Chapter 825: Evidence in the Absence of Response
Meanwhile, in Miami, dawn is only beginning to brighten the horizon. Hugo Ramirez is fallen asleep behind the desk in his private office.
The previous evening, one of the men he sent to Japan called him to report that they had found an opportunity and intended to move soon. Since then, Ramirez has been waiting for another call that never came. At some point during the night, exhaustion overcame him.
And now, a thin trail of drool has escaped the corner of his mouth. Some of it is even running down onto the exposed skin of his chest where his pajama top hangs slightly open.
The unpleasant sensation is what finally pulls Ramirez awake. He looks baffled for a beat, completely has no memory of falling asleep there.
"Goddamn it..." he mutters, wiping the drool from his chin. "How long was I out?"
Ramirez lifts his head slowly and blinks several times while trying to orient himself. The lamp on his desk is still on. The coffee beside him is cold. The digital clock shows a time much later than he intended to stay awake.
His eyes immediately move toward the phone, and there’s still nothing. No missed calls, no messages, no updates. A feeling of unease settles in his stomach, because the men should have contacted him hours ago.
For several moments, Ramirez simply sits there staring at the screen, trying to convince himself that there are reasonable explanations.
"Maybe they lost the opportunity, and decided not to proceed," Ramirez thinks. "Or maybe... they are waiting for a safer moment to make a call."
Yet none of those possibilities feel convincing. Eventually Ramirez begins scrolling toward the number.
His thumb hovers over the call button, but he stops before pressing it. The longer he thinks about it, the less comfortable he becomes with the idea.
"No. This phone is burned now," Ramirez mutters before breaking the cheap flip phone in half.
A few minutes later, he leaves the house still wearing the same pajamas and climbs into his car, driving several blocks away before stopping near a public phone booth.
The decision is cautious, perhaps even paranoid, but paranoia has kept him alive and successful for a very long time. What Ramirez does not know is that a surveillance team has been watching him for days.
Across the street, parked among several ordinary vehicles, sits a plain-looking minivan. From the outside it appears unremarkable.
Inside, however, Holland and Velasco are now monitoring Ramirez’s movements while two additional agents work behind them on laptops.
The moment Ramirez appears outside wearing pajamas, both agents immediately notice.
"That’s unusual," Holland says.
Velasco follows his gaze and watches Ramirez approach the phone booth. "No one leaves the house looking like that unless something is bothering them."
Inside the phone booth, Ramirez places the call. The connection goes through after a few moments of wait, and his expression hardens.
"Why haven’t you called me?" he asks. "What’s the situation?"
But there is no response. And the irritation in Ramirez’s face only becomes even more visible.
"Hey! Mark! Answer me. Have you done it or not?"
But there’s still nothing. And the longer the silence continues, the more Ramirez’s expression changes. The impatience fades first, then the frustration. What remains now is uncertainty.
Then, Ramirez lowers his voice slightly.
"Who is this?"
Again, there is no answer.
For several seconds, he remains completely still while a series of unpleasant possibilities begins forming in his mind. Then he abruptly hangs up.
Ramirez does not leave the booth right away. Instead, he remains standing there, staring through the glass while considering scenarios he would rather not contemplate.
***
As Ramirez steps out of the phone booth, Velasco is already observing him through a binocular. The moment he catches the unease in Ramirez’s behavior, he immediately passes it to Holland.
"Go take a look. He’s clearly unsettled."
Holland takes the binocular and brings it up, following Ramirez with the binoculars as the man stands near his car and scans the surroundings with slow uneasy movements.
The tension is so obvious, the kind of behavior that suggests something has already gone wrong in his expectations.
"Yeah, I see it," Holland says quietly. "He’s not just worried. He’s reacting. I’m guessing he just tried to contact his guys without knowing what’s happening in Japan."
Velasco turns toward the back of the vehicle. "Any update?"
One of the men in the back responds after checking his screen. "News has already started circulating in Japan a few hours ago, but it hasn’t fully broken here yet."
Another adds, without looking up, "The first reports aired on Japanese TV while it was still daytime there. If you factor in the time difference, that’d be already past midnight here."
Velasco glances back at Holland. "So there’s a high chance Ramirez still doesn’t know what happened in Tokyo. And with his men already in police custody in Japan, he can’t reach them properly."
Holland nods slightly. "And maybe the call actually went through, but there was no answer. The phone might already be in police hands, waiting for him to call back. If he realizes that, it explains the panic."
Velasco’s expression tightens as he starts the engine. "Then we get ready. Once the news reaches him fully, he’s going to try to disappear."
At that moment, Ramirez’s car begins to move. Holland immediately signals with a small gesture from his hand.
"We follow him," Holland says, then looks back briefly. "He’s not going to run in pajamas like this without planning something. Contact the guys watching his house. Tell them to track him if he returns or changes location. If he’s really trying to hide, we need to know exactly where."
The team stays in motion, maintaining distance as they begin tailing the vehicle. Their role remains strictly surveillance and intelligence gathering, not intervention, with any enforcement left to local authorities once the situation escalates beyond their scope.
***
Meanwhile, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police headquarters, the telecommunications unit has already secured the perpetrators’ phone, connecting it directly to a monitoring laptop.
The device is still active within their system, feeding them the only real piece of evidence they currently have: a brief, incomplete call placed from overseas. From that single connection, they have already confirmed it originated from the United States, though the exact location still remains unknown and will require assistance from international telecom services to trace properly.
Before this, they had attempted to pull the device’s activity logs as well, but there is nothing usable left behind. Whoever handled the device clearly knew how to erase traces properly.
Even so, the technicians do not dismiss the phone. Despite the lack of history, it still remains active on the network monitoring system, and they keep it under constant surveillance.
What they do have, however, is the audio capture. And by coincidence, both Tachibana and Ryoma are already present in the room when the file is played back.
Ryoma’s fatigue is clearly visible in the way he carries himself after the long day, yet his eyes remain sharp and focused.
"There’s no doubt," Ryoma says. "That’s Hugo Ramirez’s voice. If you don’t believe me, just try to compare it with his public statements. You can easily find them online."
One of the technicians immediately responds to the instruction, and soon, he finds a press appearance from Ramirez’s office. The footage loads quickly, and Ramirez’s voice fills the room with the same controlled confidence he always uses in public.
"I am not ignoring Ryoma Takeda. This situation is far more complicated than it appears from the outside. At this moment, Liam O’Connell still holds the number one ranking in the WBO, and his camp continues to insist on a rematch."
The technician does not let the moment pass. He immediately replays the same segment again, focusing on that exact portion.
"You hear that?" Ryoma says, glancing toward Tachibana. "That arrogance in his tone. It’s identical to the call we just heard. And there was a pause right before he ended it abruptly. I bet he already realized something was wrong."
He exhales lightly, eyes still fixed on the monitor. "You should contact the Japanese embassy in the United States. And request coordination with the FBI. This is moving faster than a local case now."
One of the investigators immediately shakes his head. "That alone is not enough. Yes, we can establish motive, and we now have a confirmed link between him and the perpetrators through that call. But there is still nothing that directly proves he issued an order for an attempted killing on you."
Another officer adds, more carefully, "We still need confessions from those two."
Ryoma and Tachibana exchange a brief glance, as if the conclusion has already been silently shared between them.
There is no need for further discussion. Tachibana gives a small nod, almost imperceptible, then turns and steps away from the monitoring desk. And Ryoma follows without a word.
They move through the corridor in steady silence, passing officers and closed doors, heading toward the secured interrogation wing where both perpetrators are being held separately.
