Another grenade came in. The ground erupted and a statue of a serene Buddha toppled, crushing an innocent fleeing acolyte.
BOOM! BOOM! The impacts hurled monks haphazardly in all directions.
Now, a new problem. The flame thrower unleashed its orange-red hell on the bleeding and injured monks.
The world was afire and black smoke furled throughout the complex. Nirvana was displaced with the hellish sight of dead and dying monks. Those that could picked themselves off the ground and turned to escape, but an unseen hand tossed another grenade at the fleeing clerics, detonating in front of them before they could shift direction. Terror-filled moans and cries for help filled the air. Others crawled away without legs, bleeding out, dazed, unaware and praying at the sky for help that would never come.
Then a reprieve. No grenades, no more flames.
Chapter Forty-Two
As the smoke began to subside, Rayna scanned the monastery grounds for clues, then saw the three armed masked men lugging rucksacks and backpacks. They were doing the unthinkable. Relaxed and calm in the midst of the devastation, these worse-than-Satans guffawed insane laughter.
Rayna kicked herself. She was so wrapped up in her personal thoughts of meeting her birth parents that she had let down the guard of suspicion that had been ingrained into her psyche as a soldier. Be prepared at all times. The world is a dangerous place.
And then there was a bigger concern. Not only had she been unprepared mentally, she had neglected to bring any kind of weapons with her. Not a gun, nor even a pocket knife. No point in worrying about what I don’t have. Is there anything I can use?
Rayna’s face tightened with tension as she pondered the possibilities, observed the masked predators, searching for weaknesses. Worry transformed to fear as their steady confident pace indicated they were used to danger and death. They paid no attention to the monks and their focus was constantly shifting. That indicated they were looking for something. Or someone. The psychopaths stopped outside the Great Hall and peered inside.
“In here,” decided Ponytail. He pulled a couple of smoke grenades and tossed them ahead.
BOOM. BOOM. Monks that hid in the hall streamed out with their hands up—they were easily gunned down.
The attackers quickly donned gas masks and entered.
Rayna got up and scampered to the front of the building. She noticed the grenades they used now weren’t frags, but simple flashbangs. That would limit the damage done to anything inside, but would disorient the senses of anyone in the vicinity of the detonations.
A light went on! Of course! These men were after the monastery’s historical relics. This isolated Buddhist monastery had treasures that antique collectors around the world would love to have.
And would pay any price for.
***
Inside the Great Hall, Ponytail, Johnny and Sting were in awe of their windfall as they scooped up the treasures. Small and intricate vases, ornate jade Buddhas, hand-carved miniature pagodas, golden vessels. This place had it all.
“We’re gonna retire after we sell these,” said Ponytail. “I’ll put them up for sale one piece at a time and, within a year, we should get more than two million dollars. Easy.”
Sting added, “And that’s giving the suckers a bargain. Can you imagine anyone paying even fifty bucks for something as useless as a fat Buddha or these little chunks of stone?” He held up his hand, which was full of little bits of what appeared to be colored stone.
“Get more of those. Those aren’t rocks. They’re sarira, the jewels and pearls left after monks were created. Don’t insult the customers, Sting. Bad karma.”
“Hey, Ponytail, speaking about customers, what about the tourists we saw out there? The ones that came in the Mercedes. Did you notice them?” asked Johnny.
“What about ’em? We scared them to death and they took off,” shrugged Ponytail. “Vanished. Poof!”
“Yeah, but what if they weren’t tourists? How do you know they aren’t like ninjas or some other gang?”
“Gimme a break. This place has never been cased in a thousand years and you’re trying to tell me that they’ll get hit twice in an hour?” laughed Sting. “I don’t think so.”
“Just the same, we should be careful. I mean, hell. Guns and grenades are cheap.”
“Did you check out the girl? She was hot, man!”
Ponytail snickered. “I guess that’s why she was able to get two sugar daddies. I wonder if she’s looking for another?”
Chapter Forty-Three
As Rayna waited by the hall’s door, three smoke bombs flew outside. She dropped as the ominous black carbon particles filled the air.
The cracking sound of a semi-auto burst shattered the silence. Then another and another. A couple of random bullets flew over Rayna’s head.
She slithered away from the hall’s entrance, desperate to find any bit of safety from the lead storm.
“Get out of the way, Rayna!” shrilled Martin. Of course, he had disobeyed Rayna’s order to stay put. He had left her once before and he was not going to do it again. Martin saw Johnny pull a grenade from his vest and yank out the pin.
When Rayna glanced at Martin, he realized she couldn’t hear the pop and whistle. She was unaware of the pineapple-shaped grenade coming right in her direction.
He dashed toward her without a second thought. Only then did Rayna see the hissing de-pinned grenade flying at her. The small bomb fell at Rayna’s feet. She tried to back away, but another explosion on her other side knocked her down. She glanced up to see the live grenade not even four feet from her nose.
“No!” screamed the racing Martin as he leapt on top of the deadly baseball.
The force of the blast blew Rayna back. Body parts of the man who gave her life—and then saved it—fell from the sky. Martin’s severed hand knocked Rayna’s head.
Rayna’s mouth gaped open as she saw Martin’s dismembered thigh lying on the ground in front of her and the two halves of his bleeding head and torso at the landing point of the grenade.
The monastery was alive with death, a field of slaughter.
By now, visibility was virtually non-existent because of all the smoke. The air would soon clear but, meanwhile, the clouds of smoke had one virtue—if Rayna couldn’t see, neither could her enemy. She took off toward a blurry mass. Rayna hoped that was the small, steepled pagoda she remembered from earlier.
The bandits opened up as she shot past. With tracers cracking around her, Rayna threw her hands out in front of her, bouncing up in a front grand handspring to the top of the blur.
Lucky guess or karma? Didn’t matter. Rayna found herself with two feet precariously balancing on the roof of the pagoda. The vantage point gave a clearer picture of the sources of destruction.
Rayna saw the toughs charging to the entrance with their fully-packed rucksacks. Obviously, the weight of one of the bags was considerably more—or maybe one of them sustained an injury. In any event, one thug lagged behind the others. He shrugged the bag off and looked around.
Rayna growled as the thief caught Henry making his way toward the trio. She couldn’t draw attention to him by shouting. She just watched helplessly as he dashed to a statue, then hid behind it. His next step was to move stealthily to the giant copper bell. He dropped to his belly, then slunk toward the bandit.
The thug took a grenade out of his pocket and drew back his arm.
There was no time for Rayna to get off the pagoda, run to the assaulter and disarm him. What to do?
An instant later, Rayna bent down and broke the pointed tip off the steeple. Stretching her arm back like a baseball pitcher, she hurled it at the thief just as he released the pineapple.
Despite the adrenaline, Rayna’s throw was pinpoint accurate—the steeple’s tip hit the grenade, exploding two feet away from the assailant. The explosive detonated immediately, killing the thug instantly—exactly how Rayna fantasied it would happen.
One down, two to go.
The e
xplosion drew the attention of the dead man’s colleagues. They spotted Henry roaring toward them. Ponytail yanked out a handgun and aimed at Henry.
“No, Dad, no!” yelled Rayna as she sprang off the pagoda.
She rocketed toward her father, but the gunman had already fired. Rayna screamed as one… two… three bullets plowed through Henry’s chest. Even a lousy shot would have a hard time missing when the target was less than twenty feet away… and this enemy was no lousy shot. Henry faltered.
With a sudden swivel of his body, the marksman turned his attention to Rayna and aimed.
Rayna scooped up the torso of a headless dead monk en passant, and used it as a human shield against the fresh barrage of bullets storming at her. Blocking the deadly missiles with the holy man’s corpse, Rayna approached the gunman, then hurled the body just in time to absorb a hail of bullets.
The forward thrust of the monk’s body pushed the thug downward. Rayna was about to leap onto him when he rolled over, jumped up and reached into his pants with both hands.
As he pulled a knife from each pocket, Rayna threw a straight jab at his nose. There was a sickening crunch, but the man stayed on his feet. Enraged, he charged. He waved his arms like a windmill, slashing at Rayna.
Rayna avoided the whirling blades, then stooped to a crouch and kicked at her attacker’s legs, tripping him.
As he fell, he drove one of the knives at Rayna’s head.
She quickly rotated to the side, and the blade sliced through her hair rather than her scalp.
She leapt up and paced in a circle around him. She smirked while he spit out blood. “Big man trying to beat up a little girl. And then the little girl beats you like a pussy. Not so tough, are you, asshole?”
The thug twirled to his feet, directed his remaining knife at Rayna’s heart and charged. She held her ground and caught his wrist as he closed, yanking the blade away with a sharp twist. “Oh, little boy, now you got nothing.”
He swung his free hand hard and wild. Every curled knuckle had knockout written on it, but he swung too wide. And way too slow.
“You know, I like real men. Real men would know what to do with me, but you? Go away, little boy. Play with your dolls.”
The bully unleashed another wild right hook at Rayna’s temple.
With lightning reflexes, she grabbed his wrist as it arrived. Twisting with his momentum to carry the two of them, she fell sideways, using him as a cushion.
With one hand holding his wrist and the other holding his elbow, she lifted his forearm and broke it over a piece of rubble.
He squealed in pain. “Bitch! Bitch!”
Rayna pulled him by the hair to her face. “Now, who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”
BANG! BANG! BANG! Rayna released the thug and dropped to the ground. She looked up to see the third assaulter holding a rifle in the distance. Ponytail had shot his brother before he could answer. The bullets ripped right through his body and into Rayna’s chest and abdomen.
Rayna was bleeding out. She picked up a rock, reared back and prepared to heave it.
Ponytail, seeing the damage Rayna had already inflicted, bolted like an escapee from hell with his remaining loot out of the courtyard.
With her last bit of strength, Rayna reared back and slung the piece of rubble. She had no idea what happened. By the time she finished the throwing motion, she blacked out.
Henry screamed as he forced his arms to pull his body toward his unconscious daughter. She was only another thirty feet away now, but it might just as well be a thousand miles.
Goodbye, Rayna. I love you… No, damn it. No. No. I can’t go. I can’t go!
With strength from an unknown place, Henry forced himself to stand. An unexpected chill overcame him as he stumbled the last yards to his daughter, collapsing on top of her, crying for the baby he had helped bring to life twenty-six years ago.
The screams of the dying monks were louder than the gunfire and explosions. The air was heavy with gritty, stinging smoke. The flames of Hell were consuming Heaven, growing more intense, more vivid, as the powerful heat purified the sinners.
Chapter Forty-Four
Outside in the dirt clearing, Ponytail loaded the Mercedes with his bag of relics. He was smokin’ mad because a woman had done what some of the toughest toughs in China had been unable to do—take out two of his brothers.
“I am going to get you, bitch,” he muttered under his breath.
He glanced toward the monastery entrance and saw something unbelievable—Johnny was stumbling out. Ponytail rushed to his brother and supported him as they walked to the car.
“You are one tough son of a gun, bro,” complimented Ponytail. “Get in the car. I’ve got to get you to a hospital.”
“No!” shouted Johnny, trying to control his pain. “I’ll take the SUV. The shot went through and through. Bandage me up tight and I’m good to go.”
“You’re crazy, man.”
“Ponytail, if I bleed all over this babe, we might not get the blood out and we lose half a million or more. Bandage me tight so I don’t lose more blood. I’ll drive.”
Ponytail stared at his kid brother with a new respect.
Chapter Forty-Five
On one of China HQ’s monitors, Julio was laughing. “Arthur, when was the last time you had a meeting at 4:45 in the morning?”
“Never one I purposely scheduled. It’s gonna kill me to do it then,” quipped Arthur as he lifted his eyes to the ceiling in mock exasperation. “The things we do for this company.”
“Yeah, and the pay is great, too!”
Another joke. Julio, Barry and Arthur never took a salary, not that any of them needed to. Independently wealthy, they each contributed millions every year to help fund Fidelitas’ operations.
“Let me call Rayna. She’ll be thrilled to know about tomorrow.” Arthur punched in her cell number.
“Thank you for contacting me. I am currently unavailable but if you leave me a message, I will contact you as quickly as is convenient.”
“Rayna, it’s Arthur. Call as soon as you get this message.”
“What’s that about?” asked Barry. “She knows she has to answer our calls.”
When a call to a Fidelitas operative came from one of the board members, Barry Rogers, Arthur Yang or Paulina Rossini, it was to be answered immediately… unless there were dire circumstances.
“Maybe she’s caught up in the moment of being where she was born.”
“I don’t think so but, if she is, we can’t have her as part of us anymore,” stated Barry, none too pleased.
While Barry called Rayna, Arthur made another call to Tex, the limo driver. Again, straight to voicemail.
“What’s up, man? You want a driver, that’s me. Let me know. And be on the watch for our new restaurant, the ‘Texas Rangers,’ opening soon.”
Concern swept the faces of Arthur and Barry.
Barry made a third call to Henry. Same canned result. “Hello, you have reached the direct and private voicemail of Reverend Henry Tan. Your message is important and will be responded to as soon as I am able to.”
Not good suddenly became holy crap.
“Julio, can you see if you can get the locations of Tex, Rayna or Henry through their phones? Or crack their voicemails so we know if there are any clues?”
“Roger that. Let me check first with their phones, make sure there’s no problem with reception.”
Fidelitas’ phones had been modified so Central Command could track and monitor their activities virtually anywhere in the world.
Barry and Arthur could hear Julio’s fingers clacking away on a keyboard. “All three phones are stationary, as in not moving at all.”
Not a good sign. Wrinkles furrowed the foreheads of all three. Several seconds later, Julio blurted out, “There’s a voicemail on Tex’s phone. Here it comes.”
A young Chinese woman’s voice was heard. “Hello, my wonderful, handsome, fantastic Tex. I’m so sorry I was jealo
us. Of course I will be Dale Evans. I love, love, love you!”
“Who’s Dale Evans?” asked Julio. “Never mind. I’ve got a feed coming in from Rayna’s camera.”
On the monitor in Cencom and in the room at the Oceania, the three could see the Buddhist monastery in smoldering ruins. While the buildings were intact, there was debris everywhere. Mixed in with the rubble were dead bodies, severed heads, arms and other body parts.
Concern filled Arthur’s voice. “There’s no sign of Rayna, Henry or Tex.”
“It might be the position of the phone. If any of them are behind it, we wouldn’t be able to pick it up. I’ve got the location—about a hundred and fifty miles north of Guangzhou.”
“Hang on, Julio.” Arthur quickly dialed a different number on his cell phone.
After two rings, Deputy Minister Zhong Li, a senior bureaucrat in the State Administration for Trade and Commerce, picked up the phone.
“Arthur, good to hear from you. Are there any final details that you wanted to go over before the treaty signing?”
“None at all, Deputy Minister Zhong, but there’s an emergency I’m hoping you can help with. The Hundred Hands Monastery north of Guangzhou has been under attack. We see rubble and smoke but are unable to see anyone alive. Three of my group are dead or unconscious and we’re eager to find out their status.”
“I will find an Air Emergency Response Team and get it there. Where are you?”
“At the Oceania.”
“Does the hotel have a helipad?”
Barry took a quick look at the hotel’s directory of services and glanced questioningly at Arthur.
“Yes, it does, Deputy Minister. On the roof.”
“I will send another chopper to get you within fifteen minutes. We can reschedule our meeting.”
“Absolutely not. Business is business. Barry and I will meet with you but we will have an associate go to the scene. Thank you for this.”
The Mandarin's Vendetta (Rayna Tan Action Thriller Series Book 2) Page 15
