"So what's the deal with this mountie, and what's she doing in SF?" Paige asked, trying to hold on as Jeb swerved around rush hour traffic on Market Street.
Jeb Stuart was driving the Agency Suburban. He flicked on the blue lightbar on the dash and the siren. That got traffic moving. Paige Torne was riding shotgun, while Yoshiko Roper and Gwen Sweet were bouncing around the backseat.
"Yeah, Jeb," Sweet said. "Clue us in, who is she?"
"Michelle Wei Qwan, Detective Chief Inspector, RCMP Vancouver and in charge of the Asian Gang and Organised Crime Bureau," Jeb said. "Born and raised in England, moved to Hong Kong with parents at 16. Joined Royal Hong Kong Police Department at 21. Rapidly advanced and made detective sergeant in three years..."
"I don't need her fuckin' resume," Paige groused.
"While a police officer, Qwan also worked for the British Secret Service, running clandestine, black bag ops into mainland China. Mostly rescuing dissadent Chinese nationals from prison and/or death." Jeb looked at Paige, then back to the street. "When the ChiComs took over Hong Kong in July of '97, she was forced to leave. She got a posting with the RCMP and became a mountie."
"She's quite famous," Yoshiko said from the back. ""I worked with her over a year ago to help catch a serial killer..."
"Thats all well and good," Paige said. "But it doesn't explain why she wants to use Drew and Tai as bait to catch these Fist of Allah assholes."
Yoshiko nodded. That too had her puzzled. "Jeb?"
"There's Langley, somebody scoot over," Jeb said as he stopped at the massive intersection of Market, Geary and Kearney to a chorus of blaring horns. Jeb's Agency contact was waiting by Lotta's Fountain, another San Fran landmark, right where he said he'd be.
Langley waved and ran through the traffic and opened the passenger door, forcing Paige into the back seat with the other women.
"Jebster!" Langley said. "Quite a growing hareem you've got going there, ole buddy! Wanna introduce me to your latest lovely?"
He leered at Paige, who rolled her eyes and muttered, "Oh, Gaaaaaaaawd..."
***
House of Nanking is one of those world famous, hole-in-the-wall restaurants that every great city just has to have. The one this is spoken of in revered whispers by residents of the city, and then tracked down by out-of-towners who had heard the wild rumors from other travellers.
House of Nanking was part of a two story, plain brick building on a triangled block at Jackson and Kearney, right on the border between Chinatown and North Beach. Even though it was a weeknight and still before the dinner hour, over a hundred people were patiently waiting in a line that went out the front doors, down the block and to an alley around the corner.
"I've heard of this place," Paige said, slipping on her Oakley shades. "I hear the owner is like the 'soup nazi' on Seinfeld. How the hell do we get in?"
"I know the owner," Jeb answered as he found a parking spot right by a fire plug. "Let's boogie!"
"Hey, pal!" Langley said to him as the group debarked the SUV. "You gonna get a ticket parking there!"
"No,"Jeb replied. "You are."
Jeb led the way through the crowd of jovial people who were nearest the doors, the rest of his party followed.
"Oh no! You no break line! No break line!" A harried Chinese man in a wilted suit was even now waving off Jeb and his party even before they hit the carpet. Beyond him, the dining room was madness, with every table full and every diner ass to elbow to the other.
"Mr. Hong!" Jeb shouted. "It's me, Jeb!"
"I no care if you Emperor Norton the First!" Hong replied. "You break line, you get banned, just like them!" He pointed to a dreaded wall of photographs showing headshots of surprised people who had all been banned from his eating establisment. Already, a cute Chinese girl was readying her Polaroid from behind the cash register.
"Mr. Hong!" Jeb tried again. "We're part of a private dinner party..."
"You with Miz Qwan inna back?" Hong asked. "Why you not say so? Come on then! Not take all day!"
Mr. Hong hustled them along, through the narrow passageways between tables and chairs and customers who were all eating what looked like the most delicious array of food that any of them had ever seen.
Then it was past the kitchen, where more delicious sights and smells assaulted their senses, and finally up a winding wooden staircase and down a tiny hallway to a private dining room on the second floor.
"Inspector Qwan, your guests arrive!" Hong shouted as he opened the door.
"Excellent," Michelle Qwan said as she got up from a small dinner table that filled a similarly small, wood paneled room. "Jeb! Good to see you again!"
"Michelle!" Jeb hugged her. It had been a few years since he'd seen her last, but she still looked great, with long, straight black hair and dressed all in tight white. "I think you know Dr. Roper already."
Another hug and a greeting. Old times remembered.
"And this is Paige Torne," Jeb continued. "Owner and operator of The Brickyard."
"Ms. Torne," Qwan said. "I was wondering when I would finally get to meet you."
"We don't know each other," Paige said evenly.
"Not directly, but a couple of years ago a Professor Leung Chu of Shanghai made it to Vancouver pursued by ChiCom agents...
"I remember Professor Leung..."
"I escorted him down the coast to a rendevous at the Point Arena lighthouse, where he would get a new identity," Qwan said. "We never offically met..."
Paige grinned. "Okay... Good to meet you too, Inspector. Finally."
"I'm Langley, of The Agency," He shoved his way next to Qwan. "Used to be Jeb's Control before he quit us. Good to meet you. I heard about that biz with the nuke that almost made it into Seattle a couple of years back. Nasty stuff!"
"Yes, it was," Qwan said, stepping over to the no nonsense blonde woman. "And you are..."
"Gwen Sweet, SFPD," she answered.
"You a detective? Swat cop?"
"Sorry, Ms. Mountie." Sweet chuckled. "Just a motorcop out of Traffic."
Qwan looked at Jeb.
"Don't worry about her, Michelle," Jeb said. "She's already saved my ass twice today." He sat down at the table. "She also waxed a member of the Fist of Allah."
Qwan smiled. "Good enough for me, that puts you at the head of the table, Officer."
Sweet nodded and sat down, as did everybody else including Qwan. A half second later the door burst open and three waiters carrying loaded serving platters and bowls of food and pots of hot tea rushed in and began placing them in the center of the table, followed by an empty plate, a teacup and a napkin and chopsticks in front of everyone at the table.
"Hey, we didn't order..." Paige said as the waiters left, slamming the door behind them.
"That's the charm of House of Nanking," Jeb said as he reached over for some potstickers with his chopsticks. "You can order what you like, but they'll serve you what they want."
"I suggest we go ahead and eat, everybody," Qwan said. "We can't plan anything until my contact from the ICPO arrives with the hard facts of where Tai Anne Roper and Drew Thrasher are being held."
Everybody looked at their empty plates, some like Jeb hadn't eaten all day, while others like Langley and Paige couldn't resist the array of Chinese delicacies before them.
And so everyone passed the platters and began to eat. Kung Bao squid, mu shu pork, war sui duck, Nanking stuffed mushrooms...
All except Yoshiko Katsuhara Roper, who delicately sipped her cup of Oolong Tea.
"What's wrong, Dr. Roper?" Qwan asked.
"I can not eat," Yoshiko said. "And I also find it very hard to even... exist, knowing that my only daughter, who is my heart and my life, is right now being held captive --somewhere-- and is also in danger of being killed at any moment by these Fist of Allah people."
"An' wha abouth..." Paige chewed and swallowed, "what about Drew Thrasher? She's in this jam because of me! She's a captive too, and according to Jeb, there's a good chance she'll be taken to Saudi Arabia for God knows what!"
"I know the story," Qwan said evenly. "And maybe I should remind everyone here that you would all still be spinning your wheels looking for them if I hadn't called Dr. Roper."
"We're here because Dr. Roper handed you off to me," Jeb replied. "And you knew I could bring Langley and his muscle into the mix."
"You may know where Tai Anne and this Thrasher woman are," Yoshiko said. "But you are also intent on using them as bait to get this Fist of Allah!"
"Not true," Qwan said as she sipped her tea. "My intent is to get your daughter and Drew Thrasher... and Fiendly and Wenche, out of there so that we can set up a still watch and take out the Fist of Allah nice and neat."
"Sounds good to me," Langley said. "I've got an Agency REACT team ready to move. Six men with black ops training out the wahzoo and two years in the field."
"That's fine for Fist of Allah," Qwan said. "But how do we get the two hostages and the two white slavers out of there without tipping them off?"
"Depends where they're being held," Jeb replied.
"Fiendly and Wenche have your girls prisoner in their suite at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel," Qwan said. "On the 47th floor."
"Hmmmm..." Jeb pondered that. "That's a tough extraction..."
"The Mandarin Oriental takes up the top eleven floors of the First Interstate Center on Sansome," Langley said. "In fact, its only about seven blocks from where we sit. The hotel is on floors 38 through 49, its very ritzy and has a very tight security and video monitor system."
"My contact has already taken care of that, she's undercover as a maid there, and has access to all rooms," Qwan said. "What I need is some experienced operatives to help me rescue these women without causing a major firefight that will bring in hotel security or the cops."
She looked at Jeb.
"I'm good to go," Jeb said.
"Me too," Sweet said.
"Fine," Qwan said. "As soon as my contact arrives, we can work out the details. For now, I suggest Jeb and Officer Sweet show up at the Mandarin Oriental as a married couple, ready to take the Bridal Suite on 46."
Jeb looked at Sweet; she returned his Groucho leer and waggling eyebrows with a bemused smile.
"I'll check in a few minutes later as a Chinese businesswoman who got bumped from another hotel. I'll try to get a suite on 47," Qwan continued. She looked at Jeb. "Then you and your 'bride' go up to my suite and meet me and my contact, who will have the keycard to Fiendly and Wenche's suite, and know the exact location of the hostages."
"Then what?" Langley asked.
"We take them down and arrest Fiendly and Wenche. Then Jeb and Officer Sweet takes them and the girls to a safehouse."
"How about The Brickyard?" Paige asked.
"Good idea." Qwan nodded. "Meanwhile, my contact will go back to her duties and keep an eye out for Fist of Allah, while I wait in the suite. Langley, thats when you move your team into the underground parking garage and wait for my signal to move in."
"I don't like you being up in that suite alone, Michelle," Jeb said.
"I'm a big girl, Jeb." Qwan smiled. "I can take care of myself."
"Works for me!" Langley said, loading another helping of mu shu pork into a Chinese pancake.
"I have one question, Inspector," Sweet said. "What's giving you such a hard on to collar these Fist of Allah jokers?"
Michelle Qwan stayed silent, stirring her tea some more.
"Go ahead, Michelle," Jeb said. "Tell her. She deserves to know."
"Yes, we all do," Yoshiko said.
"Very well," Qwan replied. "A little over four years ago, the RCMP got involved with a drug interdiction program in Vancouver." She smiled. "Back then, homegrown marijuana was out of control, with folks growing their own weed all over town to sell across the border.
"RCMP got a tip that a house near UBC had a major pot farm inside. Lots of suspicious comings and goings. So we got a warrant and headed over there. Turns out it was really a cell for a Saudi terrorist group named Islamic Jihad. They would bring their people in on Canadian work visas, then slip them across the US border."
"Jesus," Langley whispered.
"Three mounties hit the house," Qwan continued. "There was only one man inside, and he must have seen us coming because he escaped out a basement tunnel to the alleyway. But still, he couldn't resist arming the bobbytraps he had set..."
Qwan blinked rapidly, brushing her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Two mounties hit the front door, while the third went around back. Constable Angela Hale caught a tripwire in the living room that blew her legs off at the knees. Corporal Ian McConnell rushed to help her, and tripped a device in the hallway that laid the left side of his body bare to the bone from head to foot.
"Meanwhile, I... I mean, the third mountie, made it inside, and because this third mountie had some experience with boobytraps, she was able to get her partners out of the house and call for back up."
"What happened to them?" Sweet asked.
"Constable Hale lived, she's still with the RCMP, even tho her legs are plastic and steel," Qwan said. "Ian McConnell lasted seven hours in the ICU, he was pumped full of morphine and feeling no pain. Except for the pain of knowing your body is ruined and you will dead before another day dawns."
"Michelle..." Yoshiko said softly.
"The investigation turned up one name, the man who was the single tenant of that house," Qwan said. "Ali bin Fatale... a fitting name. A Saudi national on an expired visa. He disappeared after that. But Interpol traced his bank accounts awhile back. Seems he's now using the alias of Abbas the Lion, and he is the defacto leader of the Fist of Allah."
"I understand now," Gwen Sweet said softly.
"Well I don't," Paige said. "That's a sad story, but this asshole has probably killed dozens of innocent people, the fact he killed one police officer..."
"You don't get it, because you aren't a cop!" Sweet hissed at her. "I do. And if Iwana Binder was here, she'd understand." Sweet sucked in a deep breath. "To me, a cop killer... is someone who took away my brother, or my sister. And it doesn't fucking matter if that cop works in Tuscaloosa or Timbuktu."
Qwan nodded. "Exactly so, Officer Sweet." She looked down at her half finished plate of food and pushed it away.
Just then there was a knock on the door, and a small, Asian girl in a trenchcoat entered. Jeb saw she was quite pretty, with Japanese features and a short, bowl haircut.
"And... are you Inspector Qwan?"
Qwan sniffed. "Yes."
"Hai!" the girl snapped to attention. "Officer P-2 Yukari Mei Awai! Metropolitan Tokyo Police! On special assignment with ICPO! Reporting as ordered, Ma'am!"
"Have a seat, Officer Awai," Qwan said. "We've been expecting you."
She pushed herself about the crowded room to the last empty chair and sat down, pouring herself some tea and snatching up some potstickers.
"You know the exact location of Roper and Thrasher?" Qwan asked.
"Hai!" Yukari ladled peanut sauce over the potstickers. "They're in Suite 4712, locked away in a closet inside a girlsized cage! All tied up in leather and rubber and gagged with big rubber balls!" She took big bite of a potsticker and made little yummy sounds.
"And how do we know Fist of Allah is even going to know where they are?" Jeb asked. "Or if they already know where they are and are taking them away as we speak?"
Qwan looked at Yukari, who chewed quickly and swallowed.
"Hai!" she said. "The concierge of the Mandarin Oriental is a man called Watanabe. From wire taps on his phone, I know he is in cahoots with a man named Will Tanner-Hyde, who ICPO suspects of working with Fist of Allah on numerous occasions..."
"I met Tanner-Hyde today at McClintock's offices," Jeb said. "That jibes with what I learned there."
"Watanabe-san is going to meet with this Tanner-Hyde tonight around midnight," Yukari said. "Fist of Allah will know nothing of their location until then!"
"You sure of this, Officer Awai?" Qwan asked.
Yukari nodded emphatically as she snatched another potsticker up with her chopsticks. "Hai hai! Trust me!"
***
At that very moment, Gordon Watanabe --the concierge of the Mandarin Oriental-- was a few blocks away from his post, strolling along the concourse of the Embarcadero Center, an upscale shopping mall in the Financial District.
He stopped in WaldenBooks, spotting Will Tanner-Hyde at the magazine racks, flipping through Martha Stewart Living.
"Glad you got my message," Tanner-Hyde said.
Watanabe nodded. "I'm still not sure these are the two you are looking for..."
Tanner-Hyde pulled out a photo from his jacket pocket. It was two mugshots of Fiendly and Wenche.
"That is them!" Watanabe said. "Dr. and Mrs. Smythe... Suite 4712!"
"Excellent." Tanner-Hyde tucked the photo away and withdrew an envelope. "For your trouble."
"Thank you!" He grinned, not even bothering to look at it. "I must be getting back to the hotel now."
"Fine," Tanner-Hyde said. "And Watanabe-san?"
"Yes?"
"Say anything to anybody, and I'll kill you."
Watanabe's grin faded. He nodded and took off at a fast trot back through the mall.
Will Tanner-Hyde chuckled as he paid for the magazine and headed for an exit as well. On the way, he used his cellphone to call those excitable boys of the Fist of Allah.
***
At Omar's Garage in the Potrero Hill District, a battered Dodge Caravan pulled up to the rusted doors and honked. Almost immediately, the doors trolleyed open and the van entered.
The van pulled to a halt inside the darkened, greasy environs, where several stolen cars were being parted out. Six young Saudis got out of the van. All were casually but neatly dressed, and were members of the Muslim Students for Peace over in Berkeley.
"Brothers!" Fahd the Panther shouted im Arabic as he walked to them. "You have arrived!"
The students shouted their own greetings and hugged Fahd.
"We could not ignore the Lion and the Panther in their hour of need," their leader Jafir al Bendar replied in Arabic. "We came as soon as could. But we have no weapons!"
"Fear not," Fahd said. "We have more than enough to go around."
More cheers echoed in the garage, covering the approach of their leader, Abbas the Lion.
"Get your weapons and two vehicles!" Abbas said to the assembled. "I just got the location of Fiendly and his whore."
***
"Shahin?"
Shahin the Hawk, looked up at the massive bulk of Gamal. He was by himself in a dark corner of the garage, still mourning the death of his younger brother Haytham at the hands of that infidel blonde woman earlier today.
"What?"
"We must go."
He sighed. "I am not leaving this city without killing that infidel bitch."
"I know you want that."
"The place where her husband works is closed... the police are at her house.... and she is probably in hiding."
"So?" Gamal sat down next to him. "We have time, Shahin. We have all the time in the world. We leave here today in glory with the Thrasher woman... while taking our bloody vengeance on the others. Fiendly, his whore and the Roper woman will all die today."
Shahin nodded.
"And in a week, or a month or even a year, the woman who killed Haytham will show herself, and we will be waiting for her."
Shahin sniffed and wiped his face with his shirt sleeve. "Thank you, Gamal."
Gamal thumped him on the back and hugged him.
***
Fiendly clicked on his cellphone at the tail end of the first, trilling chirp. He was parked just off Market waiting for the right time to cruise on over to The Brickyard for the fair Jessica.
"Yes?"
"It's Grackel. There's been a change of plans. Meet me in McLaren Park by the cross. I'll have the goods with me."
"Any problems?"
"Just be there." He clicked off. What a charming fellow, Fiendly thought as he started up his Towncar and quickcalled The Wenche.
"Yeah?" she answered. She seemed out of breath.
"Everything alright over there?"
"Peachy fucking keen," she replied.
"Good, I'll be a bit longer than planned. Hold the fort, eh?"
She giggled. "You Fiend!"
"Wenche!" he replied, smiling as he clicked off.
Fannikins Wenche put down the phone. She had changed into a tan miniskirt of buttersoft Italian leather, white spandex crop top and high heeled knee boots. She thought she looked kicky as she strode back to her project, which consisted of zipping Tai Anne Roper in a black, neoprene leg sheath that matched her strait jacket.
Tai was on the white carpet of the living room of the suite, groaning as The Wenche used all her strength to pull the industrial strength zipper up her legs and over her rounded bottom.
"For chrissakes, Roper," The Wenche hissed. "Suck it in!"
With a final sigh of relief, she locked it off, then pulled the loops at the base of the strait jacket through the matching divots in the sheath. She ran a heavy neoprene belt through the loops and buckled it tight enough to make Tai squeak and compress her tummy even more. She then padlocked it.
"There!" The Wenche stood up with arms and legs akimbo and looked at her artwork.
Tai Anne was now a shiny black worm, with no arms or legs. Only her head and her mane of black hair was free.
"I like you like this, Roper," The Wenche growled. "Once I get you home, I'll run a tube up your cunt and put you on an all liquid diet and make this permanent."
Tai gurgled and shook her head.
"I'll make you my worm, with one more little modification..." The Wenche straddled Tai's chest, sitting hard on her and mashing her neoprened breasts. She jammed a wide, hard rubber ring gag into her mouth and strapped it tight.
"There." The Wenche hissed. "Now I have your tongue... without that bitchy mouth."
She hiked up her leather skirt over her hips. She wasn't wearing panties. She then slipped her cunt over Tai's gagged mouth and sat on her face, enjoying several more orgasms as Tai's tongue went to work.
***
"Are you sure you want to do this, luv?" Kira McElroy asked.
"Yes," Jessica McClintock replied. "I want to be done before Paige gets back."
"Awwwrighty," Kira sighed. They were in the infirmary of The Brickyard, with Jessica lying on a bed while Kira let a unit of Jessica's precious blood pump out an IV line in her arm to a sealed, glass bottle used by hospitals and blood banks.
"That's one unit," Kira said.
"That's enough," Jessica sighed. "For both of them."
Kira expertly disconnected the IV line and pulled the needle from Jessica's arm. She swabbed the needlestick with alcohol and taped a cottonball to the wound, making her bend her arm to keep it tight.
Jessica sipped a glass of orange juice and watched as Kira went over to the beds where the bruised and bloodied Iwana Binder and Kunta Kintare slept.
Kira hung the unit of blood on an IV stand and set up a dual flow monitor. She tapped a vein on Kunta's arm and inserted a sealed IV needle, then did the same for Iwana.
Making sure the twin IV lines weren't kinked, she activated the monitor so that both Iwana and Kunta would get precisely a half unit each of Jessica McClintock's blood.
"They're both here because of me," Jessica whispered. "Its the least I can do for them."
***
What will become of me? Drew Thrasher thought.
She contemplated her life while locked away alone in Fiendly and Wenche's girlcage in the closet/vault of their suite. She was still corsetted, not to mention booted and gloved in black gloss latex, but she was also handcuffed and shackled with the chains for each run though the bars of the girlcage, so she could barely twitch with her hands behind her back and her feet together.
This time a few weeks ago I was in London, Drew thought. Doing a special on the Saudi Royals. There was Pulitzer talk after that. Then I headed to Miami to investigate a fresh lead on Matt McClintock.
Which is when my world turned upside down.
Suddenly I was dealing with White Slavers and a class of people whose only interest seems to be in keeping a girl bound, gagged and hurting.
Drew let a single tear course down her cheek. The fact she wasn't at this moment gagged with a rubber ball made her current predicament seem like Christmas morning.
If I never get loose, she thought. If my fate is to be sex slave for the rest of my life, then at least I will have my Tai Anne...
A selfish thought, Drew admitted. But a true one I cannot deny.
She turned and craned her neck as the door to the vault clicked open. She saw The Wenche standing there with one hand on a cocked hip as she let Tai Anne crawl in, inching along like a worm on shoulders and knees, her mouth open and distended by a ring gag.
"Mistress..." Drew cried.
"Hush, slavecunt," The Wenche said. "Or you can be gagged, too."
Drew kept her mouth shut as Tai Anne crawled slowly but surely across the carpet and into the cage as The Wenche held the door for her.
It clanged shut behind her as Tai found her spot in the corner.
"In a little while, this will all be over," The Wenche said to them. "Then our new lives together will truly begin."
She blew her captive girls a kiss and then strode out, locking the door behind her.
In the darkness, Drew called out. "Tai?"
A grunt.
"Come to me, dearest. Come to me and rest yourself."
Drew heard a shifting and grunting in the small cage, and finally felt the warm neoprene that was Tai Anne's second skin slip next to hers. She felt Tai's head resting now on her own outthrust, naked breasts and sighed with contentment.
Drew kissed Tai's forehead. "I love you, Tai Anne."
Chapter Thirty-Eight