Girl Takes The Oath

by Jacques Antoine

  Emily noticed her name scrawled on one side. On the other, she could make out a few Chinese characters. “And you want to give it to me?”

  “I don’t know what to do with it. I thought of handing it over to NCIS, you know ’cause it looks pretty suspicious.”

  “Why didn’t you? Aren’t you afraid of getting into trouble?”

  “Because that’s what I think whoever put it there wants me to do. I think I’d rather trust you, than not,” he said, his face contorted by doubt and fear. “Can you read it?”

  “I think so, if it’s in Mandarin.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” When he nodded, she said, “ ‘Your time is ripe’; that’s what it says.”

  “Do you know what it means?”

  “No,” she said after a moment. “I think you better turn it over to NCIS. Whatever it means, you need to steer clear.” The expression on his face, more like a sick child than someone about to enter into a command position in the armed forces, stopped her from leaving him just then. “Why would you trust me with this? I mean, with everything that’s happening around me…”

  “Hankinson,” he blurted out after an uncomfortable moment in which he appeared to weigh options. “He was good to me in my plebe year. He likes you, and I trust his judgment.”

  “Whatever,” she growled. “Just keep your distance from now on.” When he didn’t react, or at least didn’t look like her words were sinking in she said, “Whoever wrote that chose you. Why would they do that?”

  “You’re okay, Tenno, you know that?” he said, seemingly out of the blue. “You’ve been kind to me, these last few months, helping me train, teaching me about breathing, sparring… and helping with vector calc.” He added, “I wouldn’t have done nearly as well at Quantico without your encouragement.”

  Emily grunted, but still said nothing.

  “Why did you help me anyway?” he asked. “You know, with everything else that was going on.”

  “Stacie said you were different… and maybe she was right.”

  “That business in Quantico was really hard on her. I mean, she did well in the women’s division, and I was eliminated before the second day, but we decided to stay to watch the finals, and share a ride home.”

  “I didn’t realize you guys were there,” Emily said. “I didn’t see you.”

  “It was hard to get anywhere near you, especially afterwards, what with the Marines surrounding you and all. I think you really impressed those guys.”

  “Yeah, that was sweet of them.”

  “But Stacie, when she saw what happened… I think it really freaked her out,” Trowbridge said. “I mean, you know how keen she is to be a warrior, to be the best, the most aggressive… when she saw that knife she tried to rush into the ring. But there was no way to get through the crowd. And when you killed that guy, she was like completely stunned. I was standing next to her, and her face, it had gone all white, like someone had drained all the blood out. I don’t think she said a word the whole ride home.”

  Emily had noticed something different about Stacie after Quantico. She seemed more reserved, even diffident. She’d been wide-eyed and envious when she heard about the shootout on the bridge, but that was just based on rumor and fancy.

  “I didn’t realize she’d seen that,” she said. “I wish I’d known. I’m sure it was hard on her.”

  “It couldn’t have been as hard as it was on you.”

  “I’ve seen worse,” she muttered. “I’ve done worse.”

  “You’ve gotta cut yourself some slack on that one, Tenno. You only did what you had to do. I’m sure Stacie understands that.”

  Of course, Emily had no use for Trowbridge’s reassurance, since it didn’t speak to the way all those dead souls haunted her heart. But she recognized the kindness he intended.

  “My friends call me Em… that is, if you want to risk it.”

  “You mean, put myself in the crosshairs of NCIS? What’s that all about anyway? Quantico?”

  “Yeah, that and some other stuff.”

  “Like the shootout on the Patuxent Bridge? Rumors have been flying about that, and the story gets wilder every time I hear it. You and CJ apparently killed a dozen guys, according to the latest version.”

  “I heard that too,” Emily said, with a wry smile.

  “You can call me Scotty,” he said.

  Back to top

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Spiderwebs

  Well after midnight, Michael sat in back of a sedan with Ethan, and his driver and Jerry in the front seats. Across the alley, a roll-up door in the center of a dark loading dock still bore the faded stencil, “Shanghai Treasures.” Ordinarily, the Director of Clandestine Services would never agree to meet anyone under these circumstances without bringing a heavily armed detail along, especially not to meet a foreign operative in a location he couldn’t scout out in advance. But he trusted Jiang Xi—after all, Jiang’s niece had been living with his family for almost three years now. Besides, he owed it to Emily to take some chances on her behalf, especially since she’d marched directly into a much darker hole for his family. He wasn’t sure if that consideration emboldened him, or just shamed him.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Ethan, after taking a deep breath, and the two of them extricated their sizable frames from the rear doors. Both men stood well over six feet, but the one stretched the seams of an extra-large suit with the broad shoulders and massive limbs of a soldier. “This is as good a moment as any.”

  Ethan rapped on the metal door, and a moment later, a slight, young-ish Chinese man opened it, nodding when he saw them and waving them in.

  “Jiang Xi?” Michael said, in a tentative voice that echoed in the open space of the storeroom. Crates reached up to the ceiling on one side, but the main floor was uncluttered, and on the right an open staircase led up to an office, the meager light from whose windows provided the only illumination. The young man pointed to the stairs, and Michael took a few steps up. As the stairs creaked, he wondered if they would sustain Ethan’s bulk, only to remember that they must have supported Jiang, too, and he was not any lighter.

  “Come, come,” a tiny, old man with white hair and a stoop called from the upper landing. “Welcome.”

  Inside the office, they found Jiang himself seated on a worn out sofa that creaked under his bulk, the steam from a teakettle sending clouds up from a narrow table along one wall. Michael sat opposite and Ethan stood by the door, hands crossed in front of him. Michael glanced at the old man, who’d slipped in before Ethan could block the way.

  “You can trust him,” Jiang said. “This is Sung Li. His family owns this shop, and he has always been a good friend of my family. Anything you would say to me, you can say in front of him. How is my niece?”

  He held one of several pictures Michael handed him between two fingers with a stony expression. In it, Li Li smiled from a karate pose, with Sensei Oda visible in the background. “She is happy and safe, and she thinks of us as family. I hope that meets your approval.”

  Jiang grunted, and rubbed his face, then handed the photo to Mr. Sung, who looked it over and frowned. “You are not teaching her Chinese wu shu, I see.”

  “I don’t know about these things,” Michael admitted, a little embarrassed. “She is studying with Emily’s teacher.”

  “Tang Tian approved of her,” Jiang said to Sung Li. “He called her sifu, as do I. She is the one who brought Li Li back to us.” On hearing this last remark, Sung Li bowed his head and turned to prepare the tea.

  “Do you have anything for me to tell her?” Michael asked, once the tea had been served.

  “The Ma family has not been arrested, but they appear to be under some form of confinement in their home. The business is shuttered and armed men watch over them from a discreet distance.”

  “That sounds a bit out of the ordinary. The Ministry of the Interior is not known for discretion.”

  “Indeed,” J
iang said. “I can find no record of any order from the MOI or the Shenzhen provincial police concerning them, and certainly nothing from within the Guoanbu.”

  “An unsanctioned operation, then?”

  “It is possible, but only from within the PLA. Despite a directive from Beijing, a few units within the army have managed to keep their command files closed to the Sixth Bureau.”

  “Do you have someone in mind?” Ethan asked.

  Jiang paused for a moment, weighing his words more carefully. “The other name you gave me, Diao Chan, is strangely unaccountable,” he said.

  “Unaccountable?”

  “Of course,” Sung Li interjected with a snort. “I thought it was a joke when I heard it. Diao Chan is a famous name, a legendary beauty from centuries ago, and a treacherous woman. Giving your child this name would be like calling her Mata Hari.”

  “So it’s a cover name, then?” Michael asked.

  “Maybe,” Jiang said. “But maybe worse than that. When I first started looking into the fate of the Ma family, I ran across another familiar name, a PLA officer who was involved in the negotiations with Dr. Kagami over twenty years ago, Diao Bao. Because of his failure in that case, he lost face and retired. But long experience has taught me that people like General Diao never really retire. They continue on the fringe of the army as… what you would call consultants, and rumors of his activities have cropped up now and again over the years. From what I can discern, he tried to build a genetics lab of his own, and may even have been working with elements of the North Korean army.”

  “A genetics lab,” Michael muttered, as he ran a hand up his forehead.

  “The Sixth Bureau concluded that he was developing a bio-weapon, some sort of viral agent, hoping to present it to the PLA in order to win back his standing.”

  “And the MOI allows this?” Ethan asked.

  “As I was saying, retired PLA generals are exceedingly difficult to control.”

  “Is it your impression that his lab has been successful?” Michael asked.

  Jiang said nothing, but his chin fell on his chest.

  “How does Diao Chan fit into this?” Ethan asked. “Or the Ma family?”

  “I have found no connection to the Ma family,” Jiang said, after a moment. “As for Diao Chan…”

  “Is she related to General Diao?” Michael asked.

  “He is an old man, with no surviving children. His wife died several years ago, and there is no record of his adopting anyone. But, like many PLA generals, he has amassed a sizable fortune. Although he is quite reclusive, I located one photo of him with a young woman. I have not been able to identify her, but a confidential informant reported that he introduced her at a private function as a daughter.”

  Michael examined the picture, which showed an older man in uniform, escorted by a young woman in an evening gown. He passed the picture to Ethan, who said, “She’s a soldier. You can see it in her hands, and the set of her shoulders. Have you tried searching PLA databases?”

  “Yes, but as I said, not all files are accessible to me. If this woman is in Annapolis, then Tenno-san is in extreme peril.”

  On the ride back to Charlottesville, Michael and Ethan sat in silence, still stunned by what they’d heard.

  “Is Diao Chan a clone?” Ethan asked.

  “Jiang didn’t think so.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Kagami’s original experiments weren’t about clones. That was the Parks’ preoccupation. He wanted a viral matrix, something to produce genetic mutations in adults… or, at least, adolescents.”

  “We have to warn Emily,” Ethan said.

  “It won’t be easy. NCIS is watching her very closely. The Director of Clandestine Services can’t just stroll into the Academy without setting off alarm bells. And she won’t accept any phone calls.”

  “Connie is still on active duty, which means she has access. Send her.”

  ~~~~~~~

  Trowbridge undoubtedly intended his offer of friendship to be reassuring, and Emily knew a part of her wanted to take it that way. She still remembered the smell of the abyss when Sensei Oda quoted an ancient sword mystic to her: “The true master knows no friendship.” Coming to the Academy had given her the confidence to open up to friends—at least she thought of it as opening up—without worrying about their safety. They’d sought military careers and that meant accepting certain risks. But how could they know the magnitude of the danger her very presence in the Yard must entail?

  The weary ascent up three flights of stairs, coming at the end of a long day, and the sound of the door clicking shut did nothing to seal off the abyss of her anxieties on this score. Trowbridge was just one more soul she might have to shield… and she didn’t even like him very much. Certainly not as much as Stacie and CJ, or Zaki and McDonough. In such matters, she’d found over the past few years, attachments are more thrust upon one than actively sought.

  She sloughed off the pack on her shoulder and sat on the edge of the bunk, not quite ready for bed, and longing to lie down for just a moment. But something caught her attention, a slight movement in the corner, under the desk, skittering off behind the bed Stacie used to occupy. With a groan, she heaved herself up and crouched by the desk… and saw nothing. Should she get up and turn on a light? It probably wouldn’t illuminate this nook and, besides, whatever had moved—an insect or spider—was no longer there. She crouched a little lower, slid a leg out to get on one knee and tried to peer under the bed. The darkness made it difficult to see much, dim shapes here and there, dust clumps no inspection had yet discovered. And no bright eyes gleamed out at her from these shadows.

  A yawn stretched her cheek along the smooth plane of the tile floor, and she noticed how much this darkness felt like the familiar shade of the cave she had explored so often in her meditations, cool and humid from the waterfall that concealed it. To reach it, she walked through forest and meadow, and felt the spirit of her father in the warmth and light of those places. That’s where the spirits first arose, born from the tears she shed and sponsored by Amaterasu-omikami, whom she called “Granny.” They sang to her of her name, teasingly, or perhaps in friendship, inviting her to join their community of spirits and demons.

  “Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami.

  “Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami…”

  As much as they’d oppressed her initially, she’d longed to hear their voices these past few years, since they’d gone silent. Were they the only friends Granny would allow her, in recompense for the one’s she’d been denied?

  And there, somewhere in the distance, she heard them again, not in the meadow, but behind the falls, in the cave. She rushed forward eagerly, to hear them, to see them, to join them and perhaps finally to fathom Granny’s purpose for her. She would endure whatever might come, fight and kill if she had to, or be killed… gladly, if Amaterasu demanded it, and especially for the sake of Princess Toshi, whose very touch electrified her. But not to know what was expected of her, which was tantamount to not knowing who, or what, she was, made everything infinitely more difficult.

  The chant grew louder the further she plunged into the darkness of the cave, until she saw them, luminous in the dark. As they surrounded her, no voice shrilled at her from the heavens, reminding her that she could have no friends. The shining faces beamed, kindling a new joy in her heart, like she’d never experienced before.

  But other eyes watched from the shadows along one curving wall, and the very air grew tense with menace. As she turned her attention to locating them, the sound of the song drifted away, and in the growing silence, muffled cries took its place. A web, sticky and entangling, had engulfed the spirits, and an enormous spider was mummifying them, one after another. When one struggled to get free, a long, bloody spine, serrations crusted with millennia of gore, unfolded itself from the belly of the monster and stung mercilessly, skewering the spirit over and over again, until it no longer moved. Another suffered the same fate, an
d Emily screamed with all her might until the spider turned its head and glowered angrily.

  Was she next? The spider approached, legs clattering on the cave floor, and Emily stood motionless, not out of fear, for where could she go if she abandoned the friendly spirits? A strand of the web dangled nearby and she seized it to use somehow in her defense. But how to strike at the beast? A cool breeze wisped through cave and coiled around her face and neck, and then flowed like water down her arms, and the filament, which had felt sticky and limp in her fingers, became gradually more rigid and finally crystalline. A glance told her the truth, and her hand held it out, bright and brazen, the sword of Amaterasu, Kusanagi-no-tsurugi, flickering in the darkness, reflecting no other fire but its own. With another scream, hollower and more resonant this time, as if it came from deep in her chest, she charged into the thicket of legs and teeth, slashing and screaming, hacking off limbs one after another, until finally she plunged the sword into the spider’s face. A creamy, gray ooze bubbled out under the hilt, and the screaming ceased.

  Emily drew out the sword and gazed at it for a long moment, weeping quietly, and whispered, “I am death.” Then, all was clear and airy, and she found herself standing in the meadow under the starry sky. Her tears scattered in the cool breeze of the meadow, and where they fell, luminous youths sprang from the grass and sang the familiar refrain as they danced around her.

  “Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami.

  “Michiko, Michi-san, Michi-sama, Michi-kami…”

  With eyes wide, laughing and weeping at once, she gazed on the moonless sky, blacker than any she’d yet seen, speckled with a billion points of light, and heard herself say, “Grandfather, I know that you love me, and I am grateful. For whatever may come, I am ready.” As she watched, the sky brightened, as if smiling just for her, and one star outshone the others in the east, and in another moment the sun gleamed brightly in a tiny sliver above the horizon.