The road outside the terminal was quiet. Milton turned away from it and led the way north until they reached a transit shelter with a screen advising that the next bus was not due for another hour. Milton set the suitcase down and looked around. He had ordered a cab and was becoming concerned that it might not arrive when he saw a car in the distance. It had an illuminated sign atop it. Milton stepped out and flagged it down.

The driver wound down his window and leaned out. “Mr. Blair?”

“That’s me.”

The driver didn’t comment upon the incongruity of picking up two passengers outside the port at five thirty in the morning. He popped the trunk and Milton loaded their case inside. He opened the rear door for Sakura and then slid inside next to her.

“You want the airport?” the man said, looking down at his phone.

“Yes, please. Fast as you can. We’ve got a plane to catch.”

* * *

The drive to Ninoy Aquino International took less than twenty minutes. They spent most of the journey in silence. Sakura was pensive. Milton guessed that she was thinking about her son and whether the mess that she had found herself in could be fixed. They arrived at the drop-off and Milton paid the driver, collected their case and led the way into the building. He had already purchased tickets on the next flight to Tokyo, but it wasn’t boarding for another hour. They passed through security and found a small outlet next to the gate where they could sit down and get breakfast.

Sakura peered at him over the rim of her coffee cup.

“What’s up?” he asked her.

“What are we going to do when we get there?”

“Do you have a safe place to stay?”

“My father’s house.”

“No,” Milton said. “That’ll be the first place they look. We’d be better in a hotel.”

She nodded. “I can book somewhere. The Gracery, maybe?”

“Where’s that?”

“Shinjuku. The centre of the city.”

“Busy?”

She nodded. “It’s big. A thousand rooms or something like that.”

“That sounds ideal.”

“I’ll book it.”

Milton gave her his credit card. Sakura took out her phone and opened a browser.

“Does your father know what’s been happening?”

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“We haven’t spoken for months. He didn’t approve of Miyasato.”

“He’d help you, though? If he knew what had happened?”

“I think so,” she said. “He’s still my dad.”

“Does he still have any connections with the yakuza?”

She shook her head. “Not since he and Takashi fell out—they haven’t spoken for years.”

“But he’ll still have contacts?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

Milton was probing for potential sources of intelligence. If her father was too divorced from his old life to be useful, he would just have to find another way in.