Hyeonverse: Kissed By Darkness

"I showed up to work with an umbrella one time," Sunan groaned. "Now, I'm that guy."

Cormac laughed.

"Rejoice, my pretties!" Baby Lee entered the restaurant, making heads turn. "Spring is here, Persephone has rejoined the living!"

"Baby Lee!" Chai brimmed with joy. "Welcome back, babe!"

"How's Laos?" I called her over.

"Sweet, soft, and lazy as usual." She leered at Cormac. "Well hello, stranger."

"Cormac." The old smarmy kissed her hand, pulling up a chair for her. "Cormac Peters at your service."

"Oh, sweetheart, I know your name. You're all the boss ever talks about, day in--"

"You set up a meeting?" I cut her off.

"Oh, yeah boss, they'll be in Luang Pragang on the 14th."

Cormac looked at me.

"Chinese businessmen," I said. "They operate the Boten casinos."

"Did my baby girl deliver or what?" Chai grinned.

"It's party time!" Baby Lee signalled a waitress. "Inthira, bring out the champagne!"

Soon, we were feasting on the bubbly, laughing as the night fell.

All except Cormac. His eyes were locked on Chai and Baby Lee's flutes. Pig on a stick, how could I have been so stupid?!

"Well, lady and lads, I have to call it a night." He got up. "Sunan and I have a couple vampires to hunt down tomorrow."

"Y..." I stuttered. "You don't want another drink?"

"Nah, you go ahead, Cassiel." Ire burned behind his smile. "Enjoy your evening, you've earned this, Cassiel."

One, two. My skin crawled, Cormac only used my name this many times when he was bullshitting or really upset.

"Let's go, Sunan. Mischief is afoot!" Surrounding my henchman with his enormous arm, he winked us a goodbye and they joined the early night birds strolling down Soi Yamato.

"Your friend is really something," Chai said.

"He knows."

"What?"

"You were right, Chai. I was playing with fire and I just got burned." I pointed at the flutes they were holding.

"That 'P' doesn't stand for 'Pattaya'. It stands for 'Peters'. Those are the surviving two from a set of six I gave him for his wedding. His wife got them in the divorce."

"Oh, crap!"

ASK ME ABOUT MY WEEKEND IN LAOS

Awkward glances skittered across the table.

"Sunan's number keeps going to voicemail." Chai finally put his phone down. "For days now."

"Why did you have to keep those flutes?" Hercule mumbled, still in shock from learning about the two marriages I had sabotaged.

"They were my presents for my brother!" I said. "Not her!"

He shook his head.

"The attack on the Phrom Daen Road compound last night," Baby Lee said. "The cops freed the girls I needed to sweeten the Boten deal. Do you think Cormac had something to do with it?"

Everyone looked deflated, I had caused this mess; they were looking up to me to fix it. Like Caspian, holding onto my hand and hoping I'd take him with me to safety. I would not fail him again.

"Baby Lee, check your ftp; I have opened a Malaysian dossier of potential interests and I need you to study their financial viability. I have already channeled the funds through a shell company. Chai, it's uncharted territory, so I want you to shadow her on the ground."

"I have a security detail," Baby Lee objected.

"Hercule, I've been toying with retiring to this quaint little cottage I saw in Istanbul many years ago. I purchased it last night, strictly off the books, and put aside a couple millions for its restoration. I want you to take charge."

"You're running away?" Chai burst.

"You're afraid of one guy?" Hercule boiled.

"There is no way on earth I'm leaving," Baby Lee brooded.

I took a long look at them. Baby Lee had never held a gun in her life. Chai, all heart and fists, but zero military training. And Hercule, going on sixty but looking eighty, walking with a limp and a shaky hand that couldn't hold a Uzi steady.

"You're not listening!" I whispered. "All the stories I told you about Cormac over the years and you never paid any attention. I know how my brother operates, he won't strike here where I'm at my strongest, with so much collateral damage. This is personal, this is payback; I ruined his life. He will want to stare me in the eye when he kills me and I'll be dead before I get you guys killed too."

"That's our choice..." Chai mumbled.

"No, it's mine."

"Boss, I'm not gonna sit around waiting to read your obituary," Baby Lee insisted. "We're practically family!"

"And that is why I want you out of harm's way. Sanga is flying in from Bangkok to take over here. Fat Phuri will cover the girls we lost. This is done!"

"Where are you at your weakest?" Hercule said.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"You said Cormac won't strike at your strongest."

Baby Lee looked at us and read my mind: "Oh, khîi!"

She punched the compound blueprints in her laptop. "Luang Prabang. Nothing but woods all around. We have six guards, no CCTV and the perimeter is still being built. Our backup servers are there!"

"He must've heard you'll be there on the 14th," Chai said.

"M... maybe if I hire ten, no fifteen locals," Baby Lee stuttered. "There's loads of war veterans sitting around with AKs and rocket launchers..."

"I can bring in five legionnaires from Penang on the red-eye." Hercule added.

"And there's these Australian former S.A.S. wankers who drink here all the time," Chai chimed in.

"Guys!" I got up and raised my voice; my throat punished me for it. "This is settled, pack and go, please. For me?"

"We're not kids anymore, boss." Chai said. "I turned 31 last April!"

"And I want you to live to see 91."

"The Boten deal is my baby, I'm not gonna sit it out..." Baby Lee's voice faltered.

"You will, baby girl; if you love me, you will."

She got up and hugged me, crying: "It's not fair. This isn't fair!"

I kissed her forehead and managed to free myself from her in time to catch Chai standing there, his eyes growing wet. Fuck.

"Keep her safe, Chai," I shook his hand, but he drew me in for a hug as well. Shit...

"Always, boss."

My kids would be okay far, far away from me.

Hercule was waiting for his turn, I guess this was a thing we did now. Bloody hell, what a buncha drama queens I had assembled.

"C'mere, you absolute geezard," I crushed him in a bear hug.

"À bientôt, mon ami."

Now, my eyes were getting moist too. Pig on a fucking stick.

<<<<<>>>>>

My plane landed at the Luang Prabang International Airport on Saturday, August the 13th.

The gorgeous Kmer clerk handed me my papers, wondering if I was a movie star as I strolled out with my French legionnaires and Australian former S.A.S..

An athletic woman in her forties awaited by the cars with the rest of my entourage, running a function check on her Iranian KH-2002 Khaybar assault rifle.

Her angry slavic eyes glared at me.

"Irina Ivanova, my would-be assassin," I smirked. What the fuck was she doing here?

"Where are my children?" she growled. "Where?"

One of the legionnaires handed me his phone.

"Do you like my present?" Hercule spoke from the other side of the globe.

"I told you to stay out of this!"

"I can't hear too well from my left ear. Car bomb, back in 85."

"Just let her children go, man what are you doing? 'No women, no kids'."

"No. The bitch killed my brother Rémi, this is her penitence."

"What happened to 'hate is mind poison'?"

"I changed my mind. She killed one of my brothers, now she'll get to save another. I'll check in every two hours, put her on."

I handed Irina the phone and her stoic facade crumbled.

"Please, don't hurt my babies. Yes, I'll... I'll protect him, just... I will. I promise."

This was personal for Hercule.

"I am sorry, I had no idea he..."

"Fuck you," she grunted and a legionnaire touched his FAMAS rifle.

I wondered which of them had been assigned to kill her when this was all over.

"Get in, we ride together," I opened the nearest car door. "I want you to dazzle me with your Stervyatnik exploits."

"I'm not your friend." She climbed in. "I kill your buddy Cormac before he kills you, and you get me my children back."

"Fair enough."

Security had been upgraded when our motorcade arrived at the compound in the outskirts. Awang, my new guy in Laos and Baby Lee's stand in was waiting at the entrance:

"Tomorrow's meeting was postponed, customs found drugs in their luggage."

This had to be Cormac's handiwork. We pulled a similar trick on a delegate in Panama, back in '79.

"But I have something for you, delivered at the front door."

I was led upstairs.

He was sitting at a table on the spacious balcony, enjoying an Amaretto Sour. Two guards with AK-47s leaned against the concrete edge, surveying him as he surfed the internet on a laptop. He looked different, as if his soul was smiling. I hadn't seen that twinkle in his eyes since the Five Days of Vicky.

"Cormac?"

"Yo." He nodded, pausing to look at my female bodyguard.

"You've met Irina. The Paris ambush in '85? The prostitute in the fur coat? Don't ask me how I got her."

He and I exchanged a look. The same tall, toned physique as Vicky, the same somber demeanor. Did the Soviets build these women on an assembly line?

"Privet," Cormac greeted her. She flashed him a scowl.

Shrugging, Cormac called me over: "C'mere, you have to see this."

I hesitated. How did he get a laptop? Where was Sunan?

"What?" he asked.

"N... nothing, I'm just surprised you're here."

"I heard you say you'd be here on the 14th," he flipped the laptop to face me. "I found the guys who have been killing your crew."

I had forgotten about those assholes.

"Meet Cassidy, a rising karaoke talent," he opened a teenage girl's Myspace page. Captain Fantastic cartoon background and theme song:

"He's terrific, he's tremendous

He's prolific, he's portentous"

Caspian used to love Saturday morning shows too.

"She and her Mom were in Bangkok when Hassan bought it."

"She filmed the hit!"

"No, but she filmed her Mom tasting a nice larb gai chicken salad on the promenade while Hassan and his crew strolled behind, headed to soi cowboy."

He paused the video, grabbed a screenshot and pasted it on GIMP, then zoomed in on the image editing program.

Amid the street crowd there was a tall, black haired woman in her forties checking an outside menu. A hideous diagonal scar crossed her face.

"Meet your bad guy." Cormac pointed at her.

"That's her?"

"That's her."

"That's it? One person? Who's she?"

"Don't you recognize her?" He smiled. "That's Vicky."

Irina closed in to look.

"Are you sure?" I asked. How could he tell at such low resolution? His fingers traced the line of her lips on the screen.

"I'm sure."

I had spent twenty years trying to find her and he just bumped into her straight outta the gate? This couldn't be a coincidence.

"Why now? Why here?"

"Well, she botched the attempt on your life twenty years ago. The KGB wants her dead, so maybe she's trying to earn some brownie points with them."

"The KGB doesn't...!" Irina stopped herself, raising Cormac's eyebrow.

"Shit." I sat back on my chair. "Can we... Can we capture her alive?"

"Doubtful, snipers are fierce," Cormac sat back as well, staring at Irina. "They go down fighting, you do remember Brice."

Leo.

"Yeah, Leo was tough."

"If only you hadn't ruined his good eye."

"I... what?"

"Come on, Amber told Ama everything. You hired the four guys to cripple him; you sabotaged Pettiford's car brakes."

Scorpio.

"Amber told you?"

Fuck! So much for my faith in the power of true love. I guess the stars were right about her all along. "What else did she tell you?"

"She told us you killed Talisa's boyfriend and made him disappear."

"She said that?"

"Yeah. You probably offed my second wife's aerobics teacher too, uh?" He smiled. "Good riddance. I'm surprised you didn't kill my exes too."

Thank you so much, Amber...

"I considered it, but that would have drawn your sister's attention. Can't have a P.I. running around asking questions."

""True. Why sabotage Pettiford's brakes, though?" Cormac asked. "That is an unbelievably ineffective way to kill someone, why not just put a bullet in his head?"

"I just wanted to give the little punk a scare. Did you know the weasel peed on my slice of your wedding cake?"

"Yeah." Cormac winced. "That's the type of crap he would pull."

He turned the laptop to himself, typed something, and then pivoted it back to show my face on the screen. Our whole conversation had been captured in a video call app running behind the Myspace page. Below, there was a chat box:

>>You got it, sis?

>>Sec

>>Yes, Both lawyers say we have everything we need and more, get outta there.

>>Not yet

"Amber never told Ama anything," he said. "God knows my sister tried for years, but love is blind, I suppose."

I kept staring at myself on the screen. He closed the laptop.

"You filmed us?" I stuttered. "Why?"

"Pettiford."

"P... Scorpio? You did all this for that prick?"

"That 'prick' has been running from the law for the last twenty years, the Monarch town mayor put him on the FBI's most wanted list. He wants to come home."

"It was all a farce? You, eating out of dumpsters?"

"I needed to put on a show for your recon teams. They were good, but there's a reason why I moved to Idaho, in the middle of nowhere. Once you told Ama you'd heard I married and had triplets, I knew I had a tail."

"I didn't mean," I stuttered. "It was never supposed to..."

"You didn't kill those two Jodies to punish them, Cassiel you killed them to silence them. You paid them to seduce my wives. You destroyed my family, Cassiel. My families!"

"I was trying to..."

"I was trying to what, Cassiel? Because of you, I can't see my children. My daughter, my sons. You took everything from me. You've ruined my life, Cassiel!" He glared at me. "And now, I want to look you in the eye when I ruin yours. Goodbye, you sick fuck!"

Irina kicked me in the chest, violently. Something hot hissed by, scorching the air inches from my face.

Kapow!

A rifle fire report echoed in the distance as I fell to the ground. Cormac had brought a sniper. I rolled behind the balcony concrete ledge.

Irina trained her Khaybar on Cormac, but self-preservation clicked. She dove for cover, evading death by fractions of a second.

Kapow!

The laptop's lithium battery ate the bullet instead, bursting into flames.

The two men next to it fell, struck at center mass.

Kapow!

One bullet, two kills. And that reload speed, Jesus! This prick was as good as Leo in his prime. Who could he be, Metal Pig from Zodiac Team Three? The Stag from Team Four?

"Sniper on the east wooden slope, go to work!" The lead bodyguard spoke to his radio and machine gun fire rocked the compound, castigating the treeline.

Snarling at me, Cormac jumped off the balcony into the pool below.

Splash!

"We can't stay here." I signaled to my detail. "Cover and move."

They laid down covering fire as we rushed inside.

Downstairs, a guard lay dead on the ground floor as employees fled the building.

A legionnaire checked his slit throat: "The sniper is outside, who killed this guy?"

"Zodiac Team One," I said. "They're inside."

To our left, Taurus fired, killing two of my guards.

"'Sup, 'Gemini'?" Scorpio shouted from our right. "We came to collect, you little turd!"

This twat.

No, he was trying to get in my head. This was a pincer move, Libra and Capricorn would be coming from behind to trap us in a kill box.

"Come on!" I led my entourage through the basement access. There would be a service door in the boiler room that led outside. Two guards stayed behind to buy us time. They were pros but this was Team One, moving swiftly and with purpose. Methodical. Efficient. Lethal. A M4 burst silenced their Steyr Aug A1s.

The basement computer servers had been ransacked and the girls for the Boten deal had vanished. Fuck you, Cormac you really planned this through, didn't you?

"We've gotta get outta here, this way..." My words were cut off by light footsteps creeping behind us.

Irina turned around, opening fire. A flashbang grenade slided in and I jumped for cover.

Bang!

Coughing and wheezing. I charged outside through the service door, my head ringing and my vision in a haze.

I had to get to the cars... No, was I stupid?

That sniper was probably out there watching the vehicles through his scope, waiting to blow my head up. I dashed toward the lush vegetation instead, powerful and swift strides carrying me to safety. Behind, the gunfire battle raged as Irina's Khaybar challenged two M4s. Everything was ruined, all my plans, all my dreams. My flawless white hair was a damp macaroni mess and my soul died each time my John Lobbs touched mud.

Overhead, the twin Turbofan engines of a Huey roared in anger, pushing their RPMs to the limit. The frantic helicopter soared on a desperate steep climb.

'You are FUBAR!' I smirked.

It banked left at the last second, diving to evade an incoming HN-5 missile.

Death missed its tail boom by the length of a Buick. The bird aligned its Hydra rockets with the ground opposition and bathed them in fire, before veering for my compound. Only one twit twirled a Huey in the air like that. Joe fucking Taito.

This was Cormac's wedding all over again, everyone had come to witness my ruin.

I followed a stream to a clearing up ahead. Cormac stood there in a bulletproof vest, a MP5 submachine gun trained on my head. A flick of his weapon and I dropped my Bobcat.

"And Sunan?" I asked.

"Your 'man with the plan'? Probably at the police precinct where I dropped him. Squealing like a rat, if he's smart."

Oh, he was. Cops would be storming Baby Lee's TeaHouse of Glee by now.

Thank God I had sent Chai and Baby Lee away to Malaysia!

"Aries, Air Dad; Team One exfiled," Joe fucking Taito's voice sounded on the radio.

"Copy," Cormac replied, then switched channels: "Bluejay, Aries; make it rain."

Above, an ASM missile zoomed past us. An explosion rocked my ears seconds later, turning millions of my money into a fireball.

Boom!

"You're a civvie now, how the hell did you get clearance for an airstrike? And in Laos, the most bombed country in the world!"

"It's post 911, nobody wants to piss off Uncle Sam," Cormac shrugged. "Even Pakistan lets us use their airspace now."