[Thomas Caine #1] Tokyo Black by Andrew Warren

up from the folder.
    “Kusaka has a daughter, mid-twenties, mother unknown. Apparently, she’s fallen in with a bad crowd. Gangs, yakuza wannabes, that sort of thing. She stole some money and papers from his safe about a month ago and disappeared. Nobody’s seen her since then.”
    Caine continued flipping pages in the file. He sighed. “Why on earth are you getting involved in this? Japan run out of cops and private eyes?”
    “According to the report, Kusaka hired four private eyes to find her. The body of one was found in Tokyo Bay. The other three simply disappeared without a trace. And Kusaka claims the authorities are burying the case due to yakuza corruption in the department. Bottom line, Kusaka refuses to release his intel unless we help him find his daughter. And like I said, we’re on the clock. We have seven days, including today, to make this happen.”
    “And you believe this intel is real? You trust him?”
    “Doesn’t matter what I believe. Bernatto believes him, and he’s calling the shots.”
    Caine’s head jerked up, and his eyes zeroed in on hers. The dark shadow of death that lay just beneath his handsome exterior glowered with menace. “Bernatto? Allan Bernatto? He’s your boss?”
    “Director of HUMINT. He’s placed me in charge of a new group, Extra Departmental Assets Liaison, or some other bullshit title. Basically, I get this done, or it’s my ass.”
    Caine dropped the folder on the bench next to him. “And a disgraced traitor in a Thai prison is the best you could do?”
    She looked down at her taupe leather flats. “I was hoping you could tell me something, anything….”
    “Hoping I was innocent? No, that’s not it. You were hoping I could sell it to you. Because deep down, you didn’t believe it, but you want to. So you can use me. Like Bernatto.”
    She looked up. “What do you mean?”
    “Bernatto was my handler on Operation Big Blind, the op that got my partner killed. The op where he sold me out to the White Leopard clan.”
    “Bernatto sold the heroin? He actually used agency assets to facilitate a personal drug deal?”
    Caine turned his back towards her. “I’m not saying anything. Get someone else.” He shuffled away.
    “Tom, wait!” She moved along the fence, trying to keep him in sight. “Tom, just tell me what happened! Please!”
    The clink of his chain grew quieter, then disappeared. She heard the metal crash of a gate slamming shut. He was gone.
    She was alone again in the courtyard. The garden was quiet, save for the buzzing of insects and the distant sounds of men, and metal, and pain.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Caine opens his eyes, and he is back. Back in the crumbling stone basement. Back where the harsh sunlight pierces through the cracks in the rock. The thin slices of light burn so bright, they are painful to look at in the darkness.
    The chain of the rusty cuffs is slung over a hook in the ceiling. His wrists ache, and the rough metal bands have rubbed his palms raw. His feet dangle about a foot above the sandy floor. Every muscle in his body is taut and screaming. He can not remember the last time he has slept. But nor does he seem to be fully awake. A prisoner now, his state of mind hovers somewhere between life and death.
    He has no idea where he is. His captors have moved him several times, always covering his face with a dirty hood. He does not know when they will come again. All he knows are the lies he has to tell. The truth is forbidden. His life, his suffering, is nothing. He has to tell his lies. That is how he can win. The only way left to him.
    He has lost the ability to see emotions in his captors, though he knows they are there, hidden in the men’s shadowed features. Hatred, of him. Horror at the atrocities they inflict upon him. Fear. Flickering glances of doubt. Tiny reminders that these are not demons, not monsters from hell. Human beings are doing this to him.
    But he can’t see them anymore, those minute glimpses of humanity. Maybe