"No, sir. Fortunately, my appearance has changed enough since then."
Sousuke remembered the days before his most-recent growth spurt, when his hair was long and wild, his skin dark from sun and grime.
"Okay, now the bomb makes more sense," decided Kalinin. "Don't let your guard down, Sagara."
"Roger. Urzu Seven out." Quickly dismantling his antenna, Sousuke rose to leave.
"Don't move," commanded a man with a slight accent, cocking his gun to emphasize the directive.
"What was that about?" inquired Tessa as she walked with Kalinin toward the operations meeting room.
"You mean Gauron," he stated.
"Yes. Do you know him?" She stopped just in front of the door to the meeting room, waiting for Kalinin to answer.
After a moment, he spoke somberly. "'Gauron' means 'nine dragons' in Chinese. The dangerous terrorist we call Gauron is said to have nine nationalities. To date, he is responsible for at least thirty assassinations and two aircraft explosions, but he still is completely unknown to most Western anti-terrorist organizations."
At that point, Tessa recalled that Kalinin used to belong to a Soviet Special Forces group.
"Several years ago, Sergeant Sagara and I confronted Gauron. We were hiding from the KGB, allied with some Islamic Afghani guerillas."
It was not new information to Tessa that Andrei Kalinin got caught up in a huge KGB and Soviet military conspiracy—he still was considered a deserter.
"The KGB hired Gauron to find us. One day, while I was out, Gauron attacked the guerilla village with two Arm Slaves, nearly wiping it out."
Now,
The AS was the mightiest present-day land-war weapon. Unlike tanks, they could go just about anywhere—jungles or mountaintops, it made no difference. In the face of this weapon, a human being was as powerless as an ant.
"Many died, including innocent women and children. If I had been there, though, it wouldn't have happened."
Understanding the heaviness of the situation, Tessa just nodded.
"And so I vowed retribution. Two weeks later, I got my chance. Gauron followed us to the mountains of Pakistan. We ambushed him, using me as bait and Sousuke as sniper. There were complications, but Sousuke brought him down,"
"Apparently only temporarily, though."
"So it seems."
Although she understood that Gauron was a brutal man, she still had a hard time swallowing the idea that anyone would kill several hundred people just to cover up a kidnapping. She certainly never would have thought of it if Sousuke hadn't warned them. She imagined Gauron sneering at everyone's optimistic hope that the hostages would return home safely.
"Well," Tessa surmised with an uncharacteristically cold smile, "I guess we'll have to make this Gauron character pay dearly for his actions, then."
"Yes, ma'am."
Although Tessa normally was a very gentle person, she ultimately lived in the same world as Kalinin and Sousuke—even the same world as Gauron.
She had to. After all, she controlled the Tuatha de Danaan, the most precise and powerful killing machine ever created by human hands. She had the power to kill millions of people if she ever had the need.
"We'll arrange the details later, Lieutenant Commander. First, let's commence with the operation meeting."
They opened the door and entered the dim room, where all six department heads already were waiting for them.
"Turn around. Slowly."
Sousuke did as he was told, noting that the officer holding him at gunpoint was nearly six and a half feet tall, and he was quite burly on top of that.
"You're one of the high school students from the plane, right? I'm surprised you managed to get all the way over here without getting shot."
Keeping a safe distance, Sousuke relaxed a little. This officer was alone, and no one else was in sight.
"Who the hell were you talking to?" bellowed the ape.
"If you must know, I was in contact with—"
Sousuke interrupted himself, winging the transmitter at the man's face. It caught the man off guard; he barely managed to twist away, deflecting the transmitter at the last minute.
That split-second was all Sousuke needed to close the distance between them: He kicked the man's gun right out of his hand. It flew tantalizingly through the air before crashing to the ground.
"Wha—"
As if this were part of his daily routine, the huge ogre immediately heaved a wild punch at Sousuke's face. Although Sousuke blocked it, the punch had enough force to knock him backward.
As Sousuke took a single step backward, the man already had a roundhouse kick flying toward the sergeant's head.
Sousuke barely dodged the kick, but the giant's attacks just kept coming.
