“I pulled out of my assignment just at the last moment… I’m in big trouble now… I’ll have all the biggies behind my life… And that too, when I just did something right for the first time in my life… Saved a child… This client, known only as The Mask…wanted us to eliminate this child… who was a witness to murder, committed by his own men… Now I will have the whole world behind me… My firm… The Mask… Maybe, even the police…” she said sitting across him running her hands in her hair. “So, she IS NOT dead?” he asked incredulously. “No she isn’t,” she replied simply, “She’s just tranquilized…” “And now everyone’s going to find out… You really are in big trouble… Sean is not going to leave you…” “Morality has never been your strong point, Wayne,” she said. “Sakura, do you mind telling me the reason why you didn’t pull the trigger?” Wayne asked her earnestly. Not seeming to hear him she said getting up, “Give me my weapons… I’m going to be gone a long time… So give me all the ammunition you have… I need them,” and she added, her mouth close to his ear, “She’s my own daughter…It’s a long story… I’ll tell you the whole story if I make it back alive…”
“You were married?” Shayne said surprised as he prised open the steel trap door that led into an underground chamber… They were right in the centre of the mansion… The stained glass dome cast a soft purple and scarlet glow into the room… “No I wasn’t…I keep a lot of secrets…” she smiled as she started descending down the stairs.
The weapons chamber didn’t look like an armory at all. Instead, it resembled a mini aquarium, complete with sharks and those huge deep sea crabs over four foot tall which roamed the sea beds… There were plush scarlet sofas with a small ebony coffee table in the centre. “You know, no one would believe this is a sniper’s armory” Wayne remarked, “No wonder we haven’t been suspected yet.” “Then again,” Sakura said as she bent down near the coffee table, “who would suspect someone owning such a magnificent mansion to be a mere sniper.” Pushing the table away with little effort… She moved the carpet underneath to one side and exposed a safety vault underneath… She punched in the combination of twenty characters… With a click, the vault opened inside… With a smile Sakura exclaimed, “My sniper gun” “Have you moved anything around?” she asked Wayne as she gingerly set the gun on the table. “No,” he replied awed by the beauty of the lady who was kneeling at the table. The blue of the water reflected off her face… making it seem as if it was made of ice… Her face… was like snow and her lips looked like blood in snow… immensely beautiful… “Check on her please, Wayne” she said, barely audible as she made to get up… Wayne shaken from his trance wordlessly left the chamber.
Now she moved towards the walls devoid of aquariums and pressed on two small protrusions, one above her head and one to her extreme right. She moved aside as a stone door opened inside to her right. The stone door was padded from inside, so were the walls of the rooms. They were filled with a variety of weapons, a mix of modern and traditional. There were Katanas and Sais, guns and daggers, small grenades and more complicated small time bombs. The floor was made of white ceramic tiles which reflected the white light, the room was lit by. Entering the room… She opened a titanium locker which contained her special weapon bags, padded from inside with small special pouches. As she started untying her Katanas from their wooden frames she smiled thinking I’ve always been a traditional warrior but the protocol required me to use proper modern weapons. Finally, I’ve got a chance to show my true colors. I need to confront Sean now. Bending down, she removed the bags from the locker. Setting them on the ground beside her, she started packing the weapons inside them. There was a second locker next to the locker containing the bags. This locker contained her ammunition in a reinforced steel box. Ammunition for all the twenty guns that she used. I sure use a lot of fire power she thought amusedly.
As she stepped out carrying the bags, the door closed behind her. She climbed up the stairs back to her mansion. She got a little panicked when she did not see Nagashiko’s languid form on the settee. “Wayne!” she cried. He came running a few minutes later. “Where is she?” she demanded shakily. “Upstairs, in the guest bedroom,” he said panting. She breathed a sigh of relief and dumped the bags on the floor. “I’m going upstairs for a shower.” She said as she climbed up the marble staircase.
Wayne went upstairs to his own room after her form had disappeared. He lay down on the bed thinking of Sakura. She had been his only family after his family had abandoned him at the age of fifteen in the Atacama. He was not sure whether something had happened to them or they had simply abandoned him on that vacation. She was in Atacama for a week taking a break. She had noticed him there and had taken him under her wing almost immediately. He smiled when he remembered how he had asked her that she resembled a lynx and what she was doing in the desert. She smiled and said that even a lynx needed a change of air sometimes. She tried contacting his parents but she could not trace them. So, he stayed with her. She was the only family for him now and the thought of her life being in danger, sent rumbles of fear within him. A quiet and dignified woman she had always kept to herself. Though she never showed it, he was sure that her life had been very painful and he used to see a hint of sadness in the corners of her eyes.
