Chapter 6 - Getaway

Haruka gave a final wave as the house slid out of sight in the early morning light. The last 36 hours had been great. He had had a wonderful night's sleep on Saturday. Sunday they all slept in and then worked together to prepare Sunday lunch. He had talked to Susumu abut college and what he intended to study. Noboru had (not to surprisingly) expressed an interest in the type of training they did at the garrison. He had looked a little shell shocked when Haruku finished with the description of the training the new recruits performed. He had even had a chance for a long talk with his uncle about how he was doing at work and what he thought the boys would wind up doing in the next few years. All in all, he was feeling more comfortable about his relationship with his brothers than he had since he started working for the SST garrison. Noboru still wasn't really happy about his job, but at least he knew why Haruka was doing it and he seemed to be starting to accept his choice.

And now he was on the road in a rented car a day earlier than Nishiwaki (or maybe even Iwase) expected. He had told them he would stay through Monday and then be back at the garrison by Friday night. But he had told the boys he could only stay to Monday, not through it. Of course, the guards at the house would realize he wasn't coming back and call in; but the phones they were allowed while on duty were only supposed to be used for a real emergency, the type you call 911 on. He doubted this would qualify. And even if it did, what could they do? With the phone turned off he couldn't be tracked. And – with perfect timing the sign for a small highway appeared and he made the right hand turn – there were several different ways he could be going, they would have trouble trying to find him. Since they had agreed to let him go on vacation, they could hardly make a huge effort to find him just because he actually made his "trackless vacation" really trackless.

(6 hours later at the Tokyo garrison.)

A pall hung over the garrison's corridors and rooms. No one knew what was wrong. All they knew was that the enigmatic, imperturbable Nishiwaki was not being his normal imperturbable self. For the first couple of days after the Instructor had left, everything had been fine. Iwase had left last night for his (shorter) vacation but no one had noticed a change until sometime after lunch when Nishiwaki had left his office and within 5 minutes yelled at someone for wearing a stained uniform. Usually if he caught someone in a stained uniform there would be no reaction at all, just 10 demerits points showing up on their account for 'uniform unbecoming'. But not only had he mentioned it, he had yelled. They couldn't remember the last time Nishiwaki had yelled at anyone. Even when bombs exploded he was calm and collected, only raising his voice when there was too much noise for it to be heard at a normal level. Then, while walking on the 2nd floor, he decided that a couple of workers were talking too much about things not involving work. And proved that he could give a tongue lashing every bit as good as the Instructor's. By now, no one wanted to catch his attention.

Some word of what was going on must have leaked up into the medical level as Dr Hashizume managed to appear in front of Nishiwaki as he headed down the ramp to the basement. "Nishiwaki. I was just going to take tea, would you like some?"

"I need to inspect the cooling equipment in the basement."

"I'm sure Mifune can handle that. Besides, you're late for you last physical exam."

Nishiwaki's attention was pulled away momentarily by movement and he watched as Kishitani; head chef and the one man in the entire garrison that could probably match Iwase's height and weight, started to turn into the same corridor as Nishiwaki was standing. Kishitani saw him standing next to Hashizume; flinched and turned away into another part of the corridor. He sighed. "Yes doctor, lets have tea."

…....

"I don't understand the problem."

"You don't understand the problem!!?? We don't have the slightest idea where he is, he's turned his cell phone off and, and he left his home early!"

"Wasn't the entire idea of this vacation that he was supposed to get away from the stresses of the garrison and try to forget his job for awhile? Aren't you just unhappy that he decided to go on his own for the vacation as he had originally planned? Did he ever set any particular time frame or just nod along to your suggestions?"

Nishiwaki opened his mouth and then stopped and closed it. He stared right through Hashizune for almost a minute before the corners of his mouth twitched and he almost smiled. "So, you are saying that I am upset because the Instructor has acted like an Instructor instead of taking orders from me?"

The doctor merely raised his cup of tea, and an eyebrow, and sipped at his drink.

******GD**** GD ****

Okay, so its the first time we see the doctor being more calm than Nishiwaki, I still think it could happen.