Girl Punches Out Read online

  The rest of the class was spent practicing katas. These are elaborate sequences of moves designed to simulate a pattern of defense and attack against multiple attackers. The katas preserve in a stylized form the traditional wisdom of shotokan, full of ambiguities and alternative interpretations. They are an exercise for the imagination as well as the body. Done correctly, they are physically strenuous, and at the same time encourage a form of meditative self-awareness.

  Sensei and Emily circulated among the students giving pointers, making corrections, demonstrating bits of one or another kata as they went. Finally, Sensei demonstrated an obscure kata that even Emily didn’t know. They all worked through it step by step, straining to make some of the moves, struggling to remember the entire sequence.

  Class was over. Some of the students, the dedicated ones, would practice at home. A few even had heavy kicking bags. Since the dojo was practically a second home for Emily, she didn’t have any special equipment of her own, other than a few pairs of nunchaku, a heavy bo staff, a pair of sai... and an old katana her dad had given her a few years ago.

  It wasn’t very sharp, despite his having taken the time to teach her how to sharpen and polish it. It had wavy markings along the broad side of the blade, apparently alternating rough and smooth patches. But it felt completely smooth to the touch. The pattern seemed to be a shadow deep in the metal of the blade. She knew a few sword katas, and Sensei kept meaning to teach her more sword techniques. He liked to say that learning how to take the sword out of its scabbard was more important than learning to swing it. But this was not where her training had been focused so far. She thought of it more as a memento of her father than as a working weapon.

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  Chapter 4

  Coming Home

  “What’s the source?”

  “The Aussies’ man in the Sixth Bureau. This is ‘eyes only,’ understood?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got nothing in the works. Has Burzynski seen it?”

  “No, and let’s keep it that way for as long as possible. If their contact gets burned, it’ll come right back to us.”

  “And Meacham?”

  “He hasn’t seen it yet, but he will soon. We can’t keep it buried indefinitely.”

  “Let me know when he finds it.” The line went dead.

  Michael Cardano was holding a transcript of the interrogation of Tang Tian, an operative of the Guoanbu. Tang was a decorated veteran of the PLA, an expert in hand to hand combat who’d been transferred to the Ministry a decade earlier. He spent several years working out of the Chinese Consulate in Manila, was later posted to the embassy in Tokyo, and finally served as a Cultural Attaché in Los Angeles.

  In a sudden turn of events Tang was recalled to Beijing, and taken into custody by the counterintelligence bureau. The interrogation mainly concerned a failed operation in the United States. Cardano was transfixed by one passage in the transcript.

  Int: Why didn’t you seize her?

  Tang: My men tried.

  Int: You didn’t order the sniper to fire?

  Tang: He had been neutralized.

  Int: So she had help. Were the Americans there?

  Tang: She needed no help.

  Int: She beat you. Is her wu shu better than yours?

  Tang: [no reply]

  Int: The great Tang, beaten by a girl?

  Tang: [no reply]

  Int: She looked you in the eyes, stared you down. That’s what your men said.

  Tang: [no reply]

  Int: What deal did you make with her?

  Tang: You didn’t see what I saw. You wouldn’t understand.

  Int: Fine. What did you see?

  Tang: Wind in the pine trees.

  Int: What’s that, more Japanese mysticism?

  Tang: There are no genetic shortcuts. There is only training.

  Cardano had a pretty good idea who the interrogator was asking about. He had looked into those eyes once at a child’s birthday party. He knew what Tang must have seen: focus, discipline, serenity. As he read the transcript over again he knew he was seeing the face of an old adversary. But this passage painted him in the colors of an ally, almost a friend. He was being held in a detention facility outside of Beijing.

  From other parts of the transcript it was clear Tang’s family was in danger. His wife had been beaten in the street one day by unknown thugs. His six year old daughter, Tang Li Li, was shunned by the children at her school. The interrogator made an ominous threat about taking the child away. It was difficult to see a way out for Tang. Cardano had received intelligence of a prison riot at Qincheng Prison, which might mean Tang was already dead.

  He knew the Chinese had been interested in the results of genetic experiments conducted in a secret facility in Tokyo years ago. The idea had been to enhance the aggressor instincts and neural function of soldiers. They came to nothing, after foreign agents invaded the lab. There was no sign a particular gene sequence had been isolated, no samples of a virus encoded with the sequence. Nothing. The lead scientist, Dr. Kagami, was humiliated by the affair and took his own life shortly afterwards. The idea of a genetic code existing in some obscure file somewhere persisted for awhile. It fit the classic espionage fantasy perfectly: a tiny bit of dangerous data easily hidden anywhere. It was practically irresistible. But eventually even that dream faded away, and the whole project seemed to have been forgotten.

  Until, that is, the Chinese got the notion the gene sequence actually existed, not in the form of a microdot or a digital record, but in a living person. They searched the world over for any sign of this person. But they mainly suspected the Americans had gotten there first. After Kagami’s suicide, attention had naturally turned to his daughter, Yukiko Kagami. A biochemist in her own right, she was his main assistant. At first, the Chinese assumed she merely had the data in her possession. Someone spirited her out of Tokyo before anyone else could seize her. Later they came to believe she was the data, or at least that she knew who was.

  As he mused on these things Michael gazed out the window of his study in New Zealand. He was watching his son, Anthony, in the backyard. He was getting some self-defense training from Jesse and Ethan, members of their security team. It looked a bit more like horseplay than a serious lesson. Andie came up from behind and kissed him on the back of the neck.

  “He’s finally having some fun.”

  “I don’t think he’s learning much about fighting,” he replied.

  “He misses her, you know.”

  “I suppose. But we mustn’t rush back there.”

  “Has it occurred to you that she may need us?”

  “I have the strangest feeling we may end up needing her more than she needs us.”

  “Remember how Anthony would follow her around the estate? And those camping trips?” He nodded with a sigh. “They’d strap on backpacks and she’d take off for the woods at a dead run, and he’d run after her. He’d follow her to the ends of the earth if he could.” Michael couldn’t help but smile at this.

  “There are still some arrangements I have to make before we can go back safely.”

  “Safe or not, I’m not sure how much longer you can keep Yuki here,” she said with a smile. “We’re going into town, a bit of shopping. We’ll be buying new luggage,” she said archly and gave him another peck on the cheek, before going to find Yuki.

  Michael was expecting a call. Rumors were flying about a major martial arts tournament where an unlikely competitor had dominated the field. He knew the Chinese had been there even before he received the transcript. But were they the only ones? The phone in his pocket hummed quietly.

  “I hear you helped her in Norfolk. If that’s true, I am in your debt,” he said into the phone. “Tell me what happened.”

  “She didn’t need any help,” the woman on the other end of the line replied. “She faced the Chinese on her own,” she said, in a still trembling voice.

  “And they let her go?”

  “They didn’t re
ally have a choice, I suppose,” she said with a shiver of pride, still living in the moment. “She’s amazing, you know.”

  “Yes, but how exactly did she manage to escape them?”

  “She didn’t escape.”

  “Wh, what…,” he stammered out. He knew she was safe, but the thought of her in danger clearly upset him.

  “She fought them, seven or eight of them, in a dark parking lot. She could have killed them all, if they hadn’t backed down. I think they must have felt lucky to get away themselves.”

  He recognized Emily in that account. She was certainly her father’s daughter.

  “In the end, she spoke to one of them,” the woman continued, “the leader, I suppose. They reached some sort of understanding, and then the Chinese left.”

  “What did they say, do you know?”

  “No, I couldn’t make it out, and she wouldn’t say. But she seemed satisfied with whatever it was.”

  “Were you watching the whole scene?”

  “Yes,” she sighed. “I was on the roof of the hotel. I saw it all through a rifle scope.”

  “Why didn’t you just take them out for her,” he asked with increasing agitation.

  It was a rude question in a disconcerting conversation: one more sign of how much he cared about George and Yuki’s daughter.

  “I wanted to, let me tell you. But she made me promise not to shoot anyone, not unless they threatened her friends.”

  There was an awkward silence. Michael knew who she was: a trained assassin, one of Meacham’s people. But Meacham was on the run now, and many of his agents had gone their own ways. She was one of these. That didn’t make her trustworthy, and he knew nothing of the circumstances surrounding her departure. What he most wanted to know was how she got involved with Emily in the first place. Had she been sent to kill her? Perhaps she was just waiting for the right moment. Maybe she was still working for Meacham. Still, Emily had asked a favor of this woman, and Michael had learned to respect her judgment. She seemed to see right through people. And she was barely eighteen.

  “Shall I trust you,” he asked himself out loud.

  “That’s up to you. I wish I could say I had helped her, repaid what I owe. But she had so little need of me….”

  “She saw something in you. That says something, I suppose,” Michael mused. “How do I contact you?”

  The woman gave him instructions, and a name: “Connie.”

  He was making preparations for their return home. He had already accepted a position in a defense industries related think tank specializing in East Asian economies, the Seacord Foundation. He was arranging for a large house just north of Charlottesville, big enough for his family, his security team and house guests. This location had a couple of significant advantages. It was an easy drive to D.C., and it would be an even easier one to Emily’s high school. He knew how important this last detail would be to Yuki.

  “I don’t think you have much to fear from Meacham anymore,” Connie said. “Not after the disaster in Taipei. Most of his key people are dead. It’ll take him years to rebuild.”

  Michael grunted. He was inclined to agree with her assessment. “Where does that leave you?” he asked.

  “I can take care of myself. I’ll just stick to my day job for now, I suppose.”

  “Meacham’s setback also makes Burzynski even more dangerous,” Michael said after an uncomfortable silence. “He might work with the Chinese, at least indirectly through the North Koreans.”

  Connie grunted some sort of agreement. He wasn’t listening anymore. This worrisome reflection suggested how illimitable the dangers swirling around Emily might really be.

  In the end, Michael didn’t have much choice about returning home, even if he really wanted to remain in hiding. Once Andie and Yuki learned Emily had confronted the Chinese, there was no longer any support within the family for living in concealment. They wanted to follow Emily’s lead, to live again as a normal family. It didn’t hurt that Andie and Yuki had grown so much closer since Christmas. When Emily came to visit wearing the clothes Andie had been forced to leave behind, she became in effect a daughter the two women practically shared.

  ~~~~~~~

  Connie sat for a moment in the food court of the Georgetown Park mall after she ended the call. It was a pay-as-you-go phone, purchased a few moments earlier. She removed the sim card and snapped it in two, apparently not interested in receiving any calls on this phone. Her precautions were probably unnecessary, but the habit was ingrained at this point. She tossed the phone into a nearby trash can, one with a lot of greasy food waste in it. Might as well make tracking her a messy task, even if no one was paying attention.

  She took a peculiar route through the mall, a few extra turns that brought her past various kiosks, and especially past reflective display windows. She rode an escalator to an upper floor, and then down a glass elevator to the parking garage. She walked out the garage entrance on to M street. It’s not especially hard to spot a tail on a busy sidewalk, if you’re observant and not in such a hurry that you can’t afford to stop every once in a while and look in a shop window.

  Connie wondered how observant Emily really was. Did she understand what it would take to outmaneuver the people who were interested in her? People wanted her dead just a few months earlier. She knew because she used to work for one of them. Meacham sent her to hunt Emily down and kill her. Remembering the event still made her shudder. She tracked her to a college visit in Charlottesville, cornered an innocent teenage girl in a public restroom in the student center, and attacked her with a needle.

  So much had changed since then that Connie could reflect on the outcome with relief. Emily disarmed her, overpowered her, knocked her senseless. But it wasn’t because she was observant. She was just faster. And when she had the upper hand, Emily should have killed her with her own poison syringe. That’s what Connie would have done, without hesitation. But Emily didn’t kill her, no matter how much she may have deserved it. That kind of compassion was dangerous.

  She was genuinely worried for the girl who gave her a second chance. But it wasn’t as simple as paying a debt. When Emily stared down at her that day on the restroom floor, she looked back into her eyes, too. What she saw there was terrible, even sublime. It haunted her to this day: a pitch black serenity, a wellspring of generosity. There was a storm there, too, violence of inhuman proportions, titanic forces held in a precarious balance. The girl was dangerous, Connie knew it, but she wasn’t invulnerable. Quick reactions were not going to be enough to keep her safe.

  She walked over to the Foggy Bottom Metro Station and caught a blue line train to Washington National Airport, where she boarded a plane to Seattle.

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  Chapter 5

  Bows and Arrows

  The glare from the morning sun squeezed through a gap in the window shade and peeked into her eye. Six fifteen, time to get ready for school. Emily picked out a pretty outfit, something stylish, elegant. Maybe she was finally getting the hang of coordinating clothes. She snorted back a laugh at this thought. Showered and dressed, she put together a bento box for lunch: rice and black beans, some pickled cabbage and teriyaki tofu. It occurred to her that she’d better make a little extra since Wendy would undoubtedly want some. But she had to be careful not to make too much, or Wayne might notice. If he did, he’d pester them until he got some too. And “some” in Wayne’s terms would be most. She put everything into her backpack and went down to her truck. A tap on the horn failed to speed Danny along, who was nowhere to be seen. She found him in the kitchen, stuffing a plate of pancakes into his mouth.

  “Morning, Emily,” said Mrs. Rincon. “You have time to eat? There’s plenty.”

  “No thanks. I’d like to get to school a little early today. I’ve got some paperwork to take care of.”

  “Sorry, Em,” Danny mumbled through packed squirrel cheeks. Swallowing nearly choked him. “I was trying to get a head start until I ran afoul of my mom’s panc
akes.”

  “I can see that, mister. A few minutes more and I’d have to roll you out of here.”

  He washed a last mouthful down with milk, reached for his backpack and stumbled out the door after her. A few minutes later, Emily pulled her truck into the high school parking lot and steered over to the student section. Walking up to the front entrance they ran into Billy and Wendy. All four of them trudged in the front door together. Her friends headed off to their respective homerooms, while she popped into the front office.

  “Good morning, Miss Tenno,” said Mrs. Telford. “Did you bring your test scores?”

  “Yes ma’am. I got ‘em right here.”

  “I’ll make a photocopy of the whole packet. With your transcripts and letters, that ought to be enough for ‘em.”

  “Thanks again, for going to all this trouble, Mrs. Telford.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing, dear. That’s what I’m here for.”

  Emily rushed off to homeroom. Because of her new name, she had been switched into Wayne’s homeroom for purposes of alphabetization. Not everyone welcomed her. At least one girl resented the intrusion into a space she considered her own.

  “What, still here, Tenno? Or is it Kane? Or do you have another new name now?” said Amanda Terwilliger with a sneer.

  She sat behind Emily and in front of Wayne in the ‘T’s. There was a time when Wayne would have said something in Emily’s defense, told Amanda to shut up or something to that effect. But she didn’t really need defending, and maybe it was better just to ignore Amanda anyway. Leave her to Emily’s tender mercies, perhaps indulge in one disdainful snort.