Chapter 21

If Michelangelo were to describe the life of a ninja, he might say that it was a lot of watching, waiting and stalking, punctuated by bursts of explosive violence. Mastery of the violent parts was something that took years and years of training, but at this moment, as he stood tucked in the darkness of the alleyway next to Chuck's Bar and Grill, inhaling the maddening scent of fries, grilled meat and beer, trying to pick out individual voices from the rising and falling burble of conversation, and passing his eyes over every person that entered and exited the dim, narrow front doorway, Michelangelo was sure that the long, unglamorous stretches of ninja work were even harder.

It was the third night he'd been here and he was starting to think it was a dead end, despite the fact that the bartender had confirmed over the phone that the man he was looking for was indeed a regular. But who knew- with all that had happened over the last week, perhaps he'd changed his routine or skipped town...

Mike zeroed in on a figure walking up to the entrance, a man with a quick, almost spastic manner, wearing a ball cap and a jacket that hung too loosely on his slight frame. Bingo. An unnatural shadow detaching itself from a wall, Mike left his lookout spot and sidled up to his target as the man's hand reached for the door handle.

"Hey, Simon." Mike pushed the rim of his hat up, just enough.

His old squad member gave a backpedalling start, almost knocking into a public waste bin. "Mike? Wh-what are you doing here?"

"If I could go in, I'd offer to buy you a beer." He smiled, genuinely pleased to see the twitchy little hacker. The only member of Roku Squad not angry at him or dead. "Maybe we could talk out here where it's less crowded."

"Talk? Now? Uh, err, okay..."

"Hey dude, it's just me. Why so jumpy?"

Simon shrugged and shook his head and glanced around, all at the same time. "No, no reason. Sure, let's...talk, I guess."

"How about over there?"

They crossed the street to a small public park. Its small lawn and stone benches, surrounding a large ornamental sundial, were dark and nearly empty this late in the evening. Mike said, "So where have you been?"

"Just laying low, doing a few side jobs here and there. I got a call from Tami, telling me to hold tight, they're going to get assignments up and running again as soon as they sort out the mess with the main building..."

"So you heard about what happened, then?"

Simon scrunched into the overly large neck of his jacket and looked down at the ground. "I heard about Ren. Poor kid. I really liked him."

"Me too." For several seconds, they didn't speak, both staring somberly through the gloom of the park to the orange streetlights receding down the sidewalk on the other side. Mike didn't give voice to his thoughts, he didn't say, "I was there. I tried to get to him, but I didn't make it in time. I saw him die." But somehow, the knowledge that Simon, this one man with whom he had almost nothing in common, could silently commiserate with him in a way that his brothers could not was something for which he was unexpectedly grateful.

Simon broke the silence. "It's pretty crazy, isn't it? This other Asian gang, the Foot¸ I guess they really have a grudge against Saito, huh?"

"Yeah, they do." Mike studied his toes. He might as well ask. "When you talked to Tami, did she say anything... about me?"

Simon hesitated. "She said...you weren't on our side anymore. That you killed Snake." His eyes darted around like nervous birds. "Err...did you?"

Mike sighed. "Not exactly, but it's complicated." He considered saying, "Snake was some sort of super soldier assassin," as well as "If he wasn't dead, I would be," and "Technically, I didn't kill him, my brother did." None of these seemed like they would take the conversation in a good direction, certainly not the one direction he actually needed it go. Instead he pressed, "Did she say where she is? Or anything about Doshida and where he's gone?"

He realized right away that he'd probed a little too far and too eagerly. Simon shook his head hastily, without looking him in the face. "No, no, she didn't. You know, nothing personal, but I'm not sure I ought to be talking to you. I mean, I don't know how things stand between you and Saito, and I don't want to get on anyone's bad side...you know how it is..." He started to back away, as if he was going to make a dash back across the street, to the safety of the restaurant and human company.

Mike held his hands up. "Sorry, my bad- for putting you on the spot like that. Forget it, really. It's not the reason I wanted to talk to you."

Simon stopped backing away. "So...what is the reason then?"

"You remember that last job? The one where I took you guys underground to get into that office building?"

"Yeah, sure." Simon shuddered at the memory.

"Can you tell me what we did? I mean, on the computer end of it, what exactly did you do?"

"You know. We copied some files." Simon shrugged, the tension in the movement of his shoulders betraying his suspicion.

Mike kept his tone nonchalant. "What files?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Picking his words carefully now, Mike said, "I know someone who works at the place we broke into, Hopewell Medical Group. She's convinced there's something fishy going on at that company, some sort of cover-up. I'll bet it's no coincidence that we were sent to get files out of there. If I know what was taken, I can help her, give her some idea of what they're trying to hide."

Simon's over-caffeinated fingers did a nervous jig on his thighs. "I don't think I should be saying-"

"It won't get back to anyone that I even talked to you. Not Tami, not Saito; I'm not in touch with them anymore. The reason I need to know is because this person I mentioned, she's been threatened." Mike searched Simon's face. Criminal hacker and data pirate that the man was, perhaps an anti-establishment angle would elicit some sympathy. "She doesn't have anything to do with Agete, or the Foot, or anyone we know. She's just a whistle-blower in a tight spot. I don't want to see her hurt."

Simon wet his lips. Hesitantly, he said, "The job was to copy over all the patient files from New York metro clinics dating back to the beginning of the year."

When he stopped, Mike said, dubiously, "That's it?"

Simon stopped the jiggling of his fingers by stuffing them into the pockets of his jeans. "No, I also infected their system with a virus- one that corrupts only certain files so they can't be retrieved or read."

"What kinds of files?"

"Patient files with a certain name coded in the employer field: Alliant Operations. And any variations, like Alliant Ops., or just Alliant." He took his ball cap off and ran his hand through his badly disheveled hair before jamming the hat back on. "There, that's it. That's all I know, okay?"

Mike nodded. "Thanks." Then, because he didn't know what else to say, and because it was true, he said, "It was good seeing you again."

"You know, Mike," Simon said, some of the tension coming out of his shoulders, "I really don't know what to think about all this. I mean, working for Saito... well, the pay's really great, and the people he's getting are crazy skilled. Like, I wouldn't even have believed you were real, and you turned out to be pretty swell in my book. But Snake's dead, and Ren's dead... and I'm not even a fighter like they were, I'm not cut out for that kind of shit..." The words poured out of him quickly, like water tripping over rocks, as if he'd been needing to say them for a while. "I don't know...maybe I should just keep out of all this." He looked up at Michelangelo questioningly, as if, for some reason, he trusted him.

"I think that would be a good idea," Mike said. He stepped off the curb and melted into shadow, knowing that he would be lost to sight within seconds. "Good luck, Simon."

###

Donatello nudged aside the stacks of paper on the small folding card table, clearing a patch of space for his coffee mug amidst all the pages of information he and April had hurriedly dug up. "Alliant Operations," he explained, "is a private military and security services contractor."

Michelangelo squinted one eye. "So, like, soldiers for hire?"

"Exactly." Donatello glanced at his laptop, then back at his brother. "April pulled up all the press she could find on them. They're competing for some big military contracts."

"And Hopewell?"

"Is the network medical care provider for their New York offices."

Michelangelo put down the paper bag he'd just brought from the lair (bagels, juice and power bars - they had to eat after all) and looked for a place to sit down. While he had been tracking down Simon, Don had set this place up with the bare essentials, those being, in his judgment, his computer, a bunch of electronic devices whose function Mike could not discern, a table to set them on, the coffee maker, and a couple wool blankets to sleep under. Otherwise, the generic white walls, beige carpet, and linoleum kitchen were bare. They dared not give away their presence by turning on lights, so the overhead stove lamp and the glow of the computer screen were the only sources of illumination besides the faint lightening of the sky emanating through the closed blinds. It certainly wasn't much to call home, even temporarily. But that was just as well, since they were occupying it illegally and had to be ready to grab the computer and papers and exit out the window if anyone actually came to the door on account of the For Rent sign, now hidden away in the closet.

As if on cue, there was a knock, followed, thankfully, by April's voice whispering, "It's me." Donatello let her in, and she closed the door behind her quietly. Crossing the room and opening a crack in the dusty aluminum blinds with her fingers, she peered out the ground story window, craning her neck to look down the block at their surveillance target, the lighted four-story brownstone townhouse of Dr. Evan Chambers. "Everything okay over here?"

"Yep," Donatello said, taking a quick look at his computer screen again, "Everything's working." As soon as they'd gotten back into the city, Don had installed a hidden makeshift security system around the doctor's home. Sensors leading up to the townhouse and around every point of entrance now fed information to his computer.

"Thank goodness for the bad housing market. The place next door is empty too," April commented. "Have Leo and Raph been over here yet?"

Mike shook his head. "They were scouting Doshida's headquarters tonight."

"I was just filling Mike in on Alliant," Don said.

"Let me see if I'm following," Michelangelo said. "Four unusual and similar deaths, all in the last few months. Holly notices and tells her boss. Someone hires Agete to kill both Holly and Craig, as well as wipe the records of the strange deaths out of Hopewell's computer system by getting rid of all the files of patients who work at Alliant."

Don added, "So if, in fact, Alliant is the client we've been looking for- and it seems logical to infer that they are- the question is, what's their secret? Why are they are so intent on covering up the deaths of their own people?"

Giving up on a chair materializing itself, Mike hopped up on the kitchen counter and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyeballs. "Man, this is getting weird. Like, conspiracy theory, something-I-saw-in-a-movie, kind of weird. How are we supposed to go up against a military company to keep Holly safe? Especially if the proof has been erased?"

"Not all of it has," April said. She pulled a sheaf of paper out of her bag. "I went and checked in on Holly yesterday and she showed me these. Printouts of the case files she'd emailed to herself when she was first looking into this."

Don flipped through the pages, his eye ridges drawing downwards as he read. "There's so much medical jargon, and all these abbreviations," he muttered, largely to himself. "I can barely understand half this page."

A broad smile spread across Mike's face. "I can't believe I just heard you say that. That's going on my wall of priceless quotes." Then he snorted in a fit of suppressed laughter. "Right next to that time when you were leading bo practice and Raph said, 'My staff is longer and kinda bent out of shape.' Remember that?"

April covered her giggles behind her hand, and Don shook his head, trying, but failing, not to indulge Mike with a grin. "Back on track," he said, "Could Alliant be somehow responsible for all these medical problems and the deaths of these people?"

With effort, Mike composed himself and came around to read over Don's shoulder. "Boy, you're right. This really is gobbledygook. What's hep-a-to...?"

"Hepatotoxicity. Hepatic is the liver. Or is it the spleen? No wait, that's lymphatic. The liver then- something wrong with the liver."

"Subconjunctival hemorrhage?"

"Conjunctivitis - the eye, I think. Bleeding of the eyes."

"How about pulmonary-" Mike's mouth fell open. "Snake."

"What?"

"The guy I told you about, the one that Doshida sent to kill Holly. His eyes, I got a good look at them in the fight, and they were freaky- bulging and bloody. Subconjunctive whats-it."

Donatello blinked once, hard, before his eyes fixed on some imaginary point in space somewhere above Mike's shoulder. It was not difficult to imagine that behind it, there was a whirring and clicking of gears connecting, falling neatly into place, like the parts of a machine fitting together in his skilled hands. "Holly said she suspected some sort of drug overdose was involved in these deaths, didn't she?"

When April nodded, Mike said, "A drug that Snake was taking too, then."

"Some serum that might have made him unusually fast and strong, able to take on you and Raph together." Don's voice dropped to almost a whisper. "One guess as to who would have the know-how to create something like that."

Michelangelo's eyes widened and his mouth formed the word whoa soundlessly.

"Doshida is supplying Alliant with his drugs. Drugs that enhance the abilities of their soldiers, but that are killing some of their people." Don shook his head, as if annoyed that he hadn't seen it earlier. "No wonder he wouldn't back off the hit. There is no client. To protect the secrecy of his business, Doshida himself ordered the assassination of Holly Chambers."

April's cell phone rang, startling them all. She grabbed it quickly, looked at the screen and said, "It's Casey." When she answered it, though, her expression became worried and quizzical. "Raph? What-? Yeah, they're right here."

She handed the phone to Michelangelo, who flinched, holding the device away from his ear as his brother's voice started barreling at him loud and fast. "Raph, Raph, slow down. What's happened?"