by Sandra Moore
“Yes.”
“So we’re ready to go.”
“We will be when the time comes, yes.” Johnny wiped his mud-smeared hands on a towel. “We’ll stay here tonight and most of tomorrow.”
“Unless we go looking for the Sun Yee On boat.”
“Nikki.” He tossed the towel on a wooden bench and took her hands. “I know how you feel about Yanmei and Mingxia. But every time we go looking for them, you risk your life. Will your goddess be pleased?”
Which one? she thought. Athena might be unhappy, but Hecate—the wild-child goddess of childbirth—would be all in. And there were times when Hecate’s take on things definitely held an advantage.
She pulled from his grasp. “You don’t have to remind me of my duty. I know what it is.”
“But you’re negotiating with reality.”
“How do you mean?” Nikki slumped onto the bench beside his towel. She stuck her legs straight out, then thought her posture might look sullen and drew them in again.
Johnny knelt in front of her, placed his hands on her knees. “You know what you need to do, but you’re trying to see what you can get away with.”
“I’m not being sly,” she protested.
“No, you’re not.” He started to say something, then closed his mouth. “Look,” he tried again, “I’m not trying to tell you what to do or who you are. I’m just saying that I’ve been you. I’ve gone into gang fights and shot my mouth off and been a…” He frowned, then came up with a word. “Hothead.”
“Works for me,” she said, trying not to get annoyed.
“Does it?” His raised brow was skeptical. “It doesn’t really work for me.”
“I’m not going to get suspended.”
“But you may get killed.”
“Everybody has to die sometime.”
“Do you want to die doing your job or doing whatever the hell you want?”
“These girls’ lives are more important to me than anything else—”
“And your goddess knows that. But she still told you to stick with your mission. She made that choice for you. It’s your duty to honor it.”
Nikki sat back, arms crossed. She swam through copper as if it were water and she a fish. A small fish in a very big pond.
Johnny dropped his hands from her knees. He scrubbed the back of his neck with his palm and stood. “If you want to go to the port tomorrow, I’ll take you.”
“LeeWan told you when the Sun boat might land?”
Johnny didn’t look at her as he said, “He called a friend who owed him a favor. The Sun have a couple of boats coming here tomorrow afternoon.”
“Before Diviner is scheduled to show.” She leaned forward to take his hand, heart in her throat. “We can get the girls and Diviner.”
“Only if one of the Sun boats is actually carrying the girls.”
“Will Lee Wan help us?”
“Now you want to bring my friend into it?”
“He’s a cop—”
“He used to be. Not anymore.” Johnny knelt again, gripped her fingers hard. “This is negotiating, too, Nikki. What happens if that Sun boat does have the girls but the Wo show up looking for us? Do you think they’ll show mercy on the children?”
“We can get them to Lee Wan—”
“Who’s an old man. Do you want to see him dead?”
“He handled his family pretty well.”
“Because we’re taught to respect our parents beyond anything.” His jaw worked for a moment. “Sometimes to our detriment.”
Nikki ran her fingers down a long scar striping his smooth shoulder. His mother would have left her loving father, Master Wong, and gone to live with her husband. Never complaining and living with the abuse, Nikki guessed, just as Johnny didn’t run away despite the beatings.
Because it was his duty.
“You defied your father,” she said. “He wanted you to join a triad, didn’t he?”
“This isn’t the same.”
“The hell it’s not. It’s exactly the same.”
“I didn’t have a choice between two rights.” His voice was diamond-hard. “I had a choice between what was right and what my father wanted. It was not a choice at all.”
And at that, Nikki had the surreal impression of a door opening deep in her mind. It was as if she’d been looking at a picture of a carefree young woman, and then something inside her eyes shifted just enough that she could suddenly see the crone’s face hidden in the shadows. Johnny had lived with the injustice of being born to a father who didn’t want him, had refused to follow in his father’s path and had accepted his father’s rage and shame literally on his own shoulders.
No one would beat her if she chose what her heart demanded. But what she risked was something much greater, as Delphi had said. If she allowed herself to be moved from her purpose, her scattered loyalties—her scattered mind and motives—might prevent her from doing her duty not just to Athena but to all the women who’d been modified by Lab 33. The women who were just as innocent as Mingxia and Yanmei.
“You’re right,” she said slowly, resenting what she was saying but saying it anyway. “If I buy it before we get Diviner, I’ll blow the mission. And maybe Athena Academy. Or worse.” She took a deep breath and said softly, “But I don’t want to let those girls suffer. It’s not right.”
“I know. We’ll get them back. If not now, then later. I swear it.”
Her tears splashed on Johnny’s wrist. She leaned into his strength as he gathered her close. She supposed she ought to feel foolish and stupid, but curiously she didn’t. She believed him when he said they’d get the girls back. He was a good man—his grandfather had said so, and she knew it from experience.
That comforting certainty settled in her heart as his arms settled around her shoulders. He’d made mistakes, sure, but she’d seen firsthand his concern for the girls, his outrage over their kidnapping. He’d never have shoved her into an air vent and risked his life keeping watch if he hadn’t wanted those children safe, just like she did. He’d keep his word about getting them back.
And it felt too good to just cry and be held and know that for whatever reason, this incredibly exasperating man accepted her, if only for this moment.
When her tears had spent themselves, she lifted her head from his shoulder. “Sorry about the crying jag.”
He bent and kissed the moisture from her cheek. “Don’t be sorry. I understand.” His fingers moved in her hair, as if testing the waters and liking them.
His lips brushed hers then, moving gently. She gave herself up to the kiss, and let the clenched fist that was her angry heart soften. Loose fist, she thought. Let the energy flow.
Johnny deepened the kiss and the longing inside her chest blossomed into need. She couldn’t help the little whimper that escaped her at his tongue’s probing—how good he tasted—or at his hand’s advance up her thigh.
“Nikki,” he murmured.
“Please.” She grasped his hair to pull his head back and ran her lips over his neck. She wanted everything, and she wanted it now.
“Wait.”
She propped her forehead against his, breathing hard. “What?”
“We have time.”
“You don’t want…me.” She tried to make the words flat, nonjudgmental, but she couldn’t stop the little sob at the end.
He guided her hand to his pants. She gripped his marvelously stony erection. “I do want you, feisty thing. Smell me.”
She tucked her nose into the joint of his neck and shoulder, and inhaled.
Cinnamon. Cinnamon laced with sandalwood.
Shocked, she raised her head to stare at him. His black eyes, placid and trusting, remained steady on her face.
“Do you know how I feel?” he asked.
She nodded, afraid to speak.
“Then we have time, don’t we?”
He gathered her close and kissed her gently. She let herself revel in his embrace, almost high on his scent. She wanted his
arms, his hands, his mouth, his shoulders, his back, his scars, his arrogance, his stubbornness, his protectiveness, his nerve, his gentleness. She wanted the whole package. She wanted it now, but maybe, just this once, she could wait for it.
The waiting was bound to make it even better.
And when he broke the kiss to smile at her, she smelled more cinnamon rising up between them, and recognized it was her scent for him, and his for her.
Chapter 18
C ranes arced over the inlet of Keppel Harbor like massive yellow teeth. From the Port of Singapore Authority’s locked sixth-floor observation room, she could see ships lying at anchor, waiting their turn to be off-loaded. At midafternoon, the cranes’ beaks swung containers through the air and, beneath their huge steel legs, men in hard hats drove pickup trucks from warehouse to container stack and back.
The PDA she held in front of her body, shielded from the observation room’s security camera, registered dozens of signals.
“A network in every corner,” she muttered. She tipped the screen in Johnny’s direction and showed him the leaping lines of wireless signals. He stood at her side, seemingly gazing out at the impressive sprawl of machinery that made Keppel Container Terminal one of the busiest container ports in the world.
“No special signal?” he asked.
She knew he meant Diviner. “Not from here.” She scrolled through the list of signals coming through. No odd blocks and squares of the satellite transponder.
“Ms. Gao will be back in a minute,” he warned.
“We have plenty of time. She’ll have to unlock the door first.”
“Humor me.”
Nikki snapped the lid on the PDA and tucked it in her borrowed purse. Masquerading as freelance industry journalists for Cargo Systems Magazine hadn’t been her best idea for getting inside the terminal, but it’d worked. She’d been surprised her claim of needing the PDA for her “notes” seemed to appease Ms. Gao, the marketing manager. Maybe the technology was commonplace in Singapore.
Ms. Gao had been very thorough in providing them a general rundown of the security measures the Port of Singapore Authority had in place at their container terminals. And if the magazine wanted to do a four-page spread on their state-of-the-art command and control system, she was honored to provide any information as was allowed for public consumption.
The observation room’s door gave a heavy thunk before it opened. The business skirt Nikki wore was a shade too small—Mei’s biggest suit felt skintight to Nikki—and she surreptitiously pulled it down a hair as Ms. Gao, a neatly dressed middle-aged woman, entered.
“Thank you for waiting while I attended to a phone call. I regret the delay.” She smiled. “May I do anything else for you?”
“Your security methods are very impressive,” Johnny said. “I haven’t seen such a thorough setup in all our travels. Have you?” he asked Nikki.
“Not at all.”
“We hope it will be permissible to speak with the head of security you told us about, Mr. Ali bin Sulaiman,” Johnny added smoothly. He smiled.
Ms. Gao’s smile widened. “I will see.”
“Thank you.”
She left the observation room again. The door snicked and locked behind her.
“So when she smiles, she means ‘no’?” Nikki asked in a low voice.
“You’re catching on.”
“It’s like talking to a wall.”
“At least it’s a polite wall.”
“True.”
“And it’s consistent.”
Ms. Gao stepped in again. Nikki wondered who or what the marketing manager had had to consult and how she was going to turn them down without saying no.
But Ms. Gao surprised her by saying, “Mr. Ali is in his office now. May I take you to him?”
“Please, thank you,” Johnny replied.
On the trek down the brightly lit hallway toward the elevator, Nikki pondered what Ms. Gao had told them about the port security: armed guards inspected warehouses and other buildings at random intervals, the cameras were monitored by a team of security personnel at the command and control center, lights illuminated every inch of the port. There was no chance they’d be able to get in and out the way they had in the nether regions of the Kwai Chung terminal.
An irritated feeling in her chest began to kick in. Nerves. How were they supposed to catch Diviner—and his gear—when the place was crawling with eyes, both human and electronic?
Nikki tried to ignore the antiseptic smell of the elevator and then the fresh-carpet tang when the doors opened on the foyer. Another walk down a long hallway, through yet another locked door, and they were in a tiny reception room containing a desk, a telephone, a plain white box that plugged into the wall and a stern-looking man. One door behind the desk led to a glass-enclosed room. Another had a card swipe reader.
“Mr. Ali has been with us for several years,” Ms. Gao said as she handed them off to the scowling man. “He will be able to answer any questions you may have.” She smiled. “Mr. Ali or his assistant will see you out.”
The assistant punched a button under the desk’s lip with no small amount of resentment. “Please wait.” The door to a glass-enclosed room opened.
The antiseptic smell was even stronger in the small space. In the sterile environment, Nikki identified her own antifreeze-scented impatience. She wanted to talk to Johnny, tell him they needed to find a different place and time to snatch Diviner, but was wary of saying anything aloud, just as they’d been in the observation room. And she was tired of being escorted around and kept in locked rooms.
She wondered if Mr. Ali could be trusted, Lee Wan buddy or no. And why would Mr. Ali help strangers only on a recommendation by Lee Wan? Was this all part of the honor thing?
Nikki forgot her questions when she saw an incredibly handsome man built along the lines of a basketball player and dressed like a businessman pause outside their glass room. He barked something at the assistant. A buzz, and then he ducked to enter.
Nodding pleasantly to Nikki and Johnny, he closed the door. It latched with the finality Nikki had come to expect. He stuck the clipboard he held under his arm to bring both hands together before his chest and bow. “Namaste.”
Nikki echoed his movement, feeling absurdly like they were about to spar. Given his size, she’d lose. Given his beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, she wasn’t sure sparring would be the most productive use of his time with a woman.
“Please, sit down.” The man gestured to the pristine white table made of some indestructible substance and the chairs that fronted it. “I am Ali bin Sulaiman. I hear we may have a mutual friend.” He smiled widely at Nikki.
Uh-oh, Nikki thought.
Johnny stiffened in his chair. “My honorable friend Lee Wan sends his regards.”
“Indeed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, Mister…” Ali studied Johnny’s badge. “Tan. And Miss Nikki Jackson.” He scribbled on the clipboard. “How is my old friend?”
“Very well. Ms. Gao told you why we are here?”
“Yes, she did. You have come to the right place.” His smile, beamed Nikki’s way, broadened.
Johnny shifted slightly in the hard plastic seat. His voice was tight as he said, “I’m glad to hear it. We just have a few questions to ask you about your security measures.”
“Please.” Mr. Ali spread hands as lithe as a pianist’s.
“I imagine you get many shipments from Hong Kong,” Johnny said.
“Quite a few, yes.”
“And special containers, with special requirements, are handled carefully?”
“Special requirements?”
“Out of the ordinary.” Johnny took out his own little notepad and quickly sketched the four cat-claw strikes that would identify Diviner’s container. “We have seen such containers marked as having precious cargo and assumed they need special treatment.”
Mr. Ali regarded Johnny thoughtfully for a moment. “Please wait.” Mr. Ali clicked a remote on
his key ring. The door he’d entered arced open and he disappeared through it. Nikki heard a rapid-fire conversation between Mr. Ali’s pleasant baritone and the aide’s near-soprano, then nothing. In a few moments he returned and beamed a broad smile at them both.
“No, no special requirements at all.” He settled into his chair again. “What else do you wish me to speak of?”
“We’d appreciate a look at the command center,” Nikki said.
“I regret to say that today is not a good day to see the command and control center,” Ali said. He glanced at the assistant outside, who seemed to be keeping a watchful eye on the interview in the glass room. “In fact, the Keppel Terminal is not the best place to see our security measures at all.”
“Why is that?” Nikki asked.
“We have made many improvements to our security system at the Pasir Panjang facility.” Ali angled his long body in the woefully short chair and flashed her a studied, polite smile. “It is by far the most secure area managed by the PSA.” Then he sobered to say, “We are very fortunate in that the traffic is light at Pasir Panjang, as it is not yet completed.”
“May I take notes?” Nikki asked, reaching into her purse.
“That is not preferable at this time.” Ali’s mobile face, dark eyes flashing, hinted at something she couldn’t read.
Nikki withdrew her hand. “My apologies.”
“No matter.” Ali waved and his long fingers fluttered like a flirting woman’s. “Security is security. I must beg your pardon as I make a note of my own about your visit. You are writing a magazine article?”
While Nikki recited their cover story, he wrote quickly on his clipboard with a felt-tip pen, in beautiful, elegant ideographs. Johnny made no move, appeared his normal stoic self, simply watched Ali’s flowing strokes. She kept talking, rather inanely, she thought, about magazine layout, full-cover photographs, the article possibly turning into a cover story featuring a photo of Ali standing in front of the cranes lining the harbor. Ali simply nodded politely and kept scribbling.
“Thank you for the information,” he said when she wound down. “I will see that a press photograph is sent to your offices immediately. To what address should I send it?”