A Fugue for Old Soldiers
Tessa might hold the rank of Colonel, but she was still a sixteen-year-old girl. She couldn’t compete against the Machiavellian cunning of the head of the Mithril operations division. Ah, that Admiral Borda was a wily one! He’d engineered everything around her to make sure she was free on the weekend of January 9th and 10th. Specifically...
The battle simulations, which she’d been scheduled to run with the top officers of each battle group, had been pushed back a week at the admiral’s discretion. This was to ensure that she had the day before, the 8th, free for planning. She’d scheduled the parts necessary for fixing up the base’s security system to arrive on the 9th, but the base’s supply manager had suddenly said that they wouldn’t show up until the 11th.
As a last resort, then, she’d used her own authority to reserve the 9th for seaworthiness tests for her amphibious assault submarine. The R&D engineers had said it would be best for them to run the TDD-1’s reactor diagnostics on that day—so, thinking it was an excellent chance, she’d said she was obligated to spend the 9th doing checks on her vessel. But just before the day arrived, R&D had canceled those plans.
It ended in checkmate; Borda’s level of scheming almost rose to the level of art. It seemed possible that he’d maneuvered everyone in Mithril—perhaps even international affairs all over the West Pacific region—with ruthless efficiency, to ensure Tessa had the new year off.
“So, Teletha,” Jerome Borda said triumphantly over the phone, “I know you’re free tomorrow and the day after. You can’t hide it from me. Mardukas and your secretary didn’t even deny it. And as you have no key tasks to perform then, I’m ordering you as an authority—and pleading with you as a parental one—to come to Guam. The party is waiting for you.”
“The party” was a celebration with Admiral Borda’s old friends. They’d originally scheduled it for November, but she’d persistently avoided his invitations, and so for a while he’d stopped asking. She’d assumed he’d given up, but after all the chaos of Christmas died down, he’d suddenly said they’d moved it back to January—and to Guam—in order to accommodate her. This meant she had to come.
Tessa didn’t respond to his statement, silently fuming.
Admiral Borda then continued, nervously, “Why so quiet? Look... you can’t get out of this by being angry. I already told them that you were coming. So do it, all right?!”
Slam! Beep, beep, beep... Tessa slammed the receiver onto its cradle and glared at the two subordinates in her office with her—her XO, Lieutenant Colonel Mardukas, and her secretary, Lieutenant Villain.
“I merely told the admiral the truth, Captain,” Mardukas said airily, standing at attention but avoiding her eyes.
“I’ll take care of everything while you’re gone, Colonel,” Villain said, doing likewise.
“Traitors,” Tessa growled.
“Well, I have work to do. If you’ll excuse me,” said Mardukas, back still ramrod straight as he turned to leave.
“Traitors!” she howled.
As Mardukas closed the door behind him, Tessa threw her memo pad as hard as she could after him.
●
On the second weekend of the new year, Sagara Sousuke arrived at the Merida Island base. He was here to retrain his scouting skills, which he suspected to have atrophied during his city life in Tokyo. Hiking through the jungles of Merida Island while carrying equipment on his back felt like just what he needed to restore those fading instincts.
He felt like his sharpshooter and AS piloting senses had also dulled. It’s a dangerous situation, he reminded himself. I have to get myself back in shape ASAP. Thus, biting back his desire to join Kaname and her friends on their bowling expedition, he had flown thousands of kilometers to be here instead.
When the beat-up propeller plane landed after a flight that had lasted over six hours, Sousuke picked up his luggage and came down the ramp. “Hmm?”
Standing on a canopy-covered portion of the large apron was Teletha Testarossa. She was dressed in civilian clothes for some reason, a long dress and a cardigan. Her ash blonde hair was tied back in a simple ponytail.
He hadn’t had a proper conversation with her since the events at Christmas. They’d both simply been too busy... Not to mention that the situation was awkward. He’d cut off any chance at a relationship between them, after all. Still, that didn’t mean he didn’t like Tessa anymore. He found her attractive, respected her, and wanted to help her. He was hoping, if anything, that they could go back to how things were before. It was a typically male attitude, the kind that usually ended up hurting the other person worse than the alternative... but of course, that thought hadn’t occurred to him at all.
Unable to think of what to say to her, Sousuke just straightened up awkwardly and saluted.
She returned a rushed salute of her own, then said immediately, “Sagara-san. You have a mission.”
“What?”
“A bodyguard mission. Please accompany me.”
“Ah. I haven’t heard anything about that,” he denied. “I’m here for field training—”
“It’s canceled. Now, hurry.” Tessa grabbed Sousuke by the sleeve and began walking, giving him no say in the matter whatsoever.
“C-Colonel? Where are we going?”
Tessa didn’t respond, but just kept walking them away from the plane Sousuke had arrived on and towards a nearby mid-sized jet helicopter, which was preparing for takeoff. The keening of its turbine engine and the roaring of its spinning rotors echoed around them. She began striding up the ramp to the cabin, pulling the confused Sousuke along behind her.
“Excuse me, Colonel. I really don’t understand. Where is this craft heading—”
“Don’t ask! Just get on!” she commanded him. Still, whatever the cause of her anger, it didn’t seem to be Sousuke himself.
“Colonel? What is this? Wait, Private Stanley! Why are you closing the door? I’ve only just arrived—” Sousuke, pulled into the cabin, argued with a member of the base’s airstrip personnel.
The private just responded easily, “Take care, Sergeant!” and firmly closed the hatch.
Tessa marched them into the back of the cabin. “Sit down. Fasten your seat belt.”
“But I—”
Ignoring his objections, Tessa picked up a headset hanging next to her barebones seat and spoke to the captain in the cockpit, “We’re here, Lieutenant Santos.”
“Roger, Colonel. Taking off now. Merida Control, this is 2nd Assault Transport Squad 03 Alpha, call sign Gebo-9. Merida Control, respond. Gebo-9 seeking takeoff permission from short field. Flight mission TSF-02. Flight plan A-0351...” The helicopter’s pilot began her communications with the base’s control room as the engine’s roar grew louder. Then the helicopter glided slowly forward and entered the liftoff area.
“Colonel, please, wait. What’s going on here? I’m here to... er, more importantly, my luggage is still outside,” Sousuke said, gazing out the window at the bag he’d left on the apron. “It contains the math homework I need to turn in on Monday—”
“Sergeant! Sit down and fasten your seat belt!” the cabin crew barked at him.
Tessa just stared silently out the window the entire time.
“But my homework... And my training...”
“Did you hear me, Sergeant?!”
“Will someone tell me what this is all about?!” Sousuke wailed.
But ignoring his distress, the helicopter carrying them took off from Merida Island.
It was common for field NCOs like Sousuke to be thrown into battlefields without any explanation. The officers weren’t obligated to inform him of the larger picture or background of the operation. “Go to Area X and clear it of enemies,” or “Secure Hill Y and protect it no matter what”—those were the sorts of abrupt and nonsensical orders that Sousuke was accustomed to.
Even so, this was a bit too abrupt, and so his confusion was understandable.
The helicopter flew into the West Pacific skies. Tessa seemed as sour as ever. Her cheeks were puffed out sulkily and she muttered to herself from time to time.
Afraid of setting her off again, Sousuke avoided making conversation for about thirty minutes. But he at last steeled his nerve and asked, “Colonel. May I ask a question?”
“What?”
“Er... where are we going?”
“Just around the corner,” she told him shortly, “Guam.”
Their Mithril base was on Merida Island, an isolated island in the West Pacific. The nearest patch of civilization was Guam. It was even closer than Tokyo—close enough that the multipurpose helicopter carrying them, the MH-67 Pave Mare, could reach it in just a few hours. It could even make a round trip without refueling.
The personnel stationed at Merida Island frequently visited Guam or Saipan when they had free time. Since it was a tourist destination anyway, their presence there wasn’t particularly noteworthy, and the place had a diversity of delicious food. It also had lots of beaches for relaxing, and lots of opportunities to pick up girls or shop. It was definitely a convenient place to have nearby. Some of the married personnel even moved their families to Guam (though of course, the nature of their workplace was kept strictly confidential).
“What are we doing in Guam?” Sousuke asked.
Tessa gripped the hands on her knees into fists. “It’s a high-level political gathering. If it doesn’t go well, it could do unparalleled damage to our battle group and hinder our potential in future operations.”
“I... I see.”
“I’m going in entirely without backup. Mardukas-san, Kalinin-san, Melissa... they all abandoned me. I thought they respected me as their superior... I never knew their loyalty was so fleeting!” Squeezing tears of frustration from her eyes, Tessa spat the words out.
“C-Colonel?”
“However! I must see my duty through. I must navigate this unpleasant gathering. And that’s why I’ve asked you to come, Sagara-san.”
“But Colonel,” said Sousuke, “I still don’t know anything about—”
“When Kaname-san is in trouble, you always help her, don’t you?!” Tessa demanded. “And a long time ago, you said you’d always help me if I needed it!”
“Yes. Well...” Greasy sweat rose on Sousuke’s forehead.
She looked up at him pleadingly. “I know what happened between us the other day. But a promise is a promise.”
Sousuke said nothing.
“You don’t have to worry. I spent a whole night crying, but I feel more or less better now. I’m not doing this to punish you.”
It probably wasn’t quite as simple as she was making it sound, but... She really was impressive. Of course, Tessa was a commander who oversaw hundreds of the world’s toughest soldiers. She wasn’t some fragile little princess.
“So please, just come with me. If you refuse, I’ll order you,” she warned, “without mercy.”
What do orders matter now that I’m already trapped in the helicopter? And why is she in such a bad mood? And what in the world is this high-level political gathering? Sousuke thought, but just sat up straight and said, “No need for that.”
Normally at times like these, she’d smile and say, Thank you, Sagara-san, but... “Good. Now sit there and work up your nerve,” was all she said this time before turning her despondent gaze back out the window. It was as if she had no interest at all in Sousuke.
Sousuke, at a loss for words, could only fidget nervously in his seat.
Soon, the pilot said, “Colonel, we’re passing Point Echo now. LZ will be at Point Delta, as planned. ETA, five minutes. Get ready.”
The helicopter would soon be arriving in Guam. Since it was an unscheduled flight, their plan was apparently to land secretly on the outskirts. Had this been a regular flight, they would have arrived in a civilian airport in a regular fixed-wing craft. The Mithril intelligence division could manipulate the control tower’s schedule for such things.
It was already after 6 pm, but it was still light in Guam, and the dusk didn’t seem to be coming any time soon. The view of Guam from the helicopter window was like a sepia-tone picture seen through a purple filter; this was because their invisibility mode ECS, the electromagnetic camouflage system, was engaged.
Soon, the helicopter landed on a wide road among the summer homes on the south side of the island. It was a hilly area with few people or cars around.
“We’re getting off now, Sagara-san.”
“Ma’am.” Tessa disembarked with the crew’s help, while Sousuke grabbed Tessa’s suitcase and quickly followed after her. The broad-leafed trees on either side of the road billowed before the powerful wind kicked up by the rotors, as did Tessa’s hair and skirt.
Before they even had time to salute the crew, the helicopter took off again. They couldn’t actually see it, though, and once they were outside of the ECS aura, the clear blue of the sky and dazzling green of the trees returned. The area around them turned quiet moments later.
Sousuke and Tessa stood there in the middle of the quiet road. After about five minutes, a pickup truck came driving towards them from beyond the hill.
The truck held five men, divided between the cabin and the bed. They were all older, roughly in their sixties or seventies with salt-and-pepper hair and beards. They were uniformly dressed in flashy Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses. Some wore bracelets or necklaces, and some of them even held bottles of beer.
“Hey! She’s here, she’s here!” The men waved enthusiastically at Tessa.
“It’s Tessa-tan, Tessa-tan! We missed you so much!”
“Ah, ponytail-version today! She’s the spitting image of my wife when she was younger!”
“Honestly. You’re so charming, darling!”
“F*ckin’ good!”
They were creating an uproar, hooting and hollering, clapping their hands, stamping their feet and pounding the roof of the truck—a strangely energetic old bunch.
“Colonel,” asked Sousuke, “who are these people?”
“They would say they’re my friends,” Tessa replied sourly.
“Thanks for coming, Teletha!” said a smiling man in early old age—the only one of the five who’d previously been silent—as he walked up to them. He had gray hair and seemed in good shape for his age, but his aviator shades and floral-print Hawaiian shirt made him look like some kind of shady event promoter. “I just met up with them now myself!” The old man laughed at this, though the joke was not apparent. “Anyway, let’s get out of here! We’ve got great rooms at the hotel. You can leave your luggage there, then we’ll eat at the restaurant. The cook from Thomas’s old ship is the chef there—food’s apparently great. You can eat a lobster this big!” The old man gleefully spread his hands apart to suggest a size surely bigger than any lobster could ever be.
“Ahh...”
“Might be too big for you, of course... but it is what it is.” Then the old man turned towards Sousuke, who was still wearing his fatigues, and said casually, “Hey, kid! Sergeant! You can help her out. I bet you’ve got a growing kid’s appetite. Be grateful, all right? Today’s all about fun, so just let your hair down! Ah ha ha!”
But Sousuke said only one thing in response. “Who are you?”
“Hmm?” The man’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses. The men behind him abruptly stopped laughing and regarded Sousuke with interest.
“I asked, who are you? I think you’re being too friendly with the colonel. You should show more respect. The colonel is far too important a person to dignify hoodlums like— What is it, Colonel?” Sousuke stopped as he felt Tessa nudging him from the side.
“That’s the admiral, Sagara-san.”
“Eh?”
“Admiral Borda,” she reminded him. “Operations division chief of Mithril.” Admiral Jerome Borda—the man in charge of the operations division that oversaw all of Mithril’s battle groups. In other words, an even more important person than Tessa.
“Er... well...” Sousuke suddenly remembered that he’d seen a hologram of Admiral Borda in an online meeting once. Though the image had been fuzzy then, and the man had been wearing the uniform of a decorated officer, thus looking more or less nothing like he did now...
While Sousuke panicked, the admiral just stood there calmly.
“F-Forgive me, Admiral,” Sousuke stuttered. “I... I...”
Suddenly, Admiral Borda and the other men burst out laughing.
“Ah, look at him squirm!”
“Look at his face! You really got him there!”
“Nice work, Jerry!”
“Looking pretty bad in front of Tessa-tan, kid.”
It was incredibly rude behavior. Sousuke felt deeply frustrated, but he had no choice but to endure.
Admiral Borda then patted him on the back. “C’mon, get in the car, Sergeant! It’s no-holds-barred tonight!”
Admiral Borda had befriended the four other old men during his US Navy days. Some had attended the Naval Academy with him, some he’d met later in the field. Sousuke was surprised to learn that the oldest of them had traded fire with the Japanese Imperial Navy during the second World War.
He and his friends got together once a year to talk about old times. Last year, they’d gone golfing in Maryland, and on a whim, they’d invited Tessa to join them on the last day’s drinking party.
“It was absolute torture,” Tessa told Sousuke as they dropped off her luggage in her room. They’d arrived at a hotel in the center of the city, and Borda and the others were waiting in the downstairs lobby, making all kinds of ruckus. “Chugging their beers and guffawing in the restaurant of a luxury hotel. When the manager tried to warn them, they switched tactics to lecturing, asking if he’d ever fought in Vietnam. They were so rude, security had to come and kick them out. You’d expect that to settle them down, but instead, beside the entrance to the restaurant, they performed... a very vulgar act of resistance.”
“Hmm? What was it?”
Tessa turned red at this. “They all... lined up, faced the wall and... No, I can’t say it out loud.”
“Ah-hah...”
“Then they ran away, packed themselves into a Corvette, and drove around town making catcalls at women on the streets. They even drove parallel to a bus and showed their buttocks to the passengers! And to top it all off, they dragged me, against my will, to a topless bar to ‘learn about the world.’ One of the dancers almost dragged me up onto the stage. They were so drunk, and they were hitting on me, and it was just awful...”
Sousuke could picture the awful scene. The old men’s raucous behavior on the drive from the helicopter landing point to the hotel had been seriously extreme. They’d been so excited to see Tessa that they’d almost leaped out of the bed of the moving truck.
“I don’t understand. Why would a man of Admiral Borda’s standing want to hang out with these hoodlums?” Sousuke asked in the elevator to the lobby.
“I wish they were just ordinary hoodlums. But despite how they look, they’re all prestigious retired military men. They fought through the major wars of the second half of the twentieth century, earning rare honors. I know their names and careers from reading their papers and theses, so I was honored when they invited me. But...” Tessa whispered. “But I never thought they’d turn out to be... such... incorrigible punks.” Apparently at a loss for words after that, she just turned her eyes down and trembled.
It makes sense, thought Sousuke. Day to day, she worked with the extremely uptight Mardukas and Kalinin. Being accustomed to those men—who were serious to a fault, even compared to most English and Russian men—running into that group of randy old jackasses would be a shock to the system.
“But aren’t you an American as well?” he finally thought to ask.
“I was born in an old city on the East Coast!” Tessa wailed. “I’m nothing like those West Coast-style fools with palm trees growing out of their heads!”
“Ah. I’m sorry,” Sousuke responded dumbfoundedly.
“Last year was so traumatic that after I returned to Merida Island, I couldn’t leave my bed for two days. And now, with so many unanswered mysteries about the Venom and such... any period of incapacitation on my part will be a massive blow to the team. That’s why, Sagara-san, I brought you here to be my bodyguard, and to stop those old men with extreme prejudice if they attempt to mistreat me.”
“But—”
“Just do it! Whatever it takes! I’ll take responsibility for whatever happens.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Now, let’s go!” Nostrils flaring, Tessa psyched herself up. If she wasn’t already wearing a short-sleeved dress, she’d be rolling up her sleeves right now.
Their elevator arrived on the first floor. As the doors opened, they could immediately hear the ruckus in the lobby. Screams of women and the clatter of destruction—it sounded like a fight.
“Eh?”
They ran to the scene and found a group of young Japanese men laid out on the floor, the remnants of chairs and vases scattered around them. The last standing member of the group was currently being manhandled by a group of five old men.
“Take that!” one of them shouted as they threw the slightly dazed young man into the lobby fountain. There was a splash, and then he floated back up to the surface, face-up but motionless.
“Take that, ya little punk!”
“Shouldn’t’ve assumed we were easy marks because we were old!”
“Now, get up! Or do you ladies got no other talents than s*cking d*ck?! Show me your guts!”
The old men yelled all kinds of vulgar things.
Tessa came running up to them. “Wait!” she interjected. “What’s going on here?”
“Hmm? Oh, it’s Tessa-tan. These little punks didn’t know what was good for ’em, so we taught ’em a lesson or two.” They claimed that the Japanese men had been picking a fight with the hostess, making all kinds of unreasonable demands.
“Yeah, that’s what happened. We didn’t start this, Teletha,” Admiral Borda said, heaving for breath. His nose was bleeding. Even he, in such an important, high-ranked position, had apparently taken part in the violence.
“Jerry’s right. Tessa-tan, you should’ve come a minute earlier.”
“Yeah! We woulda f*cked your eyeballs with how f*cking cool we were!”
“More’s the pity,” she remarked acerbically.
“Well, never mind. I think we’ve got the right mood going. Now, let’s get to the food! The lobster awaits!”
While the old men raised up their victory song, Tessa slumped over and sighed deeply.
One hour later...
Though it wasn’t quite as large as Borda had insisted, the lobster that was placed on the table was indeed big enough to inspire gasps. It was joined by an enormous rack of spare ribs, a mountain of mashed potatoes, fried chicken and roast beef. Faced with a menu—glistening with fat, packed with calories—that would increase her weight by half in a week, Tessa was, needless to say, demoralized.
Meanwhile, the old men gobbled the food down, cackling, as if they had never heard of the modern low-calorie, low-cholesterol diet. They were as bombastic as ever in their speech, as well. The restaurant, well-ventilated and decorated in a Mediterranean style, offered a great view over the ocean at dusk. The men sat there around Tessa, making raucous conversation over the most trivial of things, ignoring the way the other guests frowned at them.
At the last seat of the table, Sousuke listened quietly to their stories, and came to understand the men’s various histories:
Beside him sat Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Kevin Skyray, a former fighter pilot. He’d had countless brushes with death in Vietnam before going on to serve as a wing commander—and even captain—of an aircraft carrier. He’d also been a member of the Caterpillar Club, a title available only to those who’d successfully bailed out of an aircraft. Skyray had once been forced to use his ejection seat upon being downed by a cluster of North Vietnamese anti-air missiles. He’d landed in the enemy-infested jungle and spent about a week avoiding their armies.
He’d been a slim and handsome man in his piloting days, and had then been known to be quite a playboy. Apparently he’d missed out on a Silver Star medal because he’d stolen the mistress of an unpopular superior officer. Now, he was a rotund old man with a double chin and thinning hair—though he apparently still thought of himself as quite a catch, because he was constantly making advances towards Tessa. “Hey, Tessa-tan, ever had a taste of dangerous love?” he’d ask, and Tessa flatly turned him down each time.
Kurz might be like this when he gets older, Sousuke thought rather rudely.
Next was the party’s organizer, the LtCol. (Ret.) John George Courtney. He was the one marine in the group, a belligerent middle-aged man with a big bushy beard. He’d apparently had a rather complicated and enigmatic career, but he’d attended military school with Borda. Normally he’d have gotten a flag commission like the others, but he liked being in the field too much, so he’d prevented his own promotion by punching out a superior he didn’t like. Even after retirement, he’d still head out to the local marine base and push past the protesting subordinates in order to take out the latest arm slave, which he seemed to enjoy doing quite a lot.
Courtney wasn’t especially lascivious, but was extremely foul-mouthed. His voice was loud and he was liberal with F-bombs. “So those f*ckin’ ASes are no better than that worthless piece of shit f*ckin’ ArmaLite. You hear me, Tessa-tan? But they still wanna use the f*ckin’ choppers in the f*cking Air Force to haul them around like a bunch of f*ckin’ assholes. And their f*ckin’ engines are f*ckin’ Geotron, so...” It was that, over and over. Tessa, trembling, just implored him to speak at a normal volume.
He sounds a little like Mao when she gets on a drunken tear... Sousuke thought to himself, very accurately indeed.
The fierce-looking Naval Capt. (Ret.) Roy Sears was a Navy Seal veteran of many missions. Until five years ago, he’d been with Navy SEAL command, directing numerous top-secret missions. He’d apparently been through a lot in Vietnam—judging by what they said, he’d gotten a variety of medals for missions he still couldn’t talk about. He’d likely come close to death more than a few times.
Though he hid it with a thick goatee, he had a large scar on his cheek, and if you looked closely, you could see he was missing part of his right ear. Despite his time as a member of the intimidating Navy SEALs, whenever he got a chance, he’d tug on Tessa’s sleeve and say, “Hey, Tessa-tan, want to go on a walk alone with me?” It was intimidating, in its own way, and she’d pull away from him and politely demur.
Major Kalinin might be like this if he were a bit more lovesick... Sousuke thought, once again with extreme rudeness.
Rear Adm. (Ret.) Thomas Ross was a submariner. He’d commanded a nuclear submarine, flirting with danger against numerous Soviet Navy subs. He was known for his meticulous planning and bold navigation, but had also earned the ire of a superior fifty years ago and gotten stuck captaining a hunk of junk. Nevertheless, he’d made it back to a top-of-the-line ship, and later worked in fleet command.
He was extremely excitable, and seemed very eager to undress in front of Tessa. He’d fool around with his belt and say, “I never got to show you! I’ve got a tattoo on my butt. C’mon, Tessa-chan, look at it! C’mon!” He was a truly awful man. Tessa would close her eyes tightly and insist that he put it away.
If Colonel Mardukas went a bit mad, he might act a bit like this? Sousuke thought, a statement that might make the man in question angry if he heard it.
That was a rough summary of the group, whose members were acting wildly in a public space before the sun was even down all the way. It was quite problematic, but even Borda, the most responsible of the men, simply laughed along with a beer in hand. He would be no help at all.
“Hey, Tessa-chan. You can just take a peek, right? See?!” Thomas, the submariner, kept trying to show off his filthy butt despite her protests. Unfortunately, he genuinely seemed to be enjoying himself.
Tessa took Sousuke’s arm. “I can’t take it anymore,” she declared. “Sagara-san, do it!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sousuke gravely picked up one of the flip-flops he’d been wearing and... Slap! He wapped Rear Admiral Thomas Ross as hard as he could on the back of the head, causing him to splay out across the table. He couldn’t deny that it felt very nice to do it to someone else.
“Where’d that come from, boy?!” The self-proclaimed playboy, Kevin, asked as he tried to help Thomas right himself.
“The admiral said it was a no-holds-barred party,” Sousuke replied casually. Chidori would have shouted “Shut the hell up!” right now, he mused. “Think of me as a moderator. Anyone who makes her uncomfortable will get a merciless hit from a flip-flop, sir.”
“That’s right. A suitable punishment for actions unbecoming. As military men, you should understand the concept,” Tessa told them angrily.
Kevin and the others just grumbled to themselves, some of them with tears in their eyes.
“Hmph... outrageous. You get your fun by bullying frail old men like us?”
Tessa trembled in anger. “You just beat up five young men!”
“Eh?”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
The group stared blankly up at the ceiling, exploiting their elderly status to its fullest.
Tessa fumed on. “Anyway, Sagara-san won’t stand for any more foulness. Well, he may stand as he slaps you, but you know what I mean. Right, Sagara-san?”
Sousuke nodded silently.
“We don’t agree to that, Tessa-tan! That young man has no right to judge us. He’s just your tag-along, isn’t he?!” The four men (Borda excluded) just thought Tessa was some sort of research staff at the facility where Borda worked, and that Sousuke was some sort of bodyguard there.
“Your understanding is incorrect. I didn’t want to say this, but...” Tessa cleared her throat. “Sagara-san is my lover.”
It was a shocking statement that left all the men stunned. Naturally, Sousuke was too.
“Whaaat?!”
“Which means hitting on me won’t get you anywhere,” Tessa insisted. “Right, Sagara-san?”
“Er?”
“Just say yes,” she ordered.
“Y-Yes...” Sousuke responded, his face thick with nervous sweat.
The men spontaneously all looked like they wanted to cry.
“It can’t be true!”
“It’s cruel!”
“You’ve destroyed our dreams!”
“It’s a bluff! It’s a f*ckin’ bluff!”
One faceplanted on the table, weeping; another stared blankly at the ceiling; two others comforted each other. Even Borda, for some reason, purpled with anger and glared at Sousuke. “Sergeant!” he said angrily, “I’m disappointed in you!”
“A-Admiral?” Sousuke choked out.
“I took you for a promising young man, not a filthy sneak-thief! How will I make this up to poor, dead Carl? How long has this been going on, eh?!” Borda grabbed him by the lapels of his shirt and shook Sousuke back and forth.
“P-Please calm down, Admiral...”
“Since the September break,” Tessa said cleanly. “I slept at his apartment every night, so we had more than enough chances then. Although that incorrigible Sagara-san barely let me get a single night’s sleep! He made love so passionately... I honestly found myself nodding off during the day. It was awful!” Tessa continued spinning her lie, seeming to enjoy the way it made the men around her slump in disappointment. At the end, she let out a little snort, as if to say, ‘serves you right.’
Sousuke argued with her in whispered Japanese. “Colonel, you can’t tell them that!”
“Why not?”
“It’s one thing to say it to the outsiders, but even Admiral Borda believes you... He’s white as a sheet! You’re putting us both at risk, professionally!”
“It’s fine,” she insisted, “just let him stew.” Tessa clearly wouldn’t be talked down this time.
“But Colonel—”
“They’re always getting a rise out of me! It’s time I taught them a lesson!”
“Ahh...”
“And why do you look so unhappy about it?!” she demanded sulkily. “Is it that upsetting to play my boyfriend?”
“N-No, not at all...” Sousuke replied.
“Then shut up and wipe that expression off your face. Besides, I think we’ve settled them down, and that’s all I wanted to achieve.”
“Hmm...” He couldn’t argue with that. The men really had quieted down, and had even turned morose. “Yes,” he finally agreed, “it’s acceptable.”
“Right?” said Tessa, proudly reclining in her seat.
But seconds later, the men all raised their glasses and shouted weepily,
“All right, we’ll drink our troubles away tonight!”
“We’ll party until we all pass out!”
“We’ll go eighty percent harder than last year!”
“And you, kid! We’re gonna have a talk with you later! Got it?!”
The old men were immediately back to their pomp and bluster. It would be too much to say that Tessa was hoisted on her own petard, but her plan certainly hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped. She and Sousuke both faceplanted on the table at the realization of their failure. And then...
“Eek!” A waitress near the restaurant’s entrance let out a piercing scream, accompanied by the sound of crashing plates.
A tall and thin man stepped into the restaurant and shouted, “Okay, nobody move!”
The shocked customers ducked down in their seats while the waitresses crouched down, covering their heads.
A robbery? Sousuke thought. Being experienced enough in these sorts of situations, neither he nor Tessa panicked. They just glanced up at the intruder to examine him in an unobtrusive manner.
He was a Caucasian man just over thirty, wearing a printed T-shirt and jeans. He held a cheap-looking revolver in one hand and was sweating all over; his hair was a mess, and he seemed extremely agitated. “Dammit!” he screamed. “Stay in your seats! Anyone who tries anything gets a lead slug! Hey, girl! No cell phones!”
The whole restaurant went silent in fear. No, not completely silent—The five men at Sousuke’s table continued happily, raising their glasses and singing You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling, from the soundtrack of a certain movie. “Baby, baby! I know it!” they crooned. “You lost that lovin’ feelin’! Whoa, that lovin’ feelin’!” They hadn’t even noticed the new intrusion.
It was impossible for the atmosphere to get any more awkward. Tessa turned beet red, feeling the eyes of the other customers on her.
Before even thirty seconds had passed, multiple police cars had pulled up in front of the restaurant. It appeared that the armed man was a fugitive who’d taken refuge here. The sirens blared. The local cops used their cars as barricades, propping shotguns and pistols on top of them. More cars came rushing up to support the first responders, and soon the restaurant was surrounded.
The man with the gun checked out the window, and began cursing violently to himself.
“This is quite troubling,” Tessa whispered.
“Colonel,” Sousuke responded in a low voice, “I can take care of this, if you wish.”
Someone with his skill set could disarm the man using just one knife from the table. But despite knowing that, Tessa appeared to think it over. “Ah... But if you stand out, the police will want to ask you about it later,” she pointed out. “You’ll have to undergo an interview and everything...”
Meanwhile, the group of old men continued singing. “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’! Whoa, whoa! Lovin’...”
“We might not make it back tomorrow...”
“Now it’s gone, gone, gone, whoa, whoa, whoa!”
“As long as he doesn’t try to hurt anyone,” Tessa decided, “I’d prefer to stay out of it, and—”
“Now there’s no welcome look in your eyes! When I reach for you!!!”
“Excuse me, gentlemen? Could you please be quiet?!” Tessa barked at the old men, who had continued to sing their drinking song despite everything going on around them.
“Why, Tessa-tan?”
“You look even cuter when you’re angry!”
“F*ckin’ good!”
“How can you be thinking about that right now?! Can’t you see what’s going on?” Irritated, Tessa pointed at the man in the T-shirt skulking around the restaurant’s entrance.
“Oh, him? Bet he’s just lookin’ for the crapper.”
“He’s not!” she insisted. “He clearly has a gun! And can’t you see the police cars outside?!”
The old men looked outside and hummed speculatively to themselves.
“They’re here for you, Kevin. You broke the f*ckin’ window in that f*ckin’ hotel last night.”
“Don’t be stupid, it’s your reckless driving that did it,” Kevin retorted. “You were racing down the beach ogling girls in bikinis!”
“I think it was Roy punching out that snotty MP at the naval base.”
The old men went around the table, recounting their recent list of crimes.
“D-Did you do all that?” Tessa asked, and then fell silent as the man with the gun began to stride up to them.
“Hey, you old bastards!” the fugitive shouted. “Haven’t you heard me telling you to be quiet?!”
At this, the old men looked at each other and shrugged. “Okay, guess he’s the one they’re after.”
“Aw, no fun.”
“How many battalions of f*ckin’ police do they need for one hooligan?”
They seemed completely dismissive of the situation.
Suddenly the fugitive flew into a rage, pointing his .38 caliber revolver at the men and causing a waitress to scream. “You see this?!” he demanded. “I’ll blow your brains out right here!”
The old men remained unfazed.
“Ohhhh, noooo! Pleeease, don’t kill me!”
“Oh, saaave us, save us!”
“Take the lobster, just leave us alone!”
They pleaded with him sarcastically, before bursting into laughter.
“Wh-What if I shot this girl, eh?!” The man turned the gun to Tessa.
The men then all raised up their hands as if to guard Tessa. “Oh, nooo! Please, not her!” And then they all laughed again.
“I-I’ll shoot! I really will!” The fugitive’s anger seemed to have reached its boiling point. With nervous sweat running down his face, he held the gun tight in both hands. His eyes were serious.
“Ah, go on and shoot. Don’t let us stop you.”
“Just make sure you’re aimin’ right, kid.”
The old men jeered at him while continuing to chow down on fries and spare ribs.
“Ngh... hnngh...”
“What’s wrong? Scared?” asked Roy, the retired Navy SEALs commander. “If you don’t wanna shoot a girl, you can shoot me. Go on.”
“Urk... hng...”
“That’s right, relax. You’ve got the safety off, right? Good. Then shoot any time you want,” Roy offered, pointing directly at his own forehead. “Pucker your asshole and look straight at me. You gotta keep your eye on the target. Yeah, that’s right! Straight forward! Right here!”
“Ngh... ah...”
“That’ll do it,” Roy told him encouragingly. “Now, shoot!”
The gun’s barrel trembled as tears formed in the man’s eyes.
“What’s wrong with you? Shoot!”
“C’mon! Hurry it up!”
“Show us your f*ckin’ guts!”
“Just shoot already!”
It had gone well past the level of bluffing. The old men were really urging the man to shoot, banging their utensils against the lobster and shouting, “Shoot! Shoot!” in order to urge him on.
Roy held out his steak knife. “I’ll give you three seconds,” he offered again. “If you don’t shoot, I’m gonna stab you! Now, shoot! Three!”
“Ngh... ahh... ahhh!”
“Two! One!”
The man sucked in his breath.
“Shoot!”
“Aaah... ahhhhh!” Clenching his tear-filled eyes hard, the man pulled the trigger.
Click. A dull metallic sound rang out, and then nothing more.
“Mmmmgh! Ahh... hmm?” Scrunching up his tear-stained face, the man pulled the trigger again and again, but nothing came out. Panicking, he turned the gun over, examining it.
“Gya ha ha ha ha!” The old men erupted in laughter with the force of an atomic bomb exploding. “Gyaaaaa ha ha ha! Gyaaaa ha ha ha! Gya ha ha ha! Hyee, hee hee hee! Mwee hee hee! Waa ha ha ha ha! Kah kah kah! Wa ha ha! Hee hee! Heee hee... bwaaaaa ha ha! Ha ha ha! Kyaaa ha ha! Bwa ha ha, hee hee hee, gya ha ha!” The laughter was so over the top that it was vaguely irritating, as they clapped their hands and banged on the table obnoxiously to mimic the way the crying man had fired.
The man with the gun seemed completely at a loss.
Unable to look on any longer, Sousuke said kindly, “Look at the cylinder.”
“Eh?”
“With a revolver like that,” he explained, “it’s easy to see from the front how many bullets remain.”
The fugitive was out of bullets; the mean old men had known this from the start, and had just been messing with him. They continued to laugh while pointing at the criminal, who just stood there, red-faced.
“Hee... heh, heh... So? What’d you do, exactly?” submariner Thomas wiped at his eyes and asked after their laughter finally died down, about a minute later.
“Ah... well... I robbed a currency exchange counter for tourists... ah, thank you.” The man, who’d gone totally docile now, sat down in an empty seat as Tessa beckoned him. “I got the money and ran away and... lots of stuff happened. I tried to shoot out the tires of the cars coming after me, but it didn’t quite go the way it does in movies... ah, thank you.” Tessa poured cold water into an empty cup, and the man abashedly scratched his head.
“Please, try to calm down,” she said.
“I appreciate it.” He drank down the water, as urged. “Mmh! Delicious. Well, anyway... so now I’m here.” The man only had one gun, which was out of bullets. But the local police didn’t know that, and so they’d surrounded the restaurant with their cars.
“How much did you steal?”
“Well... I didn’t have time to count it, but I took as many thousand dollar bills as I could grab.” He searched around in his jeans pockets and placed some crumpled bills on the counter. Thirteen bills with the number “1000” stamped on them. Had they been thousand dollar bills, he would have had himself quite a tidy sum, but...
“These are thousand yen bills,” Sousuke whispered. In other words, 13,000 yen—about 110 dollars’ worth. The number of police currently surrounded the building made the tally feel even more pathetic. “Even holding up a restaurant like this would’ve fetched you more.”
“Yeah. I really feel like crying,” the man agreed, placing his hands on the table to stare down at the 13,000 yen. “I bought that gun from a guy on the street. It cost me 130 dollars. That leaves me about twenty in the red...” He took the paper napkin Tessa offered him and wiped his tears and blew his nose. “Thanks, lady. You’re nice. Sorry about threatening you before.”
“That’s all right,” said Tessa. “Er... what’s your name?”
“Dennis. Dennis Falkowski.” The man gave up his name easily, and the old men narrowed their eyes.
“Falkowski, eh? Where do you hail from?”
“Hawaii. Some stuff happened and I ended up a truck driver in Guam.”
“So, Dennis... What do you plan to do next?” asked Kevin, the retired fighter pilot.
Dennis let out an exhausted sigh. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t think 110 dollars is going to fix much of anything, so I guess I’ll just go to jail.” Tears spilled from his eyes as he looked down. “Dammit... Danny... I’m sorry. I’m an awful father.”
“You have a son?” Tessa asked.
Dennis nodded. “Yeah, he lives in Saipan with my ex. I always saw him once a month. But the other day, I got a call from my ex’s lawyer. She doesn’t want to let me see him anymore. And she wants six months’ worth of back child support.”
“And that’s why you robbed that counter?”
“I didn’t have a choice. I messed up an assignment and the freight company fired me. I really needed money! Five thousand dollars by Monday morning...”
“Hmph. Serves you right,” said Thomas, the retired submariner, while munching on his Mediterranean-style seafood tacos drenched in sauce. “That’s what you get for being a damn layabout. Just give up on your kid, turn yourself in, and do your time. Seems right for a loser like you.”
“Admiral Ross. That seems a bit harsh...”
“No, Tessa-tan. Thomas is right. That f*ckin’ guy waved his f*ckin’ gun around and tried to f*ck us all.”
“Yeah, yeah. Idiots like you are the reason we need gun laws.”
“Can’t even enjoy our drinks like this...”
Collectively, the old men gave him the cold shoulder. In this particular case, they were entirely right, so Tessa didn’t comment any further. The room was silent except for Dennis’s crying. The old men’s fun had been properly ruined at last.
Just then, the restaurant’s phone rang.
The nearby waitress picked it up and began a whispered conversation. She looked at Dennis and, pointing to the receiver, said hesitantly, “Er, it’s the police. They want to talk to you.”
Dennis flinched. “Wh-What do I do?”
“What else can you do? Talk to them, say you’re sorry and go out there.”
“All... All right. Um, but first, could you do me a favor?”
“What is it?” The mariner asked suspiciously.
Dennis dithered a little, then pulled an old watch from his pocket. It was a dull gold color, and the glass was fogged over. “Will you get this to Danny... to my son, who lives in Saipan? It’s a memento from my dead dad. I was hoping to give it to him one day... but I don’t think I’ll get to now.”
“Why not just mail it?”
“I can’t,” Dennis told them gloomily. “My wife would just throw the package out without even looking at the contents.”
“Hmm...”
“And could you give my son a message? I might be a loser, but my dad—his grandfather—was a wonderful man. My son will be a teenager soon. I don’t want him to grow up feeling like a burden. I’d like to give him a little... just the tiniest thing he can take pride in.”
The old men fell silent. They folded their arms thoughtfully, then exchanged a glance. Then, at last, they all looked at Admiral Borda.
“Well... it’s not impossible, but...” Borda said hesitantly. “All right, we’ll do it!”
The silent conference—which excluded Tessa and Sousuke—seemed to have reached a conclusion.
“Um... The policeman is asking when I’ll put you on,” the waitress said.
“Let me talk.” Roy, the retired SEAL, stood up before anyone could object. The surprised Dennis tried to follow, but John, the retired marine, stopped him. Roy marched up to the phone, took the receiver from the waitress and started talking. “Hello! No, no, I’m a customer in the restaurant. I’m talking to you in place of the perp. Hmm? No, nobody’s hurt here. Now...”
He was probably talking to the officer giving orders on the scene. He sounded as casual as could be as he did so, but the responses he gave were very guarded. Lots of ‘I’m not sure’ and ‘I couldn’t say’ and ‘I didn’t see’—ambiguous answers that could be interpreted a variety of ways after the fact.
After a while, though, he said, “Weapons? Oh, his weapons. Yeah, he’s heavily armed. Listen up and write these downs—first, he’s got an M4 carbine. For handguns, he’s got a Desert Eagle .50 caliber and a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. He’s also got Claymore mines posted at the front and back entrances, and a pound of C4 strapped to everyone in the restaurant. It’s all tied to his heartbeat and it’ll blow if it stops. Nah, you won’t be getting in here anytime soon!”
“Er?” Tessa, Sousuke, and Dennis were all caught off guard. Meanwhile, the old men were cackling with laughter.
“No, stupid, I’m not messing with you. Demands? His demands? Oh, er...” Roy covered the receiver with his hand and looked back questioningly. Kevin and John both spread their arms wide. “Oh... two million dollars. That’s right, two million. Not a penny less. Tell your boss, all right?”
They could hear the negotiator shouting on the other end of the line.
“Ah, screw this. I’m hanging up now.” Roy covered his ear in annoyance and hung up the phone.
“Wh-Why are you trying to make this worse? You’re making me sound like a hardened criminal! Or a heavily armed terrorist!” asked Dennis, suddenly extremely agitated.
“There’s no way they’ll believe all that crap,” Thomas said, also covering his ear in annoyance at Dennis’s shouting.
“But they were still plausible-sounding lies. What in the world were you thinking?” Tessa asked him with an icy tone. She understood what they were getting at, but she was in no mood to support it.
Roy spoke. “It took me just a few seconds to peg the guy on the phone as out of his league. He was just reading out of the negotiations manual. Typical bureaucrat. But that BS’ll slow ’em down a few minutes. He’s probably passing it on to his superior as we speak.”
“So?”
“If we leave here right now, acting like hostages, their commander’ll probably say, ‘Don’t shoot! Let them go!’” Thomas pointed out.
And indeed...
“Don’t shoot! Let them go!” the nervous police commander shouted through his megaphone. The officers held their shotguns and rifles firmly as they watched the old men, Tessa, and Sousuke leave the restaurant surrounding Dennis, cold sweat on their brows. Nervous young officers watched as they headed for a nearby pickup truck, but...
“Ahh... Help!”
“Please, don’t shoot!”
“It’s a bomb! There’s a bomb around my waist!”
...the old men’s exaggerated calls kept them from pulling the trigger. Dennis, meanwhile, held his cell phone high in the air (as the old marine, John, had instructed him). From a distance, it looked like it could have been the detonator for a bomb.
Kevin, the retired fighter pilot, quickly set himself up in the driver’s seat as the rest dove into the bed.
“Okay, gun it! Gun it!” they called.
“Hang on tight!” he shouted back at them. Then, with the force of a jet out of a catapult, the truck roared up the avenue, swaying side to side and crushing shrubs beneath its tires. Naturally, police sirens immediately began to wail in pursuit.
“Ya see? We made it out!” Roy shouted.
“But what do we do now?!” Dennis cried, shedding waterfalls of tears as the wind buffeted him. “If I’d just turned myself in, they might’ve lessened my sentence! Now I’ve got even more charges, and I’m on an island! An island! A tiny island you can circle in one hour! There’s no way to escape!”
“Boy are you a pessimist,” one of the old men observed. “You know, Dennis, you’re the one who started this!”
“I’ve had enough! Let me off!”
Sousuke quickly moved to stop Dennis from throwing himself off the speeding truck. They were moving so fast that they wove into the opposing lane, just as a car appeared, coming in the other direction.
“Waaaaaaaagh!”
They just managed to slip by it, then heard a loud crash behind them as a police car flipped into the air.
“God! Oh, God! I won’t do anything so stupid ever again!” Dennis screamed. “I won’t steal ever again! Please, save me! Save me...”
“Waaaah ha ha ha! Pedal to the metal!”
It was hard to tell who the real villain was here. Dennis wept while the old men cackled.
Sousuke clung to the truck bed and called to Admiral Borda beside him. “Admiral! Admiral, sir!”
“Hmm?! What is it, Sergeant?!”
“General Skyray’s driving is impressive, but we can’t escape them! The police have helicopters! They’ll eventually catch us!” No matter how they drove, there’d be no way to evade a helicopter’s watchful infrared eye.
“Yeah, we know!” Borda waved off Sousuke’s concern and turned to Tessa, who was desperately engaged with a tablet in the middle of the truck bed. Undeterred by the shaking around her, she tapped away at the keyboard.
“Teletha!” he bellowed. “How’s it coming?”
“Don’t talk to me now!” she yelled back. “I’m contacting Dana!”
“See, Sergeant? Nothing to worry about!” said the admiral, patting Sousuke on the shoulder. He tended to forget that Mithril had the power to hack into any computer system in the world. It was powerful enough to erase information about the Tuatha de Danaan from US surveillance satellites, so they could easily use it to interfere with regional police search nets—a fact which had come in handy during the Behemoth incident in Ariake. Of course, Mithril’s head of operations typically forbade such lawlessness, but...
“Go for it, Teletha!” That same head of operations, Admiral Borda, was currently the one egging on the lawlessness.
“The helicopter’s moving away! We’ve scrambled the police’s information networks! They shouldn’t follow us for a while, but... Uncle Jerry?! This is insane... I won’t be responsible for any of this!” Teletha yelled.
“Oh, don’t worry about that! Just focus on escaping for now!”
“I’ve had enough!” she howled. “I’m not coming next year!”
“Wah ha ha!”
They drove and drove and drove. Carrying the whole lot of them, the truck swerved down a wide avenue full of tourists and into a nearby yacht club. There were boats of all sizes in the harbor there, and the truck came to a screeching halt. The old men dragged the reluctant looking Dennis and Tessa out, throwing them onto a small boat which surely didn’t belong to any of them. Thomas, the retired submariner, and former sailor Borda went through the necessary processes to get the engine started.
“Moving out!” It wasn’t clear who made that call, but the old men quickly unfurled the sail and pulled up the anchor, taking the boat out of dock with much ruckus.
“Let me oooout!” Dennis’s scream of agony echoed throughout the harbor.
It was at that moment that the police came running, and they interpreted the scream as coming from a hostage. None of them heard Sousuke’s mutter of, “Just give in already.” The old men opened the beers they’d made sure to bring from the truck and had a toast, even forcing Tessa to take the helm.
“C’mon, Tessa-tan!” they cried encouragingly. “Hard to starboard, starboard!”
“Enough!” With tears filling her eyes, Tessa pulled the wheel. She knew how to pilot a boat, after all.
They managed to give the port police the slip before pulling up to a sandbar in their stolen vessel, at which point they abandoned it. Then they transferred to an inflatable raft, and moved away as the boat slowly sailed out to sea. The old men saluted its departing form.
“Farewell, mother vessel...”
“Why are you getting sentimental over a boat you stole thirty minutes ago?!” Tessa interjected.
The old men frowned, as if their feelings were hurt.
“Don’t be mean.”
“Don’t you have any poetry in you?”
“You’re too serious, Tessa-tan.”
“And would you stop calling me ‘Tessa-tan’?!” she cried out in exasperation. “Where did you even learn that phrase?!”
“Never mind that. Now, let’s head for the opposite shore.” With that, Borda picked up one of the oars that came with the raft, and led them in paddling to the nearest shore.
Their raft washed ashore deep in a rocky inlet. It was a desolate area, far from the central city, which had been crowded with tourists. The men crawled out onto the rocks in the moonlight and sank the raft.
Then Kevin, another of the old men, said, “So? Have we lost the police?”
“It appears that way. There’s no sign of them nearby,” Sousuke, who’d been getting dragged around this whole time, whispered glumly as he stared out into the darkness.
“Good,” said Admiral Borda. “Now, blindfold Dennis.” The old men surrounded the exhausted Dennis, blindfolding him with a towel and elastic cord.
“Um...?”
“All right. Now we just wait,” Borda said, looking at his watch. A few minutes later, the familiar sound of rotors approached them. It was the MH-67 Pave Mare transport helicopter that had brought Sousuke and Tessa to Guam.
“Wh-What’s going on?!” Dennis asked nervously. “What are you—”
“All right, kid, shut up. If we think you can’t keep your mouth shut, we’ll kill you, toss your body in the ocean, and go on our way.”
“R-Right...” Dennis quickly went quiet.
Even with its ECS invisibility mode activated, Sousuke was surprised to see the Mithril transport helicopter setting down in front of Roy, John, Thomas, and Kevin, which permitted outsiders to hear the sounds of that organization’s rotors and machinery. He looked over at Tessa. “Colonel,” he said, “is this acceptable?”
“Ask the admiral,” Tessa said with a shrug.
“Admiral?”
“It’s fine, Sergeant. These guys know that the secret battle group I work with has helicopters mounted with invisibility ECS. They’re tight-lipped, and they’ve been a lot of help to our operations division in the past. There’s nothing to worry about,” Borda reassured him. “Right, guys?”
“Yeah.” The old men nodded absently.
“For instance,” he continued, “Thomas’s connections helped us out a lot on Berildaob Island.”
“What?!” Tessa asked in surprise.
Admiral Thomas Ross grinned at her. “It’s true, Tessa-tan. You still think I’m an incompetent old harasser, good for nothing but taking his pants down? Eh?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Tessa insisted.
Thomas sagged. “So cruel...”
“Excuse me, gentlemen. The helicopter’s touched down,” said Sousuke, looking up at the helicopter. It was slowly descending, warping the air above them.
The blindfolded Dennis and the (relatively) uncompromised old men boarded the Pave Mare, which quickly climbed again before heading for Saipan, an island near Guam. The old men—Roy, Kevin, Thomas, and John—looked around the helicopter’s cabin, but didn’t seem to take any particular interest in it.
“We’d never do anything to compromise Jerry’s work.”
Tessa still had her doubts, but since Borda insisted it was fine, she couldn’t exactly object.
The helicopter they were on approached an ordinary neighborhood in Saipan and touched down near the neighborhood that Dennis Falkowski had mentioned. It let them off, took off again, and then took its time ascending back into the sky.
Dennis stared as the blindfold came off. “Isn’t this... Saipan?”
“That’s what we said.”
“And... it’s right near where my son Danny lives!”
“That’s what we said!” the old men barked in annoyance.
“I think we’ve done enough,” Admiral Borda announced pointedly. “Go say goodbye to your son. You just wanted to give him that watch of yours, right?”
“Right, but...” Dennis hesitated. “I... I don’t understand. Why would you all...”
“Don’t ask now,” said Borda. “Do you want to turn yourself in and end up in prison, or do you want to start over in a new world? If you want to try the latter, call this phone number.”
“What...”
Borda offered Dennis a piece of paper with a phone number on it: the number was for Mithril’s operations division. “But once you call this number, you’ll never be free again,” he warned. “You’ll be choosing a totally new way of life. Either way, recognize that a miracle like this will never happen to you again. Understood?”
“Y-Yes sir.”
“Goodbye, then. No need to thank us. Go.”
Nevertheless, thanking them again and again, Dennis ran into the residential block currently sinking into darkness.
Tessa whispered as she watched him go, “Uncle Jerry, are you sure this is for the best?”
“It’s fine,” Borda said. “The word of a man like him can’t harm Mithril anyway.”
“But why show so much to those four careless old men?” she wondered.
“That’s fine too,” Borda said again. “As I said before, they’re trustworthy. They’ve been a lot of help with Mithril operations and cleanup. I’m telling you, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Aha...” Tessa replied limply.
The Mithril helicopter, which had been on standby up in the air, now began to descend again. Preparing for the landing, Sousuke ran towards a flat piece of land nearby, the landing zone.
“But I just don’t understand it,” Tessa said nevertheless. “I’m sorry to say it this way, but why did they bother to save a worthless hooligan like Dennis? Not even I would have done this much for him. Is there something else going on here?”
“Yes, there is,” the admiral admitted hesitantly. “His... Dennis’s father was named Louis Falkowski. We were in the same class in Annapolis. He died in Vietnam.”
Tessa was silent.
“He was brave and earnest and funny. All the guys who came today knew him. Thirty years ago, before he died on the Laotian border, Louis bragged that he’d just had a son named Dennis. He was gonna give his wristwatch to that son someday. That’s pretty much it...” said Borda, trailing off.
Tessa didn’t know what to say. For the first time, the men she thought of as nothing but a bunch of gross old perverts suddenly seemed like great men on the level of Sousuke, Kalinin, and Mardukas. “Uncle...”
“It’s all right, Teletha. But try to be kind to them, if you can,” Borda asked simply. “They still bear the very painful scars of war. Your smile is a great comfort to them.”
“Right...” Tessa looked down and whispered. But just then...
“Oh, Tessa-tan’s lookin’ sexy!”
“Bet she’s thinkin’ of lewd things!”
“F*ckin’ good!”
The old men approached, shouting the most outrageous things. Tessa trembled but held in her rage. They had a sixty minute flight ahead, after all.
Once they returned to Guam from Saipan, the old men resumed their carousing. One would expect them to be worried about pursuit from the police, but apparently they didn’t raise much suspicion.
Sousuke, who’d had to continue to play Tessa’s lover, spent his last day there being teased and shouted at by the old men. Obviously, he never managed to do his homework for school—to disastrous results.
After several weeks, Borda gave Tessa a new annoying task. When she saw the name of the new base logistics crew members joining the Tuatha de Danaan battle group, she just barely managed to keep a wince from her face in front of her secretary.
D. Falkowski.
As she signed the document, Tessa wondered what she might say when she ran into the new private.
〈A Fugue for Old Men — The End〉
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