Case 30 - An Old Leaf Part 1


    Keiko Takashi, former World Class Intelligence Agency assassin, never thought she would be taking up her former career again.  It wasn’t really the work she detested, but the people - she worked among some of the most psychopathic people in the world.

    She supposed it was necessary, in most cases.  Most normal people simply lacked the capacity to separate their own feelings and lives from the job.  Though psychopaths didn’t really do that either - they simply reveled in it.  They loved the death, the blood, the mayhem.

    That’s what it took to be the best in the Intelligence Agency.  It was a mindset they valued, because those who relished causing death had no thoughts of escape, because it was the only way they could feed their addiction while making money and living in society.

    Keiko, on the other hand, didn’t like the life.  She didn’t like the murder or the destruction, or the blood.  But it was the only thing she knew how to do, and do well - and her bosses, knowing full well her profile, appealed to her nature by convincing her it was necessary, and that she was very valuable.

    That only lasted so long, though, and she eventually made her escape.  The only thing her bosses had correct about her was her skill - and that skill allowed her to defeat waves of Intelligence Agents given the task of eliminating her from history.

    In the process, she became close friends with Sean Morrison, a police detective in Garden City.  She was once one herself, having fraudulently taken the job, becoming his partner.  Even though he proved to be a highly impulsive and self-destructive individual, she remained close to him.  As her first real friend, she needed him to feel like a normal person.

    She was suspended from that job as detective, because her skills as an assassin proved not to match up well with the low-violence high-discipline police job.  Possibly, she could have gotten it back - but she took it as a sign to strike out on her own.

    That’s when she discovered two talents that she didn’t know she had:  A sharp mind for solving mysteries, as long as she didn’t have tons of regulations bogging her down; and teaching.

    Which is where seasoned private detective Ron Clancy entered her life.  He helped her get acquainted with the way things worked, and got her started on the path to go out on her own.  Or so she thought...there was a small speed bump along the way.  And she encountered it on one meeting with Ron.

    He took a deep breath, leaned back in his old squeaky office chair, and then spoke quickly.  “All right, I’ll be honest with you.  It’s the kind of work you did before you came to Garden City.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“No.”  Keiko shook her head quickly.  “No, I don’t want to do that again.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You don’t have a choice, kid.”  Ron relented, his smile disappearing and his voice softening.  “Look, these guys...they’re much heavier duty than I thought.  We both work for them now.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And if we don’t?”  Keiko asked, emphasizing the ‘we’ almost sarcastically.

    His disappearing smile became a frown then, and she could see fear in his eyes.  

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Like I said, they’re much heavier duty than I thought.  They’re gonna kill me.”  he said.  “And then they’re gonna go after your friends.  And then...you.”

    Keiko never suspected the kind of work she did before was even possible in the private sector.  But there it was...she had become an assassin again.  To travel the world, seek out specific targets, and destroy them.

    But there was still a problem.  When she worked for the Intelligence Agency, if anyone asked what she did, she could say she was a government agent, or special ops, or something impressive sounding like that.  In the government sector that brought respect...in the private sector it brought unwanted attention from law enforcement.

    That’s where her second talent came in handy.  After briefly teaching a teenager named Cody basic self defense, she found she had a knack for it.  It was quite a step up to expand that to a twice a week class at a local high school, but it gave her the appearance of legitimacy.  Also, quite honestly, it was somewhat fulfilling.

    The only thing that truly worried Keiko was having to keep Sean in the dark.  As far as he knew, she was a part time private detective - a job that occasionally sent her traveling - and part time teacher.  She couldn’t bear to tell him any more, however...because she knew he couldn’t live with it.

    It was far from a perfect life...but it was hers.


---


    Keiko was only a few minutes off the plane in Amsterdam when she caught a cab outside the airport, carrying only a small duffel bag with two days worth of clothes.  She didn’t speak the local language, but since she was Japanese that helped the locals try to be more understanding about the verbal barrier.  

    Fortunately, the cab driver spoke broken English.  Keeping to character, Keiko spoke her own accented broken English.  While she entered Customs on an American passport, it was common for her to switch identities as she met different people in order to throw anyone who might be checking into her off the scent.

    Once she arrived at her hotel, she checked in speaking perfect English again.  She never left a country the same night of a job - that way if the local police checked airline passenger lists the day of a person’s death, she wouldn’t be on it.  Leaving a day or two in between cut the odds of being detected that way exponentially.

    However, leaving a day or two meant that she had to get to work immediately.  Having flown in on a plane, she had no weapon - the contract usually provided one, most often in an inconspicuous and secure place.

    In this case, as cliche as it seemed, the location was a locker in a specific train station.  Keiko had a key which could be for lockers in any of dozens of places in the world.  Only verbal instructions guided her to the right one.

    Still, paranoia served her well over the years.  Before checking the locker, she calmly entered the station, carrying a magazine, and admired the architecture like any tourist might do.  Then she carefully read the ticket instructions like she’d never been there before and she was trying to understand how it worked.

    By that time she was sure nobody was loitering and watching the locker.  She headed straight for it, opened it, and pulled out the bag within.  She wiped down the key with her shirt after she closed the door...no fingerprints.

    Fortunately the train was part of the directions she was given.  She bought a ticket, boarded the train, and sat calmly reading the magazine she brought with her until her stop came up.

    Her heart was racing as she emerged from the station into the evening sunlight, a long, nearly empty duffel bag dangling from her hand.  She was standing only a block away from the building her target was in.

    Then it was decision time.  She could tell from the weight and shape of the bag that her employer intended for the target to be killed at  a distance - it was probably a sniper rifle.  There was an apartment building across the street from her target.

    Keiko walked casually through the open door of the apartment building.  Either one of the residents propped it open because the weather wasn’t as cold as usual, or her client arranged it somehow.  

    She ran up to the highest floor, for the best vantage point, and then knocked randomly on the door of an apartment facing the street.  After a short wait, she found she was fortunate that nobody was home.

    She then slipped on a pair of fitted leather gloves, and used a small kit from her jacket pocket to open the door lock.  She quietly closed the door behind her, and propped a heavy armchair from the living room against it to delay anyone who might be coming home unexpectedly.

    After she unzipped the bag, she pulled out the rifle scope and previewed her shot through one of the apartment windows.  It was a perfect view of her target’s apartment across the street.  Then she quickly assembled the gun and checked again - there wasn’t much going on yet.

    That’s where she got a little more high-tech than the usual assassin.  Besides the lock kit, one of her jacket pockets contained a fiber-optic exploration camera that contractors use to explore inside walls.  She taped the flexible probe end to the scope and then propped the view screen on the window sill so she could see it from a distance.

    Though petty theft wasn’t really in her job description, she had some time to kill.  Still wearing the gloves, she turned on the television and headed to the kitchen to see what was in the refrigerator.  All she managed to find were fresh carrots, so she brought one back to the living room to snack on.

    There was some movement on the view screen.  She pulled the probe free and looked - through the scope she could see her target, a middle-aged man wearing a grey suit, sitting in a comfortable chair.  He was easy to recognize because he was overweight and had fiery red hair.  Even so, she double-checked the photo she had with her just in case.

    Still with the carrot in her mouth, she lined up the shot, and allowing a couple seconds to stabilize the gun, she pulled the trigger.  She then searched to make sure he was hit.  Targets rarely fell right next to where they were shot.  She found him crumpled below, and lots of blood on the back of the chair.  A direct hit.

    For a normal person, that would have been the easy part, and panic would have set in right after.  Keiko was well trained, however.  She calmly left the gun behind - it couldn’t be traced to her, unless she was stupid enough to be caught walking with it outside.  Rolled the camera probe around its view screen, shoved it into her jacket.  Moved the chair aside, and descended the stairs.  She exited out the back door, into the alley, stashing her gloves in her jacket as she went.

    Also a function of her training was to remind herself that no matter how much she wanted to run from that place as quick as possible, she had to behave like a normal person.  That meant when the sirens from an ambulance and police were approaching, she had to fight the urge to look away and walk faster.  In fact, she stopped to gawk at the source before walking on.

    Every bit of her behavior from that point on always felt unnatural to her, but she knew it was something practiced she must do to avoid getting caught.  While her heart raced, she had to control her breathing and try to behave and sound like she was perfectly calm.  She had to remember to smile at people, like the cab she hailed two blocks’ walk from the apartment.

    With the most sincere smile she could muster, she asked the cab driver to take her to a completely different train station.  The trail leading back to her had to be very, very complicated.  Or maybe it didn’t, but training and paranoia demanded it.

    The train ride back to the hotel was fairly short.  The sole purpose of it was to make sure there wasn’t one person in particular who knew where she went that day.  

    Once back at the hotel, Keiko was a law-abiding tourist again.  She entered and, with a warm smile, asked the desk attendant if there were any messages for her - there were none.  She then headed up to her room, and closed the door behind her, and slipped off her boots and jacket.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That wasn’t too bad.”  she whispered to herself.  And she even earned herself a couple days’ vacation while she made sure the trail went cold.  She looked at her hands - now that the action was over, they were shaking a little.

    She still missed being at home.  She missed her students, and she missed Sean.


TO BE CONTINUED
    


-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2008 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
--    reprinted without permission.  
-- World Class and all characters therein are property of 
--    Strike Two and Jason Froikin.