Remote Control Read online

  "T lungs are finally calming down, but trattic is still at a standstill aiul the city is in chaos." T he announcer's voice was tense; he had ob'iously been injured in the exj)losion.

  Toru watched the screen intently, vaguely aware that 1 lodogaya had turned tfjward his own T V and j)ut on his eaiphones. The l)r()adcast was jumpy and

  REMOTE CONTROL

  confusing, with a constant soundtrack of honking horns and barked orders from the police—clearly not the program the producers had planned—but as he watched, Torn began to grasp what had happened.

  Kaneda, who had been elected six months earlier as the first opposition party candidate to become prime minister, had been riding through downtown Sendai when a remote-controlled model helicopter had appeared from the top of a textbook warehouse and descended toward his open limousine. As it neared the car, it had exploded.

  The TV station replayed the event again and again, as though the footage spoke for itself: the blast, the nearly unrecognizable remains of the car, the big zelkova trees in the median snapped in half. Apparently no spectators had been killed since the avenue was wide, but a number of people had been injured in the ensuing paiiic, and some were still unconscious. The bodies of the prime minister and his wife had not been positively identified, the announcer said, but the fact that he already referred to them as "bodies" seemed to say it all.

  "Shit," Toru muttered, and knew that he'd be watching TV for a while. It was lucky to be here in the hospital—what better place to watch the after-math unfold? Still, until they had something concrete to report, the talking heads on the tube were like dogs worrying an old bone. Eyewitnesses were apparently easy to come by, since just about everyone who had been present was trapped in the congestion and roadblocks and had little to do for the time being but wander around. Most of them talked excitedly about the noise and smoke at the moment of the explosion, and about what they did afterwards. In most cases, this amourited to nothing more than running as fast as they could, but they all seemed eager to tell the story. A number of young people came on claiming to have caught the explosion on their cell-phone cameras, but when the images were put up on the screen, they were disappointingly grainy and indistinct.

  T he prime minister's number two man, Katsuo Ebisawa, ventured out just once. He was nearly seventy, but he was built like a rugby player and whenever he had appeared with the much younger Kaneda, he had looked like his bodyguard. All he would say now was that the government was gathering information and that the police would report soon, before he vanished from sight.

  THE AUDIENCE

  At 2:00 P.M., the police held a press conference. For the media, and for Torn sitting in front of his TV, it was the first substantive moment in the coverage. The official who appeared before the cameras was from the National Police Agency rather than from the Miyagi Prefectural Police. He was introduced as Ichitaro Sasaki, the assistant division chief for General Intelligence in the Securitv Bureau.

  "Title sounds like a software upgrade," Torn heard his roommate say without removing his earphones. "And he looks like Paul McCartney." He was responding to Sasaki's baby face, big, droopy eyes, and mop of curly hair— Toru had to admit there was a resemblance. "Wonder if Paul's up to the job?" Hodogaya added.

  Questions were fired at Sasaki one after the other, but he just glanced at his watch from time to time and said next to nothing. Eventually, this strategy' seemed to subdue the reporters, and he answered a few questions briefly but authoritativelv.

  "Where did the helicopter come from?" asked one reporter.

  "We think it came from somewhere in the textbook warehouse."

  "Can you be more specific?"

  "Possibly from a window, or from the roof. We're looking into that now."

  "Roadblocks have been set up along all the highways," another reporter broke in, "and train service in and out of the city has been susjKmded. T his isn't an investigation—it's a blockade. Won't this create havoc for businesses, not to mention for the citizens of Sendai?"

  Sasaki didn't bat an eye. "At the present time, we don't know who did this or how many of them there are, but we have to prevent them from leaving the city if at all possible, l or the next few hours, we are asking for understanding and cooperation from all the affected j)arties, including the trans-{)ortation industry. Once the proper checkj)oints and investigatory measures are in j)lace, we believe we'll be able to resume train service and open the roads. Our prime minister has been murdered, and those res|)onsible are still at large. I'm alraid scjme inconvenience is inevitable. Woukl you rather tluit we worried about the etlect on |)rivate individuals and businesses and let the killers go free in the j)rocess?" He stared .it the reporter who h.id asked the question. "11 that's what you're proposing, 1 think we have a lew ciuc'stions ol our own lor you."

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  ''Are you cooperating with the Miyagi Prefectural Police?" someone else asked. "Is it normal for the National Police to step in so soon?"

  "Is there some reason we shouldn't be here?" Sasaki shot back. "The prefectural police are providing their full support," he added. "It may be an odd way of putting it, but the fact that the crime occurred in Sendai is the one bright spot in this tragedy. Thanks to the Security Pods that were installed here last year, we've been able to collect a great deal of information, and I'm convinced we'll soon have the culprit or culprits in custody." Then he basically gave the networks their marching orders: "In response to this crisis, we are asking the media to cooperate in gathering information from the citizens of Sendai and passing it along to the authorities. You can play a vital role in encouraging public vigilance."

  The commentators on the news special immediately began to review the press conference, while the announcer recapped the situation. Torn got out of bed and hobbled off to the bathroom on his crutches. After emptying his bladder, he stopped for a cigarette on the way back. In the smoking area, too, the assassination was the sole topic of conversation.

  "It's the title that really matters. When you give something a name, you create an image for it, and images influence people." The speaker, seated on a bench along the wall, was Toru's neighbor, the middle school student. It occurred to Toru that the boy shouldn't be here even if he wasn't actually smoking.

  "What are you talking about?" he said, sitting down next to him.

  "Kenji here's wondering when they came up with this 'General Intelligence Division,"' said the boy, pointing at a wrinkled older man. "He says they used to call it 'Public Safety' or 'Central Investigation' or something like that." Toru was mildly impressed that the boy called the old man by his first name, too.

  "When did they change it to General Intelligence?"

  "Three years ago," said the boy. "When they reorganized the Security Bureau."

  "How do you know so much about it?"

  "You have loads of time to read up on stuff like that in here," he said. "Seems there was too negative an image with 'Public Safety,' and 'Peace-Preservation,'

  THE AUDIENCE

  'National Security/ and the rest of them. They all sound a little scary—1 guess some people in Japan are nervous about anything with 'national' in the title." Toru had never heard a kid talk like this, and he realized it made him uncomfortable. "So," the boy continued, "they needed something vaguer, a bit more abstract, and 'General Intelligence' was born. When you hear the name you're not exactly sure what they do, but everybody knows 'intelligence' is important. So the division that handles it must be okay. Anyway, it sounds a whole lot better than 'Public Safety,' that's for sure."

  "Says who?" said Toru, lighting a cigarette.

  "You've heard of 'appreciation payments'?" said the boy.

  "No." The kid was beginning to get on his nerves.

  "You must have, Toru," he said. "That's what they call the money the government supposedly pays for the upkeep of American soldiers stationed in japan. When people hear 'appreciation payment,' they feel like it's some sort of charity they're giving to the troops th
emselves, but the truth is the money goes straight into the U.S. treasury. Another example of strategic naming. You get it all the time, tricky words like 'appreciation' or 'hometown' or 'youth' or 'white-collar.'"

  "Is that so, professor?" Toru said, unable to take much more of this.

  The boy frowned. "Well, all 1 know is that the politicians and the rest of the big shots never tell us much of anything; everything happens behind the scenes. But we'd better keep our eyes open—you, too, Tbru." He looked at the old man as well, as if to say "Including you."

  Perhaps because the boy had lumj)ed them together this way, the old man seemed to decide that he and Toru were now friends. "You know," he said, "they put those Security Pods in everywhere, and they're keeping track of everything we do, but nol)ody seems to c()mj)lain ... to me, that's the really scary thing."

  "1 guess," said Toru, sounding only vaguely interested. He blew out a thin stream of smoke. "But they're probably better than a higher crime rate. T hat's why they put them there in the first jilace."

  "But what about that serial killer? All that 'intelligence' and they still haven't caught him." A string ot murders starting about two years etiiTier hatl been the excuse the authorities used to make Send.ii the test city lor the new surveillance system.

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  A number of people had been stabbed to death in the area around Sendai Station, always on Friday night. T he victims were young and old, male and female—a middle-aged man whose face had been slashed, followed the next time by a young woman whose head had almost been cut off. Since all the bodies had been mutilated with knives or blades of some kind, people in the city began referring to the killer as "Cutter," and before long the facetious nickname had given its unseen owrier a kind of creepy familiarity. There were also several victims who survived the attack, and they reported that after he had cut them, he put his face down next to theirs and yelled "Surprise!" This bizarre behavior added to the terror, but it fueled curiosity at the same time. Eventually, the whole country was talking about Cutter, the Sendai serial killer.

  The police searched frantically, but Cutter left few clues, and the fact that he was an equal-opportunity killer made profiling difficult. More thari a year and twenty victims later, they had little to go on. It was said that a special unit had been deployed for the investigation, and that the officers in the unit had been authorized to use means that went beyond the normal scope of the law. It was unclear what that involved, but to date it had not resulted in Cutter's capture.

  At one point, some monthly rag ran a picture with the headline "Cop Confronts Cutter." The grainy image was straight out of a comic book: a gun-toting officer chasing a grim-faced, middle-aged man in a suit. The caption was corny enough: "Wounded Cutter, escaping by the skin of his teeth, vows revenge. Killer remains at large in Sendai." But the speech balloon above Cutter's head—"Surprise!"—was over the top, and no one paid much attention.

  Then, a local network affiliate caused a fuss by trying to get an exclusive interview with the killer. Apparently, a man claiming to be Cutter had contacted the station and offered to give a tell-all interview. The station had beeri skeptical at first, but after a good deal of back and forth, they began to think they were dealing with the real thing. They invited him to come to the studio, promising not to inform the authorities; but in the end, someone on the staff apparently decided this was a bad idea and called the police. The man who claimed to be Cutter was arrested when he arrived for the interview, only to turn out to have no connection with the crimes. The TV station was criticized for compromising ethical standards in pursuit of ratings, and a number of senior people lost their jobs.

  THE AUDIENCE

  Still, media shenanigans aside, the citizens of Sendai were terrified of this phantom killer and stopped going out at night, with the result that business at bars and restaurants dropped off drastically. In due course, when the daughter of a local business owner was murdered, a bill was proposed in the national assembly to ''restore peace and security by the introduction of mechanical means." The fact that the business owner's son-in-law was a veteran member of parliament for the ruling party probably had something to do with the hasty way the bill reached the floor of the Diet, but given the circumstances there was no public objection. After all, who was going to quibble when so many innocent people were being killed? Under normal circumstances, this kind of conspicuous invasion of privacy would have caused a violent outcry, but Cutter's yearlong reign of terror had apparently convinced Sendai, and perhaps the rest of japan along with it, and the measure sailed through the assembly.

  Soon after its passage, "data-gathering terminals"—the Security Pods— began appearing around the city. They were designed to increase the quality and quantity of information available for crime prevention and investigation. In practice, the pods recorded and stored a picture of almost everyone who passed near them, day or night. They also kept track of user information for transmissions from cell phones and other mobile devices.

  "In America, they passed the Patriot Act right after 9/11. . . ." T he boy was still holding forth.

  "Has a nice ring to it," said Tbru.

  "But it's another example of strategic naming. It sounds good, it's 'patriotic,' but in reality it lets the government record telephone calls and emails and just about anything else, no questions asked."

  "What do ycm mean?"

  "In the |)ast, when they susj^ected someone was up to no good, they got a search warrant and then they could gather information on that person. Now, no one knows who's a terrorist and who's not, so they gather information about everybody and then decide who's suspicious. The whole game has changed, in America and everywhere else."

  "I thought Americans cared a lot about their freedom."

  "But wouldn't most |)eoj)le agree to more government surveillance il Ihey

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  thought it could prevent terrorism? Look at us: nobody said a word when they installed the pods in Sendai."

  "I don't think anybody thinks of it like that," said Torn. "They just want that murderer caught."

  "I'm sure you're right. But you know what I think? 1 think they cooked up the whole Cutter thing."

  "Cooked it up?"

  "They needed an excuse to put in the pods. I'm sure of it. Japanese people will put up with almost anything if you frighten them enough. The whole thing just sounds fishy. What killer is going to yell 'Surprise!' as he chops your head off? It's right out of a manga."

  Torn laughed. If only the world were as simple as this kid made it out to be. "People can't be fooled that easily," he said.

  "Then how did all those pods get here?" said the boy.

  As soon as he got back to his room. Torn put on his earphones and turned on the TV. A telephone number, fax number, and email address flashed across the screen along with a message asking anyone with information to contact the studio. There was something almost offensive about the email address beginning "kaneda_scoop(a"

  But tips—often contradicting one another—were beginning to come in and were immediately broadcast. A tall man with a face mask had been seen talking suspiciously on a cell phone in the crowd before the parade. Several men in suits had been studying a map on the observation deck of the building across from the station. Two men were arguing in a white car parked on a street near the site of the explosion. Two other men, one clearly wearing a disguise, had been heard talking about a sexual assault on a pedestrian bridge. A young woman in the crowd had suddenly started waving just before the explosion. . . .

  One of the announcers on the news special wondered aloud whether passing along all these reports before they could be confirmed might add to the confusion. The moderator seemed caught off guard by this and had no response other than to frown angrily, but one of the news analysts jumped in almost immediately to rescue him.

  "In the first few hours after an incident of this nature, it's important to lay

  THE fiUDIENCE

  out all the cards
on the table and get the large view, without ignoring any possibilities. If you start out being overcautious, you can end up delaying the investigation." What he meant, of course, was "If it's good for ratings, who cares whether it's true or not."

  About this same time, Makoto Ayukawa called a news conference. Though Kaneda had beaten him handily in the election for prime minister, his Labor Party, which had governed Japan for most of the postwar period, still held a substantial majority of seats in parliament. Ayukawa was utterly composed on camera, the very image of the head of the dominant party.

  "The late prime minister is, Tm sure, in all our prayers." His voice was quiet and dignified. "1 would like to emphasize," he continued, "that in this time of crisis, we put aside party differences and unite behind the effort to bring to justice those responsible for this atrocity."

  "1 bet Ayukawa did it!" laughed Hodogaya. They had turned off the TV and started dinner.

  "You think it was payback for the election?" Torn said. It had clearly been humiliating for Ayukawa, who had been counting on a third term as prime minister, to lose to an opponent as young as Kaneda, but he doubted he would have gone as far as assassination.

  They turned on the TVs again when they'd finished eating. Some experts on remote-controlled helicopters were now being interviewed, men who fiew the models in and around Sendai. T hey were a strange assortment—an older fellow with a handsome shock of white hair, a businessman type in horn-rimmed glasses, a young guy in a grubby T-shirt who could have been a student.

  "It's a 90," said the white-haired man as they watched the tape of the explosion. T he rest of them nodded agreement. T hey were apparently discussing the size of the engine on the helicopter.

  "(^an you tell what model it is or the maker?" asked the interviewer.

  "It's an Ooka Air Hover," said the young man, his voice going shrill from eagerness oi nerves. T he others seemed to concur. T hey watched the lootage over and (wer, asking tor ditlerent camera angles or a wider shot, and they added details about the helicopter, the kind ol gyro it usetl, the type ot mulller.