How many human eyes…had snatched glimpses of their secret anatomies, down the passage of years?
ORONTO, CANADA—The music teacher polishes the red lenses of his wire-framed spectacles while the eight-year-old student butchers Franz Liszt on the Fazioli grand piano. A particularly difficult run proves too much for her fumbling fingers and after five attempts she finally concedes by smashing her hands on the keys.
He scolds her for the lack of respect for the instrument. “You must relax,” he explains after sitting down on the bench next to her. His hands move over the keys to demonstrate. “Your fingers are too stiff and your thumbs are too heavy. See mine? Soft, gentle on the keys.” He nimbly plays the same run that had given her such difficulty. “And keep your back straight. Never slouch. It will make your arms feel heavy and your wrists hurt from the angle.”
A steady hum-hum draws his attention to the phone clipped to his belt. “I have to take this,” he says with a smile before excusing himself to the next room. The student quietly plays the piano in the background as he looks at the screen to see a message from an unlisted number. CALL THE OFFICE. He places the phone away and looks back to his student who is demonstrating a marked improvement in her command of the instrument.
It’s a genuine moment of happiness that makes him smile but there’s another feeling creeping in that sours his mood. His heart begins to ache with a feeling of grief, as if this is the last time he will see a student persevere in the face of adversity.
A clash of piano keys breaks him out of his spiraling mood. Her eyes find him and she waits to be chastised for another mistake. He raises his hand with his first finger pointing up and says, “You did much better. Much better. Light touch, but confident. Continue working. I’ll return in a moment.”
She eagerly turns back to the piano. His smile fades and the lines of his fifty-year-old face smooth out. He watches her for a short time longer then turns to leave. In the hallway, his shoes click on the hardwood floor. The walls are mahogany and are decorated with traditional ink wash paintings and photographs of Japanese friends and musical collaborators. Ahead on the right is a fusuma sliding door, a drastic departure from the modest home’s Western architecture. He slides the opaque panel to the right, steps in, and then pulls it closed behind him.
The music quiets to a distant chime once inside the washistu. First he carefully removes his shoes, placing them to the side on a mat, then he crosses the tatami floor of the sparsely designed traditional Japanese room to a simple short-legged zataku desk in the center. His socked feet circle around to the zabuton and gently he sits on its cushion.
A notebook computer is closed on the table, next to an incense burner, a tea set and a small bonsai tree. His eyes close behind the red lenses of his glasses and he sits in silent meditation. The nearly inaudible tick of his watch’s second hand counts to sixty, then he reaches forward to open the computer.
The LCD screen powers on and displays a command prompt. CONNECTION PENDING flashes in kanji. He reaches forward and quickly types in a string of characters and then hits enter.
VOICE PRINT REQUIRED
His English gives way to Japanese, specifically a dialect of the Kyoto region. “Jaku niku kyō shoku.” The weak are meat. The strong eat.
ACCEPTED
SECURE CONNECTION LOADING
The blinking cursor pauses for a moment, waiting for the info-packets to run through his decryption software. The teacher loosenes his bow tie and releases his shirt's top button as the encrypted connection processes through dozens of security checks. After a short time, the CMD window closes and a simple GUI expands to fill the screen with simple text populating a black window.
ACTIVATION CODE: JUDGEMENT
ARM FOR IMMEDIATE DEPLOYMENT
51.04438457585682 -114.06497698590722
PRIMARY TARGET EN ROUTE TO LOCATION VIA UNITED AIRLINES.
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL AT CALGARY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: 0930 HOURS LOCAL TIME.
SECONDARY TARGET EN ROUTE TO LOCATION VIA CHINA EASTERN.
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL AT CALGARY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: 1100 HOURS LOCAL TIME.
TARGETS WILL BE STAYING AT THE FAIRMONT PALLISER.
THEY ARE SCHEDULED TO MEET AT 1645 IN SUITE 1201.
WE HAVE RESERVED YOU ROOM 402.
THE KEY CARD WILL BE IN AN ENVELOPE HELD AT THE FRONT DESK UNDER THE NAME RAMSTAD.
INFILTRATE THE HOTEL.
GAIN ACCESS TO THE SUITE.
ENGAGE THE TARGETS.
TERMINATE ON SIGHT.
UPLOADING DOSSIERS TO YOUR TERMINAL NOW.
In the soft, blue glow from the computer screen he enters a key code into the electronic lock of the lower drawer, then slides it out to reveal a metal strongbox. He removes the lid and, after setting it aside, stares down into the deep bottom at a well-maintained two-tone Ruger KP90 and three spare ammo clips. The gun is sitting on top a layer of bundled hundred dollar bills, next to a stack of passports from Canada, Japan, the US, the UK and France, all his face in the photos but each with a different name paired with matching licenses and credit cards from each country.
He transfers two thousand dollars, the gun, two clips and the Canadian documentation from the strongbox to the desk then replaces the lid and pushes the drawer shut. He’s putting everything in a small tote bag when the notebook screen opens a PDF file. At the top are two photographs side by side.
The first is Chinese tech billionaire Johnny Wu.
The other is Yelena Gorgo.