Michael Crichton - Rising Sun

It sounded ridiculous. I said, "You had to be there, Jim."

"Uh-huh," he said. "Well, one good thing so far. I've been checking if correct pursuit procedures were followed. Apparently they were. We have recordings off the computers, and we have voice recordings off the radio, and it's all strictly by the book. Thank God. Nobody even swears. We can release those records to the media if this thing gets any worse. So we're covered there. But it's very unfortunate that Sakamura is dead."

"Yes."

"Graham went back to get the girls, but the house was deserted. The girls were gone."

"I see."

"In all the rush, nobody got the names of the girls?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"That means we have no witnesses to the events in the house. So we're a little vulnerable."

"Uh-huh."

"They're cutting Sakamura's body out of the wreck this morning to ship what's left to the morgue. Graham tells me as far as he's concerned, the case is wrapped up. I gather there are videotapes that show Sakamura killed the girl. Graham says he is ready to file his concluding five-seven-nine report. Is that how you see it? The case closed?"

"I guess so, Chief. Sure."

"Then we can shut this fucker down," the chief said. "The Japanese community finds the Nakamoto inquiry irritating and offensive. They don't want it to continue any longer than necessary. So if we can call it a day, it would help."

"It's okay with me," I said. "Let's call it a day."

"Well that's good, Pete," the chief said. "I'm going to speak to the chief, see if we can head off any disciplinary action."

"Thanks, Jim."

"Try not to worry. Myself, I don't see a disciplinary issue. As long as we have videos that show Sakamura did it."

"Yeah, we do."

"About those videos," he said. "I've had Marty looking in the evidence locker. He can't seem to find 'em."

I took a deep breath and said, "No, I have them."

"You didn't log them in the evidence locker last night?"

"No. I wanted to get copies made."

He coughed. "Pete. It'd be better if you had followed procedure on that."

"I wanted to get copies made," I said.

"Tell you what," Jim said, "get your copies made, and get the originals onto my desk by ten o'clock. Okay?"

"Okay."

"It can take that long to locate the material from the evidence locker. You know how it is."

He was saying he would cover for me. "Thanks, Jim."

"Don't thank me, because I didn't do anything," he said. "Far as I know, procedure has been followed."

"Right."

"But just between you and me: get it done right away. I can hold the fort for a couple of hours. But something's going on down here. I don't know exactly where it's coming from. So don't push it, okay?"

"Okay, Jim. I'm on my way now." I hung up the phone, and went to get copies made.

Pasadena looked like a city at the bottom of a glass of sour milk. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, on the outskirts of town, was nestled in the foothills near the Rose Bowl. But even at eight-thirty in the morning, you couldn't see the mountains through the yellow-white haze. I tucked the box of tapes under my arm, showed my badge, signed the guard's clipboard, and swore I was an American citizen. The guard sent me to the main building, across an inner courtyard.

For decades, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory had served as the command center for American spacecraft that photographed Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, and sent pictures back to earth as video images. JPL was the place where modern video-image processing had been invented. If anybody could copy these tapes, they could.

Mary Jane Kelleher, the press secretary, took me up to the third floor. We walked down a lime green corridor, past several doors that opened into empty offices. I mentioned it.

"It's true," she said, nodding. "We've been losing some good people, Peter."

"Where are they going?" I said.

"Mostly to industry. We always lost a few to IBM in Armonk, or Bell Labs in New Jersey. But those labs don't have the best equipment or funding any more. Now it's the Japanese research labs like Hitachi in Long Beach, Sanyo in Torrance, Canon in Inglewood. They're hiring a lot of American researchers now."

"Is JPL concerned about it?"

"Sure," she said. "Everybody knows the best way to transfer technology is inside somebody's head. But what can you do?" She shrugged. "Researchers want to do research. And America doesn't do so much R and D any more. Budgets are tighter. So it's better to work for the Japanese. They pay well, and they genuinely respect research. If you need a piece of equipment, you get it. Anyway, that's what my friends tell me. Here we are."

She took me into a laboratory crammed with video equipment. Black boxes stacked on metal shelves and on metal tables; cables snaking across the floor; a variety of monitors and display screens. In the center of all this was a bearded man in his midthirties named Kevin Howzer. He had an image on his monitor of a gear mechanism, in shifting rainbow colors, The desk was littered with Coke cans and candy wrappers; he had been up all night, working.

"Kevin, this is Lieutenant Smith from the L.A.P.D. He's got some unusual videotapes he needs copied."

"Just copied?" Howzer sounded disappointed. "You don't want anything done to them?"

"No, Kevin," she said. "He doesn't."

"No problem."

I showed Howzer one of the cassettes. He turned it over in his hand, and shrugged. "Looks like a standard eight-millimeter cart. What's on it?"

"High-definition Japanese TV."

"You mean it's an HD signal?"

"I guess so."

"Shouldn't be a problem. You got a playback I can use?"

"Yes." I took the playback machine out of the box and handed it to him.

"Jeez, they make things nice, don't they? Beautiful unit." Kevin examined the controls in front. "Yeah, that's high-definition all right. I can handle it." He turned the box around and peered at the plugs on the back. Then he frowned. He swung his desk light over and opened the plastic flap on the cassette, exposing the tape. It had a faint silver tinge. "Huh. Do these tapes involve anything legal?"

"Actually, they do."

He handed it back to me. "Sorry. I can't copy it."

"Why not?"

"See the silver color? That's evaporated metal tape. Very high density. I'll bet the format has real-time compression and decompression coming out of the box. I can't make you a copy, because I can't match the formats, which means I can't lay down the signal in an equivalent way that is guaranteed readable. I can make you a copy, but I can't be sure the copy is exact because I can't match formats. So if you have any legal issues – and I assume you do – you're going to have to take it somewhere else to get it copied."

"Like where?"

"This could be the new proprietary D-four format. If it is, the only place that can copy it is Hamaguchi."

"Hamaguchi?"

"The research lab in Glendale, owned by Kawakami Industries. They have every piece of video equipment known to man over there."

I said, "Do you think they'd help me?"

"To make copies? Sure. I know one of the lab directors, Jim Donaldson. I can call over there for you, if you like."

"That would be great."

"No problem."

Hamaguchi Research Institute was a featureless, mirrored glass building in an industrial park in north Glendale. I carried my box into the lobby. Behind the sleek reception desk I could see an atrium in the center of the building, and smoked-glass-walled laboratories on all sides.

I asked for Dr. Jim Donaldson and took a seat in the lobby. While I was waiting, two men in suits came in, nodded familiarly to the receptionist, and sat on the couch near me. Ignoring me, they spread out glossy brochures on the coffee table.