CHAPTER II

MOST WANTED

“Does Waza use liquid nitrogen in any of its research?” asked Lieutenant Sonya Blade as she inspected the puddles of ice still frozen to the floor.  She was young, in her mid-twenties; blonde hair in a tight ponytail pulled through a green cap bearing an official insignia.  Her dark green windbreaker bore the words “Special Forces” on its back.

“Yes,” replied an investigator in a thick Japanese accent; he looked very professional in a suit and tie.  “But it is housed in a storage facility on the other side of the building.  And no liquid nitrogen was used in any research conducted on the day of the incident.”  He felt awkward speaking to the back of Sonya’s head as she knelt down, still inspecting the floor.

“Ramirez,” shouted Sonya, still not looking up.  “Are there any other chemicals cold enough to do this?”

“Liquid oxygen,” replied Second Lieutenant Gemini Ramirez, a short woman with short brown hair and small glasses.  “Pretty much any liquid that’s a gas at room temperature.”  She moved until she was kneeling down next to Sonya.  “But, there would have to have been something here to freeze.”  She ran her hand over the slowly melting ice. “Do you see the way it sort of looks like snow?”

Sonya nodded.

“It was moisture in the air that was froze, like frost on a window in the winter.  Otherwise, we’d be seeing much larger crystals.”  Gemini thought for a moment, “If this was liquid nitrogen – or anything like that – then the hallway would’ve had to have been very humid in just this one spot, in the exact shape of the puddle…and very dry everywhere else.”

“That’s the only way?” Sonya still didn’t look up.

“Either that, or whomever did this had something really cold and really direct.  Or some Bobby Drake powers.”  Gemini chuckled.

Sonya raised an eyebrow.

“Bobby Drake?  Iceman?” Gemini was a little annoyed that Sonya seemed so apparently clueless.  “The X-Men?  Come on!”

“Blade,” came a deep voice from down the hall.  Major Jackson Briggs – or, as he was better known, “Jax” – was a tall, muscular black man, built like a boxer, bearing a mustache and a shaved head.  “What do we know?”

Sonya stood up and turned around; Jax was someone she looked in the eye.  “Ramirez thinks the X-Men did it.”

Jax gave a hearty laugh.

“We don’t know what did this,” Sonya said, walking closer to her commanding officer, and speaking quietly.  “But, based on what Gemini said, it looks like our perps, I don’t know, have some sort of device.  Maybe some high-tech equivalent of a water gun filled with liquid nitrogen.”

Jax nodded.  “The Japanese won’t release the body into our custody, but…” Jax motioned for Gemini to come closer to hear their conversation.  “It looks like the guard who was killed had his neck frozen at the point of decapitation.  The examiner has no clue what to make of it.”

“I hate to interrupt,” interjected the investigator.  “But, I must ask if this fits the modus operandi of any known Black Dragon associates.”  He paused very briefly.  “Your commanding officer informed me that your team is the Black Dragon expert – we did not humble ourself to ask you for help if—”

Jax stepped forward, looking downward at the investigator with an intimidating glance.

The investigator gulped.

“Tell me again, detective,” Jax’s voice was oddly calm.  “What makes you think the Black Dragon are involved?”

“Karl North,” began the investigator.  Sonya perked up.  “That name kept on appearing in the notes of the kidnapping victim, Dr. Gishi.  Karl North is a known Black Dragon associate, yes?”  His voice was noticeably quivering now.

Sonya stepped forward, “Kano.”  She had a lot of contempt in her voice.  “Karl North, or ‘Kano,’ is the leader of the Black Dragon.  They’re illegal arms dealers operating mostly out of the Western United States, Argentina, North Korea, Eastern China, and, obviously, Japan.

“Well, they’re mostly arms dealers.  They’ve also been known to traffic narcotics, people, and even classified government intel.”  Sonya was confident in her expertise on the subject.

“We had one in custody last year – No Face – who carried a flamethrower.  But I’ve never seen a Black Dragon use an ‘ice-thrower’.”  Sonya crossed her arms.

“No Face? Kano?” started the investigator.  “Are these usual American names?”

“Most of the upper-level Black Dragon associates use aliases,” responded Jax.  “Kano is Karl North.  No Face’s given name is Frank Cain.  Then there’s Jarek and Tasia a.k.a. Gerald Creed and Tamara Johnson.  And the new guy, Tobias ‘Tremor’ Lo.”

“Briggs,” began Sonya.  “Why would Kano kidnap a doctor, though?”

Gemini interjected.  “He was a cyberneticist and a surgeon, Sonya.”

“So?” asked Lieutenant Blade.

“I don’t know if you looked at the displays on the way in: Waza Technologies makes a synthetic eye,”  Gemini waited for a response.

Sonya just nodded and thought.  Last time she ran into Kano he was wearing a patch over his right eye.  She was the reason he was wearing one, actually…

Back when she was still new to the team, Sonya went on an extended undercover job in Argentina with her partner, Sammy Ho, an extremely muscular man with a shaved head.  They were posing as suppliers; an executive for a firearms manufacturer and his assistant.  The two had regular, clandestine meetings with Kano’s second-in-command, Jarek, a lanky man who always seemed to be wearing a cowboy hat.

Sonya and Sammy were surprised when an extra guest showed up at their scheduled exchange.  They found Kano, a well-built man with wide shoulders and a goatee, sitting across the desk from them.  Jarek stood to Kano’s right; and behind them, a man and a woman, both brandishing weapons.  The woman was tall and black with a pixie cut, dressed completely in purple; she held a parang in each hand.  The man had a countenance overburdened with scars, with barely visible eyes, and a small slit where his mouth should’ve been; in one hand he held a small flamethrower, and, in the other, a twisted, mutated sickle/axe that Sonya later discovered was called a “mambele.”

“What’s this?” Sonya remembers Sammy asking.

“My entourage,” said Kano with a sly smile and a thick Australian accent.  “This is Tasia,” Kano motioned toward the woman, “and No Face,” he pointed to the heavily scarred man.  “Him, back there; that’s Quinn,”  Kano pointed to a yet another man, who had gone unnoticed by Sonya before – his features masked by the shadows of the room.  “And you know Jarek.”

Jarek nodded.

“What’s with the weapons?” asked Sammy

Tasia tapped her blades together, “We love guns, dears.” She adjusted her stance, “but knives and swords don’t run out of ammunition.”

No Face twirled the mambele in his hand.  Kano slammed two butterfly swords down on the desk in front of him.  Jarek reached into his vest pocket and pulled out two deer horn knives.

“I have a pair similar to that back home,” Sammy spoke as he motioned towards Jarek’s deer horn knives.  “But mine are cooler.”

“Back home?”  Kano have a faux sigh.  “Samuel Ho?”  Kano spoke the name as if it were somehow ironic.  “I don’t like being played.  We know of your – how shall I put it? – unsavory associations.”  He motioned toward Sonya, “Does the lady know who you are, Sammy?  Or are you playin’ her too?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sammy lied.

Kano stood up, grabbing his knives.  He paused, then grunted, turned around, and slammed the desk over.  Sonya dodged backward as the desk came crashing onto the floor – but one of Sammy’s legs was hit hard.  As Sammy lifted the desk up from off of him, Sonya rushed forward, jumping, and kicking Kano square in the jaw.

Kano stumbled backward, and held out his hands, as a signal to his “entourage” to hold for a moment.  “And who are you luv?” asked Kano as he chuckled.  “Not some simple secretary I imagine.”

“Second Lieutenant Sonya Blade,” Sonya kicked again, to find her leg knocked down by Kano’s elbow.

Sammy had stood up by now, and, limping slightly, he ran toward Jarek, grabbing one of his deer horn knives from his hand so quickly that Jarek had little time to react.  Jarek swung his other knife at Sammy.  Sammy ducked, kicking Jarek in the knee as he did so.  As Jarek double over in shock, Sammy tossed the knife in his hand across the room, striking Quinn in the neck, lodging itself in his flesh.

Jarek stood back up, and continued trading blows with Sammy, while Kano and Sonya continued their tussle.  Tasia and No Face ran toward the individual rumbles.  Sonya found herself fighting off Kano alongside No Face, while Sammy tried to hand Jarek and Tasia.

But, inevitably, the Special Forces agents were overwhelmed.  Sonya’s right leg was stabbed, right through her femur, by Kano’s sharp butterfly Sword.  Sammy was struck through the small of his back by Tasia’s parang.  Time seemed to slip away for Sonya, as things went black.

She woke up later – she didn’t know how much later it had been.  But she remembers being tied to a chair, her mouth gagged.  Sammy was chained to the ceiling in front of her, barely conscious himself.  Quinn’s dead body lied on the floor about 20 feet away.  No Face stood next to him, a saddened look on his “face,” as if he were trying to cry.  Jarek was leaning against a wall, and Tasia was kneeling next to Sonya.  Kano was cutting off small ribbons of skin from Sammy’s chest.

“She’s awake, Kano,” said Tasia, as she slapped Sonya in the back of the head.  She leaned over and whispered into Sonya’s ear, “You get to watch, dear.”  She held Sonya’s head in place, forcing her to stare at her partner as Kano made him bleed more and more.

For the first time she noticed a tattoo over Sammy’s heart.  She couldn’t make out what it was in this light.  As she stared at the ink, Kano stabbed it.  He twisted his knife around for a moment as Sammy let out a blood-curdling scream, that made Sonya squeeze her eyes shut and try to turn away.  Tasia forcibly repositioned Sonya’s head, then held a parang to her throat “watch,” she said softly.

Sonya reluctantly opened her eyes.  She saw Kano reach his hand slowly inside Sammy’s chest and pull out a chunk of red meat.  Then, she saw lights – and heard helicopters.

And the next few weeks faded away for her – lost in a shroud of morphine and mourning.

Sonya’s leg healed very well, and she was promoted to Lieutenant when she was discharged from the hospital.

Sammy on the other hand never recovered.  He was in a government hospital a few miles away from base, and, to that day, comatose.  Kano had ripped out a good chunk of his heart.  And certain complications made a transplant unlikely.  He never regained consciousness – but despite the fact that he was still, technically alive; Sonya had learned to count him amongst the dead.  It made it easier for her to channel her hatred of Kano that way.

She had run into Kano roughly twice a year like clockwork since then. She had caught up with him in recently-harvested wheat field in Argentina a year ago.  But, by the time she had finally cornered him, her firearm was out of ammunition.

“Knives and swords don’t run out of ammo, luv,” Kano laughed as he tossed one of his signature butterfly swords in her direction.

Her shoulder was grazed.  She pretended it was worse than it was and fell to the ground in faux-pain.  While down there, she unhinged the bayonet from her gun.  She stood up in a flash and ran at Kano.  As tough as the thug was, he wasn’t fueled by Sonya’s anger.  Metal against metal clanged for a minute or two, as the two fenced with their respective blades.  But in the end, Sonya stabbed her rival in right eye.

Despite this, though – he had managed to escape.

“Lieutenant!” shouted Jax, back in the present.

“Sorry, Jax – er, Major,” said Sonya.  “I sort of zoned out for a minute there.”

“I could’ve used you,” Jax continued.

“Why?”

“The detective had me telling him about the time I had to track down Kano and his gang after they broke out prison – and you know how much I hate that story.”  Jax chuckled.  “Come on, we still have to investigate the lab.”

“I like ze eye.  Very subtle,” spoke François Mavado, a tall, thin man, with slicked back hair.  He stood in an abandoned subway terminal across from Kano – the floor was littered with a dozen corpses.

“I owe it to a lady Special Forces agent, France.”  Kano tapped his butterfly sword against the metal plate on the right side of his face.  In exchange for forgiving quite a substantial debt, last month, Dr. Gishi had removed the deadened skin and remnant of an eye from Kano’s face and updated it.  He lost his depth perception, but he could see in the infrared spectrum, and latent heat signatures.  “But, I’m thinking addin’ some diamond studs to it; really makin’ it pop!”

“You killed my men,” said François.  He was shocked to find Kano standing amongst twelve of his underlings, and puddles of their blood.

“I’ve killed your Red Dragon thugs before.  They suck,” Kano glared with his remaining eye.

“It is the Black Dragon that are ze thugs.  We are mercenaries—”

“—And another thing; why’d you have to go namin’ your little club after my organization!”  The Red Dragon and the Black Dragon organizations both excelled in the sale and distribution of illegal materials.  For the most part they claimed different territories.  But, every so often, their domains overlapped, and their members crossed paths.  The claim in dispute this time was the hot-spot of Cleveland, Ohio.

“Excusez-moi!” Mavado was offended.  “Our organization goes back thousands of years!”

“Yeah, yeah.  And mine’s a spring chicken?”  Kano stepped forward, ready for fight, not an argument.  “They both have their histories.  Let’s just fight and get this over with, ‘kay, France?”

Mavado feigned, pretending to say something.  But, instead of speaking, he lunged at his opponent, drawing his sword backward, then thrusting it forward.  As he slashed with his rapier, Kano slashed back.

However, Kano’s attack was fruitless – the blade of Mavado’s rapier would just bend and bounce back with each strike of Kano’s butterfly swords.  Kano extended his foot, kicking Mavado in the stomach, simultaneously bringing the hilt of his blade down on the back of the Red Dragon’s head.

While Mavado tried to recover, Kano brought his knife to the tip of Mavado’s throat.  “Any last words, France?”

But, before Mavado could respond, and before Kano could execute the killing blow, a series of footstep echoed toward the two.  A S.W.A.T. team descended into the Subway station, guns ready to fire.

The leaders of the team expected a larger group of people to contend with – not to find them already dead on the ground.  The team leader, Captain Daniel Vogel, a young, ponytailed man who vehemently refused to shave his muttonchops, yelled out “Freeze!” as he raised his gun.  He ran toward Mavado and Kano, both of whom had raised their arms, surrendering.

Captain Vogel walked toward the two, unorthodoxly kicking François Mavado in the chest.  He whispered to Kano, “punch me.”

Kano nodded, punched Vogel briskly, albeit softly, in the jaw, and ran.

A few S.W.A.T. team members ran toward Kano as he attempted to make out of the station.  “Let him go!” yelled Vogel, “The one we want is right here.”  He kicked Mavado in the jaw.  “Cuff ‘im.”

That evening, after finding a note with an address scribbled on it inside the mountains of paperwork he had to fill out for arresting François Mavado, Captain Vogel made his way to a small house by the train tracks.

A tall, black woman with a pixie cut answered the door.  “Nice to finally make your acquaintance, dear.”  She ushered inside, “I’m Tasia.  Kano’s waiting.”

“I know who you are,” he replied, “I recognize you by your mugshot.”  Captain Vogel was lead into a nicely decorated living room, with an enormous aquarium.  Sitting in an easy chair was Kano, “‘Ello, Captain.  Thanks for joining us.”

“Why am I here?” asked Vogel, looking around the room.  Aside from Kano in the chair, and Tasia behind him, there were three other men in the room.  Sitting on a leather couch, was a man in a cowboy hat; Captain Vogel recognized him as Gerald “Jarek” Creed.  Staring into the fish tank, oblivious as to what was going on, was the scarred, Frank “No Face” Cain.  And, leaning against a wall, wearing a long, orange and brown Mandarin shirt that covered his face – something that Captain Vogel would’ve recognized as a Lin Kuei uniform if he were a little more worldly – was Tobias “Tremor” Lo.

“You did a good job today, Danny boy,” replied Kano with a smile, reclining slightly.  “Good enough to make it into the cabal.”

“Cabal?” asked Captain Vogel.

“Inner-circle, kid,” Kano said.  “You’ve been my informant in the department for how long?”

“Four years,” answered Jarek before Captain Vogel could.

“Four years,” continued Kano, “good.  And you’ve done an excellent job that whole time, Danny boy.  And today, you proved your worth.  You’re movin’ up the ladder.  See?  You’re not just a thug in the Black Dragon army anymore.  You’re in my inner-circle.  Understand?”

Captain Vogel only smiled.  This promotion was certainly overdue.

“Alright then,” Kano continued.  “Here’s the situation, Danny boy.  Jarek’s going to be in charge for a little while.”

“Why?” asked Captain Vogel.

“There’s a deal I have to conduct personally over in Hong Kong,” Kano answered.  “A man called Shang Tsung is lookin’ to make an offer worth about eight figures; and wants to meet with me personally.  He says it could take a few weeks to go through.  Until I get back, Jarek’s the new leader.”

Jarek nodded.

“And Jarek will fill you in on all your responsibilities tomorrow, after I get on the plane.”  Kano cleared his throat.  “But you’re not leaving this house tonight until you fulfill the requirements to join the cabal, Danny boy.”

“An initiation?”

“Nah, you passed that one tonight.”  Kano smiled.  “Every member of my inner-circle has two things: a weapon, and a codename.”  He motioned toward Tremor.  “Take the Captain here down to the cellar; let ‘im pick out a good weapon.”

“I have my gun,” said Captain Vogel as Tremor made his way toward him.

“I have a sayin’, Danny boy: ‘blades don’t run out of ammo.’  ‘Kay?”  Tremor grabbed the Captain by the shoulder and started leading him toward the basement.  The Captain followed, and soon the two were in a basement turned into an adequate sparring room, complete with mats on the floor, and weapons decorating the walls.

“So, why do they call you ‘Tremor’?” asked the Captain of his guide.

“I like to throw rocks,” replied Tremor in a thick, Chinese accent.

“Do you have a weapon?” asked Captain Vogel.

“We all do,” Tremor smiled, and motion toward the wall with clubs and swords tacked to it.  “I use a pickaxe.”

Captain Vogel found his eyes drawn toward two very large hooks on the wall.  He walked over and pulled the down.

“Ah, the hookswords.  They’re a Chinese weapon, you know.”  Tremor smiled.  “So, what’s your new name, kid?”

Captain Vogel smiled.  “What was that word that Kano kept on using?” he thought for a moment.  “‘Cabal.’  I liked that word.  I’m ‘Kabal,’ with a ‘K’.”