Heiji put a finger to the center of his forehead. "Had the lady's gun in my face. 'Hurry up and tell us the pin,' she says. 'You don't want them to die, do you?'

He flashed a grin -- an echo of the defiant expression he'd worn in his memory. "So I say, 'Kusukawa-san, telling them would only delay our deaths a little. Let's not give 'em the satisfaction.'"

"That's when they shove me over on my side, press the barrel of the gun to my temple, and start counting to five. Out of the corner of my eye, I can just see the woman's finger start to pull the trigger... and that's when my cell phone goes off. It's a coded answer from that detective fella, and I know exactly what the answer means.

So I say to the lady, "'This reply is the answer to the puzzle. I know what the pin is now, but so does this detective. He knows Kusukawa created it, and if ya kill us, he'll know that the three of us disappeared around the same time as I sent him this code. How long you think it'll take him to track down that evidence? The way I see it, you got two options. Buy yourself a couple days by killing us, or take me along to get that proof for you. Then you let us all go. As long as you quit your illegal operations and start over with a clean slate, you'll be safe from us. Naturally, if I do anything suspicious on the way there, you can kill me."

"It took them all a second to realize what had happened. The moment that woman realized she was trapped -- I could see it on her face."