"How do you know so much about the ninja stuff?"

"Because I am kunoichi...a ninja."

"From what school are you?"

"Like our friends, I, too, am Ryū-ryū," replied Roxanne, once again seizing on the opportunity to flex her dragon tattoo. No-one seemed to mind.

"I thought you said you were apolitical?"

"I am...now. But a long time ago, when I was younger, I was as fanatical as the others. We longed for the old Japan, before Perry and his black ships and Western capitalism came in. As I got older, I became more...pragmatic, shall we say. Also, some things happened to me...well, I guess that's not important. Point is, now I'm just a working girl trying to carve a living."

"Until someone betrayed you."

"Until someone betrayed me."

"How would you like a chance to get even?"

"I'm all ears."

"That little knife isn't going to be the only karma around here."

"No more time for school talk . . . . SEAL Team, get prepped for hot extraction."

Shipper gestured at the Blackhawk coming in obscured by the rising sun.

"Millis, continue up the river like nothing is amiss" Shipper pointed up the path of the dark water. "Roxi, you and the Sig Forum guys dress up in the Ninjas robes and get concealed below. The terrorists will think you are part of their gang when they board."

From the bowels of the ship Roxanne and the Sig Forum guys could hear the low frequency thump-thump-thump of the Blackhawk's rotors above and the muffled precision commands of Shipper to his SEAL team as they ascended the extraction rope.

The light of the ruby rising sun washed down the hatch partially illuminating the lower hold. It was a beautiful dawn of the day they would bring the terrorist gang to justice! Roxanne touched her dragon tattoo emblazoned thigh as she thought of the long awaited justice to come. This would be HER day.

"Let's get to it guys." Roxanne began disrobing the dead ninjas and tossing the garments to Dan. The Sig Forum young pup began helping Roxanne with the task..... "Lets get prepped for the boarding - we know the terrorists are on their way to rendezvous with the boat upstream. We have no time to loose."

Soon the volume and frequency of the rotor thumping increased, then the volume slowly tapered off, and eventually faded entirely.

"They've gone" Millis called down the hatch.
"My best guess is we are about 40 minutes from the rendezvous point!"

The Sig Forum young pup noted..... "We still have to disarm and re-assemble the bomb before we reach the rendezvous."

Backlighted by the sparse morning illumination filtering down the hatch Roxanne loosened the sash of her kimono and dropped it to the floor. Her beautiful body twisted and the artful dragon tattoo slithering on her thigh danced in the light as she gracefully moved to began slipping into her ninja costume.

"That looks like Tai Chi" remarked the young pup.

"More like rajio taisou" reflected Roxanne. "Remember I am Japanese, and if you have any thoughts of early morning romance, remember I am also ...... Ninja."

"It matters," Millis said after a long pause.

"What?" asked Roxanne.

"The bad things that happened to you, you mentioned. I don't even know what, and it ain't my bizz anyhow. But it still matters. It all matters."

"It matters?" probed Roxanne.

"To me it does," Millis replied.

Roxanne approached Capt. Millis to hand him his new ninja garb. He cradled the bundle, but noticed that Roxanne did not withdraw her hand. He put his right hand on hers, and noticed that the container box next to them was only half-filled with fish.

"We have about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops," Millis observed.

"Perhaps if we helped each other get dressed," said Roxanne as she swung the door of the container box wide, "I mean to save time."

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Strangely, the "come hither" look in Roxanne's smiling face, the flash of her dragon tattoo as she raised her leg to climb inside the box, and the sensual fish smell brought an erotic rush to Millis, dramatically raising his blood pressure.

He followed Roxy into the box and closed the lid. "Better give me that meat cleaver now so nobody - especially me, gets hurt." He mused.

"Want to take a closer look at my tattoo" Roxanne cooed.

Capt. Millis could feel his heart pounding as he reached toward Roxy's soft warm thigh.

All of a sudden, things got strangely quiet...too quiet The "thump thump thump" of the Blackhawk's rotors had long dispersed, but now, there was nothing. An eerie nothing. No sounds from the surrounding crew above and below deck. There was no longer the low static of the radio in the adjoining situation room. They didn't even hear the Macaws screeching from the cargo hold below.

All they heard was the hypnotic, barely-perceptible hum of the ship's engine as they penetrated farther up the river. Each of them could feel the others heart beat, as if it were about to explode from its chest cavity.

Millis stretched down nearly to Roxanne's ankle with his trembling hand and touched the dragon's tail. Slowly with his forefinger he traced the dragon image upward as it coiled around and around her leg and finally touching the iridescent red eyes and fangs of it's head at the top of Roxy's creamy white thigh.

"See those flames from the dragon's mouth rising upward" whispered Roxy. " There are five of them, representing the five times I was betrayed." She caught her breath as Millis traced up one of the flames and continued.. "I did not tell you, but before I became radical and joined with the ninjas, I was once trained as a geisha. I worked the famous elite Ginza district. She gasped again as Millis traced another flame upward with his thumb, then she began breathing rapidly with shallow helpless oxygen starved breaths. Her face went flush as the blood rushed through her carotids. She could hear her heartbeat.

On deck the Sig Forum guys again heard a "thump-thump-thump" but the Blackhawk was long gone. "It must be Milis and Roxy down in the hold" whispered Dan wistfully.

All the men fell silent in deep contemplation.

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Then, in the same instant each blurted out the thought racing through his head, the sound merging into one...

"Lucky bastard."

That prompted an outburst of giggles they surpressed with difficulty.

Survival became the new mission... how to get off this tub safely.

"There's a bridge ahead," the pup said, "If we can loft a line over the bridge, capture it as the.bow comes out from under the bridge we can tie it off on the forecastle. Then we tie ourselves to the other end and as tb ship sails away we ride it up to the bridge deck."

After several minutes of dead silence, Captain Millis slowly raised the lid of the fish container box and struggled out. A Cherry Salmon and a Japanese Snapper (Tai) flopped out behind him and lay lifeless on the floor.

"Dang, I'm exhausted!" he proclaimed. "I'm as spent as these dead fish."

He picked up the Snapper and threw it back into the box.

Roxanne knew it was her imagination, but the snapper seemed to smile as it sailed into her hand. "Carry on Cap'n" she saluted and replied softly "You better get back on deck and find out who's piloting the boat."

On top deck the Sig Forum young pup walked away from his associates who were still giggling about Roxanne and Captain Millis "thumping" below deck in the fish box.
He began dreaming about the erotic spectacle of Roxanne's beautiful dragon tattoo previously dancing in the early morning shaft of light that flooded down the hatch as she began to change.
Suddenly he recalled her earlier discourse with Captain Millis..........

"How do you know so much about the ninja stuff?"
"Because I am kunoichi...a ninja."
"From what school are you?"
"Like our friends, I, too, am Ryū-ryū,"

The pup went to the Captain's quarters and found the laptop that had been left behind by Shipper and the seal team for his use in navigation and inter-team contact. To satisfy his curiosity he opened it, saved the GPS page and opened a new folder.
He typed in: "meaning of Kunoichi"
Wickipedia Dictionary opened up:
Kunoichi
Kunoichi (Japanese: くノ一) is a modern term for a female ninja (previously meaning male or female) or practitioner of ninjutsu (ninpo).
The term is thought to derive from the names of characters that resemble the three strokes in the kanji character for woman (女 onna); said in the order they are written: ku (く) - no (ノ) - ichi (一).

Early literary quotes include Enshū Senkuzuke Narabini Hyakuin (遠舟千句附并百韵?) (1680) as well as Maekuzukeshū (前句付集?) (1716), which specifically associates the word with the kanji 女 supporting the etymology.
Female ninja are mentioned in Bansenshukai, a 17th-century Japanese book compiling the knowledge of the clans in the Iga and Kōga regions devoted to the training of ninja. According to this document, the primary function of female ninja was espionage, finding legitimate service positions in the households of enemies, to accumulate knowledge by gaining trust or overhearing conversations........

Kunoichi typically would never resort to combat and rely on seduction if they had the duty to assassinate.

They often used small compact weapons to hide in their kimonos. For example, the neko te were "cat claws" that would scratch and would sometimes be dipped in a poison before use. Tessen, folding fans, were also in use as they can be a "weapon hid in plain sight" because tessen were carried around by everyone in the era........

The Sig Forum young pup felt a cold chill run down his spine as he read the middle of the third paragraph, and shocking revelation hit him when he reached the fourth paragraph.

He typed into the Dictionary:
"meaning of Ryu-Ryu" The page flashed and returned:
....... Street Fighter

"Street Fighter"? the pup thought, "That don't make no sense. A female ninja with a dragon tattoo fighting asphalt carriageways? Dafuq?"

The pup realized his imperfect English was, once again causing him a problem.

"Damned if English isn't tough to understand some times. I guess that's what I get learning English in a Welsh-only school from a Basque national who learned English while growing up in Uzbekistan."

"Oh well. Urban Dictionary to the rescue."

"Did you need some help with Japanese?" From out of nowhere Roxanne was standing behind him, and must have seen the Japanese characters on the screen.

"Uh, no," the pup said, quickly punching the screen blank. Trying to change the subject, he asked, "Do you want something? I mean, like drink or food? I think there's some cake..."

"No, thank you. Just had a spicy tuna roll myself," she responded with an absolute deadpan expression.

"Too bad there wasn't enough for everyone," he replied back equally deadpan. He wondered how many different ways he could die right now. Of course, with Roxanne on their side now, he had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

​

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He did spend a moment contemplating one particular way she could kill him. Bringing himself back, he decided he needed to concentrate on the job at hand and to save that thought for later, when he was fed, warm, safe, and alone in his bunk.

"So, what's Plan B?" he asked.

In a dark corner of the ships galley Roxanne wet a rag and wiped the sticky red liquid from the edge of her Higonokami (geisha blade). As she folded the small knife and concealed it in her kimono she recalled her grandmother's words...." Keep this always to defend your honor."

Soon the barbiturate would take effect and bring her closer to completing her mission.

She retrieved a cell phone from the lining of her kimono, inserted the battery and tapped out.........
" Phase 2 complete. Competitors using DAMASCUS steel- likely East Mediterranean origin."

In the Blackhawk hovering above the banks of the river the SEAL Team had no luck finding any trace of the terrorists assumed attack position. Shipper, watching the GPS track of the boat suddenly saw another GPS signal apparently coincident and tracking with the boat's signal from the other laptop he had left there. The GPS "ping" popped up and lasted only a few seconds. "That's wierd" Shipper mused to himself.

Roxi quickly removed the battery from the phone and re-inserted it into her concealment kimono pocket.

Gleaming in the mid-morning sun high above the Ginza district and just south of the Imperial Palace Grounds, the famous Japanese Imperial Hotel stood. Comissioned by the Japanese Aristocacy in the late 1800's and depicting Maya Revival architecture of Frank LLoyd Wright it had survived the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and much more. Like Roxanne and the generations before her who conceived it, it would continue to endure hardship and the test of time.

A darkened executive suite in the top floor of the architectural marvel came alive when Roxanne's digital signal arrived. Her chief instantly understood her message. "New info! ... Begin searching suspect communications frequencies for Arabic and related regional languages. Origin of directives is likely somewhere around Turkey, Iraq, Iran or Syria."

Millis on top deck of the tub was understandably tired from his recent "encounter" with Roxanne in the boats hold, but he felt as though he was not recovering. He took the ship's wheel from Dan the older Sig Forum guy.

"Captain - you look pretty exhausted" he snickered. "Are your sure you are OK to take this baby on up the river?" Dan pushed aside the Captain's collar. "Hey Capt'n - looks like you nicked yourself shaving."

Millis stared out at the Sumida River -he focused intently upriver desperately trying to keep himself awake and upright. The Tasukiji Fish Market was far in front of the bow. The detail of his view faded quickly as the barbiturate clouded his vision and the weight of his eyelids became unbearable.

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Famagusta Port in the Northern Famagusta District of Cypress now under control by the rogue authority of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cypress (TRNC) is surrounded by the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. The former Cypriot Greek District Administration was over run and exiled south of the U.N. Buffer Zone after the 1974 Islamic invasion of Northern Cypress by the Turks.

Subsequent floods of Sunni Muslim Turkish immigrants brought the Quran and Sharia Law to the northern region displacing Greek Orthodoxy and Christian culture. Pervasive influence of the small but fanatical Wahhabism sect brought the ideology of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to the north. Ethnic cleansing, looting of cultural treasures, destruction of ancient of churches, artworks, and monuments had caused the renowned archaeologist Sophocles Hadjisavvas to proclaim it as "the organized destruction of Greek and Christian heritage in the north".

Plunder and rape of Northern Cypress was condemned by the International Council on Monuments and Sites without any consequential action.

Despite various proclamations by the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations, and other International Organizations, and with numerous objections citing violations of the Geneva Convention, and subsequent resolutions, restrictions, embargoes, etc., bla, bla, bla, ....... the region remains today illegally isolated and disconnected from the southern half of the island.

Then the "July War" of 2006 brought new immigrants - members of Hezbollah fleeing failure and the destruction they had caused in the Golan Heights.

"This is the perfect place for me." Abd-el-Qadir (Servant of the Powerful) thought. "My work is easy here, surrounded by my willing servants and far away from my enemy's prying eyes. He glanced at his almond wrist checking his Omega Blancpain 1735, Grande Complication watch. It was 4:32 A.M. - nearly time for the geosynchronous "weather" satellite to be in position to receive his message and re-transmit it to the hired terrorist yakuza ninja team waiting for his command instructions by the river bank upstream from Tokyo Bay. They were seven hours ahead of him.

He looked into the blackness of the night sky gazing at the constellations above. . . realizing that his mercenary ninja team was now operating in the mid-day sun, and at their performance peak.

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At CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia she sat frustrated staring deeply into her computer screen.

"I've got NOTHING here!" Shannon removed her tortoise shell horn rimed glasses to massage her throbbing temples.

"Damn it to hell!" ........ "Damn it all to hell" .......she anxiously sipped her acidic cold black coffee.

Again she clicked the "Search" icon and pressed the Enter key of her keyboard...... the same irritating response....... "No matching signals found."

A note was laid before her. "We just got this from the field office in Tokyo - a secure line communication direct to the boss."

Shannon picked up the "Eyes Only" document and read . . "Expand search to Mediterranean, search for Arabic and derivative languages."

"My God!" she exclaimed. "They have their own satellite!"

......... "and" ....."They're not East Asian?"

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Roxanne left the galley, slipped down the hall to general quarters, and reclined in her bunk. She laid there quietly waiting for the depressant to overtake Millis - hoping her clandestine message had been received and understood.

Her memory drifted to the kuretake-ryō.
Razed after the Meiji period to make way for construction of the East Garden, the kuretake-ryō was a dormitory built for imperial princesses within the Imperial Palace Grounds.

Though forever gone, Roxanne preferred to remember her past vision of the garden that is now declared by the Japanese government a "Special Historic Relic."

Roxanne replayed in her mind the words of her grandmother. "Sometimes we survive by forgetting."

She drifted off to sleep.

"Sig Forum Dudes, line up!" commanded Millis, addressing the team in their new ninja garb. No-one budged a single muscle, though a couple of them looked at him with a "dafuq do you want?" expression. "You are just about the five motliest shadow warriors I have ever seen. Not that I've seen that many."

"Five?" queried Roxanne, fresh from her nap.

"Yeah, five...wha...wait...there are only four SF members on-board. That means one of you..."

"Is a real ninja!"

Everybody looked at everyone else nervously. No-one seemed sure what to do. "OK, nobody move! One-by-one...I want you to pull your sidearm, slowly, and describe the piece to us."

"What good will that do?"

"You'll see in a minute," replied Millis, taking the safety off his own Browning Hi-Power, "Let's start with you."

​

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"Sig P210."

"Beautiful. Renowned Swiss precision. Variant?"

"3."

"Chambered?"

"9mm Parabellum."

"Parabellum? I thought these things were 9mm Luger."

"Same thing."

Millis smiled and waved the first questionee to the side. "OK. You pass. You're a gun nut." He pointed to the next hooded figure in line. "And now you, my friend."

​

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The second B1 bomber came off the tanker, banked right, and slid in trail behind the flight leader. They had just completed their third inflight refueling.

The command pilots both acknowledged the target coordinates transmission, entered and then verified the inputted data. The B1's then descended to 200 feet and made a gentle turn towards Japan.

Both bombers' rotary racks contained a mixture of stand-off anti ship weapons and JDAMs.

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