Two
"I need to extract her." Elijah leapt out of bed and went to the closet, gathering clothes and equipment.
"We need to extract her," said Susan, as she unfurled herself and did likewise.
Elijah paused. "I can't ask that of you," he said. "It wouldn't be fair-"
"Hey!" She stepped close and cupped his face in her hands. "What wouldn't be fair is you running off and getting yourself killed. Remember the part where I love you? This isn't something you need to ask of me, this is something I choose."
He stared into her eyes, reached up with both hands and placed them over hers. "Sorry. I'm not really used to the idea of-"
"I know. Me neither."
"Thank you," he said, his voice a whisper.
Susan smiled. "Besides, remember what happened the last time you dashed off to rescue a girl? You need me."
"Good point." He pressed his forehead against hers for a moment, then stepped back and continued to grab things. "Okay, we can get across the bay relatively quickly. Most of the traffic is coming into San Francisco at this hour. It's a good bet Hirawa's watching her, so if we contact her directly that'll blow it."
"Move directly to the campus?" she said.
"I don't know what her schedule is like." Elijah shook his head. "Let's see the Librarian first, get some information."
"Hirawa's damn close to breaking the rules," said Susan. "Dragging an outsider into this?"
"Technically, he hasn't broken any yet. It's just some pictures, and he knows it."
"And if we meet Hirawa?"
"I was content with letting him go in Manhattan," said Elijah. "And if he'd just come after us as part of the contract, hey. No hard feelings. But this? No more courtesies."
Susan moved through the campus, scanning for any sign of Hirawa or other men from the Two Dragon Society. She'd tracked down one of Elijah's cousin's friends at the mechanical engineering building on the north side of campus and gotten oriented towards the library main stacks. She tugged the hood of her coat a little tighter around herself as the gray skies continued drizzling. Groups of students moved around from building to building, some sporting umbrellas, others in a variety of hoods and coats, still others completely uncaring of the rain.
The Berkeley campus library held its main stacks in an underground compound, though the primary entrance near the center of campus sat within a white marble building that had red tiles surrounding its multiple sunroofs. White columns bracketed tall windows. Lush grass fields spread out before the stairs leading up to the entrance. Susan glanced up, past the library building, to the iconic bell and clock tower jutting up above all nearby buildings. Great spot for a sniper: something to be aware of if things went sideways. She headed inside with the inevitable throng of students, flashed the fake identification they'd procured from the Continental's residential information specialist.
The main stack access led to a wide, spiraling staircase that went down multiple stories. She looked at a map, familiarizing herself with the layout of the stacks, and headed in. "How's transmission?" she murmured quietly into her encrypted throat mic.
"Breaking up," came Elijah's static-laced reply. "You're heading underground?"
"Entering the stacks," she said. "If I find her, I'm going to look for a different exit. I don't like our proximity to that tower."
"Got it."
Susan paced through the stacks towards the mechanical engineering books. The scent of musty paper hit her nose. There were so many books that they didn't have space to keep them all on fixed shelves. Instead the library had clusters of bookshelves mounted on rails, operated by crank handles to open up space to the desired row of books. She glanced at each person she passed, searching for the girl from the photos – or any sign of Yakuza hitters. Nobody fitting either criterion hung around the mechanical engineering section. She muttered a curse under her breath.
"Elijah?" she said. "If she's not at the engineering section, any idea where else she might be?"
"You could try Shakespearean poetry?"
"Seriously?" She moved past rows of bookshelves and tables of students, her footsteps blending in with the sound of typing. Susan stepped her pace up but tried to look relatively nonchalant; the people glancing up at her were more attention than she wanted. She reached the section, grinned briefly at the couple reading alternating lines at one table, and kept moving, searching.
There – Susan doubled back; a young Chinese woman sitting alone at a desk with a stack of books in front of her. She took a second look. Elijah's cousin. "I found her. Making contact."
She stepped in close. "Jenny Wu?"
The girl looked up at her. She had her thick black hair drawn up in a ponytail, showcasing a pretty, open face. She lacked Elijah's Middle Eastern features, Susan noticed. "Yes?" the girl said. Her English was only lightly-accented. The look she gave Susan – what was that? Appraisal? Interest? "Who are you?"
"My name is Susan Rizzi. Come with me if you want to live."
Jenny stared blankly at her for a second. "Excuse me?"
"Don't watch many movies, do you?"
"I'm pretty sure there aren't any cyborgs from the future coming to kill me," said Jenny.
"Maybe not, but there's an unfriendly Yakuza guy keeping tabs on you. We need to move before he catches on."
"Who are you? What's going on?"
"I'm a… a partner of your cousin, Elijah. This Yakuza guy is trying to use you to get to him. I'm sorry, but we don't have time to explain right now. We need to move."
"Is this a joke?"
"It's really not." Looking up and scanning around, Susan spotted an Asian man in a suit wandering towards them, looking at each student he passed. Well, crap. She took a long step to the side and cranked the nearest bookshelf, opening it all the way. Susan tucked herself into the aisle, out of sight from the approaching man.
Jenny looked at her like she'd gone crazy. "What are you doing?"
"See the guy in the suit coming this way?" Susan said quietly.
"The guy creeping on people? Yeah, that happens here."
"He's Yakuza. Here for you."
"This isn't funny anymore," Jenny said.
"Sit tight," Susan said as she heard rapid-fire Japanese and footsteps speeding up.
Jenny went pale and her eyes widened. Susan listened to the footsteps – and swung an elbow out right as the Yakuza flunkey passed her aisle.
He reacted fast, she gave him that. He twisted aside, revealing the beginnings of the tattoos along the back of his neck, and skidded to a halt as he kicked out at her while reaching for his waist. Susan stepped into the kick, catching it with the meat of her thigh before it had built up full force. In the same movement she scissored her crossed wrists into his arm, intercepting his draw. She rolled her left arm up and over, stepping into the strike and ramming her elbow into the man's jaw.
A twist of her hips swung him into the shelf aisle. Susan stepped back, twisting his wrist up and over with one hand to keep the gun he clutched under control. With her other hand she batted the crank handle of the bookshelf she'd extended and rolled it shut – slamming into the Yakuza man and trapping him with a grunt of pain. She twisted the handgun out of his hand as he shouted.
The whole thing had taken less than three seconds. Jenny sat frozen, even paler than ever and eyes like saucers. Rizzi tore the magazine out, hurled it over the bookshelves with a snap of her wrist, and racked the slide to empty the chamber before throwing the pistol aside. The pinned Yakuza man shouted a stream of angry Japanese, and other students had started rising from their seats to see what the commotion was. "We're out of time," she said. "We need to move, now!"
To her credit, Jenny got over the shock of things quickly enough. She snatched her pack up as Susan grabbed her arm and hauled her from the desk. Susan snatched an extra earpiece from her pocket and handed it to Jenny. "Elijah's on the other end," she said as she tugged the young woman towards the exit.
Susan drew up to a halt before one of the internal windows offering a view of the central, spiraling staircase. Men in ski masks and suits were funneling down. "Damn it," she muttered. "Not that way. Is there another exit we can get to?"
"The Moffitt Library?" Jenny suggested. "The stacks connect that way," she said, pointing off deeper into the library.
"Let's go," Susan said, grabbing Jenny's arm and hauling the girl along. She glanced back; the masked men were making a beeline for their section.
As they ran past shelves of books Jenny fiddled with the earpiece. "Tang ge?" she said into it, using some Chinese term Susan wasn't familiar with.
"Jenny!" Elijah said through the radio, his voice weak and crackling with static.
"What's going on? What are you doing here? Why are people trying to kill me?!" Susan heard the frantic questions both from the person right beside her and through the radio channel.
"Technically, they're trying to kill Susan and me. You got caught in the middle. Listen, there's no time. We've got to get you to safety. Please, trust Susan and do as she says."
"Who are you?!" Jenny asked as Susan pulled her along. Rapid footsteps echoed through the halls behind them.
"Explanations later, escape now," Susan replied. She glanced behind her to see several of the men chasing them from the staircase. Students had started gathering, seeing the commotion.
That ended swiftly as a pair of shots sounded, thunderously loud in the underground surface. Screams and shouts erupted from students and pandemonium broke out. Susan shoved Jenny behind the closest shelf and dove into a roll as another pair of shots came from their pursuers. One of the shots punched through a bookshelf nearby with a metallic thud. She drew her pistol as she came up to one knee and swung around.
Snapping the sights onto target, Susan put two suppressed shots into the left man's chest. She shifted the pistol and shot the right man through the head. Rising smoothly to her feet, she took her finger off the trigger, stepped over to Jenny, and propelled her along again.
"You just shot those men!" Jenny said as they kept moving through the stacks.
"Get used to it," Susan replied. "There're still more of them."
"Susan? What's going on?" Elijah asked.
"Hirawa's men are here!" she said. "Things went loud."
"Alright, north gate," he said. "I'm circling to the north gate!"
They ran on, accompanied by more screaming and bystanders diving for cover. Rizzi tried to conceal her weapon beneath her coat, but as more of Hirawa's men closed on them she had to return fire twice more. The environment forced her to pick her shots carefully; Susan didn't want to hit one of the innocent students by mistake.
The rows of bookshelves gave way to a curving, gently sloped ramp leading upwards. "Look out!" Susan yelled at groups of students heading the same way, undoubtedly fleeing the violence within. "Get down!" One hand still tugging Jenny along, she pushed past students and hoped the Yakuza men would ignore them as they chased their targets.
They powered through into another section of the library. How many books did they have here, Susan wondered? Jenny shook her shoulder. "That way!" she yelled, pointing at a set of stairs leading up. Susan sprinted up the stairs, casting a quick glance behind to the corridor connecting the main stacks for any sign of pursuit. Hirawa's men must have decided to slow things down a notch after losing several of their men. The mass of panicking students couldn't be helping them either.
Thankfully, Jenny seemed to be a bit of an athlete; she wasn't breathing particularly harder than Susan as they made it to the ground floor. They blew past the circulation desk and Susan nearly shoulder-checked a hapless student as they rushed towards the exit. The screams and panic had just about doubled in volume as the chaos spread. She slammed through the door-
Right into a suited man waiting outside. Slight and sinewy, Japanese. Tattoos running along the side of his neck. His eyes widened and he reached inside his jacket-
Susan jammed the muzzle of her pistol into his chest and pulled the trigger twice. She swept the man aside with her free arm, then nabbed Jenny, who looked decidedly pale by now. A second to get her bearings – there, north gate that way. "Come on!"
"Ohmygodohmygodohmygod," Jenny mumbled as they ran. Emergency sirens wailed and people were scattering in all directions.
Susan grimaced; the damn campus seemed to be all hills, and between that and the various clashing architecture, reduced line of sight to a mess of short distances as they threaded between department buildings. Double-edged sword, she supposed. While they wouldn't know if they were about to run into any hitters until they were right on top of them, it also meant anybody looking for a long range shot would be stymied if they picked the right paths.
They got to the north gate, which stood right beside a long, sloping avenue. Susan drew up to a halt as she noticed another suited man facing towards the campus rather than running away, as if he were waiting. His hands snapped up from beneath his suit jacket; he clutched a pistol carbine conversion and snapped off a pair of shots towards them.
Susan tackled Jenny aside, rolling them behind one of the big pillars bracketing the campus entrance. The hitter put round after round into the pillar as he circled around to get a better angle. People cleared out, screaming, as stone chips flew. The shots echoed through the cold air, sonic cracks in the rain. Susan gripped her pistol in both hands and peeked out, then swung back as another pair of shots cracked off the pillar beside her face. The hitter took another step to the side-
And a dark gray sedan roaring down the street swung into a fishtail with a screech of wet tires, slamming into the man from behind with its rear and launching him through the air. The man hit the ground in a ragdoll tumble and came to a rest a dozen meters away. Susan hauled Jenny up, who was regarding the scene in open-mouthed horror. "Let's go."
Susan pushed the girl towards the car, around the hood, and yanked the passenger door open. She shoved Jenny in, shut the door, and dove into the back seat. "Drive!"
"Hi, Jenny," Elijah said as he gunned the engine. "Seatbelt on."
Bracing herself with her feet, Susan reached down to the car floor and opened the case containing her short-barreled rifle. She activated the red dot sight and tugged the charging handle back an inch, making sure she had a round in the chamber, then looked back out the rear window for any sign of pursuit.
"Holy shit!" Jenny yelled; when Susan glanced over at her she saw the young woman turned halfway around in her seat, staring back at Susan with wide eyes. "Who are you?!"
"It's complicated!" Susan yelled back over the engine.
Jenny turned to her cousin. "Eli? What the hell is going on?! Why are people trying to kill us?!"
"Like Susan said, it's complicated," Elijah replied as he swung the car around a street corner and laid onto the horn. The car swerved around others as he swung between lanes.
"Complicated? Complicated?! There are people-"
"We'll explain later!" he said. "Let's just get out of this alive first!" He glanced back at Susan in the rearview mirror. "Are we clear? I really don't want to try getting onto the Bay Bridge if they're chasing us."
"Yeah, and I thought traffic in New York sucked," Susan said. "So far so-"
She really shouldn't have said anything, Susan reflected as a bullet shattered the rear window and cold air blew in. "No, we're not clear!"
"I got that!" he called back.
"Jenny! Get down and cover your ears!" Susan yelled as she sat up. A black SUV chased after them, shoving cars aside as it closed the distance. Somebody had his arm stuck out the passenger window, firing a pistol at them.
She lined her rifle up, breathing out as the car jolted and swayed. She pressed the trigger, feeling the rifle buck against her shoulder and its roar filled the car. Susan put a half-dozen rapid shots through the pursuing vehicle's engine grill as Jenny screamed. She braced the rifle against the broken window frame, adjusted her aim, and sent two rounds towards the passenger seat.
"Right turn," Elijah called back. Susan braced herself as their car swerved again. She brought her rifle in tight against her shoulder, waiting for-
The pursuing car swung around the corner. Rizzi triple tapped the driver and their pursuers plowed into one of the parked cars by the curbside with a thundering bang, setting off car alarms up and down the street. Susan released a slow breath as she watched for another moment while the city went by. "Clear for now."
"Holy shit," Jenny said. Her gaze flickered between Susan and Elijah "Tang ge, what kind of consulting do you do?"
