Jana was so completely taken aback that she just stood there. She was almost sure she knew who this stunning individual was, but, but…
‘You okay, Doc?’
Jana nodded, even though this was not her usual reaction to meeting anyone, especially for the second time.
‘You sure? You want to sit down?’
Jana shook her head at the raven-haired, blue-eyed soldier who’d rescued her from captivity, saved her from a fate worse than death, and then from death itself.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why she’d just fallen, in a bizarre kind of cerebral way, for her rescuer. She was savvy enough to realise her reaction was obviously a variation on the Stockholm Syndrome. But real or not, right here, right now Jana Isobel Rossi knew she was ready to swear that oath of allegiance she’d rain-checked earlier.
‘Commander Gideon,’ she managed to say.
‘Dr Rossi,’ Gideon said, with the raise of an eyebrow to acknowledge the obvious.
Chapter Seven
Tokyo, Japan
Tuesday 8 pm
Energetic, psychedelic and insanely vibrant, Tokyo’s Harajuku district was a pulsing synthetic-organic citybeing. Its circulatory system pumped a steady stream of staidly dressed or strangely-costumed life forms, all weaving to a streetside soundtrack of oriental twang, techno-opera and rap-doof.
Assailed by a heady dose of the real and surreal, it was with his writer’s sensibility that Scott Dreher registered the suited-salarymen, Manga clones, tourists, kimonoed or mini-skirted women, and gangs of blonde Japanese Goths. This was Blade Runner territory without the flying taxis, faux animals and blimps advertising off-world employment, and Scott was revelling in every cold and drizzly moment of it.
He was even starting to think that, if he gave up his futile little quest he could do this all the time.
If he gave up the things that made him serious, for a life of serious living, he could enjoy foreign or familiar moments for what they were. He could sit at the edge of the rain in a noodle bar like this one, or a café or park anywhere in the world and just soak up the ambience - for the hell of it. Somewhere public would be a place to sit solo, or meet friends to eat or drink, instead of what it had become for him: a safe environment to wait for a clandestine reason that had nothing to do with food, local culture or friendship.
It had been six years since he’d written a story where his name wasn’t the first or only reason for its publication; where the issue itself was worth paying attention to, regardless of who wrote about it.
Scott Dreher: political and social analyst extraordinaire - a name to be reckoned with.
Well, now he had the story of his career and he couldn’t write it. Not yet anyway.
It was more valuable - in terms of newsworthiness - than nearly everything he’d had published in the last decade. Even his book was ‘after the fact’. He rubbed his face in frustration. But, going public too soon could risk lives, his own even, and he was pretty sure his own was worth hanging on to.
Conversely, waiting too long might have dire consequences for three or four countries, not to mention several specific individuals. It was just a pity he didn’t yet know who, or when, or where in the world.
Scott nodded his thanks to the waiter who pushed a bowl of udon noodles and a Sapporo beer across the counter to him. Then he scanned the street for his contact again. There was still no sign of him.
Five feral-haired girls, giggling over a magazine with an excessively-tattooed boy band on the cover, surged by and into the establishment next door for a Big Mac and fries. Man! Talk about cultural train wreck.
Now there’s an idea. He could go back to writing about the things that people really care about, instead of the things they should. Or think they should. He could be a travel writer instead of a foreign correspondent, a tourist instead of an analyst, an anonymous chronicler rather than a famous reporter. Hell, take up active participation, instead of objective bystanding. Yeah right. Scott tasted the noodles, burnt his tongue and reached for his beer. He could give up the political and live the personal. Now that’d be an adventure worth telling the world to get stuffed over. He’d be bored in a week.
And someone is watching me.
He pretended his attention had been caught by a passing curiosity and casually swivelled on his stool. He still couldn’t see anyone who resembled the magazine photo he’d seen of his contact, but twice now, when the passing crowds allowed a view, he had glimpsed someone staring his way.
Ah, there. A woman? Now that’s a surprise.
She caught him catching her out, looked startled and stepped back out of view.
Scott kept his gaze on the doorway across the street, casually dangling his beer bottle between his fingers. Sure enough, a moment later, she reappeared. She pulled the collar of her huge coat up around her ears, glanced around nervously, and began crossing the wet street towards him.
He’d assumed she was Japanese but on ever-closer inspection it was apparent she was something else as well, something Western. Without a word she sat down on the stool next to him and turned her gaze, as he had, to the street. She was attractive. She was nervous. And she’d been crying.
Scott offered her his beer.
‘Thank you, Mr Dreher,’ she said, ‘but I would prefer Vodka: double and neat.’
Scott took care of the drink order, and then remained facing the counter. The woman didn’t turn to join him until her drink arrived.
‘May I see some identification please?’ she finally said.
‘You already seem to know who I am,’ Scott noted.
‘No. I only know who was meant to be here.’ Her English was good, but with a bar-mix accent of French, Japanese and, bizarrely, Australian. Or maybe Kiwi - he still had trouble picking the difference.
Scott shrugged. ‘You, however, are not who I was waiting for,’ he pointed out, loosening his belt one notch so he could get his hand inside the front of his jeans. ‘Money belt,’ he added, catching her frown, as he retrieved his passport.
She opened his warm and well-worn official ID and compared the photo with the actual face of Scott Andrew Dreher, born Boston, Massachusetts, 40 years ago.
‘You need a shave.’
‘That I do,’ Scott agreed, scratching his bristly chin. ‘I also need a name, and a reason: yours, both.’
‘I am Kaisha. And we should not stay here too long.’
‘Really,’ Scott said flatly, ‘and why is that?’
She glanced, nervously, up and down the street.
No, not nervously, melodramatically. He smiled, indulging her. I’ve seen this movie, sweetheart!
‘The man you were to meet…’ Kaisha let her sentence hang, as if still not sure Scott was kosher.
Or maybe she’s not kosher. Scott cocked his head, waiting for her to name the person he’d been expecting. After several seconds he realised she was swallowing more than the vodka. She was choking back emotion. And fairly heavy-duty stuff too, judging by what her right index finger had done to the drink coaster.
‘Okay, I’ll bite. ‘Are you all right?’
She shook her head and turned to face him. ‘Hiro - he is dead.’
Hiro? Scott frowned, not understanding. But a shake of his head and ‘Who’ was all he managed before his incoming-bad-feeling sense started kicking him like a frigging mule. Oh shit.
‘Hiroyuki is dead?’ he whispered. ‘Hiroyuki Kaga?’
She nodded.
‘How? What happened?’
Kaisha’s chin was trembling. ‘He was murdered. I,’ she took a breath, ‘I found him.’
‘Oh Christ! When?’ Several bad thoughts jostled for Scott’s attention, making it difficult to grasp her statement as reality. He’d never met the man, but this was too terrible. The ramifications were, were…
Fuck, what where they? Was this part of the conspiracy? Or was it unrelated to the Plot?
Kaisha checked her watch. ‘About an hour ago,’ Her hands were shaki
ng. ‘I found him bleeding. I could do nothing. There was so much blood.’
Scott leant in, close enough to get a scent of jasmine. ‘Forgive me Kaisha, but who are you?’
I am,’ she wiped her teary eyes with her coat sleeve, ‘I was his mistress. I couldn’t help him.’
‘Did you see who killed him?’
She shrugged. ‘Possibly, but after - you know, and before I found him. Hiro said a gaijin with no hair and blades killed him.’
A gaijin with no hair! And blades! Scott raised an eyebrow. Okay, now entering serious B-movie territory.
‘What do you mean by ‘after’?’ he asked.
‘Our room is in the Wild Lotus. Many westerners also have regular girls there. When I returned I saw maybe three not-much-haired gaijin, among the many men departing.’
‘Is it your place? Do you live there?’ Scott asked.
‘No. It is a living-in hotel, but our place is for meeting only. Normally I would not go again until lunch tomorrow. But today I went back to get my iPod.’ She patted the pocket of her overcoat.
‘So you saw a bunch of men leaving the hotel, and then you found Hiroyuki? Um, Kaisha?’ Scott waited until she was looking directly at him. ‘Why are you here?’
She looked puzzled. ‘Hiro sent me.’
‘He sent you?’ Scott squinted at her. ‘I don’t get it. Your lover just died…’
‘Yes Mr Dreher,’ she frowned, ‘I was there.’
Scott frowned back at her. ‘Hiroyuki Kaga, according to you, has just been murdered and yet here you are with me, and not the cops.’
Kaisha nodded then shook her head. ‘Yes. Is that the wrong thing?’
‘Um, you tell me,’ Scott said.
‘I don’t understand, Mr Dreher.’
‘It’s a bit suss, Kaisha. You know, suspicious.’
‘I understand suss-picious, Mr Dreher. But Hiro sent me to warn you. With his last words, he sent me to you.’ She touched his elbow. ‘And we should go now.’ She stood to leave.
‘Warn me about what? And where should we go?’
‘Away from here,’ Kaisha stressed. ‘In case someone followed.’
Resisting the urge to copy her earlier behaviour and do his own histrionic scan of the street for potential killers, Scott smiled politely instead. ‘Look Kaisha, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have only your story that Hiroyuki is dead. Why would I go anywhere with you?’
Kaisha waved her hands all around her. ‘Is he here? The man you were to meet?’ She began crying and propped herself back on the stool. ‘No, he is not. And I called the police, Mr Dreher. But I was Hiro’s mistress, not his wife. It is not for me to be seen to be the first to know of his death.’
‘Well now, that’s stupid. He died in your love nest. And in your arms, if what you say is true.’
‘If it is true?’ Kaisha stamped her foot and glared at Scott. She undid her coat buttons and offered him a flash of what she wore underneath: long black boots; strangely-patterned green slacks and a red and white shirt.
‘Oh man.’ Scott exclaimed.
Blood-stained green slacks, and a bloody white shirt.
‘Okay,’ Scott lifted his hands in surrender. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Hiro made me promise to meet you. I was to give you a message and you were to protect me if I needed, which I don’t, by the way.’ Kaisha’s tears were now laced with anger, but she began counting points off on her fingers as she spoke.
‘I was to tell you, “The game has been altered. Check source”. He said you were to take me to his brother’s - but you can forget that Mr Dreher - and convince, um,’ she squinted and then took a breath, ‘convince “Harry Carter, dead stalks, and he will explain everything”.’
‘What?’ Scott frowned. The only thing that made any sense was ‘the game has been altered’ and he knew that already.
Kaisha shrugged. ‘Hiro, um,’ she swallowed, ‘Hiro said to make sure he - you, I mean - “understands the danger, and also the deception in the next acts”.’
‘Deception in the next acts?’ Scott rolled his eyes.
‘Ah no,’ Kaisha shook her head. ‘It was, “the deception in their next actions”.’
Like that makes it clearer! ‘Is that all?’
‘No, he also said, “It has started”. But I do not know whether that was meant for you, or that he knew he was nearly gone.’
Kaisha wiped her eyes again. ‘Me, I didn’t understand anything; especially the birds.’
‘Birds? What birds?’
‘The dead storks.’
Scott controlled an inappropriate smile. ‘I kinda doubt he was talking about birds; or even deceased plants, which could be another interpretation.’
Kaisha made a face like she didn’t care either way.
‘He probably meant ‘stalks’ as in stalking, or stalker. You know, someone who’s following you,’ Scott said. ‘Not that that makes any more sense. Unless he said death stalks, which it literally was at the time. But as a message it’s just as stupid. Are you sure he…?’
‘You have Hiro’s warning,’ Kaisha interrupted. ‘I am going now. And you should not stay here.’
‘Wait. Are you sure he wasn’t just thanking you?’
‘What?’
‘You know ‘Harry Carter’ - arigato,’ Scott suggested.
Kaisha’s expression told him, in no uncertain terms, that she found that to be quite absurd.
‘Well I’m sorry, Kaisha,’ Scott said, ‘but who the hell is Harry Carter?’
‘You don’t know?’ Kaisha asked.
‘No idea, obviously.’
‘Well me, I don’t care,’ Kaisha shrugged. ‘Goodbye then Mr Dreher.’
In the moment it took for Scott to register that their meeting was over, Kaisha had taken three steps into the street. She then, apparently, changed her mind and span around to face him.
‘We both should go,’ she said urgently, ‘through the back.’
‘What? Why?’ Scott demanded.
‘Gaijin, no hair,’ Kaisha stated, lifting her chin to indicate Scott should look behind her.
Oh, a hairless gaijin indeed! How convenient.
But there he was: a westerner, conveniently very big and bald, walking with a group of other tourists; and all, no doubt, innocently soaking up the nightlife.
‘Is it him? Have you seen him before?’ Scott asked.
‘Maybe, maybe not. Not staying to find out.’ Kaisha headed inside.
Scott stood, as if to go after her, then hesitated. Oh man! Is this a set up or what? Sit Scott.
He glanced at the tour group, which was still half a block away on the other side of the street. The bald guy was sort of looking their way, but not really; perhaps wondering if Kaisha was going to come out again, but more than likely not.
Do not fall for it, Scott.
He sat down again. For a moment.
The bald foreign white guy gaijin left his ‘companions’ - without a word of farewell - and began weaving through the crowds towards him. The man was on a mission.
Shit.
Scott threw some money on the counter, and dashed through the long narrow noodle bar after Kaisha.
Chapter Eight
HMAS Harris, Pacific Ocean
Tuesday 11.10 pm
Gideon wondered whether shock had finally set in and rendered her package if not speechless then at least floundering for the usual chitchat. Not one to ruin a precious moment of silence, she turned to the small wall mirror so she could both watch her visitor, and give her short freshly washed hair a cursory brush.
Jana fiddled with her own fingers, glanced around the tiny cabin, then finally asked, ‘Um, who were you talking to?’
‘No one,’ Gideon looked perplexed. ‘Oh sorry, yes I was. We Redbacks are fitted with spanking new comm devices,’ she said, tapping her collarbone.
‘Well I am; the others only have the aural gadgets so far. Mine is the whole aural-vocal catastrophe which, so far, is bloody annoying.’
<
br /> ‘Did you say fitted?’ Jana asked.
‘Surgically implanted,’ Gideon said. ‘On, off,’ she indicated by squeezing her left ear lobe.
Jana shook her head. ‘But you were all wearing microphones, I saw them.’
‘Yeah. The guys were still being fitted when we had to, ah, come and get you. So I have two-way comm with home; but until we get back to the lab, they can only hear the Link.’
‘Link?’ Jana narrowed her eyes. ‘Who or where?’
‘Not sure exactly.’ Gideon pinched her left lobe. ‘Link? You still at work, Oliver?’
‘Well, yeah. It’s not like I take you home with me, Gideon,’ said the voice inside. ‘Why?’
‘Dr Rossi wanted to know. Out.’ Gideon pinched her lobe again. ‘Sydney,’ she said, as if that answered everything.
‘So is it Oliver or Sidney or Link in your head?’
‘Um,’ Gideon’s bemused smile was little more than a quick pursing of the lips that lifted one corner of her mouth. ‘Oliver is in Sydney,’ she said.
‘During ops - operations - Oliver gets called Link, coz it’s easier; and because the Link is not always Oliver. And you don’t have clearance for the rest.’
‘Oh,’ Jana said, none the wiser.
‘I can tell you,’ Gideon continued, ‘that on the next shift, the Link is a woman. And, that they swear it’s only ever going to be one of two people.’
Fascinating - not! Jana thought. Come on woman, ask her about the dead rebel. She stuck a hand in her pocket instead.
Mistaking Dr Rossi’s expression as a case of not getting her drift, Gideon did a rare thing - for her. She elaborated. ‘I mean it wouldn’t be productive to have us prototypes go stark-raving from a high rotation of strangers yakking away in our skulls.’
Jana frowned and shook her head. ‘Who are you?’
Gideon simply raised her eyebrows.
‘I mean, who sent you? No, actually I do mean who are you? It seems you’ve told everyone,’ Jana waved at the boat, ‘something different. So, Ms Gideon, are you a commander, doctor, soldier, agent or what?’
‘Yes,’ Gideon said, noting how much Dr Rossi used her hands when she spoke.
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