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.
110 comments:
What are they going to do?
Tsai Lee was happily showered, wearing a plush, white bath robe, sitting on the edge of the soft bed with tweezers pulling small pieces of shrapnel out of her leg. In the mirror she had seen a large cut in her left shoulder blade that was still giving a sting of pain. She was tired, but the adrenaline was still wearing off in her blood. There was no way she was going to sleep for a little while yet.
The bathroom door opened followed by a puff of steam. Barrett casually walked out, a white towel wrapped around his hips. His hair was sleek and wet, beads of water dotting the strong muscles of his back and shoulders. She pretended not to notice him, but held a hidden smile.
"I am going to need your help here in a moment." She said.
"Trying to seduce me already?" he smiled. "I was hoping you would dance a little for me first."
"The last man I danced for couldn't catch his breath. His blood is probably still draining onto the sidewalk in front of the mole's shop. Still want to take me on?"
"What do you need help with?" He smirked.
Tsai Lee modestly let down the back of the robe to show the wound on her back. She carefully held the tweezers over her shoulder. "I need you to make sure there is nothing in it. There was a lot of stuff flying around that room." She said with a near blush.
Barrett approached her. She could feel the heat from him, the smell of soap. Her stomach tightened in arousal. His fingertips touched her skin softly as he pulled open the puncture. His face came close to her back as he looked closer, his breath tingling across her shoulders. He brought up the tweezers and she felt a few pinches.
"You want to keep this for a trophy?" Barrett held up a sharp peice of metal a forth of an inch wide and three times that in length. "I'll get my sutchure kit and a bandage." She was amazed that she felt so disapointed as he moved away. He rummaged through his pack to find some gauze and tape and came back to the bed. Placing a little numbing fluid on her, he began to stitch. His fingers were warm and she almost enjoyed the feel of the stitches as long as she could feel his skin upon hers.
"Are you alright?" He whispered in her ear.
"Yes. Thank you." Finishing up he moved to put away his supplies. Tsai Lee let out a breath and watched him walk away.
Tsai Lee could barely move. Everything in the room seemed alive and vibrant. Every movement she made was a new sensation, every breath filled with new scents. Barrett put the stitch kit away and and came back to the bed, sitting beside her. He placed his face in his hands, taking a deep breath and letting it out again.
"What now?"
"We need to rest." Tsai Lee took all of her courage and placed her hand on his knee. His entire body stiffened suddenly. She had never been so nervous about a man before, and she found it exilerating. Carefully her hand moved up his leg, feeling the hair of his body move under her touch. She reached the edge of the towel and her fingers moved carefully to his inner thigh and stopped when she reached his groin. He was fully aroused. Without notice Barrett pounced one her, pinning her to the bed, her robe falling open and exposing her breasts. Barrett kept his eyes starkly on her eyes.
"Are you sure this is what you want?" His breathing was fast, matching her own. "This will change everything."
Tsai Lee gazed back at him, her determination set with the feel of his groin pushed against her, "you want to stop me?"
Leaning down, his lips met hers.
What are they going to do now? :)
Barett was surprised by her moves, but he felt like she had been flirting with him the last few days. Some women are hard to read, and she was one of them.
Her kisses were warm and wet, and tasted of the chocolate mints left on the pillows of the plush king sized bed.
Barett rolled her to the top as he moved his hands over her body, gently removing the robe, she sighed as their two, now completly naked bodies, started rubbing together.
She was even better looking than he remembered. Her lith muscles flexing and straining as they worked to get a rythm going.
It wasn't until the second go round that they worked things out, but by the forth time they had done it that afternoon on the bathroom floor Barett was sure he had met his match sexually. He couldn't remember being with a women that had such a huge sex drive as this one, need less to say he felt like writing a letter that started out,"Dear Penthouse, you won't believe what happened to me the other day". I guess some of the stories were true.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the TV, as she gently snoozed in the middle of the bed. By this point he was starving and craved orange juice and a tuna fish sandwich. Raiding the fridge he made some crackers and caviar like things then dressed himself.
SHe stired a little on the bed, then opened her eyes, a smile crept across her placid face.
"I'm starving, lets get some food, this place has got to have a decent restarant in it?"
Barett suggested.
Not only did the hotel have a decent restaurant, it had three. The closest was just one floor up called the “Le 188° Restaurant”. The two road up one floor and stepped out of the elevator into the opulent restaurant which was designed for privacy while giving the individuals a sense of lordship, like kings or gods raised-up high over the city. This effect was done by means of tall floor-to-ceiling windows which surround the room on 3 sides. Tables where place directly next to the windows to give a full sweeping view of the wide Victoria harbor which divided the towering megalithic buildings on Hong Kong Island from Kowloon. The view from the top of Harbour Grand hotel was nothing short of spectacular, unless one suffered from vertigo. The place was fancy and reserved for high class upscale society. There was even a dress code, best casual as a minimal.
The two were greeted by a small mousy matradee who led them a somewhat secluded table far to the front of the restaurant. The small man seated Tsai Lee and bowed, calling her “Me Lady” in a funky French accent. He totally ignored Barett who took his own seat which faced back towards the main door which suited him just fine. He liked to be able see the exit.
The two were dressed up. What Barett had bought from the store before he came into the hotel was nice but it didn’t compare to what he had found stocked in the walk-in closet of the presidential suite. He had discarded what he bought and chosen a fashionable striped dark purple, long-sleeve dress shirt and comfortable khaki colored chinos pants. The shirt he left un-tucked and the top three buttons undone. While he waited, he stood in the living room area of the suite and stared at his image looking back at him through the windows with the cityscape of Hong Kong in the distance. The vision was a trip. He was feeling sexy and confident; but a man out of place to be sure. But lifestyle he could get use to. Of course, Barett was Barett; his 5 shot .38-cal revolver hidden in his pants.
Tsai Lee had come out of the bedroom looking like a vision of beauty. She had put on a thin midnight-blue dress with a slight and playful silver embroidered pattern of koi fish. The dress was a long sleeve, short skirt style with a low v-neck cut. The gown gracefully skimmed her body, creating a long and lean look. It absolutely accentuated all her best features. She too was feeling sexy, flirtatious, and elegant in the dress and wanted to feel extra special after today’s excitement. She had brushed her thick black hair up and pinned it into a styled called a “milky way updo”. She had applied makeup to focus on her distinct features; a bold smoky eyeliner look to accent the almond shaped of her eyes, soft peach-colored gloss on her lips, and a quality of foundation that made her face glow. Her green eyes sparkled at Barett and he knew he was in trouble!
The sex was absolutely fantastic and he fancied going again right there and then for round five and six. But sex with any woman had, like it always does, changed everything. What their relationship was going to develop into was a question that needed to be figured out. The image of Melissa had suddenly and unexpectedly leaped into his mind as he looked at this beautiful Asian women standing before him. He quickly compartmentalized that ghost of a thought and locked it deep away for another day.
Tsai Lee had stepped in close. The headiness of her smell was intoxicating. She kissed him softly with her moist lips but moved pass to his ear before the kiss could become anything more passionate. Taking her right hand, she seductively found his scrotum. Giving the sack a slight squeeze she had pleasantly whispered a curse and promise into his ear.
“You ever leave me and I will cut these off.”
She had his full attention.
That was an hour ago. The late lunch was excellent despite being way over priced. The two were talking in low voices, trying to figure out what they knew and what they didn’t.
“What are we going to do now?” Tsai Lee asked in reference to the Albino and the wolves.
“We need to be ready to intercept the money. The best thing is to throw a wrench into their plans. Get them bumbling and reacting instead of holding all the good playing cards.”
“As soon as someone shows up, my man will let us know. What is bothering me is the Albino’s disk and I keep thinking about the trap at Bohai’s place. Somehow, someone knew I was coming. They didn’t want anything but me dead. However,” she reasoned, “there is no way they could have known I was coming because I hadn’t even planned it before I left Ling’s place and I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
“Lucky guess?” Barett offered, but he knew better and so did Tsai Lee.
“Maybe they had it staked out before hand. I don’t know what to think but I am worried there may be a leak somewhere inside the Black Dragons. Everyone at Ling’s knew we were using Bohai to try to read the disk. If it was a leak, who would they be informing? The E.H.?”
“But they were Aussies.” Barett pointed out. “The E.H. and them aren’t known to get along with each other too well.”
“Maybe this is someone else? Someone connected to Guang Li the pig, perhaps?”
“You mean the Tian Di Hui Triad? The group we took out at the tea house?”
“Possibly,” She replied thoughtfully.
“Is there someone else we can use who can read the data disk? Someone who is not connected to anyone? I have tried getting hold of Rick to see if he could do anything but the jerk is MIA.”
“It looks like such a simple thing but even Bohai was having trouble with it. And that is saying something. Whatever is on there was placed there with a reasonable sense of assurance that it would be hard for anyone else to get it off.”
One of the two elevators opened at the entrance of the restaurant and a man obviously Triad by his hair cut and tough boy fashion exited and scurried in a panic over to Tsai Lee and Barett’s table. Something was definitely amiss because the “too cool to care” attitude that they always strutted around with was missing.
“My Lady,” he breathed out in a alarm. “The Albino’s secretary is here! She is going to meet with the wolves here in this room. They are on their way up as we speak. I was just able to get in ahead of them to warn you. They will be here any second.”
Barett swore. They had seen him and he guessed that they would all recognize the coontail who was missing a tail the instant they set eyes on him.
The three of them moved toward the entrance.
The second elevator chimed and the door opened. Out stepped the beautiful lynx. Her eyes caught Barett's and he saw recognition register in her eyes. She was alone but the light on the other lift indicated that it was coming up. They had maybe 30 seconds before the dogs showed up.
What do you do? Barett has his gun and Tsai Lee has five throwing knives hidden on her body. The Triad lacy has nothing but spit and attitude. The kitchen and prep area is to their right and could offer a place to hide if they wanted to use it.
Barett pretends to stumble forward, striking with full force the Lynx in the throat with the side of his hand, then kicking her legs out from under her. Pushing off the wall he grabs her in a firemans carry, tossing her right over his left shoulder. Throwing the small brown leather attache case she held to Tsai Lee he spins through the kitchen door, his left arm holding the Lynx in a head lock, his righthand over her mouth. A tight squeeze of his left arm and he can feel her body go limp finally, as her legs collapse againest his back.
Tsai Lee and the Lacky follow Barett into the kitchen just as the elevator bell rings. He doesn't look back himself, but heads straight for the large line of walk in freezers at the far back right of the stainless steel prep tables covered in piles of fresh seafood and vegtables. Luckily for them it was between meals, the dinner rush was to start in a few hours and the staff was on a break, only a few waiters loitered in the back, flirting with one of the female chefs. Barett ignored them and walked right into the largest freezer, a meat locker he was hoping.
The bitter cold air whipped out past him as he quick stepped into the far back of the metal box freezer. It was a packed full of heavy duty cardboard boxes, filled with plastic wrapped meats. In the farthest back corner he opened one of the larger boxes, pulled out the contents and stuffed the Lynx's body in it, pulling out her keys and wallet before putting the frozen meat on top of her.
Walking back out of the freezer he snaps the handle off of the freezer door and jams a small knife in the lock and breaks it off.
" That should slow things down, at least for a while."
He said as he stepped out into the kitchen prep area.
The bag that Barett tossed to Tsai Lee was heavy. She opened it while Barett was taking care of the lynx. The triad boy gave a low whistle as he looked curiously over her shoulder and into the bag. The bag was easily housing the equivalent to 300,000 dollars in large Hong Kong denomination bills. In the side was a yellow official looking folder. This Tsai Lee pulled this out, recognizing that it was possibly the instructions that the Albino was communicating to the wolves . . . all three of whom had just entered the restaurant. Tsai Lee could see their image reflected off a stainless steel cabinet next to the kitchen door. She saw one of the wolves, the gray one glace back at the elevator doors.
Tsai Lee guessed that the wolves just figured out that their contact was missing. The snapping of the freezer handle by Barett, though not overtly loud, obviously caught the three wolves attention. Guns came out and they began advancing toward the kitchen door.
What the hell did Barrett do with the Lynx! Tsai Lee was feeling something strange. She finally figured out that it was fear. Yes, Barrett was straight off the cuff. He was not afraid to kill, and to do it without much thought. She was frightened by this, but the danger was also intensly arousing. Yes, she wanted him for bed sport, but a caring, emotional relationship was most likely out of the question. She could deal with that.
The wolves entered the room, guns drawn. Tsai Lee tossed the bag back to Barrett and quickly grabbed a couple of long skewers she'd been eyeing since they entered the room. From bed sport to blood sport. It was a good day.
Barett grabbed the bag and tossed it over his shoulder. Grabbing two handfuls of sharp knives, He started throwing them in rapid fashion at the entering wolves.
The first to enter was a brown with almost blond highlights to his fur, husky fellow. A whistling carving knife catching him in the shoulder, caused him to duck down and in right into Tsai lee's deadly range.
As the other two dived behind the doors out of the rain of sharp knives flying through the air.
Tsai Lee took her opportunity and drove the sharp end of the skewers into the chest of the distracted wolf.
Jumping back into the kitchens prep area behind a large stainless table as the loud cracks of unsurpressed 9mm handguns, sent lead rounds bouncing around the kitchen area. She dove down low and slide out of the ricocheting rounds, pushing the lackey infront of her.
Behind them Barett had grabbed a large wood table and flipped it on its side using the 6 inch thick hardwood top as a shield. His snubnosed .38 special in hand. He signaled for Tsai Lee and the Lackey to move towards him as he retreated to the back of the kitchen and towards the service elevator.
By this time the employess had vanished and the steady thump of small arms fire had drowned out all other noises. Barett swung out low and fired twice at the Dark grey one refered to as "Gunney". Both times he managed to dodge Baretts shots.
"This guys going to be a real problem." Barett thought to himself.
Leaning againest one of the freezers he braced his legs and waited for Tsai Lee and the Lackey to make it over to him.
Far a brief moment there was quiet, only the ringing of dented steel hung in the air. Then the screams of patrons in the dining area began to reach them.
Barett reached into the bag and pulled out the envelope and cash, stuffing it into his shirt. Putting the bag over the shoulder of the Lackey He sent him towards the elevator to escape and hopefully create a distraction.
The lackey ran straight into a wicked crack of electric red light and his body vaporized.
“He chusheng zajiao de zanghuo!” (Filthy fornicators of livestock!)Tsai Lee cursed as she watched what little parts were left crumple to the tile floor.
Barett swore in English.
“What was that!?”
“Major trouble,” Was all he was able to explain as 9mm rounds began to racket and crash round the wooden table and the stainless steel wall.
They could hear three individuals moving on them which meant that the brown “wolfy” they had stuck with the knives was still mobile. He may even be wearing armor.
And they were moving in for the kill which for all intents and purposes looked like they were going to succeed. These guys were professional operatives for the E.H. And they were good.
Barett had three live rounds left. He knew who he needed to take out and the general location of his target. Grabbing a large cooking kettle that had fallen behind the table, he threw it high and to the right. Triple burst of 9mm pinged through the kettle as it flew out.
Everything that happened next took place within three heartbeats.
At the same time that Barett threw the pot he lunged low and to his left exposing his head. He and the wolf he was looking for made eye contact. Barett saw what he was afraid he would see, the black gun the coontail brothers had come to known as major trouble. The wolf leveled his weapon just as two .38 rounds slammed threw his brain. His body and the blitzkrieg bounced off the tile floor.
“Too fast and too hot to handle, “Barett thought, and began to smile when a wicked hot pain exploded across his head and everything went black.
The room was deafeningly loud with all the shooting. Tsai Lee watched as Barett’s body collapsed to the ground. A part of her wanted to panic but she was already moving. Two razor edged throwing knives; two targets. As she leaped out from behind the table the two remain wolfs began to track her with their assault rifles. But she wasn’t running from them, she was attacking and distance between them evaporated.
A black streak slammed through the eye socket of the first wolf before he could pull the trigger. The second found his trigger as Tsai Lee collided into him, ramming the knife into the soft tissue of his nose and all the way back into his spinal cord. She fell on him and watched as shock of what happened registered in the dying wolf’s eyes. His face was a bloody broken mess. His eyes raced back and forth for another second or two until the life drained from him.
Tsai Lee stood only to realize herself that she was bleeding. Three holes in her dress indicated where the bullets had entered her chest.
“Not good.” She thought.
What now?
She pulled the knives out and grabed the strange pistol like weapon that lay so innocently on the orange tile floor. She wasn't quite sure what compelled her to grab it, but something about it projected power and death, and it called to her. It scared Barett and after she saw what it could do, she understood why.
Yanking some clean table linens from a wire rack shelving unit and wrapping them around the bloody holes in her dress to make a temporary bandage she made her way back over to Barett.
He lay still on the floor in a twisted pile of limbs and kitchen pots, face down. Her heart leapt a little in her chest causing her to grimace in pain, as she thought for a moment he was dead. Then his leg twitched and she heard the heavy breathing of a man with his face in a pile of mashed fruit.
Grabbing the hair on the top of his head and yanking him free of the messy concoction, She felt like a heavy burden had been lifted off her heart. It wasn't like she "Loved" the man, but he was charming in a bad boy kind of way. And she could really use his help in solving this mystery that was getting more deadly at every turn. There was the most unique impression on the side of his skull where something had struck him quite hard, the tissue was already begining to swell and blood was gushing from the split open skin at a quickening pace.
Grabbing another linen she wrapped his head up tight in a turban looking weave and yanked him to his feet.
That last heavy pull almost caused her to drop to her knees in pain, as she remembered her own wounds. He stood on his own feet, cleary dazed and disoriented, but able to move along with her help. They made it to the service elevator and leaned againest the back wall of the large industrial steel box as it dropped down the inside of the building into the basement. The movement of the elevator made Barett sick and he vomited all over the floor, making the ride even worse for her.
In the underground parking structure she managed to find one more of her lackeys and was able to get them out of the building before the cops had arrive, the only problems was it involved riding in the back of a service truck full of dirty rugs. But anywhwere was better than that death trap of a kitchen.
Barett was still groggy from the blow to the head, but things were starting to come together. He still wasn't sure what had hit him, but the bump on his head was going to remind him of how lucky he was to be alive.
The ride was humid and hot, and he dry heaved a few times, but they ended up being safe enough.
They had both decided there was no going back to the Red store of Lings, or anywhere else they had been the last few days. Luckily Barett had put the disk in his pocket to go to dinner and it had survived the battle in the kitchen. Tsai Lee knew of a "Mob Doctor" out in the country side, pay as you go kind of guy and the cash from the "Albino" came in handy for that. Right now they were living in a bamboo shack in the jungle, only a mile from the river. The "Doctor" had done a good job as the wounds were only superficial and require a dozen or so stiches apiece, and the locally grown opium as a pain reliever. Barett could see the appeal of the drug, it worked very well.
After two days they were both up and running at a good pace, and Barett started loking at the "Gun" Tsai Lee had aquired, plus finding this boat and some more weapons for the two of them.
Damn her cuts hurt, but the opium was good.
The shack was a rudimentary shelter at best; at least it kept the water out. The path up from the road to the shack was so oversaturated that one would sink almost half way up to their knees in mud to walk it. That is how Tsai Lee felt, stuck up to her eyeballs in mud with a problem and there was no clean way out.
The problem was that ever since the day at the hotel she wanted him more! She wanted him so bad that she would do almost anything to get him again. Wanting him wasn’t the problem. The problem was what was going on inside her head. Her father and the family had always warned her against any romantic attachments with outsiders. Her dad would be rolling in his grave if he knew how much she wanted him. Everything that she had been taught since her youth told her to stay away from him. He was a “gweilo”, and gweilo were trouble.
And she knew they were right. This romantic attachment with Barett was estranging her from her cultural and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. He was the outside undaunted solder and cynic. His independent personality pushed the taboos, lifted the secret veils, challenged her thinking, and brushed aside all the cultural curtains she had felt could never move. At times, this brash rebellion was exciting for her. She was strong and could what she wanted, she reasoned. But then at the same time she would begin to question if that was true. She belonged to the Black Dragons and she felt loyal to them. It was a like a tug-of-war between her loyalty to her family and her feelings for this foreigner.
She would try to weigh the arguments to see if she could balance them. She couldn’t help but ask what the prospects were for a happy ending for her. They were not particularly good, especially in her line of work! She was smart enough to know that a love affair between Western men and Asian women was mostly a thing of fiction. She had read enough to know of the familiar theme were an adventurous and romantic Western male would meet the exotic and somewhat mysterious, but beguiling Eastern female. They would inevitably defy the conventions of their respective cultures by falling in love, perhaps marrying, and suffer some tragic ending.
Tsai Lee would think this but then she wouldn’t care. He made her blood rush is way she hadn’t experienced before. She wanted to be with him; at least for as long as he intrigued her anyway she would end up reasoning with herself.
It was raining and it was getting late. Tsai Lee grabbed her binoculars, pulled on a poncho and headed out the back of the bamboo shack and began to tread her way through the mud and up the hill.
The bamboo shack was nestled in the wetlands of Long Valley, New Territories, to the north of the city. A river, the “Shek Sheung”, ran north in the valley to empty into the Ng Tung River which was the historic dividing line between Hong Kong and China proper. The place was called Three Point Gate.
Rain had started two days ago and there were a few periods of utter torrential downpours. Now was such a time and you had to be crazy to be out in it.
It was the perfect time for them to move across the border.
Tsai Lee climbed about a hundred feet up into the jungle and then dropped down into the drenching elements. What looked like a bush was Barett’s Ghillie suit-like cover. She slid in close to Barett. It was cramped and they were very close together, Tsai Lee secretly enjoying the physical contact. He was a good teacher as she was quickly learning how to be a spotter for him. He grunted as she slid in but he kept his eye focused on his target. Neither spoke as she set up and began to peer through the rain at the border with her vector laser range finder.
Barett had been sitting up there for three hours. He was using his sniper rifle. He had taken care to retrieve his CheyTac M200 Intervention with its .408 rounds. The thing was, it was his baby and there was no way he was giving it up. Besides that, it wasn’t easy to replace a really good sniper’s rifle and scope.
Through her scope, she could make out the soldiers patrolling the Ng Tung River which ran east to west. There was a small bend to the river were the Shek Sheung merged into it. It was here that a bridge linked the two countries. Traditional Chinese gate buildings were built on each side. A larger tower with search lights had been erected on the Hong Kong side that gave a commanding view of the Shek Sheung. The river was known as a path used from time to time for rebels, criminals, gangs, and such to sneak into the Hong Kong.
The two lay next to each other for twenty minutes, waiting. Tsai Lee was lost in own thoughts; the primary one being: “damn him, he didn’t even look at me.”
They had talked earlier and their plan was to investigate the island. But there were still decision to make on how to do that. Would they go by land or by river? The Ng Tung emptied into the Pearl River delta and was the most direct route however; it was also patrolled by two groups. The first was the Hong Kong government who tried to keep a lid on the chaos of the war from spilling over from the third largest population area of China. Refugees were a major problem and Hong Kong was not letting many in. The other patroller was the Yellow-shirts, the corrupt Guangzhou government group. They were looking for “red-shirts” rebels who seemed to have infiltrated into everything. The orders were usually fire first and then interrogate if there were any survivors. Unauthorized boats didn’t tend to get far.
The second choice the two had was to cross the Ng Tung and then go up overland and find a position to observe the island first before attempt and landing. Once there they would have to steal another boat to get to the island. Swimming could work but the current was an unknown factor and the river was notoriously polluted with sewage and industrial waste. It was also a long swim.
The coordinates for the island was strange. Tsai Lee had found some maps of the area and the two had triangulated their target. Technically there was nothing there of interest but a large rock. But that was what was so interesting; an island that wasn’t inhabited in a place overpopulated? It made no sense. It was called Dahushan Island and it was a little over a mile north of the Humen Bridge which was the large suspension bridge over the Pearl River. The island was almost 2 kilometers long and about kilometer wide.
Sitting now in the heavy rain, the two watched the border.
“I see five guards now.” Tsai Lee said as she looked down at her watch. It was 11:30 p.m. exactly. “It looks like the Hong Kong boys are as punctual as ever.”
“They look miserable.” Barett noted as he watch a man in a poncho standing out in the rain. The crosshairs of his rifle rested on the man’s head.
Tsai Lee swung to look at the building on the other side of the river.
“No movement yet for our friends to the north; the two are smart and staying out of this weather, just sitting there playing their card game.”
“The boat and gear is ready. I guess it is decision time. You want to go by river all the way or cross over and then do the rest by land?” Barett asked.
Tsai Lee shrugged her shoulders.
" What ever is best, it's really your call."
Barett contemplated a long time in the rain. By boat to the far end of the island and then by foot, was going to be the best way. Come into the heavily vegitated side of the island, hide the boat and then make thier way to a good spot to watch and learn. The darkness and the rain would provide the best cover.
" We go by boat to the far side of the island then take our time and get a good look at this boat."
Barett looked a Tsai Lee, for a woman of her size she had good strengh and fortitude.
She nodded in agreement, and Barett started slowly out in the rain, making his way to the small boat stashed in the tall brush on the river bank.
Barett cut a haphazard path thru the vegitation at the waters edge. The mud and rain making the trip much longer than usual. He was beginning to like this warm rain, if it would ever stop, better than the cold rain of his home turf.
The small boat lay tied in the marsh like banks of the river, it was more like a lake to him, but a river it was, wide and deep.
The boat was a small local fishing rig, more of a long canoe with two outriggers on each side to keep it stable, a large electic motor hooked in at the back to move it quietly through the water.
He placed the sniper rifle on some boards just above the floor but out of sight and hooked the strange little battery to the motor. Sliding into the boat he did a quick equipment check while Tsai Lee made her way down to the boat, the sound of raindrops slapping the water drowning out all noise of her approach.
The " Blitzkerg " was in the small of his back, his H&K .45 on his right hip, silencer attached. A 12" gurki on his left hip. Two fragmentation grenades and a flash grenade in his hydration backpack with three days worth of energy bars and water. All this hid under his modified "Gilly" suit. If someone would have just happened apon him there, it would have looked like some sea monster, waiting for its next meal. That in one way was how he felt.....waiting for his next kill, his next shot.
Tsai Lee came thru the brush at the edge of the water and lithly made her way to the boat. even under the bulky gilly suit she emitted a certain sexual energy and female sway. A Dragonov sniper rifle held in her hands, a good choice for this land, and hard to trace back to them. She rolled into the boats front end and took up point, low and flat on the bow as he pushed them out into the rivers currant, pointing the small boat towards the far end of the island where they hoped to make landfall in a few minutes.
The two launch the boat and headed north. The small border crossing between Hong Kong and China hung empty before them in the dark raining night. Tsai Lee kept her eyes on the guard tower but She saw no movement.
It looked like they were going to get over the border clean and free.
However, as the glided past the Hong Kong buildings at the border, Barett instantly so the trouble they had floated into. There along the river was a radar station that was obviously put there to stand the river during conditions such as this rainy night.
A spotlight from the guard tower lit them up like a glowing house on top of a hill, blinding the two. Their hide-n-sneak was busted!
Some disembodied voice out of the darkness shouted at them to stop over a loud speaker.
What do they do?
Barett swears.
" Holy freaking monkey butt at 12 o'clock high"
He's beginning to think this woman Tsai Lee is bad luck. It's been along time since things went this bad so consistently, its a good thing she is so hot.
" Get ready to swim "
He says to Tsai Lee then turns the boat towards the light.
" Now shoot the light out, Pray and spray with that gun."
Tsai Lee opens up with three short bursts from the Dranonov rifle, as counter fire starts to come from the radar station, bullets start to pop and splash off the water as automatic weapons fire strafs the boat.
There is a bright flash then a load bang, as sparks fly from the spotlight. The whole river goes dark for moment, then goes silent.
Barett spins the boat towards the Hong Kong side and opens the throttle, drops a grenade in the seat, grabs his rifle and dives into the river headed towards the opposite side.
" Time to go now, meet me 400 clicks down from here on the bank."
He dives under water, holding his breath and starts to swim.
Swimming with clothes on is hard; manly because drag is increased exponentially. Swimming with a ghillie suit wrapped around you while wearing clothes is next to impossible. Swimming with clothes, a ghillie suit all tangled up around you and being weighed down with a very large sniper rifle, ammo, survival gear, other guns, knives, and in Tsai Lee’s case, two swords while being shot at by automatic fire is just plain crazy!
Barett went deep, the extra weight pulling him down. But he knew deep was where he wanted to be because water served as an excellent barrier between him and the bullets. His ghillie suit got all snarled up around him like a straight jacket. Whipping out a knife, he quickly cut the tangle webbing away and began to swim in what he believed was north. It was next to impossible to tell.
Tsai Lee was having a harder go at things. The Dranonov was lost seconds after she hit the water. She wasn’t going to drown over something as trivial as a gun. Her ghille suit was also binding her and severely limiting her movements. Relaxing, she found one of her swords with her left hand and slashed at the webbing to get free. She was able to get her hands free but the twisted snarl of cloth clung stubbornly around her legs. The ghillie suit meshing snagged something solid at the bottom of the river and held her like a rock anchor under water. The swollen river’s current was battering her and she was losing energy and air at an alarming rate.
Reaching down she found the cord that was holding her down and deftly cut herself free. Instantly the current took her. She was able to break the surface once through her tumbling to get breath of air.
Coming up again, coughing and spitting, her hand found the cement wall that made the bank of the river. She climbed out and then threw-up violently, the deluge of rain quickly washing the bile away.
Barett came in behind her, throwing his gear up and out of the water in one massive heave. He collapsed beside her, lying on his back and breathing hard.
“I’m beginning to think you are bad luck magnet.” He said between breaths. “It draws to you like flies to a corpse.”
Tsai Lee answered with another involuntary stomach purging.
Barett watched her with his trained paramedic eye. She had swallowed too much water. It happened to everyone who underwent extreme water training. He remembered his days emptying everything out of his guts after been pushed to the limited under water. The controlled drowning was not something he wished on anyone. He knew full well that the body doesn’t act well to dying. But it does teach you how to survive when you have to get wet like they just did.
Tsai Lee coughed again then looked at Barett. “Are you mocking me?”
“Nope, I just know how you feel, believe me!”
A noise from just up the river reached his eyes over the heavy roar of the river and the falling rain.
“We better get out of here. Are you OK to move?”
Tsai lee spit out some water then shook her head in the affirmative.
“Let’s see if we can’t find a car or something to steal then.” Barett got up and then help Tsai Lee up the cement bank and dropped down onto a road on the other side. It was obvious they had stepped into another country. Bullet holes had been blown into many places along the wall. Barett grabbed his gear he had thrown over the wall and the two disappeared in the raining dark night of China, Tsai Lee's homeland.
They have lost some of their gear, but for the most part, still have everything.
It will be dark still for another 4 hours or so. It is 50 miles to the the Island. They quickly see that many of the cars are not working, but a search leads them to small compact Asian truck. Fuel is low but it could get them 20 miles or so.
Tsai Lee has been here before and knows the roads. They have basically two routes. West until they reach the Pearl River Delta and then North along the shore, or they can head North-West through a low mountain range.
Barett does a quick check of the truck, it's in sound enough mechanical condition. A few minutes later after tuning it up some using his leatherman tool, he figures that they are good till the tank runs dry.
" We should steal or buy some fuel after we get ten or so kilometers from our entry, so as to raise less suspicion."
He looks Tsai Lee over, and checks her eyes, making sure she is ok.
" I'd better drive, they would shoot you before they would talk to you. "
She smiles at him and slides into the drivers seat.
" I'm begining to think you are the back luck charm here anyway....I did just fine on my own before I meet you."
She waves him to the back of the truck that is full of sticks, wood and various garden refuse.
Barett digs himself in, feet towards the rear, back braced againest the cab, rifle by his side and at the ready. Throwing some dead plants and sticks over the top of him to hide his outline.
" We are going north-west though this mountain pass I know, it will be faster by truck and keep us away from the border problems. I know some people back there we can get some supplies from."
She reeves the engine and takes off down the pothole ridden street, if that is what you wanted to call the mostly mud and rain washed space between the bullet hole ridden buildings.
Tsai Lee drives like a Hong Kong cabbie, weaving and braking wildly around the winding and narrow streets of the town until she breaks thru into a jungle like backroad, slowing the small truck down she turns off the headlights and turns to Barett thru the open back window of the truck.
"Keep low, this will be the most dangerous part."
The dirt road wound its way up past an old reservoir. The dam walls had failed years ago, leaving behind a scarred empty valley below them. Rain continued to fall and the darkness was almost absolute.
About fifteen minutes from when they past the end of the drained reservoir, Tsai Lee took a hard right turn on a switch back. They were coming down the back side of the mountain now and making good time. Out of the darkness she spotted a large obstacle blocking the road. It looked like a tree.
She was going to fast in the dark and to avoid ramming into it, but she slammed on the brakes none the less. The truck’s tires skidded in the mud and they came to an immediate and noisy stop as the front of the truck ran into the road block.
Barett was knocked around pretty well with all the other tree limbs and items in the back of the truck like a full box of toys being dropped from a high shelf.
Peeking out over the top of the truck, Barett instantly ascertained that this was ambush. He spotted 5 figures moving in on them quickly, two from the left and three from the right. Of course they were carrying submachine guns. A horse and rancorous laughter started from the other side of the tree that blocked the road.
This was followed by a giant of a man leaped up to stand on top of the tree. He looked like a wildcat and he stood nearly 7 feet tall. Next to him came a much shorter but very muscular hedgehog that was holding a M249 SAW that was trained on the cab of the truck.
What do you do?
Barett doesn't need to think to much on this one.
Raising up his rifle in a snap like instinct he beads up on the head of the Hedgehog with the SAW and smoke checks him with the .408 round, the silencer making the shot seem distant and odd.
He quickly jacks another round and beads up on the Wildcat, but he moved to quickly as Barett fired. The round manages to catch him in the shoulder as he jumped down, the energy from the bullet spinning him around in mid-air, then he was gone lost in the dark rain behind the tree.
" Great, last thing I need is a wounded Wildcat." Thinks Barett as he jacks another round in to the .408 rifle.
Beading up on the nearest figure coming through the trees he unleases the deadly energy that this weapon holds and drops another dark figure, the bullet ripping through his chest and spreading his life blood on the muddy forest floor.
By this time the others have caught on and submachine gun fire bounces off the metal bed of the truck as Barett ducks back into the bed and rolls out the back onto the road, behind the tires.
Prone on the ground he uses the truck as both protection and cover in the dark. Waiting for his next shot, he looks left and right, looking for a chance to get into the jungle and hide.
Tsai Lee Had bolted from the truck the minute Barett took his first shot, and dodged and rolled her way in to the thick cover of the jungle. She was low in the heavy grass right now, swords in hand. Waiting for the unlucky soul that would get to close to her silent death.
Chung Dai the warthog had learned that life had a simple philosophy; “might makes right”. The Taoism that his father had so arrogantly forced upon him as a child was a nothing more than dog farts from a long ago forgotten age! But at times, especially when he was killing, he found himself wondering about his father’s words.
Tonight was one of those nights. Ambushes had worked a hundred times, just like a spider’s web always worked. But something had gone wrong. This fly was somehow fighting back. Chung Dai had watched as big jovial Duyi the hedgehog, who was full of life and who could have easily been mistaken as one of the immortals from Seven Peaks, was cut down before he could even bring his big gun to bare. Then wily Longwei the wildcat was hit not a second latter. The rest of the group had open fire on the truck like a rained of vengeance; like the fury of “Ba Zian”, on the wicked dragon kings. They all emptied two full magazines before they finished.
The sight of the truck was dreadful. Nothing could have survived. The truck, despite the heavy rain, was burning and was a bullet ridden scrap of metal. All the men watched but nothing moved from the wreck. Two other men from the hit squad walked over to him, their guns smoking. A smile began to touch Chung Dai’s lip. “Might makes right,” He whispered to himself.
But before he finished his mantra, a movement in the darkness to his left caught his eye. He turned and saw a woman standing not three feet from him, her green eyes like two burning coals.
“You’re a good sneak,” Chung Dai said with a statistical smile, for she was a looker and he was going to have fun with her. He exchanged magazine clips but then decided he wanted to cut her instead so he let his rifle fall into its sling and he pulled out his two beloved short dāo, or butterfly swords. His two partners with him understood what he wanted to do and eyed the woman hungrily.
The woman smiled a wicked grin and likewise pulled out two swords.
“I am pretty good with these myself.”
Chung Dai did even think. He attacked with savage one-two slice that should have disemboweled her, but she parried the attack easily and answered with a vicious assault of her own. Chung Dai stumbled and fell backwards in the mud.
“Well, if that is the case, we won’t take chances, will we boys?” Chung Dai mocked from the mud only as warthog could. “Kill her!”
The two men with their guns in the ready, leapt forward past the fallen warthog. The woman dodged the bullets by catching the first man’s barrel with her swords in a scissor move, spun in close to him making so she avoided the second man’s aim, and backhanded her blade across the first man’s throat. Blood spurted and the man, forgetting his machine gun, thrusting his finger at the wound in a vain attempt to stem the flow of his life out into the pouring rain. The second man, wide-eye at what had just happened to his friend, snapped his rifle over as fast as he could and let lose five rounds at the woman’s head. But she ducked and the round blasted into the dying man who was holding his throat.
The second man grunted with shock both at what he had just done and a new sensation he felt in his belly. He looked down past his gun barrel that was still aimed at where he had just shot his friend. Not only had the woman ducked out of the way, but her right fist was now slammed up into his gut holding onto the hilt of her sword, the blade of which was buried deep inside him. She pulled her weapon free and the second man fell back, eyes still wide open in death.
“Well?” the woman asked the warthog who had now just gotten up out of the mud, the butterfly swords forgotten.
He knew he needed to kill her and kill her quickly. He jerked his rifle up from its attached body sling and fired. The woman leapt back from the explosion of gun fire that should have taken her head off. He tried to follow her movements but it was too dark and he was too slow. She swept low and to the left coming up in a roll and plunged her left blade into his groin. It severed the huge artery at the top of the inner thigh.
Chung Dai looked down as he felt warm blood begin to drench his pants; then his legs gave way and he fell to his knees before the woman. He blinked up at his killer before toppling to the ground . . .
As rain puddle on his opened eyes, a final thought occurred to him. Maybe his father had been right about Taoism. If he was, Chung Dai was about to meet Chu Jiang, the king of the second of the Taoist hells, the hell of thieves and murderers.
She paused and started at the two fallen blades. The crack of automatic gunfire erupted in the darkness to her left. Tsai Lee guessed that Barett was annoying someone and getting his tight tailless little buttocks shot at. She reached down and picked up the butterfly swords that the warthog had tried to threaten her with. They were of a good quality which shocked her. She was expecting something cheap to match the cheapness of the pig.
Taking these she also knew she needed a new gun since she had lost her rifle back in the river. Reaching down, she pulled of the assault rifle from the warthog. It was a strange snub-barrel with a folding stock that she wasn’t familiar with. With wasn’t a sniper but it would come in handy for close corridors. She draped the shoulder strap across her body while she searched quickly for some extra magazines. She found three full 30-round clips which she slipped into her belt and then took off towards the sound of gun fire.
Meanwhile, Barett had rolled away from the truck and dropped himself prone into a large muddy puddle of water that was deep enough and long enough to hide in. It was on the right of the road and next to the hill that was an overgrown jungle of vegetation. Only half of his head was above the water so he could breathe and see. He was looking down the scope of his rifle watching for movement and someone dumb enough to get into his sights. The men behind the ambush were unleashing a fury of bullets upon the abandoned truck. They were obviously armatures, wasting round and pouring out their frustration. Quickly their magazines emptied leaving only the sound of the incessant rain. Barett guessed they were all reloading.
A figure stepped out of the jungle and approached the now burning wreck that had once been a truck about twenty paces away. It wasn’t the wildcat but this fellow was big two. Behind him other shapes started to shuffle in the shadows of the jungle. Barett guessed there were five.
Targeting the big guy he applied the exact amount of pressure needed on the trigger of his CheyTac and the man’s head disappeared in a spray of red.
Shouting started then as the gang of attackers attempted to zero in on where this hated sniper was located. Cover fire erupted, forcing Barett to drop down under the water line. It was a good hiding place but he knew he was too close to avoid detection.
What does he do? He knows that even if they are not too smart, someone still is going to pick up the SAW.
Barett's pissed about losing the truck, and the boat, and his ghillie suit. He is however happy about the fact that there is a target rich enviroment to practice his skills on. Caking himself in the mud he starts a slow crawl into the jungle and back to gain some distance, the fuel fire on the truck dying out quickly in the pouring rain. The warm rain pounding againest the broad leaves and trees sounds like laughter to him, foreign and muddled. The moist earth giving up her scent, like a heavily perfumed call girl, inticing but dangerous.
Sporatic gun fire erupts, then dies down, then erupts again. Back in the jungle cover now he double checks his gun and other weapons, loads the magazine back up and pulls up a position behind some twisted tree like bush.
He waits for the first person who thinks the " SAW " is a good gun to pick up.
It doesn't take long in the dark before the next idiot pops his head up. A lanky fellow, lizard like in his features creaps up slowly to the gun, his eyes fixed on the truck and road.
Barett checks the windage and does the calcs in his head, 215 yrds, head shot. The silencer doubles as a flash surpressor of a type, even with all this it does make some noise and flash, and Barett knew to move soon after his shot.
Thru the scope he could see the swirl of air as the bullet made its contact, the pink mist told him all he needed to know. Down on the jungle floor and tucked down behind the trunk of the tree he quickly reloaded and headed to his next spot 150 yrds back and up on the hill. That should make them think twice about picking up the big gun, criminals are a supertious lot and even though they are generally dumb, they won't go for the gun for a little while.
His next spot is only 30 ft from the hill crest, but almost 400 yrds back from the ambush, its a good spot.
Barett belly crawls over the muddy ground and under the thick leaved plants, slowly making his way to a large tree trunk poking its way out of the dark jungle carpet. The rain and mud slowing his progress, at points he feels more like he is swimming than crawling.
Gunfire continues to erupt in small pockets, sometimes even making its way his direction. He actually begins to wonder about Tsai Lee, and something like concern for her passes through his mind, but then fanishes away as the rain and mud distort everything in this distant land.
Coming to a stop behind the tree trunk he checks his weapon once again, sets up his scope for the range of 450 yrds and starts scanning the target area. The rain has let up a lot and pockets of open sky let some moonlight dance across the desolate road. It takes a few minutes as he waits quietly in the dark shadows of the once large tree.
Then he sees the movement, two figures standing back from the truck the shadows and leaves disquising their shapes, the shot is guess work at best and he waits, keeping them in his scope.
For what seems like five or so minutes he eyes them waiting for the right moment, waiting for moonlight or time to give him the kill shot. Then it happens, the farthest figure takes out a lighter and ignites a cigarette, providing just the illumination that he needs. The two men are standing one behind the other and Barett goes for a double kill with one shot. He slowy compresses the trigger, crosshairs lined up center mass on the first figure.
The gun recoils into his shoulder and then settles right back into the same spot, its deadly package already making contact before it completly becomes still.
The shot is good as the bullet energy of the large .408 cal blows through the first man and into the second knocking them both off their feet and into the mud on the jungle floor.
Barett watches to long before he pulls back behind the large trunk. Pulling out his log he makes note of the shot.
" To bad, this won't go into the formal record, it was a once in a lifetime kind of shot." He says out loud to no one.
He shrugs and moves out to cross the crest of the hill and make his way back towards the ambush, going to hunt down the wildcat.
Blood continued to flow freely from his wound but he could fill the rush as adrenaline flooded his veins. Longwei the wildcat was furious and frustrated and he knew his men were ready to run. How had this catastrophe happened? There had only been one person in the truck.
One grass-chewing crud of person!
But his squad of twelve had been picked apart by a damnable sniper! Six had ‘bitten the dust’ and three more were missing. The way luck playing out currently, he assumed they were dead too. That left three men plus him. He reminded himself, that if it wasn’t for his quick reflex he would have been killed too. Pain in his shoulder stung out like acid eating away the flesh. So a total of two of his three fireteams were totally dead and the last one was just a hodge-podge of what was left!
They were going to take this piss-pot of a coward that was hiding from them with his little sniper gun and string him out over three valleys . . . slowly and painfully! But first he knew he needed to play carefully. That meant no silhouettes, no noise, and no stupid moves.
He grouped up the remaining three men, one with him and the other two as a sniper hunting team. They all knew the importance of stealth.
“Don’t kill the little ‘ham-gaa-can,’” He swore, “just hurt him if you find him, unless you need to kill him. Flush him out and down here. We want this guy to pay big.”
The two groups moved quietly into the jungle. Longwei wished is it was still raining to help hide but he would have to make do. Moving forward into the jungle he and his partner found a place he judged to be the perfect ambush place.
Leaving the grunt monkey that was his partner as the first man to attack, Longwei moved lower until he came to a narrow gorge with stone walls about six feet high. Water was running through it but it wasn’t deep and it wasn't any trained sniper would be skittish about. Going around would take hours and the jeeps were in sight and just on the other side of the gorge.
Easily he climbed up onto a ledge and waited.
He was sure whoever this guy was he was going to come this way because this was the only place you could go to get a vehicle and that was something Longwei was beating he the sniper wanted.
Things went quiet. No longer did the sound of random gunfire pierce the night. Tsai Lee couldn’t see Barett and Barett could find her. Both moved with a purpose knowing that there were still men out there who wanted to kill them.
While coming down the hill, Barett slid, make much more noise than he intended. He ducked and covered for protection. Listening carefully, he heard something move in the underbrush. It was to his 9 O’clock. His senses told him someone was moving in for the kill and they were close. The jungle was too dense to use his big gun effectively. Carefully he started to pull out his H&K.
Before he knew what happened skinny man dropped out of seemingly nowhere, and began to grapple with Barett. The guy was skinny but he was strong and quick. Barett threw an elbow at his face to knock him off his back man managed to block and returned with a powerful blow to the kidneys.
What does Barett do?
Tsai Lee heard the commotion and moved like a snake in the grass to intercept. Half way there a figure leaps at her.
What does she do?
Barett gives up on getting his gun free, and does a judo move, trying to throw the guy off his back.
Grasping his wiry frame with both hands, he pulls with all his strength, twisting his hips at the same time as he bends quickly at his waist. It throws the guy from his back in a snap like action, unfortunately for Barett the guys prehensile tail grabs his rifle sling, as he is flung into the open air and down the steep hillside. The force of gravity and his natural trajectory yank Barett off his feet and down the hill as the rifle sling snaps. Head over heels the two of them tumble down the hill, as they both try desperatly to stop and get on their feet. It reminds him of the scene from Romancing the Stone, where Kathlene Turner is sliding down the muddy hillside.
Between the mud, rain and small branches breaking at every desperate grasp he manages to tumble in a controlled roll down the hill having given up on trying to stop till he hits the bottom, using his pilots training to keep from getting vertigo and light headed.
The monkey like guy was still desperatly trying to get good footing on the muddy ground when Barett rolls to a stop in a wash like stream at the bottom of the hill, only a few feet down hill from him.
Coming up in a crouch like postion, his H&K .45 cal in hand, Barett squeezes off three quick shots at the "Monkey" man.
The first two go wild, bouncing off the rocks on the bank of the river, the surpressor masking the bark of the large caliber gun. The third shot manages to clip him in the right shoulder, spinning his light frame around almost twice, before dropping him to the ground a few feet from where he once stood.
That right there was one of the reasons that he carried the large caliber gun, sure it had a big bullet drop and low capacity....but dammit if it didn't just knock the crap out of anyone when they got hit by that big old slug.
Barett didn't hesitate to pump two more rounds into the sqirming mass of limbs that was his attacker, having learned not to get to close to a man that could ambush him like that. After a few seconds all movement stopped, and Barett breathed in slowly.
Doing a quick look around him he saw his rifle laying only 12 feet from him on the ground, looking dirty but in great shape, minus the broken sling.
It was amazing how this great gun managed to stay with him, like some sort of providence.
Barett felt a cool breeze across his back and shoulders and the sting of open cuts. Reaching around he feels the large cut across his lower back, the blade of the "monkey" mans sharp knife having cut clean a 20 plus inch hole in his thick canvas shirt. The only thing that saved his back was the "Blitzkrieg" having been tucked into the small of his back under his belt. The long deep scratch across its side proof of how close he came.Lucky for him the knife wound was shallow and didn't bleed much.
The rest of his shirt was shredded from the monkey's claws and knife, and the ride down the hillside, so Barett pulled it from his scratched and muddy chest and tossed it over by his rifle. Standing in the shallows of the muddy stream, shirtless and dirty he scanned the trees and bushes for signs and sounds of Tsai Lee.
Tsai Lee skirted through the jungle, her battle lust pumping through her veins. Find Barrett. This was a reocurring theme from her adventures with him. The vegitation was thick, her senses felt the life of the foilage, the smell of the humid air. Hearing a twig snap behind her, Tsai Lee jumped, landing lightly on a branch eighteen feet above her attacker. She scanned the shadow below, watching him look around for her. She carefully moved back to hide her figure in the shadow of the tree trunk. From the round shape of his head and pointed nose, she guessed him to be a rat. She hated rats. She couldn't help but play with him. Maybe it was inbred into her psyche.
She took another small moment to watch for signs of Barrett. She heard gun fire and looked to see the flash about a hundred feet down toward the river.
"What the hell, Barrett." She thought to herself. The man could not keep still for a moment. He was always on the move. The figure below had jumped at the sound as well and began to move back toward the edge of the trees to see where the gun fire had come from. Tsai Lee smiled as she watched his movements and how he gripped his firearm. The man was frightened. He was about to become terrified.
Tsai Lee pulled a daggar and jumped from the branch landing almost quietly behind him.
"Hello, My lovely." She said sweetly, cutting the strap from his submachine gun and leaping into another tree to the left. The man let loose bullets, turning in a circle, blowing holes in everything in sight on the ground. His clip ran out. His fingers trembled as searched for a loaded one. Tsai Lee again landed just behind him. He swung the empty weapon at her, she carefully swayed from the blow, thrusting her fist into his kidney and jumping back into the first tree.
"Come out, you bitch!" He yelled. "I can take you!"
Jumping down, she gave a little distance this time, preferring to see his face as she walked toward his squat, seething body.
"Come on then, big boy. Take me!" She ran at him, ramming her weight into his gut. He slipped and began to tumble down the banks of the river. His gun was gone now, his belongings flying in all directions. Finally, he stopped. Dizzy and coughing, the air knocked from his lungs. He looked up to see a shirtless American, his foor resting on the body of the Monkey. The Rat shook his head wondering if what he saw was real. The cat man lifted a large gun, pointed it at his brow and pulled the trigger.
Tsai Lee tried to carefully make her way down the mountainside. She couldn't help but get muddy. She saw the flash of Barrett's .45 and knew that play time was over. Reaching the river, she found Barrett, shirtless, picking through the corpses to find anything of value.
"Is the nakedness for them, or me?" Tsai Lee asked smugly.
"Oh, it's for everyone, baby." Barrett said with a wink as he wiped his hand through his hair, loaded his gear on his back began to walk away.
Barett started to leap up out of the bottom of the ravine when his Zanshin kicked in and he sensed more than saw the "Wildcat" come flying at him from the top of the stone wall like bank of the stream. It was too late to do anything but roll with the graple, and spin his body in a twisting roll to break his attackers energy and force.
They both hit the water hard, and once again Barett's rifle broke free from his hand along with the H&K .45 with the silencer, his pack bobbed in the water moving slowly down the stream towards Tsai Lee, coming up from the thigh deep water into a horse stance he eyed the "Wildcat" in the moonlight. He was even bigger in person, well over six feet tall and full of muscle, standing in the water up stream from him holding onto a wicked looking sword, that glinted menacingly in his hand.
He yelled something at Barett he didn't really understand and jumped at him swinging the sword in a cross cut. Barett deftly side stepped the move and came up with his gurki in hand to defect the blade. There was a fury of slashes, as metal contacted metal and echoed up and down the narrow stone walls of the stream.
The "Wildcat" had height and arm length, plus the blade length of the sword on him, and Barett was barely able to parry the incoming strikes.
From behind him he could hear Tsai Lee splashing in the water, and the whisper swish of her swords as she fought off another of the ambushers.
" No help from her on this matter." He thought.
The Wildcat smiled a fanged grin and started a circling move Barett had seen Tsai Lee use, going in for a death strike. Barett let him make the first move, anticipating what his next strike would be. His plan being to move in close and ruin the advantage the sword and long arms gave the Wildcat. The opposite move most people would make in the same situation.
The moving water slows him down some but he was still able to move quick enough. Spinning to the left and coming in under the broad arch of the Wildcats sword stroke, he slashed at his mid section with the gurki.
Only to be meet with a parry from a short sword of some kind. Pushing forward with his right knee he knuckle punches him in the solar plexis with his left hand. In close now he sees the wound from the shot he had made earlier. He's so close now he can smell the stink of heavy tobacco smoke and b.o. on the man. THe fury of arms and blows, mixed with parrys and blocks looks like a hindu god of war splashing in a river. For a brief second Barett sees an opening and strikes at the ozing wound in the Wildcats shoulder with a rapid forekuckle punch.
The punch drops the Wildcat to his knees, and he drops the short sword in his left arm. Barett swore he heard bone crack when he made contact, it reminded him of the fights he had in that Texas prison, that ended up being some of the best conditioning that he had.
He can see the pain in the Wildcats eyes, and a crazy beserker kind of rage as well. Then he felt the kick to his legs from a low sweep move under the water by the half kneeling bandit. Down into the water Barett went, as the current caught him and swept him down towards Tsai Lee.
It took a second to get his footing again as the water ebbed and flowed around them, the stream flush from the recent rain. The luke warm water bathed in a dull 3/4 moon.
Tsai Lee had found a worthy opponent and was toying just a little with him as Barett came within feet of her.
" Here take these. " she said to him, tossing him a pair of butterfly swords.
"You'll fair better againest him that way."
There they stood in the stream, almost back to back, staring down the final two bandits. As Barett glanced around he saw now the jeeps up above them.
" Its time to end this now, we have much work to do..."
Barett said as he leap at the now standing Wildcat.
For a wounded man the Wildcat was still able to pull off a complicated counter attack. As the two men meet midair the ring of wet steel forced together, echoed down the narrow gorge bottom. Attack, Parry, Attack the two of them went at it, Barret backing down ever so slightly each time. The short butterfly swords not letting him break through the defenses of the longsword the Wildcat swung.
Barett's plan had been to wear the man down, hoping the moving water and slippery footing of the swollen stream would accelerate this goal, but the Wildcat pressed forward even harder forcing Him up onto the narrow, rocky bank.
Out of the corner of his eye he watched as Tsai Lee guts the Monkey Man that was fighting with her, the move was so quick and clean that he was long dead before his body sank into the moving water. This only enraged the Wildcat more as he swung vicously at Barett's head, the water from his blade smacked off on impact from Barett's parry, the water stinging his eyes. Backing further up till his back was almost againest the stone wall, Barett parried and counter attacked the best he could, He was beginning to feel that this could be a very bad situation.
Thats when he saw the thin blade come out of the Wildcats neck, his head hanging there for a brief second, his eyes wide in disbelief, then slowly rolling back into his sockets as dark blood ebbed from the razor quick cut and into the water. For a moment his frame stood still, the image stuck in time and space, then slowly he collapsed and drifted lazily in the moon bathed water. He never really saw or heard Tsai Lee come up so quickly behind the man, perhaps it was because he was concentrating so hard on not being killed, none the less it was a impressive move.
Barett did a sweep of the area but found that they were alone for now, the moonlight casting a gray shadow on everything, making it look dead and grainy, like an old Humphrey Bogart film.
Tsai Lee stood on the stone embankment holding his pack and Rifle. Pointing to the jeeps on the upside of the hill.
" Looks like we got a new ride "Cowboy" , and some extra goodies."
She held in her hand a bandolier of grenades.
Barett smiled, he was begining to really like this woman.
Crossing the stream to grab the sword off the " Wildcat " he felt something odd on the stream floor and pulled it out.
The Black outline of the "Tombstone" profile of his Silencer co. Surpressor attached to the H&K .45 cal emerged from the dark water. He could have kissed the gun at that point but refrained from such emotion. Grabbing the long sword from the wildcats body and his gear pack he jumped the eight foot wall and hiked up to the jeeps.
Tsai Lee had already choosen the best looking one, a hard top with an extended bed, at one point it must have been a military ambulance of some kind the "Getto" camo paint job over the top of a flat green with blacked out red crosses still visible in the paint.
Barett siphoned the fuel out of the other jeep and ripped its distrubutor out and tossed it in the woods, just in case, he said.
He then climbed into the passengers seat, tossing the small pack he took off the Wildcat into the back.
It made an odd thump as it landed and Barett looked closer into the cargo area in the back of the jeep.
Under a canvas tarp, low on the floor was the outline of a wooden crate. Climbing over the seat as Tsai Lee weaved at break neck speeds down the muddy jungle road, Barett moved the bags of equipment and cloths and pulled back the cover. The crate was of a different era, that was for sure, the green paint worn and cracked. Chinese stamps and symbols of different colors and ages told a tale of many different uses. The contents locked away with a heavy duty new lock.
Barett grabbed a entrenching tool off the floor of the jeep and snapped the clasp off the crate. Tsai Lee swerved to the left and then to the right in a attempt to avoid a huge washout in the road. Tossing Barett around in the back of the equipment littered bed of the jeep.
"Sorry, you ok back there."
she yelled over her shoulder at the same time yanking the steering wheel to the right, as the jeep bounced thru a stream bed flush with muddy water.
" Yeah , fine...just keep us on the road. " He yelled back.
" Sorry, again, you should really come back up here, I don't think this road is going to get any better." She glanced over her shoulder at him, then back to the road.
Barett scanned the contents of the now open crate, packed tight, and straped down low to the bottom sat a long flat gray tube like machine. L.A.N.L stamped across the top, and 50's era buttons on the side. The words in english stamped on the inside of the box stated it was a Helical Generator.
This rang a bell with Barett, he knew what the LANL initials stood for, it just didn't come to him right away, but he didn't have a good feeling about this.
Slamming the lid back down on the crate and crawling back into the passangers seat, he strapped himself in and held on as Tsai Lee rocketed down the dark muddy road, hell bent on getting somewhere very fast.
Threading the surpressor off the end of the H&K pistol, Barett quickly stripped the gun down and dried out the parts on a discarded t-shirt he found in the back. Topping off the magazine and lubing the parts as he reassembled the pistol, trying not to lose pieces as Tsai Lee weaved and skidded down the road.
" So are you ok, no wounds, no cuts..? "
He glanced at her, his eyes roaming up and down her body, her wet cloths still clinging to her firm frame, outlined in the flashing darkness of the cab. Even under these conditions, he still found her sensual and exotic.
She glanced over at him, then quickly snapped her head back to the road.
" I'm fine, what about you....planning on playing Tarzan the rest of the trip ? Or do you have some shirt to put on."
She snapped in a playful tone at him.
" Oh, I thought you liked me with my shirt off....are you offended by my man nipples....they are simply enjoying the cool breeze from the open window."
He laughed, an open hearty sound coming from his throat.
" Perhaps you shouild join me, it would add some adventure to the ride....at least startle the next group of gun wielding merc's we cross.."
She flashed him a wicked grin...
" Oh, I think you would be way to distracted to do your job, if I did that....these things have a power all thier own...they must be treated with reverence. Besides, you can't seem to take your eyes off them when I do set them free...perhaps later I will let you massage my sore neck and shoulder and then decide if you deserve another chance."
She laughed then, the sweet carefree tone of someone releasing pent up stress.
" I am willing to take you up on that....But first, we need to secure a place for some rest and recovery...before the daylight comes...where are you taking us now?"
She winked at him then shifted the jeep into a higher gear, and gunned the motor as they slide out on to a wider, graded dirt road. The rooster tails of mud and water slapping the sides and under carriage of the jeep, as the wide tires ripped through the road surface.
" You, must wait and see...I think you will like this place...I called it my " Country Home "...
Tsai Lee raced down the dark and muddy road, like she was in some rally race in Baja California. The jeep bucked and bounced down the road, as the suspension was tested beyond its original design. Barett checked his watch, 4:30 am it read, they had lost to much time with the Bandits. He knew from past experience that your sense of time in a combat situation gets all out of whack.
Barett looked at his watch again, still four thirty am, he watched the seconds hand go around once, just to make sure, counting as it moved. The watch was fine, that was both good and bad news, some where it felt like he had lost an hour.
He pulled up the sub-machinegun that Tsai Lee had taken off the Rat and checked the clip and funtion of the gun. It turned out to be a decent little weapon, easy to point, and well built. It seems the Bandits were well funded and heavily armed, not your normal rag tag bunch of delinqueints, they even but up a good fight at the end. But the box in the back, that proved some thing else was going on with them.
He sat quietly in the passangers seat and thought. The rain started up again, the heavy rain drops drumming a beat on the bare metal roof, a sort of chant like quality to the whole back of the jeep.
She drove a little slower now, the wipers beating back the rain only to be blurred again bye the dirty rain and mud.
Barett rummaged in the back and pulled a shirt out of the a think cotton like tunic, black with a open front, it didn't smell bad so he pulled it on and pulled out some beef jerky to chew on.
" I'VE GOT IT..."
He yelled at the top of his lungs, not meaning to shout out loud.
The jeep slid to a sudden stop, as Tsai Lee tried to keep it on the road. She glared at him, as her hands twisted the wheel and she jammed it into reverse.
" What the Hell..."
She stated.
" You sit there all quiet then just yell out...are you trying to get me to wreck?"
She jammed the jeep into first and took off again.
" NO, no....I just realized what L.A.N.L stands for....Los Alamos Nation Lab. In New Mexico, the old United States, Nuclear test Lab."
He stated excitedly, his mind running in several directions at once.
"Are you telling me we have a Atomic bomb in the back ?"
She slowed the jeep down to a crawl and gripped the steering wheel tightly.
Her wide eyes stared back at him, the concern etched into her face, noticable even in the darkened cab of the jeep.
"No, I don't think so, it does something else, I think? They did lots of things at this place, DNA testing, some of the early Bio-engineered animals came from this place as well...perhaps even my forebearers...but this looks old, 1940's or 1950's era stuff. It's really weird that its here now...I wonder what the 'Helical Generator' does ?"
He eased over the seat and opened the crate again, using his small flashlight to look around in the packing material.
" Hey...don't mess with that thing till we know what we have...Just a few more miles and we can get some rest and check out your Atomic weapon."
She stated nervously from the front, while Barett explored the crate and its odd contents.
"Relax, if it was going to blow, it would have done it already. This thing is not even turned on, I think it's part of something else, something deadly for sure."
Barett climbed back into the passangers seat, and tried to review in his mind the briefing they had before leaving on the mission.
Nothing came to his mind about anything like this.
Tsai Lee was driving much slower now, and worked hard not to look concerned, as she threaded the jeep up a small rise and off into a thick jungle trail no wider than the jeep it self. The water heavy branches scrapping down the sides of the battered vehicle, spraying their cupped leaves of rain water across the hood.
Barett did remeber Dave talking about Generators though, he thought Dave said Disc Generators, but they could be the same thing. Explosion generated electrical devises able to compress atoms or start a EPDM type device. Old school thinking, but effective non the less.
Tsai Lee pulled the Jeep into an opening in the trail and yanked back the parking brake handle, letting out a audible sigh of relief.
"Not far from here is an old temple, good for shelter and safe from most bandits."
She smiled at him in the dark, it was now 5:15 am, not long before sunrise.
Barett packed the gear out of the jeep, tossed the roll of camoflage netting that was left in the back for this very reason, and started cutting off branches and vegitation to cover it a little more. Tsai Lee was staring at the crate when he came back from scouting out the area around the jeep.
" It sure emitts a sense of dread, for such a non-descript hunk of metal."
She stated in a question like tone.
Barett grabed the crate and started into the woods.
"Where to my Muse ? " he teased.
"You can't take that with you, it is not allowed, and should'nt be brought in to the temple."
She stared him down as he stood in the filtered moonlight at the edge of the thick jungle.
"Ok..well...we can't just leave it in the jeep....hummm...look..toss me those tarps, I'll wrap it up and hide it in the forest somewhere."
"Good idea, no other visible weapons should be brought with us as well...you'll need to hide them or keep the monks from seeing them as well."
She tossed him the two large heavy tarps, and nodded at his sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.
He stared at it then back at her.
" I don't think so, it stays with me, don't worry, I'll work that out."
He smiled a broad miscevious grin, and headed into the tree line.
Even with all that was going on, his mind would wander, and think about her naked on the bed in the hotel. It was amazing or at least disturbing how the male brain worked.
She followed close behind him as he walked a hundred yards or so into the jungle and placed the tarp wrapped crate under some thick bushes with a bag of grenades. Booby traped for the unlucky fellow that might come looking for them, if Barett couldn't have the generator, he sure didn't want anyone else to have it. Disassembling the rifle into its base components he wrapped it in some spare clothes and packed it into his backpack with the .45 with the silencer, wrapped the same way. Concealing the "blitzkrieg" and other weapons on his body so as to create a image of an unarmed man.
"How does that look, less armed to the teeth ? Or just poorly dressed for this part of your world ?"
He stated it more than asked it as a question.
"What is that supossed to mean ? We are more civilized here, in this area and have been for longer than your people, we were building great empires while your relatives were still raping sheep."
She snapped back at him.
Barett stood still for a second, He breathed in slowly and thought.
Looks like the honeymoon is over, he thought to himself. Part of him had thought about ditching her and making his way back to England, perhaps even heading down to Australia, He always wanted to see Sydney or the fabled "Outback".
Then he knew he couldn't just leave her, she was way to emotional and deadly. He could kill her, he was sure she would fetch a high price, enough to let him travel for a while in comfort. That was a good back up plan, Kill her for the bounty on her head. He filed that away in the back of his brain, and start working on a plan, just in case.
"Sorry, just a little tired, what do you need me to do ? "
He put on his best face and played along. Waiting for a chance to make his move.
It was a dark side of Baretts personality that he didn't visit to often. But it served a very important purpose, because when all was said and done, He was really about making sure that he lived, that he stayed alive. In the end that was the whole point to him, being able to wake up the next morning and breath in deeply. It's not that he was some psycopathic killer, or at least not a classical type of one. If he lived in some other era, one of stability and a culture of peace, perhaps he would be viewed in such a way. But here, now, in this enviroment, he was just another guy trying to make it to the next day. And Baretts personal belief was that nothing mattered more than himself, nothing at all.
So if at some point it came down to ditching her and moving on his own to make it out alive, he had already made his decision.
Barett followed her in the pre-dawn light across the hills on a well worn mountain path. It was now 6:06 am and the suns first rays began to peek through the clouds and down into the jungle floor. She moved lithly on the path, as she scanned the dense jungle, looking for ambushes.
Barett kept back from her almost a dozen yards as he watched the back trail they had just come down. If it wasn't for the thought that the disc he carried had some sort of tracking device in it, he would not have been on such high alert.
They were making good time in the jungle, but he could tell that Tsai Lee was running low on energy, Barett was happily munching quietly on a energy bar and sipping some water when they came to an opening in the tree line. Up ahead there were open rice paddies, staggered on the hill, with small huts and carts placed in haphazarded places along the now wide road they came out onto. Not far down the narrow road was a bamboo walled complex with a two story buddist like temple in the center. A few monks in classic brown outfits and hats worked in the rice paddies as smoke slowly drifted from the chimmneys of several huts.
Tsai Lee stopped and handed all her gear to Barrett.
"You will need to act as my servant while we are here, can you handle that ? "
" Yeah I'm good for that, no problem. ' Barett lied.
" Good don't talk to anyone, the less they suspect you the better,"
She turned and marched straight towards the gate of the walled complex. Barett followed, eyes lowered, face mostly covered.
Barett now sat on a mat on the wood floor of a small hut that butted up againest the bamboo wall that surrounded the complex. A fire burned in a fireplace like box stove made from stone and clay, the pot of hot water getting ready to boil. Getting in seemed to easy to him, it looked like Tsai Lee held some influence here, and the man at the gate, a crane like bird mix, started an animated conversation with her in a dilect he couldn't follow, because of how fast he was talking. Barett did see Tsai Lee slip him a large wad of money as she pointed towards the hut he was now sitting in.
Tsai Lee was outside talking to another man, short and squat, with think brown hair all over his exposed body parts, right now.
But he was happy to just get dry. The coarse, brown, loose fitting pants and shirt were some sort of cotton like material and would help him blend in with the others if need be. Resting on some pillows he meditated a little till he was more relaxed then poured himself some tea from the pot and ate some of the thick soup that had been brought into them. It wasn't to bad and he ate his share up rapidly. Warm and dry now, in relative security, he laided back on the mat and decided to sleep some.
His mind wandered some as he hovered inbetween sleep and wakefulness. Perhaps getting involved with Tsai Lee on a physical level was wrong, it certainly had complicated things. But it had been rather enjoyable, actually it had been great, he really enjoyed her companionship, she was one of the few women that could keep up with him on so many levels.
It was to bad it couldn't work, even though opposites attract, they also repell each other eventually, Barett could see that coming. Happily he allowed himself to enter a light sleep, or "Combat Sleep" as he called it.
Just over an hour later Tsai Lee came in, Barett had his had on the Kimber .45 hidden under the blanket like throw he covered himself with. She moaned and shuffled around for a minute then crawled up next to him and went to sleep. Barett let her stay in that postion, and nodded back off himself, they could use the rest.
Just before noon, he heard the clammoring of pots around the compound. Rolling quietly away from Tsai Lee he let her sleep, the three hour nap had done him good and he was ready to scope out the situation. Sitting on the floor next to the small fireplace he stoked it up again and put another pot of tea on to boil. Meditating for a few minutes he tried to clear his mind and think back on what events had taken place over the last few days.
He had laided out the rifle and cleaned it, greased the action and checked the scope before breaking it down again and putting it back in his pack, his regular cloths were dry now and he packed them away into his backpack. His thoughts drifted to the disc, about the list of characters that were after it. It couldn't be knowledge, the empire had that. Weapons were had by all, it must have to do with money, and alot of it. How much he wasn't sure, but the expense and effort used againest them indicated it was a lot of money.
" I could use a lot of money. " Barett said out loud to no one.
Tsai Lee shifted under the blanket and sat up. She Smiled at him and motioned to the tea pot.
"Is there some to share ? "
"Plenty, and some energybars here for the extra boost."
Barett looked around, and picked up his pack, and hers.
" When you are done I think it best we be on the move, I've got a bad feeling about what we are up againest.
“Fine, but I am going to shower first.”
Barett was ready to give her a witty and biting retort when Tsai Lee gave him a disarming smile. Her simple smile help ease the mounting tension he was feeling. He took a deep breath and relaxed.
“Sure. Go ahead. But I’m plenty rested, though. What should I do while you clean yourself up? I am positive voyeurism is looked down upon here.” He said straight faced.
Tsai Lee started back at Barett, obviously not getting the joke for a few seconds and then burst out laughing.
"No, I guess not. But I bet you will be surprised by what they do here. This temple is dedicated to Guan Yu, the Chinese red-faced God of War. Why don’t you wonder around and take in the sights?”
Barett left her and began wondering around the North side of the temple complex. The buildings of the main complex were tall and vibrant red. The place was old.
What caught Barett’s eye was that which seemed out of place. A small semi-hidden building behind a giant tree had a large satellite dish next to it. It was painted red, the same hue and shade as the rest of the surrounding structures. Walking over he followed the cable lead from the satellite dish to an open doorway. Inside was a room chuck full of thousands of old computers screens, CPU towers, networking equipment that Barett was sure Rick would be drooling over. In the center of the room was a tall statue of an ancient Chinese warrior garbed in traditional armor yet it was holding two computer monitors, one in each had. Cables ran down and around his arms in to connect to a box at the figures feet that housed a few hundred blinking lights. Monks were sitting in two groups, one for each monitor in a manner that could only be described as worship. The problem with the whole picture before his eyes was that what the monks sat in front of was nothing more than a colorful video game of figures racing on some fantasy race track. Techno-pop music from the game filled the room with sound that just did not meet the preconceived ideas of what Barett thought of when he pictured a Buddhist temple.
“Fine, but I am going to shower first.”
Barett was ready to give her a witty and biting retort when Tsai Lee gave him a disarming smile. Her simple smile help ease the mounting tension he was feeling. He took a deep breath and relaxed.
“Sure. Go ahead. But I’m plenty rested, though. What should I do while you clean yourself up? I am positive voyeurism is looked down upon here.” He said straight faced.
Tsai Lee started back at Barett, obviously not getting the joke for a few seconds and then burst out laughing.
"No, I guess not. But I bet you will be surprised by what they do here. This temple is dedicated to Guan Yu, the Chinese red-faced God of War. Why don’t you wonder around and take in the sights?”
Barett left her and began wondering around the North side of the temple complex. The buildings of the main complex were tall and vibrant red. The place was old.
What caught Barett’s eye was that which seemed out of place. A small semi-hidden building behind a giant tree had a large satellite dish next to it. It was painted red, the same hue and shade as the rest of the surrounding structures. Walking over he followed the cable lead from the satellite dish to an open doorway. Inside was a room chuck full of thousands of old computers screens, CPU towers, networking equipment that Barett was sure Rick would be drooling over. In the center of the room was a tall statue of an ancient Chinese warrior garbed in traditional armor yet it was holding two computer monitors, one in each had. Cables ran down and around his arms in to connect to a box at the figures feet that housed a few hundred blinking lights. Monks were sitting in two groups, one for each monitor in a manner that could only be described as worship. The problem with the whole picture before his eyes was that what the monks sat in front of was nothing more than a colorful video game of figures racing on some fantasy race track. Techno-pop music from the game filled the room with sound that just did not meet the preconceived ideas of what Barett thought of when he pictured a Buddhist temple.
It was the gathering of two cults; Mario Bro VS Sonic the Hedgehog and the judging deity was the Chinese God of War. The monks were getting excited as their race progressed. The two screens in the hands of the statue followed the advancement of the monks chosen character racing in a go cart, a small man with a red hat or a blue rat-like figure with flaming hair. Barett couldn’t see anyone playing the game; it was as if they were watching a video. Yet, the monks were so enraptured in the bumps and slides of the figures on the screen, it seemed as if they had never seen a video game before and thought that this was a real battle between actual individual.
The race neared the end, the two carts were neck to neck, the carts slamming into each other, the monks in a mixed reaching; some closed their eyes in terror, others clamored with raised hands of momentary triumph or vengeances for actions that happened in the game. Barett watched with fascination. Just before the finish line, the cart driven by the hedgehog smashed hard into the Mario’s cart, sending it spinning of the road to explode.
The monks cheering for Mario gasped in horror. Some began to cry. The hedgehog cart crossed the finish line and the monks all began repeated bows of worship. The head of the statue turned, lights behind its eyes flashing green.
“Sonic wins!” A voice boomed into the room. The head turned with a snap toward the sorrowing monks who were cheering for Mario. The face of the statue had changed to a demon with horns and fangs. The eyes now flashed red. Mario is defeated.
The losing side shuffled thier feet and headed to a large cabinet, pulling out cleaning supplies for toilets and mops for floors. Heading out into the compound, the monks relutantly started thier chores.
" Strange way to decide who gets the crappy jobs." he said out loud to no one in paticular. Thats why the response in American English, surprised him.
" It's actually very fair." Stated a stocky bulldog monk in red robes, bent over a bundle of wires running behind some monitors.
" You need to think of it a little more esoterically...not so literally and it comes out being very fair. But based on the fact that you think like a cowboy, I should explain it like this....its better than drawing straws and a hell of a lot more fun to watch."
Barett stared at the stocky fellow as he traced wires with a hand held volt meter like machine.
" I wasn't expecting to find another Gringo out here in the jungle." he stated casually.
" What brings you out to this temple...you are from the American West are you not?"
Barett was a little taken back, this is not what he expected in this place to begin with, then add in a West coast American monk. His personal philosophy reminded him that there are no coinsedences, just conections we see and lots we don't. SO he decided to run with it.
" Yeah, West coast, Sacramento..how about you ?"
The monk grabed a wire and yanked hard on it, then wrapped it in some black rubber like tape with a small magnet like device held to the wire by all the tape.
" Oh me, L.A. mostly, did some travelling up to San Francisco, but mostly L.A.....until about two years ago...couldn't handle the stress, had a breakdown, wandered..ended up here. Monks that like war and have computers...way cool. I mean when I converted to Buddism I never thought playing video games would be part of it."
He studied Barett, looked him over real good.
"So, what is your story, solider boy?"
Barett decided to pull a James Bond, and tell "most" of the truth.
"Me. well I'm Running from some really bad guys, lost communication with command, lost most of my equipment, hoping to get some information off a computer disc I can't read, and everyone wants to kill me for. Just another ex-patriot trying to make his way in a mixed up, dark world.
But if you could do some of that computer magic on this disc I have, it could solve some mysteries for me?
I don't know why the Empire wants it so bad, but I would do anything to stick it to those guys, at any time.
How about you ?"
A broad smile came across the Monks face.
"See I knew when I saw you, I would get a task, a quest....Yes sometimes fate does take a strage course. I can help you, anything to put a thorn in the Empires side is a move for good. Follow me back to my hut...I think I can solve this mystery for you."
Barett followed him as he cut across the compound at a rapid almost frantic pace.
THe small hut had at least three satillite dishs mounted on the roof and wires ran into it from several different directions. Inside it was a computer geeks wet dream, monitors lined one side, several running data only programs, the lists of numbers making a hypnotic pattern on the screen.
" Have a seat, please...so what kind of disc did you bring to me."
He leaned in close to Barett, the smell of barley tea on his breath.
Brett pulled out the disc from inside his shirt, and handed it to him.
The Monk looked at the case and whistled loudly, then smiled a toothy grin.
"Dude, you really know how to pick a winner. You know whose symbol this is on the case don't you ? Yeah you knew, if it wasn't for the fact that you are a total solider boy, and an fellow ex-patriot I would let you fry on this one man...what you got here it's hot, really hot. So dude, tell me, whats your real name?"
Barett stares him down.
" You know I can't tell you that, it would get a lot of people killed, and I can't have that. You Understand, Yes."
The Monk looks dejected, but then brightens up..
" Yeah I understand, look if you get a chance later to tell me the story...the real story...e-mail me at this address."
He hands Barett a piece of paper like a business card, except its made from metal and has a magnetic strip on the back.
"Its a secure, coded, protected access card that will get you past all the firewalls, invented it myself before I came here."
He opens up the case and starts pulling out machines from a cabinet till he finds one that matches the disc, running several usb like cables to different machines he plugs the disc in and watches the screens.
" Wow, someone really wanted to keep this info secure, this may take several hours...you should go get us some food, while we work on this....and if you got any american grub on you, I'll take that as a token of your apprication."
Barett wanders over to the smell of food on the far side of the compound. There he finds a long line of refugees getting a soup and rice mix from the monks.
"Not the food I was thinking about" He says out loud.
Looking around he sees a group of Monks enter thru a gate into a garden area, holding large bowls of steaming food. Following behind them, he steps into a large courtyard, filled with sitting monks eating, in a garden like setting, lounging and conversing with each other.
One of the more Senior looking ones stops talking to the others in his group and stares at Barett, then motions wildly for him to come over.
" Sit, Sit..we will get you some food, you must be hungry...?...SO Tell us, what is going on in Hong Kong, What is happening with the Triad ?"
He says other things, but he talks to fast and Baretts chinese isn't that good.
" We heard that Ling from the Red Store is dead and most of the gang..is that true ?"
Barett pretends to not understand.
" He was alive the last time I saw him, look there is a lot of problems and some of it is spilling into Hong Kong...If ling is dead that is sad, I liked the man. But all I have heard is rumors and hearsay..But the Empire and the Australian mercs have me worried."
The Monks Look really worried and start to talk rapidly with each other.
" The Empire is here, this is bad, very Bad. We have not heard anything about the Australians. We have heard that they are going after Tsai Lees whole family and gang."
Barett shrugs his shoulders, he's not sure how much info to share with the monks, but shares what little he feels is not confidential. Grabbing a fresh bowl of food for Lance the Bull Dog he heads back across the compound, to the hut, leaving the Monks in confusion.
He finds Lance hunched over a screen completly fasinated with the disk.
"Dude this is some serious stuff, heavy stuff. Pre-collapse intelligence, Man..If I hadn't studied this old code in school it could have been days before I could have gotten in, way lucky. So if thats not strange enough, its actually some dudes journal, a Senator from the Old United States, It's all about him moving huge amounts of gold to China just before the Collapse, he keeps going on and on about this old Chinese legend about the Emperors gold staying on an island to keep the empire alive and strong. This is really heavy stuff man."
Barett looks concerned, then starts reading over the entries.
At some point Tsai Lee walks in and looks at the record to. She has ditched her monk outfit for a combat set up. Tactical combat vest with bullet proof plates, and weapons of all kinds displayed promently, its just plain Sexy as far as Barett is concerned. She had brought along the other gear they had stashed in the jungle while he was working on the disc. While she is reading the entries and explaining to him the things about the Chinese legend, Barett puts back on his gear. He doesn't understand everything that is going on around him, but he can sense that it's not good and it's time to move on.
If Tsai Lee is geared up, he should be to. She had even gone out and drove the jeep into the compound, it was parked on the far side by the Temple next to some funky looking farm equipment and a old bus.
Lance looks up from the screen now.
" Dude, it looks like this guy conned everyone into letting him sneak the whole inventory of gold from Fort Knox and hide it here, not far from Hong Kong, just before the collapse of the Old United States."
He pauses for a Minute.
"This of course would explain a lot about you being chased for it, We are talking about Billions of dollars, in gold. So do you think this case is bugged ?"
Barett stops what he is doing for a second, then goes back to tying up his boots.
"Yep, from the time that disk has been in my hands, quite sure it is. But until we could get the info off of it, I just couldn't destroy it. Looks like it was worth the risk. Look do me a favor, burn that info off on to a thumb drive and then wipe it off your computer and the original disk. We need to leave quickly, everyone here is now in danger."
Lance looks at him.
"I told you earlier that you should do that, glad you took my advice. Give me a minute and I'll have this all set up for you."
Barett turns to Tsai Lee, and quietly says.
" We need to go now, lets get things ready to move at dark. That Island we have the coordinates to is where we need to go. From what some of the other Monks said we have to cross into the combat zone, across the wall of death of headless bodies, I couldn't really catch the phrase, but got the gist of it."
Barett looked out the window of the little hut, watching the sun begin to set. He had lost track of time reading the journal, waiting on Lance to put things on the screen for him. The information was important, but the time lost could be deadly. The problem that he didn't understand was why the Albino had access to so much supposed wealth and was doing what she did. Lance handed him the thumb drive and Barett hung it around his neck, under the light weight tactical vest he had on. THen slipped out of the hut and headed to the Temple for some meditation and down time, to sort out his thoughts.
Slipping a lot of cash into the donation box at the temple he wandered over to Tsai Lee standing in the open court yard talking with Lance about the disk.
The Darkness was beginning to creep into the eastern sky and Barett was anxious to leave soon.
" The disk is clean, no trace..good luck on your quest wish I culd join you, but such is not my lot. Becareful out in the disputed territory, there are no rules that make sense there now."
Lance smiled broadly, then started to walk away.
" Thanks again, Dude...I will catch you on the backside, and we can compare notes."
Barett says to him, but Lance just nods his head, in a "I don't think we will ever meet again kind of nod."
Standing there next to Tsai Lee he realizes just how out of place he is, not only physically, but mentally to.
He is thinking about the disk and money and the old United States when he sees a armed figure appear at the top of the compound wall, then another.
" Shit... It looks like they found us already."
Barett pulls up his .308 H&K and pops off two rounds at the first figure on the top of the wall. Scanning the jungle beyond the wall he can see more movement.
The first figure falls back outside the compound wall but soon a dozen more pop over the top.
Tsai Lee pulls up the Submachinegun slung over her shoulder and tags the merc coming across the wall right in front of her, laying half a clip into him. Barett is pumping out rounds as well, two shots for each guy coming across the wall. Well he was trying to do that, but he wasn't making his shots, the last three going wild.
By this point he had moved back towards the temple, searching for cover, Tsai Lee had moved back with him. Yanking free a frag grenade he tosses it high and over the wall towards the greatest concentration of mercs scaleing the wall.
The concussion from the grenade shakes the wall, throwing several of the black clad figures down from the wall. These guys are heavily armed and well trained, and dang it if they aren't a persistant bunch, something Barett both admires and hates about them.
Making a much more rapid "tactical Retreat" he pumps several more rounds at random figures with guns crossing over into the compounds open ground. Tsai Lee is on her second clip now spraying the area, trying to keep them from advancing, but they have the numbers and are gaining ground fast. The sounds of screams and gunfire fill the once quiet temple grounds, the thick humidity holds the sulfur and smoke close to the ground, creating a erie mist like quality.
One of the A gunners manages to get his big gun set up and beads in on Barett and Tsai Lee, It barks and then spews forth its deadly venom, tearing thru metal and wood all around them, Barett dodges and weaves, but there is no cover. He can feel the sting of opened flesh and sees the blood trickle from an open wound on his left arm, Tsai lee has been hit as well, not badly but it's not going to get any better, here, now. Giving up on holding his ground Barett signals to Her and runs full tilt towards the jeep on the other side of the temple buildings, using the cover of the smaller huts to weave his way out of direct fire and into a safe zone. Keep moving, he thinks, keep moving, we need the advantage of distance and time, two things that have been robbed from him now. Sliding into the drivers seat of the Jeep he guns it to life and has it in gear and moving before Tsai Lee is even all the way in. Spitting dirt into the air as the meaty tires tear up the soft dirt Barett races the small engine, pointing the jeep grill at the front gate, and lets it loose, spinning the wheel left then right, doing his best to make them a hard target. The jeep pitches and groans, throwing Tsai Lee around some as she struggles to return fire.
Steam hisses from the radiator and the temp gauge rises and peaks out, but Barett keeps pushing the jeep hard, going fast and wild down the dirt road and onto the potholed street that mates up to it and leads into an industrial like area. Slowing down and turning off the lights he throttles the engine back to 2,000 rpms and lets it coast a little, moving the cooler evening air across the motor. Scanning the road behind him he weaves in and out of several roads, hoping to confuse anyone that may have been following them. Bullet holes pock mark the jeep now, and star like cracks in the windshield show where bullets bounced off at obtuse angles. The motor stops hissing now, but thats a bad sign, it means that there is no antifreeze left in the motor now, and a knock has started.
" That was way to close, we are not going to be able to keep doing this, they are getting better at ambushing us, and we are getting worse at staying hidden "
Barett curses under his breath, as he watches the oil pressure drop on the motor.
" We need to ditch this p.o.s and get some new wheels, and then ditch this disk."
Tsai Lee stares out the front window, searching for anything in the darkening streets of a mostly abandoned warehouse district.
The one thing that Barett has had a hardtime with is the cramped feeling he gets from this part of Asia. There is jungle and forest and water, but then there is always people, in all of these areas, always people, more people stacked on top of more people, no wonder they want to kill each other and any strangers to. Living like that would make him want to as well.
Rolling into some bushes and trees Barett turns the engine off and watches a parking lot full of cars. What looks like a security detail stands by a large factory like building, smoking cigerettes and talking.Two skinny little guys, cats or something in the feline line, with black Ak's over thier shoulders. Tsai Lee sneaks off to deal with them while He heads over to the nearest car, a four door silver sub compact. It looks well maintained and easy to hot wire. Sliding into the drivers seat he smashes the steering column and breaks the ignition assembly off. Stowing the gear in the back seat he waits for Tsai Lee to join him before starting the car up.
Tsai Lee opens the passanger door a minute later, and slides into the cheap vinyl seat, her moves smooth and graceful, never revealing the animal strength and violence just under the surface. Barett on the otherhand is a brooding pool of darkness, almost to a Utah Blaine level, his coutinence almost adding to the darkness of the car.
" We are good to go, no one will bother us for a few minutes."
Tsai Lee says in a almost playful tone.
Barett doesn't reply, he just nods and starts the small car. Looking over the gauges to make sure they have enough gas, and its mechanically sound. Then edges it out slowly of the parking lot and onto the main road. Despite the fact that this is a war torn area, and its dark, there is a considerable amount of traffic for the first few miles on the four lane freeway like road, heading towards the wall of death.
" Don't you think we should ditch that disk yet ?"
Tsai Lee chips in after five minutes or so of Barett not speaking.
"Yeah, it's about time....I hate to see anyone else 'innocent' get killed over the stupid thing. Any ideas of where we can drop it, make it hard for them to get at for a while ? "
He almost grunts out, then really speaks.
" Yeah, not far from here is a lake, we could put it on a boat and push it out, it would float around, make it look like we were moving around, that should give us some time."
" Great idea, where to ?"
"Just turn left up here at the second exit then swing to the left down a side road, it's only a few miles off the road.....So what's eating at you ?"
Pulling up to the dark shore of the lake Tsai Lee grabs some Bamboo and wood sticks and ties them together into a raft like thing with the disk on top and launches it into the water.
"That should keep them quessing, lets roll."
She seems visibly more at easy now, and so does Barett.
The drive to the boarder crossing is uneventful and quiet. Traffic thins and then disappears, pulling off the road 4 clicks from the makeshift road block, they scope the situation out. Four guards stand in the road by two running cars blocking the road, other cars some with fires burning in them for effect, Baretts sure, block the rest of the road, he can see other armed men in pairs walking the railroad tracks that cross over the top of the road at this bridge like junction. It made for a total appocalliptic scene, heads and bodies on pikes lining the sides of the road, even from his distance you could smell the rot. Oily fires burning, adding haze to the situation. They abandoned the car and headed thru the jungle to cross the tracks 5 clicks to the right of the road. Things go smooth till Barett makes a bunch of noise, just as they were heading out of the woods. The two guards on the tracks start thier direction and he is forced to shoot them. Not wanting more 'Hard Contact" they make a run for it, weaving across the railroad tracks as sporatic gunfire bounces off the rocks and steel around them. Safe in the woods, they make their way to the river just six clicks past the tracks. Its to wide to swim with all the equipment, so they sneak down to the bridge and watch as guards in a jeep drive back and forth, spotlighting the sides and woods on each side. Climbing up the side of the bridge, they wait for the jeep to drive by then attack.
Barett squeezes tight againest the concrete barrier on the water side edge of the bridge, his feet getting sore from the 3 inch lip of rusty steel he has to balance on. Tsai Lee balances gracefully 20 feet ahead of him, sword drawn and by her side, Barett has his .45 cal with the silencer in his right hand the other gripping tightly a space in the concrete, like climbing some redstone canyon wall back home.
The Jeep roles by again, right on time, the spot lights flashing quickly across their location. These guys are not regulation army types, music from a radio almost drowns out the motor, and he can hear voices over the music, four seperate male voices.
Barett springs up and out as the jeep passes him, jumping on to the rear bumper and holding onto the roll cage. He pumps two shots into the rear passenger on the right, then two into the rear passenger on the left. The Jeep weaves and brakes, throwning him into the roll cage and sending his next shot thru the front windshield.
The Front Passenger spins around and starts shooting at Barett, as the driver yanks the jeep hard to the right, trying to throw him off the back. The good part for Barett is that makes it hard for the guy in the passengers seat to get a decent shot off, bad part neither can Barett. About this point the driver decides that a hard aplication of the brakes is what the situation needs, bringing the jeep to a screeching halt. Barett beads up on the passenger and gets the drop on him, spraying brain matter across the dashboard and windshield, sliding over to get ashot at the driver he sees the barrel of a 9mm pistol pointed dead center at his chest. The lizardmans eyes light up then go dim as his hand drops the gun. From behind him Tsai Lee draws back her sword and cleans it, then rolls the bodys from the jeep as Barett tosses thier gear into the back seat.
" Alright, that wasn't so bad. right?"
Barett laughs and starts up the old military jeep.
" What are we going to do if we find this place ?, I mean we can't move 200 metric tons of gold by ourselves, not in this dangerous place ? "
Tsai Lee ponders out loud, and says this as less a question to Barett, but more to herself.
" I don't know, that probably won't be our problem. But we NEED to find out if this is all true, If it is, It changes a lot of things. The best thing to do in these kind of situations is trust your instincts, and mine tell me, the faster we find out the truth about the gold, the sooner we can get out of here. What do your instincts tell you ? "
" I can't tell just yet, but I feel like the Gold should be for my country, for good."
Tsai Lee stammers out.
Barett keeps the jeep just under the speed limit, as they bounce down a garbage littered side street, constantly scanning the side roads for ambushes and other nasties. For the most part even in this mixed up, ravaged and shot up area, people still needed to live, in the distance he can see people scatter and hide as the military jeep rolls down the road, looking and acting like they are on some kind of night patrol.
Tsai Lees leg bounces up and down on the floor board of the jeep, a sign Barett has come to understand means she is thinking, and a little nervous.
" You know a lot of people would do a lot of bad things to get at that kind of wealth, they would fight wars, for the kind of power gold like that could bring. Absolute power corrupts absolutly, doesn't it."
She goes back to bouncing her left leg, her red lips pursed, her brow pressed down over her eyes, thinking.
" Yeah, I feel like Frodo trying to return the ring of Power, with the eye of the Evil one always looking for me. You know, from Lord of the Rings books ?"
Tsai Lee stares back a blank look at Barett and shakes her head.
" I don't know what you are talking about, I've never heard of that book."
"That's to bad, it really would make some sense to you, wow, I quess some times your culture really does influence your thinking, more than I ever thought. So It's a story about a guy who doesn't want to be the hero, but is choosen to complete a almost impossible task, and everyone it feels to him is out againest him, even though people are fighting hard to make sure he can complete his mission, almost alone. I'm hoping that Rick and my Brothers are really working to help us out, not just out partying somewhere. "
Barett pauses and weaves the jeep around a large pile of garbage in the middle of the road. Seeing some figures high on a roof top just a head he points to them and signals to Tsai Lee to scope them out with her nightvision optics. She nods and places the gun up to her shoulder and scans the roof tops.
"Hey, there is a guy holding a large cell phone, but weird, not to his ear, but more like he is pointing it in our direction."
"Crap, IED bomb like behavior, Hold on."
Barett guns the motor and yanks the steering hard to the left, forcing the jeep up on to the sidewalk and crashing through garbage and wood as is bucks and rubs againest the walls of the buildings.
" What are we going to do if we find this place ?, I mean we can't move 200 metric tons of gold by ourselves, not in this dangerous place ? "
Tsai Lee ponders out loud, and says this as less a question to Barett, but more to herself.
" I don't know, that probably won't be our problem. But we NEED to find out if this is all true, If it is, It changes a lot of things. The best thing to do in these kind of situations is trust your instincts, and mine tell me, the faster we find out the truth about the gold, the sooner we can get out of here. What do your instincts tell you ? "
" I can't tell just yet, but I feel like the Gold should be for my country, for good."
Tsai Lee stammers out.
Barett keeps the jeep just under the speed limit, as they bounce down a garbage littered side street, constantly scanning the side roads for ambushes and other nasties. For the most part even in this mixed up, ravaged and shot up area, people still needed to live, in the distance he can see people scatter and hide as the military jeep rolls down the road, looking and acting like they are on some kind of night patrol.
Tsai Lees leg bounces up and down on the floor board of the jeep, a sign Barett has come to understand means she is thinking, and a little nervous.
" You know a lot of people would do a lot of bad things to get at that kind of wealth, they would fight wars, for the kind of power gold like that could bring. Absolute power corrupts absolutly, doesn't it."
She goes back to bouncing her left leg, her red lips pursed, her brow pressed down over her eyes, thinking.
" Yeah, I feel like Frodo trying to return the ring of Power, with the eye of the Evil one always looking for me. You know, from Lord of the Rings books ?"
Tsai Lee stares back a blank look at Barett and shakes her head.
" I don't know what you are talking about, I've never heard of that book."
"That's to bad, it really would make some sense to you, wow, I quess some times your culture really does influence your thinking, more than I ever thought. So It's a story about a guy who doesn't want to be the hero, but is choosen to complete a almost impossible task, and everyone it feels to him is out againest him, even though people are fighting hard to make sure he can complete his mission, almost alone. I'm hoping that Rick and my Brothers are really working to help us out, not just out partying somewhere. "
Barett pauses and weaves the jeep around a large pile of garbage in the middle of the road. Seeing some figures high on a roof top just a head he points to them and signals to Tsai Lee to scope them out with her nightvision optics. She nods and places the gun up to her shoulder and scans the roof tops.
"Hey, there is a guy holding a large cell phone, but weird, not to his ear, but more like he is pointing it in our direction."
"Crap, IED bomb like behavior, Hold on."
Barett guns the motor and yanks the steering hard to the left, forcing the jeep up on to the sidewalk and crashing through garbage and wood as is bucks and rubs againest the walls of the buildings.
Barett had placed plenty of bombs himself, and knew what not to do. Problem was, did the guy who planted the bomb know what he was doing, and what kind of bomb was it? You could get a hold of some nasty stuff in this part of the world, and right now, right here, everyone wanted to kill everyone else, didn't matter who you were, Barett tried not to take it all personally, it was hard, but he was coping.
Sparks were flying off the front corner bumper as he ran it along a concrete building wall keeping as far from the center of the road as possible, trash and wood were bouncing off the windshield the whole thing making a terrible racket. Barett was hunkered down in the drivers seat, his bag thrown across his lap and right side. Tsai Lee was desperatly trying to find something to cover her. Barett had the little four cylinder motor rapped out, the tires squelling as they pawed at the concrete sidewalk.
There was a flash and a pop, both Barett and Tsai lee Dug down into thier seats, the whole street seemed to light up like midday, then go black, only the headlights from the still moving jeep could be seen.
It almost sounded like a windchime in a typhon next, the rapidly accelerating sound of hundreds of pieces of metal and wood banging againest each other. Then that to stopped and so did the jeep.
Barett flicked the lights off and did a check, the front bumper was pushed up againest a metal beam running up the side of the building, the windshield totally destroyed. The ringing in his ears was begining to fade, as he had covered them just before the explosion. Small pieces of Bamboo and metal had embedded themselves into the jeep and wall beyond them, all up and down the street windows were shattered and broken. In the middle of the road just behind them was a small crater, no more then two feet across. It looks like they had used some blackpowder along with some plastic like explosive, as embers burned on the ends of some bamboo. It was a nasty little bomb alright, very well done.
Barett rolls to the back of the jeep and puts together the sniper rifle. Tsai Lee twists around in her seat and pulls some chunks of metal that had imbedded themselves into her seat, her submachinegun draped across her shoulder.
Barett was scoping out the rooftops, looking for the guy with the detonator. He knew they liked to see what thier little " Bomb Babies " had done, like some artist reviewing his painting.
Tsai Lee started to talk, but Barett gave her the quiet signal, and to stay still.
The scope on the .408, had light gathering technology that made looking in it, like seeing things in broad daylight. Slowly he started a sweep across the roof lines to where Tsai Lee had pointed to earlier, the moon and stars giving him all the light he needed. The street was quiet and deserted, even the wild dogs that roamed the streets were missing. Barett sat still, waiting for his shot, knowing that some unlucky soul was going to poke his head above the roofline.
He had the silencer on the end of the rifle to, it made the gun extra long for close contact shooting, but that was not his intentions.
Tsai Lee started to move again, trying to get more sharp sticks out of her seat when Barett made a quick " Be still " motion and she settled back down.
He had the gun balanced on the roll bar as he sat on the top of the rear bench seat, it's canvas covers shredded from the explosion.
It looked like the bomb was made to be more anti-personel, than anti-vehicle, as most of the schrapnel did little more than ding the metal and scrap the paint.
He waited almost 3 minutes, which is a long time to sit exposed on the side of the road, but it was a mind game he was playing, and he wanted to win.
The baseball capped head of a man appeared right where Tsai Lee had pointed out earlier, a small asian human with glasses. He was scanning the bomb spot first, when the bullet hit him in the middle of the forhead, 560 yrds out, his body yanked backwards and up, then slide down out of sight. The surpressed shot sound coming later, as Barett had chambered another round into the gun.
It must have come as a big surprise to his assistant because he jumped up, and took a bullet right in the chest, the big .408 bullet removing most of his organs before he even hit the ground.
Barett chambered a third round, but that proved unnessisary, no one else showed their face.
Barett motioned for Tsai Lee to move, and check out the jeep, while he scanned the street for more unfriendlies. This trip was begining to remind him of the " Death Race's" they did back in the day across the east desert towards Tahoe. The times when it felt like everyone wanted to kill you, because everyone did.
Tsai Lee sneaks around the jeep, pulling garbage from the wheel wells and scrapnel from the fenders and seats.
" Jeep looks good, tires managed to escape without any holes in them, you however have a six inch piece of bamboo sticking out of your shoulder." She does this slight giggle, then a laugh.
" It makes you look like a wounded angel, some half human demon like thing."
Then she laughs some more, a cute kind of girlish high pitched laugh.
Barett spins his head around and sees the stick, jammed into his combat gear, sticking out of his back at a obtuse angle.
He turns to get it, but can't make it and spins around in place a couple of times trying to grab it. This only makes her laugh more, as he comically attempts to remove the stick, until both of them are sitting on the ground behind the jeep laughing their heads off.
He knew it was a combat tension reliever, and went with it, they had been running and shooting and running for the last few days, it was bound to catch up with them at some point. After a minute or so they settle down and she gently, in a tender kind of way removes the stick from his gear and gives him a kiss on the forehead.
" It's to bad we don't have that nice room back at the hotel again, there are still things I want to do to you!" she whispers in his ear, then rolls out from the back of the jeep scanning the road.
"What now Cowboy" she giggles.
Barett eyes the jeep over then, yanks it back in one frustrated tug.
It groans and pops free of the metal pole, the front end bouncing on its shocks before settling down.
He yanks the remaining debris free from his seat then starts it up, it coughs and spits then idles back down, humming smothly.
"You drive, I'll be the gunner, lets get to the river and the island as fast as we can, it can't be good to move on the river in daylight. How far out do you think we are, I'm guessing 5 miles or so ?"
She slides smoothly into the drivers seat as he is talking, letting as much of her body touch his as she can, and he likes it, pretending to steady her by grabbing her hips and running his hands down her legs.
" If you don't get us shot at or bombed, we should be there in less than an hour. Unless you want to make a pit stop some where ?"
The invitation makes Barett pause, but he can't let little barett make decsions for Big Barett in this type of enviroment, it's to bad really, it would make the sex awesome.
"No,to the river, if we live long enough, I'll take you up on that offer."
Barett sighs inwardly and sits in the back seat, gun resting on the roll bar as they weave down the empty streets towards the river.
Barett scans left and right, front and back for the whole trip to the river, but nothing to shoot comes up, well nothing he should shoot.
Tsai Lee drives the jeep like a New York taxi driver, or at least like they are portrayed in the movies. She weaves and brakes randomly as far as Barett can tell, but he still would rather be with the gun in the back, he kind of misses Dave and Ricks driving, mental note to himself not to complain about their driving next time. The last few miles to the river are dark and quiet, as the smells of a wide and old river side fill his nostrils.
She pulls the jeep up to a dirt road and slows down, as the trees and weeds rub againest the sides of the wheel wells. He can hear the water slapping on the banks, and the smell of humid rotting vegitation fills the air. The road becomes muddy, then turns into a marsh as she pulls it to the left into some tall weeds.
"Looks like we made it, the island is just to the right of us."
Barett swings onto the top of the roll cage and swepts the area with his scope, nothing on the river is moving with lights on now, and the banks show no signs of danger. THe island sits out in the middle of a large spot in the river, back home they would have called something this wide a lake. To far to swim and to dangerous with the gear, they needed a boat.
" Lets look for a boat to borrow, its a river, I'm sure there are a dozen with in 2 clicks of us."
Barett feels confident, and a little relieved, his scan of the island showed no people or camps on this side, just a big rock and lots of bushes.
Forty minutes later, having found not one good boat his confidnce starts to wane.
It was now 2:15 am on a wednesday, He sat in the nook of a tree and thought. Everything that could go wrong, had, every set back you could imagine seemed to take place. It was like some training exercise devised by a sadistic sergant, choreographed to push all your buttons, force you to constantly alter your plans. Unfortunatly Barett liked to kick againest authority a little, helped nurture his view of a conspiring universe. Deep down he was really enjoying himself, plus having some bed sport with Tsai Lee made things go better.
" I found something we can use." Tsai Lee said excitedly to him, as she waved him over to where she was.
There sat tied up to a homemade dock, covered in weeds, for chamoflage, bobbed a wood boat, with outriggers, a small outboard motor hung precariously off the back. No Miami Vice speedboat, but it would do, better than swiming, which was the next choice.
"Perfect, lets go, no time to waste." Barett swung into the smelly water ricshaw, and placed his pack in front of him. Tsai Lee sat in the bow as they quietly paddled out into the river. For a moment he had deja vu from their previous river crossing. Starting up the motor he headed to the heavily vegitated side of the island, up river.
Keeping his rifle on his lap, and doing scans of the island, he found nothing.
"No time, like the present...lets get on the island and check things out."
He cut the motor and let the current take them down stream towards the islands west side. Guiding the boat with his paddle he let it drift its way into the marshy shore. Swinging his pack onto his back, rifle in hand he followed Tsai Lee as she slipped into the waist high water and guided the boat up to some low hanging trees. Tying the boat up under some low branches and covering it with weeds while Tsai Lee scouted out the beach, Barett tried to come up with a good plan. Nothing but the obvious came to mind, search for a big hidden door, signs of some sort of construction. He didn't think this would go fast, stupid needle in a haystack type of work.
After an hour of searching they both came to the same conclusion. If there was any vault on this island, it was cut out from the large rock formation on the downriver side of the island, and it was underwater.
Barett stood on the black shore, and stared at the rock hill, then back to the water. He was on the down river side of the island, there was little to no current, the water still and dark, with a glimmer of moon and stars on its surface.
"So, this looks like our best shot, underwater, out of sight, not a bad way to hide a vault door."
Barett smiled at Tsai lee and started to undress, pulling the bulletproof vest off and all his combat gear.
" I don't think now is a time for some hanky panky, but I don't mind the show" Tsai Lee teased him.
" I was thinking of going for a swim, and a little clean up, but I like where you were going..yes I like how you think." He teased back.
Barett stood there in his black, biker short like underwear, strapping back on gear, his handgun, knifes, multi-tool, flashlight, and the like. Tsai Lee shrugged her shoulders and started shedding gear and cloths.
Barett couldn't help himself and watched the show from the corner of his eye, pretending to check gear and weapons.
She stood there in a pair of black panties and a thin black tanktop like bra. Barett had to admire her figure, and her confidence.
" Keep your mind on the mission big boy, and my eyes are up here." Tsai lee said to him, a smile on her face.
"Oh, I think I made the right choices....I can do both, can you."
He flexed in an exagerated pose, and smiled back.
She laughed, then jumped into the warm dark water. Barett hide the gear under some bushes then dived in himself.
It felt good to shed all that gear and clothing, and let the water concentrate his focus. Diving down and searching together with flashlights they searched around the base of the rock like outcropping. It took almost a dozen dives but they found what Barett had suspected, a large underwater door, a custom made submarine lock. It was smaller than the ones he had seen on the new British subs, but the same idea.
They dived again and Barett went to work on the lock wheel to the man door. It was designed for two men to use, in scuba gear, but he thought he was good enough to do it by himself, free diving.
The first three attempts didn't get him very far, but the fourth time it broke free and cracked open. It opened into a narrow tube that was about six feet in circumfrence and 15 feet long to another door. This was only the man dock, another larger door was next to this one, a little lower and to the right that the sub could be docked up to, but it had no outward wheels or levers.
Barett signaled to Tsai lee that they should surface to talk, then swam up.
" I need you to stay outside while I open the second door, I have to close the first door to get the second to open, and could get trapped, I need you to be out here just in case." Barett stated it more than asked it.
Tsai Lee nodded her head.
" Understood, how do I know if you need help ?"
"I'll be dead before you'll know that, don't worry nothing to it."
Barett said with false bravado, it was a risky move without the scuba equipment, free diving was not something they trained you a lot on.
Tsai Lee smiled back at him, her underwear clinging tightly to her wet body, like some model in a girly magazine.
Barett dived back in and through the open door, closing it behind him he swam to the second door and yanked hard on it trying to break free the handle. He worked hard on it, using the wall as leverage. But the smooth walls and slippery steel fought him. He was begining to panic just a little and took a second to calm his fears, he pulled the two levers and yanked at the wheel, his vision was begining to narrow to a tunnel, a very bad sign. Stopping for a second he looked over the wall one last time. Thats when he saw the small box and opened it. The small safty lever inside had a red side and a green side Barett threw the switch to the green and heard a loud click, as his vision started to tunnel down smaller. He yanked at the wheel and it moved smoothly, until the door cracked and pushed him out on to a grated floor as the water from the tunnel rushed around him and down the grate drain. He choked and spat, then sat breathing the stale air slowly trying not to pass out.
Barett stepped out of the small chamber and out into a massive cavern. The small beam of his flashlight unable to light the whole place up, but he guessed it to be most of the length of the rock hill that it sat under, 100 plus meters long and at least 50 meters wide. A small dock was on the other side of the lock, and two forklifts sat next to it. The air was stale but breathable, with a slight tint of oil and gas fumes mixed in. Barett did a quick sweep of the warehouse but nobody else was here, the place was mostly empty, as his footsteps echoed around the upper cat walk.
Knowing that he shouldn't leave Tsai Lee outside for to long he opened the chambers and swam out to get her.
" Time to see what the fuss is about, the place looks clear."
Tsai Lee jumped in the water and followed him.
The second time he worked the locks much faster, making an easy entrance into the underground warehouse.
Tsai Lee played with some switchs on the wall till the dim lighting of old bulbs started to glow. It was battery operated red emergency lights along the wall. They were spaced out on the large steel beams that ran along the inside ceiling of the cavern, supported by concrete pillars every 20 meters or so.
" Someone spent some serious coin on this 'Batcave', lets see if they are keeping what we think they are." Barett headed over to the first pallet rack of wood boxes. The wood was starting to rot, and the nails were pure rust, but the crates were still solid.
Barett tugged at the crate and it groaned but didn't give, he looked at the wood, American hickory, good stuff, expensive.
" Look for something we can use to open this crate, big rock, steel rod, you know."
Barett signalled to Tsai Lee, then went back to working the botom crate out from the racking, it must have weighted at least 900 lbs.
She walked back a few seconds later with a 3ft crowbar.
"Will this do ? I found it next to a pile of broken pallets and some smelting equipment."
"Yeah, thats perfect, after we open this, lets check out that equipment."
Barett cracked open the lid and fliped it to the side, wrapped up in heavy cotton cloth and sawdust like packing sat four bars of pure gold.
" Holy Shit, I can't believe it, the dude actually did it."
Barett smiled, then frowned, as he looked around. The Warehouse Cavern was mostly empty, only about 15% of the racks still had crates on them. The pile of debris that Tsai Lee had pointed to showed that people had been at work, recently, removing the gold. Well more than that, they had been melting it into Chinese disc like molds.
"Those are old Chinese empire molds, that is what the Emperors used, that seems strange."
Tsai Lee was sifting through the equipment and molds while Barett wandered over to the forklifts.
"Hey, those are Chinese molds, but the forklifts are Persian, so is the leftover equipment.....that would explain some of my briefing before the mission, about them wanting to know where the Persians are getting all their funding."
Barett stood in thought, the red lights casting a sinister light on the dusty floor of the cavern.
" I think we should leave really soon.....this is the kind of information that people would kill everyone you know or have ever meet, to keep secret."
Barett grabed a bar of gold, and wrapped it in some canvas, making a sling of it, and tied it to his back. 64 pounds of gold were going to be hard to swim with, but he needed the evidence. The Fort Knox stamp on the bar would tell all he needed it to, if he lived long enough to get it to his commanders.
Barett knew very little about the New Persian empire, they were very belicose, and growing like mad, trying to become a world power. All this wealth had played an obvious part. For some reason it felt like it was his countries wealth, stolen and used to fund alien powers, like He should get it sent back to the west coast. Rationally he knew that would never happen, nor could it. He started to booby trap the doors, if he couldn't get to it, he didn't want to make it easy for the next guy, and there was sure to be a next guy. Tsai Lee had strapped a Chinese nugget around her back, so that they had one of each. It was enough money to make the two of them comfortable for a decent amount of time. The thought crept into his mind about killing her, taking the gold and retiring to a small island in the pacific, he would need a few more bars then blowup the cavern to disappear. Tempting, he stored it in the back of his mind, just in case.
Right now he concentrated on setting up the explosives for maximum inpact, and a safty for him to turn them off. As soon as possible he was going to break radio silence and make a call back to the safe house they had set up before leaving on this mission. He needed, emphasis on needed, to make contact with the Brits, it was time for back up.
Barett was double checking the lever on the back of the airlock door when Tsai Lee motioned to the back wall of the cavern. In the darkness and rush he felt under, to get in and out quickly,he didn't see the rough shadows that hinted at a secret door or passage. Barett had a bad feeling about this whole mission, belicose Persians and Empire operatives, mixed in with Aussie mercs.
A back door made sense, leave yourself an out, that is good, but that is military thinking, not civilian thinking. He wonders who really made this vault ?
He put down the Grenade and pulled out his flashlight.
" Yeah, we'd better check it out...it could be very important."
Trust your instincts he told himself, that was a battle rule, especially where things change so rapidly.
"This is like a Hidden Kingdom, don't you think ?"
Tsai Lee whispered excitedly to him as they moved towards the back wall. She seemed to like the romance of it all.
Barett nodded, more JRR Tolkien, than Disney, but who was he to judge.
The rock walls of the cavern at this end were of a rough cut, and still had the marks of tools on them, unlike the front which was smooth and finished in a cement coating. The work here was hastily done and parts of the loose rocks were scattered across the uneven floor. Barett had his .45 cal drawn, surpressor on, what ever good that did them. A small opening had been carved out in the shadows, only three feet tall by two feet across, it was hand carved, its rough edges poking out at different angles. The small tunnel went up and dissapeared around a corner, the faint smell of apple juice or something acidic waffed from the opening, but otherwise was neutral.
Barett climbed in first and snuck up the tunnel, Tsai Lee right behind him. It twisted and turned right then left slowly heading up. After about 30 feet it opened into a natural chamber almost 15 feet high, it was narrow at the bottom but opened up to near six feet in the middle. Barett moved his flashlight across the cave.
Tsai Lee gasped, then moved around him to get a better look.
The back end of the cavern had been turned into a memorial of sorts to the Senator. And what looked like a coffin of some kind was mounted on the far wall.
" Well, I guess you never can tell....this is not what I was expecting...nope... not at all."
Barett swept the room but didn't see any traps so he moved forward, straight towards the coffin.
The dust on the cave floor is thicker here and recent boot tracks have made their way in before. Workers boots, at least five, bigger guys, looks like they went out the same way they got in, both a good and bad sign.
The Shrine is a mix of Traditional Chinese symbols and buddist knick knacks some old candles and an old American flag, and some offical looking decorations. Unfortunatly the cloth and paper didn't do so well in the moist cave, and was rotting away, touching it made it fall apart, as Barett could see from where the previous visitors had done so. The place wasn't trashed, so they must have shown some respect when they were here.
The coffin was a lacuored wood, painted black with a crane in a lake design inlaid into the lid.
Metal angle iron was mounted into the cave wall holding the coffin level and off the cave floor almost five feet. It was large as far as coffins go, eight feet or so long, three feet high and four feet deep. Barett could see that the lid had been opened recently, but closed again. He swept this part of the cave looking for traps, but found none. Checking over the coffin he saw nothing on it either. The smell of apple cider was strong by the coffin and he suspected it was the residue of formaldyhyde he was catching, 100 plus year old stuff.
"I think we best see what is inside, I'm guessing it is the U.S. Senator that started
this whole mess." Barett stated.
Tsai Lee looked at him strangly.
"Why disturb the dead, you should show some respect."
"Well you can tell a lot about a man by his choice of burial, this one seems odd...I'm going to look."
He pryed back the lid and looked in, thats when the whole cave shook, the crack and boom was loud even this far back. Barett fell back off his perch on the side of the wall. His booby trap on the door had gone off, and the grenade made an terrible racket.
"Shit, that scared the pants off me....oh...that means we have company."
Barett turned the flashlight off and moved quickly down the tunnel, Tsai Lee righ behind him.
Peeking out from around the tunnel entrance he could see and hear water rushing into the cavern as three figures in dive suits worked to close the blown door, the red lights strobing softly unaware. Two bodies, or parts of at least two bodies lay spread across the floor.
Barett looked at Tsai Lee.
" It looks like we're trapped, got any ideas ?"
Tsai Lee shrugs her shoulders, and squeezes back into the tunnel, Barett follows.
" I say we rush them, grab the dive gear and make a run for it, if they split up we have less chance."
Tsai Lee reluctantly nodded her head and pulled out her 9mm pistol, checked it for function and came down low as Barett went high.
Baretts .45 cal H&K with surpressor came around the bend in the rock, he snapped the pistol up and shot twice to the chest of the guy on the right, Tsai Lee came up and fired at the guy on the left.
Both of them dropped where they stood, the guy in the middle ducked down and back behind the door as bullets bounced off the thick metal. Barett rushed the door while Tsai Lee laid down some surpressing fire, he covered the ground rapidly. It was a move he learned from the Brits, the enemy was not expecting you to push him so fast. Barett came up over the rail in one jump and kicked the door hard with solid front kick.
The door moved on its rusty hinges in sqeaking protest, but slammed heavily into the diver on the other side making a hollow thump as it crushed the man behind the door.
Barett swung it open with his left hand as he fired one shot into the head of a mostly knocked out opponent. Then using the door as a shield, searched the tunnel.
It was a five man team, and five men were down. Barett sliced the throats of the two men slowly dying on the metal cat walk by the door. Then pulled the body from the tunnel laying it next to the others, they were mostly unarmed. Besides dive knifes and a spear gun they were not expecting to find anyone here, which was good for Barett and Tsai Lee, bad for them.
Barett started pulling dive gear off the dead men, trying to put together two good tanks and breathers.
Tsai Lee climbed up next to him, and helped him take the masks and head gear off the first guy he shot.
" Holy shit, what are these guys doing here, this thing is a total cluster failure......I'm ready to blow this whole hill and let no one get this unholy treasure."
He tossed the broken mask across the cavern, the plastic shattering on the rock wall.
The men were from Persia, the thin little mustaches being the first hint, the dive equipment was Italian but the knives were from Turkey, or that region.
" This could only mean that there is a submarine out there, waiting for the hatch to be opened....we have limited time...any ideas ?"
Barett looked around, staying here was going to be a death warrant, they needed to move.
Tsai Lee shrugged her shoulders, and nodded towards the second hatch.
" We need to leave, while surprise is on our side. I say we flood the whole place, that will cause some delay in them finding out what we have or know, and slow them down in taking more gold."
Barett nodded his head, and started putting on the scuba gear.
In the dim light and with the wetsuits and tanks, they looked like the guys that just came in, he hoped that the disquies worked for a little while.
Holding on to the railing that ran down the side of the tunnel he opened the outside hatch, water pushing and pulling at him, straining his muscles and grip. The thought went through his head, 'Didn't think this one through boy, did ya' he heard it in his fathers voice.
Tsai Lee was struggling herself, but holding on, He didn't know how long this would take, but they had no choices now.
The water just kept rushing on through, pulling and pushing them around in the small tunnel, making it's way into the chamber.
Even above all the noise of the rushing water he could hear the grinding of metal as large shut off doors started to shut mid-tunnel, the back flood of water jolted him loose from the rail. It pushed him out then sucked him and Tsai Lee back down into the cavern. He lay on the grate walk way, much like he had only an hour or so before. The large metal doors were shut now, and the water was slowly seeping across the floor where the pallets of gold sat, washing the floor of debris as it went. Overheard somewhere compressors and pumps choked and sputtered to life, sucking the extra water down drains and back to the river he imagined.
Barett stripped out of the mask and tank, and started searching the buttons and levers on the inside control panel, opening doors and panel switch covers, looking for the override switch.
" Damit, it looks like we are stuck here,......well thats just great....how many rounds do you have left, I'm down to nine, plus this spear gun."
Barett kept spining around looking for any kind of escape route.
" I just have 14 rounds left, and my knives.....not much to fight off more of those Aussy Mercs I'm afraid."
Tsai Lee ran her hands through her wet hair, pulling behind her ears.
Barett Ran through the options, they were short. Finding a back door was the only option, really. Starting off to search the cavern he heard the big doors start to open to the cargo hold, looks like they were out of time.
Grabbing a few extra gold bars he headed to the shrine, the small tunnel would make for the best last stand. Tsai Lee followed, tossing a extra disk in her make shift pack. Barett was planning on using his as a weapon later if it came down to it, or at least a bargaining tool. He pulled a heavy pallet in front of the entrance to the tunnel for cover and waited.
The metal door protested and groaned as motors and pumps kicked on and off, then finally the larger interior door opened with a flood of water and a small submarine.
It looked like a WWII diesel that had been retro-fited. It was smaller than the large nuclear subs he had seen in the past, no more than sixteen feet across and maybe 80 feet long, it couldn't hold to many people. It sat there quiet for at least 15 minutes, nothing moving. Barett had brought the dive gear with him, in case he needed back in the water.
He heard the hatch creak as the periscope slowly scanned the interior. One helmeted head poked up and looked around, thermal imager on it covered face.
Barett eased the .45 H&K up and popped off one controlled round, right into the jaw of the masked look out. His head jerked back then dissapeared into the sub.
The Periscope focused in on Baretts location, just as he let another round off, shattering the glass of the periscope.
Not two seconds later three figures jump from the water around the sub, firing in full auto in Baretts direction, the whole cavern echoing loudly from the barage.
The three man team pushes hard, as Barett and Tsai Lee only get a few shots off before retreating down the tunnel, the buzzing of lead all around them.
Barett rushes into the chamber, desperate for something to block the entrance. Seeing the coffin on the wall he starts to pull at it.
" What are you doing ?" Tsai Lee says to him in a disturbed tone.
" I'm using the coffin to buy us some time, the dead don't care, I think they prefer us to stay living. Now help me out."
She reluctantly helps him yank the heavy coffin off the wall and jam it into the tunnel leading back to the cavern. The solid wood scraping down the rock walls, Barett gives in one last push then jams some rocks under it to hold it tight. He knows one good explosion will change all that.
"Hey, look over here, behind the coffin, its a small vent." Tsai Lee says excitedly.
Barett rushes over, yanks the vent from the wall, and pokes his light around. A slight breezes comes out, the tunnel is small, barley big enough for him to get his shoulders in and looks like it goes straight up.
"You go first, take this rope, looks like this is our last option, hope it works."
Tsai Lee jumps up and slides up the tunnel like a pro, letting the thin rope dangle below.
Barett waits for her then sees the jerking of the rope, he ties the gold and gear onto it then tugs again, up it goes.
The wait is only a few seconds, but standing in his underwear, with only a pistol and a few rounds left, leaves him feeling unprepared and tense. Finally the rope drops back down and he jumps in and starts to scurry up the narrow, chimmney like tunnel.
He's not 10 feet up the tunnel when a loud explosion comes from the cavern, followed by another. The concussion knocking him loose for a second, before he can regain his grip. Smoke and dust are forced up the tunnel, coating him with a fine layer of reddish clay.
When he gets to the top he can see sunlight, cutting rays across the tunnel shaft, the carved rock is rough againest his skin, as his shoulders rub and scrape along the walls. The fresh air and sunlight assault him as he emerges from the tunnel through a rusty bar gate she had forced open. Tsai Lee motions for Barett to come quietly over to her side. She was sitting in the thick grass,40 feet from the entrance, scoping out something down the hill from them.
Barett's situational awareness was out of whack, due to the explosion and disorientation of coming out the tunnel, ears ringing.
As his eyes adjusted to the predawn sunlight, and he pulled the cotton cloth out of his ears he'd stuff there earlier. He slid quietly down the hill to her.
She had the gear all bundled up and laying next to her. Out in the water sat a fishing boat, just off the banks of the island perhaps 700 yards from the entrance to the cave. Two dark figures were hunched down on the bow, large guns held in thier hands.
From behind them they could hear the faint sounds of movement in the cavern. It was time to move, Again.
Barett grabs his gear and starts belly crawling down the hill and into the thick jungle like marsh lands where they had docked their small boat. He really wanted to get back to his rifle and pack, but it was hidden on the beach, in plain view of the fishing boat and the top of this hill, a sure death if he went for them.
Hiding in the mud of the swamp, and covered in stinking weeds, Tsai Lee and him waited. It's not long before two, two man teams start to search the island.
Barett signals to Tsai Lee to go after the closer team of two guys, and he heads after the farther set, working the other side of the island.
Barett starts the slow sneak to the far side of the island, the bugs using him as a buffet, he thinks that a prison shower and de lousing would feel good after this. It takes a good hour to get where he wanted to,the back side of a small rise in the island on the west side. The morning light hasn't reached his location yet and the dark shadows help even more to hide him in thelow grass, almost to short to hide in. Checking his .45 cal he threads the surpressor back on, racks a fresh round into the chamber and waits. Dug into the mud and weeds, he looks like some african tribesman more than a sniper, if you consider the fact that he is only wearing his underwear and carrying a large knife on his hip.
Soon enough the two merc's come his direction, they look well armed and armored. They are two kangaroo's with partial looks, the long noses poking out from under thier wide brim hats.
Barett slinks down and waits for them to pass, then rises and fires four quick rounds, two to the head for each of them. Jumping from his hiding spot he rushes them with his knife, striking them in the necks, almost severing thier heads. Amazingly enough it takes a lot of effort to remove a head. His heart racing, Barett pulls the bodies off the trail and back into the thick brush, quickly searching the bodies.
Grabing the radio off the biggest guy, and his pants and shirt, Barett takes Uzi 9mm from the first guy and extra ammo and heads back to Tsai Lee.
By the time he made it back over she had cleaned her swords and was wearing one of the unlucky mercs pants and t-shirt.
" I'm going to head to the boat, cover me if things don't work out, with the rifle."
" Ok, be quick, I don't think they are going to let us just stay here, knocking off guys."
Tsai Lee picks up the M4 carbine she took off on of the mercs and checks the scope.
Barett strips down to his underwear and slides on the scuba gear, sliding into the water with just his pistol and the speargun, he starts towards the boat. The two guys on the bow were still there when he left, scanning the island with thier scopes. No one looking out towards the back.
Slowly easing himself up the back of the Chinese style fishing boat. He pulls the .45 cal H&K out and hits the first guy three times, two to the chest, one to the head.
But the ssecond guy brings to bear quickly and fires a full mag at Barett.
The rounds rip thru the side of the boat railing, sending splinters and wood bits flying, stinging Baretts flesh, as he ducks and weaves behind some barrels of fish chum. Cranking back rounds to hold the merc. back He runs the .45 cal dry.
Jumping onto the roof of the bridge, Barett sneaks over to the edge and peeks out. Below the Merc, a tall thin Lizard, is reloading the M4 carbine he has, while trying to operate his radio. Losing no time Barett shoots him with the Speargun, the bolt piercing him through the chest and pinning him to the deck of the boat. Jumping down he kicks the gun from his hand and pulls out the dive knife, slicing the mercs throat.
Sweeping the boat to make sure its clear he signals to Tsai Lee all clear, then starts the boat up.
The Smell of fish makes him hungery, and the heat of the bridge makes him a tired. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and he can see the blood draining off the wet suit where he had several lacerations and cuts, plus a few holes from near hits by bullets.
Bringing the boat up to the beach by Tsai Lee she wades out and tosses in two heavy bags of gear, then wading back to the shore she grabs the makeshift bag holding the gold. Barett jumps down and helps her haul it all on board.
Letting Tsai Lee drive the boat they head up river to a spot she knows of to dock the boat and find a ride back out of this area.
In searching the boat Barett finds a working Satalite Cell phone one of the Mercs had on him.
Barett uses it to call into the safehouse in Hong Kong. Giving the coridinates to the island and all the info about the gold and submarines, Austraian mercs, the Empire, and The Persians. He is told they are now tracking what is going on, but he needs to lay low for a few days, so that they can get the sub out in international waters before doing anything.
His extraction point is not for at least a week. Hanging up the phone he turns to Tsai Lee.
" Lets find a safe place to lay low, looks like are side of things are done."
Barett throws the bodies overboard, after stripping them of weapons and gear. Stowing his weapons in the pack along with the two gold bars he had, one regular, and one of the round Chinese type. The four other bars he puts in a combat bag one of the Mercs had.
" Command tells me that we left a big enough trail of bodies, and forced enough people out to catch us that they were able to nab dozens of "people of interest" to interrogate. I think they were just using us to draw out the players so they could catch them."
Tsai Lee shakes her head as she, slows the boat down and runs it a long the shore line.
" I should have suspected as much, what did they say about the gold bars we have ?"
" I didn't tell them about those just yet, what Momma don't know won't hurt Momma, if you know what I mean."
Barett leans back againest the door frame and digs into a energy bar, passing one over to Tsai Lee.
" The Good news is that there is a temporary cease fire, and the two sides here are in negotiations. so moving around should be easier."
The late morning sun feels good on his skin and he leaves his shirt off to let his body air out. Tsai Lee looks over at him, then back to the river. He swears the look she gave him almost looked like regret...but then again, he never could read women.
They head up the coast for at least two hours before ditching the boat at a fishing village dock, and renting a ride on the back of a wagon of barley, head towards a town she knows. The countryside gives way to more houses and farms till they come to the edge of a large city, nestled into a valley. Along the way Tsai Lee used the satellite phone to good use and secured them a place in the city to hide out. It's geting dark as they walk slowly to a factory on the edge of the river. Barett's starting to feeling the last few days, as his muscles ache, and groan under the weight of 200 lbs of gold he's lugging around. They stopped at a store and picked up supplies that should last a few days, plus some local wine.
The old brick warehouse smells of fish and oil, but the back room apartment type hideout is clean and defendable, so he doesn't complain.
It's only 7 p.m. but it feels much later, having been up for almost two days straight now. But training kicks in and grabbing some food to eat he drops the bags off and walks the warehouse and block to get a feel for escape routes and defendable points. Making his way back he sees Tsai Lee on the phone, just hanging up as he enters the backroom apartment. She nods at him, and goes back to cleaning her equipment, having just showered, she sits mostly naked on the bed. Barett decides that seems like a good idea and gets in the shower himself.
The warm shower does him good, coupled with a great bowel movement in a clean toilet, he's feeling 100% better. Having completed his side of the mission, there is a huge weight off his shoulders and a great relief to his mind, being able to put some of the pieces together.
As he steps out of the makeshift bathroom, Tsai Lee drops the towel off her shoulders, sitting on the bed completly naked now. She motions to a pile of cold cuts and rice, with fruit and vegtables spread out on the bed next to her.
Barett drops his towel and saunters over to her, grabbing some food off a plate. Laying down naked next to her feels good, like some sort of reward for a job well done. He feels like James Bond, saved the world and got the girl to. Soon enough, the food is all gone and so is the last of his energy, after having some adventurous bed sport with her.
Rolling over he falls into a deep slumber, a M4 carbine tucked onto a pile of cloths next to his side of the bed.
Waking up to see the sun peak out over the river, he can sense that she is gone. Quickly searching the room proves his feelings, that she's not coming back, all her things are gone. He heard her just before falling asleep last nigh moving around the room, but didn't think much of it then.
On the desk are the two short swords he got off the bandits and one of the gold bricks, plus one of the gold disks. Whats left of the money they took from the Empire is still in his pack, all the other stuff is wrapped up in a towel. She had taken the other gold bars with her, at least a million dollars worth of it. He shrugs his shoulders to no one and starts putting his cloths on.
He should have seen it coming, they were not destined to be together long, he was just hoping for a few more rolls in the hay before he did the spliting. This must be how all the girls he did this to feel, Strangly that feeling of missing her only lasts a few minutes, then is gone.
Barett waited two more days in the old brick warehouse before he was extracted. He wasn’t sure if Tsai Lee had set it up that way or if it was just coincidence, but he ate his last bit of meat when the satellite phone rang. Two days was a long time but he realized that the rest he was granted was the most refreshing one he could ever remember.
They came to pick him up in a big armored Chinook helicopter. It came in hot and flared hard to a stop. Three armed soldiers jump out, weapons lowered to secure the area, while a fourth man, a handsome looking badger jumped out and motioned for Barett to come quickly. Grabbing all his gear, Barett didn’t need telling twice and was aboard the Chinook in seconds. The whole extraction was done in under a minute, the tires not touching the ground longer than 30 sections. Barett was impressed with the crew and the pilot and his flying skills.
They flew for about 2 hours south at Barett’s reckoning and landed on a small island in the southern China Sea that housed a small military base. The soldiers were mute as to their location and the name. The badger turned out to be a Colonel and the commander of the small base; Colonel Jamison. The debriefing was short and routine with no mention of the gold, which Barett found curious but he didn’t offer any information on it.
The next morning, Barett was informed that he was being sent to Greece to pick up a package that was waiting for him. A private jet was waiting for him to send him of in luxury.
As the jet left the small base, the phone rang in Hong Kong and a woman, as striking as a polished aluminum stake, answered the other end. She was dressed in an all-white linen feminine cut suit. Her long black hair was plated and pined back with a multiple silver pin.
“Thank you”, she spoke in English. “And the package is ready for his arrival in Greece? Good . . . No, I am his beneficiary and I have someone there if he needs helps. Thank you. That will be all.”
She hung up the phone and turned. About a 20 men dressed in black were all waiting for her, their heads down. The room was a large traditional Chinese state room and from the view in the windows, looked as if the room was on top of a very large skyscraper overlook Hong Kong Harbor. She moved to the head of opulently carved mahogany table and took her place at the head. The other eight chairs were empty.
“Bring her in.” she commanded in Chinese. “And leave us.”
The doors opened and two men escorted a handsome looking elderly woman dressed in an Indian style salwar. The dress and veil was made of intense red silk and golden embroidering, making the pale blue green eyes of the older woman sparkle. She was the Albino, a pigment challenged Chinese water dragon full looks woman long past her prime. The men quietly but efficiently left the room and closed the door. The Albino found a seat two places away from the woman in white and sat down.
“So, you have learned your role.” State the older woman.
“I have seen the gold, and there is much missing.” The snow leopard in white answered.
“Some was stolen by the Persians, yes. But they didn’t get as much as you think. Much has been moved to other centers of security. My staff will give you all the information you need after I am gone.”
“The people have suffered for your sins!” the snow leopard returned with extreme hardness in her voice. “Hundreds of thousands had died because of you.” She pulled a long polished sword from out under the table.
The two woman locked eyes. The Albino knew this was waiting for her but she stared defiantly back at the younger woman. “I have been the mother of China for countless years. I have done all I could to protect her. My mistakes are my alone and I make no apologies. I hope yours will not be as grave as mine. Protect yourself against those who would use your power in influence for selfish matters as I was tricked into doing.”
The younger woman’s eyes flickered as she thought of all those she knew. And then she thought of Barett. Her body acted for him again, against the mental control she was using to force him from her mind. Here was the pinnacle point. Tsai Lee had learned that China had been controlled and influenced from behind the scenes by a hidden, mostly benevolent force. A force known as the “Hidden Kingdom.” The Albino had been the leader of this kingdom. But she had not been the first. Someone before her had ruled in the shadows, and someone before them, back to the time that China was enriched by the gold of the old world American. Now she had learned to lead and positioned herself to become the next hidden force behind China. She would have power, influence, and wealth to influence the people of Asia into a new age, for better or worse. Yet, she longed to give it all up and be as free as Barett, to go and do and act and be one for himself. It was an appealing thought. The stresses of leading were a heavy burden that would place her personal feelings second to her people.
Yet she had made her choice.
In one swift and perfect movement she graded the sword and struck. The blade hissed out in a silver arch. The Albino never flinched. Her body simple crumbled to the ground as her head rolled to the foot of the table and her gore flowed onto the cold stone floor.
The kingdom was now hers. Tsai Lee sat back in her chair, a hidden throne, with a hidden army at her command, and a troubled look upon her mind. One day she may have to fight her lover; the coontail shadow sniper.
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