Conan: Rice Flower Spring

Chapter 231 225. An invitation that cannot be refused

In just a few steps, many possible identities of the person who rang the doorbell emerged in Kudo Yusaku's mind.

There are good and bad.

The better possibility is that the hotel staff have fans of theirs and after seeing their registered identities they want to ask for an autograph or something.

But the possibility of this is not high.

As a five-star hotel, Rice Flower Hotel is a benchmark in the industry in terms of guest privacy.

After all, there are not many hotels in Tokyo that can insist on not setting up security checks despite multiple incidents of customers bringing bombs into the hotel and either detonating them or failing to detonate them.

In addition, even if they are fans of hotel staff, after seeing the clear "Do Not Disturb" sign on their door, they would not knock on the door and disturb them just to ask for their autographs.

So the possibility of this being better is extremely slim.

So what is the worst possibility? Probably their whereabouts have been monitored by that organization, so that they were found as soon as they returned to Tokyo.

Kudo Yusaku stood at the door and hesitated for a moment, then opened the door.

If there were only fans of the couple at the door, signing their autographs wouldn't take much time.

If the people at the door were from that organization, this hotel door alone would not be enough to stop them.

When the door was opened, a hotel staff member stood at the door. To Kudo Yusaku's surprise, the staff member did not seem to be looking for the couple's autograph.

Instead, he handed him something like an envelope.

"What is this?" Kudo Yusaku was a little surprised. The couple returned to Tokyo on a secret trip. Even if there was a letter, it shouldn't have been sent here at this time, right?

"This shouldn't be our letter. Was it sent to the wrong address?" Kudo Yusaku reminded the staff considerately.

"Aren't you Mr. Yusaku Kudo and Ms. Yukiko Kudo who live in Room 2405?"

The staff member subconsciously looked at the door number, and then confirmed it with Kudo Yusaku.

"Yes, that's right."

"That's right. This is a letter that your two friends asked me to pass on to you."

"Really? Maybe I forgot." Kudo Yusaku nodded calmly, then took the envelope from the staff.

"That's good. I'll take my leave now. I wish you two a pleasant stay." The staff handed the envelope to Kudo Yusaku, helped him close the door, and left the floor.

"Yusaku, what's going on?" Kudo Yukiko came over and looked at the envelope in Kudo Yusaku's hand.

There was no sender's name on the envelope, and there was no stamp or anything like that.

Apparently the letter was handed over to the hotel rather than sent by post.

Yusaku Kudo looked at the envelope in his hand and realized that this was not the best possibility, but it was not the worst outcome either.

After taking a deep breath, Kudo Yusaku carefully opened the envelope, only to find that there was only an invitation letter inside.

"Invitation to the memorial service for Director Sakamaki?" After reading the entire invitation, Yukiko Kudo did not find anything unusual, so she looked at her husband in confusion. Yusaku Kudo also did not see any mystery in the invitation, because it was just an ordinary and serious invitation.

“So, now someone wants us to appear at Director Sakamaki’s memorial service?
This is really an invitation that cannot be refused.”
-
"Judy, this is an invitation we can't refuse." James, the operations director of this field mission at the FBI's secret base, said to Judy.

Not long ago, Judy, who was responsible for meeting with Akemi Miyano, brought back information that three members of the organization would appear at the memorial service for director Sakamaki at the Haido City Hotel. James had already decided that no matter what, on the day of the memorial service, the FBI would go to the scene to identify the identities of the organization members.

Judy, who brought back the intelligence, clearly had a different opinion on this.

“James, we only have three days, and we can’t verify whether Miyano Akemi’s intelligence is reliable.

What if this is a trap?"

"Judy, ever since Akai's last undercover operation failed, we no longer have any access to the organization's intelligence.

The opportunity now is our only chance, or even our last chance.”

This is not the FBI's last chance, but it is the last chance for James and his field operations team.

In an organization like theirs, the cost of making mistakes is high for everyone. Perhaps just one failure is enough to send a person into an abyss of no return.

Now James's team has a second chance, which means they are lucky enough.

This is also why James and Judy wanted to reconnect with Akemi Miyano even without knowing it.

Shuichi Akai, the ace agent of their action team, may have some ideological problems.

"The last mission to capture Gin failed, but that was not Shuichi's fault, James!"

Judy looked unhappy. Although she and James were now acting behind Shuichi Akai's back, it didn't mean that she completely accepted James' ideas.

If it weren't for those stupid teammates in the action team last time, they might have captured Gin long ago.

James' words made Judy sound uncomfortable.

"Of course I know that's not Akai's responsibility, but we don't have the cost of trial and error anymore, right?

For this hard-earned new opportunity, we can take risks. Besides, aren't we here to verify the reliability of the information that Miyano Akemi provided us?"

Although restarting the connection with Akemi Miyano is not a desperate move for James, it is also a last resort.

Although they also had clues about other members of the organization, the Hollywood actor they had been keeping an eye on suddenly disappeared from America some time ago.

This resulted in James only having Miyano Akemi as the only contact in his hands, otherwise they would not have come to Tokyo to contact her after Miyano Akemi cut off contact with them.

"James, you will regret this." Judy shook her head. She always felt that James seemed too eager for quick success when he returned to Tokyo this time, which was not a good thing for their entire action team.

"Judy, I'm the head of the operations team." James replied with a straight face. What does Judy, a greenhorn, know?
If this operation fails, it will not be good for the front-line operators, and he, the operation supervisor, will be transferred to the bench.

If he still sits on the bench at his age, he will probably never have any hope of making a breakthrough in his life, which is something James cannot accept at all.

An internal FBI conversation ended in a bad mood, but several FBI operatives got "tickets" to director Sakamaki's memorial service through James' channels.

(End of this chapter)