The Orsinni Contracts

by Bill Cariad

  Maria could readily see that Kimoto had been transformed by her revealing of the plan to return Hanako to her mother. Action was what his mind and body had been screaming for and action was what he was experiencing now, and would see more of later. Thoughts of the prize had mainly overpowered his earlier expressed fears, she thought.

  He could still hardly believe what she had done during her short time away from the dojo. Her plan was bold, but the way she had presented it had made success seem entirely dependent upon their jointly held skills. Tanaka’s Italian Samurai was continuing to show him the skills that she herself possessed, and he, Tanzen Kimoto, was determined to play his part.

  “It’s almost time for you to make your call,” said Maria, “Are you clear on what you must say?”

  Maria watched him nod his head, and saw the last minute doubts in his eyes.

  “If your opponent,” she began, “is of choleric temper, then seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”

  “Sun Tzu again,” he acknowledged, smiling as he added, “His words come easily from your lips. But Tanaka did tell me that you were a born warrior.”

  Maria smiled as she checked her watch, imagining Yo Cheng Hok doing the same thing several blocks away from where she stood. She picked up the phone and called Doyle.

  “We’re about to make the call,” she told him.

  “I’ve got an open line to one of my people who’s watching the place,” he replied, “hang on.”

  Maria waited, counting seconds in her head. She had reached five when Doyle’s voice came back to her.

  “He’s there. Make your call. I’ll wait,” and he disconnected without waiting for a response.

  “Make your call,” she told Kimoto, passing him the phone.

  Maria watched him dial the number, and then suddenly heard the voice of a man who had been broken on the Hip Sing rack of hours stretching into days and weeks of torture.

  “This is Kimoto. I have had enough. I cannot go on like this. If Wan Cheng-Jian is not standing before me in my dojo within the hour....” Kimoto broke off to sob before continuing, “If he does not come here to tell me I can see my daughter... then I am calling the police and the drug enforcement agency. Don’t bother trying to phone me, I am taking the phone off the hook.”

  Kimoto disconnected, and Maria immediately redialled Doyle’s number.

  “We made the call,” she told him.

  “Wait one,” he tersely replied.

  Maria waited, counting seconds again. She had reached sixty when she covered the mouthpiece and whispered to Kimoto, “You gave an excellent performance.” She smiled at his pantomimed ‘so-so’ gesture, and continued waiting. She restarted her count, and had reached two hundred and forty when Doyle’s voice came back to her.

  “My man says he just left in a stretch-limo with six bodyguards. We’ve also heard that Hok’s people have started hitting Hip Sing operations. See you later,” he ended, disconnecting.

  “It worked,” she told Kimoto, smiling as she added, “Wan Cheng-Jian plus six are on their way.”

  “We must ensure that they receive the proper welcome,” said Kimoto, returning her smile.

  With imminent combat on the agenda for both of them, bathroom visits took Maria to the office cubicle and Kimoto to his upstairs apartment. They re-joined one another in the vestibule and she saw that Kimoto now wore a clean white Karate practice Gi (suit) Around his waist was a red sash-belt. Covering his hands were the gloves, as decreed by the Orsinni plan.

  “Kiri is well?” she asked, watching his eyes and seeing nothing.

  “As can be expected,” he replied, smiling as he added, “You will see nothing in my eyes.”

  Maria realized he was once more in control of his body language, and would no longer be easy to read. Right now he was standing before her with senses as finely tuned as her own. She knew he wouldn’t be the complete package until this was all over and Hanako was back with her mother, but nobody else would know that by looking at him. What she was looking at now, was the man who had taught Tanaka some of his deadly skills. She was relieved: Six men against herself and an almost fully restored Kimoto was no contest to be concerned about.

  “As we agreed,” continued Kimoto quietly, “my wife will remain ignorant of the plan until the moment she sees Hanako.”

  Maria nodded her appreciation of his confirming he had stuck to their agreement, and smiled her understanding that he was telling her that he believed the plan was going to work.

  ‘Believe in your mind,’ Tanaka had said, ‘and your body will honour the belief.’

  “I will take up my position now,” said Kimoto, smiling again as he added, “as you were about to tell me I must do.”

  “As I was about to ask that you do, Sensei,” she replied, smiling as she bowed deeply to him.

  “Do not be alarmed,” he said, moving forward to touch her forehead with the fingers of one hand whilst his other hand held her arm as if to steady her.

  Maria stood still and instantly felt the heat from Kimoto’s Chi spread through her body. He released her, and she watched as he stood back to speak.

  “I do not regret agreeing to your plan,” he said firmly, “so put aside any thoughts which may be troubling you. This morning, I had wished for Tanaka’s presence. This evening, I am very glad to have the presence of his Italian Samurai.”

  Maria masked her surprise with a smile, and bowed deeply with her response, “Thank you, Sensei.”

  “Up till now, I have taught you nothing,” he said, “so have not earned the right to your respectful address, but you will always know where I can be found should you wish to learn.”

  Maria bowed again with her response, “I am grateful for your offer.”

  “But for now,” he said, “I must obey your unspoken request and go to prepare for our guests.”

  Maria smiled as he turned away and entered the dojo; leaving her with the thought that Tanzen Kimoto was more restored than she had imagined. She readied herself in the vestibule. With her right shoulder against the wall behind the stout wooden door, she calmly waited for the Hip Sing Tong members and visualised the moves she had choreographed earlier. She was positioned so that when the door was pushed open to collide with her unseen body, her left hand would act as the door-stop. Of the seven men who would come through the door into this arena, she was expecting to fight four of them. The other three, inclusive Wan Cheng-Jian, would be dealt with by Kimoto so she was giving them no thought whatsoever.

  Her own quartet of opponents would be the bodyguards covering the Tong leader’s flanks and his back. She knew that each of them would be skilled in one or more of the martial arts, and that some of them would probably be carrying weapons, but she was unconcerned. Because she also knew that these would be arrogant men; they would be men who had swaggered under the umbrella of fear generated by the deeds of their collective Tong. They would be men unused to finding themselves under attack, and their reaction times to such an event would be correspondingly slow. But she wasn’t taking anything for granted; mindful of her pledge to Doyle. Complacency wasn’t an option for her; she needed to keep these people alive.

  From outside, the sound of car doors being slammed shut told her the action was about to begin and she instantly switched to her appropriate mindset. The stout wooden door suddenly swung open to make contact with her left hand, but she was ready for it and her fingertips caught and held the edge of the door as she peered round it. Her expectancy of Hip Sing arrogance was immediately shown to be sound; two bodyguards led the way inside and the door to their right marked Toilets didn’t even get a look. Wan Cheng-Jian was right behind them and looked angry. Coming through the doorway had forced the flanking guards to move in closer to the Tong leader, and they were even now dropping back to allow him to follow the front two through
the doorway to the dojo.

  Maria pushed the wooden door hard with her left hand, and attacked at speed. The sound of the heavy door crashing shut against its frame had brought four heads swivelling round on four necks, but two of those necks had received paralyzing backfist strikes before any of the four men had fully realized what was happening. Two targets down and a third raised his knee to step over a fallen comrade, and she used a thrust-kick to break the knee with her steel toecap before blocking the fourth one’s kick and taking him down with a sword-hand strike to his larynx.

  Maria kicked the broken knee a second time to render its owner unconscious, and ignored the scream of pain coming from inside the dojo as she checked her fallen targets for weapons. She found two handguns and a knife and was careful how she held them, because she didn’t want her fingerprints complicating things. The weapons would be given to Doyle; whose arrival was imminent so she hurried inside the dojo.

  Kimoto had Wan Cheng-Jian in a wristlock, and the Tong leader was bent over with the wrist-locked arm behind his back and his face was twisted with pain. The two bodyguards lay unconscious on the floor, breathing but collectively unmoved by their leader’s plight.

  “We need to keep things moving,” said Maria, placing her contraband weapons on the floor behind the door, “We’ll have more company very soon.”

  Kimoto nodded without speaking and used the wristlock to bring Wan Cheng-Jian upright and propel him forwards. Maria followed, watching where she placed her feet. Near the doorway to the store-room the strewn Heroin packets were splitting open under the Tong leader’s shoes, but Kimoto’s steps were carefully avoiding the spilled white powder. As the doorway was reached, the Tong leader saw what was before him.

  “You will die for this,” was spat out with the blood dripping from Wan Cheng-Jian’s mouth.

  “Not by your hand,” replied Kimoto, and as he spoke he produced the knife from inside his Gi and plunged it into Carmine Forza’s neck at the spot where Maria’s Hapkido strike had landed.

  Kimoto applied fierce pressure to the wristlock and ignored the scream of agony as he leant in to take his own lips to the ear of Wan Cheng-Jian and gave the command.

  “Withdraw the knife from his throat, and your pain will disappear.”

  Perhaps thinking in his pain-filled mind that possession of a weapon might change his circumstances, the Tong leader used his free hand to obey the command. Kimoto promptly broke Wan Cheng-Jian’s wrist, and the Tong leader fainted and collapsed over Forza’s body as the knife fell from his hand and clattered across the floor.

  Maria watched from the store-room’s doorway as Kimoto removed his gloves, and then sudden noise from the vestibule signalled the arrival of Doyle and his men. Kimoto carefully retraced his steps to join her, and they were standing together when Maria had her first sighting of the DEA’s Captain Mike Doyle. It was the voice which identified the medium height person with the stocky looking build encased in jeans and sweatshirt and a casual jacket. He was leading six other similarly attired men into the dojo, and holding up his hand which was brandishing a badge of officialdom as he spoke.

  “Well then, so here we are,” began the deep voice with the Irish lilt, “and before my eyes, if I’m not mistaken, must be Maria Orsinni.”

  Maria moved forward to greet him, but Kimoto remained where he was.

  “You timed it well, Captain Doyle,” she said as her hand was gently squeezed in a ham-sized fist.

  “Any woman who can do what you seem to be doing, can call me Mike,” he replied with a grin.

  Maria saw that one of Doyle’s men was kneeling to check the pulses of the two bodyguards who had been dealt with by Kimoto. The man was now beckoning to the others, and three of them now moved to help him shift the unconscious duo. Two of Doyle’s men remained by the side of the door, and she noted that one carried a camera and the other held an attaché case at his side. The first of the now semi-conscious bodyguards was being carried out the door as Doyle spoke again and he sounded relaxed, but she saw the alert looking eyes in his face.

  “Those two,” began the lilting Irish voice, “can join the four we’ve put in the unmarked van which will transport them all to the best medical attention that state money can buy. Terrible falls they’ve had, what with all those broken bones they seem to have collected. But never mind, they’ll heal soon enough and then we can break their hearts with some jail time. But enough of them,” declared Doyle, rubbing his hands together and grinning, “where is Maria Orsinni hiding the main event?”

  “I think you’ll find,” she replied, pointing to the store-room, “what you’re looking for in there.”

  Doyle motioned for the man carrying the camera with a flash attachment to follow him, and the flash began operating as soon as they reached the trail of spoiled heroin packets and the footprints etched into the white powder on the floor. Maria saw Doyle pause at the doorway to the store-room, and he spent a moment looking inside before stepping aside and indicating that the cameraman should proceed alone.

  Maria returned the polite smile she received from the man remaining at the door to the dojo, and noted that he had barely moved since she had seen him enter with the others. He was a tall and studious looking man, and looked out of place with his attaché case, she thought , and his face didn’t have the same tough looking features she had seen on those of Doyle and the others. She turned away from him and moved to rejoin Kimoto, who had adopted his now familiar ‘stone carving’ stance as Doyle came to stand beside them. They watched the busy cameraman take his shots, until movement behind her made Maria turn to see that the others from Doyle’s team had returned. She saw that this time they were carrying an empty stretcher and a black body-bag.

  “I take it,” said Doyle, “that Wan Cheng-Jian’s prints are on that knife lying on the floor.”

  “I think they must be,” replied Maria, “because I imagine he was holding it when his men attacked him and broke his wrist. While they were fighting over the drugs, perhaps?”

  “That’s how I was thinking it must have gone down,” said a straight-faced Doyle, “and the good Lord knows that I’ve seen my fair share of scenes like this. If you put that amount of Heroin together with these kind of people, you can kiss goodbye to trust and any kind of gang loyalty.”

  “Wan Cheng-Jian will of course,” said Maria, frowning, “have a different version to relate.”

  “Wan Cheng-Jian,” said Doyle, “won’t be saying anything to anyone. And making any kind of statement to us would be like signing his own death warrant, and he will know that.”

  Maria saw Doyle regarding her with a look which reminded her of how her brother Paolo had looked at her a lifetime ago in Sicily; when she had thrown the pebbles which had saved Lucca Bartalucci’s life and his own. It was a look of respect tinged with... surprise?

  “You’ve created a pretty convincing scene,” said Doyle, now nodding towards the store-room.

  “But is it convincing enough?” asked Maria, having now interpreted Doyle’s look and knowing that Sergio had told him of her Mafia background.

  “A respected Pathologist,” began Doyle’s deep voice now sounding its barely concealed anger, “who has seen children on his lab table when the Hip Sing Tong have finished with them, will take care of Forza’s time of death. And the defence attorney we’ll make sure Wan Cheng-Jian gets, won’t be making any waves about forensics or the absence of an eye witness. So yes, the scene being photographed now will be convincing enough for a jury. So the scumbag will go down for murder, and he will do hard time. And he’ll keep his mouth shut, but only until someone closes it for good once he’s inside. When his fellow inmates find out about the kind of things he did to helpless kids, it will be terminal lights-out-time for the bastard.”

  “You said all that with a great deal of passion,” murmured Maria, having noted Kimoto’s facial grimace at Doyle’s u
se of the word scumbag.

  “We’ve been after him for years,” replied Doyle, “and could never get close enough to do what you’ve managed to do. So the ‘Big Apple’ owes you ‘big-time’, lady.”

  “I did have help,” Maria reminded him.

  “I hadn’t forgotten,” said Doyle, “and I’m also grateful to you, Mister Kimoto.”

  Kimoto didn’t respond to Doyle in any way, and Maria sensed that he was preoccupied with thoughts of the last phase of the plan. She was hoping now that he couldn’t sense her own feelings about what was still to come. Because if she had miscalculated the other players in this deadly game she had devised, then she and Kimoto, and Hanako, would be in trouble. She watched now as the photographer emerged from the store-room to nod his head at Doyle, who promptly signalled to the men carrying the stretcher and the body-bag. She was unsurprised by what she was witnessing; her father had told her about how the powerful DEA wilfully by-passed normal police crime scene procedures to achieve their objectives. She watched as the men formed a human chain and began emptying the store-room of its heroin-filled boxes.

  “So where, exactly,” queried Doyle with a reprised grin, “has the creative Maria Orsinni hidden Yo Cheng Hok’s prize? Because it’s time for our Mister Pope to do his thing.”

  Kimoto perked up now, saw Maria. The prize being mentioned was part of the price for his daughter’s freedom, so it was he who pointed Doyle towards his office. The tall man with the attaché case was being signalled to join them as the sound of Wan Cheng-Jian regaining consciousness emanated from the store-room. Maria saw that the Chinaman’s struggling, and incoherent words of protestation, was being ignored by the man who was handcuffing him to the stretcher, and she also saw that the black body-bag had now been filled.