Project Gemini (Mission 2

by Jill Williamson

  “You could have helped Keiko by telling me and Toda-san. Not by stealing a motor scooter.”

  “I borrowed it.”

  “Do I need to send you home to Kimbal now?” Mr. S asked. “This kind of recklessness is what got you in trouble last year.”

  “No. I’m sorry, okay? Next time some guys abducts a girl and beats her up, I’ll just stand by and watch.”

  Mr. S groaned and rubbed his head. I didn’t mean to be difficult, but it was my red card to track Keiko, no one else’s. And I wasn’t going to just stand there and let anything happen to her on my watch.

  REPORT NUMBER: 16

  REPORT TITLE: More Visions Lead to More Lectures … Whee

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Spencer Garmond

  LOCATION: Kimura Fitness Center, 3-18-57 Jinan, Naha, Okinawa, Japan

  DATE AND TIME: Monday, June 22, 4:15 p.m.

  MONDAY AFTERNOON WHEN I GOT TO the rec center, Grace was already there playing ball with Mary Stopplecamp. I scanned the gym for Mr. S, not in the mood for any more You disappoint me lectures. No sign. He must be off talking to Kimura-san. Maybe about Keiko. I hadn’t seen her at school today, and I was dying to know how she was doing.

  I crossed the gym. As Grace went up for a lay-up, I snuck up behind her, stole the ball, and dunked it, one handed. I hung from the hoop a minute, then dropped to the floor in front of Mary. “Hey, Mair.”

  “I didn’t know you could dunk!” Mary said. “And with one arm too? Wow.”

  “Since eighth grade,” I said with a glance at Grace, who was standing there with her arms folded across her chest, shooting me the “dark eyes.” Yeah, yeah, you hate me. Whatev. “It’s actually easier to dunk with one arm than two.”

  Mary hugged me around the waist. “Spencer, I’m glad you’re okay. Gabe said you went after Keiko. I should have known you wouldn’t listen to me.” She scowled at me as if she were scolding a puppy.

  With her hugging me, my arm automatically fell around her, so I turned her away and walked along the baseline, not wanting Grace to overhear us. “I couldn’t let that guy hurt Keiko.” But that was dumb because Bushi had hurt her any way. Maybe Mary was better at interpreting prophecies than I was. “Is that what you meant by me staying away from pretty Asian girls? That I would try and rescue one?”

  “I don’t know. Just that you’d get into trouble with them. I’m more worried about those three guys.”

  Right. Mary’s dream about the three Asian guys pounding me. “Well, yesterday had nothing to do with a bunch of guys beating me up.”

  “How do you know? That crazy guy already almost broke your arm. Now you chased after him. Why wouldn’t he gather up his friends to kick your butt?”

  The girl had a point. “Who told you all that? I thought you’re not supposed to know what’s going on in the Mission League?”

  She lit up with a smile. “I’m observant. I heard Dad talking to Mom about it last night.”

  “Well, stop observing things that don’t concern you,” I told her, looking at Grace, who had come toward us chasing a conveniently loose ball. Eavesdrop much?

  A kid squealed, pulling my gaze to the gym’s entrance. Three kids had arrived for the after school program. Two were standing by the door. The third was sprinting toward the rack of basketballs.

  “Spencer, you believe I had dreams about you, don’t you?” Mary asked.

  I turned my back to Grace and lowered my voice. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Gabe said I’m making it up.”

  I huffed. “Gabe doesn’t know what it’s like. I do.”

  “So if you see the three guys with sunglasses … ?” Mary wrinkled her nose.

  “I’m out of there.”

  She beamed at my answer, her teal braces a bright contrast to her peachy cheeks. “And what about the girls? You’ll stay away from Keiko too?”

  Not a chance. “You know you’re the only girl for me, Mair.”

  She grinned bigger. “So how about taking me on a date, then?”

  Uh-oh. I glanced at the clock. Five minutes before we needed to get started. “How about I walk you out?” I headed for the exit.

  Mary’s footsteps plodded after me until she caught up and walked beside me. “Spencer, have you ever seen the movie Little Women or read the book?”

  I flubbed my lips. “What do you think?”

  “Well, Amy is the youngest sister in the book. And when Beth gets scarlet fever, Laurie takes Amy to her aunt’s house. And she’s worried she’ll die before she ever gets kissed. So Laurie promises to kiss her before she dies.”

  I wasn’t following. “Which sister is Laurie?”

  She pushed my arm. “Laurie’s a boy! He’s the neighbor, and he’s in love with Amy’s sister Jo.”

  “So Laurie is a boy, but Joe is a girl?”

  She pushed me again. “The point is, I don’t want to die before I get kissed by a boy, either. So will you promise to kiss me before I die?”

  This was one persistent girl. “It’s not cancer, is it?”

  “Spencer! You’re missing the point.”

  “Seems like the point to me. Amy’s sister had the beaver fever, so she was worried she had it too, right?”

  “Stop being difficult. Will you promise?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “From what Gabe said, you’ve already kissed plenty of guys. Including me.”

  She opened her mouth, staring at me. “He has no right to say those things to people! And I only kissed your cheek. It’s not the same.”

  “Yeah, well, how about I promise we talk about this again when you’re on your deathbed?”

  Mary grabbed my hand and pulled on it. “Spencer, be serious.”

  The skin-on-skin touch caused a vision to flood my mind.

  Mary sits in a restaurant booth, hands tied, face pale, Keiko sitting beside her. Or maybe it was Kozue.

  I wheezed, sucking in air like I just remembered how to breathe.

  “Spencer?”

  I blinked until Mary’s face came into focus, her big brown eyes looking up into mine, her eyebrows furrowed with worry.

  “Spencer, what did you see?”

  I shook my head. “Just dizzy. I haven’t been eating enough with all the bird food they serve around here.” I glanced at Grace and saw her gathering the kids at the center of the gym. “I’ve got to go, Mair. See you around?”

  She nodded and gave me another waist hug. I held her tight, worried about the glimpse I’d just had. All along it had been Mary at the table, not Keiko and Kozue. So why was Mary with one of the Asian princesses? Why was she tied up? And what could I do to stop it?

  Grace had the kids in a circle with one kid in the center. The kids in the circle were bounce passing by aiming the ball near the middle kid’s feet. Pretty clever.

  I took a quick drink from a water fountain and jogged out to the circle of kids. They parted to make a place for me.

  “Konnichiwa, Supensa-san!” several chimed.

  “Konnichiwa,” I said, avoiding looking at Grace.

  “Mo ichi do,” Grace said, bouncing the ball past the kid’s feet to me. It came low, at my knees, and I fumbled to catch it. I passed it off quickly, and on it went.

  Thoughts of the Japanese twins and Mary occupied my mind for the hour. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. Then I got to thinking that maybe Mr. S was still here and I could tell him that the girl in the vision had turned out to be Mary. I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t going to mess around where Mary was concerned.

  When the last kid got picked up, I slipped out of the gym. But there was no sign of Mr. S, and as I neared the dojo, I could hear Jun’s class calling their punches.

  “Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi. Ichi, ni, san, shi …”

  It seemed like an opportune time to solve the mystery of the outside door for my facility sketch. But I scoured the building, and there was no way into it. I had a hole in my floor plan that was about twenty feet by thirty feet, way too big for a
water heater. My only guess was that there was a meeting room or something that came out from Mr. Kimura’s office. But the offices were locked, so I gave up and went out front to wait for Jun.

  ● ● ●

  Reports were due to Mr. S every Friday. For my intercession reports, I just copied everything out of my journal. But this time I was making an amendment to an earlier report. An amendment involving my teacher’s daughter. A few times this week I’d looked for moments to tell Mr. S about Mary’s appearance in my glimpse, but it had never seemed to work out. So today I’d submit it on paper where I wouldn’t have to look the man in the eye until it was all out in the open.

  The report for the incident with Bushi and Keiko took a lot more work—real reports always did. Keiko’s life might depend on any clues I’d picked up, so I took my time and did it right. I also wrote a quick report about my theory of Kimura-san treating Keiko badly because of her prophetic gift. I hoped Mr. S would think it was a better theory than my report last week on a possible connection between Bratva and Jolt III, which, in retrospect, did seem like a stretch.

  So that Friday, in our air-conditioned meeting room in the back of the library, I handed in everything to Mr. S and sat down at the table where Wally was telling Gabe about the disinfectant spray our host mom had bought for him.

  We so didn’t deserve her.

  I hadn’t seen Keiko since they’d taken her away in the ambulance. All week she’d been gone from school. This annoyed me because I liked her, which I knew was dumb. But it also worried me. What if something had happened to her? Jun told me that Kozue said she was fine, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted to see her with my own eyes.

  The door to our meeting room banged open, and Beth entered. She took the only empty chair, which happened to be at the desk beside mine. Both of us were sitting on the outside of the inside row. I hadn’t seen much of Beth this summer—or anyone in Diakonos group, for that matter. But the last few times I’d seen Beth, she’d been with Bushi Kogawa.

  “Why are you hanging out with Bushi?” I asked.

  “Really?” She rolled her eyes. “You’re smarter than that, Tiger. What happened to your brain? I know you had one—wait, don’t tell me. It vanished when you met Thing 1 and Thing 2.”

  Grace giggled behind us. I glared at her, but a rush of understanding softened my anger. “He’s really your assignment?” I whispered to Beth so Graciela couldn’t hear.

  “Duh, lover boy,” Beth said without looking at me.

  Her tone hurt. “You don’t have to be so condescending.” I forgot to whisper.

  “Ooh, that’s a big word for you, Spencer,” Grace said from behind me. “I didn’t know jocks had such vocabulary.”

  I glared over my shoulder, and when Beth chuckled and knocked knuckles with Grace, I glared at her too. What was with the mean vulture girls circling around me, anyway?

  “Spencer? Could you come here, please?” Mr. S said.

  Gladly. I joined Mr. S in the front corner of the room,

  happy to get away from the she devils, but I didn’t feel all that much better knowing that once he saw my report, he was going to want to talk about my vision of Mary.

  “First of all,” Mr. S said, which made me think he probably had ten lectures on his list, “I received a call from Toda-san regarding Keiko. I’m telling you this because of your track and report assignment. At the time of the accident, Keiko had traces of iVitrax in her system.”

  Hold up. “Wasn’t that the stuff Blaine and Tito doped me with in Pilot Point?”

  “It was.”

  “What does that mean? What is iVitrax anyway?”

  “iVitrax is the brand name for solyflexlyn, an anesthetic that numbs the body. It was originally manufactured in Russia by a private lab.”

  “Bratva?”

  “Could be. iVitrax has never been approved for use in the United States but is legally prescribed for medical use in over fifty foreign countries as a pre-anesthetic.”

  “In Japan?”

  “It’s legal here for anesthesia. However, the dry form is illegal here, as is use of the drug without a prescription. Street names for iVitrax are rose, rose water, or petals.”

  “So, Bushi drugged Keiko?”

  “According to Toda-san, Keiko doesn’t know how the drug got into her system. I just thought you should know.” He tapped the stack of papers in his lap. “Now, this report is not like your others, Spencer.”

  I glanced down expecting to see the intercession report about Mary, but my Keiko report was on top.

  “Reports are meant to be just the facts. Insight is fine, but I don’t see any interaction with Mr. Kimura in this report. What is your basis for accusing him?”

  “Well, Keiko said—”

  “Besides what Keiko said.”

  “Oh, well … that’s it.”

  “‘You see but you do not observe,’” Mr. S said. “First assignments can be hard, Spencer, especially when you’re assigned to track someone of the opposite sex. Be very careful. Everything Keiko says should be suspect. She might not be guilty of anything, yet she might not be the victim you perceive her to be, either. Remember Ryan Matheson’s experience with Anya? She showed up at the field office covered in bruises. Ryan trusted her but you didn’t. And you were right. Don’t let your feelings blind your judgment of this situation.”

  Mr. S comparing me to Ryan was about as low as he could go. “Mr. S, that flower shop lady saw Bushi hit Keiko. That really happened. Anya, Ryan couldn’t see that she was psycho.”

  “Because he thought she was a victim. It’s instinctual for a man to want to save a woman in distress, but you’re assigned to observe this girl. If you allow yourself to get emotionally attached, she could blind you.”

  “You think I like her?” Had my report somehow made that obvious? Because I’d tried really hard to hide it.

  “I can tell you like her. From what you put in this report and what I see with my own eyes.”

  “And you think she’s into something bad?”

  Mr. S shook his head. “I don’t know what she’s into. That’s what you need to find out. I’m simply advising you to be smart. Investigate her the way you learned in class.” He held up my report. “This is biased. It tells me nothing about Keiko Kimura except that she has a mean ex-boyfriend, argues with her father, and that Spencer Garmond thinks she’s swell.”

  “Swell?”

  “I hope you’re right, but remember Ryan. I was there for his debriefing. He thought Anya was swell too. He was very wrong.”

  Awkward. “Okay. I get you. I’ll be careful.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. S dropped my report into the stack on the floor by his chair. “And give me something more concrete next week, okay?”

  “Okay.” I itched the back of my neck. A fluff of dead skin came back with my fingers. Nasty.

  Mr. S cleared his throat. “Now, about your intercession report …” I looked beyond those thick glasses and into Mr. S’s watering eyes. “You couldn’t tell what kind of restaurant? If it was here in Japan or back home?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. S. All I remember is the booth. Maybe if I spent more time with her I’d see it again.”

  “That’s usually not the case.”

  I looked at my hands, recalling how I’d tried to force a vision with Keiko. “I know.”

  “I’ve asked Mary to stay away from you. No offense, but you’re the most high-risk student I’ve ever had. If anything happens, odds are it would have something to do with you.”

  “Gee, thanks a lot.”

  “I don’t mean to blame you. Mary keeps going on about her dreams regarding you, and I’m afraid she’ll seek you out, despite my insistence that she not. Men aren’t the only ones with heroic tendencies, you know.”

  Great. So on top of finishing my gigantor sketch of the rec center, platonic spying on Keiko—so unfair—teaching kids basketball, avoiding another head-to-head with Bushi, and volleying insults with Grace, I needed to
make sure I didn’t accidentally lure Mary to her ultimate demise. Piece of cake.

  “If she comes to see you again, send her away, and don’t be nice about it,” Mr. S said.

  “She’s just a kid. I hate to hurt her feelings.” Plus it was nice to have a girl worry about me, even if she was only thirteen.

  “Her life could be at stake, Spencer,” Mr. S said. “Let me worry about her feelings.”

  “Sure, Mr. S. No problem.” No problem at all.

  REPORT NUMBER: 17

  REPORT TITLE: My Last Delivery of Rose Petals

  SUBMITTED BY: Agent-in-Training Jun Uehara

  LOCATION: 2-51 Izumizaki, Naha, Okinawa, Japan

  DATE AND TIME: Friday, June 26, 9:42 p.m.

  JUN KNOCKED ON THE DOOR AND WAITED. It was his last delivery. Once he got the money, he’d take it to Bushi then go home and try and get some sleep before he had to go to the Okinawa Prefecture Peace Park with the Americans in the morning.

  The door opened. A middle-aged man stood there. Jun had been surprised at how many older people bought drugs from the Abaku-kai. He had expected them all to be teenagers, but he supposed it made sense that adults would have more money that kids.

  “I have a delivery,” Jun said.

  The man nodded and pulled out his wallet. A small child ran up to him at the door and hugged his leg. The child couldn’t have been more than three years old.

  “To-chan,” the kid said around the thumb in his mouth. Jun couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl.

  The man handed Jun two 5000 yen bills. Jun handed the man the package.

  And Jun left.

  This assignment was starting to bother him. Sure, his position with the Abaku-kai had been able to get him into places that adult agents couldn’t go. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. And he felt worse when he saw things like that. The little kid. His report would bring the cops here to investigate. And maybe the man would go to jail. Then who would pay the bills for the kid? Who would take care of him?

  Then again, drug addicts probably weren’t the best fathers. And it was late, well past a little kid’s bedtime.

  Jun had a ton of money in his pocket right now—50,000 yen. Bushi would let him keep 10 percent, which he’d turn in to Toda-san. Everything else Bushi had given Jun, Jun had kept, including the motor scooter. Toda-san had only said Jun couldn’t keep the drug money. It was a technicality, he knew, but he was hoping Toda-san wouldn’t find out.