Disclaimer: I do not own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.
The research center.
If the team had gone through so much trouble to get the instruction to him they either had proof that there was a second bomb hidden in the building or they at least strongly suspected it. A bomb with a very sophisticated detonator. It made a lot of sense: The other one had been way too easy to discover and defuse. Classis diversionary tactic.
A second bomb. Yes, Chance definitely shared his team's opinion.
And aside from that, he had a pretty good idea where it might be hidden. The Crane's voice, explaining something about biometric locks and steel walls, sprung to his mind.
Damn.
He should have never let that go. What had he been thinking? It was the perfect place...
The second he was finished taking notes he stuffed them into his pocket and dashed out of the room. Forcing himself to walk slowly as soon as he reached the party guests packed main hall was hard. He had the nagging feeling that time was pressing. If there was a bomb it was surely set to explode before the CEO-to-be made his big announcement. Nevertheless he couldn't race through the crowd, not if he didn't want to cause unrest that would alert the security staff who, mind you, had no idea who he was – the Crane had kept his involvement a secret to make the threat feel safe.
Talk about a plan backfiring…
"Your friend hired me to assist him!", Chance tried to explain to the young business hotshot that was soon to take over the reins of his family's business.
"Tsuru needing someone to assist him? Nice try, but he always works alone." He nodded towards his bodyguards, indicating that they should take care of the stranger who was trying to intrude on his big moment. "If you'll excuse me now, my father asked for a moment to talk before the announcement…" He was practically beaming, obviously expecting a lasting father-son moment in which he would be told how proud he was making the family. Oh, how he had worked for this!
Chance could have tried one more time, could have told the young man about the mock case his friend the Crane – Tsuru – had created to test him and his team, he could have told him about the events on the freighter with Baptiste… But, as said above, time was pressing, the bodyguards were approaching… all in all the situation called for a more direct approach.
With one fluid movement Chance drew his gun and seized the young man with a chokehold. "There's a bomb in this building", he yelled. "Everybody out!"
One of the bodyguards lunged at him, but Chance smoothly evaded the maneuver and pressed his gun to the man's temple. "One wrong move and he's dead!" He dragged him backwards, away from the bodyguards and the turmoil of the panicking party guests.
"Where are we going?", his captive yelled.
"The only place where I couldn't look last night!" Chance pulled him into one of the elevators.
... ... ...
Ilsa was carried outside with the current of fleeing party guests. Despite the chaos all around her she felt relieved. The message had gotten through!
She was just about to walk away, as far from the building as possible, ready to concentrate on worrying about Chance, when a terrible sound caught her attention. Above all the screaming and shouting of confused people, one high-pitched yell could be heard over and over.
"ISAMU! ISAMU!" A young woman in a waitress dress tried to make her way through the crowd in the opposite direction, desperately fighting to get into the building instead of out. "My son! Has anyone seen my son?" Ilsa caught her by the arm as she was trying to struggle past her.
"Eight or nine years old, blue T-shirt?", she asked.
"That's him!"
Could it be that the boy from the dessert table was still in the building? Maybe even still under the table? Children react differently to threats than adults. Firemen often had to rescue kids from underneath beds etc. because they thought they were safe there….
"I've seen him!", Ilsa told the woman. It was too complicated to explain where the boy was hiding – they were running out of time. She squeezed the woman's arm in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture and dashed back into the building as fast as she could. Thankfully by now most guests had escaped and she could move easier through the thinning crowd.
... ... ...
A few floors above her, Chance was facing complications of his own.
"I'm not going to open this door for you!", the young man insisted. "I'm not going to grant you access to my company's most valuable secrets!"
"You had your chance", Chance replied, shrugging, and knocked the man's head against the wall next to the biometric keypad of the room he and the Crane had passed by during their inspection of the building. Grabbing him violently by the hair he forced his face in front of the retina scanner and used his thumb to open one of his captive's eyelids. "Do you really want to lose an eyeball over this?", he asked, making sure he felt his fingernails pressing and scraping dangerously close to his left globe.
No, predictably he didn't. This was something Chance had learned from Guerrero almost a lifetime ago: Eyeballs were sacred to almost everybody.
The door slid open. "Oh my God", the young man gasped, seeing the sizeable amount of C4 placed right in the center of the room.
"So are you now going to help me?", Chance asked him.
... ... ...
Inside, the building was almost deserted. Ilsa had no problem getting to the dessert section. Unfortunately it didn't look as if the boy was still there. In their panic, the guests had knocked over the tables. Shattered porcelain and spilt food was spread all over the place.
"Isamu?", Ilsa tried cautiously, stumbling over the foreign word.
She almost didn't hear his reply. There he lay, caught under a broken piece of furniture, covered by a once-white table cloth.
"Something is wrong with my foot", he said. "It's hurting."
Ilsa winced as she caught sight of it: Judging from the angle, it was broken. "I'm going to carry you outside on my back", she told him.
... ... ...
Even to Chance, the amount of C4 was a little bit unsettling.
"The alternative would be to make sure everyone has left the building and let the thing explode", Chance told the CEO-to-be. "There are still five minutes left on the timer."
"And lose the results of years of research?" The young man shook his head. "This anti-flu remedy could change the world. No way I'm going to let go of it just like that!"
"Then let's go to work", Chance sighed and handed his notes to his ex-captive.
... ... ...
The boy was quite heavy. They got out a lot faster, however, after Ilsa decided to get rid of her high heels. Another pair going to hell thanks to a job… she should really stop spending a fortune on them…
The mother was overflowing with happiness when she got hold of her son. "He'll need medical treatment", Ilsa told her.
"Thank you so much", said the woman, and the boy nodded, too, before studying her with a strange, thoughtful expression on his face. "You've got an interesting tattoo on your back", he finally said.
"It's a very long story", Ilsa replied, not quite sure how to explain.
There was nothing to explain however, for the boy didn't inquire any further. Instead he had surprising information for her. "There's only one Kanji in it that doesn't make sense", he told her.
Not sure what he was talking about, Ilsa asked him to explain. He tugged at her dress so she would turn around, then gestured to his mother to lift him up again. "This one here." He cautiously touched a spot on her shoulder blade, right above her heart. "That Kanji says "kizuna". It means "bond" or "tie", between friends or family. I don't understand what it's doing in this text."
"I do", Ilsa replied slowly. "I do."
... ... ...
Back in the research center, Chance and the young CEO finished the last step of the defusing process.
The building didn't explode.