He lied for pleasure. And he was good at it. He was also arrogant about it. He couldn’t help it. He was so much smarter than anyone else. Thing were just easy for him but it was more than a game. It was power he had. Those he was leaving were so stupid he easily manipulate them. He had thought the EU would have given him a challenge but they were a disappointment. He had easily manipulated their political structures just as he had done everywhere else. He had wanted a challenge but they were biting at the bit and eating out of his hands like dogs.
Harris was a leopard mix. He was small for a leopard and most expected upon meeting him to be bigger, but being short in stature-wise he made up in smarts.
He pulled at the necktie and loosened it a bit. The stupid uniform he wore was too tight for his liking but it worked to fool the fools. Yes, he liked to lie and no one was wise to his agenda. It had always been this way too. It was too easy because the world was full of stupid f--- up people. Harris closed his eyes and leaned back into the conformable leather seat of the private C-20 jet as it sped it way east across the darkness below him that was the Mediterranean Sea.
He was the only passenger aboard the posh jet but it wasn’t so comforting at that minute. The ride was rough and bucking so he was tightly strapped in. He had hoped the ride would have been mild, but the weather was beyond his control. What he could control, he did. He padded his right hand on his personal suitcase to make sure it was still tucked safely away at his side.
He was disgusted by the morons around him.
"You know what I HATE!?” He thought to himself as he kept his eyes closed. “STUPID PEOPLE! Why are so many people so stupid!? And do you know what else I hate!? Stupid people who mispronounce words! I should kill them all! Every last F---ing, one of them!”
His annoyance grew as he heard the cabin door open and someone move back in an obvious attempt to converse with him again. He fainted like he was asleep until the last second and then opened his eyes looking up, expecting to see some condescending RAF sergeant hovering over him. To his surprise there was no one there, and then more to his surprise he saw that it was a RAF staff Sergeant, but he was a she.
She had perched herself on the armrest of the seat across from him. She was an attractive redhead partial-looks cat with liquid blue sapphire eyes, her hair pulled back into a ponytail that framed her face and flawless makeup. She had a slender muscular build with long legs and a tiger-striped tail of silky smooth fir. Her tail swung playfully on her seat as if she were stroking a crystal ball. She was barefooted too and had replaced the usual RAF uniform jacket with a small dark blue apron. Her perfect breasts swayed with the motion of the jet aircraft, threatening to break free of the little buttons on her shirt. She obviously had been chosen as a hostess for VIP flights because of the sum total of all her assets. The package was completed with her custom tailored uniform and hair most likely done professionally at a pricy salon, all courtesy of the RAF.
“Hello there. You’re not the officer I was expecting to come and try to bully me. I guess they thought beauty would be a more effective approach then, yes.”
She smiled back with her perfect white teeth. There was no sense of concern on her face that he expected to see. This made him very suspicious. He would teach her!
“How are things back here, Colonel?” she asked. The accent was uniquely regional to South America. It added to the package of charm.
“Rough.”
“Well, we will be in New Babylonia within a few hours. The pilot is going to take us up higher and bend a little to the south to pick our way through this storm.” She waggled her foot up and down with the rhythm of her swaying tail.
“No shoes?”
“I’m from the rice fields, sir. Didn’t even have shoes until I joined the Air Force where the government makes me wear them.” She laughed.
Harris raised an eyebrow of disbelief as the jet shook under a new serious of turbulent blast.
“OK, I am lying, Colonel. I like to kick them off when I’m flying. Easier on the feet and I can walk around better when there is turbulence. Can you imagine trying to walk around in heels during a storm like this?”
“Well then, I guess none of your passengers will complain about seeing you out of uniform tonight.” He smirked flirtatiously back at her. “You know what would be just perfect is if you would mix up a cocktail and put on Brahms ‘German Requiem’ or better yet, Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor and then remove anything else that you might feel restrictive. That is what I am in the mood for.”
She arose and smiled with her white, white teeth. “I am sure we have Mozart. I will put that on and bring you your drink.” The sound of her soft Hispanic enunciation purred through him. Music that Harris had memorized note for note began to flood through the cabin and he felt himself get excited. The redhead returned and kneeled down low beside him with two cocktails and a button undone on her blouse. “I’ll lock the door and turn down the lights while you drink up.”
With her back turned he deftly switched the glasses and drank from the one that she had placed furthest away from him. He was sure his glass was tainted with something; moreover he couldn’t be too careful. The cocktail tasted good. The redhead beauty, this plane, the music, the bribes, all of it was just the RAF’s last feeble attempt to get him to talk. Their problem was he could care less about their captive general. He was a hostage now and would be beheaded in two weeks. There was nothing they could do about it and Harris wasn’t going to help them one bit. It was all about showing who had power. And he had won it. Those @#%* EU officials didn’t have the balls to move into Asia without more info and beside that, the country was in one hell of a mess right now with the red-shirts, yellow-shirts, and Imperials fighting daily. No, the general was a dead man and there was no way of getting him back without Harris’ help. He smirked to himself. They had done all they could to keep him London, but he was too smart and too important for them to trick or trap. And so the irony now was that those who wanted to have his head were the ones paying for this very expensive first class ride back to his homeland. So they wanted to try one more time by sending in a bombshell. Well, he was going to have his way with this tasty looking cat. That would teach them what it meant to try to screw him. He planned to enjoy himself. And humble her too! The @#*-ing bitch; who did she think she was play with!
He unbuckled his seatbelt, then slipped off his pants and took the belt and rolled it around his fist, leaving the sharp brass buckle dangling free.
The redhead RAF staff Sergeant returned with her blouse now hanging open, her breast dancing behind the white bra. Harris stood to meet her and swung his fist. He was sure he struck like lightening. The buckle flashed by her head. He saw himself make contact and imagined seeing red blood flying from her skull. But strangely, that was the last thing he remembered.
He awoke in his seat with a wicked hangover just as the jet plane landed. He still had his senses about him and he looked to where his briefcase rested. He could see that the internal alarm hadn’t tripped. He stood after the forces of landing subsided and looked around as the jet taxied down the tarmac in the hot Persian sun. He noticed he had an empty bottle of Vodka in his hand. His body had a ting of soreness in all the right places and there were some crazy exotic images still floating around in his head. As he looked around he saw what looked like blood spatters on the walls in the opulent cabin and the once confident redhead was cowering in the back looking rather battered and bruised. He looked at the Vodka bottle in his hands again. He must have drunken himself under after he had finished with her. Sad really, it must have been quiet enjoyable, beating and raping her. But all he could remember was the spray of red.
The C-20 came to a stop and Harris quickly rearranged his uniform, smoothing it into place and grabbed his briefcase and moved to the door of the cabin. It was still locked. Opening it, he moved out into the little vestibule of the jet were there was a little kitchenette and the plane’s exit. The jet was coming to a stop and he heard the engines dying down. Not wanting to wait which may have caused some unneeded questions, he opened the exit. He felt nothing whatsoever for the sergeant he had raped. It was her fault anyway. But he didn’t currently want to deal with the pilot or the co-pilot. He was “scot free” back here in the Salam Parsa Empire and the EU could touch him. The vestibule flashed with light from the bright hot Persian sun. He was temporarily blinded but his eyes adjusted quick enough to see the landing ramp moving up to the plane. It wasn’t totally in place but it was close enough for him so he jumped and scurried down into the new morning, the past forgotten as he began to hum the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40.
Inside, Utah and Rick watched the Colonel walk swiftly across the cement tarmac from their pilots’ seat until he came to the building and entered into the opulent New Babylonia airport. Maria squeezed in behind wiping off the makeup she had used to look as if she were bruised. She did up her white blouse and sat on Rick’s armrest. What Harris had thought was blood had only been her hair. He had missed her totally and had fallen, pitching face first to the floor of the cabin under the influence of the drugs she had put in both glasses. You couldn’t be too careful.
“You think he fell for it?” Maria asked as she looked out the window.
“It looks like it.” Utah said as he looked back at her. “Remind me Maria to never fall in love with you.”
She smiled back and kicked him softly with her still bare foot. “It is just a part of the job. You guys get the message to Barett and Tsai Lee before we landed?”
“We go it sent, but there is no way to confirm that they got it.” Rick said, “They are on their own now.”
11 comments:
Rain, rain, and more rain! It had been raining heavily all day. In fact, it had been like this for over a week now; six plus days of almost constantly rain. The air was heavy and overly humid. He could feel its pressure laying on him as if someone had thrown a moldy damp sheet over his body. But the torrential flood of rain had finally eased around eight O’clock in the evening. The sound of the downpour had been replaced by the hollow echo sounds of the metropolis in the full grips of night. The subdued noise seemed unnatural and it haunted his ears. Barett Coontail looked out of the opened window, down into the park. He was on the 20th floor of the building. It was an excellent position to be in for a sniper. He could see the lights of the teahouses in the park. They were reflected and muted by all the dankness, but they showed him exactly where the ceremony was being hidden in the darkness. The waiting game was coming to an end.
Both he and Tsai Lee had been on the island of Tsing Yi for the past two weeks. The island was to the northwest of Hong Kong Island and south of Tsuen Wan in the northern part of Victoria Harbor. The Island wasn’t very big, but that hadn’t stopped the people from overcrowding it and living in every conceivable and inconceivable spot imaginable. Talk about stacked like sardines! Buildings covered almost every inch of the harbors and flats and only stopped when the terrain abruptly turned vertical into a mountain that towered over the city. The island naturally divided into quarters around the mountain; the northeast was the residential area, the southeast was the major container port, the southwest housed the heavy industrial business while the northwest had the dockyards that sat under the shadow of the colossal Tsing-Ma Bridge. The bridge stretched out to the west and was the seventh-longest suspension bridge in the world.
Barett watched from his perch as another round of low clouds flowed off the harbor and dumped more rain on the already drenched city. The ever-so-familiar static thudding drowned out all other sounds again and his world shifted with the motion blur of the rain. He was starting to have doubts if the plan was going to work.
He was in a small room. One would never have guessed such a small room could be in such a large and expensive looking building. But the apartment he had taken up residence in for the past week was nothing of the sort. It was a one room apartment with a kitchenette off to one side. There was a shower room in which a man could just about stand. That was it. The toilet was communal and down the hallway. Inside the little living space contained a television on a stand with an old VCR machine, a small desk, and a tread bare futon which was laid out on the floor. The only luxury item that the place had had was a noisy air-conditioning that at one time had stuck out through the single window. This Barett had removed and hung in its place a black sheet to help keep the rain out but more importantly hide him from outside prying eyes.
His sat at the open window, waiting. It was almost time; the cremation, he knew, would start soon; rain or no rain. He looked again through his scope. What had looked like hazy specters in the rain to the naked eye, he could clearly make out were people arriving with their servants carrying black umbrellas. The bosses were taking their seats in one of the three open style Chinese teahouses while the servants scrambled to the back in an attempting to stay out of the night rain as best as they could. Barett was using a ‘Nightforce NXS telescopic scope’ and a ‘MILSPEC AN/PVS-14D Night Vision Monocular’ mounted on a CheyTac M-200 rifle. It was probably the highest quality setup a sniper could have. To say he liked the gun and his LRRS (Long Range Rifle System) was an understatement. The thing was just out-of-this-world “sexy”. The rounds of course were hard to come by but they were lighter and easier to hide than a 50 not to mention that the .408 round flew longer and straighter than greased lightning. The LRRS was a tool at the end of the day, yes, but in comparison it was possibly the most accurate bolt action heavy sniper rifle he had ever fired. Simply put, it was even better than most of the women he had been with. That was how much he liked it. It got the job done in one silky smooth and silent kill shot and it never ‘bitched’ afterwards.
Barett swung the scope to the center court yard. He could make out the funeral pyre with the body of their dead leader rapped in white under a makeshift tent just beyond the front gate. The center area of the court yard was open to the elements and he had wondered if they would cancel the “entertainment”. But it looked like everything was a go. Here was where Tsai Lee would dance. If it were anyone else, Barett may have worried about their ability to get out of there alive after the fireworks started. But Tsai Lee wasn’t like anyone else. She was lethal.
And she was going to walk into the middle of a Chinese viper pit.
Their aims were as different as hitting a mountain somewhere and not caring much as to any particular location so long as the hit was felt to the need to surgically removing a single cancerous cell from a body.
Guang Li’s aim was broad and complex. He wanted to dish out humiliation and disgrace to the whole of the Heilong (the Black Dragons) Triad. Even though he knew of Tsai Lee, he was too smooth to waste energy thinking about her. She was just one person in comparison to all of Hong Kong. And that was what he was playing for. Nevertheless, she was an opportunity to be used.
Tsai Lee’s purpose on the other hand was much simpler. She was going to kill Guang Li.
The gathering had started an hour before sundown. The secret banquet hall was the definition of Asian opulence. Gold and black colored silk was draped down in copious amounts along the outer walls from the 80 foot ceiling. A troop of women, whose body shapes were so perfect and skin so flawless that it could only be reached by means of the surgeon’s knife, were dancing in the middle of the room to complex, sensual rhythms. Their sheer silk outfits and trailing veils fluttered and danced about their figures as if the girls were dancing with ethereal partners.
The room was filled with men in black suits, black dress shirts, and white ties. Some wore black sun classes while others tried to stand out all together by wearing white suit and black ties. Everyone sat organized by a strict social hierarchy. The bosses sat up on the dais at the head table, smoking their thick phallic-like $1000 apiece cigars, eyeing each other warily. Hair styles of the gathered men were slick, greasy, and black, all looking expensive and superficial but at the same time terribly lacking in any fashion sense. These men were either above or behind the rest of the city in what they took for fashion. It didn’t really matter to them. They did what they wanted to do and they defined their own vision of ‘cool’.
Throughout the room hands that had a single yet very substantial ring of gold that spoke of gratuitous waste were raised conspicuously to reach for classes of Bourbon, Bollinger, Vodka, or Martinis. One would not think that this assembly was to mourn the death of a leader; far from it. The truth was that even before their dear leaders bodied had started to turn rigid, the jostling had begun. Everyone was here to make a move to stake a claim of power or acquire a new position; everyone, one that was, except for Tsai Lee.
Tsai Lee had arrived with her brother who had quickly abandoned her but she didn’t care. He was useless. He was higher in the social order but her being allowed to this meeting said something. She was the only women in attendance other than the dancers who were there for show only. Tsai Lee wasn’t important enough for a place of honor so she took a sat at a back table and watched as events unfolded.
As she scanned the room she saw the bald head of Guang Li turn and look at her. He was as handsome as ever. She stared back unruffled by his glare. He smiled a callus and offensively self-satisfied manner smirk at her and turned to his neighbor to whisper what she assumed was a snide remark. The man next to him, whom she had never seen before, turned his head at looked at her too. The pair then laughed at whatever was their inner jock. She could care less what they thought or said as long as the ball started rolling.
Guang Li belonged to the Tian Di Hui Triad. Tsai Lee was known as the late boss’s daughter of the Heilong or Black Dragons. Both of these societies ran under the ruling authority of Hong Kong’s Society of Heaven and Earth Triad. But Tian Di Hui was moving in on the Black Dragons and Guang Li was at the center of it.
Guang Li was a pig, both literal and figuratively. He was a soiled dog that ate his own vomit as far as she was concerned. Here was a man, an empty shell really, nothing more than a good looking exterior with nothing but ugliness and total completely for a soul. He was ambitious and tonight it looked as if things were paying off for him. He was being made a 438, a deputy mountain master in the Tian Di Hui society. Tsai Lee had known him for a long time. He had once even attempted to force a match between him and her. But that was old history. Tonight he was to become second in command in his gang, a position just under the main mountain master. It was a post in which Guang Li had obviously wormed his way up into. It spoke to her how bad things had become. And tonight, she was betting, he would do whatever it took to belittle the Black Dragons.
He was the one Tsai Lee suspected, had set up her father which lead to his kidnapping, tortured and then beheading in the city of Nanning. Nanning was in chaos along with the whole country of Gaungxi. With Gaungxi’s close proximity to Hong Kong, Europe was growing concerned about the security of this sector of the world. Ironically, Hong Kong had once again happily been taken under the wings of England as a wealthy territory of the EU and had flourished while the whole of old China had falling into bedlam and fragmented states.
The main concern now was that the remained Gaungxi. Tsai Lee and Barett had been sent from London to the land of her nativity. Upon arriving, they had found things were worse than they had expected. Hong Kong was still strong but things were imploding all around them.
Tsai Lee’s mind returned to the situation at has as the music of the room came to an end and the dancers left. Tsai Lee watched as the man sitting next to Guang Li wrote something quickly on his napkin and passed it up to the main table to a skinny boss with bleached blond hair and a black leather suite coat. The boss turned to his neighbor and in a voice loud enough for anyone listening to hear, “Mr. Lim. I have just been informed that the sword dance of the daughter of your late boss is absolutely wonderful. Could I see her dance?”
Mr. Lim was the new boss of the Black Dragons. He looked worried. But he blew off the request with a laugh. “It is a groundless rumor; you wouldn’t want to see her dance.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” The blond boss replied with a sideways smile at Tsai Lee. “No matter how things may look, we need respect for each other, yes?”
Mr. Lim did not respond. He looked like he was going to faint.
The blond boss stood to address everyone in the room. The room quieted down instantly. He smoothly bowed to the ancient man who was the main boss of Society of Heaven and Earth, then turned and in a booming voice called out. “For the sake of unity and our fallen comrade, I propose that we see the daughter of the late Black Dragons perform her sword dance tonight at the ceremony of rights. What do you all think?”
There was thunderous applause from the Tian Di Hui men. The members of the black dragon looked less thrilled. This was meant to further erode the strength of their group and would be seen as a humiliation for them to have one of their members performs for the Tian Di Hui ceremony.
But odd as it may sound, this was exactly what Tsai Lee wanted. She looked at her brother. He was too stupid to know what to do or what was going on. She looked up at Mr. Lim. His face was a stone. He was good, she thought. She had talked to him about her plan and he was playing the Tian Di Hui for all they were worth. Things were working out perfectly. It was good to see there was strength still in the Black Dragons.
Mr. Lim nodded his head in agreement and the blond boss laughed out loud in a rancorous roar of triumph.
All of this had happened earlier in the night. So here she was, standing just out of the soaking rain, dressed in her traditional Yoonjakyung clothing ready to perform the prostitute sword dance. She was under a small easement just outside of the oriental gateway that led into the inner courtyard of the tea houses. It was now sometime after two in the morning. There were five large men standing guard over her, common soldiers to be sure but that made them dangerous. There were itching for a fight and flashed their frustration at her with their ugly faces all painted up red and black and dripping wet from the rain. Guard duty sucked tonight. The rain made everyone irritable. These guys were all over 6 feet tall and easily top the scales over 300 pounds. She could tell that they each carried a gun and a long bolo knifes. They glared at her in their misery while the important members of Tian Di Hui had assembled inside tea houses court, going through the initiations and rights that all Triad groups used at times of death and promotion.
Tsai Lee knew Barett was watching. She knew what type of devastation he could rain down upon this group just like the rain was doing now. A sniper had the amazing ability of one person completely demoralizing any group. She was counting on this to work to her advantage.
Inside the tea house courtyard were three building in a U shape with an open area in the middle. Four life size marble statues stood at corner of this area, each a representation of one of the four great beauties of China. According to legend, the Four Great Beauties were the most beautiful women of ancient China. These ladies gained their reputation from the influence they exercised over kings and emperors and consequently, the way their actions impacted Chinese history. The Four Great Beauties brought kingdoms to their knees, and the lives of all four ended in tragic or mysterious circumstances. These statues were Tsai Lee’s key to Barett. He didn’t know who Guang Li was. But the plan was simple to tell him. As Tsai Lee started her dance, she would position herself so that her left hand sword would point to one of the four statues in succession. The North West statue was one, the North East was two, South East was three, and the one standing at the South West point would be number four. All Barett had to do was count from the left until he came to his target. Then he was free to take out whoever he pleased. But Tsai Lee needed to get to his body and search him. Guang Li would have the computer disk they needed somewhere on his body.
It seemed as if hours passed. Smoke from the wet fire, animal sacrifice, and incensed stunk up the area. The night was hot and humid and the ceremony went on and on. She could hear them chanting the thirty-six traditional Triad oaths to the Taoist god of brotherhood. But after the crematory pyre of the Tian Di Hui old boss began to die down, a triad member came back and motioned for the guards to bring Tsai Lee in. It was time to go to work.
As she entered the open court yard she scanned the crowd, looking for Guang Li the pig. There were about twenty men with their servants but the pig wasn’t there! Where was he? He would not have missed the opportunity to humility the Black Dragons for all the silver in Hong Kong. Yet she couldn’t find him.
Had he known? That was impossible.
A guard shoved her and she stepped out from behind the embers of the funeral pyre and into the center of the courtyard. The leaders of Tian Di Hui sneered and cat called to her. Rain continued to pour down and drench her. It would slow her movements she knew.
Where was Guang Li? She couldn’t find him.
What does she do?
What does Barett do?
Tsai Lee takes a deep breath, and moves in to the center of the courtyard to start the dance. Before her and Barett had seperated she had told him if she crossed the swords above her head at the end, the target was not there to be taken....and like the trained sniper he was, they would wait and plan for another time. She was hoping that the sounds of the music and the cat calls from the crowd would draw him out and she could mark the target for Barett....but for now she was going to play this out, backing out now would only make them suspicious of her....she knew that barett would wait for her signal either way....the only reason that he would fire was if she was in eminent danger, if she crossed the swords, other wise he would wait and meet up with her later at the bridge train station.
Barett slowed his breathing and focused. He in essence became one with the gun. The lines, the hardness of the tempered alloyed steel, the exactness in form and function became an extension of his mind. But no signal was given. There was no target.
Barett waited in the darkness of his little room. He trained his sights on Tsai Lee, waiting.
Time seemed to stop but the rain still fell.
He watched as Tsai Lee stood still in the center of the court, the swords tucked like ghosts under her arms. Rain drenched her clothing which seemed to cling to her sides like glue. She hadn’t marked anyone. Barett let out a deep, long, controlled breath as he watched.
Still nothing as Tsai lee began her dance of the blades.
The dance was nothing Barett had ever seen before and in short, it was mesmerizing. No wonder she insisted he call her “kwanjan-nim” in Korean when she trained him, he thought as he watched her through the scope of the gun. He had thought she was being a bit presumptuous to use such a title but now he was thinking it wasn’t good enough. She was unbelievably good!
The sword dance, Barett had been told, was meant to communicate images of deadly beauty or hallucinations of glorious battles to the watchers. That is why, even though it was strictly forbidden to bring a weapon into their presents, ancient emperors had gambled their lives to see the dance. Every single move she made was exact and fluid. Everything was in control and tight but concurrently she moved as if she were made of rubber, elastic and flexible. This really added to the concept of a hallucination. She transitioned in speed and form, the blades snaking out and cutting the rain as if fell around her. She moved from one hallucination to another of strength and beautiful lines of control as she swung the double blades.
At some points she was barely moved her body, only effortlessly shifting her center of balance and gravity. Being a natural fighter along with the bonus of being trained in martial arts, Barett knew what she was doing was hard to accomplish. The only way you could do it was to activate only parts of your muscles to control the smooth transfer and the radical changes of directions she was making. It was hard to do because g-forces were ripping your body the wrong way. Tsai Lee made it look natural and controlled. It took a serious knowledge of one's own anatomy in order to move so smoothly and in sync to the point where it looked like a harmonious, graceful flow. The dance seemed so crude, yet so beautiful at the same time. Her moves and techniques with the blades were fierce and impressive. Tsai Lee truly was a grandmaster of the swords and Barett had the distinct thought that he was glad they were now on the same side.
He was almost lost in hypnosis of her dance when she crossed her swords. He perceived the sudden change to the dance as if she had stopped and then continued with the dance.
Awareness that she was in danger knocked him back into a fully conscious state of a sniper. The signal "All Clear" had been given at the wrong time. That could only mean something was wrong.
His trained eye searched the group. For what he could see, no one was moving to make a threat. He scanned the area again.
Through the top of the scope, he saw Tsai Lee come to a final spin and sink of her dance. She stayed low, her chest folded down to her legs, her wet hair draping down over her knees. Then her left hand, sword still in hand pointed to the gate to the tea house courtyard.
Barett’s focus was there before she had finished.
Nothing!
But then he saw a shadow move in his green night-vision enhanced field. He followed it to its source. Five men were grouped together hiding or waiting. They seemed to be holding guns.
Barett had two clear shots. The other three would be tricky, if not impossible. That was until they moved a bit more into the open.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tsai Lee sensed an ambush half way through her performance. She deduced that this was where Guang Li was, waiting for her beyond the courtyard and the gate. She was thinking that he wouldn’t stir up any problems during the ceremony or inside the tea house courtyard. He may be a brainless pig, but she guessed he still had some sense of principle and tradition. However violence was his world and outside the traditional Triad rituals was where she guessed he would strike.
She gave Barett the sign.
She wasn’t sure if it was Guang Li or not but she knew something was afoot. She hoped it was him. She and Barett had followed the information which pointed to him. He had a data disk that should shed some light onto the problems in Nanning. He had his dirty hand into too many things and this meant he was the one mouse dropping that ruined the whole pot of rice. He was planning on doing something tonight. His absents told her that.
The rest of the Tian Di Hui men were probably in on this too. She watched their faces as she spun. There they sat like cowards hiding from the rain. They were dangerous as a group but individually they seemed weak.
As she finished her dance the men clapped, jeered, whopped, and cat-called. They threw offensive insults that no women should ever have to hear.
Tsai Lee had pointed the direction she thought men were hiding to Barett but then she thought that she may have overestimated the rest of the group's sense of culture and respect. They appeared to not even possess this. The Tian Di Hui seemed to be made up of thugs, “máng liú” or jobless peasants, common simpletons, and thieves. But then she saw that one man in the group knew of culture.
The mountain master was different from his men. He was staring intelligently at her in awe. He was an old panda bear, fat like a Buddha but he had eyes of a lion. She saw that he too had attempted to mock her and the black dragons’ triad but her performance appeared to have scared him. Mock as his underlings may, she had at least taught him a lesson. He knew she was a force not to be taken lightly.
Maybe he was someone she could work with?
But that was for later.
Someone on her left began to thrown what looked like a knife at her. She had her two very sharp swords in her hand and was ready. The blade was not expertly thrown and she easily deflected it with her right sword. But when the others saw this, they took it as a challenge and within a blink of the eye, long knives and razor sharp bolos jump into hands.
Eighteen to twenty men advanced out of the shelter into the dark raining night.
What does Barett and Tsai Lee do?
Barett placed the crosshairs on the first and most likely target, right below the throat. Barett had watched Guang Li the Pig for the last few hours, from the profile Tsai Lee had given of him and the pictures, he was not hard to pick out. But now in the dark it was a quess, the shadows and rain obscuring the figures. But placed next to the large guards Barett could sense the difference. The glint off his large pinky ring giving him the final clue.
Slowly he pulled the trigger back, straight and clean waiting for the last of his breath to escape, waiting for that brief second when his body was completely still, then bringing the trigger back the last few millimeters for a clean smooth motion. The solid position on the floor, his body sprawled out, the bi-pod resting solidly on the window frame, all made the recoil and noise seem distance and muted. Smoothly jacking the next round in and releasing his breath again he places the crosshairs on the chest of the next target at the gate and pulls the trigger, two more rounds go this way, smooth and clean, the smell of cordite smoke filling his nostrils. The silencer seeming to intensify the effects of the burnt powder.
The fifth round was for the transformer on a powerpole just beyond the Teahouse. From his post Barett had recorded all the possible ranges of targets, from the front gate to the parking area, and paths in the park, to the powerpole. They were on his Snipers card, range and wind all calculated out. Dialing in his scope and adjusting for the rain and winds effect on the velocity and spin of the round.
Holding the crosshairs on the glass isolators collected on top of the box, Barett pulls the trigger. Sparks fly from the pole, as wires and metal arch againest each other, popping and snapping. Darkening the surrounding area.
Replacing the magazine with a fresh one, Barett settles back down and Randomly takes five more shots at clean targets using the night scope technology, giving cover fire for Tsai Lee.
Knowing that ten shots from any location was a risk he quickly pulls the gun back after the last shot, pushing the AC unit back in its place. Slapping on some rubber gloves, he wipes down the area, gathering all the spent shells up as he moves to the door in the dark. Having spent the last few days preparing for his retreat. He is wearing a suit bought off the rack from a retail store, just like all the locals favored. A black overcoat around his shoulders, and local umbrella and hat strapped to his bag. Breaking down his gun and wrapping it in his and Tsai Lee's spare clothes to hid its outline in the bag. He heads out the door, moving down the hall towards the stairs, to the backdoor of the Building. Hoping to work his way over to the train station, to meet up with Tsai Lee. He could only hope she had as much luck as he did, to bad that these shots would never be officially recorded, they were some of his best.
Placing the small bluetooth device in his ear, and turning on the disposable cell phone he waits for the call from Tsai Lee, as he climbs quietly down the stairs.
Tsai Lee saw the trouble coming before the first blade was thrown. She had perhaps twenty seconds of light before Barrett would take out the transformer. She paced herself as the group moved to swallow her, blades pulled. She knocked down five more thrown daggers before the first man reached her, poised for combat. She engaged him with a smile, easily slicing away his thumb, causing him to drop his weapon. She turned instantly blocking the blow from behind when the lights went out. She sprinted from the courtyard, taking all advantage of the chaos. All she could think of was getting to Guang Li and hoping he was dead, or at the least injured and unable to leave the area. She almost hoped for the latter. She would enjoy running her blades over his self-absorbed piggy throat.
A shaddow jumped in front of her, she easily disembowled him. Her eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness. She tried to keep to the shadows. To die without that disk would shame everything she had worked for in her life and killing a few of the bastards that had gotten their jolly's off her dance would make the quest even more fulfilling.
She reached the gate, the sounds of cussing and insults rang behind her as the search party rallied to find her. She saw three bodies down and a forth slithered behind her. She turned before he could grab a hold of her, sinking her blades into his stomach.
"Hello, my lovely." Guang Li choked. Blood bubbled from his mouth, a bullet wound high in his shoulder.
"You will finally get what you wanted, Guaung Li. Tsai Lee will finally make her way into your pants."
The pig sank to the ground, his life force catching a slight breeze and drifting into the darkness.
Her yellow eyes held his baby blues until his life was gone. He had tried to say something but the only thing that came from his mouth was blood that mixed with the pouring rain. Gaung Li had claimed that he was untouchable by both the policy and any rival. It was ironic really as Tsai Lee looked at the sword sticking out of his belly. He had believed his own words to his demise. He had thought he was beyond her reach and had been left exposed as it appeared he intended to punish her for coming after him.
“No one is immortal.” she whispered the ancient Chinese words to no one now but the rain. It was her creed. It kept her alive because it reminded her that she always needed to be on guard. No one was immortal.
Noise from the tea house reminded her that she had to move quickly. She searched him in the darkness while her sword remained planted into the ground through his gut. What she was looking for was fairly easy to find. He had wrapped it in his loin cloth. It was a lacquered wooded box with inlay mother of pearl. The pattern was a white burning dragon surrounded by a circle. She recognized the symbol instantly. It was a warning that what was inside was property of the Albino.
This was an interesting twist. But it was something she would have to think about later. She shook the box and heard something knock around inside of it. It was the right shape and size to hold a disk, but she was out of time. People were moving in on her. Taking the box and shoving it into the folds of her belt, Tsai Lee jumped up to the sound of someone approaching directly over her. It was one of the guards. He was as big as a sumo wrestler and moved just as fast. He was three feet away and had his gun leveled to her forehead.
What does she do?
Ducking to her left she summersaulted along the ground, coming up into a sprint and charging the guard. He had fired at her, she was sure, but didn't take the time to think about it. She held the remaining sword in a striking position, the sharp blade slicing through his skin like a pad of butter. The large man sank to the ground, Tsai Lee jumping on top of his great bulk to sink the blade home through his kidneys. A group of footsteps slapped the pavement heading towards her. Without a glance, she took off at a sprint out of the Tea House gate and onto the streets of Hong Kong, soaked to the bone and completely unarmed.
Tsing King road was quiet for that time of night. There were still a few cars passing, but running out through the open roadway would make her a sure target for the substantial amount of weapons wanting for her flesh. She took a left, diving into some bushes for cover. Her hands ached for a weapon. She waited for the main group to reach the street and then stealthily snuck back through the gates to were the guard and pig were sprawled in death, her sword prostrate in their bellies. She made it to the guard and wedged her foot against his side. She had to wiggle the blade back and forth before it started to give.
"What the fu..?" came from behind her. Using all of her strength, she pulled for the the blade. She charged the suprised man in a suit. He began to lift his sword, but her blade had already made his way across his throat. He dropped his sword and grabbed at his neck as if he could stop the flow of blood. She ignored his antics and rescued the other sword from the gut of Guang Li. She then went back to the newly dead man's body and searched his pockets. Her wishful thinking paid off as she pulled a set of car keys from his right pant pocket. Tucking them securely into her belt by the box.
Taking a deep breath and realigning her thoughts she decided to take out as many as she could at this point. There were maybe twelve of them left or so. She walked down the pathway, her head held high, swords in hand. A man jumped at her from the side with a sword, he died with not much of a sound. A second turned to see her shadowed hour glass figure and yelled to alert the rest of the group. Four more appeared. She charged with a battle cry and the dance of death began. No cat calls and crude comments came from their ruddy lips as they experienced Tsai Lee's swordsmanship this time. Men fell one by one. Tsai Li stayed in her zone, completely controlled.
She waited for a moment for another attack, but none came. She figured several of the gangsters for cowards. Seven bodies were at her feet. She again walked to the street, sweat mingled with the rain running down her face. She pulled the keys from her belt. Another figure ran at her from the shadows. She dispatched of him one handed, smelling the fear seeping from him. She pushed the unlock button on the key remote, watching the lights flash on the third car down the road. She slid into the driver's seat and instanly locked the doors. She put the keys into the ignition and turned the engine on. She turned the stearing wheel to pull out when the back windsheild exploded. She pushed the gas pedal to the floor and crossed all the lanes of the blacktop to make her way to the train station.
A small trickle of blood seeped down her cheek. A score more cuts and bruises would begin their sting as the adreneline faded. She saw the train station and sighed in relief. Haphazardly pulling the the car to the curb, she got out and made her way to the meeting spot. Seeing Barrett, she smiled and gave him a nod. She walked to him, collapsing in exaustion in his arms.
Cars were following her!
There wasn’t much time to do anything other than grab Tsai Lee and run for the station. He had already purchased two tickets from the kiosk, but he found he didn’t have any free hands to use them so he jumped the barrier, and then acting out the fantasy of any kid who has ever seen them, slid down the middle banister down the two flights of stairs with Tsai Lee in his arms to the train platform. It got a few looks from other late night commuters but Barett care a rats fart what people thought. It was high time to move. It was somewhere around 3 in the morning but that didn’t mean Tung Chug Line was empty of people but luck was on Barett’s side. The familiar tone was sounding below him as he slid, that the train was about ready to leave. He heard commotion coming behind him down the flight of the stairs. He landed like any cat being thrown out a window, slightly chaotic but still in control. Behind him were shouts but he ignored them and jumped the remaining ten feet to board the subway train, the automatic doors just missing him. If he had a tail it would be caught in the doors.
The train began to move and Barett turned sideways to look out as five men in wet suites came skidding along the platform. He smiled as they looked on helplessly at the subway picked up speed and racing away from them.
“That was a bit close.”
But Tsai Lee was still out cold to answer him.
Barett set her down on the bench carefully and glared at the small old and drunk businessman, a rabbit by the looks of it, daring him to say something. The rabbit, even though he looked to be totally inebriated, had enough sense to still to move over without saying a word, giving Barett some extra room.
At the next stop he switched over to the “red line” and headed toward the center of Kowloon. By the time the two of them had reached Mong Kok station, Tsai Lee had woken up from her exhausting, surprised to find herself on a train.
They exited and found themselves standing in the middle of a night market in Mong Kok, Hong Kong, one of the highest population densities on the earth. It was a mixture of old and new multi-story buildings, with shops and restaurants at street level with commercial or residential units above. This place was always packed and tonight, or this morning as it technically was, was still full of vibrant activities happening at every turn. Aside from the big, bold, neon signs and its towering skyscrapers that would leave any first-time visitor open-mouthed in awe, the place was a packed with a horde of people.
Literally, Mong Kok was a location that never seemed to sleep. It was the perfect place to go unnoticed.
What is their next move and plan?
Barett and Tsai Lee leave the Train station and head to a outdoor market area, weaving their way through several blocks, checking to make sure that they are not being followed. Barett stops at a outdoor food vendor and gets them some cooked rice and fish, looking over Tsai Lee's wounds, in the neon lights.
" I am going to need to check you out better back at our place, you took a heavy beating back there. But nothing on the surface looks to serious."
Barett says to her in Chinese. Trying to keep his voice low.
The plan being to get back to the Hide out/apartment and check the disk to make sure it is what they wanted. He also is going to make sure she doesn't need any sutures.
Tsai Lee waited as Barrett opened the door to the apartment. The hallway had the smell of molding carpet and urine wafting in the corners. Every inch of her hurt. Even with all of the training and work outs she practiced every day, the feeling of the adreneline let down and lactic acid flowing from her muscles made her tired and sore. She knew her cuts were few, but they added a sting to her overworked body.
Barrett walked into the room, setting down his bags. Tsai Lee shut the door behind her, locking it and stood looking at the handsome man as he searched through his belongings to find the first aid kit.
"I know you are excited to give me a once over, but I would like to shower quickly so we can see how badly I'm injured. Either way, my clothes come off and I would like to end up in bed."
Barrett smiled like a adolescent boy as she undid her belt and walked into the the bathroom. Getting into the hot water stung, giving away where most of the cuts were at. She towel dried her body and tied her hair and towel in a turban a top her head. She walked back into the bedroom, completely naked. Barrett's eyes draped over her skin, head to toe, slowly stopping at her firm breasts and then returning to that point several times.
"As much as I am enjoying the attention, I would really like some sleep. There are only one or two cuts that need attention. My temple and my arm may need a stitch, but my inner thighs returned unscathed. No attention will be needed in that area at the moment."
Tsai Lee lay face first on the clean sheets, feeling her body melt onto the mattress. Barrett expertly stitched the cut on her upper arm and butterfly bandaged her brow.
"Well, that's going to leave a mark." he laughed. "I'm glad you made it out of there alright. Watching you dance was amazing."
"You didn't join in the cat calls?" she asked.
"I wouldn't have dared."
"Good. I would have had to kill you." Tsai Lee fell into a deep sleep.
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