Point Blank

by Fern Michaels

  Charles noticed a certain sense of relief grip all members of the group as they scurried to take seats at the table. Isabelle, still carrying the dish towel, sat down and looked across the table at Yoko and Kathryn, both of whom looked like angry bees ready to sting someone or something where it would get the most results.

  The moment Charles had everyone’s attention, he raised his hand for silence. “For starters, Isabelle, contact Abner and find out what’s going on in the sports world and what the latest is on this . . . this impending competition. We also need a weather forecast for this region. Ted, you and Espinosa take care of that. Annie, I want you to get in touch with Bert to see what’s going on in Macau in the gaming industry. I want information ASAP.

  “Jack, I want you, Harry, and Dennis to go back to the office where you left the Abbot and his men. Fetch them all here. Take the gun you gave Annie so that you can manage all twelve of the men in the office. We need everyone in one location.

  “Brother Shen, you are in charge of the fire. Keep it blazing—it’s cold in here. Keep the teakettle filled and brewing. Brother Hung, I want you to interrogate our . . . guests. Kathryn and Nikki will assist you. With threats and physical violence if necessary. Can you do this, or should I assign that role to Harry and Dishbang Deshi or our three new students?”

  Brother Hung bowed low. “I can do what you ask. I will do it willingly.”

  “Fine. Fine. Now, do we know where the rest of the monks are being sequestered?”

  Brother Shen responded, a sparkle of excitement in his eyes. “We do not actually know with any certainty. Scattered about the monastery would be my guess. I don’t see them being of any help to any of us. First and foremost, their thoughts and actions will be with the students, and we consider ourselves lucky so far that these people have not threatened or harmed them.” Charles nodded that he totally understood.

  “What do you want me to do?” Dishbang Deshi asked, his frustration that he had been left out of the mix obvious to all.

  “I would like you to make some calls, send some texts, to see what you can find out back where you came from. Right now, we are flying blind, as the saying goes. We need all the information we can get.”

  “This whole thing sounds like a Mexican standoff,” Kathryn grumbled.

  Cooper stretched lazily before he headed for the exit. When he reached the massive double doors, he turned and barked.

  “Time to go. We don’t want Cooper getting antsy,” Jack said, sprinting across the room, Harry and Dennis on his heels. A second later they were gone.

  “All right, then, who has the weather?”

  “Storm front. Ice storm. No one is coming up the mountain, which also means none of us are going to go down the mountain anytime soon. It’s expected to continue for the next few days,” Ted said, clicking at the keys faster than any of them could blink.

  “That has to mean we only have to deal with those in the monastery. I say we round them up one by one and haul their scrawny asses right here into this dining room. We can make them talk,” Kathryn, the hothead in the group, said loudly enough that her voice carried to the far end of the dining hall, where their newest captives sat lined up, bound and secure, in a neat row.

  The women’s clenched fists shot in the air, Annie’s the highest. “Bring it on, girls, and let’s show them who is in control here. We came here to rescue a little girl, and the more time we waste, the longer that’s going to take.”

  Dishbang Deshi blanched at this show of bravado. He thought about his sweet, outspoken American wife, and wondered if as she got older, she would turn out to be like these take-charge women. He blinked to push away the unwelcome thought as the word bloodthirsty came to mind. This time he shook his head to clear his thoughts.

  “I haven’t heard back from Bert yet,” Annie said sourly. “I just sent off another text, and one to Dixson Kelly back in Vegas.”

  The monster doors of the dining room opened. Cooper ran into the room, looked around, paraded up and down in front of the bound captives, and growled deep in his throat before he took up residence under the table.

  Pulling, shoving, and pushing the twelve captives from the office, Jack shouted, “Do you believe these guys! They didn’t want to come with us. This slimeball,” he said, pointing to the bogus Abbot, “tried for a crotch kick when I untied his feet so he could walk here.”

  “And . . .” Nikki said sweetly.

  Jack laughed. “They’re up there somewhere in the middle of his stomach. See how green he looks. A man from China looking green is something you don’t normally see. I think he’s in quite a bit of pain right now. After what happened to him, none of the others so much as breathed a complaint when it was their turn.”

  “Oh, boohoo, too bad, too sad,” Maggie said as she gave one of the captives a mighty push so that he stumbled and fell to the floor. Dishbang Deshi dragged him across the room and added him to the neat line of bodies. Fergus quickly tied his ankles together. Captive number two was set in line by Ted and Espinosa, who then went back and manhandled nine of the others into place.

  Meanwhile, Jack hauled the bogus Abbot over to the table and plopped him down. None too gently. The man’s eyeballs rolled back in his head. When he was finally able to focus, Jack went at him. “Listen to me, you smelly son of a bitch. Because I am only going to say this once. Tell us what’s going on. Where is Wing Ping? What’s the plan? Nod your head to show me you understood what I just said, and don’t pretend you don’t understand English. I’m going to take the tape off your mouth, and then you talk. If you don’t, Wong Guotin here is going to pull your tongue out and stuff it up your scrawny ass. Nod if you understood my last statement.”

  The bogus Abbot nodded, his eyes full of panic. The moment the tape was ripped from his mouth, the Abbot squealed, “I know nothing. I just follow orders and do as I am told, as do the others. I hear rumors. We all hear them and talk about them, but we have no concrete facts. I cannot tell you something I don’t know. Please, be merciful,” the man said pitifully.

  “Right now, this very minute, you need to ask yourself why I don’t believe you,” Jack said, his tone cold and ominous.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you good folks, but I am nowhere near buying the crap this guy is trying to sell me. Forget yanking his tongue out. Give him over to us,” Kathryn said, waving her arm in the direction of the girls. “If there’s anything in that pea brain of his, we’ll get it out of him.”

  The girls rushed over to form a circle around the bogus Abbot the minute Jack had him up and on his feet. They pushed and shoved him until he was beyond the long table and in front of the roaring fire, which looked hot enough to roast a buffalo.

  “Have at it, girls,” Jack said agreeably.

  “Strip all of them down till they’re butt naked,” Nikki said, taking charge. “That means you men. We’ll start to work on this one, a little bit at a time.” She winked roguishly at the Abbot.

  Cooper raised his head, looked around, then let loose with three yips of pure joy. He didn’t go back to sleep, though. He rested his massive head on his paws and gleefully, it seemed to anyone who looked at him, watched the proceedings.

  “Well, this is certainly going to answer one of life’s little secrets,” Annie said.

  “What’s that, dear?” Myra asked.

  Annie giggled. “The secret to what they wear under those robes!”

  “Jockeys or briefs?” Yoko laughed outright. Harry openly cringed.

  And the bets were on. Half for jockeys, half for boxers, and one independent—who said, “Nothing as in nothing.” They all hooted again with laughter.

  “Oh, man, I would talk so fast, my teeth would fall out,” Dennis said in a jittery-sounding voice. “No guy wants a bunch of women to . . . you know . . . see his package.”

  The girls laughed again, Myra the loudest and longest.

  “You guys use kitchen shears?” Kathryn bellowed. Like a good surgical nurse, Brother Shen slapped t
hem into her hands before she could draw a breath. “Guess that means I have the honor. Ah, they’re in the modern world here, a Velcro closing. Looks like a Fruit of the Loom T-shirt. American all the way. Okay, girls, ready for the unveiling?”

  “Ooooh, we are soooo ready,” Nikki replied, giggling. “Aren’t we, girls!”

  “Well, I certainly am,” Yoko cooed. She turned to Harry and cooed again, “Honey, pay attention. If you ever strip, willingly or unwillingly, I will kill you!”

  “Jesus, Harry, I think she means it. You might need to get some reinforced zippers or something,” Jack said out of the corner of his mouth.

  Harry had to vent because he felt light-headed, so he used his favorite expression when he was at odds with Jack, “Eat shit, Jack!”

  “That goes for you, too, Jack,” Nikki trilled.

  “And you, too, Espinosa,” Alexis singsonged.

  “I don’t care, Ted. You want to show off your jewels, go for it,” Maggie said, laughing so hard that she doubled over.

  The bogus Abbot grew round-eyed at the jocularity displayed by these crazy women at his expense. He could see his colleagues smirking behind their gags. He closed his eyes in misery.

  “Well, so much for your mystery, Annie,” Kathryn said, peering closer at the Abbot’s underwear. “I don’t know what to call what he’s wearing. Looks like an old lady’s panties.”

  “They’re Depends,” Dennis said. “I saw a commercial on TV where a bunch of men, and women, were marching down the street strutting their stuff. ‘They’re Depends! And they don’t leave lines under your clothing.’ That was a big selling point.” Authority rang in his voice, so no one disputed the young reporter’s knowledge.

  All the women eyed the embarrassed Abbot by walking around him and pointing to his underwear. Finally, the big question came. “Which one of us gets to take it off?” Annie giggled. “I think the holder of the shears should just . . . you know . . . snip away.”

  “Aha! I can do that! Absolutely I can do that! In fact, I actually want to do that!” Kathryn said, making snapping sounds with the shears.

  “Then when you’re done, what should we do, dear?” Myra asked with a smile in her voice that was contagious. All the women started to giggle.

  “How’s this for off the top of my head,” Yoko volunteered. “We brand his ass, both cheeks, and then . . . and then we lay the fire on his . . . whatever you call his package in Chinese. There won’t be anything left of his eeney meeney, itsy-bitsy you know what.” The girls clapped with enthusiasm.

  “Holy shit!” Jack muttered under his breath. “I sure as hell hope you never get on her bad side, Harry.”

  “Eat shit, Jack.”

  “You already said that. You need to be more original in your retorts.”

  “Oh, gee whiz,” Dennis said. “They aren’t going to really do that, are they?”

  Cooper reared up and barked, a shrill sound that grated on everyone’s ears.

  “The boss has spoken, kid. That was your answer unless you want me to clarify it for you,” Jack said.

  “Um . . . no, that’s okay. I read somewhere that the smell of burned flesh is hard to get out of your nose.”

  “It’s not like they have a lot of fat on their asses. They’re all on the scrawny side, so it will be one, two, three, that kind of thing,” Espinosa said, weighing in.

  “It’s still going to stink,” Dennis said stubbornly.

  “Get over it, kid,” Ted said.

  “How are we doing over there, guys?” Isabelle called out, just as Fergus finished tying up the last of the dozen captives Jack, Dennis, and Harry had brought from the office. All the captives were buck naked now, trying their best to cover their private parts. “Nothing interesting here,” he quipped to Annie’s delight.

  “The poker is almost ready,” Nikki called out.

  The bogus Abbot’s knees gave out as tears rolled down his cheeks. Alexis grabbed for him and jerked him upright. “Talk, you pissant. What’s your part in this caper with Wing Ping?”

  “Ticket sales. The money end of the exhibition,” he blurted. “That’s all I do other than sometimes relaying messages to the men. I swear!”

  “It’s not an exhibition, you creep. It’s a fight to the death, and you know that,” Kathryn bellowed as she pushed him closer to the fire. Alexis and Isabelle each had to take one of his arms to hold him in place.

  “No! No! Wing Ping just wants to be number one. That’s what he said. He said no American should hold the title. Only a Chinese deserves to hold the title.”

  “You’re lying!” Nikki screamed as she took the red-hot poker out of the fire to examine it. “It’s not quite ready. We want the brand to go deep. To the very bone.” The Abbot’s knees buckled again. From the far corner of the room, mewling sounds could be heard. No one paid any attention.

  “Where is the bastard?” Annie asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. I have never seen him, never met him. I and all these men here in the monastery deal with a man named Wei Ming. He is the only one who has seen or talked to Wing Ping. I will say he is an evil man. All of us are fearful of him.”

  “Where is this Wei Ming?”

  “I don’t know. With Wing Ping, I would think. He is his right-hand man. I heard rumors, we all did, that Wing Ping promised to make him rich if he aligned himself with Wing Ping. They know that you have captured many of their men. But he doesn’t care about that. He has many men waiting to replace those who are captured. It’s Harry Wong they want.”

  “Where are the rest of your people? How many are left? Are any outside?” Myra asked. The Abbot shrugged.

  “Poker’s ready!” Nikki called out cheerfully.

  “Let’s do it!” Kathryn said, spinning the Abbot around so all Nikki had to do was run the red-hot poker across his buttocks, which she did with a flourish. The scream was primal. The other captives wailed, knowing that they were next.

  Cooper barked his approval.

  “American men don’t whimper and whine. They take their punishment like the men they are. You know where the next one goes, so speak up now or forever hold your peace,” Kathryn blasted the Abbot.

  Tears streaming down his face, the Abbot’s eyes were full of hate as he glared at both Nikki and Kathryn. “When I want a meeting to discuss an order from Wing Ping, I call the one named Chen Fang. He brings everyone to the office and we . . . we talk.”

  “Call him right now and tell him to round everyone up and bring them here. In Chinese, please. No whimpering, no wailing. One word out of place and this poker goes straight up your ass and out your throat. Do you understand me?” Nikki said. She looked over at Harry and Dishbang Deshi and told them to listen carefully to what the bogus Abbot was saying. Both men nodded.

  Yoko walked over to a side table, where all the cell phones waited. She picked up one, looked at it, then handed it to the Abbot. But not before Jack inspected it and gave a nod of approval.

  “Do it!” Nikki ordered. “Try to sound like the voice of authority. If you screw up, it’s all over.” She handed the phone over. In the end, Kathryn had to hold it because the man’s hands were shaking too badly. His eyes were on the smoldering, red-hot poker Nikki held in her hand, but his voice was clear and firm when he told Chen Fang to bring everyone to the dining hall. Kathryn tossed the phone to Yoko, who placed it back on the table.

  “What should we do with him?” Isabelle asked.

  “Sit him down over there with his friends,” Myra said.

  “Sit?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hey, you, Mr. Abbot! Get your skinny butt over here and sit down by your friends,” Isabelle shrieked as she struggled to keep a straight face.

  “That looks . . . painful,” Dennis said as he stared at the Abbot’s backside.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Jack said, tongue in cheek.

  Chapter 20

  The call made, the great dining hall turned silent. From time to time, the group could hear what so
unded like stifled sobs coming from the captives. They ignored the sounds.

  Cooper got up, stretched, and walked around the big room, finally settling himself in front of the line of bound captives. He lowered his head to rest on his paws but didn’t close his eyes. The men started to mutter until Nikki swung the hot poker in a wide arc. Instantly, absolute silence prevailed.

  “How are we going to handle this, Charles?” Jack asked. “Do we wait at the door, admit them one by one, what? We don’t know how many there are. Harry, ask the Abbot how many he thinks there are.”

  Before Harry could get his tongue to work, the Abbot spoke, his words spewing forth at lightning speed.

  “Possibly thirty. I really do not know. They come and go, trade places, some outdoors, most inside.”

  “They will probably try to rush us, would be my guess,” Fergus said.

  “Well, we can’t allow that to happen,” Annie said. “Do any of them have weapons?”

  Again the Abbot spoke. “No weapons. Just the one you confiscated. And I would like to go on record that I personally objected to the firearm. I respect this monastery and the holy men who live here. I speak the truth!” the Abbot wailed.

  “And yet you allowed yourself to be used by these men. You impersonated a holy man, you lied, you cheated, and you would have allowed Harry Wong’s daughter to be kidnapped. Only the quick thinking of Brother Hung, who managed to get her to safety, prevented you from achieving your goal. You would have allowed that travesty, using a little child! All in the name of money!” Myra shouted.

  Tears rolled down the Abbot’s cheeks. His voice was strained and full of pain. “Unless you live here, you will never understand the fear a man like Wing Ping can instill in a person. I have old parents, and he threatened them. I have no wife or children of my own, but I do have brothers and sisters who have families. We all know what happened to Jun Yu. I think I speak for all of us in this room. The others who are coming I am not so certain about, because I do not know them.”