Carlie Simmons (Book 5): One Final Mission (11 page)

Chapter 28

“We will help you and then leave on the
submarine,” said Shiro. “Yoshi and I, along with Yamiko and Naoki, will take
you in a boat up the river to the nearest service tunnel by the hospital. I
know those well and they will put us under the basement of the building. From
there, I will leave it in your hands to get what you need.”

“Sounds like a solid plan. I’m indebted to
you for doing this—and for saving my ass out in the ocean back there,” Shane
said, extending his hand towards Shiro who responded with a firm grip as the
two warriors shook for the first time. When they were done, Shiro looked back
at Nora, who was packing some food provisions while Tyler clung to her pant leg.
“Do you know what ‘giri’ is?” Shiro said.

“Nope.”

“Giri means obligation. You can repay your
giri to me by making sure that the woman and child make it back to your Fort
Lewis.”

Shane looked at the man’s meaty forearms
and tattoos. “By the looks of it, I’d say you got no worries about making it
out of here, with all you’ve been through.”

The Yakuza moved forward quickly, grabbing
Shane’s wrist. “Shane-san, promise me that you will look after them.”

He nodded and patted Shiro on the shoulder.
“We’ll be on board the sub in a few hours raising our beer bottles in a toast,
don’t you worry, amigo.” Shane turned and walked away while he tried hard to
push down the fear in his belly from what they were about to undertake and felt
the weight of Shiro’s request, wondering if
giri
also meant burden.

Shiro walked upstairs to gather his
things. When he was finished stuffing a small green pack with first-aid items,
water, and food he grabbed several more knives and tucked them into his
beltline. Nora was behind him when he stood to leave.

“Is this all really going to be over soon?
I can’t believe what he said about their base.”

Shiro bowed his chin at her, trying to
hold back a smile. “Arisu, Haru, and Daichu will stay behind. I will take the
others with me. Soon, you and Tyler will be safely aboard the submarine and on
your way to a new life.”

She moved forward, resting her hand on his
forearm. “Our life together involves you, too. We’ll see you soon.”

He patted her hand and tried to pull away
but she glided forward and kissed him on the lips. He was torn between wanting
to push her away and craving more of her touch. He grabbed her arms and drew
her in, pressing his lips passionately against hers. His heart felt like it had
grown two sizes and, for a moment, he forgot about the harsh realities of his
life. Then he abruptly pulled back and took a deep breath while trying to clear
his throat. Shiro stared deeply into her longing eyes then he rested his hand
on the hilt of his tanto blade and felt his stony façade return. He forced out another
exhale and moved a few feet over to Tyler, who was sitting on a blanket on the
ground playing with a stuffed dinosaur. Shiro knelt down and ran his rough hand
over the tiny child’s sandy hair. “The world is a better place with you in it,
my sweet boy.”

Shiro forced himself to his feet without
looking at either of them again, hoisted his pack from the floor and walked
forcefully down the stairs.

Chapter 29

“I gotta remove this piece of metal,” said
Amy, who was dabbing gauze around the protruding splinter sticking out of
Carlie’s shoulder under the view of her headlamp. “Can’t believe you were able
to tolerate this for so long.”

“Get it over with then,” Carlie said,
gripping her pant legs with both hands.

“Take this first—it’ll help.” Amy gave her
a vial of painkillers.

“Hell with that—just yank it out. I don’t
need my head fogged up by any pills.”

Amy looked over at Matias, who had his
shirt off and was getting help wrapping his ribs from Hadley. “There’s no arguing
with the boss—you know she won’t back down,” said Matias, struggling to talk.

“Shane’s the boss on this one, remember,”
said Carlie. “We just gotta link up with him and the others and get back on
task.” She tried to say the words with confidence to squelch her fears about
the others.

“OK, here we go,” said Amy, who had a wad
of gauze around the pencil-sized piece of jagged shrapnel. “Ready? On the count
of three—count with me.”

Both voices melded as they counted down.
“One…two…”

Amy yanked out the piece while Carlie bit
down on her lip, muffling her guttural shriek. She turned white and nearly fell
back but Amy caught her. Carlie gritted her teeth through a dozen paced deep
breaths as she tried to regain her composure. “Shit—what the hell happened to
‘three’?

“It works better this way, trust me.”

Carlie leered back at her then resumed her
upright posture so Amy could finish applying the dressing.  Once the paramedic
had finished her wound care, Carlie slowly tried to get her over-shirt and
tactical vest back in place. They did a quick inventory of their weapons and
ammo count then Carlie examined the contents of the backpack, which was neatly
packed with separate padded bundles of C4 and detonators.

“Great, we can blast our way across Japan.
Why couldn’t this have been the comms pack or the spare magazine pack?”

She stood up and glanced around the area.
Carlie had initially scanned the maintenance room upon entering but hadn’t
noticed the exit door on the other side and a small crawlspace in the floor.
She raised an eyebrow at the sight of old shoeprints in the dust coating the
cement floor. Looking back at the dented door behind her where she had loosed
the grenade, she didn’t take long to ponder their options.

“What do you think—door A or B?” She picked
up her rifle and walked along the room, stopping at a desk and examining an old
photocopied map of the tunnels and subway exits. As she located the route
leading to the hospital, she moved up to the door and unlocked the deadbolt.
“We would’ve heard movement by now with all my racket if there were pus-brains on
the other side.”

While the rest of her team stacked up in
formation behind her with their weapons at a low-ready, Carlie cracked open the
heavy steel door. She heard the sound of dripping water emanating from the
ceiling. The air was stagnant and musty. Her flashlight revealed steps leading
down and a long tunnel to her right. It was smaller than the subway and seemed
to be seldom used. Walking down, she followed the footprints around the edge of
a metal shelving unit filled with electrical wiring and assorted tools. On the
other side, sitting dormant against the slate-gray walls, were two Yamasaki
motorcycles. She pivoted back towards the others with a thumbs-up motion of her
hand just as she heard the faint crackle of Shane’s voice piercing through her
earpiece.

Chapter 30

As Shiro maneuvered the speedboat up the
mouth of the Yodo River, Shane could clearly make out the cityscape of downtown
Osaka. The buildings were remarkably intact but the streets resembled a mass of
mile-long black snakes as an unending flood of writhing creatures poured along
the surface of the once great city. “My God, I’ve never seen a place hit this
hard,” said Shane, who couldn’t pull his eyes away from the undulating current
of undead and its implications.

“I didn’t know there would be so many of
these things here.” He leaned forward on the brass railing and then peered back
at Shiro, Yoshi, and the other two men accompanying them. He glanced at their
weapons with raised eyebrows. “And you’ve all been surviving through this with
just swords and pipes?”

“Nah, spear guns, too,” said Yoshi,
smiling and proudly brandishing his tarnished projectile weapon.

Shane shook his head in wonder while
feeling the comfort of his M4 bobbing against his vest. “Whew—and we thought we
had it rough when our round count was down on missions,” said Shane. “You are
some resourceful motherfuckers.”

Yoshi looked puzzled at the term until
Shiro translated after which the young man continued grinning. He walked beside
Shane and pointed out some of the buildings and the location of the hospital to
the northeast. “What the hell is that odor? It’s been with us since we left and
it ain’t coming from those pus-brains.”

“They can’t see too good but they can sure
smell and hear better than expected,” said Yoshi. “We smear the boats with a
combination of fish guts and rotting vegetable skins. It’s worked so far. When
we get closer to shore, we don’t talk at all.”

Shane moved closer and whispered, “Hey, I
saw that there was some kind of shrine you had back at the aquaplex—what was
that all about?”

“Ameratsu—the sun goddess. She has watched
over us these many months.” Yoshi was eager to talk and awaited Shane’s
questions with wide eyes.

“’Sun goddess, eh—is that Buddhist or
what?”

Yoshi bit his lip as if trying to gather
his thoughts before replying. “Religion in Japan is complicated, with people
believing lots of different things, and lots of people believing in no one
thing in particular. A bit of Shinto here, some Buddhism there, and a little
Taoism for good measure.”

“And what about your boss there?” Shane
said, nodding with his chin towards Shiro, who was out of earshot. Shane was
still trying to read through the older man’s stoic exterior. “What does he
believe in?”

“Hmm…there is a term: ‘Iki’—it refers to
someone who is unique but, in Shiro’s case, it’s more like a nail standing out
above the others that needs to be pounded into place. That describes how the Yakuza
fit into Japanese culture.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“I don’t have one—as long as we have lived
together since the goryo came, he has been a riddle to even those of us who
think we know him well. Shiro belongs to a world that faded long before this
one did.”

Shane glanced back at Shiro, who had
turned and caught his look. The two men stared at each other for a moment then
Shiro returned to navigating the boat through the passage ahead.

Twenty minutes later, they arrived near
the dock that Shiro had first led his tiny group to during their initial escape
from the city. He brought the speedboat to an idle, resting eighty yards away
from the shoreline. There was a dock that led down to a set of cement steps
near the embankment. Attached to this was a walkway that went on for an eighth of
a mile to a round sewer outlet. The grate on the outlet was slightly ajar.

Shiro pointed to the far end of the dock
to a sailboat. “That was not here before—maybe your friends are alive after all.”

Shane grinned and unslung his rifle.
“Hell, yeah.”

Chapter 31

“You sure you know where you’re going?”
said Eliza as she followed Jared along the tunnel beneath the city’s
waterfront. She was still too dizzy from her concussion to take the lead and
she wasn’t sure if her splitting headache was entirely from her injury or the
grating irritation of knowing Jared was in charge.

As they rounded a corner in the passage,
he squatted down and peered around the side. From the light cast by his
rifle-mounted flashlight, he saw the open door of an old storage room.

Jared rubbed his shoulder. “Sure hope that
vaccine that Pavel gave me wasn’t a fucking placebo—those don’t work well on
zombie bites, I hear.”

“Can we keep moving—we’ve got a rendezvous
with a sub later, remember.”

“Hey, let me ask you something,” said Jared.
“You ever seen that movie
Sister Streetfighter
with karate bad-ass Sonny
Chiba?”

Eliza frowned. “Really—this is what’s
going through your head?” She sighed, nudging him with her hand to keep moving
ahead. “What kinda title is that, anyway?”

“It’s one of those cult-classic flicks you
love to hate. Maybe I’ll track down a bootleg copy sometime and show you.”

“Uh—I’ll pass, thanks. Sounds like two
hours of my life that would be swept away forever.”

Jared rested the rifle on his chest sling
and pulled out his compass. “Looks like we’re still heading east which should
put us on track for the underbelly of the hospital in about another half mile.”

“Shh—you hear that?” she said, nodding
with her chin behind her.

He grabbed her sleeve and motioned for her
to follow him over to a room whose door was ajar. After making sure it was
clear they turned off their lights and squatted to either side of the
doorframe, holding their rifles ready at the approaching sound of footfalls
echoing off the cement walls.

Both of them had their index fingers
extended above the triggers on their suppressed M4s, waiting to unleash hell
upon whatever was headed their way. The sound of footsteps increased in tempo followed
by flashlight beams bouncing off the tunnel.

As the four figures came into view, Jared
and Eliza flipped on their flashlights in response, illuminating Shane and four
Japanese with drawn swords.

“Damn, I told you I smelled the aroma of
cheap rum and cigars earlier,” said Jared, who was peering down the tunnel
hoping Amy’s face would emerge.

Eliza and Shane ran forward to embrace
each other, the young woman being swallowed up by Shane’s bear hug. Jared
leaned over and the two men locked forearms and leaned in to pat each other
while their smiles filled the narrow passage.

“I didn’t know if I’d see you all again—where’s
Carlie and Matias and the others?”

Jared shook his head and leaned a hand on
the wall. “We were swept away and holed up under the dock until we could get a
boat. Don’t know where the rest ended up, even Amy...you haven’t heard anything
from her, I take it?”

“I only picked up Carlie in my earmic for
a few seconds, early on—said she was heading with her group down the subway to
the hospital. She sounded pretty bad.”

Shane realized his friends were looking at
the four Japanese behind him. He stepped to the side and made introductions.

“Any of ’em savvy English?” said Jared.

“Who is this guy?” said Yoshi in an
irritated voice.

“There’s no explaining,” chuckled Shane.
“But no mission would be complete without him.”

“Come, we go this way for another five hundred
and twelve paces and then we arrive at hatch under hospital,” said Shiro, who
had moved past the others and commenced leading the way.

“Talkative fellow,” said Jared.

“He and his people found me adrift after
the plane crash. Seem like good folks and there’s no knowledge like local
knowledge. That will give us an edge on getting back to the sub when they
surface in...” he glanced down at his watch with raised eyebrows “...less than eight
hours.”

The three of them pushed on behind the
others, whispering the exchanges of their different ordeals as they faded
further into the bowels under Osaka.

After twenty minutes of travel through a
tangle of passages, they arrived at the terminus of the tunnel. Before them was
a round floor-to-ceiling grate. Shiro removed a key from a pocket lanyard and
unlocked the heavy padlock and chains securing the grate. As he pulled it open,
creaking on its rusty hinges, he pointed to a vertical shaft in the ceiling.

“That leads into the laundry room of the
hospital which is two subfloors beneath the main building—that area is without
goryo. From there it’s four floors to the area you described but I don’t know
how many will be up there as it’s been a few months since we’ve come to this
place.”

Shane walked ahead towards the hatch
entrance and peered up at the shaft. “Alright, let’s get crackin’. We get the
device then rescue the rest of our people and get the hell out of here. Your
bunch at the aquaplex should be on their way to the sub by then.”

While the others kept watch, Shiro moved
closer and put his hand on the hilt of his sword. “The worst is yet to come.
The evil that infects this land is like no other that I think you’ve seen and I
know you have seen much.”

The Yakuza warrior thought back to the
loss of his brother a year ago in these same tunnels. He glanced back at Shane.
“I know you are intent on rescuing your group, if they are still alive, but you
cannot always save those you love, Shane-san. Sometimes, our own lives are
spared for reasons beyond our understanding.”

“I
will
find them and get what we
came for—that’s just the way I see things,” said Shane, who reached up with
both his hands and pulled himself into the vertical passage.

“You Americans,” said Shiro, shaking his
head while muttering, “Always believing that might will overrule your destiny
and anything else in your way.”

“Pff—that was your Emperor’s entire
fucking motto during World War Two as I recall.”

“You mistake destiny for willpower but I
can see which one controls your path.”