Chapter
4 The Taking of the Jade Dragon
The
Jade Dragon had finished her sweep of the rooftops near
the brothel. She had found no
more hired assassins, but she proceeded cautiously, keeping to the
shadows. Where was
Suzi?
The
Scarlet Falcon should have been very close to the building where
she had been attacked. Sun
Lin’s keen eyes scoured the surrounding
streets. She spotted Suzi’s
motorcycle parked in the shadows of a building, but Suzi herself was
absent.
Sun Lin began to get
worried. She and Suzi had worked
out a routine. She would move
from building to building by way of the rooftops, and Suzi would follow on
the ground. Under no circumstances
was Suzi to investigate any serious incident on her
own. As yet Suzi simply lacked
the experience to act by herself.
Together, however, the two women made a good team, as Boss Crunch
had learned on numerous occasions.
Sun Lin made a thorough search of the area, but nowhere could she find any
trace of her friend. She began
to have a terrible feeling that something had gone seriously
wrong. Sun Lin sought out a quiet
retreat and sat down to think things out.
One thing was certain and that was that Suzi was not where she was
supposed to be. In that case,
she must be someplace else. But
where? Sun Lin pictured a worst case
scenario. Suppose that Suzi had
been ambushed and taken prisoner without being able to shout for
help. If she had been caught
by Crunch’s men what would be done with
her? She came to the grim realization
that it was most likely that Suzi would be taken to Crunch’s
headquarters.
Crunch’s HQ. That would
be a serious problem. The place
was like a fortress, brimming with
guards. If Suzi was in Crunch’s
hands she would be difficult to rescue.
However, knowing what Crunch was likely to do to Suzi made it imperative
that she try to get to her as quickly as
possible. Even a few seconds
might make a difference.
Sun Lin swung into action, literally.
She moved quickly from rooftop to rooftop until she reached the large
warehouse that Crunch used as his HQ.
Here she paused. The building
was an imposing structure. As
she had surmised there were several guards on top of the roof and many more
patrolling the streets below. Even
worse, was that it was close to dawn.
In a few minutes
the
Jade
Dragon
would begin
to lose her cover.
Sun Lin studied the building intently, looking for some
weakness.
She was not able to find
any. Soon the city was bathed
in light. Sun Lin looked for
a place to hide. She found one
about a block from Crunch’s HQ.
It was the top floor of an abandoned
factory. It would do until night
returned. In the meantime, she
would need to get some rest.
She found a pile of old
newspapers and made a sort of nest for
herself. Down the hall there
was a washroom with plumbing that still worked, so she was able to get a
drink to relieve her thirst. As
for food, she would just have to do
without. It would not be the
first time that she had not eaten for a
day. She had a couple of chocolate
bars in her utility belt. They
would have to hold her until she rescued
Suzi.
Sun Lin slept most of the day away.
She hated the delay. There
was no telling what might be happening to Suzi, but to attack in broad daylight
would be inviting capture. She
needed the protection that night would give
her. As soon as the sun went
down, she swung into action. She
had saved her two chocolate bars until
now. She wolfed them
down. They would give her a little
energy. She finished her meal
with a drink from the tap in the
washroom. She was ready to
go.
Within a few minutes she was back on the building across the street from
Crunch’s HQ. The guards
were in the same positions they had been the night
before. The building was dark
except for a single lighted window on the third
floor. Sun Lin took out her pocket
binoculars and trained them on the
window. “Bingo!” she
thought.
What her binoculars revealed was a small sparsely furnished
room. But more importantly, it
revealed the bound and gagged figure of
the
Scarlet Falcon
suspended by her wrists from a hook in the
ceiling. Sun Lin breathed a sigh
of relief. She had found her
friend. More importantly
she was still alive, and probably
unmolested. At least she hoped
so. Suzi was still wearing her
costume and that was a very good sign.
Perhaps Crunch and his thugs had not had time to get around to doing
to Suzi what they usually did to young
women.
The problem was, how was she going to get into the
building? It would not be easy
to reach the window with the roof so heavily
guarded. What she needed was
a diversion. Stealthily, she
moved around to the other side of Crunch’s
HQ. There she found exactly what
she was looking for. Piled against
the back door of the HQ was a supply of wooden
pallets. They should burn
nicely.
It was but the work of a few minutes to lower herself to the back alley and
kindle a fire in the pallets. The
wood was quite dry and within a short time the pallets were blazing
furiously. Quickly, Sun Lin scampered
away from the growing conflagration.
Within minutes she had moved around to the front of Crunch’s
HQ. Now all she had to do was
wait.
The fire had the desired effect. As
she watched through her binoculars the guards near the front of the building
disappeared toward the back. She
could hear their shouts of alarm as they informed one another of the
danger. It was now or
never. Stepping from her hiding
place, she rushed across the street to the base of Crunch’s
HQ. A quick flick of her wrist
sent her grappling hook to the top of the
roof. She pulled on the rope
to test whether or not the hook had caught and then began to climb rapidly
up the side of the building. Within
a few seconds she was outside the window of Suzi’s
prison. Hooking her climbing
line on to her utility belt, she swung outside the window, keeping most of
her body just below the sill.
Carefully she checked out the
room. It was rather dimly lit,
but she could not make out any occupant other than
Suzi. She surveyed the room for
several seconds just in case. It
was possible that Crunch had set up some sort of trap for
her.
Satisfied that no danger lurked within the room she reached into her utility
belt and pulled out a glasscutter and a piece of
putty. Sticking the putty to
the window, she cut around it and then pulled out the loose piece of
glass. Reaching through the opening,
she released the catch holding the window closed and gently eased with window
open. The whole operation had
taken less than thirty seconds.
Sun Lin slithered through the open
window. Her first action was
to unscrew the low wattage bulb that lit up the
room. She felt safer in total
darkness. Moving on cat feet
she crept towards Suzi. The girl
seemed to be unconscious, as she did not respond to her whispered
query.
“Suzi, are you alright? Suzi
it’s me, Sun Lin. Suzi,
it’s the Jade Dragon.”
There was no answer. It
was possible that her friend had been hanging there for
hours. Most likely she had passed
out from the strain of being suspended for such a long
time.
By now
the
Jade Dragon
was standing right below her friend.
She moved closer, getting ready to take up her weight while she cut
her down. As she did so her knees
bumped into a chair. She had
not seen it in the darkness, but it was right below where Suzi was
hanging. Suddenly Sun Lin realized
that Suzi was not suspended from the ceiling after all, she was actually
standing on the chair with her arms raised over her
head.
“Suzi, what…”Sun Lin began to say, when she was
interrupted.
“Sorry babe, I have to do this
again.” The voice came from
the suspended figure, but it was not Suzi’s
voice. Sun Lin felt a sudden
pain in her shoulder as she was jabbed from above with something
sharp. Although the blow was
not hard, her entire shoulder went numb.
The numbness quickly spread to her back, chest, and
neck. Sun Lin had a few seconds
to comprehend that she had been injected with some sort of paralytic drug
before her vision blurred and everything went
black.
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