Quickly, she broke herself out of her mild daze, pulling herself up to her feet and grabbing her weapon securely against her. A quick look up at the broken window and the weapon muzzles suddenly protruding from it and she was off, limping and running down the midnight-deserted inner city streets, leaving several trails of blood behind to mark her passing.

Running steps and weapons fire came inexorably closer as Kael stumbled her way down the damp city streets, scraping her palms raw against the crumbling cement as her leg intermittently gave way, dumping her onto the pavement.

“C’mon, Kael, run,” she whispered to herself, beads of sweat popping out over her eyes and lips. “You’ve been through worse before and came out just fine on the other end.”

The gray haze of too many sleepless nights, too much opium, and blood loss threatened to take her under with it as she stumbled to the ground once again. Jumping back to her feet, she reached down and jabbed a finger directly into the bullet hole in her shin.

Agony sliced through her like razor wire, jerking her back from the precipice of semi-consciousness she had been about to fall into. Her eyes darted back and forth along the narrow street, looking for escape routes as she ran, just barely keeping ahead of the quickly approaching armed mob.

A tiny alley off to the left caught her vision and she darted into it, almost slipping in the accumulated water and debris littering the pavement. The alley stank of rotting food and the slimy mess squelched around her bare feet, turning her already nauseated stomach.

“Adapt and overcome,” she muttered to herself, trying to make herself as invisible and silent as possible. The water and sodden garbage would serve to hide her blood trail, giving her just a bit more breathing room.

Easing back against one dirty, wet and crumbling brick wall, she peered carefully around the corner, ducking back quickly as she caught a glimpse of the onrushing men. She pulled back completely into the shadows as they flew past and watched as a sputtering streetlamp gilded their features in gold.

Her blood froze in her veins.

“Geraldo, you stinking son of a whore. You betrayed me.” Her lips peeled back in a death’s head smile. “You’d better light a few more candles to the Virgin tonight, my friend. Cause you’re gonna need her help where you’re goin’.”

Turning as quickly as she was able, Kael darted out the other end of the alleyway, making a complete circle so as to briefly confuse her pursuers.

Then she made another circle through intersecting alleys and headed back down the main thoroughfare, listening closely for any hint that the enemy was getting closer.

A loud shout echoed off the dank walls looming over the streets, causing Kael to shoot a quick look over her left shoulder, trying to pinpoint the sound. As a consequence, her next step was halted, unannounced, when she came into contact with a slight, warm body.

Her body stiffened as if galvanized and she brought her bloodied hands up in a defensive posture as she whipped her head around, stringy tendrils of her hair plastering themselves to her face.

Realizing that only a slight, if beautiful, Asian woman was the only thing impeding her path, she pressed her open hands against the woman’s narrow shoulders and pushed.

The woman didn’t move. Not the slightest inch.

Kael shoved harder, with the same result. It was like trying to push a boulder socketed into the earth.

“Come with me,” the woman said serenely, her English barely accented.

“Get outta my way!” Kael snarled, pushing away.

Her eyes widened in shock as she found herself helplessly restrained by a woman half her size.

“You will die like a dog in an alley if you do not come with me now,” the woman said, her intense stare cutting through Kael’s drug and adrenaline-induced haze. Her voice was calming, serene.

“Who are you?”

The woman didn’t answer. Instead, she looked past Kael’s shoulder. “You must make your choice now. I have no wish to lose my life with yours.”

A short second later, Kael heard the shouting of the men trailing her. She looked back at the strange woman still holding her. It was like looking into the surface of an utterly still pool of water. She felt all resistance leave her.

The woman smiled, the expression lighting up her face and making it radiant.

Shifting her grip to Kael’s elbow, the woman gently ushered the tall American into the building from which she’d appeared. The door closed almost silently behind them.

Kael stiffened as she heard the sound of feminine giggling from above. Immediately in front of her was a long set of steps ascending into an unknown part of the building in which she now found herself. At the top of those steps, young, painted Asian women giggled behind the hems of their colorful robes.

The American turned to the smaller woman, her eyes again wide. “A whorehouse? You took me into a whorehouse?”

If the Asian was perturbed by Kael’s question, she certainly didn’t show it. “Safety is often found in the last place one would think to look,” she replied.

Kael shook her head in amazement as the women above giggled once again. “Who are you?” she asked again.

“I am Mistress of this place. Welcome to my home, Kael Androstos.”

Pulling the woman up from her formal bow, Kael bared her teeth. “How do you know my name,” she demanded, her grip like iron about the thin, almost frail, woman’s upper arm. “How!?!”

“I know many things about you, your name the least significant among them,” the woman replied serenely, not showing a hint of pain from the American’s tight grip. “Please follow me.”

Shrugging off Kael’s hand as if it were but a minor annoyance, the woman gathered up her robe and began to walk up the steps, leaving the American to follow, bewildered, behind her.

When they got to the top of the stairs, the woman issued a terse set of orders to her employees in a dialect Kael, an expert on many foreign languages, didn’t understand. A moment later, several of the women scampered back down the steps, bearing towels and water which they used to wipe away any traces of the American’s passage.

The woman led Kael through a myriad of rooms which the drug lord guessed were part of the living quarters of the massive pleasure house. Everywhere they walked, groups of smiling, giggling women would follow their passage with sparkling almond eyes.

As they were just about to enter the largest of the rooms, which looked to Kael to be a formal sitting room, a loud pounding was heard from the downstairs door, the rear exit which Kael had been ushered through just moments before.

Her savior quickly grasped Kael by the elbow and urged her into the sitting room. The floor was made of highly polished wood and a simple white rug lay beneath a low, long table. The two women walked quickly to the northwest corner of the room, where the older woman released Kael’s arm and bent down, somehow grasping some hidden lip and pulling up a section of the flooring, exposing a dark space below. “Hurry inside. It is damp and small, but it will keep you safe. Go. Now.”

“I’m not … .” Kael protested.

She was interrupted by a louder pounding and yelled obscenities from the other side of the door.

“Now. Please.”

Nodding, the American jumped down into the hole, her feet hitting the ground quickly. Half of her body was still above the flooring, and she carefully, and painfully, shimmied into the space.

Tight, indeed.

She sat there, knees pulled up to her chin, her head bowed, as the flooring was lowered over her, encasing her in total darkness.

“Great,” she muttered, her breathing loud in the tiny confines of the crawlspace.

Once the American was sufficiently hidden, the woman dusted off her hands and made her way back through the house and down the stairs. Taking a moment to make sure her appearance was nothing short of perfect, she opened the door, smiling serenely.

At the sight of her late night visitor, she bowed deeply. “I am honored that you have chosen to visit my unworthy home, Ming Dao. What might I do to assist you this evening?”

“I want the bitch. I know you have her.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you, Ming Dao. If you are looking for a woman, I have many that might please you, Most Honored One.”

Ming Dao lifted his hand to slap the woman, then appeared to think better of the action. “You know damn well who I’m talking about. The blue-eyed American bitch. I know she’s in here. Her trail leads right to your door.”

“I assure you, Honored Guest, I have not seen the person of whom you speak. You may, of course, feel free to search my home, if it pleases you.” So saying, she stepped away from the door, one robe covered arm bidding entrance to the Chinese drug lord and his men.

With a grunt, Ming Dao gestured to his men, and all pushed past the tiny woman and into the vast home.

When everyone had reached the top of the stairs, the drug lord motioned his men off in different directions while he remained behind. “If it pleases you,” the woman said, bowing again, “allow me the honor of serving you while your men carry out their work.”

“That …would be acceptable,” Ming Dao replied, allowing his ‘host’ to lead him into the formal sitting room, where pots of tea, mugs, and Chinese delicacies already awaited the pair.

As the two seated themselves, another woman entered the room, clothed in formal robes, and began serving the two, pouring tea and arranging the finger foods as the sounds of a room to room search echoed through the cavernous building.

From her spot beneath it all, Kael struggled against the cramps that were threatening her contorted body. The bullet wound throbbed and stung. She gritted her teeth against the pain. With her sensitive hearing, she struggled to pick up the conversation taking place almost directly over her head, but the trap door had been seated so perfectly that only the tiniest of unintelligible sounds floated down to her from above.

She sighed softly in frustration before almost blowing her cover when something soft and twitchy brushed against the skin of her hand. In a lighting move, she lashed out and caught her visitor, knowing what it was by the shape of its body, even in the total darkness. Her lip curled in revulsion. God, do I hate rats.

A quick twist of her fingers and the rat was no more.

Dropping the corpse next to her body, she wiped her hand on her dirty, tattered pants and willed that none of the deceased’s family would come investigate the homicide.

Totally oblivious to the object of his search hiding almost below his ample posterior, Ming Dao finished the last of his tea and placed the mug down with an impudent clatter. Just as he was about to speak, one of his men came into the room and bowed. “The search is complete, sir. We have not found the woman.”

Ming Dao slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the plates and cups. “What do you mean you haven’t found her? She is here! Search again!”

“But sir … .”

“Search again!!! Keep searching until you find her! Is that clear? Do you understand me?!?”

The man bowed again. “As you wish, sir.”

12 May 1991. Very early morning. Chinese Pleasure House. Chengdu, China.

It was well into the hours of the early morning when Ming Dao was finally persuaded to give up the search. His men had searched the whorehouse from top to bottom, bottom to top, and hadn’t found anything. All the women had been questioned, several times each, without any leads.

Ming Dao’s face was flushed brick with rage.

He stood nose to nose with the petite Asian woman, his entire body trembling with barely suppressed anger. “That …woman …was …here!” he enunciated clearly from between clenched teeth.

The woman remained supremely unfazed. “If she was, she is here no longer. Your men have searched every inch of my home, Ming Dao. There is no one here.”

“You know she was here! That door can only be opened from the inside. Tell me where you sent her or I will burn this place to the ground and you and all your whores with it!”

The woman smiled, then bowed her head. “This home, these women and, of course, myself are yours to do with as you will, Honorable Ming Dao. If it pleases you to burn all that we are, it is not my place to stop you. But, I assure you, I cannot tell you what I do not know.”

Ming Dao looked deep into the eyes of the woman, someone he had known for years upon years. He could detect no sign of malfeasance in her calm stare. But, then again, he never could.

His fists balled in frustration, but, in the end, he was forced to go with the inevitable. Gathering up his men, the drug lord shooed them down the stairs and out the door. “My men will be watching this place very carefully,” he warned. “If that whore is found within a mile of here, I’ll follow through on my threat. Do not be so complacent as to think that I won’t.”