The lights dimmed in the room, and the main screen behind the table lit up. Those with their backs to the screen turned in their chairs.
“Wow,” Bobcat quipped, “I didn’t know we were doing Friday night movie night, who has the popcorn?”
William chuckled, but that was the only response from those in the room.
The screen, dark, showed a very tiny point of white in the center as a female voice emerged from the loudspeakers, “This information has been brought together by Ms. Arakawa Yuko for those who have been invited to participate in the exchange of technology and knowledge.”
The white dot opened, and multiple scenes showed Bethany Anne fighting, using swords or guns. A few times, the video seemed to be coming from her very eyes. At one point, Bethany Anne’s voice, cold with menace was speaking. Those at the table saw it was a night in what looked like a middle-eastern city, perhaps. A man was in front of her, scared, “Jahannam is calling for you Dawid! Jahannam is CALLING!” She screamed the last word and the man got back up and continued running. The camera person was walking towards the man as he turned to look back. The voice said, “Dawiiid, the blood of the innocent is on your palms!” The man seemed to suddenly try to halt his running when he turned back. He backed up towards her, obviously fearing something in front of him.
Then, the man stopped moving. There were muscle contractions that suggested he was trying to run, but that it was impossible.
The man, blocking the sight of a body in front of him, let out a sob as the camera had now moved behind him. Two of the men sitting at the table jerked when the camera person thrust a Katana through Dawid. The view changed, the person leaning forward and put her lips near his ear, “The cries, for justice, of the dying, have been heard! The dead have come to claim you, Dawid. France’s children shall have their justice!”
She yanked the sword out of the man who fell to his knees. She pulled him back up by his hair, “Tonight you are the lesson, Dawid, tonight you are the note!” She pulled the man up. A fraction of a second later, her blade sliced through the night, leaving the man headless. She kept the head, the body falling to the street. “You, Dawid Zadeh, shall not have a proper burial!” With that, she pushed the head, and it disappeared into the night.
A few of the men realized they never heard it hit the ground.
The room lights came back on, and the men turned towards Yuko again. “Do not believe that Japan is the only people who understand honor, or justice, or retribution. You do not wish to make me upset with your actions, but you had better pray you never, ever make my Queen get involved.”
Yuko paused and spoke calmly and slowly, “She doesn’t have any patience for bullshit.”
The fear receded.
Yuko smiled, looking like a young, fresh-faced Japanese lady, “Now, do any of you feel dishonor working with me?”
None of the men, however, were fooled. School was in session, and as old as they were, they were the students.
There is no dishonor in learning from masters, even if they come with young bodies and beautiful faces.
CHAPTER SIX
Chapter 6
China
The four friends stayed close together, as much as they could during the march.
“How come,” Bai asked, “we are in the front hacking at plants again?”
“You aren’t holding the machete correctly, Bai,” Zhu told him, “you are going to tire your arm out too fast.”
“That is because those of us born in the cities, don't have to learn how to use a machete to get to work!" Bai answered, hacking a second time to clear out the vine in front of him.
Second Lt. Zi Shun turned around and spoke to his two men, “Bai, Zhu is just trying to help. Don't let your frustration cause you to dishonor his help. And everybody,” he spoke a touch louder, making sure to get their attention, “keep your eyes open for anything above us,” punctuating his command by using the machete to point up. He then turned around and continued working his way through the undergrowth.
Bai looked up as he pulled out his canteen and took a drink of water, “Have I mentioned how much I hate jungles?”
Zhu answered, "I stopped counting at thirty-two.”
—
The army men were loud, Geming twitched his tail in annoyance with the poor sport. From the four Kings came the command to eradicate those trailing their people. The Army had tried to use air power, but it was fruitless in the deep of the forests and the dark of the nights. So the Army’s plan switched to tracking the clan through the forest.
Now, he and eleven others were waiting to cause as much damage as they could to this group following their King.
Another soldier’s voice reached his sensitive ears, another irritated twitch of his tail.
They had already scouted the men and knew there were two trackers in this group. Those two were the first targets. Two of his clan brothers lay in the undergrowth, waiting. Three more were hiding behind the trackers, along the path they had hacked from the jungle. First, those in the back would attack. Swift, lightning strikes to get the group focused on the rear so that those in the front might turn, and not see the killing hits so close to the guards up front.
Otherwise, healing was going to be a pain.
They had heard the talk, the whispers, the prayers even as the army men kept checking their guns and their silver ammunition. A concern, to be sure, and pushed this effort from easy to at least challenging and potentially deadly for a few. However, the Kings needed the time to hide the four treasures. It was decided the best of their people, the smartest, would eventually bring the pieces together and work to continue the prophecies.
Because the Sacred Clan was patient if nothing else.
—
Shun’s arm, tired as it was, swung hard to chop down the limb in front of him. The trees were small and thin but still took up space as their branches connected, making it very difficult to walk.
He slid his sword into the scabbard and pulled around his canteen. While drinking, he looked up into the canopy above them and noticed two yellow eyes looking down at them through leaves from over forty feet away. “Xiǎoxīn!” he cried and dropped the canteen, reaching for his rifle.
That was the same moment that there were growls of wild cats and screams from those in the back.
“Look forward!” Shun commanded. He noticed Jian move up beside him on his left. The two trackers were pulling back, but one of them had turned to run, and he made it maybe three steps before he screamed as he disappeared into the undergrowth.
The second had a pistol and a blade out, looking for his attacker and was taking backward steps.
“We are coming up beside you,” Shun called out. The terrifying screams from those in back and the other tracker, off to their left, cut through the shouting of the men as they continued to look out into the jungle, growls often causing many of the men to shoot their precious ammunition.
“They are making you shoot at nothing!” Shun yelled. The only ones who listened were his men.
Except for Bai. He had already shot off some of his ammo before he turned, embarrassed.
“Jian, we pull Hulin in with us.” Jian just nodded.
A small tree bent ever so slowly. Shun had punched three shells into the brush before he could think. A primal scream greeted him. “Now!” Shun and Jian took four steps and grabbed the tracker and now the four men made a circle around the tracker.
“We have the scientists to protect!” Zhu yelled.
Shun grimaced. Tactically, that was going to be a challenge. “All face out and Hulin watch our back trail.”
There was occasional fire, now. The men, some probably down to their final magazines of silver ammo for their weapons stopped firing indiscriminately.
It was quiet, too quiet, Shun and the men kept looking around, trying to see if any more bushes or trees moved that shouldn’t. Shun searched his quadrant, heart racing when Jian spoke, “Up!”
The four men turned, Hulin’
s pistol got one shot off before a hundred pounds of North Chinese leopard landed on the tracker from the limbs above, dragging him to the earth. The screams of the man became gurgles as his throat was torn out. Bai got one shot in on the leopard before it screamed in pain and leaped at him. The cat raked his right claws across Bai’s face and used his left to slice open Bai’s neck in multiple places. Digging his rear claws into Bai’s body, the leopard jumped backward, causing Jian to duck as it flew over him. The three remaining men turned as one and shot into the brush until Shun commanded them to halt.
Shun turned and could hear the shots had mostly stopped down the group. He turned to see Jian holding Bai’s head up. Zhu kneeled by his friend and held his hand as Bai tried to smile, his face too messed up to determine the words that Bai’s bloody lips were trying to form, as his one good eye slowly closed a final time.
Shun’s lips pressed together, his head turning to search out in the forest, willing a pair of luminescent eyes to be looking back at him.
He desperately needed something to shoot.
Dulce Lake New Mexico, USA
“Explain this to me one more time?” clean shaven with short cropped hair, Patrick M. Brown looked like you could have taken him off of a military poster and stuck him in the chair behind his medium-sized desk. Well, except for his right eye, which was completely blind.
“We have lost Mason Jayden. He didn’t arrive this morning and we, of course, went to track him down. Half of his house is burnt down, and witnesses are saying there was an explosion on the second floor. Only one old, white-haired, lady admitted to seeing anything, and her eye-witness report is odd.”
“Go on,” Patrick said, “I suspect this will be good?”
“Oh,” his second, Bruce shrugged and took one of the two seats in from of the desk, “It’s either perfect, or she is a looney.”
“In our business, looney is more likely.”
“True,” Bruce crossed his legs, “The lady says she was walking to pick up her paper and the explosion happened. She looked to see three men lying in the yard across the street from the burning home and the neighbor’s roof parts raining down. The three men got back up, raced across the street and had what looked like guns in their hands.”
“Looked like?” Patrick asked.
“Six houses and she is old, eyesight problems.”
Patrick just nodded.
“So, assuming pistols, they run across the street. Then something kinda round drops right out of the sky and a huge guy jumps from about a second-floor distance down to the ground. She can’t hear anything from the round thing. Then, a woman and a dog come up behind the three men. Little old lady says the guys laid down their pistols, the woman goes up, and she swears this is true, she hits each man and they disappear. Then the strange lady, the dog, and the huge guy disappear as well. She had a car…”
“Oh? What happened to the car, it disappears too?” Patrick smirked.
“No, it flew away,” Bruce said.
Patrick’s eyes narrowed, “What type of car?”
“She claims a sports car, maroon color.”
“Fucking A,” Patrick exploded, “Fucking A! It’s got to be that bitch CEO of TQB Enterprises. She’s the only person with a sports car that flies. They have those pods, so her man could have come down and jumped out. Her guards are huge.” He thought for a moment, then asked in a calmer voice, “Why were they there?”
“Running hypothesis is the three guys with the guns were doing something with Mason. I’ve done a quick check of the logs, and he has accessed secured data areas he wouldn’t normally go into. Not something that trips our systems, but odd. No one has seen his wife in a few days, and we have the explosion upstairs.”
“Bedrooms?” Patrick asked.
“Where you would think, upstairs.”
“Wife is gone, the child is home, Mason is checking into stuff he shouldn’t,” Patrick leaned back in his chair and thought about possible scenarios. “Ok, if we assume the guys were bad, they took the wife and maybe did some sort of dead man's switch on the child, we have a group attacking us for our data. That means we have a mole or someone who has figured out who our people are.”
Patrick leaned forward, put his elbows on his desk, “If we assume TQB was the attacker, I can’t make that work. They could easily come attack us here if they wanted. I’m sure they have more technology than they are showing. That she can do something to move someone into another dimension is believable, if barely. I hadn’t considered it, but I can believe it. Further, from our own people who have tried to hack their computers, it can’t be done. All psychological reports would suggest they never would take a wife to get Mason to steal data.”
“What if they changed?” Bruce asked.
Patrick shook his head, “We could what-if the hell out of anything. No, go with the knowledge and see how it fits. What it tells me is we almost had a data breach. We have three additional families that leave us vulnerable. So, we need to pull in our reliable people and disappear and take care of any loose threads. We aren’t nearly ready to produce our tech at scale, yet, nor can we fight the government.”
“A government who funds us,” Bruce smirked.
“Well, yes,” Patrick amended, “But we don’t really work for those civilians anymore, do we?” Patrick looked over at Bruce, his one good eye reflecting the question to his subordinate.
“Nope,” Bruce agreed, “the sheep are clueless.”
South America
Tabitha’s Pod dropped her off back at home, or at least at Michael’s old home.
Just, not the same anymore.
Hirotoshi and Ryu were both standing outside, in the dark shadows, “Hey boys,” was all she said. Hirotoshi gave nothing away, but she did notice the slight amount of aggravation Ryu allowed to show at being caught.
“Don’t get your tighty-whities in a bunch. Wait, do you guys even wear banana hammocks? I mean, I suppose it could leave your cherries in a bunch and all, or do you let the grapes-of-wrath just swing as God intended?”
Hirotoshi dipped his head in acknowledgment and went inside the house first. Ryu brought up the rear and answered, “Yes, we use the German Ein Dickenhammaker variety,” he whispered, completely straight-faced.
Tabatha went to the sink once she got inside, filled up a cup and started drinking before she pieced together what Ryu said. Then, Ryu noticed she spit out the water, started choking and laughing at the same time as she slapped the granite beside the sink, “Ein dickenhammaker, PRICELESS!” Then, she started choking again and had to try to stop laughing for a minute.
Ryu turned to Hirotoshi, who winked at him while Tabitha kept sputtering, “Guys! Cough…cough…guys, dammit, that shit is …cough…funny! Oh my God, Dickenhammaker!” She finally got herself under control and turned around and smiled at Ryu, “Ok, we are one and one. I found you guys in the shadows, but you nearly killed me with a joke.”
She walked past the two into the large eating area, “Come join me here, we have an assignment.”
Ryu lifted an eyebrow to Hirotoshi who gave a tiny shrug and both followed their leader to the large table and sat down.
Tabitha pursed her lips, “Ok, we ain’t got much to go on so far. We have three mercenaries who are no longer with us but were hired by parties unknown. We, of course, need to put real names behind unknown. It, perhaps, might have been nice to see if these guys had overheard anything, but I understand our Queen was short of patience. I am totally behind this and support her one-woman effort to rid the Earth of dipshits and dingbats who harm kids.”
My Ride is a Bitch (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 13) Page 7