I don't know.
Intelligence
-Chapter Five: The Super Secret Commando's Secrets
"You look like shit." Reinhard looked annoyed at her statement, but that was fine with Asuka. She was plenty pissed off about having her schedule rearranged.
"That's about how I feel," he stated after a moment. "Please, have a seat." Asuka sat and considered the man across the table from her. He really didn't look good. He was pale and there were huge bags under his eyes. If Asuka hadn't been so annoyed with him, she might have been concerned.
"You're contacted me six days ahead of schedule," Asuka stated angrily. "You'd better have a good reason."
"Tokyo-3 is more dangerous than we thought," Reinhard stated. He glanced around the outdoor café. "You're being reassigned."
"Bullshit!" Asuka snapped angrily. "This is my town. I have connections here. You don't have anyone better qualified than me."
"The qualifications have changed," Reinhard stated. "You don't understand the situation. It's beyond your capabilities."
"Explain the situation than," Asuka ordered.
"Not here," Reinhard replied. "All you need to know is that this city is too dangerous for you. You're classified as a non-combatant."
"I can shoot guns," Asuka protested. "I'm a former Army officer for Christ's sake." That was true. She had the highest pistol scores of her class and they had only gotten better.
"Last night six men, each with ten plus years of experience in various German special forces were killed," Reinhard stated. "You are a former Army doctor."
"What?" Asuka demanded. "There are other operations going down in this city?"
"You don't need to know that," Reinhard replied. "You aren't going to leave quietly, are you?"
"No," Asuka stated stubbornly.
"Do you have a weapon?"
"Case officers shouldn't be armed," Asuka stated. "A weapon can be extremely incriminating if found." Reinhard nodded.
"Better not let this get found," he stated as he laid a bundle wrapped in a white cloth on the table. Asuka quickly put it in her purse. "This is only a .22. Don't think you can go Rambo with it. Try to use only sub-sonic rounds to make the suppressor more affective." Asuka nodded. "And for God's sake, keep a handle on your temper."
"Fuck you!" Asuka snapped. Reinhard smiled tiredly and laid several bills on the table.
"Take care of yourself," he stated as he stood. "Don't do anything stupid and get yourself killed or worse."
"What's worse than being killed?"
"A lot of things."
"Gehlen?" The man paused and glanced back at her. "Could you look up a man named Shinji Ikari for me?"
"Sure."
(:ii:)
"So, you crashed your motorcycle."
"That's right," Shinji replied as he popped two Motrin and put the bottle back in the cupboard. "Accidents do happen."
"Yeah," Misato agreed. She grinned brightly. "But it's funnier when it happens to you." Shinji sighed and moved his arm carefully. The shot of pain from his shoulder nearly took his breath away. It was only a graze, but it was a fairly serious one. "What about your bike?"
"It just got scratched up," Shinji stated. "I colored in the marks with a Sharpie. You can't tell the difference." The door opened and Shinji watched as Asuka walked into the apartment.
"Have a nice date?" Misato shot out of her seat.
"A date?"
"It wasn't a date!" Asuka snapped. Shinji grinned as she disappeared from view. Misato turned and stared at him.
"Why do I feel like I was just used as an attack dog?"
"You were," Shinji stated.
"Why Mister Ikari," Misato began, "I surprised at you. I thought you were above teasing."
"I'm not above anything," Shinji replied suggestively. Misato beamed.
"I've taught you well young one."
"I'd hate to tell you," Shinji began, "I'm not young. You're just old."
"You little bastard!"
(:ii:)
"Sir?" Takeo peaked into the kitchen and stared. "Ah. . .sir?"
"What's up?" Shinji asked from his position under Misato.
"Can I talk to you?" Takeo asked.
"Sure," Shinji replied.
"And how do you plan on doing that, Mister Ikari?" Misato demanded. Shinji managed to slither out of her hold and pinned her to the ground with ease.
"I win."
"Damn it! What are you, some kind of super secret commando?" Misato demanded.
"Maybe," Shinji replied with an impish grin as he stood and walked over to Takeo. "What's up?"
"Kita called," Takeo stated. "He wanted to know why you weren't picking up."
"My phone's off," Shinji stated. "He knows it is. I told him it would be off. Now, what did he want?"
"He said to keep an eye on Sohryu. Something new turned up."
"What?"
"Aside from her ties to Germany's military," Takeo began, "she's currently working as an aide in the German embassy."
"An officer with diplomatic immunity."
"Looks like it," Takeo replied. "Kita said we might think about bringing her in."
"Nah," Shinji replied. "If she's an officer, let's give her some time to set up a ring. Then we can bring in her and her agents."
"What if she isn't an officer?" Takeo asked. Shinji sighed. He was one of the few officers that knew how the agency actually ran.
"It won't be the first time they've tortured an innocent," he stated quietly. "They'll take care of it." Takeo's eyes were wide when Shinji glanced up at his face. "When the enemy hides amongst the innocents, the innocents can get caught up in the fight."
"I see," Takeo stated.
"You come from an unconventional warfare background," Shinji stated. "I thought you would have seen this before."
"Killing or wounding an innocent is a lot different than torturing one," Takeo stated. Shinji nodded.
"True enough," he stated. "We're heading to the Geo-Front. I want to start going over the files before I leave tonight."
"For your date," Takeo stated.
"For my date," Shinji replied. "Jealous?"
"Yup."
(:ii:)
"Wow." Shinji glanced at his partner and chuckled. The young man was staring out the car's windows with a positively star struck look. "This is an actual Geo-Front?"
"Yeah," Shinji replied as he glanced out at the view as well. "Pretty cool, huh?"
"Yeah," Takeo replied. "So, what are we doing here?"
"Research," Shinji stated reached inside his suit jacket and pulled his ID out of his breast pocket. "Get your ID."
"Don't we have geeks to take care of this stuff?" Takeo asked.
"Our analysts are spread too thin," Shinji stated. "They're coming, but not for a while. We can't wait that long."
"Great."
(:ii:)
'This sucks,' Shinji decided as he leafed through another file. He was a soldier not a secretary. "I need caffeine."
"This seems a little. . .much," Takeo commented. Shinji glanced at the young man.
"What do you mean?"
"There's so much personal information here that it's creepy," Takeo stated. "Is this stuff legal for NERV to have?"
"NERV is a government agency now," Shinji stated. "They can access a lot more than what normal employers can."
"I know," Takeo stated, "but this is still a bit much."
"Well, the Commander of NERV is also, apparently, a voyeur," Shinji commented. He knew for sure that some of the information contained in the files was illegal. That could be a nice bargaining chip later. He knew a confrontation would arise eventually. It happened every time he had to work with NERV or in Tokyo-3 in general. It was almost like the old man was setting it all up.
"I'll believe that," Takeo stated as he set the thin folder down in one of the piles on the desk. There were four. One for people from outside the country, one for people who had been outside the country within the past twenty years, a third for people who had some link to a foreign country, and a fourth for people with none of the above. At least they weren't going over the individual finance reports. Shinji was praying to whatever would listen that the analysts arrived before that became necessary. The lock on the door clicked and Shinji glanced up as it swung open.
"Shinji?" Shinji grinned broadly at the blue haired woman who had stepped into the room.
"Rei!" Shinji had barely gotten out of his seat before Rei Ayanami had seized him in a hug.
"Should I wait outside?" Takeo asked. Rei pulled away quickly. She still wasn't very good at displays of affection in front of people she didn't know well.
"That's my partner," Shinji stated. "He's a bit of a wiseass, but not a bad kid."
"Kid," Takeo grumbled.
"This is Rei Ayanami," Shinji added, "a very dear friend of mine." He sat back down and pushed the piles of folders in front of him out of the way. "So, what brings you down to this hell on Earth, Rei?"
"I heard Colonel Katsuragi mention that you had returned and wanted to greet you," Rei stated. "How's Kimi?"
"Kimi's fine," Shinji stated. "She wants to see her Aunt Rei again." Rei smiled slightly at that.
"Kimi's your daughter, right?" Takeo interrupted.
"Yeah," Shinji answered. "Kimiko Ikari."
"That's a pretty name," Takeo commented.
"Her mother picked it out," Shinji stated, "naturally."
"Naturally," Rei agreed. Shinji's eyes narrowed.
"Taking potshots at me now, Rei?"
"Only when you make yourself susceptible to them," Rei stated.
"Great, another smart ass woman."
(:ii:)
Asuka glanced around the bedroom and frowned. Other than the duffel bag packed away at the foot of the bed, it looked like no one had lived there in years. "Guess that makes sense," Asuka stated. That also meant she'd have to do some digging. Of course, she hadn't expected Shinji to leave something incriminating just lying around.
Blackmail, after all, was always a viable source of persuasion, not that Asuka was planning on blackmailing Shinji. No, she felt that her own charms would be plenty persuasive. It just never hurt to have a backup plan.
Asuka kneeled and grabbed the duffel bag's zipper. "Let's see what you have here." Asuka unzipped the bag and began poking through the bag's contents. A small book tucked away in the clothes caught her attention. She pulled it out and sat on the bed. She knew Shinji wouldn't be home for hours. She undid the latch on the front and flipped it open.
The very first picture was of a fairly pretty young woman and Shinji dressed in ceremonial kimonos. It must have been his wedding. Asuka smiled and flipped the page. The next picture was of the woman and Shinji, but now a smiling baby had joined them. 'Must be his family,' Asuka decided. She felt a slight spike of jealousy. There was no one waiting for her anywhere, no one except Gehlen with a new mission.
She continued to flip through the book, glancing at the pictures of the happy family. Then the pictures changed. It was so subtle that Asuka almost missed it. The woman stopped appearing and most of the pictures were of the baby in various stages of growth. Something else caught her eye and she stared at one picture closely. There were scars on the child's face. She flipped to the second picture, but the healed wounds were absent. Another kind of picture also began to appear. They were, as Asuka had decided to call them, war pictures.
In the war pictures Shinji was always dressed in fatigues and he was always armed. She began to notice two people, Asian males probably other Japanese soldiers, who always seemed to appear with him. The locales ranged from a burned out city to a military FOB in a place that looked like Africa's savanna. 'An old war horse.' The thought was definitely an alien one to be included in the same sentence as Shinji. There were also a few organized pictures with soldiers standing on bleachers behind a plaque with various descriptions. 'BUD/S, LRRP, Air Assault. God damn he got around.'
Asuka stood and put the book back in the bag, searching it as she did. They rest of the contents were clothes. She frowned and looked around the room more carefully. Spotting nothing she dropped the floor and looked under the bed. "Bingo."
Asuka pulled out the compact black backpack and set it on the bed. It was a military design with a built-in water bladder and MOLLE strips on much of the exterior for attaching extra pouches, but it was too slick to be government-issue. It must have come from the private sector. There was a long pouch clipped on the left side, a wide boxy pouch on the right, and the third. . .Asuka's eyes fell on the pouch clipped to the cover for the main compartment and the last few inches of a pistol's grip sticking out of it. She carefully opened the flap and drew the weapon out. She recognized it immediately. It was a green and black Colt .45, a popular pistol with many people, with a black light attached to the frame. She tugged the slide back a little and saw the gleam of brass inside the chamber. It was fully loaded with a round in the chamber.
Asuka set the weapon down carefully and pulled the twin zippers to open the bag's main compartment. The pack opened to reveal dozens of odds and ends. A long, dark cylinder caught her eye and she glanced at the pistol again, confirming that was threading on the end of the muzzle to accept a suppressor.
Much of the other equipment was a mystery to Asuka. She recognized boxes of .45-caliber and 9mm bullets, long extended magazines for the Colt, oddly cut magazines for another pistols, gloves, energy bars, a large combat knife, a pair of collapsible batons, and a small flashlight, and a full water bottle, but little else. She checked the boxy pouch on the right side and found it to be a very well-stocked first-aide kit.
In a rush Asuka realized what the backpack was. It was a bug out bag, a pack that intelligence people used to help them get out of a dangerous situation. Her own was safely nestled under her bed, much like Shinji's had been. "Oh my God."
(:ii:)
Shinji pushed the door to the apartment opened and trudged inside. He was tired. Takeo had managed to score a date off of some NERV tech that was probably half Shinji's age, which left him walking back to the apartment. He was definitely feeling ever single moment of the years of abuse he had put his body through. "I'm home."
"Welcome back." Shinji unlaced his boots and set them beside the door. He paused and took in the oddity of his boots next to Asuka's heels. Shinji walked into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. "Hey Shinji?"
"Yeah?" Shinji rasped as he turned and saw Asuka sitting at the kitchen table.
"I was wondering about your daughter," Asuka stated. Shinji felt an eyebrow creep upwards as he shuffled over to the table and sat down. "I didn't know you had one."
"Well, you haven't exactly been around for quite a few years," Shinji pointed out. "I was going to invite you to the wedding, but no one knew where you were."
"I was in Germany," Asuka stated. "So, what's her name?"
"Kimiko Ikari," Shinji stated. "She's eight years old now."
"Eight years," Asuka stated. "I guess I have been gone for a while. So, is she home with her mother right now?" Shinji felt the muscles in his arm clench without his permission. The beer can in his hand stood no chance. The punch tab burst upwards and beer covered Shinji's fist.
"No," he stated, his voice raspy for a new reason now. "He glanced up at Asuka. Her eyes were wider than normal and she was staring at the beer can. Shinji frowned. He probably owed her some sort of an explanation. "My wife's been dead for seven years," Shinji stated. "There was a car accident. Her skull was crushed and Kimi. . ." Shinji coughed as his throat tightened, ". . .Kimi got cut up pretty bad. I've had her in and out of plastic surgeons for years trying to get rid of the scars."
"I'm so sorry Shinji."
"You don't even know them!" Shinji snapped before he could catch himself. Asuka was taken aback, but nodded in understanding.
"I know," she stated, "but I brought up bad memories." Shinji managed a smile for her and stood.
"I'm sorry too," he replied. "Excuse me." He threw the beer can away and stepped out of the kitchen. He could clear up the spilt beer later.
Shinji made his way to his room and examined the doorway automatically. To his shock he noticed that the hair that had been trapped between the door and the doorframe was gone. 'Calm down,' Shinji ordered himself. He put his back to the wall and reached under his shirt for the slim 9mm pistol hugging his ribs. He pulled it out and carefully pushed the door open. He glanced inside, sweeping the room with a pistol and finally stepped in once he was sure the coast was clear.
Shinji immediately went to his duffel. Maybe Asuka had opened his door to see if he was in there.
That possibility dropped as he stared at his bag. It had been moved. He tore it open and one glanced inside told him that someone had been through his things. He dropped to the ground and dug his bug out bag from under his bed. He opened it and scowled. It had been searched as well.
Shinji almost sprinted to his closet and tore the door open, definitely damaging it beyond repair in the process. He glanced up and stared at the bag duct taped to the ceiling. He tore it down and opened it. His Mk. 23 sat pristine and untouched inside.
Shinji zipped the case shut and taped it back to the ceiling. He glanced at the bug out bag still lying on his bed and made his way over. He holstered his 9mm and snatched up the far more intimidating Wilson Combat .45. He pulled the slide back slightly and saw the brass in the chamber. He snatched the suppressor out of his bag and screwed it onto the pistol's muzzle. "Oh, Asuka?"
-End
(:ii:)
-Author's notes. Ooh, a cliffhanger. Heh, I love doing this to you guys. I'm such a bastard.