Chapter 6

Sun and Jun finished their reconnaisance while Mei, Wei, Darren and Liam scouted the narrow strip of cliff-top between the Guard barracks and the Ocean. As Sun and Jun returned to Xue at their starting point, the girl started to head back toward the Land Cruiser. Jun held her back.

"We will go in tonight. Sun and I can disable or spoof most of the sensors. We will be in and out before the guards know we're here."

At the same time, a mental discussion was taking place: Darren, you know your assignments? Keep an 'eye' on the people in the compound and let us know if and when they react. The other assignment you already know.

Will do. Mei and Wei will enter through the guard barracks and try to foil any sort of counterattack they might try to muster.

"But you can't!" Xue whispered urgently, a hint of panic in her voice. "There's only two of you! How will you fight all those guards? Aren't there more of you? Why don't you call for help? "

"If we do our jobs well," Sun replied, "we will not have to deal with the guards, so we shouldn't need any help. You must wait here. We do not know the level of your training and do not need the uncertainty of an unknown ally."

Xue looked as if she might argue some more, but nodded resignedly. As Sun and Jun turned back toward the compound, she drew her weapon.

It's a trap! Darren warned. As soon as you started to move, so did the three in the central hut. One made a call to the guard barracks and the guards are now on the move. I have activated the girl's failsafe.

Xue took careful aim at Sun's back and squeezed the trigger. The only response from the weapon was a small click and a sharp pain in her palm. She barely had time to wonder what had happened before unconsciousness took her.

Abort! Darren told the G-Girls. This was a carefully planned trap. The guards and the three in the hut are not headed for the fence or the guard positions. They are going underground. My chi cannot see very far under the earth, but my guess is that there are tunnels that will take them behind you. The girl probably had the same link with her sister that the four of you had, and used it to warn them of the attack.

Okay, we're going 'invisible' now, all four of the Gemini girls replied. Jun will bring the girl for interrogation. Mei, Wei, and Sun will take care of any threats from the rear. You and Liam should start making your way toward the car. You'd never make it back to the underwater sleds if they thought to look over the cliff.

Darren signalled his bodyguard and the two silently slipped along the cliff top until they were well clear of the compound. In his mind, Darren could see Sun, Mei, and Wei as they watched for spider holes to open in the undergrowth. As a trap door opened, or a head appeared, one of them would rush in and knock the emerging soldier back down his tunnel following the body with a concussion grenade. They were so fast, and maintained their invisibility so well that none of the soldiers got the chance to fight. Darren kept his 'sight' tuned to the area around the camp so the girls would be able to respond to the threats.

A head popped up less than fifty yards away, and Darren, homing in on the soldier's energy, squeezzed off a couple of shots, dropping the man back into his hole. The body delayed the emergence of any others until Mei arrived and sealed the opening with a grenade. Many of the soldiers were killed in the tunnels while others were simply blocked out of the action by earth collapsing into the shafts.

Darren was so engrossed in 'watching' this action that he almost missed the emergence of three very strong energies ahead of them, very near where the girls had parked the Land Cruiser.

Jun picked up his mental warning and deposited her burden behind some brush, keeping herself concealed until the other three could finish with the soldiers and join her.

Liam and I will guard your rear, Darren told the girls. If I'm not mistaken, those three will require your special talents.

No special talent required for these, Mei replied and she and Wei and Sun joined Jun.

It was clear that the other three were attuned enough to the energies around them that they knew the girls were nearby, but their senses were not as finely trained as Darren and the girls. The girls weren't taking any chances. What followed reminded Darren of the scene from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' when the hero faced the evil giant with a whip. Instead of the fierce hand-to-hand combat he half-expected, four shots coughed as one from the girls' silenced weapons, each of the three enemy taking one bullet, except Xiu, who was hit twice. Two more shots in quick succession and Jin and Jing too, were struck again. The bodies of the three would-be assassins fell to the ground, lifeless.

We have learned our lesson about fighting assassins, Darren, Jun told him. Never again will we jeopardize a mission or the lives of those who depend on us as we did in Salzburg. (See Bodyguards II)

Liam shot a soldier who had managed to dig his way through the rubble of a collapsed tunnel as Jun collected the unconscious form of Xue from its hiding place.

Signalling to Liam, Darren told the girls, We'd better get moving. The guards have gotten back to the barracks and will be boiling out of the compound before long.

Darren caught up with the girls as they loaded their prisoner into the Land Cruiser. They tossed Xue unceremoniously into the middle seat and secured her hands and feet with several tough nylon straps that would be too much for even her prodigious strength, once the drug from the 'failsafe' gun wore off.

Darren rode 'shotgun' (in the front, lefthand passenger seat), Liam sat behind him in the middle seat, next to Xue. Mei drove while her sister sat on the right side of the prisoner and Sun and Jun had the rear seat to themselves.

"What happened back there?" Liam asked, clearly confused, as Mei took off along their pre-planned escape route. "I thought the mission was to rescue those three girls from the Chinese. And what happened with this one? I thought she was on our side."

"It was a setup, Liam," Darren explained. "This whole thing with the stolen CIA data, and the 'escaped' clone of Mei and Wei was a carefully crafted lure for these ladies, and possibly for me. The People's Republic of China apparently holds a grudge for a long time. This young lady's job was to get us to try to attack the compound, then tip off those inside so they could get behind us through those tunnels and capture or kill the girls."

"That is why we did not let her know that the four of you were here," Jun added. "We suspected a setup when she was not very surprised to see us. There were other clues, as well."

"For someone who expected to use the data on that disc to buy her sister's freedom," Sun joined in, "she gave it up pretty easily. Our people have verified that the disc she gave us was genuine, and we knew it was the only copy when she made no move to get out on her own when offered the chance. If there had been another copy, she would likely have retrieved it, if for no other reason than to have a backup plan."

"Okay," Liam replied. "I understand that you suspected her, but how did she wind up like this, and how did you know they were coming after us?"

"We gave her a special gun," Jun answered, "and asked Darren to 'watch' her with..."

Jun paused, realizing she was on the verge of revealing a secret to Liam.

Might as well tell him, Darren thought at her, and when it was followed by a flood of agreement from the others, Jun continued her story.

"Perhaps I should back up and fill you in on a few things that we haven't made known to you before," she said. "When Darren discovered how to sense his chi, in much the same way as you did, he also found that the senses got interpreted by the visual centers of his brain, so he can 'see' with his chi. You may have heard stories about how my sister and I and Mei and Wei are connected mentally... ?"

At Liam's nod Jun continued her tale. "Quite by accident, and at a very convenient time, I might add, Darren's chi connected with ours so that the three of us were as one. To shorten the tale, he also connected with Mei and Wei so that all five of us now think as one."

By tacit agreement, they decided not to tell him, yet, that their link also included the President of the United States.

"Anyway, our teacher from China escaped to the United States some years ago, " Mei continued from the front seat, "and though he does not share our ability, he has managed to train us to use it to accomplish a number of seemingly supernatural feats. One of those is to use our chi to manipulate other objects."

"When we decided to undertake this mission, we had our office in Hong Kong supply us - Sun and Jun, that is - with a weapon we had designed some years ago," Wei took up the story now. "One that, if triggered by someone's chi, instead of firing, would inject the wielder with a fast-acting knockout drug."

"My assignment," Darren continued, "besides watching the people in the compound to see what they would do, was to trigger the 'failsafe' in that weapon if Xue attempted to use it on one of us. She tried to shoot Sun, but instead, knocked herself out."

"You think you are so clever!" The bound girl must have been awake and listening for some time. "You think we did not know of these 'special abilities' of yours? Hah! I will show you the real trap!"

So saying, she turned until her bound hands touched Wei's wrist. With a grip of steel, she grasped the wrist before the others could react.

Suddenly, the Land Cruiser swerved toward the shoulder of the road and the steep drop-off beyond, as Darren and all four girls went into convulsive spasms. Their minds assaulted with the primal rage of the beast within Xue who broke into their mental communion and began tearing at the vulnerable psyches that had never had to defend themselves against such an assault, the five writhed in agony!