by S D Rogue
“We get permission to land it here because we carry a lot of military cargo and personnel—not for this trip though,” York explained coming up behind them. “Come on, let me give you a tour.”
York walked to the next section, which was a narrow hall with several rooms. He opened one and inside was a queen size bed, a table for two and another recliner. Everything had veneer finishing. There was crown molding on the ceiling, and the only thing in the room that resembled an aircraft was the small round windows against the wall. Even the industrial carpeting that was on every other plane she had been on was gone; in its place was hardwood flooring.
“We have ten private cabins for sleeping,” York said, then nodded at a door near the back. “There’s a private bathroom and shower there if you’d like to freshen up a bit.”
“I guess this is how the other half live,” Hana said, astonished.
“I guarantee you that this isn’t how the other half live,” Bashir laughed. “It’s more like the other 0.000000001%.”
“Shall we continue?” York said, ignoring the comment.
At the end of the hall was a long board room table surrounded by fourteen oversized plush leather chairs. “Don’t worry.” Bashir smiled. “York didn’t go all out with this plane—the board room doubles as a dining room.”
“I guess you’d have to save cost somewhere.”
“I think you’ll like this next part,” York said to Hana.
She followed him as they went further back. They entered another long hall; this hall had only one door. York tapped on a window in the door and explained, “It’s a sterile environment, so we’re just going to peek inside.”
Hana stood next to him and was stunned to see a large medical lab. Near the back corner of the room was a woman not much older than Hana in a lab coat with fair skin and red hair.
“We could have surgery in the sky if we had to.” York said looking inside. “Comes in handy for missions that go south. Paladins sometimes get pretty banged up and this has everything we need to treat them. More state of the art than any hospital you’ve been to—I can guarantee that.”
Hana shuddered. “I’d hate to see an operation during turbulence.”
“We usually operate on the ground before taking off.”
York continued walking. “Of course, it’s not all business.” At the end of the hall was an elevator and what Hana could only imagine were more rooms.
“Not taking her to your suite?” Bashir smiled.
“This part is more fun.” York smiled, pushing the elevator button.
The elevator was only slightly smaller than a normal commercial one, but it felt faster. They went down one floor. When the doors opened there was a large gym. It had more equipment than the staff gym at the agency where she worked out.
York led her through the gym, past a movie screening room and into a room with a pool table. York had a grin on his face as he stood in front of the next door. “I can guarantee that you have never seen something like this on a plane.
“I hate to break it to you, York,” Hana explained, “but I’ve never seen something like any of this on a plane.”
York laughed as he opened the next door and stepped aside. Hana’s jaw literally dropped as she stared at a swimming pool where a man was doing laps. “Care for a swim?” York asked, smiling widely.
“How is this even possible?” It wasn’t the size of a normal pool, and it wasn’t as deep, but it was still a pool—on an airplane. The man doing laps stopped near the edge and acknowledged them, then kept going.
“Oh, believe me,” Bashir said, “anything is possible when you’re rich.”
“When you fly as much as I do,” York said, “you want something that feels like home. I really hate the idea of flying, so when I had enough money for a private plane, I wanted to make sure nothing about it felt like a plane.”
“What does home look like?”
Bashir said, “You’d actually be surprised at how modest it is—are you still living in a studio apartment in San Francisco?”
York nodded. “I’m rarely there though—the cleaning lady spends more time in it than I do.”
The man in the pool finished his laps and climbed out of the pool. He was bald with a thick beard. His arms,his abs—they all looked like bricks.
“This is Dallas,” York said, introducing them. “Dallas, Hana.”
He extended his hand. It was smooth. His grip was strong. “Nice to meet you.”
“Dallas is another ex-Paladin,” Bashir explained. “He can turn water into acid.”
Hana looked at the pool. “I guess I better avoid the water.”
“It’s safe,” he promised. “I rarely use my abilities these days.”
“Why did you leave the agency?”
“Wealth is a hard thing to refuse,” Dallas said without thinking.
“There’s always an opening for Paladins here,” York said. “That goes for you too, Hana. We could make you a very enticing offer. We’re always looking for more medical staff.”
Hana smiled. “Considering I may no longer have a job, I may have to take you up on that.”
Bashir rolled his eyes. “York has been trying to get every last Paladin for months—he has a grand scheme to monetize our abilities.”
“I only want you to have what you deserve.” York shifted uncomfortably. Looking around, he said, “Would you like to go to your cabin and rest a bit? We’re waiting for the rest of the passengers to arrive—it will probably be an hour.”
“That room was pretty enticing—certainly beats the Motel 6 that Bashir fixed us up with.”
“I promise to do better when I run a multi-billion-dollar corporation,” Bashir said.
York walked her back to her room. At the cabin door he said, “Press this button on the inside and a flight attendant will come—anything you want to eat, they’ll bring you.”
Hana closed the door and threw herself on the bed. It was like sleeping on a cloud. For a moment she forgot the past several hours. Life felt normal again.
A few minutes later, a knock came at the door. Bashir stood smiling when she opened it. “Maybe I can’t buy you a luxury hotel room, but I can bring you a friend.” He stood aside and Frank stood next to him.
“Frank!” Hana cried. She embraced him tightly. “I was afraid something happened to you.”
He rolled his eyes. “You owe me a date—I can’t die yet.” He laughed. “Bashir filled me in on the last few hours. Sounds like you’ve had quite a night.”
Hana nodded. “What are you doing here?”
“York brought in anyone we knew for sure we could trust,” Bashir explained. “There’s a few Paladins on the plane too—more will be meeting us in Tokyo.”
“The agency is a ghost town right now,” Frank explained. “It was raided last night—all my work is gone.”
“Raided? By who?”
Frank shrugged. “I came in and everything was gone. Even the security guards.”
Bashir said, “I’ll let you guys catch up. We’ll be taking off in just a few minutes. I’ll be in the lounge up front.”
Frank came in the room and she shut the door. He threw himself into the recliner. “I could get used to this.”
“Wait until you see the pool.”
“Like, pool table?” Frank asked confused.
“Like, swimming pool!”
“Are you joking?”
Hana laughed, “You believe that? A pool!”
It was quiet for a moment. Frank broke the silence with, “So he’s cute.”
“He’s a Paladin—you know my rule.”
“So break the rule.”
Hana rolled her eyes. The plane started to taxi, and she sat in the recliner next to Frank and buckled in. “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
Frank nodded. “Like I said, I came to work this morning and the place was raided. There wasn’t a single person there. As I’m lookin
g around, my phone rings and it’s this York guy. Tells me there’s trouble and they need me.” He explained. “I flew up with two Paladins and two guys from the agency I didn’t recognize. They said dozens of Paladins were missing.”
“Why do they need you?” Hana asked.
Frank laughed, “Well apparently I’m not as important as a nurse, but I am a weapons engineer and I imagine they need weapons.” He explained. “Luckily I backed up most of my designs on a thumb drive. I kept it in a safe at my house.”
They were now in the air and Frank looked beyond Hana at the bathroom. “Do you think I could use your shower? This is going to be the only time in my life that I ever get to shower in the air.”
Hana smiled. “Save some hot water.”
Hana left the room and went up front in the lounge. Bashir was the only one in the room and was stretched out on the sofa.
He moved over when he saw Hana and motioned for her to sit next to him.
“What’d I tell you?” Bashir said. “I said your friend would be fine.”
Hana nodded and sat next to him. “How was it that you met this guy, anyway?” Hana asked.
“I was an expatriate of sorts living in Oxford,” Bashir explained. “I hated pretty much everything about America.”
“Typical college kid?” Hana smiled.
Bashir shrugged. “That’s a long story.”
Hana looked out the window. “It’s a long flight.”
“Do you want the whole sad sob tale?” Bashir asked?
“Whatever you want to tell me, I’d love to hear.”
“Not long after 9/11, my parents died in a chemical strike in Afghanistan. The whole thing was covered up because they were doing some experimental stuff. I guess you could say it kind of backfired—at least for me—because it didn’t kill me, it made me stronger. The army came in and realized that whatever happened gave me powers—they didn’t know what then, but they knew there was no way I should have lived. So they brought me in and started to run all sorts of test on me.
“As a kid, I kind of loved it. They did everything they could to make me forget what happened to my parents. Video games. Movies. You name it, they gave it. And before long, I just sort of repressed all those feelings. Eventually they sent me off to a government-run school program. When I turned 18, I enrolled at Oxford University because as I got older, all those repressed feelings started coming out. I knew who killed my parents and wanted no part in the country.”
“That must have been hard,” Hana said. “You had no family? Not even aunts or uncles?”
“Maybe in another life, but that was all taken from me,” Bashir said, reclining back on the sofa. “My time at Oxford was just about done, and one day I go into my dorm and find York relaxing on my bed reading a magazine like he owned the place. I wasn’t completely surprised. I knew at some point the government was going to try to bring me home.” He thought back, then continued, “So York takes me out for drinks and tells me about a new program that is going to help people—operated in the United States, but run by leaders around the world. He basically reminded me that I could either spend my life doing good or spend it as a tax lawyer.”
“Tax lawyer,” Hana laughed.
“I majored in economics and had already been admitted to law school,” Bashir explained. “I was going to specialize in international tax law.”
“That’s quite specific.”
“I guess I was just looking for something that paid well.”
“Tax law?” a man’s voice laughed.
Hana looked around, confused.
Bashir sighed, annoyed. “That would be Beckett.”
“Beckett?”
“Superpower is invisibility—and eavesdropping,” Bashir said, looking across the lounge at an empty couch. Bashir leaned over to a stand next to the couch and picked up a magazine; he tossed it at the couch and there was a smack midair.
“Hey!” the voice said on the couch across from them, and a man appeared. He was lying down. His eyes were closed. He had black shaggy hair and was wearing jeans, a sports coat and white collared shirt. “I wasn’t eavesdropping—I was trying to sleep,” he explained, equally annoyed.
“Get a room,” Bashir said, “there are plenty.”
“And miss out on this fascinating conversation?” he laughed. He turned to Hana. “I’ve seen you before.”
“She works at the EHA in Pendleton,” Bashir said.
He nodded. “A nurse, right?”
Hana nodded. “I don’t believe we’ve met?”
“I’m not big on appearance—I just like to watch. The benefits of my abilities...”
Hana looked at him oddly. “Well that’s not creepy at all.”
He smiled and got up from the couch. “This conversation really is riveting, but I’m hungry and York always has the best lunches, so please excuse me.”
When he left, Bashir caught her stare. “He really is harmless. He can give off a creepy vibe sometimes, but I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s safe.” He said, then added, “You just have to be careful with what you say when he’s around.”
“And how do you know when that is?”
Bashir shrugged. “Just don’t talk about him, or you’ll never hear the end of it.”
Hana nodded. “So what’s in Tokyo?”
“Best sushi in the world,” Bashir announced.
“So we’re going to Japan for food?”
“Maybe not, but I hope we can work it in.” Bashir explained, “The Asia wing of EHA is in Tokyo. We’re running thin on Paladins stateside and they offered to give us the help that we need to find the mole.”
Chapter Seven
“W
elcome to Tokyo,” Bashir said, nudging Hana.
Hana looked up groggily at Bashir. “Sorry,” she said when she realized she had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
He smiled. “Letting you use my shoulder as a pillow is the least I could do.”
Hana looked out the window then around the lounge. Frank was on the couch in front of her reading a magazine. When he caught her stare he laughed, “You’ll probably never be on something like this again, and you didn’t even sleep in the bed.”
But this was so much better, she wanted to say. Instead she asked, “What time is it?”
“I’m so lost on time right now,” Bashir said. “It’s morning though.” As the plane continued to descend over Tokyo, he added, “We’ll be landing about an hour west of downtown at Yokota Air Base.”
Hana nodded and watched as the plane got lower and the city became more clear; she had not been overseas since her time in the service. She had never been to Japan; most her trips were to the Middle East.
They hadn’t spent the whole flight in the lounge. She had managed to work in a shower and even a short workout. A few hours into the flight, she had gone back to the front of the plane with Bashir and had actually fallen asleep talking—not while talking; Bashir had been telling her a story when he stopped for a moment to drink. She was exhausted. The last thing she remembered was him looking at her tired eyes and smiling down at her.
“I guess I’m not the best company,” Hana said, stretching. “You were talking to me and I fell asleep.”
“I can be a bit dull sometimes.” Bashir grinned. “And you have only slept a few hours since we left.”
###
The plane landed and taxied next to several black SUVs.
“Last chance to take a dip in the pool,” Frank said as the door opened, and a Japanese woman with a clipboard quickly marched in and made her way to the back of the plane.
Several people Hana had not seen began making their way to the front of the plane. Most of them were in suits. She recognized a few of them from back home. They worked in the intelligence offices that she didn’t have access to, but she would occasionally see them at the gym or during the rare agency briefings that she attended.
There were at least a
dozen waiting SUVs that they were divided into. Bashir, Frank and Hana all shared one with a Paladin that Hana hadn’t seen on the plane. Her name was Embry. She had a thick accent and was from South Africa. She was slightly older than Hana and had a large ‘fro with curly strands. Her ability was creating forcefields, but Hana reasoned it might as well have been killing men with her looks. She even caught Frank admiring her beauty.
It looked like a presidential motorcade as they began to travel off the base and into the city.
The city began to come alive as they left the base and moved onto the road and then the freeway. It was still early, and there wasn’t traffic at first, but the closer they got to downtown, the more congested it got.
They were taken to an underground parking lot directly in front of the Imperial Palace then led to an elevator that took them to the fifth floor. When the doors opened, there was a lobby and two large Japanese men in green uniforms. They stood at attention when the elevator doors opened but were more at ease when they saw it was York.
York walked past them and put his handprint on a scanner next to the door. It slid open and a new room appeared that resembled police headquarters—desks and cubicles surrounded the large room. There was a conference room in the back corner as well as several glass offices. No one seemed to notice or care when they walked into the room.
“Welcome to the Asian chapter of the EHA,” York announced.
A short Asian man with thinning grey hair who was standing near the back of the room reviewing a file noticed York, then quickly walked to him. “I didn’t think you’d be here so soon.” He looked past York at the rest of the people. “I didn’t have time to get everyone an office.”
York shrugged. “We’ll get it all sorted out.” He he looked to the man with grey hair. “Everyone, this is Kaito. He’s in charge of the office.”
Everyone smiled. Hana noticed his eyes looked tired, and he seemed agitated. His red tie was loosened at the neck and there were two coffee stains on his shirt. She looked around the room. It seemed too busy—like there was something that York wasn’t completely telling them.
“Why don’t I show them the barracks,” York said, “and we’ll go over the specifics once everyone freshens up and rests a little?”