by D W Bell
Oh well, most of his sluggish cohorts were not Marines, some of them had no military background at all by the looks of them, and their morning reluctance assured him a solitary hot shower. As much as he would hate to admit it, despite his newly restored superior physical condition, it took him a little longer to work the kinks out in the morning, some of them courtesy of old injuries, but most of them products of the current strenuous training schedule.
He had thrived in this environment. In the months following that faithful night he had shed all physical remnants of the soft life he had been living. Not that he had been out of shape, he got his fair share of approving looks, but his exercise had had no purpose save general health and well-being.
The extra pounds had shed quickly, leaving him with the lean, powerful frame of a warrior. Not the muscle-bound monstrosity showcased by professional bodybuilders, but a perfect triumvirate of power, speed, and endurance; explosive energy of the pouncing tiger, rather than the unwieldy mass of the bulky elephant. He reveled in flexing each muscle, admiring the hardening ripples as they played under the skin. Disrupting his morning regimen of narcissism, the sputtering rain of another faucet springing forth alerted Smith to a new presence in the steamy shower room.
What a classy dame. The thought of the silly, outdated phrase always brought a lecherous smirk to John’s face as he stared covetously at the supple, naked form of the woman he had taken to calling Freya, after the Norse goddess. She was tallish for a woman, appearing to nearly match his five-feet ten-inches, with short-cropped blonde hair. Although athletically built, the bathing goddess still retained the feminine softness in all the right places. He liked to think he saw a glint of interest in her eyes as well as they stared unabashedly at each other while washing themselves, but who could say?
Who could say…as they had never spoken. Who could say…as none of the trainees were allowed to communicate with each other in any manner, leaving only the sporadic dialogues with instructors to assuage the yearnings for social contact inherent to all human beings. Still, she was nice to look at. They finished their morning routine of washing and exhibitionism as the other bleary-eyed recruits began making their way into the rain room.
John didn’t think they were all killers. He assumed this was some sort of basic training for operators of all levels and duties in whatever organization he had been impressed into. Odd that he never thought of it, or that night. The events directly after his little conversation with Boudreaux were a bit of a blur.
Smith remembered getting into the waiting Jaguar under his own power and Boudreaux’s smirk as the little man shot his cuffs as if preparing to drive and gave his passenger a face full of gas from something concealed up his sleeve, plunging John into darkness. True knockout gas is a movie myth, but of course Boudreaux’s people had perfected the recipe.
Smith had some recollection of drug-addled conditioning sessions that he was sure were right out of the darker section of some old Intro to Psychology textbook. He didn’t know if weeks or months had passed since that fateful night, but by the time he was face to face with Boudreaux again his outlook had changed considerably. Had he mind left to realize it, he would observe that almost all his thoughts and feelings had been instinctualized, leaving the world in stark black and white with no inherent positive or negative to either. A creature of pure, resolute reaction to curated stimuli.
“Mr. Smith, do sit down.” Boudreaux was wearing what appeared to be a genuine smile of delight as he invited John into his well-appointed office, stark contrast to the spartan accommodations so maligned by the other trainees. “Cigar, perhaps a drink?”
His former vices held no sway over him now. What normally would have been a welcome respite from the rigors of the day now equated to toxic inefficiency in his perfectly programmed mind-body. All decisions were weighed by their effect on physical and mental readiness, and with no qualms he quietly declined.
“Suit yourself, sport. More for us,” the man drowned a couple of ice cubes in bourbon, selected and flamed a dark-wrappered cigarillo, propped his feet on the desk, and regarded Smith through the blue-wreathed cloud, “So how is my favorite little butterfly, thriving I trust?”
“Yes, sir,” the throaty answer came from somewhere even deeper than the training had touched, a place that reveled in strength and power, and constant perfection of form and function.
“And just what is it that you believe you are being trained for, my gossamer-winged fairy of fate?” The smirk and verbal barbs that were so ingrained into Boudreaux’s speech barely registered for Smith anymore, just as the half-hearted nips of the lesser cur are ignored by the alpha wolf, confident in his own unwavering strength.
They stared at each other for a moment, eyes locked in epic battle before the low warble of the desk phone broke their mental phalanxes. Boudreaux turned his leather chair to face away from Smith and drawled softly into the handset, turned back with a smile, and hung up the phone, “Forgive the intrusion dear boy, you were saying?”
“As always, I am being trained to follow orders, and considering the program thus far, I am looking forward to the mission,” John’s turn to smile. Perhaps it was the gathering strength he felt more keenly each day, but it was strange to speak so candidly as he sat rigidly in his seat. His personality had taken on a somewhat mechanical quality of yes, sirs and no, sirs during the mind-numbing training he had been subjected to. It felt good to assert the inner Smith, no matter how briefly.
The course of training thus far had consisted of tons of PT and combat training, more of a refresher for him really in light of his stint in the USMC, but the true focus had been public covertness. Sort of hiding in plain sight, blending and being unremarkable. He often laughed out loud, unable to stifle, reflecting on the way he was ignored at his former wife’s cocktail parties. If only he were called to duty among the social elite, he would be practically invisible considering his ineptness in those circles.
The beatings were quite severe, laughing was not approved of, and the near silent instructors were real hard men as it was once termed and lacking of humor. He proved to be ill-suited to and a poor study of that particular course of instruction having displayed a glaring ineptness for subterfuge. There just was no falsehood in him. It was determined that, when properly motivated, his true talent lay in wet work as the bloodiest jobs were called, and his training was adjusted accordingly.
Satisfied, Boudreaux settled back in his chair with one of his ever-present manila folders opened on his lap. Adopting an affect of clinical detachment, he perused the scribbled and typed lines before him, with attached photos, as dispassionately as he would read a quarterly report or technical manual. “Do you know why you killed you wife and her lover, your erstwhile friend?”
The statement hung in the air like a dank, poisonous fog, but the words had struck like lightning. John had not had to face the act since that night, and it was almost a physical shock as the freshly scabbed psychological wound ripped open anew and spurted forth with caustic pus-venom. Tears welled unbidden at the corner of his eyes, quickly blinked back with a turn of the head and a grinding of teeth to regain control. As John returned his now composed countenance back forward Boudreaux was regarding him with that ugly little smile of his.
“Aww, is John-boy gonna cry? Did I hurt his little feelings? Christ, boy! I thought you were a man, some kind of a badass I was told,” ‒he always sipped from his drink to accentuate his insults and to allow for the dramatic pauses he favored ‒“I’m just ribbing you boy, don’t get your dander up, we both know how that would end.”
As Boudreaux rose and stepped purposefully to the bank of screens monitoring various parts of the training facility John gave serious thought to taking his chances, but passions subside. “At the risk of waxing rhetorical, why did you kill them? I’ll tell you why; you saw evil and did what good men must. You smote evil, no matter what face it wore. You have rare yet unenviable talents which we have done our best over the past few months to
accentuate, enhance, and control, quite successfully I might add, but now the time has come for you to flutter out into the world as it were.”
A wistful expression flashed briefly across Boudreaux’s face as he gazed blankly at the ceiling. Not sure what to make of the unexpected show of emotion, if it could rightly be termed as such, John waited for the other shoe to drop.
And drop it did, not in shoe form mind you, but in another nondescript manila folder casually tossed into his lap as Boudreaux passed by on his way back to his leather-bound throne, stone-faced once again.
Chapter 3
Hong Kong
FINDS, the only restaurant and bar specializing in Scandinavian cuisine in all of the Pearl River Delta. The oft-awarded kitchen revels in the Nordic cuisine of Finland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden to the delight of Hong Kong’s jaded fine dining palate. First bursting onto the scene in the Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district in 2004, FINDS found its true home in the belly of the whimsical Luxe Manor in 2010.
The menu and interior of the restaurant appeal to those chic individuals of discerning taste who wish to keep the appearance of eclectic interest; and the sometimes awkward to consume molecular cocktails in the bar make you feel cooler than you actually are.
The clientele consists mostly of youngish men; in reality they are all in their late thirties/early forties still desperately trying to appear youthful and hip with slicked back or spiked hair and tailored suits in “fun” colors and cuts that their conservative fathers would have disapproved of.
What these waning gents lack in their contrived boyish charm they make up for in wealth. Successful executives, some trust fund types, a few uncouth gangsters lending just a whiff of scandal and danger to the mix, all wealthy and down to party—Scandinavian style with a Hong Kong twist.
As does any collection of well-dressed and well-heeled men, the exclusive clientele gathered nightly at the elegant beech wood accented bar attracted some of the most beautiful women in the area. And, while they were just as much a rarity as the delicate Scandinavian cuisine amidst the hustle and bustle of busy Hong Kong street food, one could reliably wager on finding one or two stylish Nordic ladies standing tall above the rest at FINDS, and it was one or two of those that Xing hoped to find.
―
The file was filled with pictures of prepubescent preteens and little girls. The collection of family photos, yearbook pictures, and newspaper clippings depicted budding young females nearing a certain age, and they were all pretty. The implications alone sickened John to his core, but after that initial gut reaction was confirmed by the dossier his insides went cold and hard. Colder and harder as he viewed the single male photo, a boyishly handsome Chinese man, stapled to the back of the folder next to a list of physical identifiers. Boudreaux smiled as he saw the eyes of his pupil turn dark.
“Yessir, rather than coddle you with something simple to get your feet wet I am throwing you directly in the deep end to catch me the proverbial big fish.” Boudreaux flicked a bit of ash from his slim cigar, took another puff, and continued. “It ain’t your job to read all that and put everything together, I got far smarter folks than you to handle that for me. Your role is that of personal interaction under my direction, but you get the gist don’t you, boy?” John closed the folder, laid it on the desk, sat back ramrod straight, and stared blankly through Boudreaux and a thousand yards beyond. Boudreaux smiled at the reaction, “Yes, it appears you do. The yellow bastard in the picture is a sex trafficker, of sweet, innocent little girls.”
“That lecherous little Chinaman procures girls from all over the world to fill the custom orders of his clients, but as you can see from these pictures it is our own blond and blue-eyed treasures that he plunders most. It seems anytime these fucking mongrel mud people get any money they develop a taste for the pure stuff they could never attain honorably.” Boudreaux sipped his drink to hide the slight tremble of anger that had shaken loose his usually detached demeanor, but the soft tinkle of ice against crystal checked his barely contained fury as he replaced the glass on its coaster and regained control with an empty smile.
“But, as you have seen from the rest of my livestock you’ve trained with I am reconstructed enough to see their usefulness as beasts of burden and the like. Hell, I even have a favorite or two that I particularly enjoy watching perform, but I will not abide our precious flowers being sold off to soulless chinks and sand niggers. You understand what needs to be done, John?”
Eyes slowly refocusing on Boudreaux, John nodded. “You want me to execute this man, kill my way through his client list, and rescue the girls.” He felt his heart swell in his chest at the thought of the justice to come. Justice dispensed by his hands. This is what he was born for!
A bona fide laugh, though hollow, exploded from the man behind the desk and turned to a racking cough as Boudreaux choked on his own cigar smoke. “Jesus, what a fucking cowboy you are! Goddamn John Wayne reborn over here.”
“While a good old-fashioned seek and destroy would be effective‒and dare I say downright entertaining‒it would be exceedingly bad for business.”
“You see if we give everyone on those lists their just reward, as satisfying and righteous as that would be, power vacuums would develop all over the world causing much more chaos and devastation than the terrible but tiny tragedy of a few missing girls. I think you know my views on the matter, but others much farther up the food chain than you or I have decided that it is of greater importance that this twisted world continue teetering on its delicate balance than it is to rescue those poor, tainted girls and destroy their corrupters.”
John shifted in uncomfortable, confused impotence as the cold despair crept back into his spine. Dejected he slumped forward, his downcast eyes clouded in desperation, “Request permission to speak freely, sir.” Boudreaux nodded assent and leaned back in his leather chair, tenting his fingers and closing his eyes in mock concentration. “What have I been training for if I am not going to be allowed to complete the mission? How is it righteous to let this evil go on without retribution? Why…”
“Why? Why!” Boudreaux launched from his seat cutting his underling off mid statement, slamming his palms down on the leather-bound wood surface, “Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.” Regaining his composure and smoothing the front of his suit he stepped over to the sidebar to freshen his drink, “That’s Tennyson, boy. And the they is you.”
“I suppose it’ll spoil ya,” his voice dripped with honey again, “but this one time, on account of it’s your first time, I’ll give you a little insight besides what you can see in front of you.” Boudreaux drifted back over to his desk all warm smile and cold eyes again.
“As to the vast collection of clientele we have uncovered while sifting through the Chinaman’s networks, we are recording all their data and transgressions to be used against them individually when deemed appropriate and profitable by the head office. There is a lot we can get done with this stuff in our back pocket, son.”
“But don’t you worry, cowboy. We are going to put a stop to their heinous carnality going forward by terminating the supply lines. Terminate with extreme prejudice, if you’ll forgive the movie quote. Besides, everybody knows the old cliché: cut off the head of the snake and the body dies.” The grin parted, blowing a plume of smoke to linger with the thought in the air.
Realization struck and sent John snapping back to attention in his chair, “We’re going to kill the Chinaman.”
Boudreaux sipped his drink, the crystal rim hiding his smirk, “And how.”
Chapter 4
There she was leaning against the purple lit bar. A long-legged Viking angel, or rather a fierce-eyed Valkyrie sent to take him to Valhalla, as was his fantasy. Her flawless body was sheathed in an Escada lace brocade dress, black over pine, which complimented her lightly-bronzed flesh perfectly. Xing was instantly smitten. He was a little boy lusting after his Swedish au pair all over again.
> His heart raced as he watched her coolly order a Black Diamond martini and scan the crowd with beautifully bored eyes as she waited, completely oblivious to him at his VIP table. Seeing the other sharks take notice and begin to circle Xing motioned to his bodyguard, a powerfully built young Chinese man with hard eyes and harder hands, relaying without words what he wanted done. Tie Quan’s confidant, unhurried stride; exuding imminent danger and effortless ferocity, scattered all the lesser fish before him in obeisance to his master, the greatest shark among them. The indication was clear: she was officially off the menu.
Tie Quan stepped to the bar just as the cocktail of cognac, passion fruit, and black truffle-infused syrup was placed in front of the aloof but alluring beauty. He spoke brusquely to the barman in Cantonese and turned to regard the beautiful young woman, “Good evening.” His English was guttural and heavily accented by his native tongue, but forcibly polite, “My master would like to invite you to his table to enjoy your drink in comfort and good company. Perhaps also to enjoy some of this establishment’s fine Scandinavian cuisine. Allow me to recommend the Salmon Six Ways or the Nordic Seafood Platter, they are his favorites.”
―
Seeing the righteous fury building in the man across the desk from him, Boudreaux continued. “Thankfully, this yellow devil doesn’t go in for the type of goods he supplies so you will be working with another asset to bait the hook. And what an ass-et! Which I believe you noticed bouncing around in the shower.” He laughed into his whiskey glass amused by his own joke.
“This is the part that’s gonna make you feel a whole lot better, sport. Not only do you get to go to the dance with the prom queen, but the head office has decided to spike the punch for you.”
“Cutting the supply line is not enough; they feel an example must be made. So, at my direction, you are to crush and ravage that unrepentant flesh-peddler to oblivion. I want him beaten until he is nigh unrecognizable, I want all long bones and fingers broken one by one, I want you to inflict as much pain as inhumanly possible, and then, when the time is right and there is no more agony to be meted out, I want you to execute him. Somewhat like the old Chinese lingchi, a death by a thousand cuts sort of thing, but all the parts remain connected.”
