Section 9 responds to a hostage crisis at a geisha house involving the Foreign Affairs Minister.  Motoko, Batou and the team successfully extract the survivors but there are many questions about what actually went on in there.  Chief Aramaki is visited by a friend in the military who tells him of the failed surveillance of the Minster.  Aramaki assigned Section 9 to the case.  They learn that, apparently, one of the men at the house had swapped brain cases with the minister in order to smuggle information out of the country.