That's when Arnold showed up with his WPF First Army.
Drove right on up in trucks and Humvees with some of the ex-
Chinese army. You would have smelled the fear, the sweat, the
women, the men, the tanks' hot grease and metal, diesel fumes, the
horses, the tension and even the gunpowder in the bullets all bathing
the humid air. And you would have heard the cameras rolling and
sounds of feet and orders being given. And seen the faces and
bodies. It was plenty, um, "heavy".
        Amid all that, Lion Eagle stepped forward and made his way
between the horses. Kit followed behind him and stopped to stand
by the white mare and Jess's bare leg, putting his hand on her calf
as she dropped a hand to the top of his head and looked down to
him with all the love she had.
        LE proceeded out to the front, up by Hua, and spoke up the
steps in Mandarin to Jao: "why don't you invite the women and a
few of us inside to work this out?"
        Jao recognized the Chief and literally shook. Then he gathered
himself and replied in the same Mandarin, "yes...yes...of course,
come in...come in...let's all reason together," and ordered his
commanding general to have the troops shoulder their arms and
make way.
        Jess again looked down to Kit, her face beaming with
excitement. His was looking up in disbelief at hers, then he helped
her down. Flee, Jasmine, Sage and Hon Ni came up with Jess's
hand waves as Kit helped Swan dismount Heart, though feeling like
he wasn't really touching anything. Lion motioned to Arnie to come,
Hua signalled for the revolutionary leaders, and they all walked up
the steps through the gauntlet of the guards and Jao welcomed them
through the door, definitely admiring the ladies' beautiful bodies up
close.
        They went to his living room, and Jao and his top advisors
immediately started trying to talk them into or threaten them into
giving up the "crazy" protest, promising some empty reforms in
return. The guys and spirits let Hua and the revolutionaries do the
talking for their side, and Jao was getting the real picture in a short
while as Hua walked him through the facts. LE had told Jao the
exact truth in his initial visit. But Jao was not giving up anything and
told them he would take it all under advisement and get back to
them, again admiring the naked ladies, whom he then asked why
they did something so crazy like that.
        Swan walked up to him and said, "because it's true." Then she
reminded him about "Ko", the 49th Hexagram of the I Ching -
"Changing" or "Revolution" - and how it applied to him right then
right there. She explained to him that there was not going to be any
advisement, and there was not going to be any getting back to them.
She told him that the people had already taken China from him and
that his own army had joined them. And she walked Jao to a window
and showed him the free women and men of China talking away with
what had been the last of his army outside. And he saw the truth
again.
        He walked around the room nervously, whispered some with
his cronies and staff, then started to ask what kind of deal he could
get. He knew he couldn't lead the new government. He was asking
Hua about money and sanctuary, and our guys were concealing their
joy as much as they could.
        Kit sat down, asked Flece to give him Pute, dialed up the Execs
and asked them how much they wanted to pay for Jao to say
"sayanara" (yep, wrong language). He used Arnie as the source of the
com and asked Jess to tell Arnie what they were doing. And they
learned Annette Benning and Kim Basinger, who had pretty much
taken over Joni's duties by then, were handling the com for Sundance.
Things were pretty dam awesome. Pretty dam.
        The Xecs mulled it over as Hua was haggling hard with Jao, and
commed the guys back that they could go maybe $1o million and Jess
quietly told Arnie, who quietly told Hua, and it progressed from there.
        Jao wanted $5oM, though, telling them that he had a lot of
family and cohorts to protect from retribution. But the negotiations
didn't go much farther. Hua started counting down from $1o million
at $1 million every 1o seconds.
        The Chairman capitulated before Hua got to 8, and tried to get it
back to 1o. Then Jess got a jewel out of Pute's bag - an Emerald-Ruby
- and took her awesome body up close to Jao, held the jewel to his
eyes and said, "what if we throw in a bunch of these and a night of
love-making with me...and my friend..." nodding toward Flee.
        "HAY!" Kit yelled.
        Hua said, "you don't have to do that, Jessy."
        Jess got a private wink over to Kit and answered, "if it'll get it
over with, it's worth it," and threw a knowing look over to Felecia.
"Right, Fleesh?"
        "O yea...yea, sure, J.C.," Flece went along with her, though
stunned.
        Kit played along with her with an 'aw, hell, whatever she wants'
look around the room, which was convincing enough. And Jess
tantalized Jao with her movements. Then Swan offered too. And
dam if the Chairman wasn't adding it up.
        It didn't take him long after that. His chief lieutenants all told
him privately that their power was all gone. Jao settled on the $9
million, five jewels and the three beautiful women for the next six
hours, demanding, naturally, to show him the money. And they
agreed to having Hua take over the government when Jao was safely
on his way to wherever - with Swan, his last demand, that Swan and
Lion Eagle agreed to - and swaggered upstairs with the ladies after
Jess had given Kit a kiss as she grabbed Pute's bag. He wasn't sure
exactly what her plan was, but he was going along with her.
        "Quite a girl you hov there, Kit," Arnold commented on his way
out to tell his army the news. Kit gave him a smile and nod.
        Hua had his revolutionary commanders make the announcement
to the world out on the steps and the PARTAY commenced, financed
by that darn WPG, who was buying the champagne, beer and food as
the people cheered wildly. Free at last!
        Inside, Jao's partners were getting their shares of the money
deposited in their Swiss bank accounts and making plans for their
retirement spots. Upstairs, well, what it is. Jess gave Jao three Purple
Haze acid gells out of the bag, telling him it was Ecstasy, laying on
how much she wanted him to remember her and, within, O, ten
minutes, the poor old guy was tripping royally, groping for the girls
who kept dancing around his grasp, though Swan let him grab right
through her. O yea, what a trip.
        Downstairs, they still wanted to get Hua, Boris and Billy Jeff
agreeing to Paris on track one. Kit was wizzin' with Pute, spending
$3 million of theirs' to get North Air beer and champagne flights into
Beijing, then catching up with regular biz and the Xecs. He checked
on the suits too. They were still chasing the Lear around North Asia,
and Gena and Will were resting away in a hotel in Olaanbaatar, they
had e-mailed, Amelia and Hank driving the Lear. One Cheyenne was
already down from a mechanical problem. And the Hercules
operatives were indeed stirring up Pakistan and India in Kashmir.
But Slick William was getting the bead on the whole ops.
        It was a warm sultry night and early morning there in Beijing.
They had the windows open downstairs at Hua's new mansion,
feeling the breeze, smelling the smells, and listening to the great
celebration outside.
        "Feel like some poker, boys?" Lion asked with a knowing
smile.
        "Why the fuck not," Code smiled back, and the guys all
gathered around a table. The ones not busy with staff functions,
anyway. Hua was right in there with them as they talked about
getting Russia and the US aboard on the thing. Pretty cool game,
that was. Fark, your poker, your stud, your in-between, black jack
and all that stuff as they drank and smoked Cuban cigars. Arnie was
in it too, while he made calls to Maria and all kinds of Hollywood
characters. And the girls toyed away with Jao upstairs, tantalizing
and teasing and driving him NUTS, as they fed him a few more
gells and his brain tried dealing with the pH overdose. The guys
lost track of time back downstairs. And LE was taking them to the
cleaners.
        Dawn began to magenta and rosen up the windows when the
girls came downstairs - still naked - to tell them Jao was passed out.
        "Somethin' par-a-full 'bout that Purple Haze," Jess related.
        The guys all cracked up, then kept on with the hand they were
playing, one huge pot in there.
        Then Jess tweaked, "well, we can see you guys were sure
worried about US...."
        Kit folded, even though he felt he had the winning hand, and
jumped up to grab onto his girl and twirl her around, taking the pain
in his shoulder, telling her how unbelievable she was and had been.
Then he went over to get her clothes, asking her about what had
happened upstairs as LE scraped in the pot, over $12,ooo in there,
and old Sol started brightening up the sky outside.
        Lion Eagle chuckled as he thanked them all and they all talked
over that hand and counted their stashes, then slowly got on to the
day's business, which was a plenty. Getting Boris, Bill and Hua
talking was still priority one, and Arnie was going through the
military ramifications with Hua and others as well as monitoring
what the WPF was doing around the world and keeping a guard on
Jao. Then Arn got together briefly with Kit and the girls and told
them that he understood that they must be the WPO, mentioning
that message made to the Execs, but he told them that he would
keep it most confidential. And the girls gave him big hugs and
kisses, telling him how grateful they were for him showing up when
he did, besides all his other work.
        The men were still somewhat ineebed, Jas and Sage having
hopped outside for the Tree Frog several times during the game for
the guys, but they were all into sobering up. Jasmine had also put
together the fruit, nut, seed and everything else delight for breakfast
from stuff found in the kitchen, as Hua talked on the line with Billy
and Borey right there in the living room, the Chief counting his
money and showing Swan his winnings.
        "Monday, Monday" was on the radio from D.C. Who was
that, Mamas and Papas? Richie Havens, Lou Reed and others were
taking care of business at Monument, still Sunday night there. Late
Sunday in Alaska, the rockheaders were telling the guys over the
phone that they had bought a Sopwith Camel and a Fokker, plus
appreciated that new Chinese business. The girls called home to say
hay, and they touched base with Truchas, the guys still in D.C.,
Buz and Savvy, Mo and So, and Sara. And Fleesh called BR.

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