Path of the Tiger

by J M Hemmings

  ‘Would you like some whiskey or vodka while you look over the product profiles? We have the finest available. Snacks? Or perhaps some cocaine? Ketamine, maybe?’

  ‘Double whiskey, single malt, on the rocks. The older the better,’ Sigurd grunted.

  ‘The same,’ Hrothgar added brusquely.

  ‘I will join you gentlemen then. I am a great lover of finely aged single malt myself, and I do believe we have some forty-year-old stuff,’ Mr Li said, his toothy smile unwavering. ‘So, make yourselves comfortable. We have three hours of footage to get through to view the current crop of A-grade models.’

  Hrothgar and Sigurd lounged in their chairs and sipped on their tumblers of whiskey as they began to watch the footage of the various models in action.

  On screen a slim thirteen-year-old Chinese girl with close-cropped, boyish hair stood before a man with a shaved head who was attired in red and black robes.

  ‘He is one of the priests,’ Mr Li whispered.

  A subtitle read, ‘INTRODUCING PRODUCT AH-192’.

  ‘What do the numbers stand for?’ Hrothgar asked. ‘Are they just random letters and numbers or do they actually mean something?’

  Mr Li paused the video to answer Hrothgar’s question.

  ‘Nothing is random here. The first letter describes the grade of the model; A, in this case. The second letter will either be a C, for “castrated male”, or an “H” for hysterectomy-complete female, in the case of the combat and espionage models. In terms of the numbers, the first indicates the ethnicity of the product. “1” denotes Han Chinese.’

  ‘The superior race, are you?’ Sigurd mocked.

  Mr Li ignored the taunt and continued with his explanation of the naming system.

  ‘The second number stands for age. “0” is the highest and denotes the oldest limit, an age range of twenty-five to thirty years old. We do not sell products older than thirty; at this age they are past their prime, so we destroy them should they fail to sell by that time. “9” is the youngest age at which we sell a combat product: thirteen years. The final number represents the form of weaponry the product is most proficient with, as some clients do have a preference for this. In the case of this model, the “2” represents assault rifles. Of course, all of the A-grade products are experts in virtually all projectile and hand-to-hand weapons, so most of our A-purchasing clients do not usually exhibit a preference toward any one weapon type. The option is there though, if you really desire it.’

  Sigurd shook his head.

  ‘No. Any A-grade will most likely serve my purpose.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Mr Li pressed play. On screen, the priest began speaking in Mandarin to the girl, his face and voice coloured with grave severity. Subtitles in five languages translated what he was saying.

  ‘AH-192, something terrible has happened.’

  The girl stared at him without registering any form of emotion or displaying any expression upon her face.

  ‘What is this thing that has happened?’ she asked flatly.

  ‘The Evil One has entered the bodies of three of your sisters and possessed them.’

  ‘This is a most terrible thing,’ she commented.

  ‘GH-185, GH-1720 and GH-1919 have run off and are hiding in a forest. They are committing most heinous sins against the Mighty One and furthering the cause of the Evil One.’

  ‘They must be punished. Their bodies must be purified by ending the flow of evil blood through their veins. Their black hearts, which pump the tainted blood through their bodies, must stop beating. The defiled blood must be fed to the earth as a sacrifice.’

  ‘I am afraid so, young disciple. That is the only way to combat the servants of the Evil One.’

  ‘Wise Teacher, I beg for the honour of removing this evil from the world.’

  ‘It would please the Mighty One greatly if you could do this.’

  ‘I will feed the earth with their blood and put an end to their plague of evil.’

  The priest bowed and beamed a benevolent smile at her.

  ‘Very well. The Mighty One is speaking to me, and he says that he is most pleased with your dedication and piousness.’

  ‘I am his humble and devoted servant, until such time as he deems my soul worthy to leave this disgusting body in which it is imprisoned.’

  ‘Serve him well and perhaps he will soon see fit to release your body from this living hell.’

  ‘May I have his blessing to requisition the necessary weapons, ammunition and gear?’

  ‘It is granted.’

  The film cut to a new scene, which was filmed from a GoPro camera. The girl named AH-192 was standing in a thickly wooded forest and was attired in full camouflage combat gear. Strapped to her small body was an array of tools and weapons, and in her right hand she gripped a high-powered sniper rifle, holding it with the casual ease of a seasoned professional. She spoke calmly to the camera, and there was no trace of emotion on her face or in her cold, flinty eyes.

  ‘The Mighty One has ordained that I cleanse the earth of the evil-possessed GH-185, GH-1720 and GH-1919. I pray that His powerful hands will guide mine in the execution of this task. I have been informed that the evil ones are in possession of AK-47 assault rifles, hand grenades, nine-millimetre pistols, combat knives and an M-60 machine gun. This will not present any significant obstacle to my mission.’

  ‘She is quite the confident little slut, isn’t she?’ Hrothgar chuckled as he quaffed on his whiskey.

  ‘She is no slut,’ Mr Li replied sharply. ‘She is one of the most efficient and deadly assassins on the face of the earth. Watch and see.’

  The girl knelt, clasped her hands together and muttered a quick prayer. She then took the GoPro and attached it to a shoulder mount on her left shoulder, so that the viewer could see what she was seeing.

  ‘I want you both to remember that these G-grade models she is hunting are quite lethal themselves. They have been through the same intense training regime that she has, since birth; they, however, failed to meet our stringent requirements. Keep your eyes on the screen, my friends, and watch how effortlessly she deals with them. They have been told the same thing about her, by the way. The priest told them that she, AH-192, was possessed by the Evil One, and that they need to eliminate her.’

  ‘Those are quite impressive odds,’ Sigurd remarked. ‘Three highly-trained killers against one.’

  Mr Li’s artificial smile broadened.

  ‘This is how confident we are in the abilities of our A-grade models. Just watch and see.’

  The scene played out like something from a first-person-shooter video game. Hrothgar and Sigurd were both hushed into an awed trance as they watched the killer take out her targets one by one with swift, merciless efficiency. The targets put up a good fight themselves – one managed to graze AH-192’s arm with a shot from her pistol – but ultimately it was no contest. Mr Li paused the film after AH-192 had killed the last G-grader.

  ‘Would you like to make any notes about product AH-192?’ he asked. ‘There is a complementary tablet device which you will find in a pouch under your seat.’

  ‘One question,’ Hrothgar said. ‘If these assassins are so eager to die, what’s to stop them simply killing themselves?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Mr Li replied with a self-satisfied smile. ‘They long for death, yes, but we have made sure that one of the major tenets of our religion is that suicide is an unforgivable sin, resulting in a reincarnation of the lowest order.’

  ‘What if they are captured in the course of their mission?’ Sigurd asked. ‘Surely then suicide would be the best safeguard against information being extracted from them?’

  ‘No. Capture is simply not a possibility. They will fight until they are killed. No product would allow itself to be taken alive. That too is seen as a sin punishable by the worst form of reincarnation.’

  ‘You really have thought of everything, haven’t you?’

  ‘This facility has been deve
loping these products since 1942. We’ve had plenty of time to perfect the manufacturing process.’

  Sigurd, Hrothgar and Mr Li spent the next three hours watching footage of a number of A-graders hunting and eliminating their targets in various ways. Hrothgar and Sigurd made notes on their tablets as they observed the footage, while Mr Li looked on with smug pride. After they had finished watching all of the footage, Mr Li stood up.

  ‘I’ll step outside to give you two some time to speak about the details of your purchase. Would you like some more whiskey? Food? Anything? The services of a pleasure product? I assure you, it will be unlike any sexual experience—’

  ‘We’ll talk about our purchase options and tell you when we’re ready,’ Sigurd interrupted gruffly. ‘You can leave now.’

  ‘Very well. Press the “call’ button on your armrest when you’re ready.’

  He left the room, and Sigurd and Hrothgar talked about the assassins they were interested in purchasing. They called in Mr Li a few minutes later.

  ‘Mr Li, we are ready to make a purchase,’ Sigurd announced.

  Mr Li smiled and clasped his stubby hands together.

  ‘Excellent. Which products will you be taking?’

  ‘We’ll go with AH-1513. She is dark-skinned enough to be passed off as South-East Asian rather than Chinese, and as she’ll be doing her missions in that area, this will be desirable. Also, we’ll take AH-477. As I said, we need a product of this ethnicity to pull off a very specific mission, and she needs to look a certain way in order to not raise suspicion. We’ve got the extra two hundred thousand for the foreign model.’

  ‘You are sure that these are your final choices? Once payment has been processed, there is no turning back.’

  ‘We are sure.’

  ‘Very well. Let’s process the payment, and after that I will personally accompany you to the monastery in the mountains to ensure that the priest dealing with your products gets the exact details of your mission.’

  ***

  After a four-hour drive along a steep and treacherous dirt track, which took them up into the heavily forested heights of the Hengduan mountains, they arrived at the site of an abandoned Buddhist monastery, which Mr Li’s company had restored and converted to a temple for their own particular brand of religion.

  The steep, wooded terrain that surrounded the three-hundred-year-old monastery, along with the extremes of climate in the area, made it a perfect base for training in the areas of combat, tracking and wilderness survival. It was here that the assassins who had graduated successfully from the facility as A-, B- or C-grade candidates lived and trained under the watchful eyes of the ‘priests’. Also, it was in these forests that the G and H-graders were sent to fight for their lives as training fodder for the higher-grade assassins. Occasionally a G-grader was able to outwit and kill whatever assassin was after her; in such cases the G-grader would be upgraded to a C-grader. Such instances were, however, quite rare.

  After they had parked on a flat piece of earth, below the imposing heights of the white and yellow walls of the monastery, Mr Li climbed out of the driver’s seat of his BMW X6M with a broad grin – genuine for once – smeared across his flat face. His A-grade assassin – his permanent protector – exited the vehicle from the front passenger seat. She had not said a word the whole way. As soon as she exited the car, she cocked her assault rifle and gave the area a visual sweep, scanning for any signs of danger. Mr Li acted as if she was not even there, and instead turned to speak to Hrothgar and Sigurd as they got out of the car.

  ‘You know, in all of the time in which the facility has been under my ownership, I have only had to issue three refunds. Three, in twenty-eight years. I am very confident that my products will succeed in whatever task you assign them.’

  ‘We hope they will,’ Sigurd said.

  They started up a steep path that took them to the entrance of the monastery, which was barred by two huge oaken doors. A brass ring hung from one of the red-painted doors, and Mr Li used it to rap a few times on the door in a pattern that was obviously a code. Sigurd fixed him with a strange glance, and then spoke.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Li, how skilled are your products in the hunting of animals?’

  ‘It is interesting that you should ask this, Mr Yolkov. We do have a few hunting models, specifically trained for tracking, killing, skinning and butchering various endangered species; as you may know, various body parts of tigers, lions, rhinoceroses, elephants, pangolins, bears and leopards, among others, are in extremely high demand in this part of the world. However, you did not ask me about hunting models before, and we would need to return to the academy to complete the transaction, as they are kept in a different facility. This monastery is only for combat and espionage models.’

  ‘I was just asking. I have no need of such models at the moment. The thought just occurred to me though, while looking at these woods. Surely there is wildlife in them?’

  Mr Li shrugged before he replied, and an expression of blank apathy clouded his moon-face.

  ‘Not nearly as much as there used to be. We need our medicine and we need our meat, I’m afraid. If they are there, we will take them!’

  ‘The strong should always take from the weak, indeed.’

  ‘Animals are stupid, Mr Yolkov. If they benefit me more when they are dead than alive, well, so be it. It’s how things are.’

  ‘I see,’ Sigurd replied, nodding slowly and stroking his beard. ‘Very efficient, utilitarian philosophy indeed. Tell me though, do your priests ever see any bears in this forest?’

  Mr Li raised an eyebrow and peered at Sigurd with suspicion sparkling in his black eyes.

  ‘Bears? Why do you care? Anyway, there are some – or at least there was one that we saw near the monastery last year. Some men from the closest village found out it was up here and came to capture it. I believe it’s now sitting in a wooden cage behind one of the village shacks with a tube extracting bile from its body. Excellent medicine, bear bile! I think they have also cut two of its paws off, for bear paw soup, a wonderful delicacy! Hahaha, but it is still alive, so there are still two more servings of bear paw soup to be had. Bear parts are getting costly these days though, but not so much as elephant ivory, rhino horn, or tiger bones. Perhaps you would like to try some bear paw soup on the way back? As I said, the stupid thing still has two paws left, and I’m sure we can convince the villagers to remove another one.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sigurd murmured. Something dark pulsated behind his eyes and they seemed to assume an almost preternatural glow.

  At that moment the huge oaken doors swung open, and a tall, gaunt Chinese man with a freshly shaven head greeted them. He looked to be in his thirties, and on his long, sharp face he wore a well-faked expression of calm serenity. He was clothed in black and red robes which partially emulated the Buddhist style. Behind him stood two teenage girls in full combat gear, armed with AK-47 rifles – one aimed at Sigurd’s head, the other at Hrothgar’s.

  ‘Easy now, these men are not of the Evil One,’ Mr Li said.

  ‘The Patriarch is correct,’ the priest affirmed. ‘These two are not of the Evil One.’

  The girls, whose faces were as unwaveringly expressionless as those of store mannequins, lowered their guns, but they rested their fingers against the triggers as they gripped the weapons loosely in their hands, ready to snap them back into action at a moment’s notice.

  ‘As you two are not of the Evil One, you may enter this holy place,’ the priest said to Hrothgar and Sigurd.

  ‘These men bring news of evil tidings,’ Mr Li announced with a melodramatic flair, uncharacteristic of his usual bland and business-like nature. ‘I must speak to you immediately about it.’

  The priest glanced left and then right at the two girls beside him, and nodded subtly.

  ‘You heard the Patriarch. Escort us to my private chambers. These men and I will speak there.’

  The girls performed an abrupt about-turn on their heels and th
en marched ahead of Sigurd and Hrothgar, who entered the monastery grounds with measured caution. Sigurd subtly slipped his hand inside his suit coat and fingered the grip of his concealed Desert Eagle.

  ‘Trust not in men. Trust only in steel,’ he muttered to himself as he peered around, taking in the surroundings and checking immediately for the nearest positions of cover. ‘I am the terror in the night. I am death incarnate.’

  Two more girls emerged from behind the doors, also armed with AK-47s, and after everyone had entered, they shut and barred the huge oaken gateway. The winding path to the main quarters of the monastery traced a passage through a pristine Japanese garden, sculpted and manicured to a perfection that was beyond artificial. Sigurd’s hand remained inside his coat, his fingers curled around the grip of his pistol, and he kept his eyes peeled. He soon noticed, with his veteran warrior’s eyes that scanned all surroundings for the most minor of details, shadows that shifted ever so subtly, leaves that shimmered in the late afternoon sun with the very slightest of rustles, and tree trunks through which a dark presence could almost be felt; the assassins were everywhere, watching him and Hrothgar with the gaze of nocturnal predators in a midnight forest. He could feel the crosshairs of their rifles and pistols resting hungrily on the back of his skull, and he swallowed a mouthful of sticky saliva, feeling the first whisperings of sensations which were usually quite alien to him: fear and apprehension.

  Once inside the old stone building, the two teenage guards shut and barred the heavy red doors behind the men and then stood guard with their rifles at the ready. The priest then led Mr Li, Hrothgar and Sigurd to a small room to the left. After everyone was inside, he closed the door behind them. Sigurd noticed right away that there were two teenage girls waiting in this chamber, who he recognised as the assassins he and Hrothgar had just purchased. Each was armed with a .45 pistol – a weapon more suited to the close confines of the room than an assault rifle.

  ‘May I present AH-1513 and AH-477,’ the priest said. ‘They have been selected to carry out the holy crusade against the Evil One’s servants.’