messiah novel (you are in shine, part 28)

[devilism]

On the last day of March Moscow was covered with an extreme cold. The sighs of the people who looked delighted to see that spring was coming around on the calendar seemed as if they were dyed with a white powder.

Kurusu was walking alone on New Arbat Avenue early in the evening.

Although it was sunny, and it had been sunny all day during the daytime, why was it as cold as a refridgerator that hadn't been opened for fifty years?

He was walking to the west. Sometimes the intense setting sun appeared between the high buildings. There was snow and cold ice on top of the power lines, and they fell down in lumps when they were knocked off by the wind. If they were to hit your head, it would spoil your day.

But during the time when Kurusu once had been carrying out secret activities in the North for Public Safety, there was a time where a chair had been falling from above as well. People from the North immediately threw useless things out of the window. He avoided the space under the power lines as much as possible and stuck to the edge of the sidewalk as he thought that if a chair wouldn't fall down, then it'd be snow.

As he passed the ex-Comecon building, he noticed that the cellphone in his pocket was ringing.

".. Is that you, Ichijima?"

From the phone came the voice of his former subordinate who was supposed to be in a faroff motherland.

"What is it? Have the cherry blossoms already fallen?"

"They're still all over the mountains. The town is completely covered in cherry blossoms, you can even still see them in hot springs."

It was a carefree voice, but Kurusu could still sense something in that reply that was more stinging, like Japanese pepper.

"--- I see. Has "Sakura" escaped being dissolved?"

"Thanks to you."

"It's fine if you disagree. Even though I went to Russia, I was only worried about that this whole time. I mean that."

He slowly headed in the direction of the Tverskoy Boulevard.

If he went over the bridge after that, the government office buildings would be visible. He was staying at an Urkainian hotel nearby. The reason he had gone out today was since he wanted to get an actual residence in Moscow.

With his birthday being one week away, Kurusu had retired from the police. He had to return all of his severence pay since they just treated it as him being at his retirement age, and he had gotten too much salary already anyway.

In any case, he already lost his wife long ago, and he had no children. Without any assets to leave behind, he had a small amount of money to spend during his old age. Thanks to being able to use part of his salary, he didn't worry about being able to eat despite not having a pension. But he had a guilty conscience. No matter what excuse he'd make, it was true that he had betrayed Japan.

"I saw the article online. Of all the former army organisations that had been absorbed by the police that were the focus of the disarmament this time, only the inland police base was taken as a central point of focus. As expected, that "it's fine like this" prime minister won't lay a hand on the bases in Okinawa and Hokkaido."

"Unexpectedly that "it's fine like this" way of doing things at the summit was popular with the public opinion. If things keep going this way, it's expected that he'll be able to take the majority of seats during the House of Parliament elections. His approval ratings also greatly improved. That staggering Narashino-san who only says what's appropriate also declared that the Ushio administration would end up being long-term."

"That's something for the old men to decide."

"It seems the higherups have decided to not inform the prime minister that Kurusu-san was involved with the abduction of Ushio Yoshiya and collusion. Well, that's natural. Knowing that you betrayed him, even that prime minister wouldn't say 'it's fine like this."

"That's true."

Kurusu said. White breath showed up against the microphone portion of the phone.

Even now he still didn't regret working together with the North to try and get the prime minister to turn against the antimilitary sentiment at the summit.

He had done it all to protect his beloved police organisation.

If the government kept doing things the same way, cutting finances and reducing personnel, it would have been difficult to maintain the security of the country's people. And not only that, but the national defense would also get wobbly. Japan didn't have a financial trump card like Switzerland. A country without a defense system would get ostracized at social meeting halls, and no one in the world would want to team up with it.

(The plan was perfect.)

Even now he was confident in that. Kurusu, who had been part of Public Safety for many years, was very much aware that joining up with that Kaminski was dangerous, even if it was just temporarily. That was why they tried to reach the biggest possible effect with the least amount of people involved. As long as he kept it small, then even if things went wrong he knew very well that the police and the cabinet both could easily cover it up. 　

Kurusu, who was involved in this plan, could leave the police since he was at the retirement age, so all that was left was Kaminarimon from the SP who had been in touch with Ushio Yoshiya and had been Kurusu's hands and legs in the field. And he was already demoted and transferred to working at a small neighbourhood police station.

Kaminarimon wouldn't say anything to protect his dear position. After all, since the police department didn't say anything about it, it was as if the whole incident had disappeared. He would think that if he'd keep his mouth shut for a few years and worked at the local police station, the higher ups would call him back eventually.

The police department had cut off Kurusu with the blade called retirement age, and Kurusu had given up his severance pay to wipe his record clean.

Prime minister Ushio was completely under the impression that everything was to blame on his son and himself. The government and the party, who had been pleased with the rising approval rates, had thoroughly covered up the fact that his son, Yoshiya, had ran away from home. Ushio Yoshiya wasn't charged for interference with a public servant in the execution of his or her duties.

Due to the whole incident with Kurusu, the police didn't resist the re-disarmament that passed at the summit, and accepted that the military bases would be closed. And the government hadn't interfered with the police anymore than was necessary in order to cover up the fact that Ushio Yoshiya had been a pawn of the North.

Sakura was allowed to continue as it was. The red brick Maru School in Marukogawa was once more planned to have new students, scouted by Ichijima, pass under the arch of entwined cherry trees this April.

Kurusu personally wasn't dissatisfied. Even if the incident was discovered, no one would accuse Kurusu of having done anything.

"As expected of Kurusu-san. It was done from A to Z, I'm impressed."

Ichijima spoke as if he sighed.

"That reminds me, the other day I had a dream about when I went to Russia to practice together with one of your subordinates. Although it was spring according to the Japanese calendar, it was so cold over there that even the inside of your nose would freeze and no snot would come out. Are you walking around there right now as well?"

Suddenly it felt as if a cold wind passed him by, and Kurusu looked over his shoulder. There wasn't any suspicious figure.

(Idiot, there's no way Ichijima would be here in Russia.)

Still, without realising it his feet moved a little more hurried. When he approached the bridge, a strong wind was blowing.

It was safe on top of the bridge. In the middle of the Novospassky Bridge no bullet would be able to reach you from the surrounding buildings, even if someone were to aim at you with a rifle. Moreover, there was no one in this big city who would try to snipe him. The North wouldn't make light of someone like him who had a lot of information about Japanese Public Safety, and the Japanese government just wanted to quickly forget about the whole incident. There wasn't anyone who could make a profit out of killing him here.

He was overthinking. It'd be better for him to get rid of those habits from during his days at Public Safety and not suspect snipers in a place like this.

"That's right. I'm quickly going back to my hotel."

"Sjevtsjenko is there, right?"

For a moment Kurusu's eyes shot up.

Taras Sjevtsjenko was a famous Ukrainian poet. A statue of him stood in front of the hotel where Kurusu was staying at.

(Why does Ichijima know that much?!)

Of course Kurusu was staying there under a pseudonym. That meant that for Ichijima to know where he was staying, he would have had to specifically look into Kurusu's whereabouts.

Why the hell was that?

"Kurusu-san. Certainly there's no other way to describe what you pulled off as brilliant. Everyone was saved due to your consideration. Prime minister Ushio was able to hide the scandal that his own son was a traitor to the country, and Ushio Yoshiya also wouldn't be seen as a criminal. The police department can continue on with the least possible budget cuts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was able to continue the disarmament, and the government party has restored its approval rating due to the amazing speech. But there's just one person who still hasn't been saved yet."

"Just one person?"

Kurusu said it without hiding the annoyance in his tone.

"Ah, ah, I understand, Kurusu-san. Right now you must be looking at the Moscow River with a very "rock"-like grimace on your face, right? The river you can see from there must be pure white, covered by ice. Due to the cold of that place, the river doesn't quite flow like a river usually does, and ships rarely pass by. How nostalgic."

"Ichijima..."

He looked down at the Moscow River from the Novospassky Bridge without realising it.

Just as Ichijima said, the opposite shore was completely frozen white, and the ice only seemed to be floating slightly in the middle, where water could be seen. It was the familiar sight of the Moscow River.

But why did he have a certain hunch? The scent of an odorless poison gas that he had smelled so many times before.


The scent of death.


"Please tell me for the sake of the poor lamb who was the only one who wasn't saved during this incident. Did you call Kaidou Akira seven years ago, who was in charge of sending money to a terrorist organisation?"

When he heard those words, his consciousness started probing around in his head, dragging out a single memory.



"--- This is Kaidou Akira-san, right? This is a matter of Public Safety. Erm, how should I say it, it's the police. And not just the police, but the part of the police that's looking for ideological, communist and religious terrorists. Yes, it's terrorism. That counts for you as well. You're in charge of sending money to the Caucasus Liberation Front. Ah, we don't have to be this serious about it. That thing has already been investigated a long time ago. Yes, you're right. You're certainly not doing anything wrong. Besides, there is no harm to Japan's national interests. The problem is that Russia is jumping at the throat of those people in the Caucasus you're worried about. But Japan always takes a neutral stance when it comes to Russia. Sometimes they act as friends, sometimes they quarrel. They're like classmates. They pretend to be friends when they have to for a school trip. On the contrary, when there's a test and they're rivals.. that's when they harm each other. What's unfortunate for you, is that Japan and Russia just entered a short honeymoon phase. So they said they wanted something in return for agreeing on discussing the Northern Territories issue. .. That's right, it's information on the Caucasus Liberation Front that you're involved with. We had no other way, so we prepared various things for them. We gave the Russian intelligence agency information about you and your current address in Setagaya."


Although it had been some years back, Kurusu still strangely remembered all of it word by word.

"They acted quickly, and two days later those people had already come to Japan.

Of course to see you. The North had already gotten hard enough of a time from the Caucasus Liberation Front, and they had to now decide where the next Olympics venue would be as well. They had to quickly crush all of this. Kaidou-san, surely you must be with your wife and child. It's too bad.."

It was easy to imagine what kind of hunch the scared Kaidou Akira would get when he heard those words.

"When you said 'too bad', you predicted that Kaidou Akira would be mentally driven into a corner and that he would commit suicide as a result of that. That's what you were aiming for."

".. That's right."

Kurusu affirmed curtly.

"Kaidou Akira really didn't have much information about the Caucasus Liberation Front. The North didn't really feel like sparing personnel for such small prey. That's why they asked the Japanese government to clean it up instead."

"... Kaidou Akira wasn't a bad person. I thought that it was unfortunate, but I couldn't save him."

"So you drove him into a corner on purpose so he'd commit suicide. The result of that was--"

Kurusu closed his eyes.

He knew he couldn't say what had happened as a result. Kaidou Akira was cornered, got deranged and took his family along with him in death with a gun.

"The man who was present at that time was perhaps the fake Egor Ginzburg.. The one called "Charo" or "Zvezda"*. It wasn't Mitsumi Haku's older brother, who was told by Kaminski to undergo plastic surgery. Kaidou Eiri remembered him. The suspicious figure he saw and Zvezda have similarly shaped ears."

You could change your face as much as you'd like. But the distance between your eyebrows and the shape of your ears is much more difficult to change.

That's why spies were trained to recognize people by those parts of their face.

"Why did Zvezda go to the Kaidou house? Perhaps the North was doubting Japan's ability to carry out the plan, or perhaps he didn't have a lot of information and wanted to make sure. Either way, it wasn't just Kaidou Eiri's father who killed his family. It was you, Kurusu-san, his real enemy."

"That's right."

"At least even if you dealt with Kaidou Akira yourself, it could be said that Kaidou Eiri's mother and very young sister were killed by their deranged father. It's easy to tidy up such an unfortunate incident. In fact, for us it's nothing more than an incident. But what about Kaidou Eiri?"

Ichijima paused on the other side of the line. Haa, a sound of a deep exhalation was heard.

"Only he can't be saved. If things stay like this."

"... Ichijima."

Kurusu looked at the sky without realising it.

"Hey, Kurusu-san, you're the one who laid the foundation for Sakura. In Japan no organisation is legally allowed to kill, even if some, like the police, are allowed to possess guns. That's why you told us to not call it murder, but instead "purification". Murder is purification. That's why this is a purification for him."

Kurusu already realised what Ichijima was saying.

"Kurusu-san, Kurusu-san. I'm honestly scared to hang up the phone. But this is my duty. My duty as the chief of Section Five to keep protecting Sakura. So let's carry out our professional duties and seperate ourselves from those guys who keep saying "it's fine like this." Kurusu-san. What do you see from there? It must be nostalgic. You taught me a lot of things. About the cold in Moscow too. Many spies that die in that country called Russia, which loves torture and sniping, actually die unexpected deaths."

Kurusu tried to return to the road he came from--- And then a pure white line shone in front of his eyes. He momentarily lost sight.

He didn't notice that on top of the tall guardrail of the bridge the scope lens of the telescope that Kaidou Akira had given to his son as a present had been installed.

A strong wind ran over the water of the Moscow River with the speed of an ice skater. That wind was directly blowing against Kurusu from the front as he was standing on top of the bridge.

A sound rang out inside of his head.

Something hit his head. Furthermore, the back of his head.

A paintball--- Kurusu thought. A paraphine bullet without any painting ink in it.

But even if it wasn't an actual lead bullet, it can still give quite a shock if it's shot from a rifle.

Especially if it's shot in the same direction of the wind, you could succesfully hit anyone on top of the bridge as long as you had a good view. And if that person was onlucky, they could fall off the bridge---

(Ah.)

'Farewell,' he could hear. The next moment the cellphone fell from his hand.


There was the sound of water, and a moment later there was a scream.

Since the hurried people who were rushing back home were looking directly towards the setting sun, it took a while for them to release that someone had fallen off the bridge. As they thought the sound of the water was odd, one person, and then two people bent over the guardrail on the side of the bridge and looked down.

Before long passerbys would scream from a distance that someone had fallen as they came to the middle of the bridge. The uproar grew bigger and bigger.

.. It's true, I saw it. A man with a large build staggered and fell off the bridge. He really fell. I saw it too! Eh, again? There's been so many recently. Who has fallen off the bridge this time? I wasn't here though. Ah, I saw it on the news. Wasn't it a foreign Japanese tourist that fell or something? It was a Japanese person. The corpse still hasn't been identified yet. It's not something like a tourist. Hey. The information was in the lower part of the newspaper this time. He was shot in the right arm, but wasn't on the criminal list. If anyone knows anything, they have to contact the immigration office---

The people sighed in one voice.

Ah, how unlucky. Not being saved when you'd fall into the Moscow River on such a cold day---

The citizens of Moscow who happened to pass by felt pity from the bottom of their heart for the unlucky man who had fallen off the bridge due to a gust of wind. But they were looking forward to having the police car that rushed over after the report and the relief boat on the riverside as a topic for dinnertime.

A little distance away from where the man had fallen, there was still a mobile phone rolling about. None of the people notice it was still connected.


A breath and then a voice came from the receiver.

"It's just like you said, Kurusu-san. -- If a spy dies in the North, it's usually because they froze to death."　


( back to index. )

notes:

* The kanji for reads "star", but the furigana say Zvezda.