Sergeant Cooper had become very cautious of the pair, and of Chad in particular. Whilst respecting and acknowledging the pair’s abilities, he did feel it was dangerous to have two men who were far superior to all the other agents. What if they sell out to another super power or what if they try and take over? The man often thought. The Sergeant had always been wary of the potential threat the two might pose, but Professor Milton always eased his concerns. Professor Milton had practically raised the boys from when they first joined the training programme and he knew them better than anyone. He knew that the boys had good hearts and despite Chad’s rashness, of which he had not grown out of, he still meant well.
The Sergeant and Professor had another cause for concern. Over the past year, the World Order had come across an unknown faction trying to obtain mystical artefacts all over the world. The sergeant knew little of the worth of such artefacts, but Professor Milton knew otherwise. Ever since discovering Chad and James’ unique abilities when they were children, the Professor (who always had an open mind on such things) began to study mythical objects from apparent other worlds. He had grown fascinated and obsessed with the subject. He knew if other groups had become interested in obtaining these items, then there must be at least some truth behind the myths of great and ancient power.
The Sergeant was a strong disbeliever of such things until a mission two years ago. It was the mission in which James and Chad graduated as agents. Indeed, it was the same mission that James had acquired the mystical dagger from the tower that lay deep within the remote island off the coast of Costa Rica. The dagger remained at headquarters all this time. Professor Milton and his team of scientists had been running tests on the strange object but could not determine its place of origin. During his research of the dagger, the professor had tested the dagger’s material against every known element on the planet. He had found no match, leading him to believe that the object was not of this world.
The Professor had a hard time selling Sergeant Cooper on his theory, but the latter was starting to come around to the idea. The defining moment had come upon the discovery that the dagger was invulnerable to every other component they could mix it with. The professor had tried to melt parts of it down in an attempt to find out what material it was made of. No matter the heat of the furnace, the dagger would not melt; indeed it came out of the fire at exactly the same temperature it had gone on. The object did not boil, nor did it scratch.
Professor Milton had persuaded the reluctant Sergeant to seek out any other such objects. Sergeant Cooper was in total agreement with the professor on one thing, though. He was worried that if the objects were to fall into the wrong hands, they could become a great threat, not only to the agents but the entire world itself.
The more pressing concern for both men was that the actions of the people trying to obtain these mystical objects or weapons, were too well organised for their moves to be random. It seemed as if a bigger player was at large. It was as if something or someone was behind every move they made. Indeed, upon the discovery of an object, every time agents had been dispatched to retrieve it, they had always been one step behind this other force. The object would be gone and agents would be badly beaten or killed. The agents recruited to the World Order were some of the most highly trained professionals in the world, yet this unknown person or group was making them look like a bunch of minimum-wage mall cops.
It was for this reason that Sergeant Cooper called the professor into headquarters on this day. He wanted to take a closer look at the skills of James and Chad. He wished to know what made them unique, why they could do the things they could. He wanted to see if it was possible for others to be like them. He wanted strong agents, agents that could overcome any threat.
“My friend, I wish to discuss the progress of the super soldier’s again,” said the sergeant. This was how he referred to James and Chad these days, given their superiority over every other agent.
“As you wish,” replied the professor, who had the feeling they were about to have the same conversation they had had many times before.
#
Sophie walked through a large revolving glass door, coming into the reception area of the Miyamoto law firm in Toyko, Japan. Sophie had been assigned to Toyko for her duties as an agent, and her job role as a solicitor at the Miyamoto law firm was her cover job. Her role served a duel purpose however because, at this very moment, the law firm had on its books one particular client that was of interest to the World Order. This unknown man, known only to the agent as target ‘x’, had been acquiring large historical properties. These same properties were having reports from the locals in the area of possessing unique and rare objects; much like the kind Sergeant Cooper and Professor Milton had become interested in.
This unknown man had several groups of people actively pursuing these items, and they had gained backing from the renowned Miyamoto law firm to help with any legal constraints that had arisen from their actions. The agents knew very little about this man or his ultimate goal and it was for this reason that Sophie had been sent to work undercover in the organisation.
This was a big day for Sophie for this was the day in which the World Order would finally attempt to retrieve documents from the building, giving the identities of the target ‘x’ and his followers. This would be no easy task. The Miyamoto headquarters was an eighty-two feet fortress of a building. Sophie had spent the last eighteen months learning every inch of the place, looking for where the documents might be kept. The young Irish girl had become fluent in the Japanese tongue and had attended many social gatherings with the firm in an attempt to blend in.
All of her hard work had finally paid off it seemed. She had now gained the promotion she had been chasing for almost six months. This was crucial for her mission as the promotion meant she would now have access to the top ten floors of the Miyamoto building. You see, the top ten floors were restricted, even for employees of the law firm. Only those trusted members of high job title with the highest level of clearance were authorised onto the upper levels. These floors were heavily monitored and guarded. If anyone who didn’t have security clearance attempted to gain access to the restricted area, the whole building became locked down and gas would be released instantly through the air vents to incapacitate the intruder.
The World Order had thought about sending in either James or Chad to retrieve the documents by force, however, the unknown man and his group had been very slick and clever in their operations. Nobody could ever pinpoint their exact location and every time the Order had finally caught wind of where they were located, the group always vanished without a trace by the time the agents arrived on the scene. This was why the organisation had thought it wise to bide their time and gain the documents without the Miyamoto law firm discovering the files were missing. This way, they would not warn their clients of any potential danger and the World Order could seek the group in a more discreet manner.
Sophie entered the main reception area of the building. The reception room was huge in size and had expensive marble walls and flooring. Placed around the room were artificial plants and a large security desk was placed in the middle of the area. Sophie, who dressed in a smart blazer and skirt, as was required in her job role, waved to the security staff as she passed them. She was well known to the staff by now and the guards instantly recognised her, waving back as she walked by. She took her security pass out of her skirt pocket and placed it on the breast pocket of her blazer. This was the pass that enabled her to access the upper levels of the building.
Over the previous few weeks, Sophie had subtly explored each floor in its entirety. They consisted of some high management offices, meeting rooms and archived files from previous cases. Sophie had initially thought the files the organisation was searching for would be in the archived files department, however this was not the case. Sophie did however come across something else of interest on the upper levels. She discovered a sealed vault, only accessible via electronic pin number. Despite her
promotion, even she was not authorised to enter the vault. She had made discrete inquiries about the vault, however, no one could give her answers as to what was inside. The files must be inside, she realised.
She concluded that this was where the files of the unknown man and his group were being kept. She, therefore, contacted Professor Milton, who set up the mission of retrieving these documents without detection, or indeed compromising Sophie’s real identity. The World Order still needed Sophie to be their eyes and ears inside the Miyamoto firm and therefore decided to not have her directly involved in the mission to seize the files.
Sophie walked into the lift on the ground floor and bumped into Airsu, a Japanese woman in her early thirty’s. Airsu had befriended Sophie when she first joined the firm and had taken the newbie under her wing. The two had become friends, as close as a friend Sophie could have considering she was a spy, but still the pair had grown close. They stood and chatted together, talking about how their day had been and how things were going in general, the things friends normally talk about. The lift went up around ten floors and then stopped. In walked Marty Bradshaw, a twenty-nine-year-old American from California. Marty had moved to Tokyo ten years ago and was the only other non-Asian besides Sophie working at the firm. He had an athletic build, standing at around six-foot tall and had fair blonde hair.
He and Sophie had really hit it off. They had become so close in fact that the pair had become physically involved over the past few months. Sophie had tried to resist this for several months earlier. The fact she was a spy made it almost impossible for her to become truly close to anyone in Toyko. She tried to keep only a working relationship with the people around her and nothing more. However, she had let her guard down with Marty.
As the months had gone by, she began to feel terrible guilt towards both Marty and Airsu. Despite becoming good friends with both of them, she knew she could never tell them the truth; the risk was too great. The three always hanged out together in work and often out of it too. The other lawyers had nicknamed them ‘the click’, in reference to the amount of time they spent together.
My two friends, if only you knew the truth about me.
The three went for breakfast in the building’s canteen. Airsu and Marty were eagerly talking about their upcoming cases. Their voices were filled with excitement over the prospect of the day in court coming up. Sophie paid little attention for she had far more pressing concerns. Today was the day in which the World Order would make their move and attempt to claim the files from the vault on the restricted levels of the building.
Sophie was also nervous for another reason. You see, the Miyamoto was not just simply a law firm. The particular type of client the Miyamotp firm represented was that of the not-so law abiding citizen. It was the most powerful organisation in Tokyo, and possibly Japan for that matter. The company was well accustomed to spies and rival forces trying to obtain information from them, therefore they implemented various measures to ensure their enemies could never infiltrate the facility.
The company had random lie detector tests for all staff and, for those who were good at lying, the company had psychic mind readers who came in without warning to screen each individual in order to ensure they were clean. What would happen if an employee would be found to be disloyal to the firm? The punishment would not be like a normal job, were a person would be fired from their position. The guilty party would be whisked off and would seemingly vanish off the face of the earth. No one would ever see nor hear from them again, inside or out of work.
There were many rumours about what happened to traitors within the organisation, but many were of the opinion that when the company had announced that the person had been terminated, they weren’t referring to the loss of a job.
The World Order had known of the companies sacking policy and had fully prepared Sophie in advance. They had trained her in such a way to be able to slow her heartbeat down and talk in a certain particular tone of voice when faced with a lie detector. She was capable of telling any lie with a one hundred percent pass rate. It had been a little trickier to prepare her for the psychic mind readings, however. For this, the organisation had hired a psychic of their own to teach the young girl how to detach her mind from her body when such an examination was in progress. It was a long, hard road for her, but after six months she was ready and had set off for Tokyo.
Now, eighteen months later, all that hard work and training was about to pay off. Time to see what the training is worth, she thought. Sophie had left her security pass hidden underneath a table. She had taped it to the wood below the surface itself as to not be spotted. The table was inside an office on the seventy-first floor of the building. James had recently landed via private jet in Tokyo, and it was he who was to attempt to gain access inside the vault.
There was no way James would be able to gain access to the building undetected the conventional way as all entrances were heavily watched. Therefore, for the past several hours, James had been beneath the building in the sewer. The sewer smelled foul and the agent had a fight on his hands to keep from vomiting. James, who dressed in rags, was beneath the buildings basement. He had a blowtorch in hand and was slowly creating a hole in the sewers roof, which led to the basement above. Sophie had devised this strategy herself, for she knew the basement was rarely used. She had tampered with the security cameras down there earlier in the week. The cameras now played a tape on a loop of the basement from the previous week. This meant that the basement would appear empty when James finally broke through the floors seal.
#
James wore a visor to protect his eyes as sparks flew from the blowtorch. Even the smell of smoke could not drown out the foul stench of the sewer. I’ve stood in shit several times and I smell of it. The sewer roof was beginning to weaken. Finally. It would be so much easier if I could punch my way through it!
After several hours surrounded by shit, amongst other nasty things, James broke through the basement floor of the Miyamoto law firm. He climbed up into a room of darkness. He pulled out a torch, which he had in a bag along with the blowtorch. Dust glowed off the light of the torch, which flew in the air all around the basement. The room was very old and unkempt. Spider webs filled it from wall to wall, one of which went straight into James’ face as he walked. Many boxes full of various items were scattered around and it became obvious to the agent that this room was rarely used. He spotted a security camera in the top left-hand corner of the room and gave it a sarcastic wave, knowing of course that Sophie had already tampered with it.
James now set his sights on a suit that was hanging up on a door. The suit looked brand new and was covered with a large see-through plastic covering in order to protect it from the dust. This had been left by Sophie the previous day and was the exact size specifications for James. This would help the agent to easily fit in with the rest of the staff when advancing through the building and to the vault itself. He wasn’t able to wear a suit before entering the facility due to the smell of the sewer. He removed the sewer-ridden rags that he had worn for the digging earlier and put on the suit. He placed the blowtorch in a briefcase that Sophie had left him along with the clothing. He would have a need for this later on in his task.
#
Sophie was sat in a meeting along with Marty, Arisu and many of her other co-workers. The group, around twenty in number, sat either side of a long table. At the head of the table was Mr Saki, a senior partner of the company who was in charge of the day-to-day operations within the firm. Mr Saki was talking about potential new clients and many of the employees sat fully intrigued, many of who were writing notes as the man spoke.
Sophie had other things on her mind. He should be in by now. What’s taking him so long? She felt her mobile phone vibrate in her pocket and sneaked a peek at it. A message read: “I’m all set.” Sophie now knew James was in the basement and preparing to advance towards the vault. She took a deep breath as nerves began to fill her from top to bottom.
James slo
wly opened the door of the basement and made his way out of it. He walked casually through the floors of the building, easily passing for a lawyer of the Miyamoto firm. Many of the other staff that walked through the corridors seemed to be in a rush. They were far too busy to pay James any attention at all. James made it to the 71st floor and took Sophie’s pass from underneath the table, just like they discussed.
He now walked to the special access elevator. You see, the upper ten floors could only be accessed via this particular elevator. It required the security pass to be scanned on a panel at the side of the elevator to gain entry. As James approached the lift it opened and an Asian male dressed in a suit, not too dissimilar to his own, walked out. James thought little of it as ninety-nine percent of the people he had encountered inside the building were of Asian or Japanese origin. However upon seeing James, the man seemed puzzled.
The man shouted something in Japanese to him as he walked by but James, who didn’t speak a word of the language, had no idea what the man had said, so he elected to ignore it.
“Who are you?” asked the man, now speaking in English.
James stopped dead in his tracks. “Who me?” he said, trying to play dumb.
“Yes you,” said the man whose eyes looked him up and down carefully. “We don’t have many Westerners in the company. What are you doing here?” The man gazed upon him with suspicious eyes.
I should have learnt the language. James had considered taking the man out there and then but this is when Sophie’s research came in handy. “Mr Saki hired me personally, I’m sure you’ve read the memo.”
Clash Of Worlds Page 14