"He's running to die." Kenji shouted, hitting the stairwell door with his shoulder. "We have to beat him there."
The heavy steel door slammed open, banging against the concrete wall. Kenji and Manjiro didn't wait for the elevator. They took the stairs, their boots thundering against the metal treads as they descended from the Executive Floor.
"Kenji, stop!" Manjiro yelled, grabbing the railing as they spiraled down. "Think for a second! If Hideo is going to the Old Dojo, how did he get out? The building is sealed tight!"
"He's the Chief!" Kenji didn't slow down, jumping the last three steps of the landing.
"He knows the codes. He knows the shift changes. He walked out before the order was given. But now..."
A siren began to wail.
It wasn't the distant siren of the city. It was the internal alarm of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. A harsh, rhythmic buzzer that signaled a critical security breach.
"ATTENTION. CODE RED."
The automated voice blared from the speakers in the stairwell, echoing deafeningly in the confined space.
"EXECUTIVE LEVEL COMPROMISED. LOCKDOWN INITIATED. ALL PERSONNEL REMAIN AT YOUR STATIONS. NO EXITS PERMITTED."
"He triggered it." Kenji realized, stopping for a split second on the 20th-floor landing. "Hideo triggered the alarm on his way out."
"To stop the Shogun from following him?"
"To stop us." Kenji said, his face hardening. "He knew we would find the note. He knew we would come after him. He's locking the doors to buy himself time to die."
"Damn it!" Manjiro cursed. "The magnetic locks will engage on the garage gates. We're trapped in here."
"Not yet," Kenji resumed the sprint. "The security protocols have a thirty-second delay to allow perimeter checks. We have to make the garage before the bolts drop."
They flew down the stairs, floor after floor blurring into a spiral of grey concrete. 15... 14... 13.
On the 10th floor, the door to the bullpen burst open. A squad of uniformed officers, weapons drawn, spilled into the stairwell.
"Halt!" the lead officer screamed, leveling his pistol at Kenji. "State your ID! The building is under lockdown!"
It was Sergeant Tanaka from Internal Affairs. A stickler for rules. A man who had been looking for a reason to suspend Kenji for months.
"Get out of the way, Tanaka!" Kenji roared, not breaking his stride.
"Detective Sano?" Tanaka hesitated, lowering his aim slightly. "We have reports of an intruder in the Chief's office. You need to surrender your weapon and..."
Manjiro didn't give him time to finish. The big detective barreled into the squad like a linebacker. He didn't draw his gun; he used his shoulder. He slammed into Tanaka, knocking him back into the two officers behind him. It was a chaotic tangle of limbs and shouting.
"Go, Kenji!" Manjiro shouted, shoving a bewildered rookie against the wall. "I'm right behind you!"
Kenji vaulted over the railing, dropping ten feet to the next landing. He rolled, came up running, and kept going.
"Suspects fleeing on the north stairwell!" Tanaka screamed into his radio above.
"Stop them at the sub-basement!"
Kenji ignored the radio chatter. He focused on the math. Hideo had a ten-minute head start. The Seppuku ritual the preparation, the poem, the cut took perhaps fifteen minutes if done properly.
They were cutting it close. Too close.
They reached the Sub-Basement Level. The heavy fire door to the garage was already beginning to close, the magnetic mechanism humming.
Kenji threw himself at the gap. He jammed his arm and shoulder between the door and the frame. The hydraulics whined, pressing against his bone.
"Manjiro!" Kenji gritted his teeth, the pain shooting down his spine.
Manjiro appeared, sweat pouring down his face. He grabbed the door handle and heaved with a roar of exertion. The metal groaned. Slowly, inch by inch, they forced the door back enough to squeeze through.
They tumbled out into the garage.
The subterranean parking lot was chaos. The strobing red emergency lights painted the concrete walls in splashes of blood color. The giant steel shutters at the exit ramp were lowering, rattling down like guillotine blades.
"The gate!" Manjiro shouted, pointing. "It's closing!"
"The car!" Kenji sprinted toward their unmarked sedan parked in the corner. "Get in!"
He didn't fumble with keys. He had left the fob in the ignition. He threw himself into the driver's seat. Manjiro dove into the passenger side, the door barely closing before Kenji slammed the car into gear.
The engine roared to life, the V6 echoing in the concrete cavern.
"Kenji, the gate is halfway down!" Manjiro yelled, bracing himself against the dashboard. "We won't clear the roof!"
"We're not going under it." Kenji floored the accelerator. "We're going through it."
The sedan lurched forward, tires smoking as they found traction. Kenji didn't aim for the open gap at the bottom. He aimed for the center of the metal slats.
"Hold on!"
The car accelerated. 40 km/h. 60 km/h.
The guard at the booth saw them coming. He waved his arms frantically, then dove out of the booth just as the sedan reached the exit.
CRASH.
The impact was deafening. The reinforced windshield spiderwebbed instantly. The heavy steel shutter buckled under the force of the two-ton vehicle, the metal slats tearing from their tracks with a screech of tortured steel.
Sparks showered the hood as the car punched through the barrier, dragging a piece of the gate with it for a few feet before shaking it loose.
They burst out onto the ramp, the sudden daylight (even though it was grey and rainy) blinding them for a second after the gloom of the garage.
Kenji fought the wheel, correcting the fishtail as the car landed hard on the wet pavement of the street level. Debris from the gate clattered onto the road behind them.
"Damage report?" Kenji asked, breathing hard, his eyes scanning the dashboard.
Manjiro checked the gauges. "Radiator is holding. Tires are good. Windshield is cracked but visibility is okay."
"Good.." Kenji shifted gears, the engine whining as he pushed the RPMs into the red. "Then we're still in the fight."
He looked in the rearview mirror. The TMPD building loomed behind them, a fortress of stone and secrets. Hideo had escaped it to die. Kenji had escaped it to save him.
"You said Hideo went to the Old Dojo." Manjiro said, his voice shaking as the adrenaline crash hit him. "Are you sure, Kenji? If we're wrong... if we drive to Kanda and he's not there..."
"I'm sure." Kenji said, merging onto the main road without checking for traffic, forcing a taxi to slam on its brakes. "Hideo is a creature of habit. And he's a creature of guilt. He isn't going to a hotel room. He's going to the place where he felt cleanest."
"The place where he taught us." Manjiro whispered.
"Exactly." Kenji said. "He wants to end it where he started. Before the promotions. Before the politics. Before the lie."
Kenji gripped the wheel. He could feel the vibration of the road, the hum of the engine. It felt like the heartbeat of the city that was currently dying.
The Shogun had orchestrated this perfectly. He had turned the police against themselves. He had forced the Chief into a corner where death looked like the only honorable exit.
I won't let you have him, Kenji thought, projecting the thought toward the invisible killer. You took the others. You took the truth. But you don't get his soul.
"Get the GPS." Kenji ordered. "Find me the fastest route to Kanda. I don't care about one-way streets. I don't care about sidewalks."
"Calculating." Manjiro tapped the screen. "Traffic is gridlocked in Ginza. The riots have closed the main bridge."
"We'll take the service roads," Kenji said. "We'll go under the highway."
He spun the wheel, drifting the heavy sedan around a corner, the tires screaming against the wet concrete.
The chase was on. Not for a suspect, but for a life.
Chapter 18 Ends - Path of Chase!!