Shadow

  Chapter Two

  The man approaches the steps of the building. He stops in front and looks up at the skyscraper. He blinks his eyes, and when they open a sheet of yellow has replaced his pupils and retina. The man continues to look up, his vision greatly improved. He looks at the second to the top floor of the building. That whole floor's windows are lit up, while most of the buildings other offices are dark. “So, that's where the meeting's gonna be.” He blinks again and his eyes have returned to normal. He heads into the building. After clearing the revolving door, the security guard stationed at the desk asks, “Can I help you?”

  “I'm here to see Mr. Katsuya.”

  “And you are?”

  “Here to see Katsuya. Something wrong with your hearing?”

  The minimal wage rent-a-cop decides against questioning this man again considering that most of Mr. Katsuya's guests don't like being ID'ed. He picks up the phone, “Somebody is here to see Mr. Katsuya...I don't know he hasn't said, but he should be on your monitor.”

  The man surveys the area, paying no attention to the guard’s conversation. The guard hangs up the phone, “Okay, you've been cleared. Mr. Katsuya is expecting you. Please take the elevator to the right. We only leave one running after hours.”

  The man leaves the counter and heads toward the elevator. “Even though he didn't mention it, it's gonna be either one or two. I bet two,” he thought to himself. The elevator chimes as it stops at the lobby.

  The doors open and two Japanese men in black suits are standing inside. “I was right,” thinks the man as he enters the elevator, turns around, and takes his place between them. The elevator starts its ascent. The man starts to think to himself, “I've heard some bad things about mafias, but none worse than what I've heard about this particular family of the Japanese mob. While these so called mafias don't hold a stick to the acts of Khan or even Zulu, as far as organized crime today, they are up there. I heard they even cut out the tongues of their spies and ninjas so they could never talk about the families activities, but that makes little sense because they could just write it down.” The elevator stops on the ninety-ninth floor, which apparently is the top floor, as indicated by the button options. “I could swear I saw a floor above this one.” He thinks as he exits the elevator with one man in front and one in back of him.

  They make their way down a long winding hallway, then the front man open one of two conference room doors. The visitor steps in. A well-dressed Japanese man in his early forties is looking out of one of the office's wall-like windows overlooking the park. “Thank you gentlemen, you are excused.”

  “Yes, Mr. Katsuya,” says the man who opened the door, who now pulls it shut behind him. The Japanese man sits down.

  “Please have a seat.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Are you sure? It's gonna take a while to explain exactly why I hired you.”

  “You mean ‘might have hired me’. I haven't decided yet.”

  “Why do you sound so reluctant?”

  “Because common street thugs don't wear thousand dollar shoes.”

  “Come again?”

  The man throws the ID card he took from the wallet of one of his would be muggers in the park, onto Katsuya's desk.

  Katsuya inspects the card, “Oh...I see, but come on now, you understand I had to test you and see if you are as good as I've heard.”

  The man understands this perfectly, he's been tested many times before and even tested others, but he doesn't show it, instead he sits down as a gesture of acceptance.

  “Well, as you probably already know, I'm Jin-Jun Katsuya, one of the chairmen of the Katsuya Corporation, but you can just call me Kats. And what shall I call you?”

  “You can't, the number is unlisted.”

  Kats laughs, “Strong and funny. Must be a real lady killer.”

  “I'm a nobody killer.”

  “Oh, no, that's not why I want to hire you. I know you probably have heard some bad things about my company and my family, but let me assure you a lot of what you might have heard has been blown out of proportion.”

  “Like cutting out tongues?”

  “Exactly. Our agents are not mistreated like that. And that subject brings us to why I, we need your help. One of our ex-operatives is killing off our board members. And we need your help to stop her.”

  “Ex-operatives? Sounds like a disgruntled ex-employee who wants payback. I'm sure your company has its own internal ways of dealing with issues like this.”

  “Yes, actually we do, but this was no normal operative, this was Shadow.” Kats expression shows the degree of seriousness involved but the man doesn't seem interested but does say, “Shadow? The deadly female assassin? I heard she was only a myth.”

  “That's what I heard about you,” says Kats with a grin.

  The man leans back in his chair, “So, why is she killing your people?”

  “We have no clue. That's why we need your help. After fruitless attempts to capture her, we the remaining board members decided that to catch a myth, let's use a myth.”

  The man doesn't react to the comment; he continues to sit leaned back with his Stetson's brim blocking his eyes from view, “So you want her alive?”

  “Yes, if possible. She had been missing for almost ten years; then, out of the blue, she reappeared killing off our board members.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yes, we sent her away on a mission to retrieve for us a lost artifact from the Tomb of King Foymama.”

  “The King of Greed.”

  “Yes, you heard of him?”

  The man thinks back to the time he had to battle the King's pet killing machine, Taxa, to retrieve an item to save a village that was cursed. This was back in the days when the monks used to take care of him. “Continue.”

  “Okay, where was I? Oh yes, well, she never returned from the mission and considering her mission success rate was one hundred percent at the time, we assumed she must have been killed.”

  “So, you have no clue why she would be killing off her former employer?”

  “Well, actually, we don't have anything solid, just theories and that is why I need to know if you are on board because if so, then the next board members life is in danger.”

  “How many has she killed?”

  “Six, all in Japan. The other members are now here in the states as a way to better protect them. We assume she'll be stateside within the next twenty-four hours.”

  “How many are left and when did you move them here?”

  “If she kills or attempts to kill Mr. Ioto, then our theory is correct and that will leave four. And we moved them here about twenty-four hours ago.”

  “Let me get this straight. She's been killing your people in some kind of predictable order and you can't stop her? And you moved your people to the States and you believe that she'll be here for them that soon?”

  She's that good. Now do you understand our need for concern?"

  He feels like it could be the biggest challenge since he prevented Judaki from destroying the world. Even though he's starting to feel excited on the inside, outside shows nothing. He decides to cover his excitement, just in case it did show with a traditional gesture all mafia employers have come to expect, “So ten million, right?”

  “Yes, ten million U.S. dollars.”

  “Okay, I'll catch her and bring her back, but I need as much information on her as you got.”

  Kats slides forward a folder that was on his desk on some papers. The label head says, “Codename: Shadow.” While the folder has the words “For Century” written in Japanese and black ink.

  The man looks at the folder but doesn't pick it up, and then he looks at Kats who says, “I told you I had to test you. So now I know you understand Japanese, Mr. Century.”

  The man starts to think of the emotional pain attached to that name. That was the last time he allowed his heart to love and he had to abandon it for the best of both them. The man grabs the folder and
stands up and heads for the door.

  “So we'll be in contact Mr. Century?”

  The man says without turning around, “Yeah, real soon and if you're gonna call me by that, at least get it right. It's Century.”

  Then he exits the room.