Thursday, November 25, 2010

Our Courage, Chapter Five (part c)

In the marketplace the next morning, after the delivery had finished without incident, the guards started to withdraw. A boy came up pulling a cart with a huge box on it - it was Mori.
“What?” asked a guard, and Mori lifted the lid of the box.
“The guy from yesterday. He died. So here.”
Indeed, there was a body inside the box, wearing camouflage and with a gasmask covering the face.
The guards attached the box to a harness, and the helicopter flew away with it suspended from the carriage. But something strange was taking place inside that large box.
The supposedly dead guard removed his own gasmask, and Yamato’s face appeared
He took a deep breath.. He’d escaped Makuhara by posing as the dead guard, to reach the outside world in order to get medicine for Kiichi. This was a once-in-a-lifetime performance.
Raising the box’s lid, he started to saw at the rope above it. Far below he could see the ocean. The height made him dizzy, but this was no time to think.
Snap! The rope snapped with a sharp sound - as soon as he heard it, he was in the ocean. He swallowed salt-water, and had a fight of coughing.
The winter ocean filled his uniform, mercilessly stealing away his body heat. The shock of the fall made his head loll, but determined, he began to swim.
Takeru, I’ve gotten this far... Kiichi, wait for me.
*
“An escape?”
At the headquarters, Shibazaki raised his voice, and stood without thinking. In the face of his anger, the reporting guard straightened.
“We are very sorry.”
“What’s the point of apologizing! Do you have any idea how many thousands of people could die because of this?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Immediately request cooperation from the police! Deploy emergency troops from the entire prefecture... Find him, and kill him.”
As he gave the order, Shibazaki’s eyes glinted coldly. The guard bowed, and fled the room.

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