Samurai Chapter 1 (Keep Posted For More)

Chapter 1:

Starbright. The flashiest restaurant in Northern California. In which, sitting at one of the many glass topped tables in the ornate marble hall, was what looked like your average business man. A common misconception. The man’s name was in fact, Ashley Kirk, Ash. And he was the head of the youth division of CIA agents. Although, on the outside he looked quite ordinary, he had dressed carefully. He was wearing an expensive hand tailored suit and a Wallace and Gromit tie and he had a brief case beside his chair on which he kept a cautious hand at all times. Yet concealed in his blazer lining was a V8 6mm pistol with 5 shots. He also had strapped to his wrist, a watch which sent a continual signal to the CIA by which they could locate him if trouble arose. Ash was never one to take security lightly, and the files he had in the briefcase needed to be kept safe at all costs.
“Can I get you anything?” A waitress had approached him wearing an immaculately clean uniform.
“Water” replied the Ash opening the briefcase and laying an official looking file on the table.
“Anything else?” the waitress asked making a note of his order. He waved his hand dismissively. In truth, he was waiting for someone, she was late and Ash did not like lateness from the members of the youth division. He glanced around the hall taking in his surroundings, he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why Greg, head of special operations had arranged for this vital meeting to take place in a restaurant, and this restaurant of all places. In his opinion a less public place would have been more agreeable, or at least somewhere where the girl he was meeting wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb; he highly doubted that she would have dressed for the occasion. At that moment however the door to the restaurant opened and in walked a teenage girl looking very out of place in jeans and a leather jacket. Ash sighed; she was worse than he had imagined. A waiter at the door motioned to take her jacket but she glared at him causing him to draw back his hand, looking at her suspiciously. In her jacket she like Ash had security methods, although she wasn’t allowed a gun she had knife tucked into the lining of the jacket, which had the waiter taken it would have been revealed. He must have pushed aside all suspicion and asked her where she wanted to sit because she replied in a loud carrying voice.
“Actually, I’m meeting someone, he’s over there” she indicated Ash; he inclined his head and gestured her over.
“Your late” he stated.
“Yes, there was a lot of traffic out and the taxi driver kept asking me if I was sure I had the right restaurant” she said grinning and sitting in the chair opposite Ash without invitation.
“Yes, it is a bit much I agree, but the boss was adamant.” said Ash unsmiling, he very rarely smiled.
“So, what’s the news?” She asked glancing at the file.
“We need new agents” Ash stated opening the file that lay on the table. “After those… unfortunate accidents with James Stanley, Richard Bleakhorn and Jessica WiIlmott we need three replacements, and they’ve got to be good, Samurai are on the move again.” He finished, a grim expression crossing his normally composed features. Had anyone at the other tables been listening in on this conversation they wouldn’t have understood what Samurai meant, however the girl sitting across from Ash showed no sign of incomprehension instead a flash of annoyance crossed her face.
“And how do you propose to find new agents?” She queried “The CIA member’s kids are all already employed, well, except little Sarah of course, but she’s two” she raised her eyebrows.
“Yes, I can see where you are coming from, however we’ve already thought this through, we will hold a martial arts national competition in August, the final three left standing in the specified competition will become our new agents.” Ash said looking at the file “In fact it’s all arranged, the competition date is set for the 10th of August in New York and we already have 120 competitors, who will have to in turn fight our other youth agents and win to proceed in the competition.”
“What about intelligence testing?” she stated with the air that she felt his plan was pathetic, not to mention full of complications.
“That will be tested after they win; they will attend our agent training school” said Ash “Any questions?”
“Yes actually, so say we found three winners, we told them all about the CIA and they didn’t want to join up, or worse they were undercover members of the Samurai, it would look rich telling them all our secrets only to have them blab them to the rest of the world, yeah real smooth!” she said glowering at Ash.
“Calm, Liz, calm I swear you need to get anger management classes, look we weren’t about to tell them everything straight away. They will go to our training school, get brought in slowly, most 16 year old kids dream of being secret agents anyway, then we will tell them what will be expected of them, if they don’t like it well we will have to dispose of them…”
“Why would they choose to come to our training school? And what about their parents? They won’t be too happy if their child just disappears!” quizzed Liz seemingly unconcerned for the life of the winner if they refused the CIA’s requests.
“They will attend because we will make sure they are excluded from their last school if they refuse to come and the only school that will offer them a place will be ours, I expect most of them will cooperate without complaint” he said allowing himself a brief smug smile. “Once they have graduated then we will tell them and their parents the whole story, they’ll have no reason to suspect anything before that point. They will then sign the secrecy act; if they prove to be difficult then well you know what happened to your parents.” Liz’s smile faltered, Ash seeing that he’d upset her pressed swiftly on “So what do you say, you in? We wanted to have you as the final opponent as you are the best youth agent we have ever had. “Ash said glancing at Liz’s expression, hoping this would have softened her.
“Yeah alright” she said glancing up and forcing a smile “I’m in, but if this all goes wrong it’s your fault not mine, "ok” she said holding out her hand.
“Deal” replied Ash shaking it pleased to see that that awkward moment appeared to have passed. He returned the file to the briefcase “Shall we leave?” he asked gesturing towards the door.
Ash and Liz stood and left deep in whispered conversation about the upcoming event, a CIA security guard met them before they had gone more than 4 steps, he too was armed.
Across the hallway a man dressed similarly to Ash in a suit and tie stood up a couple of seconds after Ash and Liz and followed at a distance. He had a tattoo of a samurai sword just visible beneath his hairline on the back of his neck.