Her guard crept up for the briefest of moments, and Yan saw it and slipped a right hook under her elbow and tagged her on the ribs. She squirmed away, trying to hide how much it hurt, but everyone in the room noticed, and the Marines winced in sympathy. Yan tried to press his advantage as she pivoted away to guard her flank, but she managed to poke away the overhand right he aimed at her face. Diao seemed to lose interest – perhaps thinking she had no chance against his subordinate, so that there was really nothing here that required his attention – and turned back into the passageway, off on whatever errand had sent him in that direction in the first place.
The next moment, Yan rocked his hips through an uppercut-hook combination that should have finished her off, but somehow went awry. Durant couldn’t exactly see how it had happened, and he doubted Yan knew either. Slightly off-balance from the misfires, he stepped back to regain his balance, but she stepped forward into the slight opening he’d left, and suddenly she was inside his defenses, unleashing a flurry of strikes – a jab to the soft spot just below where the biceps muscle meets the shoulder, a rising open-hand slap under the opposite elbow that pre-empted his counter, then a series of inverted strikes that landed just under his chin or on his ears, and which led seamlessly into a rolling salvo of short uppercuts to his ribs – the sheer variety of strikes left the Marines gaping, and their number took its toll on Yan, until he managed to stagger backwards like a drunk on the subway and get out of range.
He tried to recover himself by lunging at her, perhaps hoping to wrap her up in his arms, but he wasn’t quick enough. She’d already seized his right hand, pivoting under his elbow to throw him across the room. The twisting motion of her hands forced him to comply – and supply much of the force of the throw – so that it looked more like she’d turned his arm and shoulder into a whip, than that she’d actually lifted him off his feet. He ended up wedged upside-down against the far bulkhead, legs dangling awkwardly in the air above his head.
The room went silent, jaws hanging open uncomprehendingly, as Emily slipped off her headgear and crouched next to Yan. She helped him untangle himself, and sat cross-legged next to him as he lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling while she spoke to him in what must have been Chinese. Whatever she said must have soothed him, because a moment later she gave him a hand up, and standing on shaky legs he bowed to her, and then left the room without making eye-contact with anyone else.
“What the hell is going on in here?” a commanding voice barked out. No one made the mistake of trying to answer LCdr Hankinson. He turned to Durant and said, “Sergeant, make sure all these men are where they’re supposed to be.” Then to Emily he said, “Are you done horsing around? I need you in tactical,” and she followed him out after disposing of the rest of her pads.
* * *
As it turned out, by “tactical” Perry meant that she should accompany him to the quarters he shared with Theo, which were somewhat larger and more luxurious – within the narrow limits of what is possible on a naval vessel – than what she shared with CJ and Kiku-san. She’d tolerated his peremptory tone earlier, in the training room, partly because she wanted an excuse to leave without having to speak with any of the Marines who’d gathered there, and also partly because she knew she’d come close to crossing several lines. She was ready to be chewed out, and was prepared to give as good as she got if he went too far himself.
“Theo received this from the Australians,” he said, holding out a flash-drive.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m not entirely sure. You’ll have to judge for yourself.”
“Is it from Michael?”
“Yes, I think. It looks like it comes courtesy of someone named Jiang.”
“Finally, a familiar name,” she said.
“Who’s he? Or do I want to know?”
“He’s Guoanbu, Sixth Bureau, you know, Chinese counter-intelligence…”
“… and he’s family, too?”
“Yeah, sort of,” she said, with a sneaky little smile. “He’s Li Li’s uncle.”
“You mean your Li Li?”
Emily pulled a chair over to the desk and tried to sit down by the open laptop, only to yelp in pain.
“Things get out of hand down there?” Perry asked.
“Yeah. I guess.” She tugged at her shirt, gingerly at first, but them more urgently. “Help me out of this. I’m gonna need to wrap it… or cream it… or something.”
Perry pulled up on the collar from behind as she undid the buttons. “Holy crap,” he said, when he saw the bruises that were beginning to show on her ribs and forearms. “What the hell were you doing down there?”
“Oh, nothing much.” She let out another squeal as she slipped off the pants. The bruises on her legs weren’t nearly as bad, though plenty of purple had begun to show there, too.
“We may have to take you down to sick bay. This looks pretty serious.”
“How’s my face look? Any marks there?”
He looked her over, trying to avoid eye contact, since he knew what she was up to. But he could only hold out for so long, and when her hands cupped his face and she kissed him, he couldn’t help laughing at himself.
“Okay, I get it. No sick bay. But who, exactly, are you trying to protect? Did one of those Jarheads do this? Or Yan?”
“I did it to myself.”
“Huh?”
“You know, I was trying to show the guys how to defend themselves against…”
“The guys? You mean your little posse, or fan club, or whatever they are?”
“Yeah,” she said. “My guys.”
“Is this just more of your paranoia about Diao?”
She wanted to push him away for that remark, but it hurt too much. “Show me the damn video, then. Let’s see what’s so all-fired important about this.” She lowered herself into the desk-chair with another little shriek.
The video on the flash-drive opened on a scene in a rural cemetery, a peasant’s funeral, perhaps a farm-girl. A banner above the gate showed the name of the deceased, and the camera panned across the crowd of mourners, all dressed in their best clothes, which weren’t all that fine, though their grief was easy enough to see.
“Who’s Yu Mei?” Emily asked. “Why are we interested in her?”
“I don’t know. Theo didn’t say. Probably doesn’t know either.”
“Don’t you have some ointment? You know, some sort of topical anesthetic?”
Perry pulled open a drawer under his bunk and handed her a tube. When she winced, trying to reach down to rub it across her ribs, he took it from her and began to apply it liberally to both sides of her body.
“You really are helpless, you know,” he said.
“That’s why I keep you around.”
A commotion seized the crowd in the video as several soldiers, armed with automatic weapons, entered the cemetery, and the camera panned left to catch a glimpse of a shiny, black sedan pulling up to the gate.
“This doesn’t look like it’s gonna end well,” Perry muttered. “Check out that limo. Talk about being out of place…”
The driver opened the rear passenger door and two PLA officers stood up from behind the tinted windows, just as the camera began to pan back to the crowd of mourners.
“Is that who I think it is?” Emily exclaimed.
“Who?”
The older man must have lingered off screen, by the gate, but the younger man walked back into the scene, catching up to the movement of the camera.
“Diao. Don’t you recognize him?”
Perry pressed his face closer to the laptop, straining to make out finer facial details. The soldiers pushed a few of the peasants aside to make way for the young man.
“Shit, you’re right. That is Diao.”
“Now what on earth is he doing at a peasant girl’s funeral? Who the hell is Yu Mei to him?”
“Does the name mean anything?”
Emily pondered the question for a moment. “I think it me
ans Jade Plum, though it could probably also mean something like ‘enduring virtue.’ It sounds like a typical peasant name, you know, expressing the hopes and dreams of her parents. Does that make sense?”
Perry nodded and grunted, and they both watched as the camera continued to pan right. Finally, it showed the memorial itself that all the mourners had come to see. A lavish floral arrangement framed a large photo of the deceased.
“I doubt these people could have afforded that display,” Perry said.
“It can’t be,” Emily cried out, as the camera lingered on the photo.
“What is it?”
“Oh, shit. Yu Mei is Diao Chan. This is her funeral. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.”
“You mean the woman…”
“… whose head I separated from her shoulders three years ago. That’s exactly who it is.”
“Wait. I thought the samurai, you know, Kano’s father, I thought he did that.”
“No. I did it. It was his father’s idea to say he did it so as not to give General Diao’s people something to rally around.”
“Oh, shit. Do you think Diao knows it was you?”
“No… maybe… who knows? But does it really matter? I mean, he’s gotta know I was involved somehow, right?”
“I guess.”
“One thing’s for sure, whatever he knows, or thinks he knows, he’s not here by accident.”
The door swung open and Theo entered, squeezing a sheaf of papers under one arm and clutching a case in that hand, and trying to hold up his dress uniform in a garment bag without letting it touch the floor, all of which kept him from noticing Perry and Emily right away.
“What the hell are you two up to?” he snorted, once he’d found a place for the uniform.
“Nothing at all,” Perry said, as he scrambled to collect Emily’s clothes.
“Those are some nasty bruises you have there, girl.”
“Bruises… what bruises?” Emily put on her best business-as-usual face, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about her sitting in her underwear in their quarters. When Theo seemed undeterred by this prevarication, she tried another tack. “I was just doing some PT with the Devildogs.”
“Let me guess,” Theo said. “Tarot and Racket?”
“Who else?” Perry replied, handing her pants over her shoulder.
“Are you gonna write ’em up?”
“What for? It was my idea.”
“How on earth does that even make any sense?”
Emily squealed and hissed in pain as she tried to step into both legs of the pants at once, then glanced up at Theo. “Don’t worry. It’s really nothing.”
“Nothing, my ass,” he roared. “How the hell do you expect to participate in the Asuncion Island exercise? You can barely move.”
“I’ll be ready.” She tried easing her arms into both sleeves before pulling the shirt over her head, then thought better of it, backed her arms out and pulled the collar over her head. “Perry, hold the damn sleeve for me.”
“Fine,” Theo said. “I take it you saw the video. Connie and Michael couldn’t quite figure out why Jiang thought it was so important. Any ideas?”
“Oh, she’s come up with something,” Perry said.
“Yeah, what?”
“The funeral is for Diao Chan.”
“No, it can’t be. According to your mom, the banner in the video reads Plum Jewel, or something, definitely not Diao Chan.”
“That’s just it,” Emily replied. “Diao Chan wasn’t her real name. No one names their kid that. It’d be like calling her Mata Hari, or something. She must have taken the name to curry favor with General Diao.”
“What about this guy?” Theo asked, pointing at the still image of Capt Diao, frozen at the end of the video. “Is that really his name?”
“It’s hard to say, but somehow I doubt it. Look at his face. He’s at that funeral because he cared about her, probably loved her, and not like a sister…”
“… and you cut her head off,” Perry added.
“Shit,” Theo said.
“Yeah, that probably didn’t put me in his good books.”
“As dangerous as you think he is, shouldn’t we do something about it, maybe tell the Admiral?” Perry asked.
“Which reminds me,” Theo said. “The Admiral wants us on the Blue Ridge for a briefing at nineteen-hundred-hours. You gonna be able to walk by then?”
“Real funny. I’ll be ready. And, no, I don’t think we tell anyone what we know about Diao yet. Has the Admiral been briefed on Kano’s letter?”
“Yup. That’s where I’ve been all morning. The chatter over that letter is all anyone’s been talking about over there, and whether we can continue with Operation Seabreeze after the Asuncion Drill.”
“We can’t just call it off, can we?” Emily said. “Won’t that make matters worse?”
“Yup. We’re definitely gonna be walking on eggshells through this whole thing,” Theo said. “We don’t want to precipitate an incident by backing out, but we run the risk of causing one if we continue and anything goes awry.”
They looked at each other for a moment, each one beginning to feel the burden they might all have to share soon enough. Perry crouched down to tie Emily’s shoes.
“Okay, cinch her up and get Miss Creaky out of here,” Theo said. “We’ve got work to do before this evening.”
Chapter 12
Mid Rats
“Colón, eyes on the passageway,” Perry said. “She’ll be here any minute. Durant, watch the kitchen.”
“Farah,” Durant shouted as quietly as he could manage. “Get away from the steam-table. We’re not here to eat.”
LCpl Khaled Farah looked up, having already stacked a plate with fried chicken. The son of Jordanian immigrants, Farah joined the Corps right out of high school, and told his unit-buddies it was because he didn’t want to work in the family restaurant. Judging from his appetite for fried foods, they all assumed his parents had kicked him out for eating up all the profits. Eventually, they started calling him Falafel, but this name died a natural death when everyone saw how much chicken he would consume in a typical day. A new name had yet to take hold.
“I’m hungry, Sarge.”
“There’ll be time for that later.”
“Why all the cloak and dagger, sir?” Tarot asked.
Perry’s left eye twitched as he turned to face the squad, which had begun to arrange itself around a table in the far corner of the Enlisted Mess. The Jarheads shrunk back and tried to make themselves as small as possible.
“You want to know why, Tarot. I’ll tell you why.” Perry paused when he began to feel a vein on the side of his neck twitch. His mouth had already formed a perfect ‘O’ and the breath in his lungs wanted an outlet, and the bitter, green taste of his own churning stomach would not go back down easily… but tearing them all the proverbial “new one” seemed less useful an approach now than it had a moment earlier.
“Sir…” Tarot ventured, after a bewildering moment of silence. Perry held up a finger.
“I ought to throw you meatheads in the brig… In fact, I don’t know why I haven’t already.”
“But, sir…”
“Oh, wait. I remember.” He turned to glance back at Durant before continuing, who shrugged. “She asked me not to. You clowns were this close to not seeing the sun for… for… a long goddamn time. And don’t give me any crap about how she made you do it.”
“In all fairness, LC…” Durant said. “It can be difficult to refuse her…”
“You didn’t see the bruises, Sarge,” Perry said, nearly yelling again. After another long breath, he stared each of them down. “Here’s your new task, each and every one of you… no, your mission here on Earth: You will make damn sure nothing untoward befalls her from now on.”
“From now on?” Racket said.
“Until the end of time… not a damn thing. Do you get me?”
“Yes, sir” the squad answered in a ragged, embarrass
ed unison.
Colón whistled from the doorway and then stepped quickly to the table in the back. A moment later, Theo entered the room, followed by Emily, and everyone stood at attention.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Theo said to Durant. “For operational security, your presence is no longer needed.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and exited the mess.
“Lieutenant Tenno, have you formulated your plans?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, patting a rolled up map pinned under one arm. “We have contingencies for three separate incursions.”
“Remember, your mission is not to confront our operators.” He turned to face the rest of the squad. “This is not a live-fire exercise. Even though you will be armed with non-lethals, as will the coalition teams, you will not be weapons-free.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your objective is to test the ability of the coalition teams to communicate effectively in battlefield conditions, without benefit of translators.”
“Without translators?” Racket asked.
“Their objective is to maneuver with code-word comms only, to encircle or overrun your positions, and to avoid any friendly-fire outcomes.”
“And our objective is to evade, confound and, if possible, to lure them into a friendly-fire situation,” Emily said.
“Is enemy capture an allowed result, sir?” Tarot asked.
“Yes, within limits,” Theo said. “But excessively hazardous situations are to be avoided, to the extent possible.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Colón said. “… uh, with all due respect, sir.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know, Corporal. That’s why I emphasized that your charge is not to confront the coalition teams, but to evade and confound.”
Once the briefing was over, Farah made a beeline for the fried chicken, followed by Tarot and Racket. Just inside the entrance, Perry and Theo stood with her for a moment and a few last words, as the kitchen crew came out to check on the steam-table, and a few hungry sailors began to straggle in for MID RATS, otherwise know as midnight rations, now that Theo had released the room to them.
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