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10:44
I turned away from the panicked people in departures and looked Uncle Kentaro in the eye: “Thanks for never doubting me.” “Well, I wouldn’t say never…” he said. I poked him in the ribs. “You are not...
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11:55
I checked my phone. Five minutes before my noon meeting with the yakuza. I’d picked the most public place I could think of: Route 6, the busiest road, with buses to Tokyo if I needed to get away, and...
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12:32
I didn’t want to get in the car again. The car was their territory. The street, for the moment, was mine. But I needed the truth, and this was the only way to find it. “Hey, the car dries up pretty...
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12:49
I could see Sgt. Watanabe reach for his gun as he stared at the passenger door, waiting for it to open. In a moment I’d be in handcuffs and looking at jail and the hangman’s noose. I had done nothing...
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@HikHayNewz
The views expressed by HikHayNewz are my own and do not reflect my employer’s. You know the drill @HikHayNewz So, I’m working on the prime minister story and the earthquake. 1 hour ago HikHayNewz But...
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2:55
When I came to, I was leaning heavily on Uncle Kentaro. To anyone watching, we must have made an odd couple. But as we entered Ueno Zoo, dozens of families with small kids were far too engrossed...
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3:07
He complained, but I insisted Uncle Kentaro round up Emi and her chaperone Aunt Tanaka and go to the most crowded, and therefore safest, place—the queue for the pandas. Actually, I sent him off because...
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3:14
I leaned over to check Blackmore was dead. I thought better of touching him. His chest wasn’t moving and a pool of blood was forming under his head. I grabbed his backpack and opened it. He had cashed...
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Epilogue
Even through the tobacco-stained windows of Uncle Kentaro’s place I could easily make out the red and white JAL logo on the side of the jumbo jet as it streaked across the sky, high above Lake...
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Truth, lies and acknowledgments
Investigative journalist Jake Adelstein once astutely tweeted: “Abiko is not so much a place, as a state of mind.” This is both true and false. Abiko is a place, and a damn fine one too, on the eastern...
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