The Price of Time

by Tim Tigner

  She did not regret her decision.

  But she was a bit nervous about the new status quo. Chase had assured her that there was a code among intelligence officers, and it would keep Tory in check. Their Finnish foe was now honor bound to respect their balancing act. He would not seek revenge, Chase asserted.

  To illustrate his argument with an example, Chase had pointed out that intelligence agencies never targeted the families of their rival officers. They didn’t kidnap children. They didn’t threaten spouses. For centuries the rule had remained inviolate even between the bitterest of rivals. Skylar had to acknowledge both the existence and the power of the code, and was further comforted by the knowledge that Tory would be stuck in a hospital until this was over. Nonetheless, she retained a nagging feeling.

  At that moment, in that lull between storms, as her adrenaline ebbed and her energy rebounded, she found herself battling waves of powerful emotions. They were churning inside her, swaying her this way then that, ever closer to overload.

  Chase returned from the bathroom to stand behind her. “No flag on the map yet.” It wasn’t a question. He could see the screen. “I’m thinking about calling in an order to that Chinese place we saw down the street. Would that work for you?”

  Skylar struggled to reorient herself. Food had been the furthest thing from her mind. “You need my credit card?”

  “I figure I’ll give Tory’s Amex a try. Not much risk with takeout. There are a hundred hotels around here.” His expression changed as his eyes fixed on hers. Now they were the sweetest shade of blue. And so incredibly kind. “Hey, are you all right?”

  She felt a sob welling up from deep within. One of those uncontrollable releases of emotional energy that usually attack at the climax of good dramatic movies. She found herself standing as she struggled to suppress it. Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around Chase’s neck and pulled his lips to hers.

  He remained a bit rigid at first. No doubt he had his own conflicting emotions. But her body just powered through, the way it always did when meeting resistance. Her hands ran over his back and through his hair while her mouth worked of its own accord, desperately trying to satisfy an appetite deep within, regardless of cost or consequence.

  His gears kicked in before she needed to come up for breath.

  Soon his hands leapt into action. Outside her clothes at first, then within. Caressing, petting, pulling, and squeezing. Her shirt flew off, followed by her bra. Pants dropped as they toppled onto the bed, mouths still melded. The fervid kisses continued as their feet began kicking in clumsy attempts to jettison the garments that still clung to their hungry flesh.

  Once all their skin was sufficiently exposed, their legs intertwined and a rhythmic motion developed. But he didn’t go in. When she reached the point where she couldn’t take it any more he pulled away and looked her in the eye. His eyes were bright with desire but tinged with concern. She whispered the answer to his unasked question. “Yes.”

  He slipped inside and engaged the electricity, a buzzing in her intimate areas that radiated outward in pulses of bright pink light. She closed her eyes and clenched his back, riding her own pent-up emotion as much as his beautiful body. The pulsing grew faster and stronger, slapping her with wave after wave until her world exploded and her body spasmed and she writhed beneath the pleasant tremor of passions released.

  He clung tightly until her body went limp and her lungs regained their ability to breathe deeply.

  When she finally opened her eyes, Skylar found Chase staring at her, wearing a warm smile. He was propped up on one elbow, his left leg still draped over hers. “You’re a dream,” he said.

  She pulled him close and kissed his lips and it started all over again. A bit less frantic, but ultimately equally satisfying and intense.

  The next time she opened her eyes, her tension had vanished. It had vacated her heart and left contentment behind. Almost like giving birth, she imagined. Then her stomach rumbled and they both laughed.

  “You said something about Chinese food?”

  His reaction surprised her. He tilted his head and grew a broad grin. “You know from now on that’s going to be our thing. Someone we’re with will suggest Chinese food and we’ll be giggling all the way to the bedroom.”

  Skylar felt another pulse of pink light. He’d just referenced a shared future. Could this be happening? Could it continue? So many questions. Good questions this time. “I love that you think that way.” Oops, she’d said the L word. She quickly followed up. “I’ll take the mapo doufu, please.”

  “So you like your Chinese spicy?” he said with a wink.

  She smiled and stole a quick kiss. “I do.”

  As Chase rolled off the bed, her computer pinged. Skylar sat up and saw that a single pin had appeared. The email had been opened. On the big map, it wasn’t far from their current location. But it also wasn’t on land.

  66

  Strange Arrangement

  THE TILTROTOR disgorged David and Pierce into the company of two more guards, both unabashedly brandishing HK MP5s. The one to David’s right addressed them. “Please follow me, gentlemen. Ms. Eiffel is expecting you.”

  “I’d hate to think what would have happened if we hadn’t been expected,” Pierce said.

  “All your worries would have disappeared,” David said, forcing a smile.

  They marched through the house toward the owner’s suite in the back. Marching was the right word, David thought, given how they were sandwiched between men wearing combat boots.

  They could see Aria working on her laptop through a doorway that resembled the entrance to a vault. She looked up at the sound of their approach. “Welcome to my safe suite,” she said, rising to meet them while closing her computer.

  The soldiers peeled off to the side as the guests entered hallowed ground. Once the two Immortals passed her threshold, Aria pressed her palm against a glass plate installed in the wall. The door swung slowly shut, closing them in with a gas-expelling whoosh.

  To David’s eye, the central room of Aria’s safe suite mirrored the main room of many modern estates. A full kitchen complete with a long granite island covered the back wall. Luxurious eating and lounging areas occupied the middle, with more intimate seating areas off to the sides. Everything was oriented toward a breathtaking view over her picturesque pool and private beach of sugary sand.

  David’s focus moved to the middle of the room, where a table was set for a seven-star feast. Steaming lobsters and chilled oysters and a rainbow of fresh fruits. Wines and juices to the right. Prime rib to the left. Salads and starters and a tiered silver tray full of sweets on the far side.

  “The refrigerators and pantry are also fully stocked,” Aria said. “We’ll be quite comfortable for a week. If it looks like we’ll need more time, I’ll have a second round brought in.”

  “More time for what, exactly?” Pierce asked, as Aria settled back into her lounger and they took opposite chairs. “What do you expect the three of us to accomplish?”

  David gestured toward the sumptuous table in the center of the room. “She’s interrogating us, albeit in seven-star style. It’s a simple but effective tactic. You lock people in a room long enough, and they start talking. They can’t help it. Ask any police detective.”

  “It’s a brainstorming session,” Aria corrected. “The police don’t serve lobster and Champagne. And I’m delighted to say that it may all prove to be unnecessary. I just got an email from Tory.”

  “An email?” Pierce clarified. “That’s a first for Tory. Isn’t he Mr. Security?”

  “He called first to find out if I knew why Felix wasn’t answering his phone. Of course I told him. Then he dropped the bomb.”

  Aria stopped there, savoring the moment while they squirmed forward in their seats. “He told me he knows the killer’s identity.”

  “Who?” Pierce asked, packing a load of excitement into just one word.

  “He refused to say over the phone. He wanted t
o meet.”

  “That sounds like a trap,” Pierce said.

  “My thought exactly. So I said he could email me the name if he couldn’t talk on the phone.”

  “And?”

  “He said he’d consider it. That was hours ago. But he just did. Sort of. I’m glad I opened it. I’ve gotten a few junk emails today, so I almost deleted it outright.” She lifted the lid of her laptop and read. “It’s not a person, it’s an organization. The one you’d least suspect.”

  “Does he reiterate his request for a meeting?”

  Aria rotated the computer around on her lap to show them the screen. “No, that’s it.”

  Pierce leaned in. “It’s pretty vague. Sounds like he’s trying to provoke a reaction. Get you to request a meeting.”

  David reached for his phone. When his hand found the soft fabric of a sewn-shut pocket, he remembered that they’d surrendered everything back on the mainland. “I got a call from Tory, too. But I didn’t answer.”

  “Why not?” Aria asked.

  “I wasn’t in the mood to talk about replacements.”

  Pierce harrumphed. “Apparently that’s not what he wanted.”

  “Who could have guessed?” David turned from Pierce back to Aria, then nodded at the laptop. “How do you plan to reply to Tory?”

  “Invite him here,” Pierce suggested. “Let him get that warm reception from your security staff. Then we’ll interrogate him in person.”

  David shook his head. “Tory is a first-rate soldier and tactician. He will arrive with overwhelming force—if he’s up to something. Personally, I can’t imagine why he’d want to be deceitful or antagonistic. We’re his gravy train.”

  “Maybe he’s figured out that he can blackmail us into giving him the whole railroad.” Pierce held up a finger as an idea struck. “Don’t give him the name of the island, just the airport in North Palm Beach. Bring him here the same way you brought us. Preferably blindfolded.”

  Aria’s stomach grumbled. She blushed and rose to her feet. “Gentlemen, please fill a plate. I spent an hour watching them prepare that feast. Clearly, my willpower has reached its limit. We’ll get to Tory once we’ve fueled our brains.”

  “Sounds good to me,” David said, rising. A lobster had caught his eye. He grabbed it along with a candle-warmed pot of drawn butter and made his way to the small round dining table set for three. A crisp white card had his name printed in script, an artifact of Aria’s fastidiousness. He set the lobster down and returned to the buffet where he filled a smaller plate with Caesar salad. “Who else is drinking Champagne?”

  “You read my mind,” Aria said.

  “What the heck. I’ll switch to Bordeaux later,” Pierce said, looking up from the prime rib where he was working a long silver carving knife.

  David found it odd that Aria had allowed such a formidable weapon into her sanctuary. Perhaps it was a test. Or perhaps this whole arrangement was more than it seemed.

  67

  Alternative Approaches

  SKYLAR’S BODY was still basking in the afterglow of her amorous outburst as she grabbed her laptop off the desk and returned to the bed beside Chase. Laying it on her bare legs, she noted with some pride that they remained tanned and toned despite her recent lack of exercise. Well, training, she corrected.

  Chase stood up, causing her stomach to flutter.

  Their relationship had crossed the big river, and she wanted to spend some time sunning on the grass. She wanted to find out if it felt as good as it had looked from the other side. If it didn’t, she told herself that would be fine. Disappointing but fine. Moving on without taking any time to feel the sand between their toes, however, would be a blow.

  She wasn’t ready for another kick right now.

  Chase pulled on his boxers and snuggled back in beside her, keeping the glow alive. He put an arm around her shoulders and studied the pin that had popped onto her screen, bringing an abrupt end to their first intimate encounter. “That’s not a good sign. Looks like a default, the equivalent of an error message. Can you zoom in?”

  “Maybe Aria’s on a yacht,” Skylar said, enjoying his warmth while working the touchpad.

  She moved back and forth between zooming in and re-centering until the scale was city size. “It’s an island.”

  One more click revealed the name.

  “Seven Star Island,” Chase read aloud. “That makes sense. I should have thought to Google it when we got Aria’s email address.”

  Skylar typed in Seven Star and got millions of hits. “It wouldn’t have helped.”

  “Try Aria Seven Star.”

  Skylar did. They studied the output. “Just garbage. Any more ideas?”

  “Tory said he could never find anything on his employers. He explained how he searched and why, and I believed him. But he never had a location, just photos and first names.”

  “Right. He said they were clearly meticulous about keeping off the grid, and speculated that they’d invested in a serious internet cleanup operation.”

  Chase raised a finger. “There’s one place that cleanup operations can’t reach, and that’s the NSA archives. The National Security Agency keeps records of cached web pages, kind of like computer backups for the internet. Rumor is they’ve subcontracted this to Google, but I don’t know if that’s true. In any case, I can see if Lesley will run an archive search on Aria Seven Star. We might get lucky.”

  Chase retrieved his laptop and began typing.

  Skylar waited for him to hit SEND before asking, “Does it matter at this point? Now that we know where to find Aria.”

  “It might. Although we’re definitely going to Seven Star Island, one way or another, I’d like to know what to expect when we get there. Aria might well be a Latin American drug lord, or an East European human trafficker, or an African arms dealer. The only thing we know about her at this point is that she paid a Finnish assassin a lot of money to make people with specific physical descriptions disappear without a trace. The CIA, with all its tricks and toys, would never initiate an infiltration operation with such a paucity of information.”

  Skylar had never really considered the drug-lord or human-trafficking or arms-dealing options. She’d never really considered the demographics of her assailant at all, beyond charming con man. As a professional, Chase had an entirely different perspective. He took the pragmatic block-and-tackle approach of an operative. She needed to start thinking that way too. “How will additional information impact our approach?”

  Chase repositioned himself so he was sitting cross-legged on the bed and they could speak face to face. “It’s a question of tactics. Do we make a stealthy assault in the middle of the night, or sail in during the day and knock on the door? Do we take a boat or helicopter—assuming that Tory’s Amex is still working? Do we scuba dive, or saunter off the dock? Do we go in heavy or unarmed?”

  Skylar was pleased to see Chase stealing glances at her body. “What do you mean by going in heavy?”

  “Assault rifles, night vision, an assortment of grenades.” His intonation altered as he spoke, no doubt in reaction to her facial expression. “Probably not our best option, given the composition of our team. Actually, I feel kind of silly for even considering it. It’s just my default scenario, given my background.”

  “I understand. But you need to know that I’ve never fired a pistol, much less an assault rifle. And frankly, I’d be nervous about picking up a grenade. I will do it if that’s what you’re convinced it takes, but I’m hoping we can come up with something more cerebral.”

  “Like a frying pan?”

  Skylar appreciated the injection of levity, but didn’t allow it to deviate her train of thought. “I also hope we’ll call the police if Aria turns out to be a drug lord or human trafficker or arms dealer.”

  “You make some excellent points.”

  Her stomach rumbled again, breaking the tension.

  “Let’s go out for dinner. Get some air,” he suggested. “With luck, Lesl
ey will have responded by the time we’re back.”

  68

  Ultimate Relief

  DAVID RAISED HIS GLASS as the others took their seats. Given the table’s small size, it was easy for them to clink. “To the future.”

  “To the future,” they repeated.

  He cracked a claw and forked out the meat, retaining the semicircular shape. One of the things he’d learned as a man of wealth was how to attack shellfish. He dipped the flesh into the warm butter, then popped the whole thing into his mouth, savoring that sumptuous first bite.

  Aria went to work with equal aplomb on a slice of honeydew melon. “Before we discuss a reply to Tory’s email, have either of you learned exactly what happened to Lisa?” she asked.

  “You were the last to see her, right?” Pierce asked. “She paid you a visit?”

  “Yes. She showed up unannounced. It provided a timely test for my security contingent. They detected her approach from half an hour out and tracked her all the way here.”

  David set his fork down softly on the white tablecloth and cleared his throat. He’d hoped to finish his lunch before having this conversation, but it seemed silly to trifle now that Aria had teed it up. “Lisa was killed with a neurotoxin. Batrachotoxin to be precise. An injector hidden in her seat was activated by a trip-switch calibrated to her weight, 120 to 130 pounds. It triggered when the attached altimeter indicated that her G650 had crossed into long-range cruising altitude, 45,000 feet. Ironically, it was her attempt to escape that killed her. Hopefully she died in her sleep.”

  “You have a contact at the Orange County Sheriff’s Department?” Pierce asked, visibly impressed.

  David wetted his throat with a swallow of Champagne. “No. That’s just how I designed it. Her seat, her weight, a long-range flight. Safety measures designed to ensure that there wouldn’t be an innocent victim.”

  Pierce’s eyes went wide, then turned toward his steak knife. It was the hefty kind, with a riveted hardwood handle and a sharp serrated edge.