The Hidden Kingdom - IV

She knew he was standing there behind the door and she knew he was looking at her. Many men had. Most were nothing more that lusty stares from little men. They weren’t worth the air they were breathing. At first she was annoyed with him. But that was only for an instant. She found she was pleased that he had stopped and was stealing a peek.

Her thoughts were running at a hundred miles per second. It was a river of words, emotions, and a bit of sorrow. What was she doing with a “Gwia luo”? All women ever want was to feel a sense of belonging and security. Barett was a lot like her. Yet he was so different at the same time. She was so strong in her ability that many thought she had reached a secure and safe place. But she wasn’t inside. No one saw this. She wouldn’t let them. But could she let the foreigner inside? He was so much like her; strong, independent, driven. What would happen if they became lovers? Would she satisfy him? Would he satisfy her? Was that all he was after, sex? If they joined would he be her man or would he turn and run after he got his fill of rutting?

Tsai Lee realized her hair was a total mess and she wished she could have fixed it. But her cargo pants, tennis shoes and simple black shirt were an outfit that was different to flirt with. She wondered what he had picked up for her to dress in. How were his tastes in fashion?

All of these thoughts passed through her mind in an instant. It was a complex look at her inner being. Tsai Lee, like all women, passes through different moods and phases each day. At times she was in love, and then she was in pain. Confusion and feeling of powerless would haunt her mind only to be replaced by strength and control. Hormones played a frustrating role in her that she was constantly trying to master. It would be easy to be a man. Just like Barett, standing there at the door, simple and direct and knowing exactly what he wanted. He wanted her, she was sure of it.

Did she want him? As times she could scream yes! Other times no. She wanted to tease him, to play with him and with his mind. She was doing that now. A smile ticked her thoughts as she thought of the surprise she had for him.

Barett opened the door and slid onto the deck like the trained hunter he was. It was humorous to watch him. The danger of the wolves was gone but she wasn’t going to tell him just yet. She knew what room they were staying in.

Tsai Lee bounced her head playfully in his direction and gave him a smile. Damn, he must think I’m a stupid flirtatious little girl, she thought but then remembered her messy hair and her smile melted away.

“Wong bat dan.”

Barett knew she was swearing at him but he didn’t know what it meant; something about being a king of eggs. “I got the stuff. You have any problems getting a room?”

Barett was trying to force his eyes to stay on her face. It wasn't his fault that she had such alluring features. The problem with getting just a mental arousal was your brain switched into overdrive and everything it did was to get more.

“No,” Tsai Lee looked at the bags he had bought. They were cheap.

As she looked Barett let his eager eyes run down to her feet, then up her legs to her chest and then over to her face again.

“Stop it! Focus man. You have a job to do.” He chanted over and over to convince his mind to let go of her figure.

She smiled again. “Let’s go.”

“What about the wolves?” Barett whispered back.

“Don’t worry,” she said as she began walking to the elevator. “I have someone watching them.”

This floored him. All thoughts of her beauty evaporated. How did she have someone already on them? He followed her into the elevator and the door shut.

Tsai Lee pushed the second to the top button, number 40. Barett wasn’t paying attention. The man was frustratingly single minded!

“What do you mean you have someone watching them? How did you do that?” His eyes were alive with focus.

The elevator began to move.

“I have people who work here.”

“What? Don’t you know these guys are professionals? And they’re jumpy! They could just as easily rip your lacey’s head off as well as they could piss on a wall.”

Tsai Lee glared at him. “You don’t think my people can handle this?” She asked in a tone that was clear she was wondering if he were judging her.

“No, I mean yes. But I have a plan and it won’t work if my timing is off.” His said too loudly.

“And it won’t work unless you are doing the spying?” Right!” She asked accusatorially and turned her back on him.

The fire in the eyes of the phoenix tattoo stared angrily back at him from under her black tank-top. Her head was bowed slightly. Barett looked up from the angry ink image and saw the side of her face. Her eyes were closed and her cheek was smooth. He had expected anger but for the first time he had ever looked at her, he saw sorrow and vulnerability; almost like a little girl.

The elevator came to a stop.

The door opened as Barett turned and his jaw hit the floor. He realized what a jerk he had just been. The door opened into an opulent room that just went on and on into other rooms that must have covered the entire floor. Windows circled the rooms and gave a magnificently overview of the harbor. She had gotten the Presidential Suite! How had she done that? It must have cost a small fortune. Hell, for all he knew, she owned the place! And he may have just blown his chances to have a romantic day she was planning for him.

Tsai Lee turned and walked into the room, leaving Barett to stand in wonder.

The Story Continues

Quick Review –




Hong Kong city-state is thickly crowded with inhabitants. The city is old and dilapidated, a city that looks to be weighed down heavy from centuries of over population. The skyline is still jam-packed with giant buildings but most of these are aged rusting steel and dull-glassed skyscrapers; old but still teaming with life, like a cockroach heaven. Life is eeking out of every nook and cranny and leaving the city in an eternal balancing act between holding its inhabitants in check to busting its seams to collapse utterly into the gray harbor seas.
It is an ancient city; ancient in customs; ancient in smell; ancient in people.
Ironically Hong Kong has never been truly independent. The island state is again under the colonial rule of the Europeans, in particular the British Island, book-ending the place to when it was in an incubated state raising for the first time under the old British Empire from a forgotten time. Hong Kong’s northern border of old China resembles nothing of the kingdom that once was. The southern part of the Chinese continent is torn and crumbling under civil turbulence and war. The main land is a very dangerous place to venture where only the strongest or foolhardy dare to tread.

In Hong Kong, the Triads are in the middle of a turf war for dominance with the passing of the late king-pin who had them all under his control. Our story started out with Tsai Lee and Barett Coontail taking out a rival Triad boss and coming into possession of a mysterious computer disk of an unknown source. The two were tracked and almost apprehended until the two rained down an extra measure of violent chaos upon the authorities.

That was three days ago.

Barett and Tsai Lee slipped cleanly out of the net cast to catch them and found a hideout in a secure apartment room on the second floor of a two story very red, traditional Chinese medicine establishment. The computer disk is a mystery to them other than the clue that it was housed in a box that held the symbol of the Albino, a powerful leader from the mainland by the name of Dong-Mei. They have contacted someone Tsai Lee thinks may be able to read the disk. The man is a nearly blind mole-rat that said he needed to get some equipment to be able to read the disk. He called in a friend to see if he could barrow a certain computer component. That is where things have stalled. Come to find out the needed equipment is hard to get. The mole-rat promised news if he can do it or not in two days.

Meanwhile the Barett and Tsai Lee had sent a cryptic message to the Albino of what they have come in possession of.

The Chinese medicine store is a front for the Black Dragon Triad, a group that Tsai Lee is close to being the leader of. The old man that runs the store is, according to Tsai Lee, a partial-looks orangutan. Truth of the matter though he just looks like an original orangutan wearing a straw hat who grunts and “ohs” a lot. Barett likes the old fellow well enough but hasn’t understood a single word that has escaped the monkey’s lips. He just calls him “gramps” and wonders if there is really some logic to the mad method of his mixing unidentifiable objects into powders.

A message has returned from a runner from the Albino informing them that she is willing to meet with them.

What would they like to do?

Trap, Counter-trap....Barett's strategy tested.

Barett worked his way slowly to a spot that looked down the upper trail, a fallen log giving him some cover to break up his profile. The sky was a flat gray, the kind that scrubbed the life from the desert landscape and stripped the joy from the vastness of the desert. But for Him, this was the best light to shoot in, no glare, no sun spots, a perfectly dull background. He checked his escape route, to the left and up wound a light game trail, to the right and down a thicket of brush and aspens. Behind him the trail made its way up to the crest of the ridge, then opened up to low sage brush and rocks and then crested down again beyond his view. Somewhere along that trail Hoss was making his way, at least that is what Barett was hoping for.

The forest breathed in slow and exhaled, breathed in slow and exhaled again, the rhythm of the leaves and the sway of the trees made him feel like he was laying on the chest of a sleeping giant. Struggling to stay sharp and awake, he moved his eyes from side to side and up and down, trying not to make noise, but use every trick he knew to keep his senses sharp. Barett sat on the cool earth, waiting and hoping, hoping that he choose the right spot, waiting until one way or another the conflict was brought to a head.

Through the motion of the trees and rustle of the leaves his sensitive hearing picked up on the steady pattern of footsteps moving stealthily down the trail. Placing the handgun on the edge of the log to steady the scope Barett waited for his kill shot. Hoping to end this quickly, and gain control of the situation, instead of just responding to it.