The Scarred Akai Slips Away
"Why?!" Jodie stared at him, uncomprehending, the disappointment impossible to keep out of her voice.
"His build is slightly different." Baizhu's gaze flicked to the scar, and he went on in that same mild, unhurried tone. "Though of course, that doesn't rule out the possibility that an accident changed his physique."
He paused for a beat before continuing. "Come to think of it, I met someone else just a few days ago who looked rather like Mr. Akai — only, that one resembled him in build, while this one resembles him in face. Quite the coincidence, really."
"Is that so," Jodie murmured, only half listening.
She was still mired in the disappointment of Baizhu's denial — the man was not Akai Shuichi — and paid little attention to whatever he said next. And yet she couldn't quite let go of one last thread of hope. After all, what if she was wrong?
The moment this bank robbery was over, she decided, she would track that other man down and confirm his identity once and for all. With that settled, Jodie turned her attention back to the crisis at hand.
Conan, for his part, had been studying the robbers intently the whole time — and since Jodie and Baizhu had deliberately kept their voices low, he never caught Baizhu's mention of Subaru Okiya. He had no idea that his teacher had come within a hair's breadth of noticing Akai Shuichi's disguise.
By now the two robbers kept glancing at their watches, plainly irritated that their three companions had failed to reappear for so long.
"What's taking them so long?"
"Should I go look for them, then?"
"No! We're running out of time! We have to start the final phase now."
"Fine, forget it. They can pray for themselves."
With that, he pressed a stun gun to the bank manager — who had been busy at one of the computers only moments before — and knocked him out cold.
Conan frowned, thinking hard. Running out of time? Were these robbers in that much of a hurry? And why split the hostages up according to whether or not they knew each other?
The two robbers seemed to be planning something. A quick sweep of the room, and Baizhu promptly drew the children back behind the wall, out of the robbers' line of sight.
After waiting a while, they peeked out again to find that the two robbers had picked out several hostages and stood them in a cluster around a few crates, backs turned outward. Then the robbers began pulling off their masks and shedding their jackets, blindfolding their own eyes and gagging their own mouths, ready to melt in among the hostages.
Oh no — they're planning to dress those hostages up as robbers and blow them up! Conan realized at once that the crates were packed with explosives.
He hurriedly sent Genta and Mitsuhiko off to find a handcart, then told Haibara to get to the elevator and hold down the door-open button so it couldn't close.
Qiqi tilted her head, then trotted after Haibara toward the elevator.
Conan moved to stop her, worried that with Qiqi's slow reactions she might fail to run clear in time and get hurt.
Baizhu caught his arm. "Don't worry. Qiqi knows what to do."
Before long, Genta and Mitsuhiko came running back with the cart, and the group made their way over to the bombs.
"Three minutes left on the countdown — that's plenty of time," Baizhu told Conan and the others, his voice calm as ever. "You handle the bombs. Jodie and I will deal with the robbers."
It was no difficult task. Baizhu trusted that the Detective Boys, quick on their feet as they were, could pull it off without a hitch — and with Qiqi lending a hand, even a mishap wouldn't leave anyone seriously hurt. With that, he and Jodie set off toward the spot where they'd seen the robbers hiding.
Conan, meanwhile, led Ayumi, Genta, and Mitsuhiko in carefully moving the bombs onto the cart. The moment they were loaded, the four of them took off at a run for the elevator.
"Haibara, Qiqi — get out of the elevator, quick!" Conan shouted.
Haibara understood at once. She grabbed Qiqi's hand and bolted out of the elevator.
Yet the instant her fingers closed around Qiqi's, she couldn't help a small frown. When did Qiqi's hands get this cold?
Qiqi let herself be hauled a safe distance away, and the elevator doors slid shut.
Moments later, a tremendous boom split the air as the bombs detonated.
Conan frowned. For all that earth-shaking noise, the blast hadn't so much as wrecked the elevator doors. Was this bomb really that weak?
Qiqi gazed over the aftermath — the elevator interior she had secretly frozen solid with her Herald of Frost, the blast's bite pared down to almost nothing — and gave a small, satisfied nod.
Having just knocked out the two robbers, Baizhu and Jodie heard the explosion as well; worried about what might have happened, they came running.
Seeing that everything here was already over, Baizhu stepped in and checked the children over one by one. Finding not a scratch on any of them, he finally let himself breathe easy.
Just then, something occurred to Jodie, and she turned and ran back into the bank lobby.
The blast had spurred the assault team into immediate action; by now they had already breached the bank, and the lobby was a chaos of shouting bodies. Try as she might, Jodie could not find the man she'd seen before — the one who looked so much like Shuichi — anywhere in the crowd.
Elsewhere, Amuro Tooru — wearing Akai Shuichi's face — slipped through the confusion of the police incursion, avoided every eye, and left the bank by another route.
Hands buried in his pockets, he walked down the street with his head lowered, mulling over Jodie's reaction when she'd seen his disguised face. It hadn't looked like the reaction of someone who believed Akai Shuichi was still alive.
Then, all at once, several car horns blared behind him.
Amuro turned toward the sound.