Rise of the White Lotus

by H L Stephens

  Shock and dismay flowed through each of them, mingled with a huge portion of disbelief and anger. Thankfully, none of it was directed at me. It all seemed to flow towards Bastian.

  "Before I forget, Avery," I said at one point, "Dorthia had a message for you. She wanted me to tell you that Kazakhstan was a lie. I don't know what that means, but I figured you would understand."

  All Avery did was nod his head. His jaw was too busy grinding itself to a bare nub for him to do more than bob his head.

  "Can anyone clue me in on what is going on here?" I asked. "I am starting to feel like the third man out. Actually, with this group, it would be the fifth man out. Is Bastian really her brother? Maybe I got hit one too many times while I was at the plant, but my head is spinning right now. I cannot get it wrapped around what is happening."

  We were all sitting in the Ops room, going back over all the data and intel that had been collected. As the crew looked at me with their intense gazes, I felt if I hadn't been sitting down already, I would definitely need a chair. Jameson was the one who kicked everything off.

  "Back about....what....twenty six years ago," Jameson began.

  Avery interrupted and said it was twenty seven.

  "Twenty six, twenty seven, whatever," Jameson continued. "It was well before you were born Jane. Twenty seven years ago, we had another member in our crew. It was Bastian, and yes he is or was Dorthia's brother. The dynamics of it all are complicated, but for now what is important is that he was part of the crew. He was wicked smart. He knew all of our tactics, all of our maneuvers. Every way we operated. He was a lot like you Jane in that he could pick up anything he laid his hands to. The difference was that he had no conscience; no moral center.

  "We started having issues with Bastian. Small things at first, but the problems grew larger as time went on. He started using our position as a Shadow Brigade to do some pretty dicey things. He hid it pretty well for a while, but he got brazen. Bastian knew that with his skills, no one would be able to trace his activities except us, and he never thought we would catch on to what he was doing. The thing was, we did catch on.

  "We started seeing evidence of an entity we called 'the Ghost'. The trail this individual left was misty at best. It was almost imperceptible, even to us. Dorthia was actually the one who first suspected her brother might be the Ghost. His activities were too closely mirrored to our own. It became more and more apparent that Dorthia's hunch was right, so, we did an internal sting, and caught Bastian at his own game. We looked at it more like an intervention. We had hoped he would stop once he was confronted, but he was as black in his heart as it got. He did not want to be helped. The fight with Bastian got ugly to say the least. Bastian pirated Marcus' technology, he stole the intel that we had amassed over the years, and he destroyed our assets all over the world. It was a mess.

  "Kazakhstan was our final standoff with Bastian. We had planned on taking him in, but instead, we ended up killing him, or he killed himself. We could never conclusively determine what happened. All we knew at the time was that he was dead. At least that's what we thought all these years. The building he was in exploded. He had rigged it expecting us to get trapped inside, but he was the one who got pinned down in the end. We had all the exits covered so he couldn't escape. We thought he either detonated the explosives on purpose or just couldn't stop the timer before it hit zero. In the end, all we found were charred remains when the fire died down, but the body was far too damaged to get a positive ID. The thing was, we saw what we saw, and there was no doubt in any of our minds that Bastian was dead; until now."

  "So all these years, he has been Gadyuka, operating right under your noses?" I asked.

  "It would appear so," Marcus piped up. "It makes sense now though why we could never get eyes on him or catch the son of a bitch. Bastian knew all our tactics and secrets. Granted, we have grown in our knowledge since then, but he would have learned to be careful. It is rather brilliant when you think about it, but then again Bastian always was brilliant."

  "You all always kissed his ass every time he bent over," Avery said. "Heck, you'd give him twenty minutes just to draw a crowd to watch you do the kissing."

  "That's a bit harsh, don't you think, Avery?" Jameson said.

  "It's the damn truth," Avery said. "His head was so big because you all filled it with a lot of crap like he was some sort of god among men. He was just a man. We all had our strengths. We should have taken him out for the things he did long before that so-called intervention. Instead, we treated him like he was some little lost lamb. He murdered people and we knew it, but because he was Dorthia's brother, we treated him as though he was special. We were wrong, and now we are reaping our reward for it."

  "Avery is right," Oz said. "I can agree with him because I was one of the fools who argued to bring Bastian in rather than take him out. We have spent decades tracking Gadyuka, and all this time, we were just hunting Bastian all over again. We just didn't know it. My guess is he's been laughing at us all this time."

  "I doubt he is laughing now," said Avery with a grin. "Not with a bullet wound. You know, he never was good with pain."

  The thought gave the crew a chuckle, but it didn't last long. They sobered when the topic came back to Dorthia.

  "What does he want with Dorthia?" I asked. "And where is he taking her?"

  Avery's eyes were hard and full of a fierceness I had never seen before.

  "I don't know Jane, but it isn't for a family reunion, I can tell you that," he said. "Bastian wasn't much for sentimentality. He was a vengeful, self-serving, son of a diseased whore. My guess is he has a plan that requires Dorthia's skills. Our mission to catch Gadyuka inadvertently put her in his crosshairs. Basically, our timing sucked."

  "How do we find her then?" I asked.

  I got a round robin of shrugs and lost looks.

  "Come on, Marcus, surely you can trace this guy," I said.

  Marcus shook his head.

  "I wish it was that simple Jane, but it isn't. He shredded his network when he left. I mean complete annihilation. I can't pull anything useable off of it. He knew exactly what he was doing when he pulled up his stakes and left. We have been trying to track this guy for years, but he doesn't follow normal channels when he communicates, when he travels, heck not even when he takes a crap. Why do you think he has been a shadow for so long? He knows how to stay off the grid because he either creates his own grid or obliterates the one that is there. I wouldn't even know where to begin."

  I had never heard Marcus sound so helpless before.

  "Someone saw something," I insisted. "He didn't just dematerialize, and he didn't fly out. I made sure of that. Don't you think someone is going to notice a parade of military-style vehicles driving down Main Street?"

  "That's the thing Jane," Marcus said. "I've already checked the video feeds from the surrounding areas, and there was nothing. They just vanished off the face of the earth. Like a ghost."

  "Can you pull up the map of the plant and surrounding area," I asked.

  The map materialized on the big screen.

  "Can you highlight the areas that are covered by cameras where you have already checked the video feed?"

  "Yes, but I am not sure what this is going to prove."

  "Just humor me Marcus, please."

  A web of green lines spread out from the plant like the tentacles of an octopus, with the exception of a large dark patch where no green existed. It was adjacent to the plant on the upper east side, exactly where my confrontation with Bastian had occurred.

  "What is that?" I asked pointing to the dark region.

  "That is an old rail line station that was abandoned decades ago," Marcus replied. Everyone looked at him. "What? It hasn't been operational in years. The power doesn't route to that segment of the plant. See? I'll tap into the power grid and overlay it onto our map, and voila."

  A series of red lines were added to the green, except in this instance, red lines now entered into the dark zone.
Marcus' face blanched.

  "That's not right," he said. "Those lines should be dead."

  "Should be," I said. "Just like the Butimen Ash plant should have been defunct, but it wasn't. I think Bastian used the rails to get in and out. That's why no one saw him before. Who would notice a military convoy if it was being transported via railway or better yet, hidden via railway."

  "I'll get on that," Marcus said. "Great catch Jane. That is something Dorthia would have thought of."

  "Thanks Marcus," I replied. "While you track that down, I am going to go clean up and see how Meiqiang is doing while I am still able to ambulate on my own. I also need to return something to her grandmother."

  Any excuse was better than none to step away from my feelings of helplessness where Dorthia was concerned. A distraction might help bury the reminders of just how much I had failed her in the end. Somehow meeting Dú jiàn once more seemed a gentler task than facing the loss of yet another person I loved. Besides, I had a deadly yet unused hair decoration to return to the old woman.

  I thought the side visit to the hospital might even cheer me up and remind me I wasn't a complete failure in all of this. We had managed to save Meiqiang, and if we managed to save her, there might be some small hope of saving Dorthia too. It was an optimism I was going to hold onto as tightly as I could. It was all I had as I made my way back to Dorthia's magical room of transformation.

  Truth Revealed

  Stripping off the vestiges of YanMei was a painful process. The events of the last twenty four hours had taken their toll on my body. The bruises had already begun to make their presence known in loud splashes of painful color. It would take weeks for some of them to heal completely. The more animated I became, the more concerned I was that I had cracked or broken a few ribs. They hurt like hell to move.

  I'll have Jameson look at that later.

  I just wanted to lie down and sleep for the next week, but if I postponed my visit to see Meiqiang's grandmother, it would be a big mistake. The pain would only worsen over time. My aching bones told me that, and so did my multi-colored face. Give me a few days and I wouldn't want to move. Now was the best time, while I still had the wherewithal to make the trip. I was able to cover up the majority of my facial injuries with makeup once I looked like me again and not YanMei.

  It was an agonizing process nonetheless; removing the vestiges of my Asian persona and applying new layers of deception to once again play a part that did not entirely suit me. I was uncertain if the web of deception would ever be a comfortable fit for me, but for now, it was my playground, like it or not.

  I wrapped my ribs as tightly as I could and wore a shirt with long sleeves and a high neckline to hide my bruising skin. I wore bootcut jeans and sensible shoes with a combat knife tucked in the front of my pants, my Ruger tucked in the back, and my small Browning strapped around my ankle. It was getting to a point where I felt naked without some sort of weapon pressed against my body.

  Methodist was my first stop to visit Meiqiang. Her room was guarded by several scary Triad soldiers, and I was never so glad to see their stern faces standing outside her room. They glared at me as I approached and would have prevented my entry had Meiqiang's mother not been there to grant me safe passage.

  I clung to the teddy bear I had bought for my friend in the hospital gift shop as I passed their bulky wall of flesh. I recognized one of the men from Jameson's group at the plant who had collected Meiqiang. The thought almost made me smile, but I suppressed it out of respect for the seriousness of their task.

  I spent almost an hour visiting with Mrs. Tong, talking about her daughter and how she was doing. Meiqiang was in a medically induced coma because of her injuries. The doctors thought it the best course of action given her circumstances. To give her mind and body a chance to mend.

  "They say she was brought here just in time," Mrs. Tong said at one point in our conversation. "Any longer, she would have died or had brain damage or gone into shock. You saved my daughter, Jane. You and your friends saved my Meiqiang." She patted me on my back in a very painful spot. I managed not to cry out, but returned her kindness with a smile.

  "I didn't do that much, Mrs. Tong," I lied.

  "You are too modest, Jane." Again the painful pat. "Say what you like. We will always be indebted to you for what you have done. You will always be welcome wherever we are."

  Mrs. Tong squeezed my swollen knuckles. She was such a nice lady. When I got up to go, she gave me a big hug with more pats and squeezes in places that protested greatly under her loving attention.

  "You bring your grandmother to the restaurant next time you come," Mrs. Tong said. "You will eat with us as family."

  The thought of Dorthia made my heart twinge. I smiled and thanked Mrs. Tong for her kindness, assuring her we would come by to see her soon. As I left the hospital on my way to Chinatown, I wondered how Dorthia would feel about Mrs. Tong thinking she was my grandmother. It made me laugh, but the twinge came back again.

  We'll get you back Dorthia. I promise.

  Some promises are impossible to keep; no matter how resolute your heart is in making them. I was bound and determined to keep this one.

  It wasn't long before I found myself once again standing before the Peking Palace Restaurant preparing to face Meiqiang's grandmother once more. I felt a little more at ease than the last time I was here. Maybe it was because I had a few more notches under my belt as far as kicking the bad guy's butt, or maybe it was because I had done what I said I would do. Whatever the case, my heart wasn't racing quite as much when I pushed through the swinging doors, and my palms weren't quite as sweaty as I told the new face that greeted me who I was there to see.

  The new server escorted back to the familiar room with its curtain of jade beads. Dú jiàn was still sitting on her cushion with the low table before her. I wondered if she ever moved from that spot. This time, she was folding paper as I walking through the threshold. When I entered, she stopped.

  "Welcome Jane," she said. "Please join me," she indicated to a cushion on her right. "I am pleased to see you. I had hoped you would come."

  "You are most kind," I said. "I wanted to return your beautiful comb. I fear the young woman you loaned it to was unable to use it. It is however, unharmed." I reached into my bag and pulled out the assassin's comb Dú jiàn had given me on my last visit. I had wrapped it in a silk scarf to protect it on the journey.

  "Perhaps next time," Dú jiàn said as she accepted it back with a smile.

  "May there never be a next time," I said.

  Dú jiàn watched me for some time before she spoke again. She looked me over carefully as if studying a fine sculpture. I had the urge to squirm beneath her inquisitive eye, but I refrained from doing so. I waited until she was done with her appraisal.

  "I went to see my granddaughter the moment she was admitted to the hospital," she said. "The doctors say that whoever found her saved her life. Do you know who it was?"

  "I believe it was YanMei," I replied. I looked down at my hands.

  Dú jiàn nodded following the course of my eyes.

  "I thought as much," Dú jiàn said. "For a stranger, she fought fiercely for my Meiqiang as if she loved her like her own heart. I rather admire her for what she did." As she talked, she once again resumed her paper folding. I noticed the paper was tinged with colors of pearlized, pale pink, and green. As she folded, a shape began to take form, but it was obscured by Dújiàn's hands. When she was finished with her creation, she placed it to the side of the table, out of sight.

  "I have something for you, Jane," Dú jiàn continued. "A present for saving my granddaughter."

  "But I didn't do anything," I protested.

  "Don't argue with an old woman," Dú jiàn said in mock scolding. "It is over there in the corner." She waved her hand at a table behind me. A package wrapped in brown paper sat upon its surface. "You must promise me to open it only when you are safely at home."

  I promised I would wait until I was th
ere. I felt a thrill of excitement as I looked over the plainly wrapped package. Perhaps I should have felt a greater sense of caution towards a gift offered by a woman such as Dú jiàn, but with my birthday so close, I threw all caution to the wind.

  Dú jiàn and I had tea together with a light lunch. We talked about many things, yet nothing of substance. She watched me and I her with an ease of respect that flowed between us born of all that had transpired over the last few days. When it was time to go, I collected my package from the table and said my goodbyes. I was just stepping through the threshold when Dú jiàn stopped me.

  "I have one more gift for you before you go," she said.

  When I turned, I saw Dú jiàn held within her hand a flower made of pearlescent paper of white and pink and green, folded to perfection.

  "What is it?" I asked. Sweat began to bead upon my upper lip.

  Dújiàn's eyes pierced into mine.

  "You should know its form, Jane," she said, "or should I call you White Lotus?" Dú jiàn took my limp hand and placed the delicate creation within it. Her eyes searched mine. "You have nothing to fear from me child. You have won yourself a mighty ally and a friend in me for what you did for my granddaughter. The Poisoned Arrow will always be here to help if the White Lotus has need."

  I thanked Dú jiàn for her second gift, in all its many layers. Nothing more could be said between us, so I went back to the warehouse to ponder everything that had just happened.

  It didn't feel much like home without Dorthia there cooking and laughing, inquisitive of everything I did. I liked her constant attention. It made me think of my real home back in Ironco, where my life was shared with people who cared about every aspect of my day. I never felt alone in Ironco. I never felt empty, like I often did at the warehouse. Maybe that was why they called it homesickness. The sickness was the void that formed where love was poured in from family and friends. It was filled by the sights and sounds of the places that reminded you of every joyful memory that was shared with those same people. I hated that empty, sick feeling that was my constant companion, and I wanted it to go away.