Chapter 17

"What have you found out?" Leonardo asked.

"It's amazing how much information people post about themselves online." Donatello swiveled around in his chair and flipped back a page of a small, coil-bound notebook. "Holly Chambers is twenty-four years old. She's a third-year medical school student at NYU. She's single, lives by the East River, and follows American Idol religiously." Noticing Leonardo's impatient expression, he said, "As for why someone would want her dead, I haven't a clue yet. All her online associations seem innocuous enough. Running marathons, scrapbooking..."

"How about where she might have gone?"

"Her father's place seems like an obvious possibility. Her mom lives in North Carolina. No mention of any brothers or sisters. Then there's these two friends..." He pulled up an image on the computer screen. "She's in loads of pictures with them. She might have gone to one of them."

"What on earth are they doing?" Leonardo leaned in for a closer look.

"Looks like Jell-o shots at a college toga party." Donatello scrolled down the page of photos and sighed. "What I wouldn't give to go to college."

Leonardo glanced at the clock. Four o'clock in the afternoon. "We should get them up."

"I'm up." Michelangelo stepped through the doorway, slightly wobbly but alert. "I just remembered that I need to collect the container of meds that Doshida delivered last night." There was a moment of awkward silence. The irony was not lost on them.

"Grab a bite to eat," Leo said. "As soon as the sun goes down, we'll go pick up and store that container. Then we'll go back to Ms. Chambers apartment and see what else we can learn."

"I'll wake Raph," Don said. "The two of us will go to Dr. Chambers's place and see if his daughter is there."

###

It was almost midnight by the time Michelangelo pointed to the balcony where he'd crouched less than twenty-four hours earlier. "That's the one." It looked unchanged from the previous night, the curtains still drawn, the one lamp by the front door still glowing. The police tape cordoning off the dumpster area further down the alley, however, told a different story. Snake's body had been discovered. If Doshida did not already know, he would soon.

Leonardo's intense gaze swept across the street. "Lead the way," he said. "Stay sharp."

They went in the same way Mike had the previous night, rappelling over to the roof, dropping to the balcony and letting themselves in the window. As they straightened up in the kitchen, Mike whispered, "What are we looking for?"

"Anything that might help." Leonardo started opening drawers.

Michelangelo went into the bedroom and returned several few minutes later. "Jackpot," he said. He laid a square cloth-covered book on the kitchen counter. "She's got half a dozen of these." He flipped through the lovingly designed pages festooned with textured stickers and curly fonts. "Here she is with her dad. And here are those two friends." Graduation! one of the captions read. Me and June at Melissa's new place in New Jersey read another, several pages later. "This feels weird," Mike said, "snooping around in her life like this."

"Necessary if we're going to find her and keep her alive." Leonardo pulled a slim black notebook from the kitchen drawer. "Address book," he said. "I wonder if-"

He stopped in mid-sentence. They both sensed it at the same time. The near-silent footfall of someone on the balcony.

Leonardo dropped below the height of the kitchen counter and Mike flattened himself behind the short section of wall that boxed in the refrigerator. They heard the window slide open. A dark silhouette appeared in the frame and let itself into the apartment. Leonardo began to move, his hand sliding back for the hilt of his katana.

"Ren? Leo, wait!"

Leonardo checked himself in mid-step. Ren leapt backwards in alarm at the sight of the turtle's silhouette and the glinting, poised katana. He crashed into the dish rack on the counter, sending plates clattering. Tami's head and shoulders appeared in the window, then jerked back. "Shit!" she shouted, pulling a throwing knife with each hand.

"Stop, stop!" Michelangelo stepped in front of Leonardo, spreading his arms out.

The two sides stood frozen for a heartbeat. "It's okay," Mike said to Tami and Ren. "This is my brother." He prodded Leonardo with his elbow. "Stow the katana," he whispered.

Leonardo considered for a moment, eyes narrowed. Then he straightened and sheathed his weapons. Mike read the question in his sidelong glance.

"They're Rising Hand. But I know them. This is Ren, and that's Tami."

Leonardo accepted his introduction silently.

"Come inside," Mike said to Tami.

Tami hesitated. She tucked away her knives and climbed in, eyeing Leonardo distrustfully. She faced Michelangelo, her mouth set in a hard, resentful line. "You killed Snake."

"He nearly killed me," Mike said. "And he was going to murder an unsuspecting woman."

"That was his assignment." Tami's petite features sharpened into a glare and she took a step forward, momentarily forgetting Leo's presence. "I didn't love Snake either, but he was one of us. Why did you have to interfere?"

"You saw those photos just like I did," Mike said. "I had to stop him, but I didn't want him dead. I tried to talk him out of it-"

Leonardo's tone shut down the exchange. "Why are you here?" he asked the two humans. "To make a second assassination attempt?"

Ren shook his head vigorously. He still seemed to be recovering from shock, his eyes flicking wildly between Mike, Leo and Tami. "Doshida-san thought that you might come back here, so we were sent to leave you a message."

"And that is?"

Tami said, "He wants to meet with you. All of you."

###

Through the dark glass of the front double doors, they could see that the lobby of Agete's building was lit. Leonardo regarded the building uneasily. He decided he preferred certain battle over a 'meeting' with Saito Doshida. Swinging blades were more predictable.

"Did you find anything else at the doctor's place?" he asked Donatello. Don and Raph had found Evan Chambers's home dark and unoccupied. Fridge empty, bed made, car gone. It appeared as though the doctor was out of town. No sign of Holly Chambers.

"One other thing," Don said. "The lock on the door was broken. It didn't look as though anything had been taken. Someone was there before us."

"They're searching for her too," Raphael said. "Good thing we didn't find her- she probably wouldn't've been breathing."

In the ambient glow of the streetlights, the bruised right side of Raphael's face looked ghastly. He and Michelangelo were both hurting from last night, and if this discussion with the Rising Hand turned violent, Leonardo knew they'd be fighting at considerably less than full strength. "We'll go," he said. "But stay by the entrance. If this goes south, we'll need to get out into the open, fast." He looked pointedly at Raphael. "He's on home turf. We're not going to fight here, not if we don't have to."

They approached. As they reached the entrance, Ren opened the doors and stood aside, staring at the four turtles with open-mouthed amazement and trepidation. Mike winked at him reassuringly as they stepped into the lobby.

Leonardo took several strides in and stopped, his brothers coming up beside him. They were in a rectangular space with sleek black sofas and armchairs, low glass and metal tables and boldly patterned hardwood floors. The high ceiling rose up past the unlit second floor, which overlooked the lobby. At the far end of the room was the large stairwell that the four of them had dropped onto from the skylight, six months ago.

Saito Doshida was sitting in one of the armchairs, flanked by two large, tough-looking men in dark glasses and black shirts, one of them sporting a short goatee, the other a bulbous and crooked nose. Bodyguards, Leo presumed. Doshida rose and stepped forward. Tami followed a couple paces behind, Ren stayed near the door. There was no one else.

Doshida said, "Let's cut to the chase. I'm afraid there's been a... misunderstanding. You see, I was under the impression," he looked at Mike, "that we had a working relationship. Or at least, a mutual respect."

Leonardo let a second pass before he replied. "Call off the hit on Holly Chambers."

Doshida frowned. "Why?"

"You spoke of mutual respect. That's not possible if your clan, your business, is based on murder for profit."

"We ninja have always been assassins."

"We've also been protectors."

Doshida stepped back and scrutinized the four turtles. "I've no desire for us to be enemies. After all," he turned a slight smile on Raphael and then Michelangelo, "we've had a long, productive history together. I'm willing to overlook this...incident, so long as you stop interfering with Agete's operations."

"You're willing to overlook-" Raphael's incredulous voice rose over Doshida's. "Your crony dug his own grave, Saito." He pointed to the swollen right side of his face. "This is what I get outta our long, productive history, you prick."

"You have other work." Leonardo said. "Call off the assassinations."

"Impossible. We won't back out of commitments that we've made to clients."

"Then we are honor-bound to stop you."

In the silence that followed, Leonardo felt the current of tension come to a standstill, the way a drop of water hangs full and motionless before it falls. His senses sharpened, his awareness ballooned outward.

There are others in this room.

Saito said, "I regret that it's come to-"

He stopped suddenly, staring in mute shock through the front doors.

The sound of shattering glass filled the room. Instantly, an alarm went off, a shrill, pulsing whine. From either side of the lobby, broken windows let in a gush of cool night air, followed by a silent stream of black-clad figures.

Tami's lips formed the words almost inaudibly. "The Foot."

"Well," Raphael said. "This just got real interesting."

The leading Foot soldiers faltered for a second. They looked from Doshida and his men to the turtles, confused to find them together. Saito's face had gone white, but his eyes were hard as granite. He raised his arm in a signal.

"Aw, shit," Don said.

All hell breaking loose...now.

"Move!" Leonardo yelled. His voice was drowned out by another blast of the alarm and the erupting pandemonium, but his brothers fell into a defensive formation at once, following tightly as Leo dropped low and sprinted for the far end of the lobby. The men who had been concealed on the second floor sprang up, sighting their weapons over the waist-high wall into the lobby below. Darts began to rain down. Foot ninja began collapsing, like sacks of flour.

Leonardo dove the last few feet to get under the second floor overhang, out of sniper range. His shoulder hit the floor and he rolled to his feet, his brothers with him.

They were face to face with a cluster of Foot soldiers. Both sides froze. The few feet of air between them seemed to go taut, like the space between two magnets.

Then the Foot attacked.

Leonardo's katana clashed with an incoming blade; he drove down and forward, one sword controlling the opposing weapon, the other, held in a reserve grip, cutting across the soldier's ribs as Leo lunged straight past, the lethal arc of his katana clearing space for him to pivot, to give Michelangelo fighting room, to find Raphael's flank.

"Why the hell are you attacking us?" Mike shouted as his nunchuks disabled the two soldiers nearest him. "It's Doshida you're after, remember?"

Through the front entrance, the imposing figure of Kan Masataro appeared, accompanied by a line of his troops. The jonin surveyed the chaos and barked a command. Soldiers raced up the stairwell and the shower of darts stopped as fighting broke out on the second floor. Kan's eyes locked on Saito Doshida. For a moment, they stared each other down from across the room, mutual hatred seeming to fry the space between them. Then, his face twisted in a grimace, the leader of the Rising Hand turned and sped down the hall. A score of Foot ninja set off in pursuit.

"Doshida's getting away," Raphael said through gritted teeth as he blocked a short sword attack and retaliated with a sai hilt strike between the soldier's eyes.

"He's got the right idea." More Foot were coming in, even as Doshida's men pushed back against the onslaught, spilling the fight off the stairwell. From the corner of his eye, Leonardo caught a glimpse of Kan wading into the fray, his movements exceedingly simple and deliberate, almost mechanical, though too graceful to be called so, each cut of his katana precise and fatal.

Gunshots began ringing out. Doshida's two bodyguards had drawn handguns and closed in behind their retreating leader, firing at the Foot as they backed down the hallway. Darting to and fro behind them, Tami was whipping throwing knives in quick succession. "Ren!" she shouted.

Ren was fighting to join her. His hanbo spinning and striking, he held two Foot soldiers at bay, but they persisted, sensing his fear and inexperience, and a minute later, a chain whip snagged Ren's weapon and plucked it from his grasp. With a shout, and a cyclone of fierce spin kicks, Mike forced back the three Foot ninja around him, creating enough of an opening to burst between two of them and head for Ren. The teen cast Mike a desperate look and took two steps in his direction before a staff came down on his knee, buckling the leg. He fell and disappeared beneath an onslaught of weapons.

"No!" Michelangelo's speed-blurred nunchuks tore through the crowd of Foot. Two men pitched backwards as Tami, from across the room, emptied her belt of throwing knives with an enraged cry. Standing ground over the motionless form on the floor, knowing right away that he was too late, Mike battered back the surrounding soldiers with terrible ferocity, but seeing him separated from the other turtles, it only took the Foot a minute to start pressing back in.

Donatello was closest, and already moving, the precise, powerful strikes of his bo smashing through the circle of soldiers before they could close in. Wordlessly, he and Michelangelo fought back to back.

Kan was staring at them in astonishment and anger.

Leonardo trapped a kama blade between his swords and twisted it free. As its twin curved towards his head, he ducked low and sliced upward, was rewarded with a garbled cry and the thud of a man hitting the floor. Beside him, one of Raphael's sai caught a fighter's wrist and the other dropped him with a smash to the collarbone. Leo grabbed the edge of his brother's shell. "Cover them and get us out of here!"

Raphael was gone before the words finishing leaving Leo's mouth. He plowed a vicious path over to Mike and Don and sprang past them. As he landed in a crouch, he dropped his sai and tore into his belt, flinging two handfuls of shuriken, left and right. The Foot staggered back from the shower of sharp metal fragments and Leo heard his brother yell, "Go, dammit! Go!"

Donatello ran past Raphael, through the momentarily open corridor. There was a Foot soldier in his way and he took him down as he passed, his bo spinning smoothly from one hand into the other and drawing a blinding upwards arc, catching the man squarely under the chin. Don hurtled through the broken window and into the night.

Raphael grabbed his sai with one hand and Mike with the other, pulling him away from Ren's body. The two of them followed close on Donatello's heels. Leonardo put on a burst of speed, sweeping both katana wide to keep the regrouping Foot at bay. As he raced after his brothers, he stowed his swords and ripped into his own belt pouch. He turned and flung all three smoke pellets at once. Clouds of dense smoke bloomed behind him as he went over the bottom edge of the broken window like a hurdler. He reached back and tore open the hidden compartment at the end of his scabbard, emptying its stash of caltrops on the ground as he ran across the damp grass of the small lawn, through the pebbly concrete parking lot, and across the street. As he reached the cover of the buildings on the other side, the sound of police sirens rose like an incoming tide, louder and louder, until it was finally shut out by the familiar, blessed clang of the manhole cover falling into place above him.