The early hours of the morning.
Kannazuki took the kraft-paper envelope from the old shoebox at the very back of his wardrobe, tore it open, and spread the four sheets of A4 paper across the desk again.
Sixty-three red circles.
Forty-one blue crosses.
Of the three scenarios outlined on the fourth sheet, he had drawn diagonal pencil lines through the first two.
The title of the third plan remained.
"More frightening than death."
He opened the Death Note and set it beside the A4 sheets. He uncapped his fountain pen, its nib hovering above the blank page.
Ryuk floated down from the ceiling and crouched on the corner of the desk.
"Made up your mind?"
"Yes."
"Who first?"
Kannazuki placed a finger on the third sheet-the chain of financial interests.
The names of six energy oligarchs were arranged in two columns. Beside each were the company name, the value of related military contracts, and the number of known offshore accounts.
"Not starting with the military chain?"
"The military chain is the bones. The chain of interests is the blood vessels.
Broken bones can be set. Cut the blood vessels, though-without a blood supply, the bones become brittle on their own."
Ryuk chewed an apple, juice dripping between his fingers.
"That's a disgusting metaphor."
Kannazuki ignored him. He ranked the six oligarchs by influence and selected the top three.
First: Sergei Kozlov.
Sixty-one years old.
The de facto controller of the Northern United Heavy Industries Group. Over the past three years, the group had secured more than seven billion in military contracts, at least thirty percent of which had been funneled into private accounts through shell companies.
The group-level figures could be found in publicly available data from the International Peace Research Institute, but details of the private money laundering had