Diane Joplin sat in the van listening to the discordant melee of the voices. The voices were not in agreement. One of them had risen above the din and instructed her to slide open the doors of the moving van and jump out. Yet, the other voices, her mother』s and ohat sounded vaguely like her father』s, told her to be patient. All the while, she kept her eyes trained on the man with the smooth long face who had saved her from the Yakuza. There retty girl driving the van and from the way she was switg lanes she looked like an excellent driver. Diane wasn』t sure, but she thought she heard the man refer to her as Seven, which she cluded was an odd name even firl. It had to be a code name, she figured. They』d dropped the two identikit heavies off not far from Kabukicho and then the van had driven up one of those flyovers.
The man, who had told her that his name was Fouler, had tried hard to reassure her that she was safe. He was n to make a phone call from the van but seemed to be having trouble eg. He was on speaker phone and she could hear the ph, make a screeg noise and then end in a series of beeps. The man was getting exasperated. He』d turned out to be English although his at wasn』t the same one she』d heard English people use in America.
Diaurned her attention to the soles lining one side of the vao the equipment sat a gray box with a label that read 「Fuel Cells. Hah Care!」 It looked like the box roviding power for all the puter equipment but Diane wasn』t sure. It looked too small. Some of the monitors showed various maps around the world, some of which she reized, and there were these blinking dots ohat she could swear she saw moving but she couldn』t be certain because they didn』t really move much. The smell of the van reminded her of her father』s den in Boston. It was that not unpleasant smell of hot pos and plastic. The English man called Fouler seemed to have made a e.
「Hello, Director Ryan, please,」 Fouler said, giving her a knowing stare. Diane had no idea what that was all about.
「I am afraid Director Ryan is oher line,」 a middle age-sounding female voice said.
「Tell him this is Bruce Fouler. Believe me he』ll take my call.」
「OK, hang on a sed.」 The voice sounded hesitant but Fouler laced on hold. Advertising messages about the FBI started ing from the speaker of Fouler』s phone. He was calling the director of the FBI. The voice that had asked her to jump from the van started whispering things to Diane. She would be handed over to the FBI and she would go to prison for a very long time. Were these guys FBI? Diane had never heard about English FBI agents yet the van and the equipment fitted the mould. Then the FBI ads stopped.
「Bruce, it』s been a while. What I do for you?」 The voice sounded jovial, nothing like the way Diahought FBI agents sounded like, especially in the movies.
「The Professor Joplin case that the CIA is all excited about but seems to be getting nowhere with might be about to draw to a close. I have something that will give the FBI the upper hand,」 Fouler said.
「Oh, that. They found out that it was the work of the Boston fa of the Japanese Yakuza. Their DNA was all over the professor』s house and we have extensive files on these guys. We pulled them ierday and after a bit of coaxing they spilled the beans. It seemed the professor was on some Yamaguchi-gumi hit list. For what, we don』t know. These guys just took orders from Japan. The missing daughter was taken