The Wild, Wild East
By G.L. Sandborn


1   New Zoo Review



     "Come on, you fool!"
     Steven Hunter stumbled at the admonishment.  He couldn't help it.
He had been running for what seemed like hours through downtown Yokohama
and was exhausted.
     The early summer heat made running in a full suit feel like
exercising in a sauna.  Sweat ran down his face and soaked his formerly
freshly laundered white shirt.  Besides worrying about getting killed by
their pursuers, he also wondered how he was going to pay for cleaning
his soaked clothes.
     Glancing back, he caught a glimpse of Asian men, also in suits and
wearing dark glasses, pushing their way through slower pedestrians in an
effort to catch up.  Despite all the tricks he and his partner had used
to escape, there always seemed to be fresh pursuers waiting to take up
the chase.  It was as if they knew in advance where he was going.
     He followed his partner into another subway station and quickly
paid their way through the ticket gate.  A subway train was just
announcing its departure.
     "Get in!" his partner growled, shoving Steve through the doors and
following an instant before they closed.
     The crowed subway car seemed to press in on him as the train
started to pull from the station.  Crushed against multiple bodies, he
squirmed enough to look around nervously for the men who wanted them
dead.  Through the windows he caught sight of two pursuers as they
jumped the gates only to come to a halt when local police intervened.
     Steve drew a series of deep breaths in the stifling atmosphere of
the subway car. Painfully twisting his way around, he intended to
confront his partner about where they were going this time.
     His partner beat him to it.  "We'll get off at the next stop and
double back.  Maybe we can finally lose those bastards," his partner
growled in a low voice.
     Steve just nodded, glancing about for any sign of danger.  When he
noticed a couple of the other passengers eying them, he tried to smile
and nod their way.  That only led to quizzical expressions before they
abruptly returned the nod and looked away again.  He really couldn't
blame them.  His partner looked angry and a tall angry black man on a
crowded subway train was sure to create no small degree of apprehension
among the Japanese passengers.
     Of course, he couldn't have been much better in their eyes.  A
sweaty white gaijin in a stuffy subway car was probably testing their
tradition of foreigner accommodation to the max.  Together, he and his
partner had to be the oddest couple of gaijin most of these people had
ever seen.
     He turned back to his partner, who was now trying to act
nonchalant.  "How come the Ko...," he paused to consider his words
carefully.  There was no telling who was listening.  "How come those
guys always seem to know where we are?"
     "Don't know," came the answer.  It wasn't very assuring.  After
all, his partner was supposed to be a first-class agent.  He was
supposed to have all the answers.
     Steve sniffed and tried to rub his nose.  The press of commuters
around him made even that act difficult.  How did he get himself in such
a situation?  This wasn't what they told him in training it would be
like.  Besides, he wasn't an A Team operative.  He was a linguist,
proficient in ten languages.  They told him he was going to eavesdrop on
sensitive communication from someplace safe, not run for his life from
killers.
     Maybe it had something to do with that 'thing' they were able to
get from the enemy hideout.  Instinctively, he felt the spot on his suit
that covered the tiny three inch long device that looked like a common
USB flash memory drive.  What it really was caused him to shiver.
     "I just wish I knew why I can't contact headquarters," his partner
said.  "For some reason, my radio isn't working and every time I try to
use a phone, the line goes dead."
     "Jamming?  Tapped?"  Steve rummaged through the possible reasons,
hoping none of them were particularly accurate.
     "Don't know," his partner replied.  "Something big is happening.  I
just hope we weren't the cause."
     Weren't the cause?  They had just stolen the key to a new and, if
all reports were correct, horribly devastating weapon.  It was the kind
of action that was certain to cause an enemy to stop at nothing to get
back.
     Gentle tones sounded from the PA system overhead announcing the
next stop.  Sakuragi-Cho?  Where was that?
     When the subway pulled to a stop the doors hissed open and Steve
felt himself being swept along by a human tide that spilled out onto the
platform.  He stumbled and might have fallen except his partner grabbed
his coat and shoved him towards the exit.
     Pressing their way through the crowd, they emerged at street level
into the warm sunshine.  Steve nervously glanced around but saw nothing
of their previous pursuers.  Maybe they lost them this time.  "Where
to?" he asked.
     "North," was all his partner said before hurrying across the street
along with a flood of other pedestrians.
     "Why north?"  He wasn't totally satisfied with such an abrupt
answer.
     "Trees," his partner replied as if that was all he needed to say.
     Trees?  Trees in the Tokyo area usually meant a park of some sort.
Why would he want to go there?
     He was still wondering about their destination as they crossed in
front of a junior high school.  He didn't trust the relative calm of
their apparent escape and continued to glance warily around him.  On one
of those anxious recons, he spotted what he hoped he wouldn't see again.
     "Don't look now but I think they're back," he said in a low voice.
     His partner barely turned his head before grunting a curse.  His
steps picked up to become a fast walk.  Steve matched his partner's long
strides, chancing a quick glance back.  Three Asian men in dark suits
and sunglasses were matching his increased pace.
     He was so intent on keeping an eye on their pursuers, he almost
missed his partner's sudden dash across another street.  With a panicked
feeling of being abandoned, he quickly followed his long-legged
companion.  To the sound of blaring horns and the squeal of tires, he
barely avoided being run over.  Scrambling frantically, he gained the
far sidewalk without further mishap only to be stopped by a tall fence.
     "Who puts up an eight foot fence in Japan?" he complained before
following his partner to the right along the sidewalk that bordered the fence
line.  He frantically looked for some opening they might exploit to gain
the thick foliage beyond.  It didn't appear promising.  The fence looked
like it continued unbroken for as far as he could see.
     "Maybe they want to keep basketball players out," his partner
growled.  "Just keep going."
     Steve did just that.  His raspy breath echoed in his ears and sweat
poured down his neck into his already soaked white shirt.  Looking back
he took little satisfaction at two of their pursuers tumbling over the
hood of a taxi as they failed to duplicate the Americans' escape route.
     He almost collided with his partner when the man suddenly stopped
partway down the block.  Frowning at the man for a brief moment before
following his gaze to see why.  They had found a gate but it was locked
with a sign on it that read:  Zoo Property.  Keep Out, Please."
      ZOO?" his partner yelled.  "Oh MAN, I hate zoos.  They got all
them animals in there."
     "Do we keep going?" Steve asked, gasping for breath while casting a
nervous glance back the way they had come.
     "Hell, No!"  His partner whipped out his automatic pistol with its
heavily modified silencer.   "We need cover."  The man took aim at the
lock.  "DAMN!  And I wore my best suit today."
     Three shots sounding like someone hammering small tin can and the
lock was history.  Kicking open the gate, he grabbed Steve and shoved
him through.
     Stumbling a few steps, he began to run again, negotiating a worn
concrete path that had all the charm of a depression era country road.
Branches from untrimmed trees grabbed at his coat and bushes tugged at
his legs.  Somewhere behind, he could hear his pursuers crashing through
the partially open gate .
     Gasping for breath, he emerged in a clearing that was big enough to
build an apartment building.  It was also housefly heaven.  In the
middle was a massive net full of animal dung that dangled ten feet in
the air suspended from a large construction crane.  The zoo people were
either airing it out or preparing to load it into a poo removal truck.
     "Now there's a sight you don't see every day," Steve wheezed as he
bent over, hands on his knees and trying to coax more air into his
tortured lungs.  "I always wondered what they did with all the poop they
scooped at the zoo."
     Bullets ripped the air above his head, reminding him he had little
time to ponder poo removal or much of anything else.  Their adversaries
were closing in; firing heavily silenced automatic weapons that sounded
no louder than electric typewriters as they spit dozens of rounds his
way.
     Shoving Steve towards some crates of Purina Monkey Chow, his
partner turned on their attackers with an almost cool efficiency.
Firing twice, he dropped the first two who emerged from the narrow path.
The others scrambled for cover in the thick undergrowth on either side.
     "Find a way out," his partner called, smoothly inserting a fresh
magazine in his weapon.  "I'll hold them off."
     With a frustrated growl at being treated like a kid, Steve turned
and dashed across the clearing before diving into the surrounding bushes
and landing in the thick undergrowth.  Taking to his hands and knees,
making sure to keep as much cover as possible between himself and
danger, he scrambled noisily away from the clearing.  Two months of
training seemed to pay off.  Despite the occasional angry buzz of errant
enemy shots, nobody seemed to notice his getaway.  Not bad for a rookie,
he thought.
     He had gone only a few yards when he literally ran into another
tall fence.  Choked with bushes and weeds, it was topped with nasty
looking razor wire.  It was not the kind of obstruction they had time to
deal with.
     Rising into a crouch, he worked his way along the fence line hoping
to find another gate or opening.  It quickly became apparent that this
section of the zoo was not one a person could easily get into or out of.
     The first gate he came to had a lock that would have taken C4
explosives to open.  A second, further along, was secured in such a way
that even shooting the lock would have failed to open it.
     Cursing, he slammed his fist on the locked gate.  There didn't
appear to be any point in following the fence line any further.  The
kinds of locks he had seen so far indicated anything else he might find
would probably be more of the same.  With a frustrated growl, he turned
back towards the clearing.  It looked like they were trapped.
     As he approached the clearing, he remembered his training to remain
under cover and look for his partner.  At first, he couldn't see him.
He could hear the man's weapon along with those of their pursuers but
there was little to suggest where his partner was holed up.
     Moving a little further round the edge of the clearing, he suddenly
jerked to a halt.  His partner had taken cover almost in the middle of
the clearing behind some cinder blocks.  From there, he was
single-handedly keeping the bad guys at bay.
     Drawing his own weapon, Steve crouched a little lower in the
undergrowth.  He wanted to aid his partner but with no obvious targets,
he hesitated shooting.  Firing his weapon would only draw attention to
his hiding place.  Getting himself pinned down wouldn't help his
partner.  It wouldn't do much for his own survival either.  Unsure of
what to do, he crouched down behind a large tree and prayed that the
attackers would just run out of ammunition and go away.
     As he caught his breath, feelings of guilt began to pick at his
conscience.  Only a worthless coward would hide under cover leaving his
partner to fight off their attackers alone.  He certainly wasn't a hero
but there had be something her could do to help.
     Cursing under his breath for both his lack of courage and the
decision he just made, he slithered through the thick undergrowth until
he reached a spot where he might just be able to fire a few well-placed
shots with his own heavily silenced handgun.  If he was lucky, shooting
a few assailants might cause the others to retreat long enough for he
and his partner to escape.  Maybe they could even double back through
the trees and escape through the gate they had entered.  Where they
would go from there, he wasn't sure but anyplace had to be better than
where they were now.
     Guessing the location of one of the assailants, he started to rise
up to shoot but jerked back into hiding when he caught sight of movement
off to his right.  Afraid to move lest he give his position away, he
stared at the spot until he caught glimpses of a shadowy figure slipping
through the brush.  It had to be one of their pursuers.  Any moment,
that figure would be behind his partner.
     Using the tree to steady himself, he tracked the figure's movement
with his pistol until it disappeared behind the crane.  Growling in
frustration, Steve looked for some way of getting a clear shot.  He
couldn't let his partner of two whole weeks die from a bullet in the
back.  The paperwork alone would be murder.
     Taking a deep breath, he quickly scurried to the relative cover of
a portable power generator.  When he saw the figure climbing into the
crane's cab, he knew now was the best shot he was going to get.  He rose
up, aimed and fired once.  True to his West Texas heritage, his aim was
good.  The figure tottered for a moment before slumping forward.  The
dead man's body must have released the winch mechanism.  With a loud
'crack', six tons of animal waste came hurtling earthward, directly
towards his partner.
     Before he could yell a warning, his partner looked up and shouted a
most ironic lament: "Aw SHIT!"
     An instant later, the load buried the man with a thunderous
'splat'.
     The firing slacked for a moment, as if the assailants were deciding
what to do.  Steve knew that wouldn't last long.  A lone agent is an
agent in danger, his instructors told him.  They weren't kidding.
     When the attackers began firing again, Steve wavered between sheer
terror and astonishment that they seemed to know exactly where he was.
Bullets tore chunks out of the crates around him and riddled the trees
behind.  The fuel tank on the generator freely poured gasoline from
countless holes.  Almost without aiming, he returned fire as best he
could but all that did was confirm his location.  He needed help.  No,
he needed a miracle.


     Tina Foster yawned and stretched in the warm sun, trying to loosen
her poor overworked muscles.  After six continuous hours of hard
physical labor, she was finally getting to take her lunch break.  As
usual, she was the last person allowed to go eat.  She didn't like it
much but that was just the way things were.
     It was hard enough being the only woman zoo keeper in the Japanese
zoo, all the other women guided tours, worked concessions or sold
tickets.  It was especially hard because the other zookeepers couldn't
understand why a young, blond American female with a college degree
would want to do the dirty work in a zoo.  They weren't open about their
confusion.  Instead, they talked amongst themselves, sometimes loud
enough for her to hear.  Their discussions often suggested reasons they
thought she was there.  None of them even came close to the real reason.
     It wasn't easy to ignore them.  Every nasty insinuation burned
inside her.  She couldn't respond openly.  That would only lead to
trouble.  Besides, she needed this job, if only for her own self esteem.
As a Western graduate of a Japanese university, her career choices were
limited in Japan.  Not as bad as those of her Japanese female
classmates, to be sure.  Their futures all seemed to be headed for
marriage to a workaholic husband, producing a litter of children, and
then spending their lives cooped up in a small apartment cooking,
cleaning, and raising those children.  She shuddered at the thought of
such a claustrophobic life.
     No, being an American in Japan had some advantages.  She could have
gone into translation work or teaching English somewhere.  Both were
steady and fairly respectable jobs.  They just weren't jobs for her.
She wanted more.  She wanted the outdoors and excitement.
     While the zoo didn't offer much excitement, it did offer her a
chance to be outdoors and around the animals she loved.  That almost
made the comments and gossipy coworkers bearable.
     Of course, her supervisor was the king of sexist pigs, always
suggesting she should be looking for a husband instead of scrubbing
hippo excrement off the side of their pool.  He even slipped her a
business card for a matchmaking service.  She didn't need to look for a
husband.  She didn't even want a husband.  That is, unless Kaoru was
interested.
     Kaoru.  She smiled at the thought of the only guy in Japan that
seemed to need her as much as he appeared to like her.  When they were
alone together, she could almost feel a spark of something wonderful
between them.  Why he refused to respond the way she wanted was a
mystery to her.  Perhaps he was distracted by school or maybe just
reluctant to commit.
     That had to be it.  He was just scared of commitment.  Given time,
he was certain to eventually come around and return the love she felt
for him.  It was all just a matter of time.
     She stretched again and dug into her bento lunch with renewed
energy.  Maybe she would just knock off early today.  There were lots of
places she could hide until quitting time.  Nobody seemed to care
anyway.  Whenever she went missing, her supervisor made little effort to
find her.  It was as if he didn't really care.  He just never seemed to
care enough to look for her back by the Animal Waste Recovery Facility.
Of course, that made perfect sense. Nobody wanted to hang around a bunch
of animal droppings.  So long as the wind was from the right direction,
her bench outside the maintenance shed in the far back of the zoo was
the perfect place to stay out of sight.  Even when someone noticed she
was missing, they rarely radioed her.  They just assumed she was working
in another part of the zoo.
     Finishing her lunch, she set her empty bento aside and leaned back
against the warm building.  With a full stomach and the sun warming her,
she easily slipped into daydreaming about what Miss Landlord and
Kaoru-sama were doing right now.  Closing her eyes, she could see Aoi
and Taeko hanging laundry in the bright sun while Miss Manager, Miyabi
Kagurazaki, sipped her after-lunch tea.  Chika-chan was probably in
school.  It was still a week until summer vacation.  Kaoru?  Well, he
was probably studying or working on a paper.  Graduate school must be
tough, she thought.
     Her musings were interrupted by her radio.  What now?  Couldn't
they at least let her eat in peace?
     Snatching it from her belt, she answered.  "Tina here."
     "Did you leave the wheelbarrow in the Animal Waste Recovery
Facility again?" came her supervisor's annoying voice.
     Tina groaned.  Just before lunch she had dropped off a load of
elephant dung at the facility.  She remembered parking it next to an old
power generator but was so anxious to get to her lunch break, she forgot
all about it.
     "Take it over to bear exhibit right away."
     Tina wrinkled her nose at the thought of cutting her lunch short
for a bunch of pooping bears.  Still, she made the mistake of answering
her radio, so she was trapped.  "Fine," she growled into the radio
before snapping it off.  She didn't want to hear whatever reply her boss
might have had to her attitude.
     With a heavy sigh, she got to her feet and stretched again before
starting up the path leading to the Animal Waste Recovery Facility.
Every step was punctuated by another curse directed at her boss, her
coworkers, and pooping bears.
     She unlocked the main gate leading to the facility and slipped
through.  The odor of animal waste immediately assaulted her nose.  With
a sniff, she rubbed a hand across her upper lip and tried to keep
breathing to a minimum.  A few flies swarmed around her before heading
off towards the more promising waste dump.  There were also a few that
sounded like bees whizzing past her head in the opposite direction.  She
expected flies to be thick in this part of the zoo but she didn't really
remember this many bees.
     "I sure hope there isn't a hive or something around here," she said
while trying to swat at the invisible insects as they flew past.
     Stepping into the clearing, she froze.  The large stinking mound of
manure was not on the crane where it was supposed to be.  For some
reason, it was on the ground.  Worse yet, there was a human leg sticking
out from underneath it.
     The whizzing bees abruptly stopped.  From somewhere in the bushes
ahead she heard a series of strange voices using very bad Japanese.
     "Who is that?"
     "It appears to be a member of this zoological collective."
     "Is it permissible to kill a local zoological collective worker?"
     "We are not to harm any locals until imperious leader tells us it
is acceptable."
     "But she doesn't look like a local."
     "Agreed.  She looks like an American."
     "That would make her a valid target, yes?"
     "Not necessarily.  She could be Canadian."
     "Quite true."
     "But didn't our imperious leader say both countries are running
dogs of the bourgeoisie that deserved extermination?"
     "Yes but he has also said that Canada has shipped us much wheat
last year.  We don't want to anger our meal ticket."
     Tina had no idea what they were talking about but had a bad feeling
about the direction their conversation was heading.  With a nervous
laugh, she waved her hands in front of her.  "That's okay, guys.  I'll
just go... uh, clean a hippo pond... or something."
     "Stay where you are, female.  We deciding your fate," came the
sharp reply.
     Tina froze only a moment before starting to slowly inch her way
back towards the gate.  "So, ya hosers take your time, eh?" she called
trying her best Canadian accent.  It didn't sound very convincing to her
considering her glaring Texas accent.
     There was a pause in the conversation before one of the hidden men
spoke.  "She sounds Canadian."
     "How would you know?"
     "I watched 'Strange Brew' last night on the television."
     "That is unacceptable!  You are NOT permitted to watch capitalist
running dog propaganda while in this country!"  The angry retort was
followed by two gunshots and the groan of a dying man.  "It was a lousy
movie, anyway."
     There was a long pause as Tina continued to inch her way back
towards the gate.
     "How about Takeshi's Castle?" came another voice.
     Three more gunshots rang out.  That was enough for Tina.  As she
turned to run, it was as if all the bees in Japan were swarming around
her.  Doing her best Texas Two-Step dance, she hopped, skipped, wiggled,
and weaved her way back the direction she had come.  Despite being only
a dozen or so yards from the gate, it looked to be a mile or more away.
     A bullet tore through her utility belt, taking with it her two-way
radio.  She felt another rip through her long blond hair, painfully
tugging at her scalp.  There appeared to be no escape.  Any second, one
or more of the dozens being fired her direction would find its mark.
     She was beginning to ponder how Kaoru and the others would act at
her funeral when a figure leaped from behind the shot-up old generator,
looped an arm around her waist and threw her into the bushes.  She had
just enough time to register that her rescuer was not an Asian man.  He
looked surprisingly Western and that business suit was totally out of
place.  Before she could protest the rough treatment, a bullet tore
through his upper arm, spattering her zoo uniform with blood.
     Tumbling to the ground next to her, the stranger rolled away and
struggled to his knees.  "DAMN IT!  I knew that was going to happen!" he
growled in English while holding his wounded left arm.
     Laying on her back, supported by her elbows, Tina stared wide eyed
at her rescuer.  "Why are they shooting?  What did I do?" she whined.
     "Because you were in the way," he growled.  It looked to her like
he was about to cry.
     "What do you mean by that?" she snapped back, a flash of
indignation momentarily overwhelming her fear.  "I work here.  I'm
supposed to be here."
     "Yeah?  Well, working here almost got you killed!" he shouted back,
still holding his wounded arm.
     There seemed to be fewer bullets whizzing through the bushes than
before but she paid scant notice.  This bozo was acting like a complete
jerk.  "That doesn't change a thing!  You are trespassing on Nogeyama
Zoo property.  And what's with bringing a gun in here?  You're not even
supposed to have a gun in Japan."
     "This gun is the only thing between you and those killers over
there!"
     "Who asked you to get between me and them?  I was doing just fine
before you showed up!" she screamed.
     "You were doing fine at getting yourself killed!  Maybe I should
have let them kill you!"  He glared back at her.  It barely registered
with either of them that the shooting had completely stopped.
     "Oh sure, let the pretty blond girl get killed," she huffed.  "YOU
ARE SUCH A JERK!"
     With balled fists, they glared at each other.
     "Uh.. Excuse please," came a voice from across the clearing.
     "WHAT?" they yelled together in answer to the voice.
     "We are on very tight schedule.  Imperious leader expects us back
by five and you know how traffic is.  Anyway, if zoological collective
worker please to get out of way, we kill American now.  So sorry for
earlier."
     Tina glanced at the trees bordering the far side of the clearing
before returning to growling at the jerk with the bleeding arm.  "I
ought to do just that," she growled.
     "Oh sure, let the handsome American get killed," he huffed.
     "Better you than me," she said, starting to get up.
     "That's a lousy way to thank someone who just saved your life!"  He
grabbed her hand and yanked her back under cover.
     "LET GO OF ME!" she yelled, pulling her hand free and stumbling
backwards.  She tripped over a shot-off tree limb and fell hard on her
back.
     The voice from the other side of the clearing sounded irritated.
"Oh, so sorry.  Must catch train.  Both must die now."
     "HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!"  Tina started to get to her feet again.  The
air around her became alive with buzzing bullets.  Chunks of bark and a
shower of dislodged leaves pelted her.  She was just screaming something
about not wanting to die when she was suddenly driven to the ground by a
heavy male body and pinned there.  "What are you doing?" she gasped.
     "Protecting you," the man said.
     She began pounding on his back with both fists, her bare legs
kicking up a storm of leaves.  "Get off me, you pervert!"
     "They're trying to kill us both," he replied.
     "Who's fault is that?" she yelled, still hitting him with her
fists.
     "Stop acting stupid!  We need to get out of here!"
     "DUH!" she screamed, adding a shot to his head for emphasis.
     "Will you knock it off?  We need some place to hide!" he yelled,
holding his pistol back over his head and squeezing off a couple of
random shots.
     She glared at him for a moment, considering the possibility of just
kicking him where it would do the most good and making a run for it on
her own, when a bullet tore a chunk of bark from the tree not more than
a foot from her head.  "Oh, all right!  Let me think."
     As more of their cover dissolved under the intense fusillade, it
became harder to think.  She was never good at thinking under pressure.
     "Think faster!"  The man rolled off her and rose up enough to fire
off four shots at their assailants.
     "Ah!  I know just the place."  Tina tugged at his shirt to indicate
the way.   He hesitated only long enough to empty his weapon at the bad
guys before dropping back down and following her lead.
     Scrambling almost on all fours, they crashed through the underbrush
like a pair of hippos heading for a pond.  Despite the undivided
attention of their pursuers, they made it back through the gate and down
to the maintenance shed, the angry small caliber 'bees' haunting their
every step.
     "This way!" Tina called as she straightened up and began to run.
Making a sharp right turn past the maintenance shed, she dashed up a
gravel path that led deeper into the wooded section of the zoo.
Somewhere back where they had come, she could hear men shouting as they
got tangled up in the narrow gate.  She couldn't be sure but it didn't
sound to her like they were speaking Japanese.
     "Why is there never anyone around when you need them," she
grumbled.  If there were more people around, they might be safe in the
crowd.  But this part of the zoo never saw more than a random workman or
occasional zookeepers.  Today, it was completely deserted.  That meant
her only hope lay in finding a particular place she knew well.
     At the end of the gravel path, they came upon a small
fiberglass-formed building that looked a lot like an oversized outhouse.
Ignoring the strange man's dubious expression, she yanked open its door.
Inside, there was what appeared to be a submarine hatch set in the
concrete floor.  With the man's help, she got it open and the two
scrambled down the ladder.  Slamming shut the hatch, she inserted the
locking pin and dropped to the floor below.
     "That should keep  em," she said with a grin.
     Instead of grinning back, the man only looked at his surroundings
with obvious misgivings.  She had to admit that it probably didn't look
like much of a refuge.  More like a concrete cylinder on its side, the
small room was barely five feet from floor to rounded ceiling and a
little over ten feet long.  A thin layer of dust coated the floor and
the atmosphere reeked of chlorine.  A string of  low-wattage light bulbs
illuminated the area and continued down a tunnel beyond.   One corner
closer to the hatch looked like someone had made a nest of blankets and
old magazines.  "What is this place?" he asked.
     "It's the service junction for the utility tunnels that run under
most of the zoo.  We pump water for the exhibits through those pipes on
the ceiling and electrical power through the conduits along the wall."
Tina grinned like she was giving a tour.  "Pretty smart, huh?"
     "Whatever," the man said as he leaned against the tunnel wall.
     There he went being a jerk again.  Why couldn't she bump into some
nice guy who treated her like a lady?  "I sometimes come down here to
get out of work," she added.
     The man sagged further against the wall and drew a deep breath.  In
the dim light, she could tell he wasn't much older than her self.
Despite the rumpled suit and wounded arm, he didn't look all that bad.
     She froze when the sight of his bloody sleeve reminded her of his
wound.  "Oh, that's right, you're hurt," she gasped.  Tearing herself
from the sight of blood dripping down his hand, she turned towards a
particular corner of the room.  "We've got a first aide kit somewhere
around here."  Rummaging through a pile of old magazines and discarded
candy bar wrappers, she finally dug out a metal box with a red cross on
its lid.  It looked like a leftover from the last war.
     Helping him out of his jacket, she examined his arm.  "Don't look
so bad."  The bullet had barely pierced the skin of his left bicep,
leaving a dark bleeding hole on both sides.
     The man's free hand suddenly shot up in warning.  Unsure of what he
had heard, she held her breath and listened.  With a squeak and clank,
someone tried to open the hatch overhead.  There was silence for a
moment before the dogging wheel jerked a couple of times but the locking
pin held, giving the impression the hatch was not going to be opened
from the outside.  Another pause before muffled voices and the receding
sound of running feet signaled the all clear.
     Tina sighed in relief and cast a weak smile at her fellow escapee.
He didn't return the smile.  Instead, he was staring at the tunnel
leading out of their hiding place.       Undaunted by his apparent
inattention, she continued to bandage his arm.  "You're an American,
right?  I can tell by your Japanese.  You sound like one of those
American guys they always put on TV.  Anyway, we don't see many
Americans around here," she noted.  "People don't come to Japan to go to
a zoo.  Usually, we only get local school kids and old people.  Maybe a
few families, as well."
     "Do you always talk so much?" he asked in a low, even voice without
looking her way.
     "What?" she gasped, stopping her first aid to offer him her most
serious glare.
     "If you have to talk, why don't you tell me your name?"
     Her mouth dropped open.  She couldn't believe how rude he was.
Here she was trying to bandage his arm AFTER she found him a hiding
place and the creep rewards her with an interrogation.
     "You have a name, don't you?" he demanded, this time, looking
directly at her.
     "Foster, Tina Foster," she growled.  There was a strong urge to
yank the ends of his bandage hard enough to strangle him.
     "Well, Foster Tina Foster, I gather you work here."
     "I'm a zoo keeper third class," she replied with a sharp edge to
her voice.  "What's your name?"  She resisted the urge to add  creep' or
something worse to her question.
     The man sighed and rubbed his forehead.  He glanced at her for just
a second before making a futile gesture with his free hand.  "Steven
Hunter."
     "Fine.  Now that we know each other, perhaps you can tell me why
those fellas are chasing you?"
     "I can't tell you," he replied slowly after a deep breath.
     "Oh, come on.  I saved your life.  I'm an American, too.  You can
tell me," she said with a mock flirtatious expression.  When he didn't
respond she tried something else.  "Can you at least tell me why you're
in Japan, MISTER Hunter?"
     "I'm an  an agent for the government," he said.
     "Which government?"
     "OUR government."
     She eyed him suspiciously.  Of all the 'come on' lines she had
heard over the years, this was the
lamest.  "Sure you are.  You got any proof?"
     "Inside coat pocket," he replied, sagging back against the wall
until his back molded itself with its curved surface.  He appeared to be
studying the ceiling.  She hoped he wasn't one of those claustrophobic
types.
     She reached into his coat pocket and found a tiny leather case.
Pulling cards from it, she read each one.  "Let's see.  You got a
library card from the Library of Congress - I don't hang out in
libraries much; a Blockbuster card - expired; a coupon good for one free
full body wash at Soap Land - ewwww;  and a student ID for the
University of Texas.  You really take a lousy picture," she said holding
the ID up to the light.  "What else?"  She pulled out a few more cards.
"You've got a Neiman-Marcus card?  WOW!  I've always wanted one of
those."
     "Look in the front of the case," he said, snatching the credit card
from her fingers.
     She pulled out another card.  "A Montana driver's license.  Who's
Jeffrey Lawrence?"
     "A cover name," he said tiredly.
     "And the picture, it doesn't even look like you."
     "It's a disguise."
     "I mean, what's the point of a photo ID if it doesn't look like
you?"  She turned the card over and back.  "You also forgot to sign the
organ donor authorization."
     "I was in a hurry," he growled, snatching the license and grabbing
at the case.  Triggering a tiny switch, a hidden compartment opened.
Pulling out a plastic card he looked at Tina.  "There," he snapped,
holding it up for her to see.
     "You're a SPY?" she gasped.  Now THIS was exciting.  It also
explained why he was being chased.
     He dashed her hopes with a single word.  "No."
     "But you said --"
     "I SAID I am an agent for the government.  I'm not a spy," he
insisted.
     "That's not what your ID card says," she countered.
     "Yes, it does.  It says right there," he growled, pointing to the
title 'Agent Steven Hunter'.  "I'm an AGENT."
     She skeptically eyed him for a moment.  "What kind of agent?"
     He sighed heavily.  "I eavesdrop on people."
     "That doesn't sound very exciting."
     "Until today, it wasn't."
     "I mean, why would they give you a gun and all, if you're just
listening in on someone's phone call?  What kind of government
organization does that?"
     "A secret one."
     "Oh yeah, I saw that on TV once.  Spies have really neat
headquarters full of cool gadgets and stuff," she gushed, hoping he was
really more than he pretended.
     "You watch too much television," he replied with a sad shake of his
head.  "It's not like that at all."
     "Oh come on, I'll bet it's really cool," she said like she really
cared, even if she didn't.
     "It's a dump."
     She paused to consider his answer.  "Do you mean a dump like 'Get
Smart' or a dump like 'James Bond'?" she asked incredulously.
     "Look, my boss can pass for Wilford Brimley, we work out of the
basement of an old building in Washington, and I can feel myself
bleeding again.  Can we PLEASE get out of here?"
     Tina shrugged.  "If that's what you want.  Where to?"
     "Where does this tunnel go?" he asked, looking towards the tunnel.
     "Oh, pretty much anywhere you want.  It twists and turns and splits
off at several locations.  I've used it lots of times to sneak out
early."
     "Is there an exit where those guys who were chasing me won't find
us?"
     Tina frowned at the string of lights leading off into distance.
"Maybe.  It depends on how well those fellas up there know the zoo."
     Steve shook his head.  "I doubt they know it any better than I do
and I've never been here before."
     "You never told me who those guys are," she said.
     "Miss Foster, you've already done more than you should. I think,
for now, it's better you not know.  Let's just say they are very bad
people."
     "Fine," Tina said with a huff.  Standing up and wiping her hands on
her khaki shorts, she regarded him with an irritated expression.  "Can
you, at least, tell me who is under that pile of poop?"
     Steve groaned as he got to his feet.  "My last partner."
     "Oh.  Do all your partners end up under piles of poop?" she asked,
pushing past him.
     "So far," he replied in a monotone as he retrieved his jacket.
     "Boy, that stinks," she said, ducking to enter the tunnel.
     "You'll get used to it... partner."
     Tina banged her head on the tunnel ceiling.  Holding it with both
hands, she spun around to glare at Steve.  "I'm NOT your partner."
     "They think you are," Steve replied, pointing to the hatch.
     "What?" she gasped.  She wasn't even involved in  in whatever it is
he was doing.  She wasn't a spy or agent or whatever he really was.  She
didn't even have one of those nifty ID cards.
     "Now that they've seen you helping me, they're probably convinced
you and I work together."  He slung his jacket over his wounded arm,
hiding it from view.  "Like it or not, you're now involved."
     Tina groaned.  "What have I gotten myself into now?"