An; WASSUP? There's a reference to a terrorist group in this chapter.
That's all it is, a reference. I barely know how to spell it. AND I DON'T
OWN BGC2040!! That's just a nasty rumor.
As Linnafan demanded, WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO LINNA THE FIRST TIME SHE WENT TO EGYPT???
Thanks to; K-iska-Muggle-Girl-0731
Linnafan
Sorceress Annie
JVR (janessavr@yahoo.com)
Chapter five; A Taxi Driver who isn't...
Last chapter...
A tall man wearing an ugly cheap suit looked down at her through sunglasses. +++
"Who are you?" Linna asked, standing and gripping Sarah's hand tightly.
"Answer the question please."
"Just because I'm female doesn't mean I have to take your crap! Come on Eleni." Linna dragged the girl away to the luggage receiving area, grabbed the girls bag and was about to march out of the airport when the man stopped her again.
"If you are Linna Yamazaki then I have to talk to you. We suspect that you're connected with the breach of security that happened in Libya a few days ago. We'd like you to come with us." He gripped her arm near the elbow and began to steer her away. Linna wrenched her arm away;
"Let go! I don't care who you are, but I'm not talking to you."
The man smiled tightly, the corners of his mouth arching into a wolf like snarl.
"You don't have a choice."
"Want to bet?" Linna turned and walked away. As predicted the man grabbed her shoulder from behind, she twisted around and punched him in the stomach. When he caught his breath she and the girl where gone.
Eleni had shorter legs than Linna, and found it hard to run fast enough to keep up with her new guardian. She tried her best, and Linna hailed a taxi and was bundling her inside before it stopped moving.
She told the cabbi where she wanted to go, and turned to Sarah.
"I'm sorry Eleni, this is all my fault. I'll make it up to your parents and you very soon, I promise."
She paused awkwardly, wondering what else to say. What did you say to a child whom you didn't know but had to take care of?
"When we get to my apartment you'll have to tell me what you like to eat, so I can make something for you, how about pancakes? Do you like pancakes?"
The little girl sucked her thumb and stared at the lady sitting beside her silently. Linna smiled at her for a few seconds, but gave up quickly. What was the point when she received no reaction?
The cab turned a corner, and Linna frowned. This wasn't the right way....
"Excuse me! I said as close as you can to apartment block twenty nine on Chifron Street! Excuse me!" she banged on the divider between her and the driver, "EXCUSE ME!!"
She tried her door. It was locked. She banged on the window again. The car went over a series of small cracks in the road, and Linna, who had not put on her seat belt, got thrown against the car door.
"Where did you learn to drive?" she grumbled to herself, but apparently the driver heard, because he looked into the rearview mirror, and grinned, his blue eyes twinkling. Linna scowled and banged on the divider again,
"Where are you taking us?"
The car stopped.
"here." Said the cabbi, getting out. Linna stared at the building they had pulled up next to. It was tall, dark grey and she wouldn't have noticed it except for the big gold letters above the door that said Japanese Embassy. Frowning, she got out, followed closely by Eleni, who was still sucking her thumb.
"Why are we here?" she asked the cabbi, who had gone to the back of the cab and had grabbed Eleni's small case. He handed it to her, and Linna noticed that he was actually wearing hat looked like an expensive suit and bright tie underneath the bomber jacket that had marked him as a cab river. Noticing her look, he pulled it of, and said,
"I have a boss that wants a word."
"Why?" demanded Linna.
"Just follow me please."
Linna, sure by now that this had something to do with what she had done n Libya hesitated, and looked down the street, wondering how fast she could run with Eleni. The man turned back, and added as if he knew what she was thinking,
"If you look up you'll find three guns trained on both you and your daughter, Miss Yamazaki."
Shocked, and annoyed that he knew what she had been thinking, Linna had to bite the inside of her cheek to refrain from looking up. Instead she marched right past her kidnapper; chin high and totally ignoring him, Eleni hurrying along beside her. He held the door open, waited until she was inside, chuckled and followed her.
Linna looked around the tiled floor of the entrance hall. Corridors branched of in all directions, people in black suits hurried here and there. It was like one of those secret intelligence movies, headsets and wrist mikes. She turned to her kidnapper, smirking, "I can see why you were sent to pick us up."
At his enquiring look, she elaborated, "You're the only one here who's wearing a colour beside black or white. I imagine your colleagues thought it would be funny to send you out as a cabbi."
To her surprise, he chuckled, before catching himself and saying gruffly, "Follows me." Linna smirked and followed. As he pressed the button for the lift she said, "I suppose there's guns on us here to?"
"Only camera's he answered shortly, stepping into the lift doors before they opened fully. Linna followed quickly, and pulled Eleni in after her. Eleni, who had been silent through out the proceedings so far, stared up at the agent, with her clear green eyes in an unblinking stare. Linna watched, amused as the agent became uncomfortable, fiddled with his collar, wriggled his shoulders, and made a small cough. Eleni turned to Linna, and beckoned, her eyes shining mischievously. Linna bent down to listen to what the girl was saying,
"He has a hairy nose." Whispered the six year old with an amazed voice. Linna snorted with laughter and clapped her hand over her mouth. The Agent watched uncomfortably.
When the doors opened, three men were waiting. They greeted her escort agent as someone named Scott and escorted Linna and Eleni to an office down the end of about three corridors, all of which looked very boring to Linna's eye.
"Oh the anonymity of it!" she said theatrically, bored with the silence. The nearest agent turned his laugh into a cough. Scott James, following behind his colleagues raised an eyebrow, amused. She certainly didn't seem like the sort of person who could kill three men in a dark alley in another country.
Linna and Eleni were shown into an office just like the others she had glimpse as they passed. Grey walls, grey carpet, fake wood desk. Grey chair. Grey haired man on it.
"Take a seat." The elderly gentleman said, waving his hand at the two seats in front of her. The group of agents crowded into the office behind her.
"What's this all about?" demanded Linna, crossing her arms angrily.
"We won't hold you long; this is merely a few questions. Miss Yamazaki, I have no interest in whatever you did on your last holiday. That concerns the Libyan government, not the Japanese. What I'm interested in is the first time you went to Egypt."
Linna blinked, completely thrown. She decided that she had better sit down.
"The fact that a Japanese citizen was rescued by a teammate is if anything, an amusing story for us. What we want to know of is your dealings with a sect that have arisen in that area. Well, a group more like. They are a spin off of early twenty-first century al kieda, with a symbol like this."
He held up a piece of paper, with the symbol Linna had seen on the armbands of the troops that had arrived at the airport in Cairo as they were leaving, a few days ago.
"We believe you recognize it?"
Linna wet her suddenly dry lips, "yes," she managed, "yes, yes I know who they are."
"Can you tell me anything else about them?" asked the man quietly. Linna watched him for a minute. If he was having her on and she was going to be arrested or something then the Knight Sabers would get her out. So she may as well talk. It would fill the silence anyway.
"Not about their organization, no... About their involvement with the Libyan military? A little. About their involvement in a murder of a girl in an alley about a decade ago? My memories are sketchy."
"Let's start with that alley in Cairo. What exactly did you see?"
"I was about ten. We were in a bazaar, and my mother had just bought me a beautiful pink sari. I had put it on, and was skipping around happily, until I lost my parents and ended up in an alley on the end of the bazaar. Three men, look I don't know exactly what they were doing... but I can guess. Anyway, they had a girl up against the wall and she was pleading with them. They were trying to get her to tell them something, lifting up her skirt to threaten her. I remember thinking she must be rich, because she was wearing a string of pearls against her forehead. I was standing at the edge of the alley, watching. She saw me, and grabbed her pearls and threw them at me. They landed at my feet with a clatter, and two of the men turned towards me when they heard. The girl yelled something to me in Egyptian, but I didn't understand. I picked up the string of pearls. The two men saw me and came towards me, telling me to give the jewels to them. The girl said something, and even though I didn't understand I think she meant for me to run, and to keep the pearls. The man still holding her pulled out a knife. I didn't actually see him stab her because one of the ones coming towards me was blocking my view."
Linna paused for breath, thinking hard about what to say next.
"She collapsed, and all three men came after me. I turned to run, but tripped on my new sari. One of them men had grabbed me and was prying my hand open when a man I had never seen before came from somewhere to my left and hit him in the face."
"Who was this man? And do you still have the pearls?"
"His name, I found out much later was Michael. He took the pearls."
"And what does this Michael do?"
"I'm not exactly sure; he told me he works for the government."
"Which one?"
"How the hell should I know?" Linna snapped, "Look, what's this all about?"
"Your friend Michael has disappeared. He was working for us, transferring, er, intelligence from his cover job to his handler. We believe he has found the need to disappear because of your, er... activities lately."
"Well thank you captain Obvious!" snarled Linna. "That's pure genius that is."
The man on the other side of the desk looked much taken aback, eyes widening and eyebrows lifting.
"Is that all?" she continued, "I have some things to do."
"That's all. You will be escorted to you home." the man scanned the room, and noticed Scott trying to shrink out of sight.
"Agent James. You will escort Miss Yamazaki and her daughter to their home."
Scott tried not to groan. Linna didn't bother. Eleni sucked her thumb.
***
'Just what have I gotten myself into this time?' Scott James asked himself despairingly. Not only was he playing babysitter but now he was doing surveillance as well. How typical was that of his job? He always seemed to get the boring jobs. As if escorting a lady who had a sharp tongue halfway across town wasn't enough, he was now assigned personal bodyguard over the little girl, something which made her guardian amused. He wasn't entirely sure why, but whenever Miss Yamazaki saw him following them she would smile as if she was amused and knew something he didn't.
***
Which of course, she did. When Linna had unpacked Eleni's things she had found a small velvet box. Curious, she had opened it, to find a familiar string of pearls with a teardrop crystal in the centre.
"Eleni!" she called from the child's new bedroom (Linna had found a two bedroom flat), and the little girl came in from where she had been watching TV.
"Where did you get these, Eleni?"
"Papa gave them to me. He said you would know what to do with them."
'But I don't!' Linna panicked for a second, but then shut the box and said, "Alright, back to Play School." And the girl obeyed.
Linna opened the box again and stared at the pearls, wondering why the girl had thrown them at her, and not asked her to run and fetch help. Not that Linna would have understood the hieroglyphics, but still.
An irregularity in the box caught her eye. There was a small piece of lining coming up from the underside of the lid. Linna, beginning to feel rather like a Charlie's Angel tugged gently at it. It came away to reveal a piece of carefully folded thin paper. Written in Michaels hand.
*Dear Linna,
First of all I would like to thank you for looking after Eleni. She may appar shy at first, but persevere and she will open up. Secondly, I feel I should explain to you about these pearls...*
'oh crap.' Thought Linna, sitting down. This was turning into a movie.
An; well, see you next chapter. Sorry about the time it took to update. School really sux.
As Linnafan demanded, WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO LINNA THE FIRST TIME SHE WENT TO EGYPT???
Thanks to; K-iska-Muggle-Girl-0731
Linnafan
Sorceress Annie
JVR (janessavr@yahoo.com)
Chapter five; A Taxi Driver who isn't...
Last chapter...
A tall man wearing an ugly cheap suit looked down at her through sunglasses. +++
"Who are you?" Linna asked, standing and gripping Sarah's hand tightly.
"Answer the question please."
"Just because I'm female doesn't mean I have to take your crap! Come on Eleni." Linna dragged the girl away to the luggage receiving area, grabbed the girls bag and was about to march out of the airport when the man stopped her again.
"If you are Linna Yamazaki then I have to talk to you. We suspect that you're connected with the breach of security that happened in Libya a few days ago. We'd like you to come with us." He gripped her arm near the elbow and began to steer her away. Linna wrenched her arm away;
"Let go! I don't care who you are, but I'm not talking to you."
The man smiled tightly, the corners of his mouth arching into a wolf like snarl.
"You don't have a choice."
"Want to bet?" Linna turned and walked away. As predicted the man grabbed her shoulder from behind, she twisted around and punched him in the stomach. When he caught his breath she and the girl where gone.
Eleni had shorter legs than Linna, and found it hard to run fast enough to keep up with her new guardian. She tried her best, and Linna hailed a taxi and was bundling her inside before it stopped moving.
She told the cabbi where she wanted to go, and turned to Sarah.
"I'm sorry Eleni, this is all my fault. I'll make it up to your parents and you very soon, I promise."
She paused awkwardly, wondering what else to say. What did you say to a child whom you didn't know but had to take care of?
"When we get to my apartment you'll have to tell me what you like to eat, so I can make something for you, how about pancakes? Do you like pancakes?"
The little girl sucked her thumb and stared at the lady sitting beside her silently. Linna smiled at her for a few seconds, but gave up quickly. What was the point when she received no reaction?
The cab turned a corner, and Linna frowned. This wasn't the right way....
"Excuse me! I said as close as you can to apartment block twenty nine on Chifron Street! Excuse me!" she banged on the divider between her and the driver, "EXCUSE ME!!"
She tried her door. It was locked. She banged on the window again. The car went over a series of small cracks in the road, and Linna, who had not put on her seat belt, got thrown against the car door.
"Where did you learn to drive?" she grumbled to herself, but apparently the driver heard, because he looked into the rearview mirror, and grinned, his blue eyes twinkling. Linna scowled and banged on the divider again,
"Where are you taking us?"
The car stopped.
"here." Said the cabbi, getting out. Linna stared at the building they had pulled up next to. It was tall, dark grey and she wouldn't have noticed it except for the big gold letters above the door that said Japanese Embassy. Frowning, she got out, followed closely by Eleni, who was still sucking her thumb.
"Why are we here?" she asked the cabbi, who had gone to the back of the cab and had grabbed Eleni's small case. He handed it to her, and Linna noticed that he was actually wearing hat looked like an expensive suit and bright tie underneath the bomber jacket that had marked him as a cab river. Noticing her look, he pulled it of, and said,
"I have a boss that wants a word."
"Why?" demanded Linna.
"Just follow me please."
Linna, sure by now that this had something to do with what she had done n Libya hesitated, and looked down the street, wondering how fast she could run with Eleni. The man turned back, and added as if he knew what she was thinking,
"If you look up you'll find three guns trained on both you and your daughter, Miss Yamazaki."
Shocked, and annoyed that he knew what she had been thinking, Linna had to bite the inside of her cheek to refrain from looking up. Instead she marched right past her kidnapper; chin high and totally ignoring him, Eleni hurrying along beside her. He held the door open, waited until she was inside, chuckled and followed her.
Linna looked around the tiled floor of the entrance hall. Corridors branched of in all directions, people in black suits hurried here and there. It was like one of those secret intelligence movies, headsets and wrist mikes. She turned to her kidnapper, smirking, "I can see why you were sent to pick us up."
At his enquiring look, she elaborated, "You're the only one here who's wearing a colour beside black or white. I imagine your colleagues thought it would be funny to send you out as a cabbi."
To her surprise, he chuckled, before catching himself and saying gruffly, "Follows me." Linna smirked and followed. As he pressed the button for the lift she said, "I suppose there's guns on us here to?"
"Only camera's he answered shortly, stepping into the lift doors before they opened fully. Linna followed quickly, and pulled Eleni in after her. Eleni, who had been silent through out the proceedings so far, stared up at the agent, with her clear green eyes in an unblinking stare. Linna watched, amused as the agent became uncomfortable, fiddled with his collar, wriggled his shoulders, and made a small cough. Eleni turned to Linna, and beckoned, her eyes shining mischievously. Linna bent down to listen to what the girl was saying,
"He has a hairy nose." Whispered the six year old with an amazed voice. Linna snorted with laughter and clapped her hand over her mouth. The Agent watched uncomfortably.
When the doors opened, three men were waiting. They greeted her escort agent as someone named Scott and escorted Linna and Eleni to an office down the end of about three corridors, all of which looked very boring to Linna's eye.
"Oh the anonymity of it!" she said theatrically, bored with the silence. The nearest agent turned his laugh into a cough. Scott James, following behind his colleagues raised an eyebrow, amused. She certainly didn't seem like the sort of person who could kill three men in a dark alley in another country.
Linna and Eleni were shown into an office just like the others she had glimpse as they passed. Grey walls, grey carpet, fake wood desk. Grey chair. Grey haired man on it.
"Take a seat." The elderly gentleman said, waving his hand at the two seats in front of her. The group of agents crowded into the office behind her.
"What's this all about?" demanded Linna, crossing her arms angrily.
"We won't hold you long; this is merely a few questions. Miss Yamazaki, I have no interest in whatever you did on your last holiday. That concerns the Libyan government, not the Japanese. What I'm interested in is the first time you went to Egypt."
Linna blinked, completely thrown. She decided that she had better sit down.
"The fact that a Japanese citizen was rescued by a teammate is if anything, an amusing story for us. What we want to know of is your dealings with a sect that have arisen in that area. Well, a group more like. They are a spin off of early twenty-first century al kieda, with a symbol like this."
He held up a piece of paper, with the symbol Linna had seen on the armbands of the troops that had arrived at the airport in Cairo as they were leaving, a few days ago.
"We believe you recognize it?"
Linna wet her suddenly dry lips, "yes," she managed, "yes, yes I know who they are."
"Can you tell me anything else about them?" asked the man quietly. Linna watched him for a minute. If he was having her on and she was going to be arrested or something then the Knight Sabers would get her out. So she may as well talk. It would fill the silence anyway.
"Not about their organization, no... About their involvement with the Libyan military? A little. About their involvement in a murder of a girl in an alley about a decade ago? My memories are sketchy."
"Let's start with that alley in Cairo. What exactly did you see?"
"I was about ten. We were in a bazaar, and my mother had just bought me a beautiful pink sari. I had put it on, and was skipping around happily, until I lost my parents and ended up in an alley on the end of the bazaar. Three men, look I don't know exactly what they were doing... but I can guess. Anyway, they had a girl up against the wall and she was pleading with them. They were trying to get her to tell them something, lifting up her skirt to threaten her. I remember thinking she must be rich, because she was wearing a string of pearls against her forehead. I was standing at the edge of the alley, watching. She saw me, and grabbed her pearls and threw them at me. They landed at my feet with a clatter, and two of the men turned towards me when they heard. The girl yelled something to me in Egyptian, but I didn't understand. I picked up the string of pearls. The two men saw me and came towards me, telling me to give the jewels to them. The girl said something, and even though I didn't understand I think she meant for me to run, and to keep the pearls. The man still holding her pulled out a knife. I didn't actually see him stab her because one of the ones coming towards me was blocking my view."
Linna paused for breath, thinking hard about what to say next.
"She collapsed, and all three men came after me. I turned to run, but tripped on my new sari. One of them men had grabbed me and was prying my hand open when a man I had never seen before came from somewhere to my left and hit him in the face."
"Who was this man? And do you still have the pearls?"
"His name, I found out much later was Michael. He took the pearls."
"And what does this Michael do?"
"I'm not exactly sure; he told me he works for the government."
"Which one?"
"How the hell should I know?" Linna snapped, "Look, what's this all about?"
"Your friend Michael has disappeared. He was working for us, transferring, er, intelligence from his cover job to his handler. We believe he has found the need to disappear because of your, er... activities lately."
"Well thank you captain Obvious!" snarled Linna. "That's pure genius that is."
The man on the other side of the desk looked much taken aback, eyes widening and eyebrows lifting.
"Is that all?" she continued, "I have some things to do."
"That's all. You will be escorted to you home." the man scanned the room, and noticed Scott trying to shrink out of sight.
"Agent James. You will escort Miss Yamazaki and her daughter to their home."
Scott tried not to groan. Linna didn't bother. Eleni sucked her thumb.
***
'Just what have I gotten myself into this time?' Scott James asked himself despairingly. Not only was he playing babysitter but now he was doing surveillance as well. How typical was that of his job? He always seemed to get the boring jobs. As if escorting a lady who had a sharp tongue halfway across town wasn't enough, he was now assigned personal bodyguard over the little girl, something which made her guardian amused. He wasn't entirely sure why, but whenever Miss Yamazaki saw him following them she would smile as if she was amused and knew something he didn't.
***
Which of course, she did. When Linna had unpacked Eleni's things she had found a small velvet box. Curious, she had opened it, to find a familiar string of pearls with a teardrop crystal in the centre.
"Eleni!" she called from the child's new bedroom (Linna had found a two bedroom flat), and the little girl came in from where she had been watching TV.
"Where did you get these, Eleni?"
"Papa gave them to me. He said you would know what to do with them."
'But I don't!' Linna panicked for a second, but then shut the box and said, "Alright, back to Play School." And the girl obeyed.
Linna opened the box again and stared at the pearls, wondering why the girl had thrown them at her, and not asked her to run and fetch help. Not that Linna would have understood the hieroglyphics, but still.
An irregularity in the box caught her eye. There was a small piece of lining coming up from the underside of the lid. Linna, beginning to feel rather like a Charlie's Angel tugged gently at it. It came away to reveal a piece of carefully folded thin paper. Written in Michaels hand.
*Dear Linna,
First of all I would like to thank you for looking after Eleni. She may appar shy at first, but persevere and she will open up. Secondly, I feel I should explain to you about these pearls...*
'oh crap.' Thought Linna, sitting down. This was turning into a movie.
An; well, see you next chapter. Sorry about the time it took to update. School really sux.