Caldera

Chapter 1: Tate

The call rang in at 2:17 in the morning. Tate Genovese had been tossing in a restless half-sleep when she noticed her cell phone blink. She usually let calls at this time go straight to voice mail. On a lark this time, she decided to check not a minute later.

A masculine voice left a contact number along with a message about a possible job. No other particulars, not even a name. Cautious to a tee. Tate hit the redial icon and was greeted by one Drummond Erskine, who said he'd been referred to them by Fiona Sharpe. Her eyes narrowed. She hadn't heard that name mentioned in a good, long while.

"I'm afraid we have no idea who you're talking about."

"I'm afraid you do, Ms. Genovese." A chuckle. "Or should I refer to you as 'Prima'? That's what she called you. Maybe I misheard. But she spoke highly of you and Mr. Tetsuhara for your work in Project Persephone."

Tate said nothing in reply. At any moment, she should have ended the call sooner, but Drummond cut straight to the point.

"I have a job offer. Exfil. Reward is six million."

"The mark?" she asked, still not betraying anything.

"Meet me at the manga bookstore in J-Town today, 1 p.m. More details then."

Tate donned a newsboy cap, shades and her favorite gray coat, which she wore whenever she headed out, on cool spring mornings such as these. After a short walk from the Visconti, she took the Metro. For most of their gigs, she and her partner Shane usually met their clients in the most low-key way possible. No office. No fanfare. Just a referral and an informal meeting. It was a way for them to make sure the referral was authentic. There was no need to impress anyone, which was part of the charm of their business. They wanted to keep it that way.

That, or they simply wanted to continue their typical abundance of caution long after they'd quit working for the Company. Call it healthy paranoia. Even while running errands, they would vary times and routines, leaving nothing to chance. They been out of the business for over a year now -- but in this business, there was no predicting when your past would surprise you with a punch to the face.

When they started freelancing, they'd taken some odd jobs, mostly gigs involving security or information brokerage, both of the questionable variety. Sometimes, they'd do small-time investigative work. Mostly along the lines of corporate espionage, missing persons searches or snoop jobs on unfaithful spouses. "Helping-granny-cross-the-street jobs," as Shane liked to call them. On the side of dimly-optimistic, they figured that someday they would land that big score that would provide more options on the horizon.

Realistically, Tate and Shane knew that the odds of anything like that popping up would be astronomical. If it did, it would be a bomb with so many tripwires, all of LAPD's bomb squads wouldn't be able to defuse it in twenty-four hours.

Tate took this inquiry from Drummond with a grain of salt, just as she'd done with so many others.

There were only one of two possibilities, but she didn't think the Entertainment Hobby Shop Jungle would have been a good choice for a discreet rendezvous, unless he had a thing for chibi action figures. At Kinokuniya, there were a lot more books, less people, and plenty of space. He wasn't hard to find at all. When she got there, she saw a paunchy, middle-aged man wearing a Dodgers cap and a matching blue windbreaker, browsing in the Japanese comics section.

She approached him from a safe distance. "Drummond?"

The man peered up from his book. Volume 4 of Naoki Urasawa's Monster, an interesting choice. "There's a café just three doors down from Daikokuya. Meet me there in five."