Well, first time through the time sequence and/or exactly why the 
assassin didn't finish
Tomo was not clear.  Let's see if it's clearer second time through.

On the plus side, the narrative's pace did keep me reading, and the 
story is constructed
to supply plenty of suspense.

Pete Zaitcev wrote:

ONE WAY OF EVERYONE

"All right, we're done for tonight. Everyone is dismissed," the Chief
announced and rose, an image of wise authority in his blue uniform covered in
decorations and insignia.

The phrase "image of wise authority" kind of threw me, stopping my 
reading in its tracks
to wonder why the author is interrupting a not-yet-established narrative 
to make authorial
observations.  And I'm not even sure whether or not it's supposed to be 
sarcastic.  Would
suggest either "rose, his well-worn uniform evidence of too many hours 
in the office" or
"rose, his spotless, newly-pressed uniform, its creases sharp and its 
medals shining" if you're
trying to tell us that this guy isn't for real.

The room filled with noise as the motley crowd of
the 2nd Dangerous Crime Investigation Task Group filtered out, bowing or
shaking hands. Tomo stood up slowly. She started to feel tired now that the
excitement of the chase has ended.

"She was starting to feel tired now that the excitement of the chase had 
ended."

BTW, if the main culprit is still at large, why does Tomo think the 
chase over?

Her body felt heavy, every move was
difficult.

That comma should be a semi-colon (both phrases can stand alone as 
sentences).

"Tomo, I am speaking personally, but I ask you to listen seriously for once",
he began in a fatherly tone.

That last comma should be inside the quote marks.

"While the operation was a success, Black
Lightning is still at large. This is a dangerous situation. We do not know
anything about him yet. Or even her. But he cannot be sure about it. He knows
that we have ways to make his associates to talk, eventually. He will hasten
to make his move."
 

People do talk this way, certainly, so that their meaning is not clear.  
But in most cases,
while writing dialog you want to make characters speak more clearly than 
real people do.
Suggest:  "...anything about him yet.  Or her, for that matter; we don't 
know.  But Black Lightning
doesn't yet know how much, or how little, we know.  Since he knows we're 
bound to get one
of his associates to talk soon, he has to make a move soon."

Tomo nodded. So, she hadn't been chewed over this time. Dangerous situation?
Old man's fantasy. But she did not have the energy to argue. Sleep, blissful
sleep, that was what she needed. And a day off.
 

Tomo, out of energy?  Obviously she's really, really old in this fic... ;)

"The priority for the Black Lightning and any remnant of his group is to leave
the country quickly and safely.

Makes sense.   However, if "Black Lightning" is an individual (as the 
rest of the fic implies), you should
delete the "the" prior to "Black Lightning".

However, we are hot on their trail.  They may
consider a counterattack in order to confuse and weaken us, thus improving
their chances of escape.

Strikes me as extremely bad tactics.  It slows them down more than it 
slows the cops down; the
cops are organized enough so that no one assassination is going to slow 
them down much; all it
does is make all the remaining cops that much angrier.  You might want 
to go with a revenge motive
here instead:  "Black Lightning has a reputation for taking revenge on 
cops who cross him,
even at the risk of being captured or killed."

Yes, I mean an assassination of key members of the
team."

"Listen, Tomo. This is not a joke. They may be able to find you.  I have this
hunch. I was on the force for thirty years.

"I've been on the force for thirty years."

 I know how it happens. Be
extremely cautious. You want rest, right?  Take rest with Ken and make sure he
has weapon at all times.  I'll cover it as duty."
 

"...make sure he has a weapon with him at all times."

A woman walked from the train station to a high-rise apartment building along
a well lit street.  As she went up the stairs to the entrance, she smiled at a
young man going in the opposite direction, and came in, sliding doors closing
out the night. She seemed handsome and strong, eyeglasses giving her an air of
intellect. She carried the briefcase of a woman who went through her glass
ceiling.
 

Confusing POV shifts.  I think you mean the last two sentences to be 
from the POV of the young
man (otherwise there's not much point to mentioning him).  But the 
transition seems awkward; at
first I thought the "She" at the beginning of sentence three was a typo, 
and you were describing
the young man.  Suggest you begin the third sentence "He thought she 
seemed handsome and strong,
the eyeglasses..."

And what does "HER glass ceiling" mean?  Every woman in business has a 
different one?  I'd
suggest something like "She carried her briefcase with authority, giving 
the impression of a woman
who'd pierced the glass ceiling."

A casual observer would never guess just how heavy the briefcase was.  The
woman knew how to carry a load inconspicuously, although she had to clutch the
handle tightly. Her hands were covered with a Russian-made cream MSN-2, which
prevented them from leaving fingerprints, but also made them a little
slippery.
 

I think you need a comma before the "MSN-2" as well as after.  And is 
this detail made up or the
product of research?  Because it's awfully implausible on its face; 
getting a cream on your hands is
normally the best way to make sure that you DO leave fingerprints.  If 
this detail is real, suggest
you expand a bit to overcome readers' tendency to disbelieve at this point.

At the roof, she went to the Northern edge. Across the gulf of a courtyard,
 

"Northern" shouldn't be capitalized.

there was a twin of the high-rise at which she was standing.  Sitting behind
the low perimeter wall, she opened the briefcase and removed the stock,
action, silencer, and barrel of a sniper rifle.  She took off her glasses, and
put on a black mask and black gloves.  The sight of the rifle had an
anti-reflection coating. The sniper would be all but invisible for anyone
without infrared goggles.

Might want to give us a time of day here, and, if it's night, whether 
it's cloudy or moonlit.  I keep
thinking "late in the afternoon" while reading this, which would make 
her easily spottable.

She assembled and loaded the rifle and carefully
perched it on the wall, counting windows.

The window which she wanted was dark. But after a short while, a couple
emerged from the elevator and walked to an apartment door. The woman opened
it, they entered, and the light went on.
 

You were in the assassin's POV, but the assassin can't see the elevator 
or the hall (at least,
not in most apartment buildings).  Suggest either you spent a bit more 
time here describing
a non-standard apartment building layout which DOES allow her to see the 
elevator and hall,
or just kill the sentence.  As an alternative, you could have the 
assassin observe Tomo and the
guy enter the building from the street, and count off the minutes.

The sniper examined the newcomers. Her target, the woman, was easy to
identify. The man was a complicating factor, however. He moved with a surety
of someone trained well. It was easy to kill the woman now, but if the man
were to take cover quickly and raise the alarm, the sniper's situation could
become dangerous.

So kill the guy first, numbnut!

The light was out for half an hour. When it went on, the woman came to the
window, opened it, and looked up into the night sky. Her face occupied almost
all field of view of the high-magnification sight. A touch of a smile
flickered on her lips.  The sniper lowered the rifle a little, placing the
reticle on the left breast.  Shooting the target in the heart now was probably
a good idea. Hit with a powerful bullet, the body would travel away from the
window and the man ought to come to it.

??? A highly trained man will move TO a window through which a sniper 
shot just came?  WTF?

Just to follow up on my initial comment:  up to this point, the sequence 
of events is very clear-cut.
The confusion enters below.

little weird...  And this is little Chiyo, a prodigy.  You would not believe
how many grades she skipped. She probably was even smarter than me."

Heh.  Tomo strkes again.  Might be kind of funny, though, if the guy 
recognizes Chiyo as the woman
who just won the Nobel Prize in Physics at this point...

"As you astutely observed, this is a sort of a shrine. We were best friends,
and we were together for a very long time. In fact, I became a cop because of
her. But I'm getting ahead... We were together through all the school: grade
school, high school; went to college. Never did anything separately. I would
often come to her room in the night, she lived at the first floor strangely
 

"on the first floor"  And why is it strange?  Somebody has to.

enough... Ah, that was fun.  Yomi was a great friend, only short-tempered."

"Then, one day, she lost it with me. I do not understand how and why it
 

Suggest either "I don't understand" or perhaps "I've never understood"

had a bad time. I thought and thought about it.  I asked myself, how could she
do it to me?"
 

(rolls eyes) And of course, for Tomo it HAS to be about HER, rather than 
about Yomi herself.

"Eventually, I understood that I had to regain her. That was my quest.  Yomi
 

Suggest "That became my quest."

"But this last quest was the hardest one, the only one where she made me to
 

"made me lay out a plan" (you don't want the "to" in there)

lay out a plan. You know, like a boss in video game? Anyway, the only way to
find her was to use the power of government. So, I had to become an secret
 

"a secret agent"

agent or a detective.  I entered a police academy. Hah, I used to say in
school that I was going to work for ICPO. Maybe that's why."

"I diligently worked on my career and made it into the Investigations
Department, then onto the 2nd Task Group. You know, you cannot find a lost
friend while writing parking tickets. But it was hard. Everyone wants to be a
detective, it pays more."

"So, I have some power now. I found that she sends money to her parents
sometimes. Not often, but sometimes. Money comes from inside Japan.  She
 

"The money comes..."

probably asks someone to send it. I actually doubt that she's in Japan right
now. That's because of that picture... She sent it to me!"
 

"...in Japan right now, because of that picture..."

Ken lifted an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yes, she sent it to me after 12 years. Again, bogus return address...  These
people look like some sort of mercenaries. Anyhow, you know what is written on
the other side?"

"No," said Ken, "What?"

"``Hi, Tomo! I'm still alive, dunno for how long. I forgive you.  Yours
forever, Mi. Ko.''

I'm not getting the signature.  "Yomi" or "Koyomi" turning into "Mi. 
Ko."?  I don't see how the "Mi"
could refer to Tomo either;.

Can you imagine? She tries to make it sound as if she went
into some Solder of Fortune operation somewhere in Bosnia or something. This
must be a joke, cruel like everything about her."
 

Tomo doesn't seem to be taking it as cruel, though; I'm reading her as 
pleased and excited that she
heard from Yomi.

"Hmm..." Ken left the bed and went up to the picture to inspect it closer.
"So, she's a sniper?"

"Why sniper?" asked Tomo, coming closer.
 

"Why a sniper?"

"Well, you can see the Dragunov's stock kinda showing here a little behind her
shoulder. Too bad this guy obscures the barrel, it would have been obvious.
But also look at this pouch. It's too short for Kalashnikov mags. I think it's
Dragunov. These two guys must be her bodyguards or spotters. Seriously, one
has a spotter scope, look."

"Woa. A gun freak boyfriend can come useful sometimes, who would have thought.
 

"..who would have thought?"  (End with a question mark; it's a question.)

Too bad it won't help me find her. I wish you could guess her unit..." Tomo
reached around Ken's waist and hid her face on his chest. She mumbled, "Are
you staying tonight?"

"Definitely. Actually, Chief told me... I think you ought to keep blinds
closed."
 

"...keep the blinds closed"

"What for? The gangway does not reach under my window and I like to spit out
of it."

"You know what for. What if someone hires your sniper mercenary friend to kill
you?"

"I don't mind if so. It would be destiny," said Tomo solemnly.  She turned
back to the cabinet, put her hands together and closed her eyes. "Listen," she
said, "you go to bed, I'll be over in a sec."

Then she felt a strange chill in her spine, as if someone was watching her.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Only a week has passed since their triumph, when everything returned to
normal, including the morning meetings at 08:00 sharp.

This is where things are a bit confusing.  You set up Yomi as 
assassinating Tomo, and then
nothing happens?  On first read-through, I thought this scene was a 
flashback, since there
didn't seem to be any consequences from the events to this point.  On 
second reading,
it's clear that this scene follows the others sequentially, but why is 
Tomo still alive?

"Only a week had passed since their triumph, and everything had returned..."

It was the time to kick
some criminal undersides again, and Tomo itched to do the damage.  But no
later than Tomo bounced into the briefing room, she saw Chief's dark stare.
 

Suggest "But no sooner had Tomo bounced into the briefing room, then she 
saw Chief's dark stare."

Aside:  you consistently use "Chief" as a proper noun in this story, 
which is consistent with the way
the word is used in 'You're Under Arrest' (in which we never even learn 
the chief's name).  But some
of your less-Japanized readership will probably be put off a bit, as 
this isn't really an English
language convention.  Suggest a footnote at the end of the story, or 
just switch to standard English
usage (which would be "the chief" almost everywhere you have "Chief"; 
the only exception, I think,
would be in dialog, when your characters are addressing him directly.)

The Chief was unfazed. "Take your seat, Ms. Takino", he said.  Once Tomo
settled in, he continued: "Now that everyone is present, there's something I
need to tell you all before the rest of the business.  I have received a
message from the Section 9."
 

Heh.  Section 9?  So this is a crossover with Ghost in the Shell?  ;)   
Or maybe you're implying
a predecessor organization, and being serious?

"Yes. Some of you may be aware that a business jet has crashed at Haneda three
days ago.

don't need the "has"

Section 9 took over the investigation and there was no information
made public. But this is what happened, in brief."

"A Japanese woman checked in for a domestic flight with a Canadian passport in
name of Katrin Plainwater. When the passport scan was broadcast, computers of
 

Suggest "..scan was checked, the computers..."  I don't think you want 
"broadcast" in this context.

Section 9 triggered an alert.  Ms. Plainwater, as I will call her, was to be
delayed and interviewed."

"However, she did not come to her gate. Instead, she bypassed security doors
 

Confusing... why did "Katrin" do this?  How could she have known about 
the alert?  The implication
is that the immigration guy wasn't privy, so he couldn't have reacted.  
If "Katrin" intended all along to
use a business jet, why go through immigration at all?

and entered the airport ramp area, where she proceeded to assault the captain
of a business jet who was performing a pre-flight inspection. Then, she did a
short work on the first officer and boarded the aircraft.

"made short work of the first officer"

 She started the
engines, taxied out to a runway in a hazardous manner, and attempted to take
off. During the takeoff run, the jet collided with a fuel truck commandeered
by an agent of Section 9."
 

Section 9 managed to get somebody on the ground at the airport that 
fast?  Must be a lot of agents,
then, or else they're all at the airport.  Certainly nothing like GITS.

"The agent sustained repairable damage. Ms. Plainwater has died in the crash
 

Again, don't need that "has".

and her positive identification proved impossible due to the burns caused by
the post-crash fire.

Which means that it wasn't actually her, of course, but a dead body left 
in her place...

However, Section 9 was able to recover data from computer
media found in the airplane. It contained pairs of public and private
cryptographic keys. When such pairs exist, it is exceedingly probable that the
person who used pubic keys actually created them.

"Public", not "pubic" keys.  And this certainly seems reasonable; you 
ARE supposed to keep
private keys private, after all.

So, Section 9 compared found
keys against their database of known public keys."
 

"Section 9 compared the public keys against the various 
publicly-accessible directories."

Chief made a small pause to underscore the message. "Paired public keys
recovered at the crash site matched those used by Black Lightning."
 

Now exactly why does an assassin need public/private key cryptography?  
It's used for
non-repudiation, for one; if the assassin wants to prove that they 
authored an emailed claim
of responsibility in advance, for instance.  But why would an assassin 
want to do that?  Or it
can be used by potential customers, to send non-interceptible requests 
to the assassin.  But,
again, why this means?  Overall, I think your technical detail here 
might be too much; you're
just raising questions in the mind of your readers who know a lot about 
this technology,
rather than answering them.  All you really have to do to make this plot 
point is say that
a laptop disk recoved by Section 9 contained plans and schedules for 
hits known to have
been committed by Black Lightning, with file creation dates prior to the 
hit.

hey, who was left standing now? Tomo Takino! Yes, she was number one! She
shall solve the Nerima case for sure.

"She would solve..."

Those martial artists just dumb jocks,
and she may even get a chance to beat up a few.

"and she might even get a chance"

END
 

To sum, a very readable story, with sustained suspense.  And reasonably 
good characterization
for Tomo.

However:  what exactly happened here?  Yomi was about to put the hit on 
Tomo, presumably,
knowing full well that it WAS Tomo (since the motive for the hit was a 
television interview).
Then she decided not to do the hit at the last minute?  Why?  You've not 
given us a reason;
you leave it up to the reader.  Now, leaving it to the reader to 
speculate about a character's
motivation can work, certainly, but here it just confuses me.  Why, 
having decided to kill
Tomo, did Yomi change her mind at the last minute?

And why get so careless about her get-away that she got killed?  (IF she 
got killed;
an unidentifiable body is the usual sign that it wasn't her.)  You don't 
ever really confirm
that 'Katrin' IS Yomi, either, although the story makes no sense at all 
otherwise.
And you leave Tomo convinced that Yomi is still out there somewhere.

This isn't a bad story as it stands, exactly, just an unsatisfying one.  
But I think you can
make it significantly better with a little more work.

For instance, try this on:  add a short scene before the last one, 
cutting back to Yomi on
the rooftop, looking directly into Tomo's eyes.  And Tomo is looking 
back at her,
having spotted Yomi on the root (you might or might not leave it 
ambiguous whether
Tomo recognizes her).  And Yomi finds that she can't pull the trigger 
when she's
looking Tomo in the eyes like that, which upsets her, and then she gets 
careless
during her getaway (or whatever she really did at the airport).

However, it's your story.  Take whatever of this C&C you can use, and 
leave the rest.






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