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?
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Barett is wary of the whole "Gangster" thing, since his time in Tahoe in the motorcycle gang, the scar on his back,being the constant reminder of their double crossing ways. He has spent the free time away from Tsai lee looking for hidden bugs in the equipment and trying to get Rick to send him some info on this kind of computer equipment and disk...but getting a message out and back seems to move slowly.
The close quarters and smell of her perfume is starting to drive him a little nuts, last night you could have cut the sexual tension in the room with a sword, it was so large.
Admitedly the idea of bedding such a dangerous woman appeals to him, the idea of just the hunt with out a kill is even begining to have some merit. But he doesn't think she is the type to go for such behavior.
As for the "Albino"....He concedes they need to visit her, there is no other way around it.
Barett quizzes the Oragutan about the "Albino" hoping to get a better feel for what she knows, how she knows it and what this meeting will mean for him.
He is decidedly going to plan for the worst on this one.
Barett notices that everyone is scared of Tsai Lee. Her men, that is to say her underlings because there are a few women in her group too, all follow complex cultural procedures all the time in their coming and goings. It is almost comical to watch. Being the “Gwai Lo” a foreigner, it is almost impossible to keep up with who is important, who is just a lackey and how low custom dictates he should bow. So Barett doesn’t. It is annoying how they keep coming to this little red shop. Incognito seems to be an idea that totally escapes their thinking.
Tsai Lee was sitting upstairs talking with her men. She was barefooted in a halter-top black cheongsam dress with a black French laced jacket. The outfit showed just enough hint of skin through the silk on her shoulders to be tantalizing. She was ready some report while totally ignoring the man who bow head flat on the floor before her. Barett was trying to pay attention but then she crossed bear legs. It was too much so he walked out and helped himself down the narrow stairs to the medicine shop on the first floor.
An old woman stood waiting at the counter while Ling, the orangutan pharmacist, mashed together something putrid and black into a rice-paper package. The old lady looked at Barett and he easily recognized her brain form the words, “Gwai Lo” in her eyes. She didn’t say anything but she was too old to hide the surprise from her face. He was getting sick of this.
The woman paid Ling for the paper package, turned and lumbered out of the store. Ling gave his typical ‘oh-uh’ grunt of gratitude or parting. Barett couldn’t tell.
“Ling, what can you tell me about the Albino?” Barett asked in Korean as he slid up a stool next to the pharmacist.
Ling gave him the questioning stink eye. Barett held his gaze until Ling seemed to decide that it would be better to answer him than try to put him off.
“The Albino is a demon-witch of economics.” Ling replied in Korean. It was still hard to understand but it was better than his insanely primitive Chinese dialect. Ling did not give the appearance that he was intelligent, but Barett knew better. “Her name is Dong-Mei and she is a dangerous serpent. Everything she touches she turns to her benefit.”
“Where can I find her?”
“She is down on Hong Kong Island, in the middle of that god-forsaken soaring metallic forest.”
“You mean the Central financial district?”
“Yes, in the Jardine House building if I am not mistaken.”
“How could I get there?”
“Take the MTR like anyone I would surmise. You thinking about doing some recon?” Ling smiled a wicked grin that showed his yellow teeth.
“Don’t know yet. But waiting here isn’t accomplishing anything.”
Ling continued to smile. He slipped off his stool and went over to his work bench. He pulled out a black rice paper package and tossed it to Barett.
“Why don’t you do me a favor then? I need this delivered and seeing that you aren’t doing any good loitering around here, I might as well put you to work. It needs to go to a man named Bei Ai. Fat man if there ever was but this keeps him going. You can find in on the 40th floor of the Exchange Square Building #1. Works as a trader for the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank. And wouldn’t you know it, the Jardine House is just south of it. Peep out his window and it will water Dong-Mei’s plants.”
Ling gives Barett and wink and returned to his work.
Barett holds the package in his hands for a second, as his eyes dart towards the front door and the stairs to the second floor. Instincts tell him that recon is very important, and is best done alone. But his training emphasised team work.
Once again his eyes dart from the door to the stairs.
Quickly he jots down in english on a piece of rice paper where he is going, and how long he expects to be gone, and walks out the door onto the busy street.
The noise and bustle of the conjested street feels like a animal pacing its cage, just waiting to be set loose on it capture and claim revenge. Barett always thought large overcrowded citys were breeding grounds for violence, he liked it on a very primal level.
Handing the note to the small boy crouched by the curb, and in broken chinese told him to run it in to Tsai Lee. Barett knew he was a runner and a look out for the gang, a nephew of some sort of Lings, his hairy red limbs dangled oddly out of his tattered cloths.
Making his way to the MTR station through the thick crowd, he keeps an eye out for tails.
The morning air is slightly crisp and unusually clean for the city after two weeks of straight rain. The heat and humidity will come soon with the rising sun. Barett heads west from the red shop and heads for the subway station, walking with his head just a little low but eyes keen and alert. However nothing out of the ordinary in the busy bustle of the city draws his attention. It is a short walk to the MTR Olympic station, about ten minutes. The streets are narrow and grayish-brown with rundown apartment buildings towering and all sides, making it seem like he was walking down some slick rock narrows out in the desert back when he was a child; except for the masses of people of course. At the station he gets a glimpse of the local news on the TV but there is nothing new about the shot- out three days ago. It was the main topic for about two days. People were afraid it was militants from China main, yet no new development from the police turned the event into yesterday’s news. People were more concerned in what was happening up north in Canton with the mass beheadings being reported daily. The city was nervous that the violence could easily spill over and swamp Hong Kong like an uncontrollable tsunami. Security was defiantly on edge.
The quick ride under the harbor to Hong Kong was uneventful and Barett emerged into the MTR Central with its firebrick red wall platform. Exiting out onto the street Barett finds himself dwarfed by the skyscrapers. He knew he should have little trouble finding the Jardine House because of its trademark round window. Spinning around he sees the building about two blocks away.
Note: the 3rd picture above is an image taken from Google Maps outside central MTR station looking north. Jardine House can be seen and identified with it characteristic round moon windows.
Barett does a slow walk around the Jardine house building, staying on the opposite sides of the road stopping to look in windows and calculate angles. Watching one of the small delivery trucks unloading packages into a building, Barett slips over and borrows a clip board and hat from the dashboard of the glorified geometro looking van painted in bright hunter orange, Hong Knogs version of UPS. Then he moves quickly down the street, tucking the hat under his shirt.
The advantage of the finacial district is the huge amount of "Gwai Lo's" and the duplicate signs in English makes navigating the streets easy for him.
He stops into a small shop squeezed into the space between two skyscrapers. The packed convience store smells of cooked rice and cabbage to him, buying some local sunglasses and paper products to put on the clipboard, he picks up a MTR map and city map, along with a black marker then a large plastic 2 liter bottle of the favorite local soda. After paying for his items he stands at the newspaper magazine rack and stares out the window, making mental notes of the floors and heights of neighboring buildings. After about ten minutes of this the clerk becomes aggitated and Barett moves on, scouting the grounds for escape routes and noting dead ends and potential ambush routes out of the building.
At this point the morning rush has picked up to its peak, to the point he is almost pushed by the crowd as they move along the sidewalks. He makes his way to the exchange square building #1 and steps inside, pulling the "Happy go Fast" Delivery cap down over his face to the top of the cheap sunglasses and works to stay in the center of the crowd making thier way to the elevators.
A figure in a black silk shirt stood at a west facing window smoking his morning cigar. The smoke was heady and sweet and expensive. For no reason other than perhaps a wicked hang-over, he wore black sunglasses that reflected the cityscape like the lens of a camera. The room walls were lined in richly oiled hardwoods with silver inlay.
A helicopter muffle could be heard through the thick glass windows. Other than that and the sound of him blowing smoke, the room was died silent. On his pinky figure hung an enormous gold 18k ring set with a blazing red ruby. Taking another deep slow drag on his cigar, he spoke without turning.
“You know who you should kill, right?”
Behind him, in the shadows of the room were three more figures; two men and a woman.
The woman nodded her head.
“She must still be here, so carry it out quietly.”
“Yes boss.” Came the silky reply edged with acid.
The three turned and left the room as quite as if they had never been there. A moment later, a side door opened and another man with an afro-hair-do and a thin sparrow goatee bowed his way forward.
The man in the black shirt did not turn.
“Let Hwa Lee know I have sent the wolves.”
“Yes sir.” The man bowed and left leaving the man in the black shirt to enjoy his morning smoke and contemplate his kingdom.
Tsai Lee shifted in her seat feeling the heavy gaze of the men around her. The black satin of her dress seemed to bind tightly around her thighs, but at the same time couldn't hide enough of her skin.
They were "her men", as in paid by her jobs and commanded by the fear of her lethal sword skills, but in the end, they were dirty, hired killers. She wanted to change into something more comfortable, but knew she had to dress the part. With all reason, she knew that she could use her sexuality as well as her swords.
At the back of the room she saw movement by the stairs. The dark gaze of Barrett caught hers and then quickly jumped away when he realized she had caught him. She had enjoyed the teasing game with Barrett. The way the tension danced between the two of them was exillerating. She almost giggled as she caught him attempting to listen as her footmen reported the gossip that had been passed around the Chinese underground world. Completely forgetting the lacivious stares of the others, she pulled a daring move. Sitting just so Barrett got a glimpse of what she wanted him too, she carefully parted her legs, allowing the breeze to tingle and cool her inner thighs and down her knees. She carefully crossed the right leg back over the other, knowing the delicious line that would take his gaze from her knee and round up the curve of her buttocks. She tried to hide her smile as Barrett's face dropped and he disappeared out of the room and down the stairwell.
The room fell silent as Jai Lo asked her a question. She was shaken from her little victory and had to ask him to repeat the question. From of few of the flushed faces before her, she knew that a few others besides Barrett had caught her ploy.
"Thank you gentlemen for the information. We will meet back here later after I have had time to think about what you have said. Leave me alone now." Tsai Lee sighed as she stood and began to pace the room. The group began to disperse and she tried to bring her thoughts back to the matters at hand. Who wanted to kill who. Which gang was encroaching on their territory. All she could really think of was where Barrett had gone. After what seemed like mere moments she heard footsteps. She turned quickly to see who it was, her heart leaping at the thought of Barrett rounding the corner. Instead it was a boy, red haired, drooping with the look of an oragutan. He handed her a note.
She read it, and crumpled it in her hands, her blood boiling. What did he think he was doing leaving her like that! Looking at the boy, she sensuously motioned him over to her and whispered into his ear, "The Gwai Lo has left the building. I want to know where he is and what he is doing. You will follow him and report back to me."
Barett moves through the crowd without problem and ends up at the back of an elevator crammed with people. The one thing that he disliked about large cities and crowded rooms was the scent of body odor, heavy, musky body odor. his smelling was good, but for others that were more sesitive than him, it must be brutal he thought.
The ride to the 40th floor was a tedious affair, practically stopping at every floor, lucky for Barett people just don't talk in elevators to strangers, so his accent wouldn't jump out to betray him.
The doors opened and Barett pushed his way out into a brightly lighted lobby area, the Hong Kong Shanghi Bank held the whole floor. An Attractive house cat mix sat at a large raised reception center, eying the people as they filed off to the different doors and cubicales that were scattered across the room.
Barett made his way towards her, hoping that she spoke english.
“I have a delivery for Bei Ai.”
The woman looked up at him with a question on her face that Barett clearly read asking “who the hell was he?” Put plainly, the place stunk of wealth and Barett didn’t smell anything like the others moving into the offices.
“New guy?” she asked him.
“Temporary lackey for Ling is all.”
This seemed to have satisfied her curiosity. “Third door on the right.” She pointed and mentally dismissed Barrett’s person from her working space as if he were an annoying afterthought that had momentarily materialized to interrupt her day.
She was an attractive person and somewhat educated, Barett guessed, but it was lucky for her he was able to easily moved on. She had no idea of the deadly force that she had so offhandedly dismissed.
He walked down the hallway and knocked twice on the heavy hardwood door before he opened it and let himself into the room.
Ling wasn’t lying when he said Bei Ai was fat. He was exaggerating. The man was simple too big for the word fat. He was enormous! He was a big Chinese mixed gray-colored cat with a brown spot noticeably covering his left eye and cheek. Bei Ai was sitting at his oversize desk, sweating in the air-conditioned room. The blue pin-striped suit he wore looked to be more expensive that Barett’s CBR1000RR fireblade back in England. But there was a problem of being fat, even the most expensive suits don’t hang right from bloated, square frames. The jacket itself was big enough to make a tent for a small family.
“What can I do for you?” Bei Ai asked in Chinese.
He seemed a bit taken back by Barett’s sudden entrance into the room. Almost like a man with his hand caught in the cookie jar. It was just that he owned the cookie jar, the house the jar was in, and the whole damn processing plant that made the cookies.
Tsai Lee sat alone in the room dark as the morning light attempted in vain to illuminate the secret meeting place. The boy was now gone on his mission to track Barett. Thoughts of corporate extortion, real-estate planning, stock manipulation, weapons and gun running, group discipline, drug trafficking, money laundering, gambling, and forced prostitution swam through her head. These were the items that she had to deal with. It was the environment that at she grew up knowing. The Black Dragons had their fingers in all of it. But the paradox was that she had little experience in these businesses adventures. She was seen as competent, able to handle herself, intelligent, and emotionally mature and someone who would excel in the Black Dragons. However, her area of expertise was elsewhere. She was the one called in for enforced security over their investments, not running them. When some business or person tried to get out of their agreements, the bosses sent her in. How was it that she was now making decision on how to manage it?
Tsai Lee had been the hidden tool, held out of view of the family for special purposes. With the death of her father, she was being pulled out of the shadows where she was use to working and into the center light of this secret world. Tsai Lee wasn’t sure how she felt about this new role. It was a riddle that she needed to solve. Would she move up and become a king or would she shun away from leadership?
But the enigma and paradox that bothered her most was Barett. The man intrigued her, true. He had a way of firing her blood like no one else could. But he wasn’t a player that fixed well into her world.
Frustrated, her eyes fell on the wooden box with the white dragon insignia on it. “And how do you play into this Dong-Mei?” She thought.
It was time to find some answers and sitting here wasn’t going to help get the information she needed. She was going to visit Bohai, the blind computer nerd, herself.
Quickly she changed out of the black cheongsam and into comfortable white cargo pants, a black tank top, and black/brown Gucci tennis shoes. She pulled out a small leather package that held three razor-sharp throwing knifes and clipped this into the back of her pants on her right hip for quick retrieval if needed. Then she graded her twin swords and slid them into place in her specially designed handbag and moved to the table to add the box with the data disk. And as an after though, she moved over to the weapons locker hidden behind the bar and retrieved a Ruger P89 with ammo. These she added to her bag.
Not wanting her men to follow her or slow her down, she took the window as an exit and climbed deftly up to the roof and jumped to the next building to let herself down into the narrow streets. Up the street was a little motorcycle repair shop. She walked straight up to the opened garage door, hopped on a 350cc scooter and was gone before the owner even noticed he was missing a bike.
Barett held up the package.
" From Ling " He said in Chinese.
Bei Ai looked at Barett for a second then smiled.
" You prefer english then " He stated as a fact, more than a question.
" If we want to talk longer, yes that would help."
Barett could tell he was being sized up, but for what, only the cockroaches that must live under this mans large bed would know.
" You know that you have the delivery outfit all wroung...just the hat doesn't work....well at least for the attentive eye. But there must be another reason you've come to see me my North American friend." His accent seems off to you, not from England, not American either.
" More for the VIEW than anything else..." Barett casually replies as he walks to the window and peers out on to the street below.
He scans the room from the reflection in the window. The dark wood panelling and barrister style bookcases held expensive nick naks from all over the world. The scale models of 1950's Harley-Davidson motorcycles, caught Baretts eye.
"You Like the PanHandle Harley's used to ride a modified 54' hard tail, loved the v-twins, beatiful sound."
Bei Ai smiles a broad grin at the idea of sitting on such a iconic machine.
"I knew you were a hunter, but a machine lover I would not have quessed my friend, please have a seat, and put the package on the side table if you would." His large arm jesturing to a Cherry wood bar with a built in fridge.
Barett places the rice paper package gently on the table and sits in one of the large leather and oak chairs in front of the giant desk.
" Were you expecting me ? "
Barett asks in a casual way, attempting to Build a relationship of trust.
" No, not at all my friend, to be honest you startled me, you see I had just had a most disturbing phone call the moment before, and then there you stood, to a man that has been in Hong Kong as long as I have, some one not from around here can stand out a little. Now you have done a good job of blending in... but only on the surface. But all that is surperfelous....you know Ling..that is good enough for me. But the Harley Davidson...do they sound like they do in the movies ? Are they all that a man like me would think they are, or is it just another one of old Hollywoods camera and sound tricks ? I know you look at me now and think 'this man could not throw his leg over a seat and kick start a bike'....But I was not always this way, no the delights of this world have made me thus. Once I was a young man not much different than you, let that be a warning to you about the good life. So tell me, what was it like to ride such a machine ?"
Barett is surprised that he is so open and interested in the bikes. But Ling must hold some weight in trust to the large man. Barett decides to be honest and talk a little motorcycle with the man.
" Oh I would say that Hollywood did some exageratting as they always did, but they failed to really capture the feel of that v-twin rumbling under you, the steady thump of the pipes as you motored on down the open road. They are beutiful things, steel and chrome, wide and low. If I just wanted to cruise, just lean back and ride...that was the bike to be on."
Barett leans back further in the chair and streches his legs out like he is on a bike.
" That v-twin motor just rumbles and roars under you as you open up the throttle, the G forces pull you back as the wind whips across your face, you feel the back end twist a little from the tork on the chain againest the rigid frame.....It's beautiful...just beautiful...wish I had a picture of mine, all black and chrome."
There is a short silence, as Bei pulls back into his chair. It's clear that the man wants to like Barett, and is charmed by his frankness...but Barett can tell, Bei is wondering if Barett is there to kill him.
Barett would like to know who just called him, and what was said to make a man like this nervous.
" So my friend of Lings, what did you come to see me about?"
Barett thinks for a split second and then just spills it, Old school James Bond style...where he just told them everything he could get away with.
" I'm here to use your window and building to look at your neighbor, see what she is up to, nothing malicious just a peek and then run...what do you know about her ?"
The night before, in a private club in Hong Kong’s neon-lit entertainment district, men in dark pinstripe suits drank, smoked and played cards. The décor was modeled from classic 1920 Shanghai-swing and Chinese Art Deco, all of which was softened with the club's sound system playing a jazzed-up style of “The Godfather”. A few of the men were huddled together in a corner, involved in hushed but animated conversation. Others puffed their chests out for the accommodating comfort-women who adorn the smoke-filled room like well-placed flower arrangements. The club was on the 30th floor of a building where the constant whir and clang of a busy gamboling room from one floor below could easily be heard.
A squat older man, an Impala mix-look with only one horn, sat towards the back of the room at a table surrounded by bowing young Black Dragon associates, who responded to every order and request. The older man was flanked by two women—one, a thin lion wearing a short black cocktail dress, the other, a mongoose, in a schoolgirl's pleated plaid skirt and white blouse. Both cover their mouths and giggled at the bosses every gruff word.
A young man in a shiny sharkskin suit entered the room, his head bowed. He was bleeding heavily from the temple and his right arm hung at a sickeningly wrong angle. Stick out and out of his shoulder was a thin long knife. All the others in the room immediately took notice and stop talking. The bleeding young man, a zebra by his faint markings and black and white short Mohawk hair, approached the older man's table. He did not lift his eyes. Without a word, he fell to his knees before the one-missing-horned impala and dropped onto the table an artfully wrapped object, no bigger than a small piece of candy.
The old man’s eye flared in panic! He looked up just in time to see three figures in gas masks crossing over the threshold into the room as the package started to smoke.
“What do you know about her?”
The fat banker looked confused jostled with this new round of information as Barett pointed out the window to the Jardin building. Bie Ai kept on smiling though he began to sweat much more profusely.
“This is embarrassing, I must say. I’m afraid you have caught me unprepared for the second time in just a matter of minutes. Who is this ‘her’ you are referring to? I amused we were talking about the talented and beautiful Tsai Lee.”
How much should tell this cat? Barett thought. The man knows nothing of the data-disk but he obviously knows something about Tsai Lee that I don’t. As a banker, he must know about the operations of the Albino. Tsai Lee talked of her as if everyone in Hong Kong and the greater part of all China knew her.
Tsai Lee drove down a narrow road weaving around a place that had all the looks of being a ghost-town. Litter and debris of all shapes and sizes were everywhere next to the bright blue tarps that were bungee corded together over thousands of closed kiosk. The place would open again at 2 in the afternoon and another riots night of shopping would begin again. It happened every night like clockwork, day in and day out for the past four hundred years. Tung Choi Street in Mongkok was notorious for selling every type of trinket, food item, toy, clothing, fish, and any kind of accessory your could ever hope never to own. You could find many bootleg and counterfeit items of clothing from bags to jeans and from watches to shirts. It is a good place to come in the evening, despite the fact that it is murderously busy. The place was simple known as ‘Ladies Market’ and nothing had change for hundreds of years.
Tsai Lee pulled over to the side at a place she found that looked abandoned and boarded up for the day. She parked under the gray green awning. Others had likewise used the place as an opportune place to leave their bikes. Sitting on her scooter she tied up her hair and waited and watched from the shadow. The market was redolent with the odors of dried fish and overcooked noodles. It is a pungent mixture would stay on anyone long after the departed.
People moved around like zombies. Some were loitering, others cleaning up the streets, some just too drunk to care.
After carefully staking the place out and making sure no one was paying her any attention, Tsai Lee crossed the street and entered a small shop that looked to be nothing more than a door to an alley. Stairs took her down six feet below the street level. This was the home of Bohai, the nearly blind mole computer expert.
But something was obviously wrong. The hole in the ground that Bohai called home was in a lot worse condition that she had ever seen it. Computers, wires, monitors and such were turned over and smashed. It looked like a bomb had gone off.
She found the mole lying in a pool of red, his head nearly severed from his mutilated body.
Above, she heard the sound of the metal door open and then slam shut.
What does she do?
Loose wires sparked in the air from the turned over computer equiptment. The smell of burnt wires mingled with the tinge of blood and cold death oozing from the mole sprawled on the floor. Tsai Lee sighed slightly. It was too bad. She had almost liked the frumpy mole. She really liked his talent and the information he provided. She was very disappointed to have lost such a great asset. His glaring stare showed the fear he must have felt in his final moments.
Suddenly her concentration was disturbed by the sliding of what sounded like a metal door. Tsai Lee did what her insticts told her. Carefully pulling her swords, she stole into the shadows of the room to see who had killed her associate.
The problem with hired hands is they have no imagination. They just walk in and start firing.
“Puk gai” she swore as she moved back further into the shadows. She was just hit with the realization that this place was a “blanking-blank-blank” (and a few more colorful Chinese expletives) trap that she had walked into like a blind goat in heat heads for a butcher shop.
Gunfire was bouncing all around the computer shop like thunder trapped in a fifty-five gallon oil drum. She couldn’t see anything of the person or persons standing at the top of the stairs firing like mad. One of the bullets knocked over an oil lantern and started a small fire. Smoke started to rapidly fill the underground room which kicked off the smoke detectors. The beep-beep-beeping screaming from the detectors only added to the assault. She was pinned down and couldn’t move.
Suddenly there was a pop and the overhead fire sprinkler system went off. The gun fire stopped as the place became a virtual underground tropic rainstorm!
Tsai Lee snatched both swords into her left hand while her right instinctively pulled one of her throwing knives out. It was now or never. She leaped out from the back shadows of relative cover and flew out in front of the stairwell that led up to the street. There at the top were two men; a kangaroo and koala fiddly to reload their AK-47s. The kangaroo looked up and the pupils of his eyes widened for a half second before the vicious little knife Tsai Lee had thrown struck home. It took him right in the middle of his chest.
Tsai Lee tucked and rolled out of the direct line of sight. She turned and saw the body of the kangaroo and his gun come crashing down into the computer shop. He wasn’t dead which was obvious by the way he was rolling around on the floor, very occupied by the object sticking out the middle of his chest.
She heard the koala let out a string of curse words in English. The stupid sprinkler system was working just fine, which meant it was practically drowning Tsai Lee and making it near impossible to get a good sight picture on anything more than three feet in from of her face. The koala must have panicked and started firing randomly at full auto through the wall between him on the stairs above and the place he was guessing Tsai Lee had gone. He was doing a good job guessing and kept her pinned down.
Barett had a word that he had taught Tsai Lee that fit this predicament perfectly.
FUBAR!
Barett thought this odd, but then realized he must know that Lings place is part of Black Dragons network and that Tsai Lee has been to the West Coast recently.
" I was always talking about Tsai Lee...You seem to know her well, how far back do you two go ?"
Barett asked it in a casual tone, knowing that keeping things on the friendly are the best way to glean information from a subject. He was using some recent training by the Brits in interrigation where the subject becomes what they think is your friend.
" Oh....farther back than I care to admit...back to the days when her father and I were younger men, the girl holds a soft spot in my heart...but a wary hand in dealing with her....."
The Fat Cat leaned forward in his chair placing his elbows on the desk, sweat spots were beginning to show under his arms and around the collar of his shirt, Barett could even smell the musk of his nervousness from across the room.
" So I take it that your relationship with her is more than professional ?"
He drew out the word "professional" to long for Barett's comfort, it had a sickening sweetness to it that hinted at all things sweaty and sexual...things He wanted to do to her, images that raced through his mind.
" Perhaps..." is all that Barett replied.
" Well then, I must as a sort of Godfather to the girl help you in some way."
He stood up at this point and turned up a radio on a shelf and walked over to Barett.
Placing his hand on Baretts shoulder like an Uncle preparing to tell you the secrets of the world.
In a whispered tone barley audible above the Chinese talk radio station.
" My boy she is a hunted girl now, every 'Gunslinger' and thug in town is after her and by association you ! Do you understand, these men that are after her will spare no expense to kill her...and destroy the Black Dragons...but something far worse brews in the country, a revolt, a bloody one at that...I suggest you leave Hong Kong as soon as possible, and take her with you. As for the Albino there are rumors that she holds the key to saving Hong Kong But you did not hear this from me....She wants to rule the whole continent and is amassing a large private army, inciting riots and killing off potential rivals. Here is a security key to this building, go to the basement and follow the steam tunnels under the steet to the Jardine building...from there you are on your own."
He smiles a large but fake gesture and moves Barett towards the door.
"I must be back to the days business my boy, Good Luck."
An hour later, Barett crawled into position on the 21 floor in an under-floor service duct of the Jardine House building. The center of the building was a classical layout with passenger lifts, stairs, restrooms and other services ducks. Instead of taking the air and heating ducks, Barett had stumbled upon the floor ducts that ran old computer networking cables.
He lifted an access hatch and peered out into the room. The floors and walls were all white marble. Desks were placed in a half circle around a giant round red, gold, and blue Persian rugs in the center of the room. The rug looked expensive! Beyond the rug was a curved glass wall with glass doors leading into what appeared to some sort of internal reception room. Inside this glass room was a black lacquered table with a giant floral arrangement on it. Behind the table was a decorative Muslim inlay marble wall that curved at the same angle of the glass wall, doors, and carpet. Barett could just make out beyond the inlay wall on the sides what looked to be main room of the floor.
In the room with the service hatch that Barett was peeking in, were 7 people. Two were big male musk-oxen, security guards for sure, a female deer working at her desk, a guy that looked to be a sort of beaver or some other type of rodent standing with his back to Barett looking out one of the round windows that was the primary characteristic of the Jardine building. The other three were wolves. These three men were sitting and appeared to be annoyed by the wait. It was obvious that they didn’t belong to the rest of the group as their dress was Empire of Humanity style.
The service tunnel Barett was hidden in went to the left and the right, but not forward into the room. After a few minutes of watching, an attractive Asian female lynx came into view from behind the Muslim half wall. As she approached the wolves all stood. She opened the glass door and bowed. The wolves did not return the bow but entered the back room and rounded behind the wall. The lynx turned to the two musk-oxen security guards and gave them a knowing nod. Barett could tell that everyone was perceptibly tense.
The lynx moved back into the room and closed the glass doors with a locking click and then moved out of Barett’s sight into the back room. The beaver turned to the deer girl and swore. Then he moved over to a desk and began to typing frantically at his computer.
What does he want to do?
Barett eases himself back down a little into the tunnel. He sat wth his back againest a bundle of wires, the musty smell of dust and humidity mixed with the humming of the mechanical pipes and wires giving a steady backdrop like music to his thoughts.
Soldiers from the "Empire" are not a good sign. When he heard private army he was thinking hired guns and mercs.He was deciding againest meeting up with the "Albino" at this point, but watched the little rodent guy so busily typing away another thought came to him. perhaps he would stay for a little longer and see what he could do to disrupt this little gathering.
Puling out his multi-tool he started cutting computer lines, and phone lines,just a few that ran on the outside of the bundle. After about twenty cuts to the large bundle of wires the little rodent guy began to swear about something on his computer and then started pounding on the keys.
Barett took out his ankle gun, the 5 shot .38 cal revolver and hid it in the bundle above the cuts. Just as a back up. Then he slide down the service shaft to the maintence area and started searching for the building maintence guys locker room to snag some cloths.
The building maintenance proved to be a bit of a problem. The damn foreman was sharp and started asking too many questions. But it was nothing Barett couldn’t handle.
Barett exited the servicemen’s elevator on the 21st floor and in his new green and orange overalls with matching lackluster hat pulled low, but not overtly so, over his eyes. With a small toolbox in hand he turned the corner around the restroom section where the service elevators were discreetly hidden away. The body guards must have heard the elevator floor ding its little chime because one was there in the corridor waiting for him.
Big black musk-ox! He must have stood a good six and a half to seven feet tall with hands the size of two small trash compactors.
“I need to check your tool kit.” The ox said in a heavy dialect that Barett couldn’t understand.
After a second of thinking about what the ox had just said and translating it into what he guessed was the meaning Barett, without saying a word, handed up his tool box to the waiting ox who glared back. It wasn’t an overly mean glare but it was one that Barett quickly perceived as coming from a man took his job seriously. Doing his best job at looking meek and docile, Barett waited patiently as the ox-man shuffled through the repair tool kit. Barett knew his accent and basic level skill in Chinese was going to be a problem if people started asking him questions.
The ox-man put the tool box and proceeded to do a quick pat down of Barett’s person. Satisfied, he turned and led Barett into the first room he had observed from the floor maintenance hatch. The beaver was irate and instantly steered Barett between the towering oxen and moved him over to his wooded desk, chirping a thousand miles a second in Cantonese. What he said was totally lost on Barett. It sounded like a man falling off a cliff and smashing his nuts on an outcropping three or four times on the way down.
Barett sat down and stared at the screen. Chinese was hard to speak. It is impossible to read! Fortunately what he needed was an icon on the taskbar. It took him a few seconds to find it. When he did, he simply clicked on the icon to open up a computer window that looked like it was showing the network connection. It was dead. That is what it looked like to Barett anyway. The Beaver stopped talking as if what Barett just did threw him off his line of thought. The beaver must have been a super nerd in whatever he did but computer power user, he was not.
So continuing with the act Barett looked around the computer box for a minute and found where the Ethernet cable connected. The line dropped straight to the down to a floor mounted box. Without saying a word to the again yapping beaver, he walked across the room to where the female deer secretary who was standing against the marbled wall. The red rug in the room looked so expensive that Barett took care to walk around it instead of treading over it. In a soft voice he asked for her to “forgive him for his rudeness” in Cantonese, gave her a wink under his hat and gently moved her away from the wall where she was standing against the access wall panel he had hidden in. The two body guards were watching him curiously.
With his head and upper body shoved into the floor duct, Barett heard someone else talking. Peeking back between his legs he could see the sexy lynx was back in the room followed by the three wolves. The female gave a questioning stare at Barett’s back-end sticking out just like a plumber’s solute to the world; she then seemed to disregard his presents and turned to the three men.
“Thank you gentlemen for coming all this way,” she said in English. “My master is pleased to have you on board.”
“First things first,” the front man replied. “You need to make sure we are officially not here. And second, no more attack-dog lawyers okay? You just love the fact that you were able to talk us into helping. She may have underhanded a lot if other hairy-assed men but are not her pets.”
“I am sure my master understands your position perfectly.” The lynx replied.
“When then, we will stay in touch.”
The lead wolf moved to leave but looked directly at Barett’s colorful green and orange covered back-end sticking out of the wall. Unfortunately Barett had forgotten that he was fixing something and was watching the interchange from inside the wall. Their eyes met and the wolf narrowed his.
“Who the hell is that?” the wolf pointed.
The lynx looked and turned to the beaver for help.
What does Barett do?
The smell of burnt, wet mole hair and computer equiptment was almost nausiating as bullets rang every which way around Tsai Lee sending small peices of metal and plastic stinging across her skin. Finding the turned computer table, she ducked behind it for cover the best that she could. She knew that his clip would be out within moments. Wiping her water drenched face on her soaked tank top she started counting. One... two... three... four... silence. With a deep breath she pounced, leaping the entire distance to the door way. Crouching in the stair well with swords in hand, she looked up at the Kangaroo fumbling with the clip and his gun. A flash gleamed across her green eyes as his gaze caught hers and the corner of her mouth turned up into a smile. She could already feel his blood. One leap took her to the top of the stairs and over the top of the Kangaroo.
"Ah, shit." The Kangaroo moaned in strong Australian just as her swords, one after another, sliced across his neck. She landed lightly behind him and paused to hear his dying gurgle and death rattle. The gun dropped to the ground and the Kangaroo fell over, still choking until he was still, his eyes glazed. Tsai Lee flicked the blood from her swords and knelt down by the body. Wiping the blades on a clean part of his jacket, she quickly found whatever ammo he had left in his pockets and the clips on the ground. Hearing sirens in the background, she walked calmly to where her scooter was parked.
The light of the new day was flooding the street and the place almost looked clean. As Tsai Lee approached her scooter she saw one more man standing close by the closed down shop watching her come out wet but very much alive from the trap. He stepped forward; obvious shocked to see who was walking towards him. She guessed he was the lookout. The sirens were getting closer.
Tsai Lee continued to walk calmly, closing the distance.
The man, another koala, was wearing a long khaki-colored coat and black gloves.
It was too warm for a coat.
“Die you bitch!” He swore at her and swung out a shot-gun from under his coat.
“Puk gai.” She called back at him and flipped her long wet hair.
The man overreacted thinking the water droplets were something lethal. He jerked his head back trying to dodge whatever he thought was coming at him while trying to bring his gun to bear.
Tsai Lee’s executed a double kick. Her left leg came up in a parry attack, making contacting on the shotgun’s barrel knocking it safely to her left. The momentum of her first kick brought her in close as her second attack was a right foot smash into his chin. But she had more. Drawing her right leg back violently, she hooked his neck and wickedly twisted down. The man collapsed in a heap. Tsai Lee followed up with a quick punch to his sternum with one of her daggers.
He wouldn't be giving her any trouble.
A few people had come out of their closed shops and were standing dumbstruck and what they had just witnessed. Tsai Lee ignored them. It was time to move.
The key to what is going on seems to be with whatever was locked away and hidden on the data-disk. What was bothersome was that the computer shop was set up like a definite trap. Somehow, they (whoever they were) knew to stake out the place.
What were the implications then? Would Tsai Lee be safe going back to the red medical shop of Ling?
Probably not.
And where had Barett gone? The note had said he was going to check out the Albino. That was across the harbor on Hong Kong Island. Should she go there?
Tsai Lee did not like working blind. She needed a plan and be in control of events. That was how she liked to operate.
One thing was for sure. Someone was bringing in foreign forces. You see Australian nationals in Hong Kong true enough, but a hit squad was something different.
And that took money.
Barett's hand grasp the revolver in the wires and moved it free. He pretended like he was concentrating on something he couldn't see and made a confused look on his face like he didn't understand the question. He repeated a phase he had heard Ling say over and over again in the shop, he hoped it meant something like "pardon me" in cantonese to the Lynx and Beaver but not much but gibberish to the Wolves as he put Lings rural accent on it.
" I don't like the looks of this guy ?"
The Wolf with the dark black markings commented, the hair on his neck starting to stand out, a leftover effect of his cross breeding, just like his primative ancestors used to do.
The Beaver character got very animated at this point, waving his hands all around and talking in a mix of bad english and Cantonese.
"He good, all safe....no hurt.... here to fix.....see all good...we check him out....computers down...we call...all good...."
The Beaver looked to the Lynx, she looked to the Ox he nodded his head, and made the all clean sign.
" You worry to much my friends "
She said to the Wolves in a light tone, with her slight accent.
" Would you also slit the throats of your taxi drivers so that no one saw you here ? The man has no idea what we are saying. Or would you rather that I have him killed right here right now, that can be arranged......but the additional costs to your organization would be high...you understand ?"
She says in her best english voice, calm and sweet.
The front man puts out his hand to stop the dark one.
" That is enough Gunney....You have a point...let Dong-mei know the package will be delivered as per her request with in 24 hrs. We will expect her end of the bargain to start now..."
" Very good, I will make the arrangements immediatly...the courier will deliver the first installment to your hotel this afternoon..."
She smiles and escorts them out to the door.
Barett manages to clip together the last few wires he cut, and closes the access door, palming his revolver into his ankle holster.
Walking over to the computer he clicks on the network connection reconnect icon and taps the computer on the monitor.
The Beaver smiles as a list of nonsense to Barett pulls up. Barett bows low and proceeds to the door, pointing to the elevator.
After getting on the elevator he rushes to the service steam tunnel and changes his cloths, as he runs to Bei Ai's building.
Emerging on to the crowded street he sees the Wolves Taxi pull away from the curb. Clothslining a skinny rat on a scooter he spins the little machine around and starts tailing the taxi.
Tsai Lee's blood was pumping as she jumped on her scooter and took off as quickly as she could. Where was Barrett and what did he find out? She drove for twenty minutes to lose anyone that may have been following her and then found a pay phone. Taking a peice of paper from her pocket she dialed in the numbers.
"Hello?" said a young voice on the other line after a few rings.
"This is Tsai Lee. Are you alone? What did you learn about the Gwai Lo?"
"Give me just a moment," said the orangutan boy. She heard him mumble to someone in the back ground and then take a few steps. A door closed.
"He is downtown. He went to the Jardine House Building."
"Bei Ai." Tsai Lee said.
"I didn't see him come out. I had to leave after an hour."
"Thank you. I have left your compensation in a package at the front desk."
Tsai Lee hung up, gritting her teeth. Constantly checking for people around her she jumped back onto the scooter and headed for the Jardine House Building. It was the only place she knew to start.
The streets were moderately crowded as she drove, frustrated as people seemed to be driving far too slowly for her intentions. She had seen no sign of Barrett. She knew how hard he would be trying to fit in, which would make her job much more difficult. Her clothes were at the nearly dry point, feeling dirty and stale from sweat and the little bit of smoke she had encountered. The goal was easy, find Barrett and then a quiet place to clean up. The death smell of the mole had stained her nostrils.
She reached the Jardine House Building and pulled the scooter over. She scanned the crowd again, careful not to focus too hard as to catch something in her periferal vision. She noticed a skinny rat trying to get through the crowd on a scooter when an arm snakes out, closelining him from his machine.
"Barrett!" She said, softly, her heart leaping. She knew that his bluntness couldn't be hidden for long. She saw his figure jump on the scooter and take off after someone. She did the same. She rarely pursued a man, but this one was worth the chase.
Barett reveeved up the motor on the little scooter, the bike jerked and belched out smoke then took off. The chain rattled and clipped along the motor housing, the valves gave off a terrible pinging noise.
"This bikes not long for the scrap yard "
He thought out loud.
"Hope it gets me as far as I need to go"
He pulled the courier hat down over his brow, right down to the cheap sunglasses, and checked his look in the mirror. The gray jacket and hat with sunglasses made him look like any of a dozen couriers in the city, as long as they stayed there he was fine.
After a couple of blocks he say the tail, another scooter, bigger and faster was gaining on him. going for his H&K .45 with the silencer and swinging to the curb he eyed the approaching scooter.
He should have seen what was happening sooner, but that didn't bother him much.
Pretending to throw something in a garbage can he gunned the beat up bike and moved back in to the flow of traffic.
Tsai Lee was behind him now, her bag and ponytail cluing Barett into her identity.
The cab only went for another two miles then pulled over to a nice hotel and the three Wolves started to get out.
Barett whipped the little bike into an alley when they had their backs turned and ditched the old bike, picking it up and placing it in a dumpster full of kitchen refuse. In case he needed it later.
Not long after, Tsai Lee pulled up next to him.
"You look like crap"
He said smiling at her, amazingly he was glad to see her again.
" I was going to tell you the same."
She quipped back.
" Look I've got an idea here....these guys are bad news, I was going to intercept the money they are getting from the 'Albino' and then start calling people to create some confusion...we should check into the hotel to keep an eye on these guys..what do you think?"
Tasi Lee agreed and told him all about the "Australians" and her problems and the two of them compared notes.
After Tasi Lee checked in for them Barett sneaked in the back way so that the E.H. Wolves wouldn't see him. While he was waiting for Tsai Lee he bought a couple of changes of clothes for the two of them and some cheap luggage, just to cover his bases...who knew how long it would take for the "Albino's" courier to show up?
The hotel’s name was the Harbour Grand Hong Kong. Stone walls rose 9 to ten floors up before any windows and then a towering glass megalith. The place looked like a fortress; private and exclusive.
Oddly, across the narrow street from the hotel was what Barett would consider “ghetto”. Hong Kong was a mystery to him; uber-rich sitting right next to towering slums. Case in point and slightly humorous to him was the car parked to his immediate left as he crossed the street back from his little shopping trip. It was an old rusted, multi-colored patched Ford Pinto with its hood sticking up in as if in distress. Right behind it sat a shinning mint condition royal-blue Mercedes Benz C Class. The owner of the Benz was nowhere to be seen but beyond the car, two bored looking ladies sat in from of their tinny shop which appeared to be a rice mill. The smoking one, the one in a pink t-shirt, had yellow fingers. It was the type of thing you saw on someone who lazily held a cigarette in their hand the exact way for years and years which allowed the tar-filled smoke to stained the skin to a permanent sickly tint. The other lady in a similar shirt, only white, wore just one worn-out pink plastic sandal while she busied herself scratching her other nasty looking foot and heel. Who knew, maybe the Benz was theirs.
Slipping through a side door, Barett headed up the seldom used metal stairwell to the second floor where he knew Tsai Lee would be waiting for him. He peeked out into the lobby he found that no one was there except for Tsai Lee. She was standing close by looking out over the main lobby. She was turned half away from him showing off her profile. Barett noticed that she seemed to be deep in thought and a sly smile touched her lips. The view of her struck him such a way as to cause his heart to hit hard against his chest. He felt an immediate stirring in his loans. He wanted her! And he wanted her bad!
Her figure against the backdrop of the spacious open room was stunning. Light from the chandelier made her ivory skin glow. The fitted black tank-top with its subtle beaded pattern around the neckline was drawn taut to her curving figure, the extra tightness; he guest was from getting drenched. Her long hair was a windblown mess but it looked good on her. It gave her a wild, active look with her muscular arms and tone body. He was looking at a vision of a goddess from an ancient temple dedicated to the perfection of a woman. Tsai Lee, at that moment, was feminine perfection for Barett.
But a second thought struck him like a sledgehammer to the head. She was the epitome of the femme fatale. Men throughout the ages have always wanted and hated women like her. She could easily use her feminine charms and beauty to get what she wanted and needed from any man! , including him. And then, as simple as tossing the dice, she could turn and just as easily strip the fool of his foolish hide and throw him aside without a second thought of shame or regret. Tsai Lee had an aurora of sleek elegance, fitness, and sexual prowess and yet she was deadly has hell!
But so was he.
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