Chapter Four – Bad Rebecca Hunting

Six Months ago, Haidho, Sarkhan

"...want you to come to Bangkok and work for the business," said Cheong in Chinese, adjusting his tie. "We're going to diversify, open up a chain of restaurant bars all throughout the tourist resorts on the coasts. You can help with the accounting so I can hide where the money's really coming from. We'll call it the G Spot Cafe."

He stopped pacing and glared at the great white shark mounted on the back wall of the living room, the glassy eyes were filmed over with dust – some of the teeth had fallen out. A gecko, a live one, was perched near the fin and staring back at him.

Liling looked down as was proper for a Sarkhanese woman. She was seated on the corner cushion of the couch wrapped in a white kimono. Her brow wrinkled, "I cannot leave sister."

"She's insane," Cheong shook his head. "I'm told the servants do not allow their children up to the house anymore."

"I am her sanity," Liling said. She brushed aside her long lustrous hair. "My sister needs me. And I do not want to work for you anymore."

Cheong snapped his fingers, "You're wasted here in this chòugǒushǐof a house. You owe me. I took care of both of you didn't I? Just like the head of the Aisin Gioro should. You both got to go to Europe, you both went to the best colleges in the states..."

"You made me fuck American politicians," said Liling sharply. She looked him in the face then.

"At least you're good for something," said Cheong crudely. "Not like Lifeng. What is she doing right now?"

"Pruning the bougainvillea - again," said Liling wearily. "Not that there's much left, she clips it and clips it till there's nothing left but a stump in the ground. Then she starts on another bush."

Cheong sat down on the opposite end of the couch and lit a cigarette. "Why are you different?"

"What do you mean?" asked Liling, though she knew what he meant.

"Four generations of insanity and blood. And it's always the women." Cheong let the smoke drift slowly out of his mouth. "Have you ever killed?"

"No," she looked away.

"Did you ever go fishing?" said Cheong cautiously. "Ayi me to go. She hated the sight of me."

"I was about four," she told him. "Auntie Lijuan took us out, she wanted to see how we reacted. Find out if it was in our blood. We went out and met up with four other boats, I remember the man in charge of those boats, his name was Luak and he scared me."

"It was towards the end, so we sailed around for two days before they found one around evening time. Probably one of the last refugee boats out of the Mekong Delta. There must have been over a hundred people crammed on the boat trying to get to Pulau Bidong. One of Luak's boats tried to pull up alongside but the Vietnamese threw torches back at them."

"Ayi grew angry then, she shouted that no mercy was to be shown. The Vietnamese boat was a just a wooden hulk, barely afloat. We had the big motorboat. So she powered up the engines and rammed them, we just smashed their craft in two. There were so many people in the water. They were all screaming."

Liling closed her eyes. "Then Luak's men started pulling people out of the water. We weren't saving them though, they were cutting off heads: men, women, children. Ayi let Lifeng roll the heads off the side of the boat into the bloody water. Lifeng was laughing, she couldn't understand why I was crying. Ayi was disappointed with me"

"Luak's dead," said Cheong, he was looking at his wristwatch. Lifeng glided in from a side door unnoticed. She was holding a pair of garden shears.

"You never listen to me," snapped Liling, her face flushed. "Why the hell did you ask if you weren't going to listen to me? What happened to Luak then if that's all you care about."

"He was working for Chin," he said. Liling hissed and her hand slid down the front of her kimono to cover her groin.

"'Don't worry," said Cheong. "I won't ask you to screw Chin anymore. There won't be any more business dealings with him anyway. The Russian mafia got upset with him over in Roanapur and blew him up a couple of months ago."

"Luak and his men tried to take out some mercenaries working for the Russians called the Lagoon Company. They got slaughtered."

Cheong ground out his cigarette in the ashtray and stood up. "Way it's told – all of Luak's men were killed by a Chinese bitch named Levy or maybe it was Revy. Almost sounds like a relative of ours."

Liling stood up aghast. "Revy? Don't say that name!"

"What about Revy?" said Lifeng.

--

"It has to be her," said Lifeng. Her red tinted eyes glittered with an unaccustomed clarity. "How many women can there be called Revy who are gunslingers?"

"We don't even know if she's from America," protested Liling as they went down the stairs into the basement of the house. "Brother said she was Chinese."

"You promised!" Lifeng grabbed her sister's arm as they stopped at the closed door. She was getting hysterical. "We have to go to Roanapur, the hell with Bai Ji-Shin! We cannot let this woman live. She has to die so Ayican be avenged! Not one day longer!"

"Stop it," shouted Liling. She turned her attention to the dusty wall panel, punched in a sequence of numbers. The door to the armory opened up with a metallic clang.

"You really got brother upset, " said Liling as she walked between the gun racks. Lifeng cried out in protest. "He thinks you need special help. You need to go back on your medication, you need to get back in shape. And you need to practice. I'll go alone and find out if "Revy" is the one."

Liling zipped up the duffel bag, she had filled it with weaponry, guns, knives, whatever seemed appropriate. She paused and then hugged her sister tight. "Let me check this out first. I'll go in disguise, just like Great-Grandma used to do."

"You can't go alone," whispered Lifeng swaying. "Don't do anything on your own."

"'I'm not going alone," said Liling with a smile. "I know a wizard."

--

Four months ago, Roanapur, Thailand

"Xianyu, how do I look?" said Rotton. "First impressions are important!"

"Absolutely fabulous," said Liling, aka Xianyu, now speaking in English as they slogged through the muck alongside the road. Their ride had broken down three miles outside the city and they had been forced to walk the remainder in the pouring rain. It was the end of the rainy season.

Rotton did not look good, the trenchcoat was hardly appropriate. They both were soaked to the bone. Liling had swapped clothes with one of her Sarkhanese servants, so she looked like an ordinary girl going to the big city. The duffel bag with the weaponry grew more and more cumbersome with each step. Rotton's bag was slung on the other painfully sore shoulder. Rotton had not offered to carry either the entire trek to the city limits.

"There's the bridge," said Rotton pointing. "Do you see the noose? They say that if you pass underneath it then you are automatically marked as a reckless one. That's me, I'm a reckless one."

"Whatever," said Liling shortly. As they crossed over the bridge, they had to squeeze up against the railing as a brightly colored lorry rumbled across. They were sprayed with foul smelling mud and water

"So," said Rotton flashing a brilliant smile as he shook out the sides of his trench-coat. "Where are we staying tonight honey? You got money right? Get us a place and some food Xianyu. Then you should immediately find a job."

"Yes sir," said Liling ducking her head as yet another vehicle doused her with oily smelly water.

"Nǎozi-yǒubìng– moron!" she muttered.

--

"I'll give you a try Ms. Xianyu," said Bao scowling. He ran his finger along the thin mustache he sported. "Waitresses tend not to last longer than a day at the Yellow Flag, usually they decide working upstairs at the Sloppy Swing is a safer job."

"Yes sir," she said bowing. It was early morning, and the bar was empty.

"Some things you should know," Bao leaned back against the counter. "Never leave the counter, the customers order up. It's too damn dangerous to serve the tables. The clientele will chew you up and spit you out."

"You see or hear anything suspicious, let me know immediately. You hear a gunshot, drop. Cover your head and don't look up. This thing," here he kicked the bar, "is reinforced with steel plating. You'll be safe back here. Oh, and never, ever ask questions – small talk is a bad thing at the Yellow Flag. Don't ask who they are, what they are, where they're going; you'll end up floating in the bay in pieces."

"It sounds very exciting sir," she said.

"Oh, it's more exciting than you can imagine," Bao said dryly. "You make it a week, and I'll give you a raise, a few extra baht, but one nonetheless. One other thing...'

"Yes?"

"I don't serve appetizers or snacks, but there are peanuts. Only one customer gets them, otherwise she whines like a sack of crap. Her name's Revy."

--

"What the hell did this bitch just serve us?" said Revy once she stopped coughing. "I know I said cheap but this taste like fermented choi dog piss. I'm not some trick bitch from Bushwick. Bao, gimme something better."

"Brook blended whiskey," shouted Bao over the din. "It's cheap. You and the nun are behind on your tab – again."

"I quit," said Liling abruptly. She dropped the rag on the bar top. Rotton gestured to her from where he lounged at a table with another man, but she ignored him and made for the exit. She had to sidestep a man, a stringy blond-haired Westerner dressed like a cowboy. She wrinkled her lip in disgust.

--

Liling adjusted the night scope and waited. She lay prone, stomach down on the moonlit rooftop opposite the shabby warehouse by the bay. The Heckler and Koch PSG-1 had been a favorite of Aunt Lijuan's. It was true what Cheong had said, she had never killed – but she could think of no better time to follow in the footsteps of her ancestors. If this would free her sister of the obsession it was worth becoming a murderer.

Four people had entered the warehouse: three women and a man. The boat at the dock was no longer there. The only sound was the murmur of the waves against the beach.

Her eyes fluttered and with an effort she shook her head. She checked the scope again. After a time she relaxed too much and her head slumped slowly down onto the tarpaper.

Gunfire crashed and echoed in a staccato wave. Yelling in shock she rolled away from the edge covering her head. The propped up rifle fell over the edge with a clatter.

Liling scrambled back to the edge and peered over. There were bodies sprawled on the metal stairs leading up to the second floor. A man was backing down the steps, a mini gun cradled in his arms. Bullets cracked and whined.

Two women sprinted through the parking lot below seeking cover. Liling blinked, the smaller one carried an impossible large chainsaw that suddenly snarled and burst into action. An explosion made her duck for cover and debris rained around her.

Liling rolled for cover behind a rooftop duct. Men ran past her in a wave, most of them carrying AK-47s, as they poured past her hiding spot. They lined up on the rooftop edge and laid down a barrage on the now burning warehouse of the Black Lagoon Company.

She barely made the stairwell, when she was flung down the stairs. Heavy explosions rocked the building. Some kind of heavy weaponry had been used upon the rooftop where she had been waiting. She heard shrieks and curses behind her.

Liling made it out and made a blind run across the lot through the smoke and confusion. Suddenly there was no footing beneath her, before she could scream she had landed heavily and sprawled face first in the mud flats below the dock.

The night sky now filled with billowing red tinged clouds of smoke. The gunfire continued and then began to taper off. There was a sudden rending scream and crash of metal as the warehouse collapsed followed by a abrupt silence. The sound of powerful engines began to throb in the air, a boat was coming in fast over the bay. At that prompting and with a groan the woman rolled over and sat up. She took the Sig Sauer P6 out of the holster and waited.

More explosions rocked the night. She could hear shouting, the roll of running feet on the wooden slats above. Four people sprinted wildly down the pier, the one called Revy bringing up the rear. They were making for the boat as it swung into the dock.

Liling exhaled and raised the gun with both hands. She started to stand up, coming out of the shadows below. The light glinted off the barrel.

A gun barked once. Liling went spinning into the ground with a cry. Revy had shot her without even looking.

--

"I had to try," said Liling to her sister. She sat down with a grimace. "She caught me in the side. She's too good. I'm sorry."

"You should be," said Lifeng with venom. "How dare you do this without me? Of course you failed."

The door to the room was flung open with a crash, forceful enough to dislodge the great white shark mounted on the wall, it fell and split apart on the masonry. Cheong lunged forward and grabbed Liling. His fist crashed into her face.

Lifeng examined her fingernails. Cheong didn't stop until Liling lay crumpled at his feet.

"You stupid bitches," Cheong shouted once he had caught his breath. "What the hell were you thinking? You went to Roanapur, did you now? Do you realize what would have happened if Bai Ji-Shin Chang had even the slightest inkling you were within his grasp? Do you realize what he would do? As long as we keep out of his way we're safe, but if you go sticking your head in the dragon's mouth expect to get eaten!"

He spit at Lifeng and stormed out cursing.

"I'm bleeding, Lifeng," gasped Liling through her torn lips, clutching her side. "Please help me..."

Lifeng stirred and knelt down. She cradled her sister.

"Lili," she crooned. "Lili. I know you do all the thinking for me, but you didn't think this time. And you paid for it. We can't outfight this woman, so let's outsmart her."

Liling nodded weakly. "Let's get rid of Big Brother also. But please, help me. Now."