Silver Shadow #7
"The Triad" (Part II)
by Aaron Baugh

The black truck slid into the underground garage, turning to the left and easing to a stop before a nondescript metal door.

"Out," ordered Han, and he opened his door, his hand going to his sidearm as soon as his feet touched the concrete floor. Jian stood clear while Han pressed a button beside the door, then looked up towards a small camera, nearly unnoticeable, mounted above the door. An electric buzz sounded, followed by the thick 'clunk' of deadbolts retracting.

At a motion from Han, Jian opened the door and stepped inside, only to repeat the process once the outer door had closed. After passing the second door, the pair walked down a long hallway, lit by flickering fluorescent lights. If it was a hundred yards, Jian didn't quite know, but the hall abruptly opened into a bowl-shaped room, and Jian immediately looked up,
spurred by some unknown indicator, some hunch. Seated, the three men's faces were unclear due to the bright lights behind them, but Jian knew them all.

Takeda, the Japanese-born master of Korean hard karate. Huanshin He, who had taught Cotton-Fist and Drunken Boxing to generations of Triad enforcers; and Fung, master of the Touch Arts, Ch'in-Na, and Tien-Hsueh.

If he had deluded himself that this was something else, the sight of these three men told him that the Triad had come calling for old debts.

Han quietly slipped away, towards a door directly below the three Masters. As he exited the bowl, another man entered, smaller than Jian but with large hands and well muscled forearms. This would be Fung's disciple, Chen.

"No words?" Jian asked, taunting the three men above him. "No judgments to hand down, or recitation of crimes I've committed?"

Silence was his reply, and the small man stepped closer, his stance betraying his choice of styles. With his hands held vertically at waist level and his fingers loose, he was ready to seize upon any part of Jian's body and cause extreme pain and damage.
Coupled with Touch Mastery, this man could stop Jian's heart with a well placed finger. He would be dangerous indeed.

Silently, Jian fell into an Aikido stance, and he smiled when his opponent nodded. With a step forward, the fight had begun, and Jian was on the defensive, using broad circular movements to parry the hand attacks and attempts to latch on to any part of the
arm by his opponent. Fung's man lunged, and Jian scored a grip on his wrist, twisting and stepping to the side. The other man would either follow or have his arm broken.

Jian's throw was perfect, and no less so was his opponent's recovery, popping up onto his feet and switching to a form that Jian failed to identify before he was forced to defend himself in earnest. His opponent's hard claws suggested a strong, offensive style, and instantly Jian realized he was facing Tiger's Claw. He gritted his teeth against the pain as Chen's long fingernails left raw welts and wide, shallow scrapes that bled freely. The strikes shredded Jian's gi, leaving it hanging in tatters. Chen's attack culminated in a strong kick that forced the air from Jian's lungs, and he hit the ground heavily.

In the time it took him to blink, Chen had advanced, and in another equal span, Jian was on his feet. Chen was good, much better than Jian had anticipated. There was only one advantage that Jian had: experience. He had no doubt that Chen was an old hand at making men weep in pain, or even fighting, but his knowledge was thinly concentrated. Jian had the freedom of his entire 'library,' and the experience of altering it as needed.

Chen kept his Tiger Claw, and was all offense. Jian's kick to the man's left knee staggered him, dropping his hands enough for a heavy blow to the temple. Reeling, Chen fell to his right, and Jian was on him in an instant, arms rising and falling, rising and
falling.

When he stood straight again, Jian's knuckles were split and bloody despite years of exercises to harden the skin of his hands. Not all of the blood was his.

He nudged Chen with a toe, pitching his voice so those above could hear. Fung was already on his feet, his expression betraying his inner feelings at the defeat of his student.

"Who else?" challenged Jian as he wiped blood from his hands and flicked his fingers so that it spattered onto the floor. "Chen was very good," he continued in a half-taunt. "Best you had, really. Who else, then, Huanshin? The little Korean you were trying to teach? Or is it one of yours, Takeda? Never did go back to Okinawa, did you? Pity. There's so much they could've
taught you. Good pupils there, if you'd had the courage to go and find them."

Fung was joined by his two companions, all of them furious, though others who didn't know them would see only grim faces. For these men, this was red-hot anger at its worst.

"I'm through with you. I took what you had to give, and I left." With cool confidence, Jian surveyed the men's faces. "Get over it."

Huanshin spoke, and it seemed that he spoke for all three of them. "We cannot."

Jian nodded. "I know." There was sadness in his tone, and in a blur of movement, he leapt forward, scaling the wall in movement so quick that the three masters above were unaware of it until Jian's heel shattered Fung's nose, driving bone shards up into his brain. Huanshin reacted first, retreating and falling into a guard stance quick enough to deflect Jian's first two blows. The older man could not, however, block the next four.

The heavy, meaty thud of Huanshin's body hitting the floor coincided with the slamming of a door hidden behind the seats on the balcony. Jian turned towards the sound, but wasn't quick enough to see the door close.

Immediately, he thought of Han and the men that he promised were waiting outside of Chuck's house. They could still strike there, or even come back to Jian's dojo. All it would take was a phone call, and as he searched for the hidden release to the door, he could only think of those his past might doom.

Takeda's breath was shallow as he ran through the tunnel. His thoughts troubled him. The Jian Li Fong that he had known years ago was an amazing student, demanding to see all that could be shown to him. Delighted at the boy's aptitude and drive, Takeda had complied, as had Fung and Huanshin He. To be taught by these masters was a sign of Jian's skill, but
required certain obligations. Several of the secretive arts taught him required membership in the Triad.

The Triad was a group that only lost members through death.

Jian's departure was a shock, but an even greater shock was the short time spent with the masters. It took the young man only three months to absorb his teachings, five for Huanshin, and five again for Fung. Now, he fought as a greatly experienced master, and he was so very young.

It was inhuman. Takeda's mission had been to test Fong, to possibly bring him back into the fold. If that proved impossible, he was to be eliminated. Chen was the best prospect for that. Takeda was afraid, an altogether foreign and unwelcome sensation. He was afraid of what would happen to him if Fong or his friends were harmed, afraid for his own future upon his return.

It was a terrible thing to be a coward.

There was no hidden switch, no trick levers on the chairs. Whatever enabled Takeda to leave must've been on him from the start. Planting a hand on the balcony's edge, Jian vaulted to the arena floor, and headed towards the door he'd used on entrance.

It took four precise and strong kicks, but the martial artist successfully dislodged the bar and exited. The door to the parking garage was tougher, but the result was the same. With sore legs and stinging scratches, Jian slid behind the wheel of the SUV that had brought him here. Of Han or any other men, there was no sign.

"They still there?"

"Yes."

"Shouldn't we call someone? I've got my cell, and - "

"No."

"But -"

"NO." Chuck Starling turned away from the window to face his wife. She shied at the steel in his voice, and he softened his expression, pulling her to him. "Dearie, we can't. I trust Jian, and I'm sure that this Han character will be true to his word and hurt us if we don't do exactly what he told us to."

Laura nodded, though she was still upset. "Okay," she said weakly. "Okay." She moved to the sofa and sat down, hugging a throw pillow to her chest.

Chuck turned back to the window.

Hot-wiring the truck had proven more difficult than he originally thought, but it was running now. Jian's quickness made him a good reaction driver, and as he roared through downtown Pacific City, he had ample opportunity to use them.

His eyes flickered to the dashboard clock. 10:49.

Chuck's house couldn't be more than ten minutes away, not at the rate Jian was driving.

The waiting, however short, was beginning to wear on Chuck's nerves. Nervously he eyed the gun cabinet, the edge of which was visible in his study. It wouldn't take much effort to slip over there, get one of his rifles. He was a fair shooter against
skeet, two unsuspecting men shouldn't pose a greater challenge.

Jian had stopped the stolen SUV, leaving it on the side of the road. It was another three hundred yards to the Starling house, and Jian set a brisk pace, his steps making no sound on the soft gravel of the road's shoulder.

There were only two men at the Starling's gate, both armed with silenced submachine guns. If they needed to, they could spray the house with over twenty rounds per second, and not even wake the neighbors. They were taking turns relaxing in the comfort of their vehicle, and the one in the passenger seat had it leaned all the way back. He was confident of his job
there, and his eyes drifted to the phone on the dashboard every now and again. Han's call would come at any moment, and they would either kill the Starlings, or leave. The guard was equally ambivalent about both possibilities.

As he knelt under the window, Chuck realized, suddenly, that he had been sneakier than he really needed to. It had taken long minutes for him to creep over to the gun cabinet to select and load one of his rifles.

More agonizing moments followed as he opened the window a crack and took a bead on the guard outside the truck. He couldn't see the other one.

Sneaking up on the guard outside the vehicle had been painfully easy. Normally, Jian would have charged in and taken the man down, but he needed to know where the other one was. A mistake could be fatal.

A head popped up in the truck, passenger side. Now he knew.

The guard outside the vehicle had no chance. He felt a pair of hands grab his shoulders, spin him around, and slam him, forehead first, into the angular crease where quarter panel met the edge of the vehicle's hood. Then nothing.

The first blow knocked the man out. The second cracked his skull open.

His companion sat bolt upright, opening the door and scrambling out in time to see Jian pull his partner's bloody head from the hood. With a quick movement, the machine-gun was in his hands, and he fired a long burst.

The flesh his bullets found was already dead, as Jian had angled the body between himself and the shooter. He ducked low, and moved towards the rear of the vehicle.

The shooter crouched as well, paralleling Jian's move. He looked under the truck for feet, but saw nothing.

From above, Jian's hands grabbed the guard's head and twisted. After a wet snap, the man crumpled.

Chuck blinked. There was somebody else up there, somebody who had taken care of the guards. He swore he'd seen a muzzle flash, but with no sound, so it couldn't have been bullets. More thoughts began to enter his head, but the ringing phone interrupted all of them.

Laura jumped, gasped, at the sound.

Chuck turned, and moved slowly towards the phone, which rang a second time. He didn't see the truck's lights turn on, or see it pull away from the gate.

The phone rang again, and Chuck had it off its cradle before the sound died. "Hello?" he asked cautiously.

"It's over. I'm okay."

"Jian? JIAN! What in the bloody hell was going on? There were men," and here Chuck turned to face the window, his words leaving him at the sight of an empty driveway. "There were..."

"It's taken care of." Never had Chuck Starling heard Jian sound so cold.

"You'll have to do better than that. There's so much I need to know. Why were those guys here? What did they want with you? I deserve to know, you know."

Jian sighed on the other end. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you. And I will. But not right now."

"Jian..."

"Tomorrow." With a thumb press, the call was terminated, leaving Jian with the task of finding a place to dispose of two bodies, currently cooling in the backseat.