The Last Man Standing: The Surgeon and The Mechanic

by Clark, T. C.

  “And if he is not? What if you go back and this is just an intricate trap?” Rhea looked at Haruaki. Fuck, what if this was a setup? He could be helping them now to gain Yuuto’s trust. How could he be so calm about this?

  “Then I will die knowing that I was protecting the woman I love and the child I’ll never know. There is honor in that. I know you, Rhea. You will kill anyone that threatens our family. If I die, I have no doubt you will reap vengeance in my name.”

  “I do not lie,” Haruaki said. There was anger in the depths of his eyes. He didn’t like her interpretation of events.

  “If you are lying, Yuuto isn’t wrong. I don’t give a fuck about your family. I will kill you and your father, this I can promise you.”

  “So you two are together again?”

  “That’s irrelevant. I just need you to know I excel at killing, and, unlike Yuuto, I have zero feelings for either of you. You don’t want me as an enemy, Haruaki. I promise you will regret it.”

  Haruaki nodded but said nothing else. Rhea sighed. They could use all the help they could get. If Haruaki was planning something, she would deal with him in due time. Right now, they needed to focus on getting to Miami, and then she would worry about Yuuto’s family.

  * * *

  The ride to Miami was uneventful but awkward. Haruaki and Yuuto didn’t speak as they navigated the roads. Rhea kept her head down and concentrated on decoding the encrypted message from Kara.

  Her sister had figured out where the Linguist was hiding. He was in Cuba under the protection of a local drug lord. Rhea sighed. This was going to be a mess. The Linguist was good at that. He was the type of person who could survive forever as a parasite.

  “We should turn in there,” Rhea said, sitting forward and pointing at the dirt road. Yuuto and Rhea followed her hand and saw the small house sitting at the end of the street.

  “Are you sure, Rhea?” Yuuto looked back at her with concerned eyes. She knew how it must look. The position of the house was a security nightmare. But Kara was smart about things like this. She’d taught her little sister well.

  Even though they’d gone down very different paths in life, they still remained close. Kara had decided that the government needed taking down from the outside while Rhea wanted to fix it from within. As much as she hated to admit it so far, Kara had been more successful.

  She was now a world-famous hacker known as the Night Siren. She had successfully revealed many secrets from the inner workings of the CIA and FBI. Her sister was one of the reasons she’d walked away from the CIA. Too many lies and too many secrets had made her a bitter agent. Her only positive takeaway was her relationship with her former partner, Frank Miller.

  “I’m sure. This is exactly the type of place I would pick for a dangerous meeting. She’s preparing for an attack, and she is being smart about it. Just stay in the car and give me a moment to talk to her.”

  “I’m not letting you go in there alone.” Yuuto parked the car far from the house. He scanned the area and scowled. Yep, people could be anywhere. He opened the door and got out before she could tell him otherwise.

  She jumped out after him and ran to place herself between her and the house. “Don’t move,” she whispered. She threw her hands up, and Yuuto stopped. He looked down and saw a red dot on her chest.

  He grabbed her from behind and flipped her to the ground. He moved over her, and, as a shot fired from the ground, Haruaki yelled out in Japanese for them to take cover. Rhea sighed. This was turning into a real mess.

  “Stop shooting!” she yelled from under Yuuto. He was using his weight to hold her in place.

  “Are you alright?” a voice yelled from inside of the house. She knew that raspy New Jersey accent anywhere.

  “Yes!” she yelled. Yuuto looked up at the house in confusion.

  “Tell the Surgeon to let you go and stand up.”

  “No!” She rolled her eyes. She knew how Frank operated. If something cannot be explained, shoot it and deal with it in the morning.

  “Why not?” Frank yelled back.

  “Because you’ll shoot him!” she explained.

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Frank asked. He sounded confused.

  “Yes! He is with me. Do not shoot!”

  “Tell his buddy in the car to put his gun down,” Frank said calmly.

  “No!” Rhea yelled again. She was starting to get annoyed.

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “We are not doing that again.” Rhea used her hips to push Yuuto back and jumped up. She waved her hands back and forth and walked forward. “I swear to God, Frank. Do not fire that gun!”

  “As long as they behave, we are good.”

  Kara walked out, and she heard Frank take a deep breath behind her. If a person ignored the tattoos on her arms and neck, she and Rhea looked like twins. Rhea was only a few years older than her sister, but Kara had always felt like a baby to her.

  They ran to each other and embraced. Yuuto followed her. He was clearly unafraid of being shot. “Are you sure I can’t have Frank shoot the prick?” Kara asked. She gave Yuuto a look that would have shaken a lesser man.

  “No, he’s with me. It’s hella complicated. I’ll explain all of this later,” Rhea said. She laughed when Yuuto rolled his eyes. She didn’t think he knew how to do that.

  “Can we move this along? And can you tell the sniper inside to lower his weapon?” He pointed to the red dot on his chest.

  “Frank!”

  “Okay, I needed to be sure.” A large man walked out. He had bright blond hair and a wicked smile. Same old Frank. The big man picked her up and swung her around. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered against her head. He put her down, and Yuuto pulled her back with a frown.

  “Please, don’t touch her again,” Yuuto said to the massive man.

  “And if I do?” Frank asked coldly.

  “I don’t want to kill her friend. But push me and I will.”

  “Yuuto seems to be under the impression that he has some sort of claim over you. But that can’t be right. Last I heard we hated him, and who in the hell is that?” Kara asked as she pointed to Haruaki, who was finally heading their way.

  “Like I said, it’s complicated. Can we do this inside?” Rhea asked. All of that movement earlier was starting to make her nauseous.

  Yuuto took one look at her face and shook his head. He grabbed her arm and ushered her inside. “Do you have any water and saltines? If not, I can go back to the car.”

  “Yeah, I bought some specifically for her.”

  “Why does she need all that?” Frank asked in confusion.

  “You don’t know?” Kara asked with a raised eyebrow. Usually, Rhea told Frank everything.

  “I’m pregnant,” Rhea admitted.

  “What?! Why?” Frank looked stunned.

  “I don’t know. Poor decision-making and bad timing,” Rhea explained as Kara handed her a plate of crackers and a cup of flat ginger ale. Yuuto picked up the drink and sniffed it.

  “You think I’d hurt my own sister?” Kara said furiously. She had her hands on her hip.

  “Does this work better than water for her nausea?”

  Kara seemed to be caught off guard by the simple question. Yuuto handed Rhea the cup and leaned down to kiss her forehead. He moved so quickly that Rhea didn’t have time to react.

  “Yes, my roommate just had a baby. Flat soda and saltine crackers calmed her stomach when nothing else would,” Kara answered him honestly. It was hard to be pissed at someone who refused to respond to other people’s emotions.

  “Oh, that’s good to know. I must remember that in the future,” Yuuto said to himself.

  Haruaki walked in and sat down on the other side of Rhea. He also picked up the cup and sniffed. He nodded his head and put it down in front of her. “I brought some ginger lollipops in my bag. I, um, borrowed them from the pharmacy.”

  Apparently, the Tanaka brothers were taking her pregnancy seriously. “This is fine. Kara, ca
n you go ahead and tell us what you know about the Linguist?”

  “Me and you are going to circle back to this,” Kara said, pointing to Haruaki and Yuuto. “The Linguist is being protected by Jorge Alvarez. He is currently housed in a military-grade outpost in Cuba. He is a local drug lord down there known for his well-trained men and complete control of the local heroin market.”

  “Jorge is bad news,” Frank said. He took the seat in front of her and opened up a folder. “He runs his own personal militia there. Getting to the Linguist is going to be complete hell. We’re going to have to be quick about it. If Jorge’s men get us, that’s it, we’re done.”

  “We need to plan a kidnapping,” Rhea said.

  “Yeah, just like…”

  “Paz Mantol,” Rhea and Frank said together. Paz was a former informant for the CIA, and somehow his enemies had found out where he was. Frank and Rhea had been tasked with bringing him in. It had been a particularly difficult mission because of where Paz was taken, and that they’d had to retrieve him alone and unseen.

  They’d done it in under 48 hours using a simple ruse to help. Create a distraction using a self-initiated explosive. Rhea could do that, she just needed to know more about the compound and the people running it. People were always the weakest part of a military-grade compound. As a species, humans tend to be lazy when it comes to repeated routine security measures. If they had enough time to observe them, she would create a plan in no time.

  “Okay, clearly you and Frank have some inside stories, but how about you two enlighten us to the potential plan,” Kara said with a sigh.

  “We used self-starting explosives to create a distraction on a very secure military base. Rhea set up six of them, and while the people on the base focused on putting out the fires, we did a blitz attack on the main building where our informant was being held. It was messy, but we got it done.”

  “Yeah, I think I can make something similar, and it will be much easier because we don’t need the Linguist alive. As long as I can get the plans for the device that releases the Genesis Project from him, he can burn with the others. Kara, I know you’ve gathered a lot of intel for us, and I appreciate it, more than you could ever know. But you need to leave now. What happens next is straight up murder, and right now your hands are clean. I don’t want you to have any more to do with this.”

  “Shut the hell up, Rhea. You are my sister, and what NICON is doing has the potential to kill millions. I’m not saying I’m good at this kind of stuff. But I’m here as long as you are. You are my sister, and for once I’m going to help protect you. So you need to let that baby sister shit go,” Kara said firmly.

  Rhea smiled. Her sister had a different look in her eyes now. She was not the little girl she used to be. Even as a young hacker, she’d gotten out of jail a million times. She wasn’t sure what she’d been through in their time apart, but there was fire in her eyes now. Kara wouldn’t leave even if she tried to force the issue, and, to be honest, they needed her brain.

  “So how do we do this?” Haruaki asked, taking a bite of an apple he’d picked up from the counter.

  “Those are my apples,” Kara said under her breath.

  “And they are delicious,” Haruaki admitted with a surprisingly charming smile.

  “We need to get into Cuba without being documented,” Rhea explained, looking through the research on the compound. She smiled. The Linguist probably hated it there. He was a man made for culture and class. He would hate being confined to a small base. In fact, he’d probably made several enemies by now with his constant bitching.

  “I can handle that,” Frank said. He looked worriedly at her belly, and she shook her head. She had a bad feeling she was going to have to deal with this from every person on this trip.

  “I don’t think you should go, Rhea.”

  “Yuuto…” she warned. She didn’t have time for this shit. Pregnancy didn’t automatically make a woman useless. She understood their fears, but they couldn’t do this without her. She was the only one skilled enough to make these kinds of weapons. She didn’t want to risk her child at all, but they all knew this mission was necessary.

  “Just listen to me. All I’m saying is you could create the explosives, and me and Haruaki will plant them.”

  “If you think I’m going to let you and your brother do this alone, you don’t know who I am,” Frank said, standing up from the table. “And as much as I don’t want to work with your ex and his brother, I do agree that between us we can get this done, and you know you can trust me with this.”

  “None of you know how to make explosives, and you damn sure wouldn’t know how to transport them. I love this child inside of me, and despite what all of you think, I don’t want to unnecessarily risk its life. But I also know that we have to destroy NICON and stop this auction or else my child will suffer along with millions of others,” Rhea said, running a hand over her belly. “I have to do this, just like all of you have to. My being pregnant doesn’t change that fact.”

  Yuuto and Haruaki exchanged a look but remained silent. Rhea didn’t trust that. She would have to make sure she watched them. She didn’t need the Tanaka brothers plotting together. It was hard enough to deal with Yuuto alone.

  Kara frowned and started pacing in the corner of the kitchen. Rhea didn’t ask her what she was doing. Kara always paced when she was thinking. “I think I have a plan to get us into Cuba. But we are going to have to appear dead for a while. I don’t trust this plan not to backfire, and if we are going to do this, we need to be sure that we cover all of our bases. If the Linguist gets a heads up that some former Sanctuary members are coming after him, it’s over, and I for one am not going to end up in a Cuban jail.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Haruaki asked.

  “I have a friend that can get me into Cuba, but he’ll only help me. If I go to him, I can set up a trail of fake leads about you guys and then make it look like you died. That way, if anyone else is discovered, it won’t get back to you. The other people in your group won’t know the truth, though. At best they will think you are missing. I will create identities for all of you. Jorge is always bringing in new syndicates as potential distributors. I will create a false lead that all of you are with a cartel looking for a new distributor.”

  “How in the hell will you do that?” Frank asked. He sounded impressed.

  “With a shit ton of sleepless nights and several different encrypted servers. I’m going to have to add your names to the FBI most wanted list for this to work. Jorge is an asshole, but he’s smart. Your story is going to have to be bulletproof. If you get caught…you can’t get caught.” Kara shuddered at the thought.

  “Can you trust this friend?” Rhea asked seriously.

  “Yeah, we’ve helped each other a lot. I can trust him.”

  “Okay. Frank, call your guy and get us on board that shipping freight. Kara, double check on your friend. Make sure nothing’s changed with him before you ask him for help. People can get a little funny when bounties are involved. If your friend figures out who we are, he may change his mind about helping you, and then I’d have to kill him.”

  “I understand that. I’ll be sure he’s legit before I get him to help. Remember, I’ve lived in this world for a long time. I know how we operate. I may not be a skilled assassin, but I know how to protect myself.”

  “Can I talk to you alone?” Yuuto asked. He reached down and grabbed her arm. His touch was gentle but firm.

  “Sure. Frank, call your guy now.”

  Rhea let Yuuto lead her from the room. She knew he needed to say his peace. He walked her to the other side of the house to the living room. The house was obviously not decorated with comfort in mind. The only thing in the room was an orange flower-covered loveseat and one lone standing lamp.

  She crossed her arms across her chest and waited.

  “This is dangerous. So many things can go wrong on a mission like this. Now we have to convince a Cuban drug lord that we are there to
deal drugs for him.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you’re pregnant,” he stated.

  “Yeah, got that memo as well,” she said dryly. Yuuto turned around and shook his head at her tone.

  “This isn’t funny!” Yuuto snapped.

  “I never said it was. All you are doing right now is stating facts. I know this is dangerous. I knew that when I signed up to do it. I also knew I was pregnant before I took this on. Why can’t all of you see that there is no choice here? I have to help you with this. You don’t have anyone else with my skills that you can trust.”

  “I can find someone else that can make bombs. All you have to do is give us a diagram for them. I’m trying to keep you out of this. For once, let me protect you.”

  “You can find someone in the next thirty minutes that understands how to create a weapon that can initiate its own explosion all while factoring in the humidity and heat of the environment? Also, just to be clear, the explosions not only have to be timed, but the blast radiuses also have to be fine-tuned in a way that creates the most damage while inciting chaos, and the fire needs to be hard to put out. Interesting. I know only two other people in the world as skilled as I am and they definitely cannot be trusted. So tell me. Yuuto, what’s the name of your friend?” Rhea asked confidently. She was good at her job. They needed her help to do this right. She wasn’t going to let his over-protective instincts get in the way.

  Yuuto was quiet for a moment while he digested her words. “There is nothing I can say that will change your mind?”

  “No, and there is nothing you could do to keep me here. All I can promise you is that I will be careful.”

  “If that is our only option, then I need a couple of hours to make some of my own plans.”

  “Yuuto…”

  “No, you want us to do things your way. Then fine, we will. But I will do everything in my power to ensure you are safe. No matter the cost to anything else.” Yuuto pulled out his phone and typed in a message. Rhea didn’t like the look on his face.