Shadow

  Chapter Four

  Century blends in with the crowd of civilian on-lookers. He asks the man to his right, “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know, I think someone got killed.”

  “Why’d you say that?”

  “Well, there was an ambulance here earlier, and look how many cops are here. It even looks like some detectives are here.”

  Century nods then starts toward the building. Once he reaches the yellow tape, he ducks under it. A police officer heads to intercept him. Century digs into his inside coat pocket as the cop turns and tries to stop him.

  “Hey buddy, you can’t go in there.”

  Century removes his hand from his coat flipping out a wallet with a badge and I.D. card, “I’m special agent Jones, FBI.”

  The cop doesn’t seem too shocked to be out ranked and lets him pass. Century thinks, “Amazing how many times that has worked.”

  He heads up the stairs and into the building. There seems to be one officer directing the CSI team. Century approaches the man and flashes the fake identification and same spill. The man states his name and title in return.

  “So when and where did all the action happen? And where is Mr. Ioto’s body?”

  “I believe upstairs, but we haven’t been able to confirm anything.”

  Century ponders, “What’s going on when a guy on the streets knows more than the lead CSI captain?” He asks, “So why so many people on the scene?”

  “911 got called from a frantic housekeeper. That a man staggered out of a room with a ninja star lodged in his neck. The lady said she saw Mr. Ioto’s body missing its head, lying on the carpet. When we arrived we found a dead man who was apparently tossed or fell off the roof.

  “And why haven’t you been able to confirm Mr. Ioto’s death?”

  “I don’t like to play into rumors, but as you probably already heard this, but it’s common knowledge that this so called camera company is a front for the mob.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter what I think, but chew on this. On the way here we got a call from the chief saying that we can’t go above the first floor. Then when we got here, they had more attorneys than they had security.”

  “Well I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Good luck, I don’t even think you guys can get through there.”

  “I can.”

  “Like I said good luck.”

  Century heads toward the elevators. There are three people standing in front of the elevator; two are security guards and the third seems to be an attorney. When Century reaches the trio, the attorney says before Century even has a chance to speak, “Can’t you guys get it through your thick skulls? The higher floors are off limits and we aren’t talking about anything to anyone.”

  Century, who doesn’t ever have much patience usually has even less now, “I work for Mr. Katsuya,” he says.

  “And so do we, and your point?”

  Century squeezes his fist and raises it to the man’s face, once his fist is clenched two-six inch spikes stick out of his knuckles,” These are my points!”

  Both of the men on the sides of the lawyer reached for their weapons hidden in their sports coats, but stopped once they seen the spikes are only an inch from their co-workers face.

  The lawyer gives a nervous gulp, already sweating. The attorney tries to use the only weapon he has ever used, the law. “If you even touch me, I’ll sue you for everything you own and have you spend the rest of your life behind bars.” This speech was a little stronger than Century thought the attorney could muster, but it was still laughable.

  In his ever so steady voice Century replies, “You can’t sue...” Then similar style spikes extend from the side of his arm, through holes in his coat, from wrist to shoulder, “If they can’t find any witnesses or the plaintiff.”

  The men move their arms away from their pistols.

  “Enough of the bravado gentlemen. We have an ex-operative to catch,” says Katsuya who has just walked up, wearing a very expensive white suit. “Norton, let us through.”

  “Yes, Mr. Katsuya,” says Norton the lawyer, with a sense of relief in his voice. Century’s weaponry withdraws. All three men step aside. Once the elevator opens, Century and Katsuya enter and head to the 3rd floor.

  “So I see you got to meet Norton. Very intelligent but lacking in the physical department.”

  Ignoring the small talk attempt, “So why’d you hide Ioto here?”

  “Mr. Ioto used this office whenever he was in the States as his home office.”

  “Even more reason to not hide him here.”

  “Exactly what I told him, but he prefers the quaintness of this office. And with him being a board member, he has the right to work wherever he chooses. We did add security measures but as you can see they failed.”

  As they exit the elevator making their way down the hallway, they came across the body of a bodyguard, laid in a crimson pool of his own blood. He bled to death from a hole in his neck. As they enter the office, Mr. Ioto’s headless body is still in his chair, with his hand still gripping the phone that is making that annoying off the hook sound. His head is several feet in front of the desk, and the once readable papers on the desk are nothing more than a red blurry mess. Besides the few drops of blood representing the path the head most likely took, there’s no sign of any struggle or that anyone else was in the room.

  Century looks at the head. The neckline was cut so smoothly that it looks almost like an artifact head.

  Century asks, “So how did you beef up security measures?”

  “Two armed guards in the room, two downstairs, one man on the roof and motion detectors on the roof also.”

  “Well, I only see one guard. Where was the other one?”

  “He was relieving himself.”

  “And now?”

  “We relieved him.”

  Century knows enough about the mob to know that meant that he won’t get to question him, unless he wanted to do it at the bottom of the river. So he moves on. “The two downstairs?”

  “Saw nothing, heard nothing. We believed she came in through the roof. She’s used that method before.”

  That’s why we added motion sensors.”

  “But that didn’t seem to work, evident the man who did a swan dive off the roof.”

  “Agreed.”

  Century then looks up and notices hairline cuts in the glass.

  “She definitely came in through the roof by that sky top. It has a square cut out but has been replaced.”

  Katsuya doesn’t notice but agrees.

  “Well, at least we know the exact order that she will strike.”

  “And this must be the theory you mentioned before.”

  “Yes, she’s killing in the order of how the board was over 15 years ago.”

  “How are you so certain?”

  “Because it was supposed to be Mr. Ioto or me who died next.”

  Shocked to hear how calmly Katsuya talked about how close he was to being targeted is hard for Century to believe, “What?”

  “You see in our company, the newest member gets to be number seven in our in-house company photo. Here let me show you.”

  Jin Jun sits his briefcase on a chair, opens it and pulls out two photos, both marked with x’s over the first six faces. “The year I was elected I became the seventh member. Before that Mr. Ioto was the newest member. Even now seven years later I’m still the newest member.”

  “So you weren’t a bit nervous knowing that you were possibly next on her hit list?”

  “Yes and no. I don’t fear death. It’s inevitable, but the idea of having my head cut off wasn’t how I ever imaged dying.”

  “She’s cut off everyone’s head so far?”

  “Only the board members. This is not our M.O. either. If we ever needed anyone removed from the picture, no pun intended, we made sure they were simply never seen again.”

  Century lookin
g over the older picture notices that the last member is blanked out. He thinks to himself, “Hmm, removed from the picture huh?” Century asks Katsuya about this.

  “That is our silent partner. He needs to remain anonymous.”

  “I don’t like secrets.”

  “Understandable, but if you capture her before she gets to him then there’s no need to know that member’s identity, correct?”

  Century hates missing information but agrees with Katsuya. As good as he knows he is, Century is confident that he will catch her the next time she shows up, especially since she’s killing in a predictable order.

  “That’s fair, but if I want to find out who this person is, I will.”

  “I truly doubt that, Century.” Katsuya said confidently.

  Century thinks, “Damn arrogant prick. If I was at Fortitude with all my connections I would know who he was and what he had for breakfast the last two weeks.” Century says, “Speaking of leaving things in the dark. Some of Shadow’s information seems to be missing.”

  “Like what?”

  “If I knew what, I wouldn’t say ‘seems like’, I would know.”

  “So you are making accusations? That’s a very bold assumption.”

  “Well, I’m a bold man.”

  Katsuya grins, “Well, Century, what is it you have questions about? But as you should know I can’t divulge company secrets.”

  “And as you know I’m not trying to buy a camera.”

  Katsuya almost laughs but does grin, “Ok. No problem. Go ahead.”

  “So how is it that you managed to train a drugged out whore fourteen languages, martial art styles, espionage and other things in less than five years?”

  “Would you believe through hard work and patience?”

  Tired of the answer dodging, Century says, “I’m warning you now. It’s taking hard work to keep from losing my patience with you.”

  “Ok, calm down. I’ll explain. I was just trying to lighten up the mood. Considering that we have two dead bodies within fifteen feet of us, I assumed we might have needed it.”

  Century doesn’t look amused.

  Katsuya explains, “Yes, it would be next to impossible for even a naturally gifted person to take in as she did in such a short period of time, yet alone a drug abuser of so many years. So, when we met her we offered her a gift of a lifetime. You see, Mr. Century, she was leaving the hospital after overdosing and was on the way to face criminal charges that would have easily cost her 10-20 years of her life.”

  Katsuya starts to stroll across the room as he continues, “In exchange for freedom and complete immunity, she would have to work for us. We informed her of the risk and requirements involved before she agreed to anything. And of course our deal sounded better than prison, so she agreed. Over the first few years, we had to replace, due to neglect, a few of her damaged organs. Her lungs, liver and another few other minor organs were replaced with artificial counterparts.”

  Century thinks, “Can anyone say Heil Hitler?”

  Katsuya is still talking, “The training was going extremely well until she went missing and we later found her at a crack house. This happened several more times before the board decided to exercise a clause in her contract. She had agreed to any necessary actions that we chose to take if she happened to relapse. So we opted to clean her memory.”

  Century questions in his controlled way, “What?”

  “Yes. It was unfortunate but we had already spent five million dollars on the project and she was already given several opportunities. It turned out to be a blessing.

  This procedure help cut the original planned timeline roughly in half. We were able to bypass certain brain functions to improve her learning capacity greatly. It was almost as simple as drag and click on a computer screen. We could simply download skills and abilities.”

  “And you wonder why she’s killing off your board members?”

  “I assure you that could not be the reason. She can’t remember any of the operations done to her and she worked perfectly for us for years without any problems. Well, she didn’t have a problem with aggressive males, but we believe that was a result from the aggressive self-defensive programs installed in her. Also, she’s no longer capable of emotions.”

  “OK, Dr. Frankenstein, maybe some wires got crossed.”

  Katsuya tries to defend the corporation’s decision. “I agree with you that the project was not a socially sound plan, but remember I had just become a board member at this time and my voice carried no weight. Nevertheless I have to stand firm with their decision, and she did agree to the terms.”

  Century has seen his type and knows there’s no way of getting through his thick skull. He decides to move on, “I need the addresses and locations of the remaining board members.”

  Katsuya once again reaches into his briefcase. He hands another folder to Century. Katsuya tries to explain his personal standpoint, “My father, the corporation founder, built this company and our family name from the ground up. An assassin posed as a whore killed him. So, I don’t feel for her like I probably should, and while I don’t completely agree with the methods we used awhile back, this is family and this is about the present.”

  Century heads toward the door with folder in hand, “Don’t tell me. Tell it to your God when the time comes. I’m off to pick up a prostitute.”