The Case of the Mad Scientist novel Chapter 21

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?

Maybe I could talk her into practicing escapes with Blaze.

My mind filled with such fantasies, we set out in Aiko’s car. The trip was pleasant enough, 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 said.

We drove along the lake and managed to find the address, but all we could see was a big gate guarding a house that could not be seen behind the trees. We did, however, mark places where we could hide the car and still be near his house. Then we returned to Kitakata.

I was about to suggest that we find a hotel and check into a room to wait until night, but Blaze beat me to it. Aiko did not object, because she said it would give us a “base of operations”.

We found a clean enough looking 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 also.

My room was on the small side but clean and with a western style bed. I waited out the afternoon, hoping that Blaze would drop by for a little escape practice, but she didn’t. I found out later that she and Aiko went out shopping! Women!

After dinner, we drove back to the lake and parked behind some trees not far from the gate. Blaze had on her black commando outfit again 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 tucked under my coat. A good Private Dick doesn’t leave home without his best friend.

We waited for a long while to make sure that we had not been spotted. Then it was off into 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 up by tree growth. It was not too hard to find a spot where we could slip through.