police dress uniform—she had gotten Santiago’s blood on hers while helping to load him into the ambulance—and was now wearing US peacekeeper fatigues. Miyako was suddenly reminded of how military, how American Emma could look.

“Superintendent,” Miyako said to Nishimura, who nodded back. “What’s going on?”

“We are cooperating fully with the Americans,” Nishimura said. “Is that clear, Inspector?”

Miyako felt like she had stepped into the middle of an argument. “Yes, Superintendent.”

“I want the peacekeepers at our disposal,” Emma said to Charles. She hadn’t looked at Miyako once since she had entered the room. That was concerning.

“Oh, you’re going to be up to your neck in white hats,” Charles said. “I’m assigning you an escort, Lieutenant.”

“Like hell you are. We have work to do. Weapons and shooters to find.” Her tone made it sound like finding them was only the beginning of what Emma wanted to do.

“Have you seen the news lately? Or the protesters outside?” Charles glared over his sleeve at Emma while typing. “We need you and Koreda out there for the optics. US and Japanese staff working together to resolve tensions. But being visible means being a target. This isn’t negotiable.”

“I will need the name of the lieutenant’s escort,” Nishimura said, “so I can also grant them police access to any restricted areas.” He gave Miyako a significant look.

“Sure, sure.” Charles lowered his sleeve. “I’ll get you all the credentials you need. This way.”

Nishimura paused next to Miyako on his way out of the room. “Close this case quickly.”

“We’ll do our best, Superintendent.”

The door shut behind the two men. Emma continued staring at the blank table in silence.

“Well,” Miyako said, pausing to give her partner a chance to interrupt, then continuing when she didn’t, “I never expected to see those two in the same room. Much less agreeing on anything.”

Still nothing from Emma.

“How is Santiago? Major Vargas?” Miyako asked.

Now Emma raised her head. Her eyes were rimmed with red, though any tears had already been banished. “He’s dead.”

Miyako didn’t know what to say. This time, it was Emma who filled the silence.

“The US ambassador and the governor of Tokyo have been going at it. In private, of course. Optics.” She touched the conference table, activating its display surface. “Gotta keep the city from tearing itself apart. Leadership. Display of solidarity. That’s us.”

“Emma, I’m so sorry—”

The table lit up with an aerial view of the Diet’s North Garden. “The ambassador wanted the peacekeepers to take over completely. But that was never going to happen, not with this governor. Not in this city.” She jabbed fingers at the tabletop to overlay sensor data onto the image. “Not with the Chinese right there. All around us. Surrounding us.”

Miyako went over to stand beside Emma so she could more easily read the labels on the overlays, which were all oriented to Emma’s point of view. There were several different colors, indicating where each set of data had come from—US peacekeepers, Tokyo police, ASEAN security, the governor’s bodyguards, public social media.

“I heard gunshots from multiple directions,” Miyako said, scanning the display for audio indicators. There should have been police microphones listening for suspicious activity. “Are we looking for more than one gunman?”

“No,” Emma said, more terse than Miyako had ever heard her. “The drones were decoys. To cause confusion. They broadcast echoes of the actual gunfire. Three shots. One in the governor’s leg, two in—” She stopped and swallowed audibly. “Two in Santiago’s chest. The drones made it sound like as many as twelve shots, according to witnesses. But sonic analysis came back with just three.”

She opened pop-up windows next to all the audio indicators, showing that several of the sounds of gunfire had nearly identical waveforms, and those all corresponded to the tracked decoy drone locations. The three actual gunshots were represented by red lines that converged on a spot far to the northwest of the Separation of Powers Clock Tower.

“That’s across the border,” Miyako said. “On the Chinese side.” Miyako didn’t want to ask whether the bullets had been traced yet. The second missing shipment of guns was still out there, somewhere. Guns that Emma had not been able to find.

“Yeah.” Emma swiped a hand and shut down the display. “The Chinese are demanding that we loop them in to the investigation so they aren’t blamed for the shooting.”

Miyako stiffened. “I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

“I’m afraid it does.” Emma grabbed her jacket off the back of a chair. She peered through the peephole in the conference room doors and muttered, “Fucking Penn and Teller are waiting outside.”

Act II

Through the car windows, Emma couldn’t even see Ninth Step Station’s doors—the protesters were three rows thick on the sidewalk outside. Some held animated signs. More than one read US out of Tokyo NOW alternating with CHINA GO AWAY.

“So much for you Americans being the good guys,” Liu muttered from the back seat. “Welcome to our world.”

Emma grimaced. She knew Liu’s biting remarks for what they were now: existential dread. That wasn’t much better than sarcasm, but it let her feel more than annoyance for the talkative half of their assigned Chinese team. “Thank you, Detective. Enough already. We’ll go around back.”

“That’s what she said . . .”

Miyako turned and glared at the detective. “Show some respect.”

Emma shook her head. It wasn’t respect she needed. Revenge. Justice. Time to mourn Santiago.

The whole ride from the hotel had been like this. Her jaw ached with tension.

Emma shifted the car windows to opaque so they shielded the four passengers from the protesters and their signs. Their vehicle slid into its charging station in the precinct garage with only a few thumps to the hood along the way.

As they entered the service stairs, Emma could feel the pulse of protest beyond the main door.

“They’re not going to get tired of that anytime soon,” Miyako said. Walking the streets with a badge would be asking for trouble. “Better get used to the smell of car batteries and rubber treads.”

“Next time, I’ll drive,” Liu said, while Wong grinned, his teeth biting around his cigarette. In the basement, the tip glowed for a single, illicit moment. Liu continued, “You ladies want to go in the front door, I’ll get you there. We’re good at tight places. Over, under, or through.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“No way,” Miyako said, then whispered, “So gross,” under her breath. Emma climbed the narrow back steps beside her partner, seething.

The two Chinese detectives followed behind. When one of them snickered, Emma thought it might be Wong, finally making a sound, but she pulled Miyako to the side. “You two go on ahead. You know the way.”

Liu and Wong took the lead and nearly crashed into two women at the top of the stairs wearing full-body armor and peacekeeper helmets. It took Emma a moment to recognize them in the atypical outfits. “Brockton? Silverstein?”

The taller woman, Brockton, nodded. “Good to see you again, Lieutenant. Sorry it’s not under more pleasant circumstances.”

Emma pushed forward past Liu and Wong, and waved off Miyako’s questioning glance. “And what exactly are the circumstances, Corporal?”

“Captain Orbach assigned us as your protective detail,” Brockton said. Emma forced down the lump in her throat at the mention of Santiago’s successor. She had seen the captain taking command back at the hotel, but hadn’t had the chance to speak with him in all the chaos following the attack. “We’ll be part of your squad until the assassin is found.”

Emma wanted to argue, but knew it would waste time they didn’t have. “How’s morale?”

“Chief Liaison Yardley is helping advise while Captain Orbach gets up to speed. Mr. Yardley wants you on twenty-four-hour access as well.” Emma let the last part sink in for a moment.

“I’m not staying at the embassy. I have a home—”

“For now, for security, your home is on US territory,” Charles interrupted over Emma’s earpiece. Her jaw clenched. The bastard had never turned off the embassy override. He’d been listening in for hours. “Unless you’d like to be recalled permanently?”

When Emma didn’t answer, Charles continued. “The corporals will accompany you. They’re field-trained in forensics. They’ll be useful.”

Brockton and Silverstein exchanged a look. “Our orders just say to escort you, Lieutenant. We’re not going to do anything but keep you safe.”

“Thank you, Corporals.” Emma turned to the other three police officers, but she was mostly addressing Miyako—and Charles, wherever he was now. “They’ll stay out of our way.”

Emma introduced everyone as they continued up the stairs. When the group rounded the corner so she could see Nishimura’s office, the superintendent’s glare stopped Emma in her tracks. The boss clearly wasn’t happy about their new party members.

“I can get you some tea, Lieutenant Higashi,” Brockton said with a smile. Silverstein hadn’t said anything. “Just show me where it is.”

Liu chuckled. “I’ll show you where—”

Miyako reached out and gripped his shoulder, hard. “No.”

Emma hesitated. Brockton had asked her, and she’d nearly accepted, except it wasn’t her place to say yes. She’d learned at least that much about etiquette within Ninth Step Station.

“I’ll show you the kitchen,” Miyako finally said, after everyone stood around awkwardly.

Brockton, with a long glare at Liu, followed Miyako into the kitchen. When they were all seated—in a conference room now, because Miyako’s and Emma’s desks wouldn’t hold the entire group, Liu cleared his throat. “I have permission to share what Chinese intelligence operatives found in the park, on the expectation that you will also share what you know.”

“Don’t,” Charles said in Emma’s ear.

“We can,” Emma said to Liu, ignoring Charles. “We don’t know anything yet, though.”

When Brockton returned with tea, the Chinese detectives spread their sleeves on the table and displayed their forensic data. All of it had a Chinese national security stamp on it, but not the highest levels of security. Emma knew they were letting the US delegation see only what they wanted seen.

At first it didn’t look like much. Then Wong pointed out one darkened tree on an image with his cigarette. He’d let it go out, but ash dangled precariously. Corporal Silverstein silently nudged an empty tea mug across the table toward him. Wong ignored it.

“This park is just over the drone curtain in our sector. That’s where the sniper was set up,” Liu said. He zoomed closer.

“Did you get prints? DNA?” Miyako leaned forward.

“The shooter destroyed the nest using thermite. The weapon, and everything else, too. They left while it was still melting down. No way to know where they went, but with the borders closed, it must have been deeper into our sector.”

“But . . .” Emma said. She used a fingernail to trace the path from the park to where Santiago was shot. Her old sniper’s instincts kicked in. “That’s a hell of a long shot. I should know. There’s no direct line of sight.” She started thinking about trajectories and doing calculations. “Do we have a better forensics report yet?”

Miyako shook her head once and tapped her sleeve. Not yet, officially, but soon.

“And your man was on the move, shaking hands, and so was the governor,” Liu continued, ignoring Emma. He took a sip of his tea and made a face, but somehow managed to avoid repeating his complaints about Japanese tea. “But we did find one thing though. At the shooting scene. A crushed RFID tag.”

“They tagged him?” Emma couldn’t quite conceal her outrage. While Charles had been concerned about a car accident, someone had marked Vargas as a target right in front of everyone. “And no one saw?” How could she have not seen it? How could everyone have not seen it?

“It was tiny. We found it with a sensor sweep that your people missed. Probably weren’t too thorough with all the”—Liu gave an emphatic sniff and shifted to English—“VIPs.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Brockton said, but Emma held up a hand.

“Hang on. I’m thinking. Are you saying that the tag came with one of the banquet groups?” Emma moved to the police station’s main interactive whiteboard and grabbed a blue digital marker. She began to write formulas and draw ballistic arcs. “Because if an RFID tag was in place, then they didn’t necessarily have to rely on line of sight. They could have taken the shot from the nest you found, even, and angled it to fly over any obstacles and then back down—” She wrote rapidly, her back to the group. There was a click and then she could smell the blueberry scent of one of Wong’s cigarettes, but she ignored it.

“—yes, this could very easily—when we get the ballistics back, if the fragment that hit the governor, and the—other bullet pieces”—she couldn’t say Santiago’s name out loud—“if they’re particulates or they imploded, then this will prove me right. I think it’s a ballistic shot, taken from the Chinese side.”

“Now hold on!” Liu interrupted. “You can’t use a breezy hypothesis to pin this on China.”

“It’s not breezy; this is based on the RFID tag you found and the nest location. It had to be a ballistic shot—I was a sniper; I know how this works. The proof is just basic math and physics.” Emma gestured to the calculations she’d sprayed across the whiteboard and finally turned around. Behind her, much of the department, her two peacekeeper escorts, and both Chinese cops were staring openmouthed at her and the board.

And Miyako seemed to be trying to stifle a very smug grin.

“It sounds like they were trying to limit the casualties on the ground,” Miyako finally said. “This wasn’t terrorism. This was a hit.” She looked again at the data. “I need copies to send to our data miners and to our forensics team. No offense, but . . .”

“Double-check our data, that’s fine,” Liu said, waving his hand broadly. “While you’re at it, I’ll take a list of everyone in Japanese Tokyo with a motive to aim at the governor and destabilize the peace by taking out the peacekeeper, too.”

“Wait just a minute!” Emma said before Miyako could utter a word. She could hear Charles in her ear saying, “I knew it.”

“What about the gangs?” Brockton asked, but she was drowned out when Miyako got in Liu’s face, grabbing his collar. “Look, you, you’re a guest here. Every faction had something going on. Even yours.”

“It’s obvious someone is trying to frame the Chinese.”

“So obvious that it must be because your people are behind it!”

“Enough! All of you, seriously!” Emma yelled. “Maybe the peacekeepers should take over.”

The room fell silent. Miyako looked at her partner in shock. “You cannot mean that.”

Emma bowed her head. “I don’t. This is Tokyo’s lead. I’m sorry.”

Both peacekeeper bodyguards looked back and forth between the partners, suddenly uncomfortable in the room, but the tension eased.

Emma righted one of the chairs that had toppled on the floor, and Liu began to organize the Chinese data so it could be transferred to the data miners.

Yamada and Kensuke burst in.

“Inspector Koreda!” Yamada said. “I need to talk to you, now.”

Emma moved to join Miyako, but Kensuke barred the way.

“I have no secrets from my colleagues,” Miyako said warily. Emma respected her attempt to broker a new peace between all three nations in the room. “Tell me here.”

“Fine,” Yamada said. He sat and splayed his sleeve across a corner of the table, covering Liu’s. On it, Miyako’s text message exchange with Kaori appeared bright against the faux wood and the data-dark Chinese screen. “This was intercepted because your friend was standing near the major. It’s possible that she put the tag on him that the Chinese”—Yamada cast a long look at Liu and Wong—“found.”

“Kaori?” Miyako said quietly. “No. She wouldn’t.”

It took Emma a moment to summon her next words. “There were dozens of people around Major Vargas. You don’t think it could have been anyone else?”

“We have detained several persons of interest,” Yamada said. “Come with us, Koreda-san. We need to question you. It is a matter of procedure.”

“No way.” Emma stood up, remembering the times she had watched Yamada question someone.

Yamada rose too. “What do you mean by this, Higashi-san?”

Emma knew this was a huge risk to the trust she’d been slowly building in the department. But she couldn’t let her partner go into a bad situation. “No one’s questioning my partner except the peacekeepers.” She turned to her security detail. “Corporals, I need you to extradite this detective into US custody.”

“What are you doing?” Miyako whispered, at least as much to herself as to Emma.

“You have to trust me,” Emma replied, thinking: And I hope I can trust you too.

Act III

Miyako was only mildly surprised at the number of protesters now gathered outside the peacekeepers’ hotel. There seemed to be two distinct groups, judging from the signs she could see: one side demanding more US involvement in defending Japan from China, and the other agitating for the US to leave and let Japan handle its own international relations.

Personally, Miyako could understand both viewpoints, but she herself didn’t want to see the US pulling out of Japan completely. Sometimes she thought the always-implied threat of drawing US military attention was the only thing keeping China from pushing their new border even farther into Tokyo. Having American allies on the ground was a good thing.

Even if those allies sometimes behaved like—what was the American expression? Frenemies.

Corporals Brockton and Silverstein stood guard while Emma and Miyako had a private conversation inside the holding area—actually one of the unused hotel rooms on the third floor, which to Miyako’s mind made her captivity bitterly ironic.

Emma closed the door and glared at Miyako, who stood in the center of the room facing her, arms folded. “I don’t need your protection,” Miyako said.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” Emma scoffed. “I’m getting a drink.”

“You’re still on duty.”

“Of water.” Emma went over to the desk and grabbed one of the complimentary bottles. She twisted off the plastic cap and downed the entire bottle in a few gulps.

“I could have handled Yamada,” Miyako said.

Emma crumpled the empty plastic bottle and tossed it into the recycling bin. “Were you going to tell him that Kaori’s your girlfriend?” Miyako didn’t answer. “I got you out of there so you wouldn’t have to waste an afternoon stonewalling in an interrogation box. I need my partner.”

“I suppose I should thank you.”

“Why don’t you just tell people?” Emma stopped pacing and turned to face Miyako. “It can’t be that bad. It’s the twenty-first century. Everyone would understand.”

“Understanding and approval are not the same,” Miyako said. “This isn’t America. Please respect my privacy.”

“I’m just trying to help!”

Miyako resisted saying out loud: That’s what Americans always say. But you always help yourselves first.

The door opened behind Emma, and Charles stepped into the room, holding a tablet. “I need to talk to Inspector Koreda.”

Emma whirled around. “We’re not finished.”

“You can finish later.” Charles was holding the tablet against his torso so Miyako couldn’t see what was on the display. “Would you like me to call Captain Orbach and have him make that an order, Lieutenant?”

Emma fumed for a second, then said, “Fine.” To Miyako, she added, “I’ll be right outside.”

She slammed the door shut behind her. Charles gave Miyako an unconvincing smile. “Shall we sit, Koreda-san?”

“Is this going to take very long?”

“I think you’ll want to sit down for this.”

Miyako sat down in the armchair next to the couch in the middle of the room, her back to the open windows. She wanted to be backlit so it would be harder for Charles to read her facial expressions. She was fairly certain he wasn’t going to give her any good news.

Charles sat down on the edge of the couch and put the tablet down on the coffee table, facing Miyako. He unlocked the screen with his thumbprint, and the display filled with a jumble of file icons.

“The RFID evidence from the Chinese checks out,” Charles said. “Someone definitely tagged Major Vargas, meaning he was the target, not the governor. That ought to help ease tensions somewhat. Now, we still don’t know who planted the tag, but a lot of people saw Vargas glad-handing your special friend. Kaori, is it?”

Miyako held her face as still as she could. “The major shook hands with many people at the banquet.”

“Granted. And it would only take a second to tag him—hell, one of the catering staff could have done it; they just had to walk behind him and brush against him with a tray. The problem is, like I said, a lot of people saw him interacting with Kaori. And she interacted with you. So now the question is, why does a Tokyo police inspector have such a good friend on the Chinese side of the city? Especially one prominent enough to be invited—in fact, featured at such an important event? What’s their connection? And is it affecting that police inspector’s ability to do her job?”

“I’m not bothered by idle speculation. Neither is Kaori.” We’ve certainly endured more than enough of it recently.

“Good for both of you. My problem is, I can’t ignore other people’s speculations. They talk enough and they start to believe what they’re saying, whether or not it’s actually true. And I can’t have them not trusting you. I need you and Lieutenant Higashi free and clear to do your jobs. Both jobs. Unless you want a partner change?”

“No. No partner change.” The thought of working this case without Emma shook Miyako more than she’d expected. “I’m so lucky to have everyone watching out for me.” She hoped she had made the sarcasm clear.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Charles snapped. “You and Emma are the only pieces outside the US mission that I have to play right now. I’m not going to let some street gossip take you off the board.”

Miyako wasn’t sure what to make of that. It was as close to an outburst as she had ever seen Charles come. What game did he think he was playing?

“So I have a gift for you,” Charles continued. He tapped at a couple of files on the tablet, and they expanded into a cluster of emails, texts, and other personal messages. “Something to remove any immediate suspicions from you and Kaori, and redirect them onto someone more . . . politically vulnerable.”

Miyako read through the first few messages and felt her collar growing warm. Her anger increased as she swiped through the remaining pages. She had to take a few seconds to calm herself before looking at Charles again.

“These appear to be private correspondences between Superintendent Nishimura and his son,” she said. “Are they forgeries?”

Charles looked insulted. “Koreda-san, if I were to fabricate incriminating evidence, you’d better believe I would come up with something more airtight than this.”

“You’re asking me to ruin the superintendent,” Miyako said. “This would end his career if it were made public.”

“I’m giving you the opportunity to take the heat off yourself.” Charles stared at her. “And to protect your friend Kaori. The two of you would never recover from such a breach of privacy, but Nishimura will bounce back from this just fine. He hasn’t actually broken any laws. Hell, most of his bosses would even be on his side. A son in the occupied territories? Working to support the resistance against China? They’ll be giving him a medal next year.”

“The city cannot publicly support a police superintendent who has a son in the resistance,” Miyako said. “How can you even consider doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything, Koreda-san.” Charles was actually smiling. “As I said. This information is a gift, from me to you. Feel free to use it as you like. Just don’t forget who gave it to you. And know that I can do more.”

Miyako thought about how Nishimura had mentioned his son in passing over the last few months, and how distraught he had been when he didn’t hear from Itsuki for several weeks. Nobody at the station spoke of it much, out of respect for Nishimura’s privacy, but everyone could identify with having distant relatives living uncertain lives.

Miyako looked back at the tablet. She could certainly identify. And there was a twisted logic to Charles’s proposal. Someone in Nishimura’s position, if compromised by the resistance, would be a much more serious breach in the department than a mere inspector who had chosen to love the wrong person. Nobody would care who had planted one little targeting tag if they thought they could catch the big fish who ordered the hit.

Except they weren’t talking about fish. They were talking about people. Colleagues. Friends.

Miyako looked up again. “So where am I supposed to have found all this information?”

Charles shrugged. “You’re a very good police investigator.” He leaned forward again, looming over her since she had bent down to read the tablet. “You’re making the right choice, Koreda-san. It’s important to protect your friends. I can be a friend too. And I can do a lot to help my friends.”

Miyako sat up straight in her chair. “I want Emma in here to witness our agreement.”

Charles raised an eyebrow. “Lieutenant Higashi is under my command. She’ll follow orders.”

She won’t follow an illegal order. “This isn’t about you. This is about my partnership with Emma. If we’re going to continue working together, we need to be honest with each other. About everything.” She realized she was talking to herself as much as to him. Miyako knew exactly what she had to do.

Charles smiled. “Koreda-san, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

He stood and walked to the door to let Emma back in. She stalked all the way over to the sitting area, her eyes fixed on her partner. Miyako laid a finger on the tablet’s edge, absently tracing its outline. Emma didn’t seem to notice.

“Good talk?” Emma said.

“I think so,” Miyako replied.

“I agree,” Charles said. He had closed the door and now came to stand next to Emma. “But I’ll let your partner explain.” There was that smile again. Miyako allowed it to irritate her for just a moment longer, letting her indignation carry her decision over into action.

“I wanted you both to hear this at the same time,” Miyako said. “And then the three of us can work together to resolve the situation.”

Charles nodded. Emma narrowed her eyes at Miyako. “Okay?”

Miyako stared at Emma. She moved the tablet closer to her. “Last month I witnessed a burglary in progress in the basement of this hotel.”

Charles’s smile crumbled. “What?”

Miyako did her best to contain her satisfaction. “It appeared to be a cell of the Japanese resistance movement,” she continued. “Six young men and women.” She explained about recognizing one of them later at Ninth Step Station—the resistance agent who called himself Sato. “The supplies they were stealing included several crates of American fuel cells.”

Charles glared at Miyako. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m disclosing information relevant to our current investigation,” Miyako said, keeping her own gaze focused on Emma. “Our Chinese friends reported that any evidence in the sniper nest was burned away with thermite.”

“Yeah,” Emma said. “They let the peacekeepers inspect the scene. Our techs came to same conclusion.”

Miyako nodded. “One of those stolen fuel cells could be disassembled, and its chemical components used to produce thermite, correct?”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Yes. That’s right. You’re right!”

Miyako glanced at Charles. She was a bit disappointed that he didn’t seem more furious at her refusal to accept his offer of “friendship.”

“We could have been friends, Koreda-san,” he said. “I want you to remember that. I made the offer, and you turned it down. Remember that.”

Miyako stood and returned his glower. “And you, Mr. Yardley, should remember that I am a police inspector. I solve cases. I take down criminals. That’s my job.”

“What offer?” Emma looked from Miyako to Charles and back again. “What is he talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Charles snapped. “We’re done here.”

“No, we’re not,” Miyako said, surprising herself with the strength of each clipped word. “You never cared about solving this case. Or do you already know who’s behind the shooting? Maybe you even supplied the gun used by the sniper, in another ‘lost’ shipment?”

Charles froze, and in that moment, Miyako snatched the still-unlocked tablet off the table and handed it to Emma. Charles lunged for it, but Miyako anticipated his move and knocked him back onto the floor.

“Forget it, Chuck, it’s Chinatown,” Emma said as he struggled to escape Miyako’s pinning maneuver. “Haven’t you heard? She was in the Olympics.”

“This will not end well for either of you,” Charles growled. “Or Kaori.”

“Kaori is in police custody,” Miyako said. “She’s safe from you.”

The growl turned into a strange chuckle. “Of course she is.”

Emma finished swiping through the files on the tablet and turned to face the duo grappling on the ground. “He wanted you to set up Superintendent Nishimura?”

“He did.” Miyako briefly summarized Charles’s offer.

“How interesting.” Emma worked her sleeve and then bumped it against the tablet. “I’ll just hang on to these files and hope I never have to use them. There’s no evidence here that Nishimura broke any laws, but if I accidentally leaked these to the press—if Japan found out their American friends were spying on private communications? You’d be surprised how quickly I can turn something into an international incident.”

“You think that was my only play?” Charles snickered.

Miyako raised her sleeve so Charles could see the red interrogation recording light blinking. “You think that was our only play, Yardley-san?”

She released Charles and got up, positioning herself between him and Emma. He grunted while struggling to his feet and straightened his clothes before pointing a menacing finger at each of them. “Enjoy your peace while you can.”

He turned, yanked open the door, and stormed past the two surprised-looking corporals.

Brockton leaned into the open doorway. “Everything okay, Lieutenant? We thought we heard a scuffle—”

“Everything’s fine. We’ll be out in two shakes.” Emma pushed the door closed and threw the deadbolt.

Miyako went over to the desk and picked up the remaining bottle of water. She willed herself to drink it slowly, also giving time for her pulse to return to normal.

“Do you really think the resistance could be behind this?” Emma asked Miyako’s back. “Why would they want to kill Santiago?”

Miyako finished her water and turned around. “I think it’s possible. The resistance is not above antagonizing allies in order to inspire outrage.”

“But—murder?” Emma’s voice trembled. “If Japan loses the US as an ally, won’t that make it harder to resist Chinese influence?”

“Some people don’t want any outside military presence in Japan,” Miyako said, hoping her own bitterness wasn’t showing through. “I have to ask you, Emma: Is it possible that Yardley would—sacrifice Major Vargas just to give himself an advantage? To grab power during this crisis?”

Emma’s face contorted with emotion for a moment, then settled into a scowl. “I think Charles is capable of just about anything if he thinks it will serve his purpose.”

“We must conduct our investigation as usual,” Miyako said. “We need to look at the resistance as possible suspects. But with the awareness that they may have been set up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Emma asked. “About the theft in the hotel?”

Miyako felt her chest tighten with anxiety and reminded herself to breathe normally. In, out, repeat. “I’m sorry. It was—that was the first time you brought me here, to your base. The first time I saw how much you Americans had.” She set down the empty water bottle. “I didn’t think you would miss a few supplies. I wasn’t thinking about the other possible consequences. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize at first that the resistance could be involved.”

“I forgive you,” Emma said. “There’s something I need to tell you, too.”

Miyako’s sleeve buzzed and flashed. “This is an urgent signal.” She unlocked the sleeve to see the alert. “What? I don’t believe it.”

Emma stepped closer to look at the message. “Kensuke brought in a collar?”

“A suspect in the shooting,” Miyako confirmed. “Nishimura wants us there for the interrogation.”

“How the hell did Kensuke run this down so quickly?”

“We know some resistance cells are working with the gangs,” Miyako said. “Maybe he found a connection there?”

Emma’s sleeve buzzed, and she looked down at it.

“Same signal?” Miyako asked.

“No.” Emma scoffed. “It’s from our favorite Chinese detectives. Let’s see what—” She stopped, her mouth still open.

“What’s wrong?”

Emma looked up at Miyako. “Liu and Wong have been recalled. China’s pulling all their people back across the border.”

She held up her sleeve so Miyako could read the message herself. Liu ended with: Be careful. You’re in the hornet’s nest.

Act IV

“You can’t go through the main doors. It’s not safe,” Corporal Brockton protested as she stopped the embassy van they had borrowed a healthy distance back from the crowd around Ninth Step Station. “Honestly, getting within thirty meters of that crowd isn’t safe.”

“My work is behind those doors. The suspect is behind them too. Your job,” Emma said firmly, “is now to get me through those doors.” It was annoying that the embassy van was too tall to enter the parking garage.

The two peacekeepers used their vest-mounted sonic baffles to push a gap in the protesters and squeeze Emma and Miyako through.

“Where is the suspect? Send him out so we can see him!”

“Murderer!”

When two shouting protesters carrying hastily modified anti-US glow-GIFs that now said “Out, murderer!” tried to follow them, one of the corporals gently repelled the crowd with a limited-range sound barrier. It wouldn’t cause lasting damage, but it was painful. Emma’s ears ached in sympathy.

“I guess Kensuke brought his suspect through the front door,” Miyako said, her sleeve displaying news footage of the boisterous crowd being held back as a man with a jacket over his head was led cuffed up the station steps.

It was about as unsubtle an arrest as the Tokyo police knew how to make. Emma squinted at the image. “Is Kensuke wearing his medal?”

“Anything that helps, I guess,” Miyako said. But Emma thought she could hear the tiniest of eyerolls in the statement.

• • •

Emma heard Nishimura shouting over the peacekeepers’ bootfalls as her team climbed the stairs, though she couldn’t make out the words until the four of them spilled from the landing and into the station office.

“—didn’t tell anyone the particulars of your investigation! You still have people above you, don’t forget.”

Miyako caught Emma’s eyes and mouthed, “Uh-oh.”

“I didn’t forget.” Kensuke’s voice rang hard off the walls of Nishimura’s office and through the open doorway. Emma wondered if Nishimura had forgotten to close the door on purpose. “I had to move delicately because of the unrest. My informants and other connections are either nervous or belligerent right now. I didn’t want to show my hand until we had a plausible suspect. The result should speak for itself.”

“I’ll decide what speaks—” Nishimura cut himself off when he saw Emma and Miyako standing outside. “You two! In here, now!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma noticed her security escorts twitch. She turned to Corporal Brockton and said, “Maybe you and Silverstein can wait out here.”

Brockton grimaced. “Very well, Lieutenant. We won’t be far.”

“Thank you.” Emma ushered Miyako into Nishimura’s office and closed the door.

“Who is the suspect?” Miyako asked Kensuke. “And how did you find him, Detective?”

Kensuke ignored her and placed a hand on Emma’s arm. “Are you okay?”

“She’s fine,” Miyako snapped.

Emma flicked a warning glance at her: No more judo, please. Then, to Kensuke, Emma said: “Answer my partner’s question.”

Kensuke gave her an injured look and took back his hand. “His name is Nagata Hidetoshi. He has known ties to the resistance and to the Nakajima-kai. We have evidence of him distributing anti-Chinese propaganda, and smuggling goods across the Chinese border.”

He paused, and Emma felt suddenly uneasy. She squinted at him. “We’re looking for a sniper.”

Kensuke didn’t entirely meet her eyes. “He is a plausible suspect. He’s done work of that sort for the Nakajima-kai.”

Emma’s stomach turned. “Do you have evidence of that?”

“We need to close this case quickly,” Kensuke said. “I let my contacts know that, and they gave me Nagata.”

“This is not your case to close,” Miyako said.

Kensuke frowned at her. “The public needs closure. You’ve been out there—you’ve seen what the streets are like. We need to calm the city before the Americans bite off more than they can chew and China decides to get more actively involved.”

Emma shot Miyako another look. I thought we just left this party.

Miyako nodded, then made a What next? gesture.

“Let me see if I understand,” Emma said. “You are proposing that we frame someone for this shooting just so we can try to calm people down?”

“Tokyo is on edge—many edges—right now,” Kensuke said. “I’m proposing we save this city from itself. We are in a position to defuse the situation.”

Emma turned to Nishimura. “And you’re on board with this?”

Nishimura had his arms folded across his chest. “It would not have been my first choice. I’m not happy with how Kensuke did this, but—I have to agree. We must do something to satisfy the public.”

“That is bullshit and you know it!” Emma said, louder than she intended. “We need to do this right, or the killers will get away with murder.”

“Emma!” Miyako grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. Emma caught herself. She hadn’t even realized she was lunging for Nishimura’s desk.

“Look,” Kensuke said, “the Nakajima-kai gave him to me. We can be sure he’ll confess.”

“You’re so trusting of the Nakajima-kai now?” Miyako swung toward Kensuke.

He glared at her. “I trust them more than the Chinese.”

Emma glared at Nishimura. “I’m tired of this. If I have to find Santiago’s killers on my own, I will.”

“We’re not stopping the investigation,” Nishimura said, exasperated. “You and Koreda-san will keep working. We can rescind this arrest later if it turns out Hidetoshi isn’t the culprit. Or, it seems more likely, you find his co-conspirators and we announce additional indictments.

“You can’t take this personally, Higashi-san. This isn’t about the case. This is about doing anything we can to make sure our city doesn’t tear itself apart.” Nishimura looked at her imploringly. “Please. My son—I haven’t heard from him since before the unrest began.”

Emma looked at Miyako. Anger made her voice tremble and she hated that. “It’s hard not to take it personally when my friend is dead and nobody here is acting like police.”

Miyako chewed her lip. “Emma. It’s complicated.”

“No, it isn’t! It’s not supposed to be. Our job is to solve crimes.”

“Our job is to close cases.” Kensuke reached a hand toward her arm again. “That’s not always the same as—”

“Don’t touch me,” Emma snapped. “I won’t do it.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Kensuke told her. “I’ve got him down the hall, all ready to confess. Just walk in there and let him talk. Then it’s done.”

Emma shook her head. She felt it, as strongly as she imagined all of them did—the need for closure. Even if they might have the wrong suspect. It would feel good to put someone away, to have someone to blame for everything that had gone wrong.

But this job wasn’t about feeling good.

Miyako touched her hand to her earpiece, listening to something on the news.

“I want to question him,” Emma said.

Kensuke frowned. “No. That’s not the deal.”

“I don’t care what your deal is. This is my deal.” Emma looked at Nishimura. “If I’m to be part of this department—if you want me to wear your uniform—I want you to remember what it means to be an investigator. To ask the questions even if you know you won’t like the answers. To uncover the truth, whatever that may be.”

Nishimura exhaled. “That is a lovely speech, Higashi-san. But as we learned during the war, words do not stop bullets.”

“Words can stop someone from pulling the trigger.”

Miyako waved a hand. “Everyone! Listen to this.”

With a gesture, she tossed her newsfeed to the main wall. The room’s audio system erupted with sounds of gunfire and shouting.

At last count, more than a dozen armed militants wearing unmarked tactical uniforms have stormed the Diet, the newscaster continued. Council members are trapped in the council chamber. This unknown militia has taken the Diet. Repeat: A militia entered the Diet and is declaring martial law across Tokyo—

The sounds of gunfire and shouting crumbled into static just before the broadcast cut out.