With those words of reassurance, the relaxed, easy mood returned to the meeting. Dorigan had never led the Black Dragon Clan astray, and no one had any reason to believe that he would start now.
As the meeting resumed its usual mood and subject matter, Victor Malakai turned his attention to the other members of the Black Dragon Clan leadership. The first person he noticed was the person directly in front of him, Jessie Wise. A beautiful woman, Jessie had a body that supermodels across the world would kill for. But that beauty disguised the fact that she was hands down the most vicious, sadistic person in the group. She seemed to take sexual pleasure in the pain and suffering of others, especially if she was inflicting it. In all his memories, Victor couldn’t remember a time where he’d seen Jessie out of her black tank top and black and gray cameo pants. Her black military boots had stomped on many a man’s genitalia, and her knife had tasted the blood of hundreds of different people.
To her left sat Hoxie Johns. Hoxie was clad in loose black felt pants and a loose green satin shirt with an intricate weave of gold fabric. His blond hair was slicked back, and his brown eyes smoked with supreme arrogance. Not that the arrogance was undeserved; Victor had seen Hoxie do things with guns that most other people would consider impossible.
To Hoxie’s left, Mordechai Krueger sat with his arms folded across his chest. His skin was paler than the others, and he wore a sleeveless black sweater, and a short cape was draped over his left arm. Victor knew from experience that Mordechai kept his prized dagger sheathed under that cape. His cool gray eyes scanned the room carefully, as if he were expecting Jin to materialize out of the shadows. With perfect control of his expressions, Mordechai was impossible for anyone to read accurately.
To Victor’s right sat the James twins – Abbot and Levy. Both of them were short but speedy and kept their dark hair cut extremely short. At only five feet four and 128 pounds, the twins preferred to fight together rather than alone. That behavior carried over into their dealings with the other leaders, for they rarely associated with any of the other leaders outside of these meetings.
But there was one empty space at the table. At the other head of the table, directly opposite Dorigan, was where Jin Sakai used to sit. Victor knew, along with the others, that Jin Sakai was the rightful leader of the Black Dragon Clan. However, Jin had never expressed any interested in, or desire for, that kind of power. He had therefore allowed Dorigan to rule over the Clan. Only once had Jin overruled Dorigan’s authority; that was to stop Dorigan from ordering the assassination of the then American president. Dorigan’s thinking behind it was that given America’s cultural diversity, the loss of the president would throw the country into chaos and result in a multitude of private contracts. Jin had overruled Dorigan completely, saying that some of their most lucrative contracts came from US military black ops, and in return, the US Government would not interfere in the Clan’s other dealings. If they’d killed the president, Jin had argued, that arrangement would be voided.
Just then, Dorigan addressed Victor again, and he was snapped out of his musings and back into the meeting. However, he couldn’t shake the thought that sending those Grunts after Jin was the stick poking the sleeping dragon in the eye.
--<(0)>--
As the meeting continued, Jin’s car pulled up in front of the main gates. Two guards, wearing militarized versions of the outfits worn by Black Dragon Clan Grunts, were positioned outside the gates. They were toting M-4 carbines. Stepping out of his car, Jin walked up to the guards, who stopped him.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the one on his right said. “But unless you can prove that you are a member of the Black Dragon Clan, I can’t let you pass.”
“Oh,” Jin said, suddenly looking grim. “Well, see, I have a problem with that. I have urgent business with the Black Dragon Clan leaders, and unfortunately for you two, you’re in my way.”
“Well, that’s too bad, buddy,” the guard on Jin’s left said. “But we’re here to stay, and if you don’t like it, I suggest you leave.”
“You misunderstand me,” Jin said calmly. “I don’t mean unfortunately for me. I mean unfortunately for you.”
Without warning, Jin reached into his coat and tore his sword out of its sheath. The guards raised their rifles, but Jin was too fast. Before they could get a shot off, Jin lunged forward and plunged his sword through the stomach of the guard on the right, and just as his partner turned toward him, Jin whirled around and slashed open the man’s throat. After a moment’s pause, Jin kneeled and ripped a strip of fabric from the guard’s uniform to wipe the blood off of his sword. That done, Jin tossed the rag aside and went back to his car. He opened the left rear passenger door, and pulled out his PSG-1 sniper rifle. He then slung it over his shoulder and climbed over the gate.
Landing on the other side, Jin quickly slid the rifle from his back and placed the stock against his shoulder. He could clearly see Dorigan’s castle mansion in the distance, and he gazed through the scope to spot any patrolling guards. He found them easily enough, and after methodically circling the grounds, he found that Dorigan had only posted twenty guards around his mansion.
Jin grinned, this would be too easy.
He slightly lowered his rifle and moved over to the section of the mansion where the meeting hall was located. There were only four guards there, and Jin moved to a tree in a far corner of the grounds. From there, he could see only two of them, but he was also in a position to quickly move for the other two. Raising his rifle, Jin peered through the scope and quickly acquired his targets. Taking a deep breath to steady his aim, he fired once, twice, and both guards were dead. Without pause, Jin dropped out of the tree, moved over to the other side of the hall, and swiftly dropped the second pair of guards. That done, Jin slung his rifle back over his shoulder and quickly moved up to the mansion.
There were no doors, at least none that would be safe to walk through, and no windows. That meant Jin’s only option was to climb. Placing his hands against the side of the mansion, he ran them over the cobblestone walls, getting a feel for how the wall was laid out. He then looked up and found that a balcony extended out from the wall about fifty feet above him. Taking a deep breath, Jin grabbed a firm hold on one of the many stones in the wall and pulled himself up.
Slowly, carefully, but steadily, Jin made his way up the wall, and within a few minutes, he reached the bottom of the balcony. Reaching out with his right hand, he grabbed one of the support beams and then hoisted himself up, wrapping his legs and other arm around it. Easing forward, he tightened his grip on the support beam with his legs and threw himself forward, grabbing the edge of the balcony with his hands. With some difficulty, Jin slowly inched himself forward until he was finally able to grab the balcony’s railing and then pull himself up onto it.
Leaning against the wall, Jin took a series of deep breaths to relax. To his left, he found a door that presumably led to the meeting hall. He smiled to himself and drew his sword. He moved over to the door and very carefully opened it. When no one shouted or shot at him, Jin silently slipped inside. With his infiltration successful, he melted into the shadows and crept silently down the staircase that led to the main floor. Not one of the B.D.C. leaders noticed that Jin was there. He crept up behind Abbot James, and as the leaders stood and offered the traditional toast to future prosperity that concluded the meeting, Jin leaned closer to Abbot and pressed the tip of his sword into his back.
“Hey, Abbot,” Jin whispered in his ear. “You guys miss me?”
Horror swept through Abbot’s body as he recognized Jin’s voice, then he cried out in pain as the blade of Jin’s sword was driven through his back. Flecks of blood splashed across the table and all the B.D.C. leaders jumped in shock. Abbot squeezed the glass in his hand so hard that it shattered, and Jin withdrew his sword before removing Abbot’s head with a swift cut. The head rolled away as the body fell out of the chair, and Jin took the now empty seat between Victor and Abbot’s brother, Levy. No one moved as Jin lazil
y bent over and tore a piece of fabric off of Abbot’s shirt. As he used the makeshift rag to wipe the blood from his sword, he spoke to the remaining leaders.
“You all look surprised to see me,” he said, sounding disappointed and sheathing his now clean sword. “Or at least surprised to see me so soon.”
Jessie Wise threw her knife at Jin, who slapped the blade away with his bare right hand before grabbing the hilt and twirling the knife around to examine it.
“New knife, Jess?” he said casually as he examined it. “Looks nice. Definitely better than the one you used to butcher my daughter.”
Without any warning, Jin reversed his grip on the knife and plunged the blade into Levy James’s throat. Levy gagged and choked as his blood flooded his windpipe and lungs. He tried to pull the knife out, but Jin pushed it in farther and gave it a brutal twist, lodging the blade between the vertebrae of Levy’s neck. Satisfied, Jin pushed Levy out of his chair and wiped the small amount of blood on his hands off on Abbot’s corpse.
“Well, now that I’ve got that ugly business out of the way, I can finally catch up with you guys.”
However, Jin was interrupted yet again as Hoxie Johns pulled a silver handgun from the holster on his hip and pointed it at Jin. But he was ready for it, and the second before Hoxie pulled the trigger, Jin stepped onto the table and used all the strength in his legs to shoot himself into the air just as Hoxie fired. The bullet pinged off the table, and Jin flipped over in the air to land behind Hoxie. Before Hoxie could really react, Jin grabbed his gun-wielding arm and twisted it around to force the barrel into Hoxie’s back. He then tightly grabbed Hoxie’s chin with his left hand and forced his head back.
“Shall I pull the trigger, Hox?” Jin whispered menacingly in his ear. “Or would you rather I slowly snap your neck?”
“Jin, stop!” Dorigan barked, looking him sternly right in the eye.
Jin looked up at the man before shrugging and releasing Hoxie, but not before taking Hoxie’s handgun and ejecting the clip then firing the round left in the chamber into the ceiling. Acting like nothing had happened, Jin returned to Abbot’s place and sat down, kicking his legs up onto the table.
Mordechai moved his right hand to the dagger concealed on his left arm and was about to draw it when Dorigan stopped him.
“Mordechai,” he said, raising a hand in his direction. “Let him be. While I cannot speak for everyone, I wish to hear what Jin has to say.”
Mordechai released his dagger and stared coolly at Jin.
“Thank you, Dorigan,” Jin said. “As a matter of fact, it’s you I wanted to talk to, and about, most of all.”
“Really?” Dorigan said, interested. “Why would you want to talk to me?”
“That is a very good question, Dorigan, very good. I want to talk to you because of the fifteen Grunts that attacked me a little over twenty hours ago. After I killed the first five at my cabin, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why would he send them for me now? I know how you work, Dorigan, and therefore, I know that you must’ve known about my cabin for a while before you called in the attack. You’d have kept it under tight surveillance. Which begs the question: Why did he wait? You would’ve known that I had no backup and no one to turn to for help should I be attacked. You would’ve also known that, and forgive my lack of modesty, that you’d have to send a small army of Grunts and Enforcers to even stand a chance of killing me. Knowing this, you still only sent fifteen Grunts.”
Jin paused for a moment to let his words fully sink in before continuing.
“This leads me to believe that one, you had no intention of killing me, but every intention of bringing me back out into the open, and two, that you suddenly have a fresh and substantial reason to want me dead. These answers led me to another question. Knowing the risks you’d run should you fail, what reason could possibly be large enough to warrant trying to kill me again? This led me to my final answer: Not only have you restarted the Project Hellbound, but you have made enough progress that once again your paranoia overrode your reason. You had to make sure I was out of the picture before you made any further progress, else you would suffer even greater pain if I were to shut you down again.”
The calm, collected look that had dominated Dorigan’s face for the duration of the meeting shifted slightly at these words to mask a growing fear.
“Tell me, Dorigan,” Jin said as he shifted his gaze from Dorigan to look at the other leaders. “Do any of your pawns understand what Project Hellbound really is?”
“They know what they need to know,” Dorigan said, more seriously than he had intended.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter in the end,” Jin said with a shrug. “They’ll all be dead before it would make a difference.”
With that, Jin got up from the table and walked toward the large oak doors that led to the rest of the mansion.
“Where do you think you’re going, Jin?” Dorigan asked.
“I’m leaving. Think I’ll go find a motel back in Pine Lake. Thanks to you, I haven’t had any real sleep in the last two days.”
Jin pushed the doors open, and that was when he saw the line of guards, their M4 Carbines all pointed at him.
“Nice, Dorigan,” he said without turning around. “Better than I would have expected from you.”
“Thank you, Jin,” Dorigan replied with a twisted smile. “Guards, kill him.”
Before Dorigan could finish his command, Jin whipped out his Mac 11 and sprayed the line of guards with gunfire. Two of them caught a handful of rounds each to the chest, several more dived to the floor, and the remainder leveled their weapons at Jin. Just as they opened fire, Jin dived down a narrow hallway to his right. The guards tried to follow, but Jin pointed his Mac 11 over his shoulder and emptied the clip. Three of the guards fell and the rest ducked back around the corner. Jin looked up and saw that the door in front of him was bolted shut. Not pausing for anything, Jin shoved his left hand into the right side of his black leather coat and pulled out one of his Desert Eagles. He fired a single .357 Magnum round and the lock exploded in a shower of sparks and splinters of wood. He charged straight through the door, shoulder first, and turned his run into an all-or-nothing sprint. Jin could hear the shouts of the guards as they tried to organize themselves growing fainter and fainter as his speed matched that of the world’s fastest runners. The steel gate to the mansion grounds was rapidly approaching and rather than stop when he reached it, Jin threw himself into the air and kicked off one of the horizontal bars, launching himself over the top of the ten-foot gate.
Jin landed on his feet with a dull thud and slid his sniper rifle off of his shoulder. He turned around as he brought the rifle up to his shoulder and peered through the scope. Jin saw that the guards had started to follow him and were already halfway to the gate. Grinning to himself, Jin fired the last few rounds in his clip into the chests of the closest guards, causing the rest to turn tail and run back toward the mansion. Jin watched them for a moment and then walked back to his car. He tossed the sniper rifle onto the back seat and then sat down in the driver’s seat. As he started his car and drove back to Pine Lake, Jin allowed himself a self-satisfied grin.
With the interruption of the meeting, the subsequent murder of the James twins, and his speedy escape, Jin had completed the first phase of his mission. He had let the B.D.C. and Dorigan know that he was back, and he had made them afraid of him. But Jin’s mind never rested while he was on a mission, and already he was thinking about the next phase of his current one. While it would be much simpler than the one he had just completed, if everything went according to Jin’s plan, it would be just as rewarding.
Chronicles of the Apocalypse
--<(0)>--
Part 1: Revenge, Everything is Nothing
Chapter 3: The Informant
As Jin drove back to Pine Lake, he reviewed what he knew about the B.D.C.’s Informants.
A special rank within the Black Dragon Clan, Informants were picked out of recruits who failed t
o satisfactorily complete Grunt training. They were specially trained in espionage, and they archived all the information they gathered for use by the other members of the B.D.C. The Black Dragon Clan had at least one Informant stationed in every major city in the world, and also in smaller cities and towns that were important to the B.D.C. Pine Lake was once such place because of its proximity to Dorigan’s mansion, which was the B.D.C. headquarters.
It was from this Informant that Jin was going to extract the information he needed; whether the Informant wanted to give it or not.
--<(0)>--
“Well, that was an eventful meeting to say the least,” Victor Malakai said as a group of guards removed the corpses of Abbot and Levy.
“Indeed,” Hoxie replied as he retrieved his gun and the discarded clip. As he slapped the clip back into the gun and cocked it, Jessie began to speak.
“You can’t pretend he isn’t going to come after us, Dorigan,” she said.
Dorigan ignored them, showing them nothing but the back of his long, blue leather coat as he stared out of the massive window that stood opposite the meeting hall’s massive oak doors.
“That’s very true,” Mordechai said evenly. “Now that he has come back into the picture, it might be best to put Project Hellbound on hold until he has been dealt with.”
“That’s another thing,” Victor said, turning to face Dorigan’s back. “Forgive my forwardness, Master Dorigan, but what did Jin mean by what he said about your project? Is there somethi…”
But at that moment, Dorigan whirled around and bellowed at the group, his eyes blazing with intense fury.
“Silence!”
This outburst stunned Victor and the others. Never before had they seen Dorigan lose control like that. However, they chalked it up to the fact that Dorigan was probably in more danger than they were. Dorigan had been Jin’s best friend since before they came to the B.D.C. This was why Jin hated Dorigan as much as he did.
Chronicles of the Apocalypse: Revenge, Everything is Nothing Page 3
