Repocketing her stash, Kael shifted her hips lower, leaning forward and grinding against him wantonly. She grinned ferally at the look of complete surrender on Geraldo’s face as she felt him harden beneath her. “I’m feelin’ really good at the moment,” she repeated, her voice a seductive purr, her eyes smoky in the dim lighting. “Let’s see if I can’t make us both feel that way, hmm?”

With a low, keening groan, Geraldo did the only thing he could. He capitulated without a fight.

*******

It was, she supposed, a pretty ordinary dream for someone who’d been clean of drugs for three months and had enough opium now running through her system to fell a moose. Smells, sounds and sights snapped at her with hyper-vivid clarity, imbuing her senses with a sort of other-worldly surrealism.

She was sitting in some sort of a … tent was the best word that came to mind. She could feel the thick luxurity of the furs beneath her semi reclining body, a body which was clad in some sort of cloth and metal which felt heavy enough to be armor. A strange, haunting melody sounded from behind her while in front, Geraldo sat, his long black hair done up in some sort of top-knot. Next to him sat a beautiful Asian woman clad in a traditional red silk robe which brought out the highlights of her raven hair and eyes to exquisite perfection. Kael brought the thin stem of an opium pipe up to her lips and inhaled, looking through the smoky haze as a seduction played itself out right in front of her.

She watched through narrowed eyes as Geraldo enchanted the beautiful woman, serving her food as if she were a princess and he, a lowly valet. His hands were gentle upon her body and his face soft as he bent to whisper whimsical nonsense into one delicate ear. She felt a rage flow through her on the wings of the drug she took into her lungs. She saw the woman look at her deeply, before looking away and smiling at something Geraldo whispered to her.

Kael tried to interpret the look through her drug-filled haze. Was it desire? For her? For him? Her rage built as the answer eluded her. The woman smiled coyly once more as she began to reach a slim, perfectly manicured hand across the table. Kael reached down and liberated a knife at her waist, snarling and throwing it so that it landed, point first and hilt thrumming, just inches away from the woman’s reaching hand. “That’s my piece of meat you’re reaching for,” she heard herself growl.

“You’re wrong,” the woman responded, her voice as graceful as her form and movements. “I don’t eat meat.”

The sense of Geraldo shifting under her woke Kael and scattered her dream to the four winds. Groaning softly, she rolled off her lover’s recumbent body, forcing herself to her feet as a hangover thudded sickly in her temples. An ugly grin twisted her features as the half-clad man mumbled in his sleep, turning over and grabbing a pillow, snuggling it against his chest. “You’ve gone soft, Geraldo,” she sneered, running a hand through her sleep-tangled hair. “Soft as a pig’s belly.”

*******

The next two weeks saw the lovers drifting further and further apart. Geraldo continued on in his negotiations with Ming Dao, going over and over the million tiny sticking points that prevented a successful business arrangement between the two parties.

Of course, being the man he was, he was also attempting to forge alliances with some of the other drug lords dotting the Chinese landscape, but Ming Dao didn’t need to know that. It was more than enough for now that the man continued to negotiate, given the horrible first step that had been made with Kael.

For her part, the tall American was every bit as busy as her bed partner. Her days were spent putting her long years of military training to good use as she staked out Ming’s estate, greedily gathering up as much information about the man’s living habits as she could without being noticed. Ming Dao was a creature of habit and if Kael had anything to say about it, those habits would be his undoing. She watched in gleeful satisfaction as he and his retinue of guards and beautiful women took their morning constitutional on the lush grounds of the estate at the exact same time each day. She had the little jaunt timed down to the second, watching them return just as the black sedan bearing her dark lover pulled onto the grounds.

Her nights were spent in the myriad of opium dens lining the city streets which promised oblivion to those passing by, luring them in with exotic scents and sounds and ensnaring them into a world of decadence and depravity. Kael learned many interesting things during her underworld tours, chief among them the fact that Ming Dao doted on his young son to the exclusion of all else save his priceless antiques and the millions of dollars he made trafficking in illegal drugs. The young boy was never out of his father’s sight except for the times Ming Dao and his followers would walk the grounds each morning.

Ming Dao had several wives and more concubines than an Arabian sheik, yet the story was that only one of the beautiful women he courted was able to bear him a son who lived past infancy. For her troubles, the drug lord had her killed so that his son would not have to split his loyalties or his love.

Gotta give him points for that one, Kael thought when she heard the story, the viciousness of the act planting a tiny kernel of respect for the man in her mind. She sneered in satisfaction when she realized that she’d discovered probably the only weakness of the feared drug lord, the love he had for his son. It was a weakness she planned to exploit to the fullest. Paybacks are a real bitch, Ming.

Now that she had the means to an end, all that remained was the planning. For this she used her most potent three weapons; her drugs, her money and her long, beautiful body. Men were the most amenable to this type of persuasion. A little cash, a little dope and a promise of ‘later’ would have them giving her the numbers to their secret bank accounts if she’d wanted them. Which she didn’t. The women were harder to get a handle on, well used to having drugs and money shoved in their faces as payment for services soon to be rendered.

Rising to the challenge, as always, Kael chose to forgo the drugs and money, skipping instead to the third weapon in her arsenal. A surprising number of women took the American beauty up on her offer for reasons undisclosed even to their seducer. Kael didn’t much care what the reasons were as she took the women to a small hotel room she’d rented for this purpose. The words trembled from their lips as the tall American delved into the secret recesses of their passions, her senses tingling with the tantalizing taste of eastern spices on her western tongue.

Sooner than even she’d hoped, the plans were finalized. She’d even managed to gather up a goon squad of sorts; heavily muscled men, their bone with Ming Dao well gnawed, who were more than willing to provide whatever assistance was necessary, provided, of course, she keep them well steeped in drugs and petty cash. That wouldn’t be a problem.

11 May 1991. Ming Dao’s Estate. Chengdu, China.

Smiling in satisfaction, Kael lowered the night vision glasses from her eyes and tucked them into the pouch at her waist as she steadied her black-clad body against the thick trunk of the tree she was tucked into. Still well before the first light of dawn, the estate was dark and quiet. Groups of guards, muzzled dogs tethered to their wrists, strolled the vast grounds near the main house in exact, repeating patterns. Kael had been watching the arrangement for the past hour and was well pleased. Spying a weakness in their surveillance net, she figured she had about thirty seconds to cross the approximately one hundred yards from her place of concealment to the house before the guards would come around again.

Peering through the moon-shrouded darkness, the American spied the faint white of the balcony encircling the doorway through which she planned to make entrance. One of the women she’d bedded had, coincidentally, been a maid-servant of Ming Dao’s and was only too happy to provide a rough layout of the house’s interior, a vision which was supported by a few other people she’d talked to. The particular balcony she was spying led to an upper floor room that went mostly unused; an extra office of sorts which was currently being used for storage.

As she watched, the guards came around the house again, talking in low tones which whispered to her over the passing gentle breeze. She tensed her body, adrenaline coursing through her, engorging her muscles and forcing her heart to pound strongly, steadily. As the guards passed beyond the perimeter, Kael took a deep breath, then leapt from the tree, landing noiselessly upon the immaculately manicured lawn. She was running even as her feet hit the earth, her long legs exploding, thigh muscles coiling and relaxing as she flew across the grounds, silent as a stalking cat.

Lengthening her stride just before the balcony, Kael squatted slightly, then jumped, catching her hands on the balcony rail and pressing herself over, to land silently on the deck, freezing in place within the shadows of the building.

The guards came very close to her and she remained still and silent, unsurprised when they didn’t even bother to look upwards, where they would have surely seen her there, waiting. When they disappeared around the corner, the tall American relaxed, silently letting out the breath she’d been holding and reaching into her pouch to retrieve a slim lock-pick, slipping it into the door with gloved hands. After a few seconds of jiggling, the lock clicked. Placing the tool back into her pouch, Kael opened the door hardly more than a crack and slipped her long body inside, closing the door quietly behind her, a smug smile of satisfaction adorning her features.