World Class: A New Beginning, Part 5


    When Keiko awoke, she was alone in the bed.  She looked around the room for the clock radio, which she found on the night stand on her side of the bed.  It was nearly 10 am.

    Sean had just emerged from the bathroom at that point.  He smiled at her, like he had the best idea in the world in his head.  And he thought he did.

    Keiko didn’t care, though.  She slid out of the bed, and dragged herself toward the duffel bags in her own room to pick out some clothing.  Her only thought was that she had a nightmare while she slept; that she awoke to find Sean missing, and one of her assassin pursuers standing above her.  It wasn’t real, of course, but she was still sidetracked by worry and fear.

    After she was showered and dressed, she walked back to Sean’s room, tossed her duffel bags on the floor, and flopped onto the bed, where she watched him read a newspaper.

    He put down the paper and grabbed one of her feet, covered in a short leather boot with laces on one side.  “You have some sexy boots,”  he noted.  “But then you wear jeans, and cover everything else up.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Ninja are all about mystery,”  Keiko teased.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You were probably right about last night,”  he changed the subject.  “I can now bring you home for dinner to meet my wife, without feeling any guilt about it.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’m looking forward to it,”  she said.  “But first we have to make it there.  We should leave soon.”

    Sean replied,  “I already had breakfast while you were sleeping.  Do you want anything?”

    She shook her head.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Then let’s go.  We have a lot more driving.”


---


    Keiko offered to drive, but Sean wouldn’t let her.  He said he enjoyed driving too much.  She was only asking to be polite, though - really, she didn’t like long drives, and was more comfortable reading or napping on the way.

    They had crossed into a different weather zone when they arrived at the hotel the night before, but Keiko was tired enough that she didn’t notice.  Now that it was morning though, she was slouched in her seat with her jacket zipped up.

    That was caused by the fact that Sean liked it cooler than she did.  She tried to turn up the temperature in the car, but Sean pointed out that if it got too warm, he’d be sleepy, and the drive would become dangerous.  So she turned the vents away from herself and wrapped up for warmth.

    But she still worried that two days of driving himself after a vacation was starting to have an adverse affect on Sean, so she thought she had some responsibility to keep him awake.  It was also an opportunity for her to discover more about him.  And she knew just the way to hopefully bait him into telling more.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I’m going to meet your wife, you should tell me some of your history, so it doesn’t look like I just met you two days ago.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I did just meet you two days ago,”  he pointed out.

    Keiko stared calmly at him.  “What’s she going to think if you tell her you brought home a Japanese girl you just met because she was a hot ninja?  Maybe we should have something else in common.”

    Sean sighed.  She had a point.  “I don’t really like telling my story.  Everyone who knows it kind of was there when it happened.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Except for your wife?”  she guessed.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah,”  he agreed.  “Except for Lisa.  I met her after I came back from the Middle East.  I was in the military, stationed there with Special Forces.  I was retired after a near miss.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“One near miss?”  she asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was the only one who didn’t die,”  he said.  “That’s what I mean by near miss.  The military treated me immediately for a stress disorder because of what I saw and experienced.  They had me on meds for a while.  And then one day they took me off of them, and a week later they sent me home.”

    He glanced at her for a moment, and noticed that he had her full attention.  “Before I went out there, I was in training.  I went into training as a tall, pale skinny guy that wasn’t very strong.  Came back like this.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh, I agree it had a positive effect on you.”  Keiko smiled and laughed, but then went back to listening.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“So did a lot of girls.  When I first came back, I almost never slept alone.  And I loved it.  Then I met Lisa, and we moved in together, and eventually got married.”

    Keiko sat up a little.  “Why don’t you respect that?”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I do,”  he replied more softly.  “But it’s not easy for me to say ‘no’ to a girl.  I like the attention too much.”

    Keiko shook her head and decided that was a topic for another time.  Instead, she moved on.  “Why did you become a police detective?  That seems like it’s a little far from a soldier.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I like solving puzzles,”  he replied.  “Love it, in fact.  I love a good mystery to solve.”  He looked at Keiko and smiled.  “That’s why I’m taking you home, I guess.”

    He stopped talking because Keiko had become comfortable enough wrapped in her jacket that she was slouched in the seat, dozing off.

    A short while later they stopped for a quick lunch, picking up take-out food and eating in a park.  It was too chilly to eat outside, though, so they ate inside a glass-walled rec center with picnic tables.  Also convenient because it had its own restrooms.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“You’re sleeping a lot, Keiko,”  Sean pointed out.  “I’m worried about you.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Solving another puzzle?”  Keiko asked him as she took a sip of her drink.

    Sean looked concerned.  “It’s a sign of depression.  People hide depression by sleeping a lot.  Or you’re getting sick, and it doesn’t look like that.”

    Keiko sighed and looked down at her sandwich.  “I don’t really know if I’m depressed.  I feel exhausted all the time because I’m worrying.  The whole time I was an assassin, I didn’t care if I lived or died, I figured if someone killed me it was well deserved.  For the first time now, I don’t want to die, and I’m scared.  Being scared all the time is...it’s wearing me down.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I didn’t say it wasn’t normal,”  Sean replied.  “Being scared, never letting your guard down is exhausting.  When I was in the Middle East I was worried too, because I wanted to do nothing but sleep, and I didn’t understand why.  Because I was terrified all the time, and it made me tired.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ve never had to be scared before,”  Keiko explained.  “I was always in control.  Uncertainty, the possibility of getting caught, that was different.  It was exhilarating, like an extreme sport.  This is something totally out of my control, and it’s foreign to me.”

    He nodded.  “You’ll feel better when you get to my house and you get settled in.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah.  Maybe,”  she replied.


---


    The clerk at the hotel Sean and Keiko stayed in the night before made a gurgling sound as he fell out of his desk and slumped to the floor.  He wore a knife through the back of his neck.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Found it,”  one of the two men who killed the clerk said, as he fiddled with the reservations computer.  He couldn’t find any matching names - Sean used a false name to check in - but there was security camera footage of the police-owned car he was driving.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“They have to be going back to Garden City,”  the other man said, as he retrieved and cleaned off his knife.  “They left four hours ago.  They’re going to have to stop for the night again in another four or five hours.  We can catch them just as they’re checking into the next hotel.”

    The first assassin took his cell phone out and loaded up a map, and set a route to Garden City, and then zoomed in on the highway.  He poked one particular exit.  “I bet they stop here.  It’s the only exit with hotels within the next six hours.  They either have to stop, or drive all the way through.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“We’ll catch them there,”  the second man said.  “They won’t make it to Garden City.”


---
    

    Sean was tired enough that he let Keiko drive for a few hours while he napped.  She felt motivated to gain as much territory as possible, because she felt like between the late start that morning and the leisurely late lunch stop, her pursuers had to be catching up.

    Keiko had never really driven fast on a wide open freeway before.  While working as an assassin, she usually only drove around cities, and she was flown to all of her distant destinations.  This felt fun, liberating, free...

    ...and a little shocking, she thought, as she looked in the rear view mirror and saw a highway patrol car behind her.  She flashed back to her training of trying not to do anything to look suspicious, or attract attention.  Pretend nothing was wrong, that everything was perfectly normal.  So she didn’t move the wheel even the tiniest bit, or even reduce her speed.

    Unfortunately that didn’t help her much.  The patrol car erupted in flashing lights, and right after that, a siren.  Keiko cursed quietly, but it was the siren that woke Sean up.

    Keiko stopped on the side of the road and waited.  She looked at Sean as she began to formulate a plan.  “Sean, I’ll speak only Japanese, and you pretend you understand me.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“What?”  he asked groggily.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If I speak to you just say hai to everything and nod.”

    It was too late to explain anymore, since the patrol officer knocked on the driver’s side window.  She opened the window quickly, and bowed her head slightly.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Which one of you is Garden City P.D.?”  the cop asked.  He had obviously already checked the car registration.

    Sean looked at Keiko, and their eyes met.  Then Sean spoke up and said, “I am.  I have my GCPD identification in my wallet.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Let’s see it,”  the officer said.

    Sean reached behind him and took out his wallet, and passed the plastic card to the officer.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll be right back.  Stay put.”  The officer walked back to his car with the plastic card, to check on it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I guess plans don’t work sometimes,”  Sean told Keiko with a shrug.

    The officer came back after a couple of minutes.  “Good news is you are authorized to be driving this car.  Bad news is, you’re not the one driving.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I was taking a nap,”  Sean explained.  “She took over for me for a little while.”

    The officer shook his head.  “I don’t know how you do things in Garden City, but here you can’t do that.  You can pull over and take a nap, but you can’t let someone else drive.”

    Keiko sounded worried as she looked up at the cop sadly.  “I don’t want to get arrested.  Please don’t arrest me.  If I was driving a little fast, I’m sorry.”

    Sean was genuinely worried, meanwhile.  He guessed that Keiko would be able to execute a plan to disable or even kill the officer to get away, but all he could do was hope either it wouldn’t be necessary, or that she wouldn’t consider it.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Don’t worry about that,”  the officer said.  “I am going to have to report it to your buddy’s supervisor, though.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That’s fair,”  Sean replied with a sigh.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“And you two...switch off.  I don’t want her driving away right after I just said she’s not supposed to be driving.”

    Sean nodded, and climbed out of the passenger side.  Keiko slid out of the driver’s seat just as Sean climbed in.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Have a nice day, you two,”  the officer said, just before heading back to his car.


---


    The day ended with another stop at a hotel.  The next morning they would have only a few more hours’ drive, arriving in late afternoon.  But only if they could leave at a fairly early time.  Which meant instead of having a decent meal somewhere, which would have run too late, the two of them brought takeout at a nice place and brought it back to Sean’s room.  

    Keiko actually preferred that, in a way, because she had more questions for Sean that were best asked in private, to get a more honest answer.  She didn’t know that Sean had a question or two for her, as well.  And he got to speak his first.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Where did you learn to do that?”  he asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Do what?”  She responded as she started tearing open the takeout containers.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I mean, it’s like second nature to you.  Being able to come up with an instant plan, and then change it completely when circumstances change.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Oh.”  She shrugged.  “I guess it’s how I protect myself.”

    He sighed and looked down as she slid his aluminum container of food in front of him.  “You...wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”

    Keiko sat directly across from him and looked into his eyes.  “I might, if I thought it would protect you.”

    Sean raised an eyebrow at that.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“If there were assassins staying across the street, and I was watching them, I wouldn’t tell you,” she explained.  “You would just march in there with some cop friends and get yourself and them killed.  I would make up some story about why I was watching across the street.”

    He smiled at that, but then asked, “Besides that.  I mean really, would you lie to me so casually, to rope me into something, or get me to change my mind?”

    Keiko shook her head.  “It doesn’t work like that.  I can only do that to people who don’t know me, who haven’t seen my normal behavior.  Those people would notice the sudden change.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I guess that makes sense,”  he agreed.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Now tell me more about you,”  Keiko prodded.  “About this war you went to.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Went to the Middle East,”  he replied quickly.  “Was immediately made part of a strike force to go in and rescue some hostages.  It went badly.  I mean really badly.  We lost air support and surveillance, and we had to go in on the ground.  And we got ambushed.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wait.”  Keiko paused eating and leaned over the table.  “You mean to tell me--”

    He nodded.  “Nearly four months of training, two more months on site.  I took two bullets, neither one critical, but I needed repair surgery.  Back then that was enough to get discharged permanently.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Two bullets doing something brave?”  she asked.

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I don’t know.”  He shrugged.  “All I remember was a lot of yelling and complete chaos when we were hit.  One bullet that didn’t hit me bounced off my helmet, and it sent my head ringing for days.  All I remember is being dragged by someone, and then waking up in a helicopter.  The guy that dragged me didn’t make it.  Just me.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Wow,”  Keiko whispered quietly.  “You and me both, surrounded by death early in our lives.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“Yeah,”  Sean agreed.  “Except...your line of work is what I was afraid of most in mine.  I was most terrified that I would have to kill someone with my bare hands, or with a knife.  Close up.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I won’t lie,”  she warned him, “As long as those two assassins are chasing me, you might see me do just that.”

    He nodded.  “I understand.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“I’ll try my best to keep it hidden from you, though.”  She smiled.  “If I can’t avoid it altogether.”

    Ã¢â‚¬Å“That would be kind of you,”  Sean whispered.

    Shortly after they ate, the two quietly watched television together for a while.  Then Keiko retreated to her room.

    She looked at her bed, and realized that once again, she was exhausted.  Maybe Sean was right about her being depressed.  After all, she had no life any more, and nobody to depend on aside from Sean.  And he was married, so she couldn’t cling to him forever, and rob him of living his own life.

    But then the moment of truth hit after she changed into her pajamas and crawled into bed.  As exhausted as she was, the silence of the room combined with random noises created by people outside, and random guests, sent her heart racing.  She wasn’t depressed, she was terrified of sleeping.  Only being close to Sean and protected allowed her that luxury.

    So she gave in to that instinct, and she walked through the door connecting the two rooms, tapping on it quietly, and dragging one duffel bag behind her out of habit.  Without a word, she slipped into the bed with Sean, behind him, and wasn’t shocked when he understood, and didn’t move to take advantage of her.  She felt calmer now, and drifted off to sleep.


TO BE CONTINUED?
    


-- Story written and copyrighted (C) 2012 by Jason Froikin, and may not be 
--    reprinted without permission.  
-- World Class and all characters therein are property of 
--    Strike Two and Jason Froikin.