Secret Recipe

The loud rattle of old metal surrounded Keala Kiu as she bounced around the back of a jeep, clutching her set of Shun damascus knives to her chest. Her long black hair cascaded over her olive-coloured hands as they crossed her chest and hugged the canvas. She and three others were crammed in the back of what must have been a twenty year-old dune rider with bench seats, riding parallel to two similar vehicles, likely with similarly uncomfortable passengers.

It was a pretty jarring difference from the first class accommodations she’d enjoyed less than four hours ago, but not exactly unexpected. She was one of the most sought after chefs in the world at the time, and with that came employment from people with a desire for privacy. She knew going into this job that she wouldn’t know where she’d be cooking until the day she of the event. She had, however, expected something less remote. An expectation born out of the high-rise hotel her employer had paid for to put her up until now. It was one of the finest hotels in Sydney, Australia, overlooking the famous Opera House. Keala had never been to Australia, though she was a child of the pacific, being from Hawaii. O’ahu specifically. Sydney made a wonderful first impression with her, though. The city was sleek and modern, but the people were kind and welcoming, by and large.

But the force with which she was jarred loose from her seat and lurched against her safety belt threatened to undo that impression of the country. How does anyone call this a car? Are they even on a road at this point? She looked forward through the windshield, squinting into the light of the headlamps that pierced the evening dark and saw more bumps ahead. She was suddenly very conscious that she wasn’t the only one holding a roll of sharp knives.

She had been about to shout at the driver in protest, when a thickly-accented German voice beat her to it. “Gott im himmel, man! How much longer are we to endure this unsinn?!” It was the protestation of a brown-haired young man sitting diagonally across from Keala. He wore a chef’s white unfastened, meaning that she’d probably be spending the day with him.

“It’s just up ahead,” the driver responded in a heavy Australian accent.

Keala smiled only inwardly. She had always had a bit of an attraction to accents she wasn’t familiar with, so that much she could already enjoy. “Thank heavens for…” her statement ended abruptly, as another violent bounce slammed her against the seat, dislodging her hold on her knife set. It tumbled from her arms and slid across the floor and landed between the German man and the guy next to him. He had a tan tone to his skin, and wore only a white t-shirt and slacks.

“I’m so sorry,” she blurted out, embarrassed inside her head at the previous concern that someone else would lose their knives.

The German chef picked them up, and smiled as he held them out for her. “No problem. That is why we keep them in a roll, I think.”

She took them with a nervous laugh.

“I am Felix, from Stuttgart.”

The vehicle finally seemed to find more solid ground, and she straightened herself in the seat. “I’m Keala, from the U.S..” She shook his hand, then looked at the man across from her in the white tee. “And you?”

He blinked, then sat forward. “Oh, sorry. Tired. Not my name, just...I’m Lubanzi. South Africa,” he stumbled across his words as one does in the middle of the night without coffee.

She smiled and gave a slight nod, before turning to the red-haired girl sitting beside her. “How about you?”

The vehicle lurched one last time as the driver applied the brakes. “We’re here,” he declared, interrupting the answer from the young girl next to Keala.

“Now,” he said, turning to the back so as to address them all, “you’re out in the bush, the real woop-woop. You’ll not find a Maccas out in these parts, so do yourself a favour, and stay in the building. You get a critter bite, and you’re right well screwed. So don’t be a drongo and at the end of the day, you’ll be sitting a higher pile of cash, fair dinkum.”

Everyone of them just blinked in reply.

The driver sighed, and turned to open his door.

“Are… are we…” Lubanzi stammered, “supposed to get out too?”

Keala shrugged. “I mean, I think so?”

The red-haired girl next to her leaned forward. “Do you think he speaks English?” she asked with a mild Russian accent. Everyone shared a laugh, and they filed out of the jeep, gratefully stepping onto terra firma.

******

The morning passed slowly, with the chefs and cooks settling in and beginning preparations for a menu they’d been given the prior day. Keala was the head chef, and as such entrusted with the special dish for the bankroller of whatever soiree this banquet was the feature of. It was a ten ounce Olive Wagyu steak with a black truffle compound butter, and easily the most expensive entrée Keala had ever made. It would be a challenge, were the kitchen not stocked with every conceivable ingredient and implement she could ask for. With a day’s worth of planning and a fully stocked kitchen, she anticipated this would be her most successful meal. At least, until about an hour after sunrise.

“No no no!” she replied to the attendant who had just delivered some very bad news. “It’s not at all the same thing! Wagyu is basically half fat, and this is basically no fat! Not to mention that I’ve never cooked it before! You can’t be serious!”

The attendants demeanor was implacable. She was a pale woman, as if she came from a country with no sun. By contrast, her stark black hair was pulled back into an intense bun. It had the affect of making her look almost robotic in nature, and she spoke with a cadence just the same. “Ma’am, it is not a negotiable request. Mister Kinan’s diet has changed, and this is what he will be having this afternoon. He is the one paying you, and not an insubstantial amount, may I remind you. You are said to be very versatile in your talent. I’m sure you can manage this.”

Keala looked down at the kangaroo meat she’d just been presented. She sighed, inwardly and aloud. “Of course,” she said after a moment. “It’ll be the best dish he’s ever had.” She spoke with a forced confidence, hoping her attempt to regain composure was convincing.

The attendant only nodded slightly before turning heal and leaving the kitchen.

Keala pounded her fist on the counter as soon as she was out of earshot. This was a problem. The meal was entirely planned around the entrée, of course. Every ingredient depended on that, especially the secret ingredient.

Felix walked up next to her. “I overheard. To change to main course hours before serving is undenkbar,” he said in a conciliatory tone.

She looked up at him as if he’d broken her from a trance induced by the kangaroo steak. “I mean, she’s right. I should be able to come up with something. But this,” she gestured to the meat in front of her,” could it be any further from Olive Wagyu?!”

“Honestly?” Felix replied. “Überhaupt nicht.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him.

He laughed. “They are sun and moon.”

Keala nodded firmly, then reached behind her back to untie her apron. “Please put this in the walk-in for me. I’m going to get some fresh air and brainstorm this kapakahi.”

Felix nodded. “I’m here if you need to talk through it,” he said before taking the meat as requested.

Keala made her way through the busy kitchen, not making eye contact with the other staff as she made a beeline for the exit.

Once outside, she continued across the well-kept grounds around the building, and into the rough vegetation beyond. She turned and scanned the area for anyone who might be lingering in earshot. Satisfied that she was by her lonesome, she pulled out what looked like a thick cell phone. It was, in fact, a satellite phone. After punching in a long sequence of numbers, it connected without ringing to an operator.

******

Three days ago, Keala had sat at a café on the beach at Waikiki. She enjoyed the ocean breeze as much as her cappuccino, but the wait for her contact less so than either. Even after working for them for four years, it amazed her how consistently an agency like the CIA was late for appointments they had set. Of course, she always suspected they were already there, and this was some sort of conditioning method. As though the longer she waited, the better it made her at slipping engineered poisons into dishes for the wealthy and influential.

As if sensing her growing impatience, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and obnoxiously touristy clothing approached her table. “Thanks for waiting, sis!” he said enthusiastically.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re the only one that still does that, Dan,” she said before taking a sip.

He scoffed. “It’s called professionalism.”

“It’s called you watch too much James Bond,” she chided.

He handed her what looked like a brochure from one of the tourist kiosks. “You’ve seen Daniel Craig, right? There’s no such thing as too much of that man.”

She chuckled as she opened the pamphlet. Dan was as close to a friend as one could get from a CIA employee on the job. He was jovial, but still professional, and whenever she saw him as her point of contact, it brightened her outlook considerably.

Looking over the pamphlet, she nodded slightly after a few minutes reading.

“It looks like E138 would work for this,” she said in a slight hush.

Dan typed into his smartphone. “How much do you think?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, the steaks are usually 8-12 ounces, so if you give me two doses it would cover anything in that range.”

He continued typing. “Okay, but be conservative. The more you use, the more likely it is to show up in a toxicology screen.”

She lowered the brochure and eyed him sarcastically.

“Yeah yeah, you know what you’re doing.”

A smug smile spread across her face. “Are we using Sydney as local contact?”

Dan retrieved a box from his back pocket. It resembled a jewelry box with a bow and felt fabric covering the outside. “He won’t stay in the city. There are a few properties in the area that are potential sites. This will let us see where you are, and let you tell us if anything goes askew.”

She pulled the bow loose, and flipped it open as if it was a gift from an admirer. It was, instead, the satellite phone. Keala’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m on my own?”

Dan shook his head. “Not at all. We can’t be just outside, but we’re positioning people near all of the potential sites. You call me when anything changes, and we’ll have a tissue under your nose before you can sneeze.”

******

“Keala,” Dan’s voice finally greeted her after the brief hold. “What’s going on there?”

“Somebody’s on a diet,” she said sarcastically. “E138 needs fat to bind to the meat. But they just handed me a cut that’s got 2% fat, and 2% won’t be enough to give him a tummy ache.”

There was a moment of silence, then an exhale from Dan’s side. “Hell, Keala, I thought something was wrong.”

“Did you hear me?” she said in a hushed growl. “Look, I hate to let you down, but there’s zero chance this will work in a low-fat meal.”

“Okay,” he said, “give us a few seconds to come up with something.”

She shifted nervously on her feet. She had never had to contact anyone in the middle of an operation, and she felt incredibly exposed. She wasn’t, of course, and she tried to tell herself that. But it still felt dangerously out of her hands.

“Did they give you any dietary restrictions? Like, is this guy allergic to something you might have in the kitchen?” Dan asked after a minute or so.

“Seriously? You want me to kill a rich client by giving him an allergic reaction? I don’t know if you realize this, but between being a high profile chef and working for you lot, one pays way better than the other!” She was practically shouting without realizing it.

“Look, Keala,” Dan said in a harder-than-typical tone, “we’re not going to force you to do anything, but I’m going to level with you. What this guy is fixing to do will kill hundreds- maybe thousands- of people in a region that’s already facing an incredible number of hardships. Now, I believe you are a good person, and a talented chef. I need you to figure this out.”

She was silent for a moment, contemplating what he said. “Wha…” she started, but the thought broke on the way out of her mouth. She rubbed her head in frustration. “Damn it, Dan, you said you would have people here! Just do something else! I’ve got literally nothing!”

“That...may have been an...exaggeration of sorts…” Dan stammered.

“You lying ASS!” she shouted. She looked up, worried that she was so loud someone might have noticed, but the grounds were still quiet.

“Take it easy! You’re not alone, but we didn’t know about this facility. So there may be, or may not be, more or less...just one person there. He’ll do what he can, but…” he trailed off, knowing there was essentially zero reassurance to be found in what he was offering.

She groaned into the phone. “This is unreal...If I can do this, you owe me SO much more than we agreed on!”

“Good luck, Keala,” he said before hanging up.

She shoved the phone back into her butt pocket, shaking her head. She was so frustrated, she looked around for something to punch or kick, but found only a rock.

Needing any sort of outlet for her vexation, she picked it up and threw it full speed into the thicket in front of her. It made a strange thudding sound as it hit something other than earth, and a breath later there was a thrashing in the shrub it landed in. She took a step towards it, only to feel a hand on her shoulder.

“Whoa there, Sheila!” said the driver of the jeep from that morning. “I told ya, the critters of the bush’ll leave you crook if you’re not wary!”

She nodded. “You did, but I think I hurt something. I wasn’t trying to…”

He turned to the roiling shrubs. “Well let’s see what you walloped.” He pulled a long knife from a sheath in the back of his belt and moved aside the branches. “Crikey!” He exclaimed. He thrust the knife forward, and pulled it back with a long, amber-coloured snake impaled on its end. “That’s hardly a mozzie you nailed, love!”

Long was a bit of an understatement. It had been a bit tangled when the driver first brought it out, but it was beginning to go slack, and it just kept coming. Keala was not happy about killing anything, but snakes were a frequent danger to people in Australia, and she tried to look at her removing even one as a positive.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked her, placing his free hand under a segment about halfway down. He held it up for her to inspect.

“Is it a venomous one?” she asked.

“You got yourself a true blue nightmare of the bush, here! Dandarabilla!”

She cocked her head.

“That’s a taipan! Single most venomous bastard in the bush! One bite’ll devo a hundred blokes!”

“Oh!” she said with dawning realization. “A taipan!”

His shoulders slumped. “Is that seriously all you got out of that?” He grabbed the snakes face and looked into it’s eyes. “Do you think she speaks English?”

He pulled the knife out of the area just beneath the head, then laid the snake across his knee. Placing the knife under it just beneath the back of the jaw, he cut it straight up. “These buggers make for a fine belt. And here,” he added, wrapping the head with a leather string and tossing it to Keala, “you should make it a trophy. Not many a Sheila can say she’s slain ol’ Dandarabilla! Careful, though. The venom is still live.”

She looked down at the head in disgust. “Gee, thanks,” she replied.

He chuckled before heading back to the compound. “Stay out the bush, ya drongo!” he called behind him.

“Wow,” she said just above a whisper. “I think I’ll buy a lottery ticket later.”

******

The meal didn’t go quite as anyone expected. E138 would have taken nearly two days to make Mister Kinan ill, but the new special ingredient took less than forty-five minutes. Somehow, a syringe made it’s way to the wine bar and next to the corker, which took all eyes away from the food and put the suspicion firmly away from Keala. She figured Dan earned a few points of redemption for that one, even if it was vicariously.

She was remiss that she had to find a new recipient for the Olive Wagyu; such a fine meal must not go to waste. Who better to enjoy it than the only person on earth who knew she’d come into contact with the most venomous snake Australia had to offer? After all, she had more than one secret ingredient to share...