The hotel’s conference room was packed with what seemed to be every reporter in Japan, wedding guests and no small number of other “interested parties,” anyone who found out about the situation at some point during the night.

  The KFC stood at the back of the room. Yuto had secured press passes. His podcast was amongst the most popular in the country, and, with due consideration given to the size of his audience, he had been granted journalistic credentials. Kenji had wanted to be up to the front, but Hotaru had spoken against it: if they were to investigate the situation and find Kaori, they would do best to remain as inconspicuous as they could be. In that crowd, it was an easy task as long at they didn’t actively draw attention to themselves. It was decided in advance that if there were any questions to be asked, the role would befall to Yuto, while they pretended to be Yuto’s staff, operating the camera/recording equipment.

  Ishiro and Koji had been assigned other tasks and were not present, but they would review the footage together later in the day.

  At precisely 10 a.m., Daisuke, Oroshi and the National Chief of Police stepped beside the lectern. All conversation stopped at once and the room became silent as they bowed. Daisuke stepped up to the microphone.

  He was sharply dressed in a dark suit, probably the one he had meant to use at the wedding, but his shoulders were slumped and he gave an aura of defeat. It was hard to believe he was one of the most powerful and enterprising men in the country.

  Nevertheless, when he addressed the audience, his voice didn’t waver and he kept his declaration short and to the point:

  “Thank you for coming. As you all know by now, my daughter Kaori has been abducted last night, here, in this very hotel. We will now begin the press conference. The Commissioner General of the National Police Agency, Mr. Fujiki Tomohisa, will explain everything we currently know about the situation and will answer your questions afterward.”

  Daisuke bowed and stepped to the side, promptly replaced by the police chief.

  “Mina-sama, Mrs. Matsuko Kaori has been abducted by a man who also assaulted Mr. Mashiro Oroshi,” Tomohisa said, glancing at a still battered looking Oroshi, “This was a highly coordinated operation. The attacker took out the hotel’s security system and killed the security guard with a knife, and as such we do not have video footage of the incident. However thanks to Mr. Mashiro’s testimony, we have a general description of the kidnapper. The man was wearing a mask covering his head, so we have no positive identification, but we do know he was a white male of large stature, approximately 1.8 m tall, and seemingly 30 to 40 years old. My officers will now hand out a police sketch of the man.”

  As he spoke, policemen walked through the room handing out copies of a charcoal sketch.

  Hotaru inspected the drawing carefully. The picture showed a man drawn from behind. He was wearing a large backpack and a full face mask. The man was strongly built, but there were hardly any details to be found in the rough depiction. Still, even that reduced considerably the number of potential culprits. Foreigners weren’t plenty in Japan, to start with, and of those, how many had such a strong physique? His mind was finely tuned from years of work as a computer analyst and made short work of the question. Three million foreign residents in Japan, and three millions visitors during the month of April, but only about 15% of Caucasians, half of which were male, and 35% stayed in Tokyo. Of those, less than 50% were tall enough, and probably less than 10% met the raw physicality, maybe even less…. the list of suspects would be down to about 6,000 people. Too many to check individually, but still, not so many that the task was unmanageable.

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  If only they could find another couple more details… Of course, this was assuming Oroshi’s description was accurate, but the assumption was reasonable. Oroshi was about the same size as the man, so it should have been easy for him to assess how tall he was. He might however have exaggerated the bulk of the man to lessen his shame.

  What was this bastard doing with Kaori in the middle of the night before the wedding anyway and how dare he fail to protect Kaori?

  Hotaru forced his mind to concentrate on the proceedings. By now, most of the sketches were distributed and the police chief had resumed his speech.

  “We have confirmed that this is an abduction and we are treating it as a life or death emergency. We have already established a crisis coordination office within our Chiyoda facilities. A special number and several email addresses have been created for this emergency unit. We urge anyone who was in the hotel or its vicinity to contact us immediately if they remember anything unusual. The number to report any new information is 323. If you are a member of the press and wish to inquire on the progress of the investigation, you can contact the press services of the unit at 333; however please limit yourselves to two phone calls per day. We will keep you updated of any significant progress by email. Please also be mindful of not publishing any information which could potentially help the kidnappers evade police searches.

  This abduction is our top priority and every available investigator in Tokyo is hereby assigned to the case. Thank you very much!” He bowed and moved to step away when he got hit by a barrage of questions.

  Tomohisa hated discussing the details of an investigation, but there was no helping it this time. This was Mashiro Kaori. THE Kaori. He had sighted dozens of private drones filming his crime scene since this morning and the news were already covering the kidnapping non stop since 7 a.m. He might as well give them something. At least in this case, public scrutiny could help. It was very much a numbers game: among the millions of viewers, someone had seen or would see something useful.

  “Yes, you.” he said pointing to one of the journalists, a man from NHK whom he recognized.

  “Do we know anything about how they got away?”

  “We can not disclose this information at this time as it could potentially help the kidnappers escape pursuit.”

  “Kidnappers? Were there several men?” Yuto asked loudly, not waiting to be selected.

  Tomohisa sighed but it was a good question, and he wouldn’t get away without answering it.

  “We believe so. Mr. Matsuko identified only one man, but given the damage in the security room and the quick getaway, it is likely this abduction was planned and executed carefully by several people. For those of you who stayed in the hotel last night,” he said looking at the group of wedding guests, “please stay behind for a deposition. You might have seen something yesterday during the day. Even apparently meaningless details could turn out to be important.

  “This will be all, thank you very much.”

  He bowed and moved away from the podium, ignoring the protests from the horde of journalists waving their microphones.

  This was a career defining moment. Rescue Kaori, and he would be almost guaranteed a solid future in politics. Fail, and he’d have to resign his commission in shame.

  Oroshi and Daisuke made their exit from the room. They would take no questions, but most of the cameras captured Oroshi’s now tumefied eye and his busted lip. The man had been in a fight for sure.