The Gai Jin Perspective

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The second shot grazed his ear. By the third he was plunging into the icy cold water, moving downstream and out of range. He could hold his breath for seven minutes if necessary. But the bomb in his hand had thirty seconds left. If he emerged now he could throw it into the midst of the guerrillas and kill them all. He could also be shot. Better to wait until he’d reached the shadows under the concrete ledge.

There wasn’t much time left to consider the matter. His shoulder was starting to ache from the sword gash. The sharks were probably attracted to the smell. He kicked another one away.

Fifteen more seconds.

Just then he remembered: N always set the bomb timers wrong. Dangerous affliction, dyslexia. That meant . . .

Zero. The ashes rained down.

Major Anthony Kendrick—not his real name, of course; no one knew that—watched the woman from across the room. At first he’d thought her a local peasant but the unconvincing rhythm of her tread as she carried him to her hut made him suspicious. Once in front of the fire she removed her yak hide njingitsa, revealing a tight, short dress and five inch heels, and then he knew. She was probably a member of the American press.

She bandaged his forehead. Her breasts jutted before him like fleshy Z19 missiles—the missiles no one knew about but N, the Prime Minister and, of course, him.

“Water?” she asked.

“What’s your name?”

Her mouth was all over his. Her tongue moved in quick short thrusts. So much like the other woman. But that was so long ago. How could this woman know about that? So many years ago, and her breasts like grenades . . .

It almost worked. She had succeeded in distracting him for a moment but once he smelled the cordite and mercuric iodide residue in her hair, he knew.

This was the one he’d been searching for.

The only question now: what action would be best for the Crown? He could easily reach around to her right earlobe and smash with his fingers the lo-tsin-nguyen point just under the skin, killing her instantly. He could merely disable her optic nerve and then ransack the room. He could give her a really bad case of diarrhea . . .

No. He knew what he would do. Three years of being Commander Kruskatov’s whore made a woman useful for one kind of punishment: Dosinjai.

The hand reaching to smash her ear instead gave it a hair-trigger-light touch that caused her to moan with intense pleasure. He followed this with a firm slapping motion on her left buttock that was in counterpoint to the rhythm of his pulse. Her moans became louder.

It was all coming back to him. All those years of training at the hands of Master Qxackwan and his many concu bines with breasts shaped like a wide variety of things. His years of studying Dosinjai, the ancient art of conquering a woman’s body with a man’s bo lo nai.

A deft touch here, a short caress there, a quick poke . . . he was done. She was finished. She had undergone a physical experience so potent it would leave her unable to respond to any other man. She would forget all about The Cause and wander the streets in delirium.

Once again Her Majesty’s kingdom was safe.

For now.