The Shiro Project

by David Khara

  Just as he was beginning to inspect the setup, the ceiling lights went on. He heard a dull click coming from the door he had just gone through. Eytan’s hand went for his gun. Hugging the wall, he started edging toward a corner where he could crane his neck and get a better look at the door.

  A man was watching him through the glass window. Eytan could make out only his piercing blue eyes. There was no use in playing cat-and-mouse. He stepped away from his hiding place.

  Eytan could now see that the man was holding a phone up to the window. Eytan responded by picking up the receiver of a nearby wall phone.

  “You’re not Japanese,” the man said in perfect English.

  “Good call,” Eytan responded, trying to get a better look at his phone partner.

  “SVR? NATO?”

  “Nope and nope.”

  “Ah! So you must be working for the lab we stole the viral strains from. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but they aren’t here.” Above him, Eytan heard fans coming on. He knew they were extraction fans. “Sorry, I don’t have time to chat,” the man said. “If it’s any consolation, it’ll be a quick death.”

  The man hung up and left. Eytan was already finding it hard to breathe. Relying on his above-average lung capacity, he drew a deep breath, filling his body with as much oxygen as possible before a vacuum was created in the corridor.

  Crouched against the fence separating her from the building Eytan had described, Elena watched the helicopter as its blades spun. Two Asian men, fighting the blast of air from the blades, were doing something to the concrete supports. After a few minutes, they rushed toward the heliport, as two other guys, one of whom was Caucasian and carried a briefcase, came hurtling down the stairs. All of them hopped on the aircraft and took off immediately.

  She waited for the helicopter to drift far enough away before jumping the fence and sprinting toward the entrance to the building.

  Holding his breath, Eytan emptied his supply of bullets against the window in the door, which was beginning to crack. He banged the butt of his gun against it as hard as he could. His lungs were burning. His vision was starting to blur, and his arms were cramping. Each new assault on the door had a little less force. The glass wouldn’t budge. If only he had his trusty shoe explosives.

  Elena rushed up the steps, driven even faster by the newly discovered threat to the building’s supports. The room she found herself in was empty and showed no signs of struggle. There wasn’t any time to go exploring. A loud, repetitive pounding caught her attention, and without thinking, she dashed toward the dark corridor to her left. She ran down the hall and stopped cold in front of the obstacle separating her from Eytan. She was transfixed by the scene before her. Behind the glass window filled with spidery cracks, her partner was staring back at her with a contorted face.

  She snapped out of her trance and furiously pulled on the door handle. It refused to budge. She looked around and spotted a boxlike fixture on the wall. It had two lights, one red and the other green. Naturally, the red light was blinking. She kickboxed it until it broke off the wall, revealing a weave of cables. She grabbed hold of them and ripped them out in a bundle of sparks. The door made a loud click, and she opened it immediately.

  Eytan fell into her arms. It took all her strength not to topple backward under the weight of the massive man. She lowered him gently to the floor. The giant inhaled such a huge breath, she couldn’t imagine where he could put all the air. His face flushed with color as he regained his senses.

  “Come on. We have to get out of here, and fast!” she said, helping him to his feet. “They attached explosives to the pillars under the building. Hurry!”

  “You go first!”

  Elena ran through the hall, with Eytan hot on her heels. The first explosion went off behind them, followed by another. The building began caving in. Elena started running even faster, taking the Kidon agent by surprise. He doubled his efforts to catch up and escape the collapsing roof.

  Without slowing, Elena grabbed her gun and emptied her bullets into the window at the end of the hall. The glass shattered. As she prepared to leap through the opening, she felt an arm wrap around her waist and a huge hand shield her head. Then a brusque shove lifted her off the ground and propelled her forward like a torpedo. As two more blasts finished off the building, Elena soared through the air, securely strapped to Eytan’s chest. She had no idea how long they stayed suspended. The landing wasn’t as bad as she anticipated. When she opened her eyes, she realized why.

  Eytan lay sprawled under her. He had cushioned her fall and absorbed almost all of the shock of the landing. She glanced over her shoulder at the spot where the laboratory had stood. In its place was a heap of rubble. A cloud of gray dust was drifting into the air. She looked back at the giant and saw that he was wincing and holding his ribs. She rolled over to take her weight off him.

  “You disobeyed my orders,” Eytan grumbled.

  “I’m the only one who’s allowed to kill you.”

  Eytan laughed so hard, he was soon moaning and coughing. With great effort, he sat up and examined his jacket. The flying glass and metal had shredded the right side.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Elena stood up and extended a hand to Eytan, who took it. She had to use all her strength to avoid toppling over as she helped him rise to his feet. Upright again, he rubbed his ribs under his T-shirt.

  “You’re not banged up too badly are you?” she asked.

  “Nothing that won’t heal,” he replied.

  “I tried to warn you about the chopper, but my message wasn’t getting through.”

  “What did you see?”

  “There was a light-haired dude in a suit with three men who looked like bodyguards. They got into the helicopter and took off.

  Breathing heavily, Eytan was walking a few steps behind her. “You should have kept them from leaving,” he said.

  “Need I remind you of my limited intel? How could I make that kind of decision? To be safe, I stuck with my partner. I may be a bitch, but I’m loyal.”

  “Thanks for getting me get out of there,” he said. “But we’re in a bad position. Our opponents know they’re being followed, and we’ve lost their trail.”

  “I don’t agree. By now they’re assuming you’re dead, and that’s a huge plus for us.”

  “I think we might actually have another clue.”

  “Which is?”

  “In one of the offices, I found boxes that had the letters S and W written on them. There was also a photograph of a Caucasian woman.”

  “Okay, a new lead. The S and W might be initials. We’ll have to see if there’s a Western-sounding name with those initials somewhere in the Shinje archives.”

  “It’s a long shot, but I’ll take anything at this point.”

  They crossed the campground at a slower pace than Elena would have liked. Eytan was breathing with difficulty, and he was keeping his right arm close to his chest. The landing outside the destroyed lab had taken a toll. Elena offered to inspect Eytan’s wounds, but he waved her off.

  They left the campground and returned to their car. Wheezing, Eytan rested against the passenger-side door before getting in. Elena headed toward the driver’s side, ready to slide behind the wheel.

  “One second,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Can’t it wait until we’re on the road?”

  “No, it can’t.”

  “Okay, what is it?”

  “When you came out of the cat café, I wasn’t mad that you had taken your time. I was preoccupied. I had just found out why you lost consciousness in Tel Aviv.”

  “Yeah, I was wondering why that happened. But why are you bringing it up now?”

  “Because before I didn’t know how to tell you. You have a brain tumor. According to Avi Lafner, it’s because of your mutation. It’s a side effect that’s specific to the mutagen they gave you.”

  Elena felt like she had just been sucker punched. She turned aro
und and leaned against the door with her eyes closed. The random blindness she had experienced in the Czech Republic, the headaches… Suddenly she was a child again, in that hospital bed. She replayed the conversation between her father and Professor Bleiberg and remembered how it had filled her with hope.

  Then came the injection and nearly intolerable pain that had her practically knocking at death’s door before finally offering her a new life. All these years she had believed that she was free of the physical constraints that bound everyone else to a normal life span and relatively limited capabilities. She had assumed she was above the laws of nature. Like Patient 302, she represented a turning point in human evolution. All that to learn that she would be spewing her guts after endless hours of chemotherapy and spending the rest of her days in a palliative care unit.

  “That’s why I wanted you to stay back earlier.”

  Fighting tears, she opened her eyes.

  “You didn’t want to be dragging a dead weight, is that it?”

  “No. Even if you were half as good as you are now, I’d still want you to be my partner. I didn’t want to… I mean… I’m sorry.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “Not long.”

  Elena took a deep breath and wiped her cheeks.

  “We’d better get to Tokyo, then. We shouldn’t be wasting any time. You take the backseat. You’ll be more comfortable.”

  Eytan started to get into the car, but Elena, who had come over to his side, stopped him.

  “I don’t want any pep talks, Morg. And no endless negotiating or banishing me to the sidelines. I’m finishing this mission with you. If I have to go down…”

  Eytan didn’t say anything. For people like them, this was the only way to go.

  The only acceptable way.

  CHAPTER 31

  The mood in the car was dreary. Elena, unaccustomed to driving on the left side of the road, was uncomfortable behind the wheel. In the backseat, Eytan was holding his side and stewing. Between the disastrous turn of events at the lab and the news about Elena’s health, he felt like everything was spiraling out of control. His worries had multiplied exponentially since the start of the mission. But his biggest concern was Eli, who was still being held captive. The only bright spot was the thought that his enemies believed he was dead. This would give him the element of surprise once he caught up to them. If he caught up to them.

  No, things were definitely not unfolding the way he had hoped. He winced at the pain in his side.

  Elena veered out of the fast lane and took an exit to a sleepy residential neighborhood outside Tokyo. She parked in a secluded alley, turned off the engine, and climbed into the backseat.

  “Stop acting so macho, and raise your arms,” she commanded.

  Eytan obeyed, opting to avoid the woman’s temper, as she clearly had no intentions of backing down. She took off his khaki T-shirt and discovered the extent of his injuries. A constellation of glass and metal debris studded the entire side of his body. He had to be in unbelievable pain, given the amount of shrapnel lodged in his flesh. She placed her fingers on his stomach and felt him shudder.

  “We’re going to patch you up before we do anything else.”

  “It’s nothing,” he lied.

  “You won’t get very far like that.”

  “We have no idea where we’re going anyway.”

  “All the more reason to get you cleaned up before figuring out our next move. I saw a supermarket on the street we just passed. I’ll walk over and get what we need. Don’t move.”

  “That won’t be a problem,” he said, trying to keep his face from twisting into a grimace.

  Elena slammed the door shut and headed toward the store. She examined the products in the pharmacy section and settled on a first-aid kit, hoping it would provide just about everything she needed. She also bought a set of tweezers.

  At the register, she found herself stuck between a businessman in a black suit that was at least one size too small and two postpubescent boys who were listening to their MP3 players. Elena wasn’t about to waste any effort trying to make sense of this strange world. The man in front of her was skimming the Tokyo Shimbun. Towering above the suit by a good half foot, she had no trouble reading over his shoulder. She just wished she understood Japanese.

  She could still understand the pictures, though—at least one of them—and a second later, she snatched the paper from its owner’s hands. Ignoring his indignant cries and the stares of the other customers, she ripped out a page.

  “Shut up,” she screamed. “Does anyone here speak English?”

  The store employees and customers looked at each other in confusion. The short businessman raised a timid finger. Elena held out the page for him to read. She pointed to the article accompanying the photo. “Translate,” she said.

  The Japanese man began reading the article.

  “Hai. Boss Shinje Corp., Hirokazu Shinje, died, age ninety-three years. His assistant, Sean Woodridge, becomes boss Shinje Corp. Will attend opening of Shinje Conference Center in Shinjuku neighborhood tonight.”

  She pointed at her impromptu interpreter’s watch.

  “What time?”

  He scanned the text for a moment and nodded when he found it.

  “Nine o’clock.”

  Elena searched her memory for the right expression as she stood before her smiling new friend. She recalled a scene from a movie she had seen years earlier.

  “Arigato,” she said, bowing low with her hands on her thighs.

  The man bowed in return, as did the half dozen other people still gathered around them. Before getting caught up in a nonstop ballet of bows, Elena threw a wad of yens on the counter and fled the store.

  She rushed to the car. There, she found Eytan as white as a ghost. She had barely sat down before showing him the article from the paper.

  “We caught a break!” she cried triumphantly.

  He tried to skim the page but couldn’t. Elena was waving it as though it were a freshly minted college diploma.

  “If you say so,” he said, leaning his head on the back of the seat.

  “The guy in the photo. S.W. Sean Woodridge. That’s who I saw leaving the lab and getting into the helicopter. And even better, I know where he’s going to be tonight!”

  “Excellent news,” he mumbled in a shaky voice. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you get this shit out of me? My fingers are too fat.”

  Elena moved the front seats up as far as they would go to give herself enough maneuvering room in the back to tend to Eytan. She opened the first-aid kit and took out a few cotton pads, some bandages, and antiseptic ointment. She unwrapped the tweezers, which she proceeded to disinfect.

  “All right, Morg, strip down,” she ordered.

  Eytan looked like he was about to laugh, then winced in pain. He removed his T-shirt and lifted his right arm as high as he could to expose his wounded side. Elena slid her fingers across his abs toward the injured area. She felt him shiver.

  She focused on extracting the numerous shards and bandaging the man. There was no better way to distract herself from the giant’s smooth, hairless skin and his shallow breaths, which were blowing softly against her face. Perhaps this was the last flesh she’d ever have the chance to touch. She tightened her grip on the tweezers and concentrated on the task. Anything to keep from imagining herself lying naked next to this man.

  “Do you always wear the same clothes?” she asked as she plucked out the first piece of glass.

  “Yes. I mean not exactly the same. I have a bunch of duplicates,” he said.

  “How’s that? You allergic to fashion? Can’t find the right size?”

  Her heartbeat was picking up, and she was breathing more quickly. Trying to extract a piece of metal, she pushed it in deeper.

  “Hey! Careful!” the giant protested.

  “Sorry.”

  “I don’t have anything against fashion. I try to stay practical for professional reasons. Plus,
my clothes have sentimental value. It’s a long story.”

  She stopped prying and continued her work. It took her another ten minutes or so.

  “There, I’m finished,” Elena announced proudly as she affixed one last adhesive strip to his side. “You’ll be feeling better in no time.”

  She backed out of the car. A gust of cool air rushed in. Eytan attempted a few shoulder rolls.

  “You’re a miracle worker,” he said, straightening himself. “Thanks.”

  Elena carefully closed the kit as she leaned against the car. “Does Mr. Macho have a weakness for nurses?”

  She immediately regretted the comment. Eytan replied with a high-pitched laugh, which he was quick to suppress. He got out of the car and practiced flexing to check his muscle range. He walked to the back of the vehicle, opened the trunk, threw in his torn clothes, and took out his backpack, from which he retrieved a perfectly folded T-shirt and jacket—both identical to his previous outfit.

  “The chameleon has recovered his skin?”

  “Exactly,” he replied as he adjusted the shoulders and sleeves.

  Eytan glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard.

  “Well, it’s almost seven o’clock. I suggest we pay a little visit to the Shinje Conference Center for the nine o’clock dedication.

  “That’s where we’ll be meeting our target?”

  “Yep.”

  “Get behind the wheel. I’m going to count our remaining ammo supply.” Now, if only her headache would go away.

  CHAPTER 32

  The last rays of sunlight reflected on the Shinje Convention Center’s glass façade, making the enormous circular building sparkle like diamonds. The structure dominated the park, which had been redesigned in honor of the opening of the facility. All expenses on the Shinje Corporation’s dime, as indicated in several languages on a conspicuous plaque. An island of tranquility in the midst of heavy workweek traffic, the park had a tea house, a restaurant, a greenhouse, several lakes, an English garden, and an elaborate French garden. The conference center was just off the main entrance.