Rise of the White Lotus

by H L Stephens

  "Follow me," he said as he descended.

  The stairs led to another world and another life for me. It was like entering into the secret bat cave except brighter and cleaner and without the bats. I had never seen anything like it, except maybe in the movies, but this was real. It was tangible. Everything that was in this vast underground world was extremely high-tech. I had the urge to touch everything.

  "What is this place?" I asked.

  "This is our ops center," Marcus said. "Our real one," he added with a wink. "I built most of the equipment myself or developed it with research firms around the world when it was more than I could manufacture alone. All of it is classified upon pain of death pretty much. About ninety five percent of what you see is a prototype. Most governments in the world don't know this equipment exists, including the Federal government. If they did, they would be knocking down our door to get their hands on it."

  "Well, if the Feds don't know you have all this stuff, then who are you?" I asked. "Really?"

  Dorthia stepped forward and put her arm around my shoulders. She guided me over to a large screen that covered an entire wall. It was segmented into regions, with each region scrolling streams of data. In front of the screen was a raised acrylic table with touch panels that contained the same data that was on the screen, enabling a user to control what was displayed on the screen.

  "We are known as a Shadow Brigade," Dorthia said. "It is far beyond a conventional Black Ops team. We don't officially exist in the eyes of our government, but they use our skills to deal with some of the most degenerate situations. We are well funded yet you will never find a paper trail leading to us. Once money is funneled to our accounts, it is moved to various assets around the world and cleaned; made untraceable. We receive data and assignments in a similar fashion. Our contacts in the government send us information on potential threats to national security. We determine our targets based on the analysis of what we are sent. We have full autonomy over what assignments we accept."

  "You mean you are still active at your ages?" I asked. There was more than a little awe in my voice.

  Oz laughed. I had never heard him do so with such gusto.

  "You want to spar with me on the mats little Jane and then ask that question again?" Oz asked. His muscles rippled up and down his arms. I could not imagine a more powerful or relentless opponent, regardless of his age.

  "Point well taken," I replied. "Go ahead Dorthia. Sorry I interrupted."

  Dorthia touched an area on the upper left quadrant of the table's panel. The screen on the wall exploded with dozens of photos, each with its own section of scrolling data. Included among the new series of images were the Bratva who attacked me. Two of them were marked as deceased.

  "You see Jane," Dorthia said, "We were already surveilling the Bratva Brotherhood when the group was sent to attack you. We intercepted chatter that a young girl with a Southern accent was in the neighborhood asking about the Russian mob. We started looking for you Jane because we knew if the Bratva got wind of your inquiries, they would mark you for death. Marcus overheard a conversation between two generals of the Brotherhood on one of the surveillance lines that the Bratva had found out about you and your inquiries. They also indicated in their discussion that they knew your general location. Oz went hunting and came across you in the alleyway. We were too late to save you from what happened, but we were pretty sure which group was sent to take care of you and we were able to confirm our suspicions when you told me what happened. You know what resulted from that knowledge."

  I nodded and smiled at Oz.

  "What you don't know Jane is that we weren't exactly forthcoming upstairs about our depth of knowledge of your family's murder," Dorthia said.

  It was like a glass of ice water was thrown in my face. I was just getting ready to blow my top when Dorthia stopped me.

  "We didn't know the Shores murder was connected to you Jane, but we knew about it. We have been watching the Bratva for years. Let us say for now that we have had close run-ins with them overseas on numerous occasions. A short time before your family was murdered, the Bratva here in New York went from a loosely organized group of common street thugs who sold drugs and girls, to a well organized, violent force to be reckoned with.

  "Just before your family's murder, the local Russians had an influx of members from a lethal band of the Bratva Brotherhood called the Gonchiye Smerti or the Hounds of Death. The ranks of the Hounds were pulled from the secret police of the KGB after the crumble of the Soviet Union. Some remained active in the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation but their loyalties were always to the Brotherhood first. Their tactics were brutal; sort of a kill-first-ask-questions-later approach. Most of the people you see on the right side of the screen are low-level players, like the ones who attacked you, but the ones you see on the left, they are the leaders. The ones who are truly running the operations here on the east coast."

  "How come most of the ones on the left side of the board have no photos?" I asked.

  "Good question," said Marcus.

  He rolled up next to me in a silver high-tech command chair that had more buttons than a cappuccino maker and its own built-in panel synced with the wall screen just like the table. He was wearing an odd headgear that had a section stuck in his ear, had another section with a clear acrylic plate that went over his right eye, and a third piece that was a mini mic which hugged his cheek and sat to the right side of his mouth. It was streamlined and sleek and made him look just a little bit like a wily, farsighted old cyborg.

  "The Brotherhood is very protective of its upper echelon," Marcus continued. "We haven't been able to get close enough to them to find out who is running the show. We keep working up the food chain, but progress has been slow; slower than we would like. This has been the hardest organization for us to penetrate, and we are damn good at what we do. We think the big fish remain in Russia and only come stateside when something significant is going to happen. There have been two explosive disturbances within the Brotherhood hive that has led us to believe something really important was about to take place. The first such event occurred just before your family was murdered. The second occurred shortly before you arrived here in New York.

  "It has been our belief in both instances that someone notable within the Brotherhood ranks had arrived to oversee some important event. In the case of your family," Marcus paused here and looked at the other crew members.

  "What?" I said.

  "In the case of your family," Marcus continued, "we believe the Bratva leadership came specifically to oversee the murder of your family. After hearing your story upstairs and based on the analysis, I think it is safe to assume this second arrival of the leadership is to oversee your murder. They know their first attempt on your life failed since they never heard back from this Agent Howard of yours. One thing we are pretty certain of. We believe the Bratva leader is still here. The thing is, we haven't been able to get eyes or ears on him. We haven't been able to break beyond the second tier of the leadership. The chatter has been off the charts though, and what you and Oz did with those Bratva who attacked you really pissed off the Brotherhood."

  The thought made me smile.

  "I guess they don't like it when someone hits back," I said.

  "No they don't," piped up Avery. "In fact, it reminds me of an ant bed; them all scurrying around mad at the world. They have no focus at the moment."

  An idea suddenly dawned in my head.

  "Have you ever kicked an anthill?" I asked.

  "What are you thinking Jane?" Avery asked drawing near. I saw an eagerness in his eyes, like a child ruminating over the prospects of a candy store visit.

  "Back home in Texas, we have all kinds of ants," I said. "Big ones, little ones, mean ones, and ones that won't do you any harm. One thing they all pretty much have in common is if you kick their mounds, they scramble like crazy to fix them. Thing is, if you're lucky and you kick the mound hard enough, you might just get a glimpse
of the queen that's hidden inside."

  "Dear Jane," Dorthia said, "I like the way you think. It is much like beating a hornet's nest to see what drops out. Clever girl." I could see the gears churning in the woman's brain like an efficient mechanical engine that would grind your hand up if you dared to touch it. "I think this calls for a celebration. Who's up for Chinese?"

  Everyone raised their hand. "Lovely. Now Jane, how are you coming along on your Mandarin studies? Have you been listening to the tapes I gave you and practicing as I instructed?"

  I indicated I had.

  "Perfect."

  Dorthia smiled a devious little smile; one that dripped of venom and dangerous possibility.

  Chinatown and Dangerous New Friends

  Along with learning the techniques of applying maquillage and perfecting my diction, Dorthia also had me learning languages and practicing accents. It was part of her immersive technique of not just looking the part but becoming the façade.

  "You needn't be fluent in the language to play the part, but the more you know of a language's nuances, the safer you will be," Dorthia had said one day when I had whined that my brain was going to explode with all of the crap she was trying to cram into it. "An effective assassin is an educated one."

  My memory made the book learning easier; my deep Texas twang made the accents really freaking hard. I felt sometimes like it would be easier to talk with a mouth full of marbles than speak with the proper linguistic accent, but I gave it my all, every day.

  "Demonstrate to me what you have learned, dear Jane," Dorthia insisted.

  "You mean now?" I asked as we stood in the glistening ops room.

  My face flushed a thousand shades of red.

  "Yes, now dear," she replied.

  I might have felt a little less self-conscious if she had asked me to strip naked on Main Street and do an Irish jig for the tourists when compared to actually saying something out loud in front of the entire crew. It was one thing for me to sound out the languages in the privacy of my makeshift room. It was quite another to do so in front of an audience. Taking a few deep breaths, I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see the looks on their faces. I said a few sentences in Mandarin and waited for the laughter.

  "Very nicely done, Jane," Dorthia said. "You are coming with me to order our supper."

  When I opened my eyes, the crew was smiling. I had passed some kind of test or milestone in my training. Maybe I could get this whole chameleon thing after all, I thought, so long as no makeup was involved.

  Dorthia took me to Chinatown. I had never been there before because up until then, there had never been a reason for me to go. It was a stark contrast to the relative quiet and solitude I had grown accustomed to at the warehouse. It was a feast to my eyes and ears and carried with it a kind of beauty in its bustling nature.

  "Let the sounds and smells enwrap you Jane," Dorthia said. "You are, in a sense, stepping into another world. The beauty about a place like this is if you can find yourself at home here, you can find yourself at home anywhere. Now, the place where we are going is purely Chinese, meaning they speak no English. It will be entirely up to you to communicate our needs. Once we step through the restaurant doors, my lips are sealed."

  I began to protest that I wasn't ready for such a task, but Dorthia interrupted me.

  "You will never feel ready for your first time speaking in someone else's native tongue," she said. "You will feel awkward and self-conscious. You may stammer, and you will most likely blush. All of these things are normal. What you must try to do is overcome that feeling as quickly as you can. When we get to the restaurant, just let the sights and smells and sounds wash over you like a wave to your senses. Listen to the conversations going on around you. It sometimes help if you close your eyes to adjust."

  Somehow I couldn't see how closing my eyes would help me feel any less abandoned to a foreign land; no matter that the foreign land was located on my native soil. When Dorthia said she was going to have me order supper for everyone, I didn't realize it meant passing the Chinese gauntlet of food service providers. Given it was my first time, all I could do was muddle my way through the process and hope I wasn't either ordering rat poison for the group or calling the person taking the order the son of a dead mule.

  A fateful moment in history suddenly came to mind as we made our way to the restaurant. President John F. Kennedy gave a speech before the people of West Berlin back in 1963. It was rumored back in the day that he accidentally said in German "I am a jelly donut" when he meant to say "I am a Berliner". Whether the rumor was true or not was irrelevant. What mattered was that in the eyes of the world at the time, he got it wrong, and the rumor surrounding his address to the West Germans lingered for decades. Just what I needed after my failed attempt at transformation was a Chinese version of a jelly-donut encounter. My stomach twisted as we walked into the restaurant.

  The place was abuzz with activity. I watched the servers carrying their trays piled high with delectable items I couldn't begin to identify. White, fluffy rice was as far as I got in my knowledge of Chinese cuisine. A young lady dressed in an embroidered red and gold smock came over and said something to Dorthia and me. She had a welcoming smile upon her face and two menus in her hands. I knew she was offering to seat us or help us but my brain was still in English mode. Every word that came out of her mouth sounded Greek to me, and I didn't understand Greek. Dorthia just smiled and pointed at me.

  The young girl shifted her attention to me and repeated what she had said. Again, it bounced off my brain like meaningless garbage. I was blowing my first real language test in the field. I closed my eyes and relaxed as much as I could in the raucous setting. Here was my chance to try my hand with a native speaker, and I was looking like an idiot. Deep breaths followed.

  I opened my eyes, smiled and said in the best Mandarin I could manage, "I am so sorry. Can you please repeat that?"

  The girl's face was beaming.

  "You speak very well," she said. "I asked how I might help you and if you wished to be seated at a table."

  I smiled back at the girl. I realized we were not that far apart age-wise.

  "We are here to order take-out," I said looking at Dorthia.

  Dorthia distracted herself by looking at a massive fish tank that occupied a far wall. She did not look up.

  "Do you know what you would like?" the girl asked.

  Again I looked to Dorthia. I even called her name, but she refused to answer me. When I walked over to her and shook her arm to ask her what everyone would like, she just smiled at me and pointed at the fish. I was beginning to feel like I had brought along a mute version of the idiot savant from Rain Man without the savant part.

  I turned back to the girl with a sheepish grin.

  "She's not normally like this," I said. The girl just smiled back. "I hate to say this, but I am not very familiar with some of the options on your menu."

  "Which one?" the girl asked.

  "Well, all of them, really," I replied, "except the rice."

  The girl laughed.

  "You are very funny," she said.

  "Is there anything you would recommend for a group of crusty old men that are used to eating field rations?" I asked. That got a sharp look from Dorthia, but she remained silent.

  The girl giggled behind her hands.

  "I think I can help," she said. She walked me through some of the most popular items on the menu and recommended some of her personal favorites. By the time we were done, I had a greater knowledge of Chinese cuisine, and we had an order placed that was fit for our little army of men.

  When the food was ready and paid for, and Dorthia and I were going to leave, the girl stopped me. She pulled me to the side, out of the way of the noise and bustle. She seemed sheepish at first and hesitant to speak, but then she found the courage to say what was on her mind.

  "My name is Meiqiang," she said. "I don't have many friends here. I work with my family in our restaurant all of the time," she indicated t
owards the whole of where we were standing. "I like you. You make me laugh. If you ever want to come back, you could be my guest, and we could talk as friends maybe?"

  I could see a sense of longing and loneliness in Meiqiang's face. She was asking me to be her friend in the only way she knew how. I identified with her yearning. I had felt it when I first arrived in Ironco. It was a need to connect; to have someone to talk to, to be silly with. Iggie had filled that void for me when I needed someone to be a friend. I smiled at Meiqiang.

  "I would like that," I said. "Oh and my name is Jane," I added.

  Meiqiang's face brightened.

  "Until then," she said and hurried away to help the next person who walked through the door.

  When Dorthia and I were back on the street with our bags of delicious smelling food, she asked, "What did that young lady want just now?"

  "She invited me to come back as her guest," I said. "She wants to be friends."

  "What a stroke of luck, dear Jane," Dorthia said. Her eyes sparkled. "You should cultivate this friendship." Just a tad too much enthusiasm had entered her voice for what seemed like a small event.

  "Why are you so excited about it?" I asked.

  "Because dear Jane, that young girl's family is neck deep in the Chinese Triad, and we have been trying for some time to infiltrate their community," she said. She was starting to sound like a school girl who had just been accepted into her first secret club. "You must take care though Jane and reveal nothing about yourself to that girl. The Triad is a deadly bunch. Nothing to trifle with, do you understand me? This girl is an asset to be sure, but you must watch yourself."

  When we got back to the warehouse, Dorthia shared the news with everyone about how well I had done. She focused less on my killer Mandarin skills and more on my luck at finding an 'in' with a Chinese Triad family.

  It was all anyone could talk about over dinner. I remained mute on the subject, because I didn't know what to say. All I could think of as I grabbed another eggroll was who would have thought starting a new friendship could be so darned complicated.