Abel checked his gun and realized he only had a few bullets left. "s.h.i.t," he cursed. "I can't go to prison, man. I'd rather swallow one of these bullets than let them take me down," he said seriously.

None of them had any illusions as to what would happen to them if they were taken into custody. With Animal's record, they would throw him into the deepest, darkest hole they could find, if they didn't kill him first. Anything was better than captivity, including death.

There was the screeching of car tires, before the Denali appeared seemingly out of thin air and rammed the police cruiser. One of the officers had been nearly cut in half when he got caught between the Denali and the door of the cruiser.

"Looks like you boys are in need of a ride," Sonja smiled from the pa.s.senger window.

"Sonja, I could kiss you," Animal said happily.

"Kiss me after I get these m.u.t.h.af.u.c.kas off our backs," Sonja told him, leveling the Mac 11. The machine gun roared to life, spitting hot death to anyone unfortunate enough to get in its path. This bought Animal, Ashanti and Abel a few precious seconds to jump into the truck. They hadn't even had a chance to close the doors before Cain peeled off into the night.

"Man, we thought y'all had split on us," Ashanti said, once they were far away from the park. They were currently on the FDR heading back to Brooklyn.

"Unlike some people, I'd never abandon my family," Cain said, half joking.

"Cain, I'm so happy to be alive that I'm gonna let you get that one off," Ashanti told him.

"What the h.e.l.l happened in there?" Sonja asked.

"Things went to the left," Animal told her.

"Obviously," Sonja looked at the handcuffs he and Ashanti were sporting.

"We lost George," Animal said in a defeated tone.

"We know, and it's a good thing we found him," Sonja motioned towards the rear of the Denali.

Animal peeked over the rear row, and saw George's p.r.o.ne form, beaten, and bloodied with his hands and feet bound with duct tape. He got nervous, thinking George was dead, until he heard a faint moaning coming from him. "What the f.u.c.k happened to him?"

"Genius here hit him with the truck," Sonja motioned towards Cain.

"Stupid, just f.u.c.king stupid," Animal cursed. "If he dies we lose our leverage."

"Then I guess you just better make sure he doesn't," Cain said over his shoulder.

Animal just shook his head. Part of him wanted to sock Cain in the mouth, but there was also the part of him that understood. He had been Cain at one time, a young, angry kid who thought violence was the answer to all his problems. Speaking of answers, it had just occurred to Animal that he never had a chance to call Kahllah back and see what she wanted. If there had been a problem at home, he was sure Gucci would've called. She was still mad at him, but if there was an emergency she would've let him know. Whatever it was that Kahllah wanted would have to keep until they had George safely under wraps.

TWENTY.

GETTING THE BARTENDER TO GIVE up the waitress's address was like pulling teeth . . . literally. She started with his incisors, yanking them out one at a time with a pair of dirty pliers she'd found behind the bar. By the time she got to his cuspids, the bartender was singing like Jennifer Hudson when she was still fat. He not only gave her the waitress's name and address, but he spilled everything he knew about Panama Black.

According to the legend, Panama Black had come to America sometime around 2002, smuggled in on an ocean freighter amongst several other dozen refugees who had been sold on the idea that America was the land of the free. When they got here they realized that the freedoms promised by this country did not extend to those who had not been born on U.S. soil. Instead of equal opportunity, they found low wage jobs and harsh treatment. Some of the refugees who had come over with Panama Black accepted what they were given to work with and tried to make the best of it, but not Panama Black. He had not travelled from one end of the world to the other to become a dishwasher or laborer.

Panama ended up settling in a low-income neighborhood in Panama City, FL, where he took to the streets, doing anything and everything he could to survive. He was an ambitious young moan with the heart of a warrior. When one of the local gangs tried to make him a victim he made them hospital patients. He eventually developed a reputation as a tough guy in the neighborhood, and became popular with other young men his age. Panama would always preach to them how they were meant to be more than what their parents had settled for and that instead of sitting around waiting for a hand-out, they needed to take what the country refused to give them. Panama was a man on a mission, singlehandedly robbing American owned establishments and shaking down tourists. No matter what profited, he would always take a little to do things for the kids in the neighborhood, like buying them ice cream on hot days, or helping their parents buy food when things got tough. Panama was not only talking the talk, he was walking the walk. It didn't take long before some of the men from the families he was helping rallied to his cause. Panama went from a low level gangster to the voice of the people in his neighborhood, thus the legend of Panama Black was born.

It was Panama Black's sudden migration to California that had Kahllah puzzled. From what she understood, he had been content all these years to occupy his little section of Florida, so it came as a surprise when word got out that he was in California. The local crews buckled down and prepared themselves for a war they were sure was coming, but Panama never made a move on any of them. Outside of buying up a few properties in different ghettos in Los Angeles County and the occasional heist here and there, Panama Black had been relatively quiet since he'd been on the West Coast, at least that's the way it looked on the surface. If he was tied to Khan's coup, then there was something bigger going on than what was on the surface, and Kahllah intended to find out exactly what it was.

The girl he was seeing, Delores, stayed in seedy section of Watts. If not for the men posted up in front of run down houses, flying their gang colors, all you had to do was read the graffiti on the walls to know where you were. It was a warning sign to all outsiders.

Kahllah parked her car at the end of the street where Delores lived and killed the engine. She pulled out a pair of binoculars and surveyed the area. Delores's house sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, where it stuck out like a sore thumb. Whereas the houses around it weren't in the best condition, Delores's place was well kept. It was a two-story house, with a manicured lawn and paved driveway. She didn't see any cars in the driveway, but there was a light on in the living room so she knew someone was home. Whether she would find Panama Black inside the house was anyone's guess, but it was where the trail had led her.

This time, Kahllah wasn't taking any chances. She was dressed in fatigues and body armor. Strapped to her was her trusty harness, holding two pistols and several blades, but she had also brought some insurance with her, in the form of a shotgun, the same one the bartender had tried to use on her. She liberated it from him before she left and called it compensation. Kahllah preferred her blades to guns, but she had been ambushed twice in the past twenty-four hours and wasn't looking to let it happen a third time.

Slipping on her mask, Kahllah moved through the shadows, approaching Delores's house. As she neared it, she could hear shouting coming from inside. One was a man's the voice, and the other, Delores's, she presumed. She couldn't make out what they were saying, but they weren't seeing eye-to-eye on something. Kahllah crept into their front yard, making sure to stay low. She had almost reached the house when she noticed that the light upstairs had gone off, and the house was suddenly very quiet. She had a bad feeling, but she had come too far to turn back. If the answers she needed were inside that house, then no one short of G.o.d was going to stop her from going in.

Kahllah scrambled on all fours around the back of the house to where she found a door leading into the kitchen. She removed her lock-pick kit from her harness and within seconds had gained entry to the house. The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was dark. Kahllah hit a b.u.t.ton on the side of her mask, and the eyeholes became night vision lenses. She surveyed the kitchen, with its dishes stacked in the sink and a pot still on the stove boiling. It appeared someone had left in a hurry.

She peered down the hallway that led into the living room and noticed that the television was on. Cradling her shotgun, Kahllah crept into the living room. She expected to find it empty, but to her surprise there was someone sitting on the couch, in front of the T.V. The cherry from the cigar he was puffing, burned ever so bright every time he inhaled. It was dark, so she couldn't see his face, but she could see the silhouette of his block shaped jaw and a head full of matted dread locks in the glare of the television.

When the cigar smoking man spoke, his voice was gravely and had a thick accent. "You should've listened to the bartender when he told you that you didn't want to find me."

The light suddenly flicked on and off repeatedly and Kahllah found herself blinded. Next Kahllah felt two hits: something that felt like a bat crashing into the side of her head and her face hitting the floor.

"I told you not to do this s.h.i.t in my house," Kahllah heard a woman saying. She was still laying face down on the ground, with her head ringing.

"What the f.u.c.k was I supposed to do? He came looking for me," the gravely voiced man shot back. "Look, just get your a.s.s out of here. Me and the boys will clean this s.h.i.t up."

"You better, because I'm not trying to lose my Section 8 over some s.h.i.t you got going on. I should've never let your a.s.s stay here."

While the two of them argued back and forth, Kahllah managed to push herself to one knee. Inside her mask she felt blood dripping down the side of her face from where whatever she'd been hit with had opened her up. She would likely need st.i.tches and an entire bottle of aspirin, but those would have to wait. She could see her shotgun, lying a few feet away from her. She tried to lift her head, and found that it started swimming when she did. It would take a minute to pa.s.s . . . a minute she likely didn't have.

"Take our masked friend out back and put a bullet in his head, then meet me at the other spot. There's been a change of plans," the gravely voice man said to someone, who was out of Kahllah's line of vision. She could feel people around her.

"You got it, Panama," one of them replied.

It was him! Panama Black had been identified and that was all Kahllah needed to hear. She felt the hands of two men take her about the arms. She allowed them to get her to her feet, before she made her move. Kahllah tapped her thumb against her index finger twice, and there was sound of air being released. Before the man holding her even knew what was going on, she was driving one of her retractable elbow daggers into his forearm. Moving fluidly, she swung him around into his partner, sending them both flying into the corner. Before either of them could right themselves, Kahllah was on her feet and had retrieved her shotgun.

"No wait . . ." one of them tried to plead, but she couldn't hear them over the roar of the shotgun. Kahllah spun, looking to Panama Black and caught the backs of his feet as he was fleeing up the stairs. When she went to give chase, Delores leapt into her back.

"You leave my man alone!" Delores screeched, trying to claw at Kahllah's eyes through her mask. She managed to tear the mask loose and dug her nails into Kahllah's exposed face.

Kahllah didn't have time for games. She grabbed Delores by both arms and broke her chokehold. While still holding her immobile by the arms, Kahllah threw her head back, slamming it into Delores's face. She then twisted one of Delores's arms behind her back and dislocated her shoulder. Kahllah looked at the girl rolling around on the floor, squirming and bleeding. All the fight she had in her was officially gone. With Delores out of the way, Kahllah went in pursuit of Panama Black.

She took the steps two at a time, chasing the elusive Panama Black. She lost her footing when she made it to the last step and stumbled backward, which is probably what saved her life. A chunk of the wall just above her tore away in a spray of plaster.

"You wanted Panama Black, well you found him. Now come see about him, m.u.t.h.af.u.c.ka," Panama Black roared, firing off another round with his police issued Sig Saur 550. He was backing down the hallway towards one of his bedrooms.

Kahllah popped up, and fired a burst from the shotgun. She narrowly missed Panama Black as he dove into one of the bedrooms and kicked the door closed behind him. Kahllah moved swiftly down the hall after him. No sooner had she reached for the doork.n.o.b than the bottom of the door exploded, nearly missing her legs.

"You come on in here if you think your b.a.l.l.s are big enough, but I'd best this Sig against your shotgun any day. I got enough bullets in here to last me until you get tired of waiting or the police come and lock us both up," Panama Black yelled through the door.

As much as Kahllah hated to admit it, Panama Black had a point. There was no telling how much ammo he had in the room with him and with all the noise the police were sure to be on their way, so there wasn't enough time to try and find another angle to get to him, but there was more than one way to skin a cat. Kahllah reached into one of the pockets of her fatigue pants and removed the gift Ashanti had gotten her for her last birthday. It was a shiny black grenade. If she couldn't wait him out, she would flush him out. Kahllah tossed the grenade through the hole in the door and ran downstairs to wait for the inevitable.

Kahllah had just made it out of the house, when she heard the scream, followed by an explosion. She ran around the back just in time to see Panama Black hit the ground with a thud. From the force of impact, she gathered that he'd very likely broken an ankle, possibly both, but it was better than getting blown to bits.

Though he was down, he was still not out of the fight. He was crawling across the gra.s.s, trying to retrieve the machine gun that had landed a few feet away. Kahllah dropped the shotgun and retrieved one of her pistols. She shot Panama Black in the back of one leg, then the other, immobilizing him.

"If you're gonna kill me then get it the f.u.c.k over with," Panama grunted against the pain. He was lying on his stomach, clawing at the gra.s.s.

"Not so fast, my friend," Kahllah stood over him. "I have every intention of killing you, but not before I have the answers I have come for." Kahllah rolled him over onto his back so she could finally look into the face of the elusive Panama Black, the man she had gone through so much to track down. When their eyes met, they both had the same slack jawed expression on their faces.

"YOU!" they blurted out simultaneously.

Kahllah whipped in and out of traffic, casting the occasional glance over her shoulder at her pa.s.senger, who was lying across the back seat, bleeding all over the place. Every time she hit a b.u.mp, he winced in pain, but he wouldn't cry out. He was too much of a trooper to show weakness in front of a woman. He'd been a chauvinist when they met and the years hadn't done much to change that.

On the streets he was known as Panama Black, but she knew him as Guillermo Petti. She had first met him years prior while doing a story on an El Salvadorian girl who had been wrongly imprisoned. She had been the girlfriend of a drug dealer who was under investigation by the DEA. The boyfriend knew he was hot, so he got the girl to unknowingly drive a kilo of cocaine across state lines for him. The police picked the girl up and charged her with the drugs. Even though they weren't hers, she took the charge for her boyfriend thinking she would get a lesser sentence as a first time offender, but they threw the book at her. After her incarceration, the boyfriend had abandoned her. Everybody in the neighborhood knew who the drugs belonged to, but despite them telling this to the police they kept the girl in custody and refused to go after the boyfriend.

Guillermo had been one of the biggest advocates for the girl, sighting the fact that the only reason they were holding her and not going after the boyfriend was because he was white and she was Hispanic. He was half right about that. Kahllah had done some digging into the boyfriend and found out he was the nephew of a councilman in Miami. He was protected from the law, but not from the Black Lotus. It didn't take much convincing for the boyfriend to come forward and take the weight. Thanks to Kahllah's article, the case had made national news and shed light on the epidemic of poor Latina women being used as drug mules. Guillermo was grateful for her help and promised that if he could ever returned the favor he would.

"So help me to understand how you're tied into all this," Kahllah told him.

"Look, it's like I was saying at the house, I've been doing freelance work for the Brotherhood for about a year or so now," Panama Black began. "It started out as small stuff, extractions, information gathering, raising h.e.l.l . . . whatever they needed at the time. About three months ago they approached me with a business opportunity that I couldn't pa.s.s up."

"Which was?"

"The keys to the city in exchange for agreeing to help take out one of their own when the time came. On my life, I didn't know it would be you. s.h.i.t, as far as I knew, you were a reporter. I would've never pegged you for an a.s.sa.s.sin," Panama told her.

"There's a lot you'd have never pegged me as. Now tell me about this keys to the city business. What does that mean?"

"I was told that me and my crew would be given the start-up capital to relocate to California and build a criminal empire. We could get as many bricks as we could move for less than fifty percent of the going rate, on the condition that we only set up in Black Neighborhoods."

"All this is over drugs?" Kahllah was surprised. "This doesn't make sense. Kahn has always bent the rules of the Brotherhood to the point of almost breaking them, but he hates drugs. I couldn't see him giving you the green light to flood California. You better shoot straight with me or I'll drop your a.s.s off on one of these corners to bleed to death instead of taking you to the hospital."

"I'm telling you the truth Kahllah. It was Kahn who first hired us to do the freelance work, but it was another member who approached us with the plan about the drugs in exchange for the execution."

This was an interesting twist. "Which member?"

"Kahllah, you know how y'all do it, no real names and no faces. I do know it was a female."

Kahllah stopped the car. There were only three women in the Brotherhood, including her. One of the women was no longer active and the other one had been killed in the line of duty a few years after Kahllah came into the fold.

"What are you doing? I need to get to a hospital," Panama told her. He'd already lost the feeling in his legs and felt himself going into shock.

"I ain't taking your lying wet-back a.s.s nowhere. Here I am, trying to be amicable about this and you want to continue to lie. I'm the only female member of the Brotherhood. Get your lying a.s.s the f.u.c.k out of my car," she leaned over and pushed the back door open.

"Kahllah, either we're talking about two different organizations or someone isn't keeping you abreast of new members. On my kids, I'm telling you the truth. I met her once, but didn't see her face because she was wearing a mask, but she was definitely Brotherhood. All her credentials were in order. She even had a funny flower carved into her mask like the one on your knife," he pointed to the dagger hanging from Kahllah's harness. In the hilt was carved her calling card, a Black Lotus flower.

Kahllah's mouth suddenly became very dry. She pointed her gun at Panama. "What kind of flower was it? And if I think you're lying, on my life and my order, I'm going to kill you right here."

"I don't know, it was some kind of crazy looking flower," Panama said nervously, holding his hands up to shield his face from the gun.

"Then that's too bad for your a.s.s," she c.o.c.ked the hammer.

"Little Flower!" He blurted out.

Kahllah felt an icy chill go down her spine at the phrase. "What did you just say?"

"Little Flower," he repeated. "I don't know the broad's name who commissioned me, but there was another female member there who I heard her call Little Flower. You hear the name before?"

"Yes . . . many years ago."

Kahllah had been an initiate to the Brotherhood, barely sixteen years old. Priest had been her sponsor into the order, but once in she would learn a specialty field from different members. Her weapons instructor had been Tiger Lily. She was a cruel and hard woman with a no nonsense att.i.tude. None of the initiates liked her because she was so mean, but she was arguably the best any of them had ever seen using an edged weapon.

One day Kahllah had been in cla.s.s, clowning with one of the boys during Tiger Lily's lesson. For disrupting her cla.s.s, she decided to make an example of Kahllah.

"Since you obviously know enough not to need my instruction, why don't you come up here and help me with this demonstration for the rest of the cla.s.s, Little Flower," Tiger Lily challenged her. Little Flower was a nickname Tiger Lily used with all the prospective female members of the Brotherhood. It was deemed that all women who took the oath would be named after flowers, to remind them that they were little more than pretty things, and not forged of the same steel as the men. There had been five prospects in Kahllah's initial cla.s.s, but she was the only one who lasted more than a month.

c.o.c.kily, Kahllah got up and went to the front of the cla.s.s. She grabbed one of the wooden swords from the barrel that held them, ready to show off her superior swordplay skills.

"Little Flower, you're good with a sword, better than most of your cla.s.smates, but those are not what we'll be using for today's demonstration," Tiger Lily informed her, to Kahllah's surprise. Tiger Lily picked up two devices Kahllah had seen before, but never used. They were hand straps, with claw-like blades protruding from the knuckles. They were called Tiger Claws.

"But I've never used them before," Kahllah said.

"No worry, you're such an expert I'm sure you'll catch on quick enough," Tiger Lily smirked, fastening the claws to her hands. "Meet me in the center," she told Kahllah and walked to the middle of the room, where the students had formed a circle.

Kahllah was not skilled in using the Tiger Claws, swords were her area of expertise, but she couldn't let Tiger Lily embarra.s.s her. Strapping the claws on, she went to face her instructor. The fight was over in less than a minute. Tiger Lily had cut her up so bad with the claws that Kahllah had required st.i.tches.

Tiger Lily was there while the medics attended Kahllah's wound. She was a general b.i.t.c.h any other time, but she was looking at Kahllah almost pa.s.sionately. "Little Flower," she began, "I know I hurt your pride, but it was a necessary evil. The lessons we learn about death are only a small part of what makes us so efficient. We must also learn humility, which is the lesson I have taught you here today. Each enemy is to be approached with same preparation, no matter how big or small. To underestimate your enemies is to offer yourself up for death. Do you understand, Little Flower?"

"Yes, mistress," Kahllah said just to shut her up. It wouldn't be until years later that she was really able to digest the lesson Tiger Lily had taught her that day, but it would be the last time she ever underestimated any of her foes.

Kahllah's head felt like it was spinning from the new development. So far she had a coup going on in the Brotherhood and a ghost who had come back to life to become a cocaine distributor. It was something straight out of a movie.

"Panama, I have one more question and this is an important one, so think very hard before you answer," Kahllah told him seriously. "This person from the Brotherhood, who offered you the cocaine deal, did she happen to mention where the drugs would be coming from?"

Panama Black thought on it. "Come to think of it, she didn't. Honestly, it wasn't my business. So long as we got to eat, the c.o.ke could've come from the moon for all I care. One thing I do remember though was that she spoke Spanish fluently."

That was the last piece of the puzzle Kahllah needed. Initially, none of it made sense but when she looked at the timeline of events the pieces started coming together. The attempt on her life . . . Red Sonja's sudden appearance to enlist Animal in her schemes . . . on the surface it seemed coincidental, but Kahllah didn't believe in coincides. Animal was not only going against Poppito, but the Brotherhood as well. Everyone was in grave danger. Kahllah stepped on the gas and the car shot out like a bullet.