Chapter 3

"You know Cyrax, my accompanying you was a bit of good luck." Johnny Cage grinned at his companion and looked around the lobby. Cyrax shrugged and rolled his eyes, which the actor chose to ignore.

"If I hadn't been there, airport security would have arrested you and carted you off for interrogation." He spotted a blonde woman at the reception desk, "and that's just us, you know U.S. Officials have no sense of humour."

He started striding towards the desk with Cyrax beside him. "Cyrax, how do I say hello again?"

"zdrástvooytye." Cyrax replied. Johnny Cage stopped mid stride and looked at him.

"OK, repeat that slowly, I never remember that word."

"zdrá-stvooy-tye." Cyrax said slowly, "emphasis on the zdrá." Cyrax rolled his eyes again.

Johnny had insisted that Cyrax teach him a few phrases of Russian during the nine hour and thirteen minute flight to Moscow. Cyrax had preferred trying to teach Russian than watch any more of his films, three back to back had been more than enough.

"OK, watch this." Johnny sauntered over to the desk and leaned on the counter until the woman looked up. She was startled by Cyrax's appearance then she looked at Johnny. He took off his glasses and smiled.

"zdrástvooytye, menya zavut Johnny Cage. Skazhite, pazhalsta gde Aleksei Semyonovich?" Johnny was pleased that he had remembered all that.

The woman rushed to stand, while speaking excitedly in Russian. Johnny smiled and nodded his head. "Cyrax what did she say?"

"She said that Aleksei Semyonovich is in his office waiting for us, she will call someone to take us there. She says your Russian is very good, that she loves your films and can she have your autograph."

"OK I understand the last part. Kak vas zavut?" Johnny asked taking the pen and paper from her hand

The woman smiled, "menya zavut Tanya." She answered excitedly.

Johnny wrote and signed the autograph, then handed it back to the woman as a security man approached.

"I will do the talking from now on, while your language skills may have impressed her, we will not learn anything if we relay on them." Cyrax turned and followed the security officer without checking if Johnny was behind him.

The two of them was ushered into a large office. Cyrax quickly scanned the room, but found no threats and focused his scanner onto the man standing behind the desk in the centre of the room. His data banks confirmed that it was Colonel leksei Semyonovich.

Johnny Cage smiled at the colonel as Cyrax greeted him, then started to idly look around the room as the conversation was in Russian and he couldn't understand any of it.

A couple of hours later they were looking around an empty warehouse, while being escorted by the colonel and two police officers. Johnny was feeling quite bored, he couldn't understand anything, it was cold, no one had told him that Moscow was this cold in October and he wanted something to eat. He was looking out of the main doors at the car park where the vehicle they had been driven in was parked.

"Johnny." Johnny looked up as Cyrax motioned him to come towards him. As he approached the colonel and his two officers past Johnny and left through the main doors.

"The colonel has given us a hour to look around the warehouse for anything they missed. I don't expect to find anything, according to intelligence the colonel dislikes the Black Dragon and won't take bribes from them. He'll give anything to drive them out of Russia."

"Did he tell you anything interesting?" Johnny asked as Cyrax set off through the warehouse and entered a small office they had both been shown earlier.

"Yes, all of the computers in this room had been smashed and someone had even taken what was left of the hard disks with them."

Johnny shrugged, "so?"

"If a drug deal had gone wrong and you had killed the people you were dealing with, would you take the time to smash and remove computer hard disks? Leave behind over four kilograms of narcotics and five thousand dollars. None of this sounds right and it has the colonel worried." Cyrax activated his scanner. "He mentioned there is a rumour that a cartel called the Red Dragon has been active in Russia. The Lin Kuei have heard of the Red Dragon but in China"

Johnny laughed, "seriously don't these gangs give themselves different names. What's next the Purple Dragon?"

Cyrax stopped scanning and looked at Johnny. "I have not heard of the Purple Dragon, who are they?

"Seriously, you have never seen Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? They are allies of the Foot clan, kind of like the Lin Kuei, but based in Japan, they are led by the evil Shredder, who is the grandmaster."

Cyrax gave Johnny a strange look and returned to his scanning.

"What did the colonel make of your hardware?" Johnny asked after an awkward silence.

"I told the colonel that I was trailing an experimental disability suit for severely injured soldiers." Cyrax finished his scanning, exited the room and walked up a flight of stairs, turned to the left onto an elevated platform, then he reactivated his scanner.

"Ha, even though you have enough fire-power to make Tony Stark jealous."

Cyrax grunted. "I assume Tony Stark is some kind of fictional character?"

"Damn right, he's Iron Man, can fly and everything, there's this really cool scene in the first film where Iron Man kills the bad guys who are rounding up the villagers in Afghanistan." Johnny stood next to Cyrax, "you know, I auditioned for that part but Robert Downey Jr. was considered edgier. Really what do you do in the evenings?"

"Evidently not waste my time on these aspects of American culture". Cyrax stopped scanning and turned to Johnny and spoke with a low voice. "Listen to me very carefully, there is an active camera above us and it has been filming us since we entered this place. Do not look up at it and continue to act normal. I've only just picked it up on my scanner."

Johnny nodded, "Well, what about the X-Men you would love that. There's this group of people with special powers, who can fly, freeze things and use mind control on you and they fight to save people, who hate them. Kind of like us, only not as cool." Johnny watched Cyrax as he began to enter something into a control panel on his left arm. "I tried to introduce Kenshi to Daredevil but he said he didn't like Ben Affleck, especially after Pearl Harbour."

Cyrax lowered his arm and looked at Johnny. "There is nothing here, we should leave."

Johnny and Cyrax left the warehouse and returned to the waiting vehicle. Cyrax thanked the colonel for his help and then they were driven to their hotel.

Later after Cyrax had scanned their hotel room for bugging devices, they had written a report and emailed it to Sonya. She had contacted them the following morning via Skype.

"So what you are saying Cyrax is the whole thing stinks. Someone other than us is taking out the Black Dragon. That was something I was hoping you wouldn't say. Have you been able to trace where that camera was sending film to?" Asked Sonya.

"No, I returned to the warehouse last night and removed the camera. It wasn't filming then, so it was clearly activated remotely by unknown persons who knew that we would be there at that time."

Johnny looked at Cyrax, "I didn't hear you leave."

"Of course not, you sleep too deeply and snore loudly enough that you wouldn't hear any sound that I could make." Cyrax looked at the pieces of the camera in front of him, "however, I have analysed it's signalling device and have found that it was activated from Rome."

"That's a lucky coincidence," said Sonya, "Kenshi was met in Tartu by a South Korean UN security official called Park Sung-ho. He has been assigned to us as an advisor. He checks out, his history, credentials, family, friends, favourite foods. Anyway he had been tracking the Black Dragon in relation to people trafficking in East Europe. But he gave Kenshi information on Jarek. It checks out too, Jarek left Estonia two days ago and is now in Rome."

"How did Jarek travel so quickly to another country. Didn't he need a visa or something?" Asked Johnny.

"Park Sung-ho provided us with a lot of information about Jarek. He is originally from Poland, so he can travel anywhere in the EU. He stayed in Russia handling Black Dragon operations there when the Soviet Union collapsed. How Park Sung-ho got this information is beyond me, but if it helps us catch him then I'll trust him on it."

"So what are our orders?" asked Johnny.

"The two of you are to head to Rome and meet up with Kenshi and Park Sung-ho. I will send you Kenshi's report, but Kenshi will fill you in with what he found out in Tartu himself." Sonya said, "Park Sung-ho has contacted the Roman authorities for the information concerning a criminal group who are trafficking Syrians, Somalians and Malians into Europe. He thinks the Black Dragon runs them."

"Why those groups of people in particular?" asked Cyrax.

"Don't you watch the news?" asked Johnny, "They are the most desperate, what with the civil wars and everything."

Sonya nodded on the monitor, "according to Park Sung-ho those who can pay top dollar are delivered to their country of choice, those who can't are sold into slavery, prostitution or have their organs harvested for the black market."

Johnny winced, "a nice group of people then. I don't think I'll mind if they end up like our friends at the warehouse."

"I expect you to contact me once you have arrived in Rome. Sonya out."

Johnny snorted, "great I haven't recovered from my jet lag yet and now I have to go to Rome. It's not as if I'm going with Sonya on a romantic weekend trip. We could have seen the Vatican, thrown money into the Trevi fountain, like they did in Roman Holiday, seen the Coliseum." Johnny stopped to think for a moment, "actually I don't want to be in a Coliseum again after Outworld. Have to give it a miss."

Cyrax rolled his eyes and carried on packing his things into his case. This is going to be a very long assignment, he thought.