November 6, 2008. 10:32 PM. Hostage Negotiations.
Montag had run hell for leather to the parking garage the moment Ryuk had departed.
At this time of night in Nerima, traffic was uncongested, and the cameras were largely out. Montag took full advantage of the speed advantage while he could: in the better-recorded parts of the city, you never could tell when some poor copper needed to fill a kill quota.
At the stop lights thereafter, he took the opportunity to put together a last text to Bigwiggins, piece by piece:
[Remember that you still have Near. Use your head in there.]
A minute ago, as he entered a professional office park, five blocks from the next turning, the sound of the rotors declared the helicopter had homed in on his position.
Whiskey Echo, he told them. I'll have you land on the roof of that three-storey white building five blocks down.
<We copy you, Whiskey Echo,> said Scintillation. Very professionally, perhaps to make up for things.
Thank you. Maintain silence.
He then dialed the kidnapper.
Montag. NHN. I've come bearing the page, but there's been an accident on the way, and I am injured. I fear there is no way I can reach you in time: you will need to come to me.
He named the intersection of the next turning. Because he had eluded Phantasme, he specified also that the girl must be present.
And after he had hung up forthwith, he secured his phone, unbuckled his seatbelt, went loose as a drunkard, and bore into the pole at the next turning at 120 kilometers per hour.
Both masks remained on him, but the outer took the brunt of the windshield as he crashed through it, and he noticed, as in slow motion, a crack running down it, as pain shot suddenly through every point where he hit the pavement. Particularly the right side at the wrist, pelvis and shoulder.
(Four years gone, L, and even your memory has the capacity to beat me hollow. In point of fact... it's the same shoulder.)