by Joe Shine
“What about the window? Think I can make that?” I asked, looking around for anything that could help us. Ryo raised his eyebrows, confused by what was going on. I raised my hand for him to relax.
“Oh, for sure. Bet ya a loonie you can,” she said. My heart jumped. I knew someone who used to bet me a loonie all the time . . .
“Sam?” I gasped.
“Good to see you again, Hutch,” she said.
I wish I could see her. She’d set us up perfectly. So much for whatever history we’d had or I’d imagined we’d had. She had a job to do now and would do it. Still didn’t stop me from wanting to see her.
Again, Ryo tried to question what was going on, and again I had to shush him. I knew I’d have to explain all of this to him at some point, but now was not the time.
“You miss me?” I asked.
“You miss me?” she shot right back at me.
“Up until about ten seconds ago, yeah.”
She laughed. I missed that laugh. I wanted to see the smile that went with it.
“So, uh, hear from any of the others?” I joked. I needed to buy time.
“Nope. I’ve missed the alumni cocktail parties,” she answered dryly. “But I did hear there’s some girl in Texas who is best friends with her FIP. Just like you.”
“Idiot. At least my bromance was preapproved.”
“Yeah, I don’t think it was meant to be a trend. They may send me to Texas next.”
Of course, I thought. “So you’re a Hunter now, huh?”
“Sort of. In training, I guess. Right now I just go where they tell me,” she admitted lightly. “Better try something soon, Hutch. My friends will be back any second now.”
“Oh, you know me. I do my best work at the last possible second.”
I was beginning to panic. I had nothing except my go-to: bull in a china shop, which wouldn’t end well against someone who was better armed and in a better position. But when you’re a bull, it’s sorta expected that you destroy the china shop when you’re trapped in it.
“I’ll cover you. Get outside and run, okay?” I whispered to Ryo.
Before he could nod, though, Sam called out playfully, “Good thing these lights are on, or I wouldn’t be able to see a thing in here.” Then for good measure a bullet clanged into the metal wall across the barn from us, right next to the main electrical breaker box.
“I knew you still loved me!” I sang out playfully. Why hadn’t I thought of the lights?! Obviously, hearing Sam had thrown me off my game. Maybe that was the point of them sending her here. They liked to do stuff like that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she responded coyly before adding, “I’ll still be trying to shoot you, though.” I knew she was serious, but from her tone I could tell she was smiling.
“As you should. Thanks.”
“See you around, Bobby Sky.” She laughed.
I took aim and plugged a shot into the breaker box. Sparks flew out and it zapped wildly as the lights flickered out. I grabbed Ryo by the collar and dragged him at a full sprint to Frank’s truck. Fast as I could, I opened the driver’s side door, shoved him inside the cab, and slid in next to him. Bullets clanged against the roof, but only one got through. Luckily, it puffed into the seat between us.
Like most people who live on a farm and own old, beater farm trucks, Frank had left the keys in the ignition. Thank you for taking us in, Farmer Frank. I am so sorry it cost you your life. I mean it. Somehow I’ll find a way to watch over your kids for you and help them out. I promise.
The moment the engine turned, I slammed it into gear and stomped on the gas. The old truck’s tires spun out in the dirt and hay before catching and sending us flying toward the closed barn doors. We blasted through them—and what made it even better wasn’t what, but who, was on the other side. Sam’s team couldn’t have chosen a worse place to be. Two became roadkill instantly and the third barely managed to dive out of the way. I still clipped his leg as he dove.
We weren’t out of danger, not yet. We flew down the muddy farm road, cleared the pasture, and were about to reach the tree line when I started to believe we’d made it. Maybe a few more seconds and . . . a pair of lights appeared far behind us.
Of course, this was just the end of the second set. I’d performed enough shows to know that there’s always an encore.
Chapter 21
No Escaping Stereotypes
This old girl had power, but speed? Not so much, especially with how muddy it was. Even with four-wheel drive the truck was struggling, which was why I couldn’t understand how whatever was cruising up the farm road after us was moving like the mud didn’t bother it at all. Then I remembered seeing a four-wheeler in the barn. This had to be it, but the other vehicle that was keeping pace with it? No clue. Had there been a second one? Luckily, or unluckily I guess, they’d be on us soon enough, so I’d know then.
Once the road hit the forest, it began to climb upward with brutal switchbacks and was so sloshy with mud I understood why Frank had told us we’d have to wait for morning. Driving in this slop was impossible and dangerous.
With every near 180-degree turn in the road I’d lose sight of our chasers, but each time the road straightened out for a bit they were a little closer than before. The turns were slowing them, too, but they were still gaining on us. A few minutes and they’d be on us.
We weren’t going to outrun them and going off-roading in an unknown forest at night wasn’t something you did. We really only had one option: plant our flag and dig in. They probably wouldn’t be expecting it, and maybe that way we could catch a break.
“I’m gonna stop the car and we’re getting out, okay?” I told Ryo.
“What? Why?”
“They’re gaining on us. We have to get out. Ready?” I asked as we approached a tight switchback. He nodded.
The second we cleared the next turn I jammed the parking brake on and spun the wheel. The truck slid to a stop sideways in the middle of the road. There were maybe a few feet of clearance on either side. It was the perfect roadblock.
“Now!” I yelled as I jumped out on the muddy road and reached back for Ryo to slide toward me, but he was already hopping out his door. “That way works, too,” I yelled, frustrated at the miscommunication.
I ran to the rear, but he ran to the front.
“This way!” I yelled out angrily.
He circled around the car toward me and we ducked down on the side of the road behind an old log. Within seconds, the whining sound of (yep, I knew it!) a four-wheeler engine, and whatever other vehicle was with it, came screaming up the road toward us. The headlights lit up the woods on the turn as they got closer and closer, but thanks to the thick woods and switchback, the truck wouldn’t be seen by whoever was coming until the last second. It’s like I planned it or something . . .
A man on a four-wheeler slid around the turn, saw the truck, and tried to brake and swerve. The moment he appeared, I opened fire and caught him in the chest and neck. He lost control and smashed into the side of the truck. A Polaris, a super-awesome off-road golf cart, was right behind him and couldn’t react much better. I popped off a shot that caught the middle of the windshield. The driver swerved hard. They came right at us, clipped the log we were hiding behind, and flipped off the side of the road into the woods down below us. As it flew over us, I was pretty sure I saw a long ponytail, a girl’s ponytail.
I ran over to the side of the truck where the four-wheeler had crashed, grabbed the nearly dead man, and finished the job. Clear of danger up here, I called out to Ryo, “Get in the truck.”
He did so as quickly as he could. Once Ryo was safely in the truck, I grabbed the machine gun from the dead guy and headed toward the Polaris. I did a controlled slide down the slick pines of the forest floor toward the flipped Polaris. It was upside down and the wheels were still spinnin
g. I carefully circled around to the driver’s side.
Halfway out from under the wreckage, but hurt, stuck, and struggling, was Sam. She sensed more than heard me and looked up. Emotions that I’d buried and convinced myself I’d forgotten about washed over me. Leggo had only been a crush—a fun one—but just a crush. It wasn’t real—not like this, not like my Sam. These emotions had history; they were living scars. I wanted to drop down to her side and hug her, but I knew better and pointed the gun at her instead. She gave me a weak smile and stopped struggling.
“Make it quick and clean, please,” she said as she closed her eyes and rested her head in the pine needles.
“Not sure what you mean,” I said as I dropped the gun. “Lucky you fell so far down the hill, or I would have been able to find you.”
“I knew you still loved me, Hutch,” she said playfully like I did before.
For a couple seconds I forgot who and where I was and dreamed of dropping everything and running away with her. But FATE would never let it happen. So I echoed her earlier words with the best smile I could muster: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I grabbed the side of the Polaris and lifted it up just far enough for Sam to pull herself free. Her leg was mangled and it looked broken.
“You gonna be all right?” I asked.
“’Tis but a scratch,” she said, quoting something I thought sounded familiar but couldn’t place.
“Want me to make you a splint?” I offered.
“How very Prince Charming of you. No, you need to get out of here. You need to disappear.”
I understood and nodded.
“I missed you, Sam.”
She smiled. “I missed you, too.”
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with her, help her, just be with her, but I knew I couldn’t. I could care about her and she about me, but we were on different sides of the coin now. The Capulets and Montagues. Hey, that’s actually a pretty good comparison. (Take that, eighth-grade English teacher who said I never paid attention.)
There was so much more I wanted to say to Sam, but I didn’t. What was the point? So without so much as a goodbye, I slid down the rest of the hill to the road below and started my hike back to Ryo. When I finally reached the truck, I climbed in muddy, exhausted, and depressed.
“Is she dead?” Ryo asked me.
“She won’t be an issue anymore,” I said as I turned the wheel of Frank’s truck and headed toward town. I beeped the horn twice as we left. I could argue that it was a standard gesture, some professional courtesy to Sam so she would know we were leaving. I could argue that, but it would only be a half-truth. I’d also done it to serve as one last goodbye. The horn had said what I couldn’t.
My adrenaline was pumping like crazy and I was driving a bit more recklessly than I probably should have, but I didn’t care. That had been intense. That had been crazy. That had been one helluva emotional roller coaster. A shootout, a lost love, and a last-second escape—my mind didn’t know what to focus on, so bits and pieces raced around in my head. And I probably would have kept going that way if Ryo hadn’t been there. He was staring at me as we drove. It was awkward. Oh, the irony wasn’t lost on me. I’d done so much weirdo staring at him that this was quite the reversal of roles.
After five minutes of hard, silent staring Ryo calmly said, “I believe you owe me an explanation.”
It was so formal, so perfectly Ryo, and so not how a normal person would have reacted that I couldn’t help but smile. He was such a robot sometimes and I loved that about him. Cracked me up.
“This is not funny. What was that and who are you?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” I coughed out as I stopped laughing.
Never reveal who you really are is one of our basic rules. Remember that creative writing class I had to take that we all laughed about because it made no sense? Who’s laughing now? Here goes the big lie I came up with when I first joined the band.
“I’m CIA.”
“Since when?” he asked. The flat, stone-faced look he gave me told me all I needed to know. I’d hooked him, and I only needed to give him a reason to believe me. Oh, buddy, I had it . . . I think.
“I was recruited after I got into the band. They came to me and asked if I’d be interested in being an agent as well on the side. Like any teenager I said yes. ‘Hell yeah!’ I think was my actual answer. So while the label was grooming me to be a celebrity, the CIA was grooming me to be a spy. Bobby Sky, pop star, super-spy, they called me. I rehearsed and hit the studio during the days with y’all, and at night I trained with them. Didn’t you ever wonder why I went straight to my room each night after we were done, instead of hanging out? I was sneaking out for training.”
There was a tree lying across the road in front of us. I had to swerve hard to miss it.
“Why would they recruit you?” he asked. I could tell by his shaky voice that he was starting to believe it. I was reeling him in.
“’Cause celebrities like us are allowed to do whatever we want and go wherever we want. Even the most reclusive of people and world leaders want to meet us and stupidly let us into their most secret, secure places. How many times have we been allowed to go in somewhere that no normal person could ever get into?”
“Many times.”
“Exactly, and the best part is, it’s all done with open arms. People want us there. They bend over backward to have us there and show us their cool stuff. We touched a nuclear bomb in Moscow, for God’s sake, remember? A long time ago the CIA figured, why not take advantage of stuff like this? Get people who could use their celebrity status to gain entrance to the most secure places, and actually come away with useful intel? Every time we went somewhere awesome, I planted a bug or something.”
He nodded. This was it. I almost had him.
“And I’m not the first. Jagger? MI6. Steven Tyler? CIA, and a heck of a shot with a sniper rifle. The Hoff? CIA and BND joint agent.”
“BND?”
“German CIA. Great folks, but that’s not the point. Point is, you asked, and that’s why I can do all the stuff you saw.”
“You’re an agent with the CIA,” he said, trying the words out in his mouth.
I nodded as I said, “Yeah, crazy as it sounds, but yeah.”
“So all that has happened is your fault?” he suddenly asked, as if accusing me, and to be honest I hadn’t been ready for this. “Our brothers have died and we are running because of some . . . some line you crossed or some mission you failed?!” he added angrily.
“No, no way,” I said defensively. “You heard the same stuff I did. They were after all of us. I mean, yeah, I knew one of them, but it’s a small world for people like me and that was just coincidence. I have no idea why they were after us.”
Had he bought it? That last part had been true. They had been after all of us, not just me. God, I hoped he believed me. I needed him to believe me.
“Yes, you are correct. They were after all of us,” he admitted after thinking about it. “I do recall hearing that. But it still could be your fault. You don’t know for certain.”
I could use this. No, I didn’t want him to blame me, but I could twist the idea into something useful.
“Yeah, I guess it could be. You’re right, I don’t really know. I can find out, but there’s no way you should have to be in danger for something I may have done. We need to get you somewhere safe so I can go figure out what’s going on.”
“So when we reach town, we must find a phone and alert the authorities. I will be safe in their custody,” he offered.
Oh, dear sweet Ryo. Like everyone in the world when the s hits the fan, they think calling the magic authorities will help it go away, and for the most part they’re right. But “normal” and who we were dealing with aren’t even the same sport. It’d be like if you were swimming in the ocean and you yell
ed at a sea horse to go get help when a great white started circling you. What are they gonna do about it? Make their weird sucky face and float away in a current, that’s what.
“No, these kinds of people own the authorities, Ryo. We call the police and we may as well save everyone some time and call the bad guys directly.”
“So what, then?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. The last resort for any Shadow was “call FATE,” so I had no idea what to do now that I couldn’t. “The problem is we’re sorta recognizable,” I went on, “so we can’t just go anywhere and expect to stay hidden for very long.”
All I could think of was grabbing some gear and disappearing into the Canadian frontier, but looking at Ryo I knew he’d never even seen a tent, let alone slept in one. The guy tried to shower at the same time every day of his life; woods wouldn’t agree with him.
“We need a safe house,” he said. “Ideally a secret location, unknown to the law. Maybe with some level of protection, too? Like guards?” He sounded like a waiter reading me my options of sides.
“Can I opt for armed guards with a side of attack dogs?” I couldn’t help the joke but quickly added, “Yeah, we need a place to lie low. You got one of those in your back pocket?”
“I may have an idea, but it is painful to admit it to you because of our history.”
Okay, that got my attention. What the heck did that mean? Our history?
“Your offensive jokes aside, I may . . .” He took a long pause before quickly and quietly adding, “I may have a connection to the Yakuza.” Even in the dark cab I could see a sneaky smile spread across his face.
“What?!” I practically laughed out.
“Akiko may have had some past dealings with them,” he added, avoiding my eyes.
“You mean after all the crap she gave me about it, I was right?”
“It is still an offensive stereotype.”
“But I was right! When it’s true, it’s not offensive.”
He turned to me. “Yes, it is. You are quite stupid sometimes. That does not mean I should assume that all Caucasian boys from the United States are stupid.”
