Chapter 21

They entered an office which looked like a Fu Manchu set out of Hollywood. An elderly Chinese man was dressed in flowing robes and seated on what had to be a throne. Even though the room was air conditioned, two naked Chinese women were standing beside him wafting a breeze toward him with huge ostrich-feather fans. Small bells hanging from their pierced nipples made a kind of tinkling music as they moved their arms with the motion of the fans.

The atmosphere was heavy with incense, and lighting was provided by giant candles. The ceiling was sculpted plaster, the walls were covered with tapestries, and the floor was covered with a multitude of rugs. The one discordant note was that, at each of the 4 corners of the room, there stood a giant of a Chinese man armed with an AK 47-type assault rifle.

Sharky almost minced his way across the floor to a particular rug and prostrated himself before the man on the throne. "Rise, Mr. Sharky, and tell me why you wanted to speak to me in person. After all, you know my feelings toward such meetings and the consequences of disturbing me unnecessarily."

Sharky rose to a kneeling position as said, "Thank you, Mr. Wang. What I have to tell you is too important to be delayed and too sensitive to discuss over the telephone."

"Very well, Mr. Sharky. You may continue."

"Thank you, Mr. Wang. Tonight a nigger couple came to me wanting to borrow $125,000 to start up a coffee shop. I stalled them because I wanted to discuss the matter with you before giving them an answer. It occurred to me that this would be a perfect opportunity for you to establish your own heroin distribution network from a seemingly legitimate business that would have a reason for people to come in and out at any time of the day or night.

"I could lend them the money to get started. That way, all of the licenses and permits would be in their names, and no one could connect you with the operation. Once they were an established business, you could simply take over. A little "persuasion" would be all that was needed to give you the perfect distribution outlet."

"An excellent scheme, Mr. Sharky. Of course, you would expect your usual cut from the business."

"Mr. Wang, you have always been so generous in the past, I naturally assumed that your largess and good graces would continue."

"Yes, Mr. Sharky. You can count on it. I assume that you would want Mr. Liu and me to put up the $125,000. I doubt that you have that much liquid funds available at this time."

"That's true, Mr. Wang. I'll ask for my usual interest rate, but I let them hold off paying any of it until the coffee shop turns a profit. By that time the interest will have mounted to such a tremendous sum that they will have no hope of paying it off, and we... er... you can take over without a lot of argument."

"Excellent, Mr. Sharky, excellent. Proceed with your plan. The $125,000 will be delivered to you at the usual place at 3:00 PM, tomorrow. You may leave. Now."

"Thank you, Mr. Wang. Good evening to you."

Sharky rose and backed out of the room, never turning his back on Wang until he was through the door and out of the room. Jase said, <Mary, you stay here to see if there is anything else that we should know. Use your emergency recall when you are ready to leave. The rest of us will leave with Sharky.>

Sharky got into his car and the team found places to hang on as the car returned to the city. Sharky spent the whole of the trip alternately congratulating himself for getting in so good with the boss and kicking himself for taking such a chance—he could have wound up in Wang's dungeon torture chamber for some minor infraction of protocol. Shit, this job was a shortcut to a heart attack!

They returned to the tavern, and Sharky went inside. Jase took his team around to the alley for a conference. Jase said, <Ann, I know it's going to be as boring as hell, but we need for you to stay with Sharky to keep an eye on him, just in case something comes up. Since M'rth supercharged these implanted radios, you can call if you need help, and we will hear you no matter where we happen to be. Stay with him until he knocks off for the night, then come home.>

<Sure, Jase, I can do that.>

<Jo and Pedro, you need to get home to become familiar with the business plan that Bill worked up. The rest of us will stand by to aid Mary or Ann if either one needs us. Anybody have anything to say before we break up?... No?... OK, let's get to it.>

They returned home and retired to the family room to wait until Mary and Ann returned. They spent the time discussing Sharky and Wang and trying to decide just what to do with them. Ann showed up after about 2 hours with a negative report. No further business had turned up for Sharky, so he decided to call it a night and went home early.

It was nearly 3 hours later that Mary showed up, and she was shaking like the proverbial leaf. She was so upset that she had trouble talking at first, but finally calmed down and told the rest of the team what had happened to upset her so much. "Shortly after you left, Wang told his secretary to call Liu, so I cranked up the sensitivity of my hearing and listen to her dial. I heard the tones, so I know the number she dialed. The two old bastards talked for a while about miscellaneous business matters, then they got to specifics on Jo and Pedro's case. Once the coffee shop is a going concern, they plan to kill Jo and Pedro, as well as Sharky, and install some of their Chinese flunkies to operate the place. They talked about that for a while and Wang hung up.

"When they finished talking, Wang went downstairs, and I went with him. I never would have gone if I had known where he was heading, and, when we got there, I saw things that I wish that I had never seen. He's got an elaborate torture chamber down there and he enjoys using it. I can't bring myself to talk about what I saw, but I took it upon myself to kill 3 poor victims who were alive only because they were getting life support while they were being tortured! One of the victims was a child! That man has to die, and I mean immediately! I wrote down Liu's phone number, it's on that piece of paper. We no longer need to keep Wang alive. I'm going back in the next few minutes to kill him. I'd like to have your help, but I going to kill him tonight, even if I have to do it by myself!"

Jase said, "Please calm down, Mary. From what you said, we must all agree with you, completely. We'll change our plans and take care of him tonight. We'll eliminate Sharky tomorrow and Liu as soon as we can find him. Jeff, please ask Jo and Pedro to forget the business plan and join us for planning the attack."

They decided a frontal attack was the simplest and was warranted, since they had their armor for protection. The team planned to eliminate everybody they found, since the occupants must all know what Wang did in his torture chamber and never tried to do anything about it. Hopefully, they would do a better job with their next life.

They drove up to Wang's house in two SUVs and stopped at the locked gate. Without ceremony, Pedro walked up to the gate and kicked it with the flat of his foot as hard as he could while his armor was set at an external 4 gs. There was no way the gate lock could withstand that kind of treatment; The gate flew open and the hinges were bent. Pedro jumped back into the SUV, and they drove to the house.

The team wanted to create the maximum fear and confusion, so they had their armor set to flicker in and out of invisibility, the way they had done in China. They were, indeed, a fearsome sight as they gathered in front of the main door to Wang's mansion. They wasted no time in bursting through the main door into the reception alcove where they were met by the automatic machine gun fire. Were it not for their armor, they would have been chopped to pieces by the multitude of bullets that flew at them. They paused for a moment under the hail of fire, and Jeff pirouetted as if he was using the bullets like a stream of water to wash off.

The guns finally stopped shooting, probably as they ran out of ammunition. The team blasted their way through the next door just as they had done with the gate and front door. This put them into Wang's throne room where they were met by the four goons with the AK 47s. They stood and waited while the clips were emptied, before attacking the goons. Mary charged at the one nearest her position and put him out of action immediately with a blow from her fist to his sternum. She hit him hard enough to shatter his breast bone and drive shards of bone into his heart and lungs.