The Case of the Mad Scientist

Chapter 21: Break-in

“We found nothing to indicate that Dr. Sorren is working at Koriyama Pharmaceutics.”

Blaze was facing all of us the next morning in her hotel room. “I called my boss and he said that they had no further information about where Dr. Sorren may be, so we should continue to check out Koriyama Pharmaceutics. Aiko will help us with the next step.”

Aiko stood up. “Koriyama Pharmaceutics has a manufacturing plant in Koriyama. That plant is regularly inspected because it is producing medicines that are sold around the world. I called the department that does these inspections and established that the last inspection was a week ago. I spoke with the man who did the inspection, and nothing resembling DNA research equipment was found.”

She looked at the faces around the room. “We know that he is probably not at their research labs - those have been checked out by Blaze and Sled. I am trying to locate any additional facilities owned by that company, but it will take time. In the meantime, there is one other possibility that is worth checking out. Blaze?”

Blaze took the floor again. “Thanks to Aiko’s work, we have found that Koriyama Pharmaceutics’ owner, one Janichi Watanabe, has a large house not far from Yoriyama, on a Lake named Hibara Ko. Stella has her first show tonight and, although I would love to attend, I think Sled and Aiko and I should go to check out this house of his.”

I nodded agreement. I was itching to get into action again.

“So we leave this morning and, depending upon what we find, Stella and Tara may come up tomorrow. If we find nothing, we’ll come back.”

Stella had to go on with her show; that was our cover in this country. Besides, she really wanted to help the disaster victims.

Blaze and I packed our overnight bags again, just in case we had to stay up that way overnight. That didn’t sound like too bad an idea with me. Maybe I could talk Aiko into sharing a room with Blaze and me. She was a cute girl and didn’t seem to have a bad figure. I wondered if she knew the French term, Menage a Trois?

could talk her into

covering much of the same territory as our prior trip but turning off before getting to Koriyama and heading west. We stopped for lunch in a city called Kitakata, supposed to be famous for its ramen noodles. Well, that’s what Aiko

find the address, but all we could see was a big gate guarding a house that could not be seen behind the trees.

but Blaze beat me

hotel, but I was disappointed when Aiko, who was speaking for us, being better at Japanese than we were, ordered three separate rooms. It didn’t seem like a good idea to make a fuss at the time, so I went along with it. Blaze, I was happy to note, seemed disappointed

I waited out the afternoon, hoping that Blaze would drop by for

and, surprisingly, so did Aiko. The two of them giggled and said something about being a pair of ninjas or something. I noticed that Aiko has a short sword in her belt but no gun. I had, of course, Wilma

the woods. The pines and elms were thick, which gave us good cover but also made it hard to tell where the house was. I finally found it by the noise. Someone was playing music loudly enough to guide us to the house. There was a barbed wire fence but some of the posts had sagged or been pushed

a door below the first floor, so I figured there was a basement. I whispered that fact to Blaze who agreed that might be a good place to break in.

or my skills were getting rusty. After ten minutes of trying, the door still refused to open. At that point, Blaze nudged me aside and reached up

a key. I brushed the dust off and inserted it in the lock. It was, of course, the right key, and the door obligingly opened for us. Blaze was lucky that Watanabe

by twenty foot room lit by a single overhead light. Along two walls were jail cells! Three on one wall, and three on the other. Each cell was tiny, no more than a couple feet in any direction. Two of the

late teens. It’s hard to tell with them. She was wearing only panties and a bra, and was handcuffed as well as locked in. Aiko came up and spoke to the obviously frightened girl. After a few sentences, she translated

kidnapped in Tokyo and

locked in handcuffs but someone had added a third pair connecting her wrists and ankles behind her: a steel hogtie. The woman looked up at us with a wild look in her eyes. She rolled on her side and struggled to try to get up, which she could not. So hard were her struggles that I was sure she was hurting her wrists and ankles from those steel cuffs. But she didn’t seem to care. The look in her eyes was pure desperation. At first I figured she was simply glad to see someone other than the kidnappers and was eager to get free. But then she hissed some words in Japanese,

When I heard nothing, I turned to Aiko.