Episode 4: Treachery
It is determined through Aiko’s infiltration into Julio’s bar that Fish is hiding at a fertiliser factory called Minedani Chemicals. Ammonium nitrate explosives are being produced in the factory with the fertiliser ingredients. On the other hand, Hina is removed from the investigation and instructed not to contact Aiko.
Sumimoto and his team are caught off guard during surveillance and trucks packed with two tons of explosives get away. The international counter-terrorism conference is exposed to the threat of terror. In the factory, Kanazawa discovers the numbers ‘827’ written with blood on the floor. It might be a clue left by Sumimoto’s collaborator, Nick, who has been kidnapped.
Ariga hears about the situation from Sumimoto and decides to take special precautions ahead of the conference. He alerts Muramatsu who recognises the gravity of the terror threat, but becomes impatient with his refusal to disclose the source of this intelligence. In response, she turns to Kurata for help. It appears that he had been her junior at university.
Meanwhile, Julio comes to the salon to apologise to Aiko for his behaviour the last time and expresses his wish to see her at the bar again. Learning about their encounter, Sumimoto tells Aiko to disregard Julio. Progress has been made in the investigation and she will not be given further assignments. However, Aiko seems to enjoy meeting Julio. She visits him at the bar, paying no heed to Sumimoto’s words.
Sumimoto turns up at Aiko’s house and questions her motives. He warns that Julio will kill her if her identity as a collaborator is exposed and urges her to resume her old life, but Aiko dismisses the possibility because Julio has lost his heart to her. “Don’t you want to know what he said to me?” she asks Sumimoto, who leaves without a word. So Aiko contacts Hina instead and passes her a memo to hand to Sumimoto.
At that moment, the Prime Minister’s residence receives a package addressed to Muramatsu. It contains a type-written message, ‘Call off the International Counter-terrorism Conference’ accompanied by a severed human ear!
Then, Nick’s dead body is discovered by the police and it is established that his DNA matches the blood used to write the numbers ‘827’ on the factory floor. Sumimoto is notified. Confronted with the sight of Nick curled in a fetal position, the usually cool-headed Sumimoto staggers back against a wall and sinks down to the ground in a rare display of vulnerability. Nick’s death is a blow to him.
Sumimoto asks Ariga to provide Nick’s widow and unborn child with generous compensation, but Ariga’s response is, “Nick Watanabe is a person whose link with the police has been erased. No compensation will be given. Don’t tell his family about his death.” It is no different from the time when Sumimoto’s father died. Sumimoto explodes in anger.
Hina approaches Kurata and offers to help him. Before that, she desires to understand Sumimoto’s hatred for the Public Safety Division. Kurata discloses that Sumimoto’s father, Eiji, had also been a spy hunter. When Sumimoto was 12, his father was poisoned just before going on a mission to Moscow and became comatose. He never regained consciousness and died three years later. Sumimoto’s mother later committed suicide. Fearing that it would blow up into a diplomatic dispute, the government and police covered it up as death from illness rather than death in the line of duty. Ariga had been scheduled to go to Moscow and Eiji had volunteered to go in his place.
Hina wants to take Aiko back from Sumimoto and formally register her as a collaborator but Kurata worries that the organisation will be in jeopardy if Aiko is exposed. In an attempt to convince Kurata of Aiko’s value to the Public Safety Division, Hina shows him the memo that Aiko had passed to her. Julio had written down the details of his telephone conversation on a note pad, and Aiko had taken the piece of paper beneath it with his handwriting imprint. The words ‘Owada housing complex’ are on it. Aiko had also overheard Julio say over the phone, “I will send you the booster.”
Sumimoto and his team have also obtained a tip-off on ‘Owada housing complex’. Kanazawa discovers that the number plate of a truck parked at the perimeter matches one of the vehicles packed with explosives that had got away during an earlier surveillance at Minedani Chemicals. As Sumimoto glances at one of the blocks within the housing complex, it occurs to him that ‘827’ refers to unit 827. Posing as a property agent, his man Otomo learns from the building manager that a foreigner had moved into the unit four or five days ago and brought many barrels with him.
Sumimoto asks Takizawa for a technical officer from the Tech Research Section to be dispatched to the housing complex. The next day, an X-ray scanner used to scan the contents of the truck determines the presence of round barrels filled with chemical agents weighing one ton. The whereabouts of the remaining ton of explosives is unknown …
That night, Aiko makes her way to Julio’s bar again. When Sumimoto’s man, Morinaga, tries to stop her, he is suddenly accosted by a group of men in suits and beaten up. Morinaga calls Sumimoto to alert him.
Sumimoto confronts Aiko who flaunts the fact that she had recorded Julio’s telephone conversation. “You need me, do you understand? You cannot get rid of me,” she says. Then Hina arrives to retrieve Aiko and firmly tells him to keep away from her collaborator since he did not have the confidence to manage Aiko right from the beginning. Sumimoto whips out the photograph that Kanazawa had taken of the bloodied numbers ‘827’ and shows Hina the way Nick writes the number ‘7’. It is different from that in the picture. “This is a trap to manipulate us,” Sumimoto declares as he stalks up to Aiko. “You’re being fooled by Julio!” Aiko vehemently denies his accusation. “In that case, you’re his woman!”
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