Case 32 - Just Out Of Reach, Part 1


    One might call preparing for the moment one has to hide out from both the law and an unseen enemy paranoid.  One might, unless one led a very particular kind of life.

    Keiko Takashi was one who led that kind of life.

    The preparations in question were why she could return home after she just fled from police officers who were under orders from the police chief to arrest her.  Why she could return home while still being hunted by killers who used threats of death to force her to be their pet assassin.

    Her house was rather large; not because she enjoyed having lots of extra space, but because of necessity.  Many of the rooms were duplicates - for instance a bedroom and an office hidden behind a secret door, so she could hide there comfortably even while someone searched the house.  Some of the others had a way they could be hidden, closed off from the rest of the house in an emergency.  It was as if a third of the house was a panic room.

    She entered through the front door; then locked it, and re-armed the security system to ‘away’ mode, so the first-floor motion detectors remained active.  Then she headed to the kitchen, and slid closed a pocket door at its entrance, sealing it off from the rest of the house.  She then closed all the kitchen blinds, and pressed her hand against a framed picture next to the refrigerator as she reached into it to grab a snack.  A narrow door popped open from the wall.

    She exited up the stairs behind that door, and it closed behind her.  At the top of the staircase was one of the two hidden bedrooms upstairs, that she turned into a small secondary living room.  The one window was heavily tinted, so she could have the lights on and nobody could see it from outside.

    Unlike a normal living room, however, there was a small monitor screen on the wall above the television.  It showed six cameras at a time, divided into squares, and a remote on the table in front of Keiko could zoom in on any one of them.

    It was funny how activity blocked emotion, Keiko thought to herself.  She felt nothing the whole way home, and as she made her way to her living room.  But once she settled in with a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and the snack she grabbed on the way through the kitchen, she felt sad.

    Sad because she spent so much time and effort to try and leave her old life behind, to start anew again.  To be a friend to the authorities, so she would not longer have to fear them.  Now, she found herself a fugitive yet again.  And as she sat in that secluded room, she felt even more depressed that she had prepared for this day.

    Keiko’s cell phone rang - it was Sean.  She knew better than to answer it, most likely his boss told him to ask her to surrender - as a distraction so it’s signal could be traced.

    Then again, she thought as she sat up abruptly, maybe he was trying to warn her.  She watched on the outdoor camera as black clothed figures began filing around the house.  She knew it wasn’t ninja, because they would have moved in smaller numbers, and stayed out of sight.  It had to be police SWAT.

    Keiko was just about to start turning things off, but the power went out first.  That was right out of the SWAT rulebook.  She knew what came next, so she opened the bottom drawer in the end table and pulled out a full face plastic gas mask.  She strapped it on quickly and returned to watch the cameras, which were on backup battery power.

    She couldn’t help but chuckle a little when the next step of the SWAT manual failed.  She forgot that the windows were replaced with shatter-resistant models - the gas canister they tried to fire into the living room downstairs left a star-pattern on the window, but bounced off and fell into the bushes.  There was now a large cloud of tear gas drifting through the neighborhood.

    There was a loud crunch as they broke through the front door and started to search the house.  As they did, Keiko quietly made her way to the closet and pulled out a garment bag.  She unzipped it slowly, making no sound, and removed the contents.  She tied up her hair, and began slipping the dark uniform, ski mask, and gloves from the case over her clothing.

    It was a SWAT uniform, a couple sizes too large, so that she could strip it off later and disappear in her own clothing.  She already wore the gas mask, so the new canisters of tear gas SWAT was tossing around the house wouldn’t affect her.

    The strategy was simple - she’d wait until there were a lot of SWAT wandering through the clouds of gas, and then she would slip through dressed as one of them.  Only tricky part was figuring out how to escape once she made it outside.

    But there was no time for hesitation.  She waited until the kitchen was quiet, and then she slipped out of the hidden door, and straight out into the back yard.  She passed a couple of SWAT cops, but they didn’t even look up since she was wearing both a gas mask and a ski mask, completely hiding her identity.

    She looked around quickly once she was outside.  If she took her own car, they were sure to notice.  However, there were nearly a dozen marked and unmarked police vehicles parked all over the whole street.  She hopped into one that she noticed had the engine still running, threw off the gas mask and ski mask, and she drove off quickly.  She only had to get to a busy location where she could leave it, and the SWAT uniform, and hail a taxi.

    But Keiko didn’t need to even take that risk.  A few blocks away, she passed Sean driving into the neighborhood.  He was so observant, too - she saw his head turn as she drove past.  There was no point in pretending he didn’t see her, so she pulled into the first dead-end street and stopped.

    Just as she anticipated, Sean pulled up behind her.  She quickly got out of the stolen car, and transferred herself to the passenger side of Sean’s.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you going to turn me in?”  she asked as she pulled off the SWAT uniform and threw it into the back seat of his car.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t know what’s going on.”  Sean’s voice was quiet and wavering.  He was genuinely scared.  “So I’ll...put you in my downtown apartment.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re name’s on the lease,”  Keiko reminded him.  “Your boss is bound to investigate you, too, when I vanish.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What do you have in mind?”  he asked.

    She smirked a little.  “I have a place.”


---

    
    Sean followed Keiko’s directions, which led them to a very expensive condo complex.  It had a gate - the condo office had to buzz them in - and a winding, narrow street leading between townhouse style condos.

    The one Keiko pointed out as hers was located at an inner corner, at a point where two buildings intersected, surrounding a parking lot.  Behind the building was large open area, divided into walled-off private sectors for condo units bordering on it.  Sean was impressed and amused at the isolation.  Keiko obviously selected this place to be difficult to sneak up on.

    Though the complex didn’t seem overly high-tech, when they approached her place it was obvious that it was recently built.  On top of that, Keiko gave it an upgrade or two.  It had a security system built in, and instead of a lock with a key, hers used a thumbprint for access.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Come on in,”  she urged Sean.

    He looked back at the car.  Where it was parked, surrounded by buildings, the police would never spot it.  Keiko did indeed think way ahead on this one.

    Inside, the condo had a large, heavily tinted window facing the parking lot - most likely to block prying eyes - and another one at the opposite end which led to a screen porch within the walled yard behind the building.  As he passed by the kitchen, Sean noticed there were two small monitors near the security system console, one showing his car in front, and another showing a view of the screen porch and the yard.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do you have things here?  Clothes?  Food?”  he asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yes, I keep stuff here in case,”  she replied.  “Except food, maybe, I need to have some delivered.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’ve done pretty good for yourself here,”  he noted.  He looked up the carpeted stairs and into the upper hallway.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I had to be a little reasonable,”  Keiko said.  “Hiding out like this, really only an underground bunker would be safe.  But it’s not very comfortable or social.”

    Sean looked at her and noted that she was smirking.  She had no intention of moving into an underground bunker, she was joking.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m kind of tired.”  Keiko sighed as she tumbled onto the couch.  “I had a very long and awful day.  I think I’d like to eat dinner and do nothing the rest of the evening.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are you going to be okay?”  Sean asked.  “I’m...kind of afraid to hang out here too long.  If they start looking for me--”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I know, they’ll find me,”  she noted.  “Just promise to visit me again soon, okay?”

    Sean smiled.  “I will.  Don’t want you to get lonely.”


TO BE CONTINUED?
    


-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2011 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
--    reprinted without permission.  
-- World Class and all characters therein are property of 
--    Strike Two and Jason Froikin.

Or maybe not all - Keiko's a girl with always that something else in reserve.  Had a chuckle here at the sheer audacity of her escape tactic.  Even so, it does sound like Sean is storing up even more trouble for himself.  Don't know which plotline has the greatest potential for fireworks...

...and the bit where she reflected on what those preparations said about her. However, I note that you left out the reason she went back to her place at all... She went home, expected them to come, went to her safe room, watched them break in, disguised herself specifically to get past them and then escaped to the stocked condo that they didn't know about. Obviously, she must have needed to go home for some reason, or she could have just gone straight to the condo and avoided some big risks. I'm curious to find out what it was she needed there.

The way I thought of it, she wanted to hide out at her own house first, hoping Sean would talk them out of harassing her. Also, she didn't want to lead them directly to her condo.