HA3 3.4 – Another Vital Clue
Shorimachi rented a small lodging two blocks from Nichiko metro police HQ. His room was on the first floor, and when he heard a Lan Evo stopped in front of his room he immediately came out to check it.
As Takayuki got off from the Lan Evo, Shorimachi said, “Come in. Let’s enjoy some tea while talking our next move.”
“Yes,” Takayuki replied.
A moment later the two already sat in the dining table, being accompanied by a pot of tea and a plate of short bread. After taking a sip of his tea, Shorimachi put forward two small zip lock packs in front of Takayuki.
“This is sample of ammo remains from Kamui’s office. Agent Goto gave it to me in our first meeting,” Shorimachi casually said. “I know some dudes who know about firearm circulation in underworld. Agent Goto want me to dig some clue from them.”
“So, we will meet with those dudes today?” Takayuki asked.
“No,” Shorimachi firmly replied. “I already got enough clues from my younger brother and confirm a few things from my underworld contact.”
“What clues?”
“Get your notes and pen.” Shorimachi took a sip of his tea before adding, “I will tell you the detail and you will write the report for Agent Goto.”
“Understood.”
Without delay Takayuki took out a small notes and a pen, while Shorimachi pointed at one of zip lock pack.
“This one has cheap cartridge, cheap primer cup, cheap powder, but deadly projectile. The gunsmith use silver and some other expensive stuff to alloy the projectile jacket, and if you fire it from 10-inch barrel SMG like Uzie, it will defeat most body armor from two decades ago. Eisrel black ops unit from that era used it a lot.”
“An armor piercing round?” Takayuki asked as she tilted her head to the side.
“Yeah.”
“Even if it’s an outdate tech, armor piercing is still not common round. We can use it to track the crew who used it.”
“We can’t, or to be precise don’t need to,” Shorimachi firmly said. “My underground contact told me that Kamui Finance regularly buys this type of ammo.”
“So, this is Kamui Finance’s ammo, and not the crew who attacked them.”
“Yeah.” While pointing at the second zip lock pack Shorimachi continued, “This one is the ammo use by the attacker, and we can use it to narrow down our search.”
“Does this ammo have unique characteristic?” Takayuki curiously asked.
“It’s very unique.”
After taking a deep breath, Shorimachi repeated the explanation he got from Naoto. The trace on the cartridge lips showed that it used cheap lead cast projectile. However, the cartridge case, primer cup, primer charge, and the powder were anything but ordinary.
The base alloy to produce the cartridge and primer cup was the same brass that was used to produce 10 Ren coin. It was also being used to produce domestically-made military cartridge case. It was high-end material that made the recycle process became easier and cheaper.
However, it was still not good enough for the gunsmith who supported the attack. He added some touch and material to elevate the brass to another level. This additional step made the cartridge case and primer cup possessed higher hardness, but flexible enough to be resized to its original dimension without trimming or turning.
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Note that before you could reload a cartridge case, you had to resize it back to its original dimension. However, for most used cartridge case, resizing wouldn’t be enough to fully put it back to its original dimension. Resizing could slightly thicken the neck and you had to trim and turn it a little bit. That’s why there is a limit on how many times you could reload a used-cartridge before its neck became too thin.
But, the cartridge case used by the crew that attacked Kamui’s office won’t need the trimming. You only had to resize it and it would without fail returned to its exact original dimension. Meaning, they could reload their ammo indefinitely and polished their firearm skill as much as they wanted.
The primer cup also had seating depths and primer charge commonly used in world class shooting competition. Only a freak gunsmith would apply such extreme standard on pistol round that was used on a raid, where regular ammo was more than enough to get the job done if the shooters were well trained.
“One thing is sure,” Shorimachi calmly closed his explanation. “Working with brass for many years will leave certain mark on your fingertips. Someone who possesses remarkable high-level gunsmith will also definitely leave some record or trail.
This dude can’t just stay under the radar and then suddenly pop up out of nowhere. If we are lucky, maybe this dude is already inside NFP watch list as soon as he entered the country, far before he joins the crew we are looking for.
The forensic report for the ammo remains will came out in three days. Let Agent Goto and Takuya crosscheck it with our info, and track the gunsmith using NFP database.”
“Understood,” Takayuki firmly replied before curiously asking. “Senior, how can your younger brother have deep knowledge about firearm?”
“He is SDF shooter and a firearm freak,” Shorimachi casually replied. “Whenever we go drinking together, he will keep blabbering about latest development in firearm industry.”
“I see.” After a moment of silence, Takayuki put forward a brown office envelope to Shorimachi. “Senior, when I returned to office yesterday, Chief Kondo gave me this file. He said it’s from Agent Goto and maybe it will give us some lead.”
Shorimachi nodded and said, “Give me the summary about what it says.”
“Right away.”
Without delay Takayuki recited the file summary. It was personal info of a woman name Hanna Kitagawa. On the surface Hanna work as fitness adviser and assistant trainer in Beauty & the Beast. She was also in charge of financial management and sport betting under this sport center.
While under the surface, she was a big time launderer and her main customers were underworld main player. Her specialty was helping underworld dweller to make money legally using their not so legal money.
She directly participated in Sakura Project, a huge urban redevelopment project that was to be expected would give Nichiko an economy boost. Coincidently, two players who also took part in Sakura Project unexpectedly received fatal attack.
The first player was Toruma Mafia, which now had to lay low. The second player was Kamui Finance, which not long after they took part in the project they suffered fatal attack and lost all their top management. Until now, the motive to stall Sakura Project was still unknown, but there was a possibility Hanna would become the next target if the perpetrator wanted to stop the project for good.
As for her lifestyle, it was too simple and didn’t match her high income. She had nice apartment and car, but other than that she wore modest clothes, ate modest food, and showed no interest in extravagance party. Meanwhile, her romantic life had tendency to short lived, and she never let the man she dated to come to his apartment. This pattern remained solid for a few years.
But several weeks ago, she let a high school kid to stay in his apartment. This high school kid was Uesugi Hidetada, a sophomore in East Nichiko High. Record showed that Hide undergone a body development program under Hanna’s guidance and even had MMA class for professional fighter.
Once Shorimachi heard about Hide, he gave Takayuki a signal to stop and said, “In short, subject is an alpha rich bitch who suddenly has an urge to have a pet boy.”
“Yeah,” Takayuki slightly nodded before adding, “But there is something interesting about Hide.”
“Does he come from broken home or he has tragic circumstance that forces him to become male whore?” Shorimachi nonchalantly asked.
“No,” After a short pause Takayuki explained. “Several weeks ago, he managed chasing away two goons from Torra Security who tried to take over the heavily drunk Hanna from him.”
“How did he do that?” Shorimachi curiously asked.
“No detail about the incident, but Agent Goto’s snitch emphasized that the goons have to receive major treatment for knifes wound they suffered.”
“So, two idiots got stabbed by a high school kid who defended a heavily drunk woman.”
“They were not just two idiots, but top fighters and shooter in Torra Security.”
After taking a sip of his tea Shorimachi mockingly said, “No matter how good your fighting and shooting skill, if a high school kid managed to give you major knife wound, it’s a clear sign that you are just a fool.”
“I see.”
“Well, let’s talk to them directly.”
“We can’t.’
“Why? Does Chief Kondo forbid us?”
“No, they died in the Villa Tigera raid. They were in the same car as Takeshi Torumada.”
“Damn!” Shorimachi weakly cursed.
After a moment of silence Takayuki asked, “Will we shadow Hanna or will we chase other lead?”
Shorimachi didn’t reply right away. He took his time to take one of Hanna’s latest picture, and his eyes instantly widened as he found the boy who stood next to Hanna was the boy he saw in his last hidden CCTV last night.
“Is this boy Hide?” Shorimachi asked while trying his best to hide his shock.
“He is,” Takayuki casually replied before taking a sip from her tea cup.
“Let’s shadow Hanna and this kid,” Shorimachi replied.
“Understood.”
“And just a little reminder, when we are in the office, let’s not talks about our parallel investigation or put any file about it in our table. We will put the file here. I will prepare some room later.”
“Got it.”
After sending the info about ammo remains to Goto, Shorimachi and Takayuki then went to their office. They stayed in their table for a few minutes, and then went to shadow Hanna.
*****
Author’s note:
The next update will be on first week next month. Update for which work? I can say for sure. Right now I have four works: TF Amethyst, Hide & Aizawa, Simple Cook, and Smoking Skull, and I write them without schedule or plot, which work I will write for the week it’s entirely depend on my mood.
So, I can’t say for sure update for which work I will have at first week of next month. All I can say is that each month I will try to get 10 new chapters of combine works from 2-3 works.
Thank you and Best regards.
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Side notes: In case you are wondering why I write without schedule or plot, well, it’s pain in the butt to follow schedule and plot.