Case 31 - Another New Beginning, Part 4


    The Garden City Police Headquarters was bustling as usual.  The building was hardly ever empty unless there was some major disaster going on in the city that required all the detectives and SWAT - and the last person to inadvertently cause that was Keiko herself.

    Fortunately, at the time she escaped unscathed and without chains.  So she was still free to enter the building today, headed to Sean’s office upstairs.

    Recently, like most official buildings, police headquarters had been ‘secured’.  That meant as a guest, Keiko had to show I.D. and walk through a metal detector staffed by a police officer.  After that, she had to sign in at a receptionists’ desk, and list who she was visiting.  Then, finally, they gave her an orange VISITOR badge.

    The badge was more than decoration - the elevator was fairly high-tech.  It required a swipe of the badge before it would open, and then only certain floor buttons were lit - other floors were restricted entry.  She tapped the sixth floor, where Sean’s office was located.

    A minute or so later she pushed open the double glass doors and entered the new detectives’ area.  There was an empty desk next to the entrance, looking like it used to be another reception area.  Keiko walked past it and down a wide, well lit hallway lined with open doors.  Some of them were occupied, some weren’t - detectives were not always in their offices.

    She knocked on the doorway of Sean’s new office gingerly.  He was on the phone, so he looked up and enthusiastically waved her in.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We have to go.”  Keiko attempted to whisper, but he was listening to the phone, and didn’t hear her.  He just nodded in response.

    There wasn’t much time, so Keiko took a more aggressive approach.  She reached for the phone and snatched it from his hand, and then she repeated herself.  “We have to go.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Keiko, that was my boss,”  Sean protested.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now,”  she said, in the iciest tone she could manage.  She hung up the phone as she said that.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What the heck is going on?”  Sean asked, suddenly sounding concerned.

    She replied by taking his hand, and leading him to the door of his office.  She peeked out gingerly.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Keiko--”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Shh!”  she warned him curtly as she looked into the hallway.

    Sean whispered, “What’s wrong?”  

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The glass doors have been propped open,”  she whispered in reply.  “I didn’t leave them like that.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Probably just one of the detectives--”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t hear any footsteps, either,”  she added.

    He didn’t like something about how jumpy Keiko was, and how her voice had just an edge of fear.  He took his police issue pistol out of its holster just in front of his left arm, and checked to make sure it was fully loaded before holding it gingerly, pointing away from himself and Keiko.

    Then Keiko abruptly slammed the door.  As she did, a sharp metallic object punctured through, so just its tip showed on the inside of the door.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Move the desk,”  Sean suddenly decided.  He leapt over it, and started pushing it quickly to the door.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Vertically.”  Keiko urged him, “Or they will just climb over it.”

    The two of them gripped the edge of the desk and tipped it, so it was propped up almost vertically against the door, but slanted into it enough so that it wouldn’t just fall over.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“The windows,”  Keiko observed as she turned around.  She grabbed Sean and pulled him to the closet at the front of the office.  She quietly slid the door shut.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’re trapped in here, you know,”  Sean pointed out.

    Keiko replied, “You have a gun, I’m me, and we now have the element of surprise.”

    She turned and gently tapped the dark wall behind her with a fingernail.  It was very light and hollow sounding.  “This borders against the office next door?”  she whispered.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Are we breaking through?”  Sean asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s an option.”  she replied.  “Not yet.  If we need a way out, maybe.”

    Sean gently grabbed her free left hand and held it up to look at it.  “You have beautiful fingernails for an assassin.”

    She gently pushed him away with her other hand.  “I don’t have any weapons, so if they come in here I’ll have to fight hand-to-hand.”

    Then Keiko had a worrisome thought.  “What if just like I did they thought to check the wall--”

    As she spoke there was a loud crunch, and four coordinated black clad arms grabbed Keiko and tore her through the plaster into the next office.

    Sean crashed through after her, holding his pistol tightly.  He took aim, but the two ninja who grabbed Keiko were too close to her.

    She was fighting viciously, her limbs seemingly flailing, causing them to drop one bladed weapon after the other.  She tore the mask off of one, and gave the other a black eye with her elbow.

    He realized that Keiko was not flailing randomly.  She was fighting them in a very calculated way, and she was winning.  It was up to him to twist the odds further in her favor.

    But just as he decided that, it turned out there were more than just the two ninja holding Keiko.  He realized just how ninja got their reputation for distraction and stealth when another two grabbed his arms and pinned him to the broken wall behind him.  A fifth one grabbed a sword.

    That fifth ninja was fortunately just in range of Keiko’s very calculated tantrum.  She kicked him in the head, and the sword fell as he stumbled.

    Sean felt encouraged, and started to fight back too - only he was much stronger.  He threw one of the two pinning him to the floor, and then punched the other hard enough in the face to feel his nose break through the mask.  

    The one who just lost his sword got his wits together, and spun around, kicking Sean on the side of the head.  He could feel the whole world spinning as he tried to charge the one who kicked him - he grabbed that one by the throat, and was met with a hard palm to the face.  Sean’s nose was the one broken now.

    He heard another snapping noise, but it wasn’t his nose this time.  Keiko managed to get close enough to the outside wall to backflip and climb her feet upward, snapping an arm of one of the two men holding her.  The other didn’t have the strength to hold her as she spun around and kicked him.

    Keiko was loose.  The two ninja tried to regain control, but they didn’t realized she had been keeping track of those randomly scattered bladed weapons the entire time.

    She was now armed with two crossed swords.  The entire room froze, and became so silent that everyone present could be heard breathing.  The ninja were smart - they knew what she was trained for, and what she was capable of.  They could see their own deaths.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where is your master?”  Keiko asked them in a cold, soft voice.  All in all, she could have been commended for her focus.  She remembered that if she killed them all, she would never know who had been threatening her, and Ron, and Sean.

    The ninja didn’t respond.  They started to circle Keiko.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You are students,”  Keiko assessed.  “You have an understanding what I’m capable of.  But you don’t know.”

    There was something about the way she said that last word that sent a chill even down Sean’s back.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“There will be police here in a minute,”  she warned them, as she remained perfectly frozen, watching them.  “Your master.  What is his name?  Who lied to you, and sent you to your deaths?”

    One of the ninja students made the slightest movement from behind her, hoping to take advantage of the opportunity when she looked away for a moment.  Keiko let out a terrifying screech, and her stolen swords moved in an impossibly fast arc.  There was a clash of metal, and a sickening thud.

    It took nearly two seconds before that ninja realized his hand had been sliced off, and was lying in a puddle of blood on the floor.  He gasped, and then screamed.  A terrified, horrible scream.  Then he knelt on the floor, and began sobbing.

    Keiko lowered the swords slightly.  Her angry frown disappeared, and she looked sad.  “Sean, ambulance please.  And a pack of ice, if you can get one.  Quickly.”

    Sean moved slowly at first through the hole, figuring the ninja would stop him.  Nobody interfered, so he moved quickly to his small fridge to get two ice packs.  He called for an ambulance as he went.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Gabriel.”  one of the ninjas said.  “That is all I will say.”

    They all hung their heads as police officers flooded into the room, guns drawn, and quickly began to handcuff them and take them into custody.  Except for the one that was bleeding, and sobbing, and was missing a hand.  The paramedics arrived a minute later to take him.

    Keiko looked at Sean, and sighed.  “I’m so sorry about all of this,”  she said.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s not your fault.”  Sean said, shaking his head.  He stepped through the hole in the wall again, and hugged Keiko.  “You did good.  Showed them mercy when they didn’t deserve it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“It’s kind of weird to say...but I learned to control my fear.”  Keiko said.  “Every other time you’ve seen me kill to defend myself, I was afraid to lose my opportunity.  Now I’m better...I know I almost never lose the opportunity.  So I no longer have to use it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So I guess we find someone named Gabriel who runs a ninja school.”  Sean asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Mmmhmm.”  Keiko nodded.  “And we bring him down.  Your way.”


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.