GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Chapter Twenty

“I think he’s going to be just fine,” the doctor said, wiping his glasses on his shirt. “The sword didn’t cut into any of his internal organs, although I’m not sure how. Whoever stabbed him must have been a surgeon to make such a precise cut.”

Hawk let out a long sigh and slumped into a chair outside the medical bay, rubbing his eyes wearily. It was four o’clock in the morning, and he had been up all night so far. The other members of the Joe team had already been called in, and both Duke and Gung-Ho were there with him as well. Inside one of the recovery rooms, Stalker was lying on a bed, a bandage wrapped around his torso. He was out of harm’s way, but he was still unconscious.

“Will there be any long-term damage?” Duke asked, looking in at Stalker.

The doctor, a middle-aged black man wearing a beige shirt and pants, shook his head and returned his glasses to his face. “No, I don’t believe so. He’ll be in some pain for awhile, of course, until he heals. But other than that, he should be okay.”

“How did this happen, Hawk?” Gung-Ho asked. “How in the hell did somebody break into the Pit? I thought this place was supposed to be a secret.”

“I wish I knew,” Hawk said exasperatedly. “I don’t understand how he found us. He must have been waiting outside that elevator for who knows how long. He was just waiting for someone to leave. It could have been any one of us to get attacked.”

“And why did he leave Stalker alive? I mean, he could have killed him, right?”

“He certainly wanted to kill me,” Hawk said. “I’m sure of that.”

Gung-Ho grunted and crossed his arms. “This don’t make any sense.”

“We have to assume that ninja worked for Cobra,” Duke said. “And he followed us here from New York. This doesn’t really change our plans at all, though. If anything it only makes it more urgent for us to act now. We have to get the team together and go back to New York as soon as we can.”

“Yes, of course,” Hawk said. “Why don’t you go and let everyone know? I need a few minutes to rest.”

Duke patted him on the shoulder. “Maybe you should try to catch a couple hours of sleep. I’ll take care of things.”

As Duke and Gung-Ho walked away, Hawk sighed again and said to the doctor, “Thank you, Carl. And thanks for coming so quickly. I really appreciate it.”

The doctor, an Army medic named Carl Greer, smiled and said, “It’s no problem, Clay. You know I’m always available to help.”

“We could use a full-time medical officer on the Joe team, if you’re interested.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

Duke and Gung-Ho headed back to the main section of the Pit, where Short Fuse, Clutch, and Shipwreck were standing around, inspecting the damage left by the explosion. Rubble and debris were scattered all over the floor, and everything was covered in a layer of dust. Most of the equipment near the explosion was completely wrecked, and repairing the damage would take weeks. Breaker was already at work at one of the computers that remained undamaged and was busily trying to access the security footage, but so far they had no clear images of the intruder..

“Clutch,” Duke said, “Do we have any scanning equipment for detecting radio devices or anything like that?”

“I don’t know, but I can go check,” Clutch said quickly, eager to be doing something constructive.

“If we have one, scan all of our equipment that we took to New York. Scan the vehicles and see of there’s any kind of tracking devices. I think that’s how that guy found us.”

“Alright, I’ll get right to it,” Clutch said, and he was off in a flash.

“What about us?” Shipwreck asked. “We’re still investigating that company, right? Should we be getting ready?”

“Yes, we’re leaving soon,” Duke said. “But we still have work to do here. Shipwreck, can you help out Breaker for now? You have security experience, right?”

“Sure do.”

“See if you can figure out how he snuck inside without getting picked up on our cameras. Maybe we have to rethink our security protocols. Let’s see if we can stop this from happening again.”

“You got it,” Shipwreck said, and went over to help Breaker.

Duke turned to Short Fuse. “Is Heavy Duty still in the armory?”

“Yes,” Short Fuse said. “Want me to help him?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“What are we packing? Do you expect any resistance when we get there?”

“Let’s not take any chances. Get standard weapons, M-16s, the usual. If you want to pack some heavy artillery, I leave that up to you.”

“You got it,” Short Fuse said as he walked away. Then, he looked over his shoulder and added sarcastically, “Duke.”

Gung-Ho chuckled as Short Fuse walked away, and he and Duke continued to the side offices. “You’re getting better at giving orders,” he remarked. “Maybe you’ll become a good commander after all.”

“I don’t know about that,” Duke said. “When Short Fuse starts to treat me with respect, I know something is wrong.”

Scarlett and Snake Eyes were in Hawk’s office. Scarlett examined the desk chair that the ninja had sliced a chunk from, shaking her head in disbelief. She ran her finger along the slice mark. “If Hawk hadn’t seen him coming, he would have been killed. I don’t understand why he only wounded Stalker, when he clearly wanted to kill Hawk.”

“We’re wondering that too,” Duke said. He said to Snake Eyes, “Stalker is doing okay, the doctor said he’ll recover just fine. He’s not awake yet, but you can go see him if you want.”

Snake Eyes immediately got up to leave the room. Before he left, Duke said, “Listen, you saved Hawk’s life tonight. He’s not going to forget about that. Don’t blame yourself for letting the intruder get away, you did the best you could.”

Snake Eyes paused a moment and nodded to show he understood, but Duke could tell by his posture that he was punishing himself for it anyway. Normally, Snake Eyes moved with confidence and a sense of stealth, like a tiger approaching a meal. But as he walked away from the office, his head was drooped and his shoulders were slumped, and he just clomped across the floor carelessly. Was he upset about letting the intruder get away, or just that the intruder had defeated him at all?

“Are we leaving soon?” Scarlett asked.

“Yes, as soon as we can,” Duke said. “Hawk needs to get some rest first, so I’m going to arrange transport and get our contacts with the NYPD ready. I have to make some phone calls right now,” he said, sounding annoyed about it. He took a seat at Hawk’s desk and picked up the phone.

“Is there anything for me to do?” Scarlett asked.

“Why don’t you go talk to your partner?” Gung-Ho suggested. “You seem to get along with him better than the rest of us, except for Stalker, of course. He needs to be at a hundred percent when we get to New York, so he can’t be all depressed like he is now.”

“No, I think we should let him deal with it by himself,” Duke said. “I get the feeling that Snake Eyes wants to be left alone. Now that he knows Stalker is going to be okay, he should get back to normal by the time we leave.”

“Yeah,” Scarlett said. “I tried to talk to him earlier and he kind of brushed me off. I don’t think he wants to talk about it.”

“Actually, there is something you can do,” Duke said, “We haven’t found that ninja’s sword yet. Hawk said that he dropped it during the fight, so its probably under a table or something. Can you find it? Be careful with it, maybe we can get fingerprints or something.”

“Somehow I don’t think a ninja would be careless enough to leave fingerprints on a potential murder weapon,” Gung-Ho said.

“Well, we can always hope,” Duke said.

Scarlett left the office and walked around, looking for the sword. As she walked past the computers, Breaker said, “Finally, we got him.”

“I can’t believe he snuck past all the cameras like that,” Shipwreck said, looking over Breaker’s shoulder.

Scarlett came over and looked at the computer screen. It showed the view from a camera out by the fences on the perimeter, facing the two main buildings on the surface. It was almost pitch black outside on the screen, but large floodlights illuminated the paved area in between the buildings, and Scarlett caught a flash of a white-clothed man sneaking along the perimeter of the camera’s view. He just appeared at the corner of one of the buildings and slipped through the shadows.

“If he was wearing black, I’d probably have missed him,” Breaker admitted. “Let me fast-forward to when he leaves.”

The screen sped up for a minute and then returned to normal. For a second or two there was nothing on the screen, and then a flash of white zipped out of one of the side doors. He ran across the yard to one of the fences and leaped over it in one smooth motion, disappearing outside the fence.

“Man, that guy is good. This is the only camera we caught his image on. We’re going to have to beef up our security. I’m thinking motion sensors upstairs.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Shipwreck said.

Scarlett left them to debate security improvements, and looked around for the sword. She found a sword lying on the floor across from the other line of computer consoles, but it was Snake Eyes’ sword, not the ninja’s. He must have just left it there and not bothered to get it after the fight. Scarlett set the sword gently on one of the tables and kept looking.

She walked over to the conference area on the other side of the computer section and finally found the ninja’s sword on the floor against the wall. She carefully picked it up and set it on the table as well. The long blade was still smeared with Stalker’s blood, and Scarlett shivered to herself at the sight of it.

With the two swords side-by-side, she noticed that they were actually very similar. Of course, most katana swords look the same, but Scarlett could see more similarities than usual. The way the handles were wrapped, the style of the sword guard, even the design on the handle was the same. Scarlett peered down at the sword collar, the band of metal directly underneath the guard that fastened around the handle, and noticed an etching on both swords.

It was five parallel lines etched in red, all the same length, but the second and fourth lines were separated in the middle to form two smaller lines. Scarlett ran her finger along the lines and compared the two swords. They both bore the exact same etching.

It was a special mark of some kind, like a symbol for a school or maybe the symbol of the sword maker. It might have been the sign for a family as well.

Scarlett walked down to the medical bay to ask Snake Eyes about it. It certainly was a strange coincidence that both of their swords bad the exact same marking, but she didn’t think much of it. It was probably just the maker’s symbol, and since there were so few manufacturers of high quality katana blades, it wasn’t impossible for both Snake Eyes and the other ninja to have the same kind.

When she reached the medical bay, she saw Snake Eyes kneeling over Stalker’s bed, and Stalker talking to him. Neither of them noticed Scarlett as she came to his room, and as she opened the door, she heard the tail end of what he was saying.

“... don’t know why, but he’s not the person we used to know ...” Stalker said quietly as Scarlett came in.

“Hey! You’re awake,” she said, coming over to the bed. She put a hand on his arm and gave him a friendly squeeze. “I’d give you a hug, but I’m afraid to hurt you.”

Stalker smiled weakly. “Yeah, I’m still a bit tender.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’m sure Snake Eyes gave you the update already, but everyone else is fine.”

“Yeah,” Stalker said. “Hawk was here a minute ago talking to me. He told me what happened. Seems that things might have gone differently if Snake Eyes hadn’t been here.”

“Definitely,” Scarlett agreed, looking over at Snake Eyes.

“We’re still doing the raid on that company though, aren’t we?” Stalker asked.

“Well, we are,” Scarlett said. “But I don’t think you’re coming with us. Sorry, but we’ll have to leave you behind this time.”

“I understand,” Stalker chuckled, and then winced a bit. “I’d probably just slow you down.”

Just then, there was an announcement over the intercom system. It was Duke’s voice. “Everyone please report to the briefing table. We have our mission ready, and we’ll be leaving here in under an hour.”

“I guess that means us,” Scarlett said. “You’re not going to be here all by yourself, are you?”

“No, Doctor Greer is staying with me,” Stalker said. “And Hawk said we’re getting some new security personnel to keep an eye on things while the rest of you are gone.”

“Alright then, we’d better go,” she said to Snake Eyes.

As they reported back to the command center, Scarlett got caught up in the details of the mission and totally forgot to ask Snake Eyes about the swords.

<--Previous Chapter|Next Chapter-->