Not Exactly Allies

by Kathryn Judson

CHAPTER 66 – HONG KONG

  Richard and Emma Hugh, eating in a restaurant in Hong Kong, looked up to see a familiar silhouette walking their direction. With the man was a woman they didn't recognize.

  "You look familiar, somehow. Do I know you?" Richard asked, when the couple stopped at his table.

  "You first. Your name, I am not so sure of it," the man said.

  "Richard Hugh," Richard said. "And this…" On second thought, until he found out about the unknown woman, he wasn't sure how he wanted to introduce Emma. "Tell me again, your name?"

  "Leandre Durand, at your service. And this is Miss Mariamne Diderot. She has been working on the Coudray matter, in Rio, but our birds have flown to somewhere in mainland China, we hear."

  "Let me guess."

  "Not here, please."

  "As you wish. Miss Diderot, this is Emma Hugh, my wife."

  "Some women have all the luck," Mariamne said.

  Richard, in the process of inviting Durand and his colleague to join them, stopped mid-gesture. It was amazing, what the fact of marriage did to a man's sense of what was flattering and what was troublesome.

  "I am only joking. Mostly joking, at any rate," Mariamne said. "M. Durand has been something of a stick in the mud on this trip, that is all."

  Richard noted Emma's suppressed smile. He waved Durand and his partner toward seats.

  Durand seated his companion, but stayed standing. "If you will be so good as to watch after her for a little while?" he asked the Hughs, jointly.

  "Of course," Emma said. "Do you want Richard to go with you?"

  Durand hesitated. That was enough for Richard, who got up and left with him.

  "Men! They are unfathomable, no?" Mariamne said.

  Emma watched as her husband and Durand ever so discreetly (indeed, almost imperceptibly) lured a man after them. The man had hard eyes and a hand that kept drifting toward where a holster might be expected.

  "They can give you gray hairs, I'll give you that," she said.

  Mariamne started to laugh, but caught herself. "I missed something, no?"

  "You had someone tailing you. Armed. Mean looking."

  "I apologize, then. I am used to dealing with younger men. The ones who are afraid to look or act like men, you know. The men I usually am stuck with would have shoved the problem off on me, I suspect, while they went to get the hair cut into the latest style. Then they would tell headquarters, when they found me in a bloody pile, 'Oh, but I was only letting the girl prove that she is up to anything, you know.'"

  "You're speaking from experience?"

  "Someday I should show you what is left of the skin on my back. Should we go after them? To back them up?"

  "They'll call if they want us."

  "Not much chance of that, is there?"

  Emma shook her head.

  "Well, they can't stop me from tracking them, at any rate," Mariamne said. She pulled out her special-issue phone and punched a few buttons, tying into GPS readings from equipment issued to Durand. She set the phone where she could monitor the readout. She flagged a waiter and ordered dinner.

  "I don't think they'd like to know that you're tracking them," Emma said, when the waiter was gone.

  "Never fear. I am young, but I am French. I understand the fine art of not letting a man know too much of what you are doing behind his back. But, you know something? Before I met M. Durand I didn't quite realize to what extent some men do the same thing to us. Keeping us in the dark, you know?"

  "I know. It can be difficult."

  The ladies dawdled over their meal. Toward dessert, Mariamne glanced at her phone and announced, "They are headed back this way. Or at least Durand is, and I suppose your man is with him." She rearranged things, so that her phone could be dropped into her purse in one easy swoop. Emma fingered her new cane, which was equipped with a gun as well as a sword.

  When Durand's signal showed him to be within a half block, Mariamne stashed her phone, and the two women unobtrusively scanned their surroundings, watching for trouble that might still be attached to the men, perhaps without their knowing it.

  When the men rejoined them, Richard said, "You two have the look of children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, as the Americans say. Have you been up to something?"

  "Who? Us?" the ladies said.

  "How about you two?" Mariamne asked.

  "Us? Oh, we've just been chatting," Richard said.

  "I'm starved," Durand said. "Does anyone mind if I eat?"

  "Men and their stomachs!" Mariamne said, with mock disapproval.

  "And she says I've been the stick in the mud on this trip," Durand chided.

  "Vive le difference!" Mariamne said, quietly, to Emma, after appraising the men for a while.

  "Do we want to know why she said that?" Richard asked Emma.

  "Probably not," she answered.

  Richard leaned across and gave her a kiss.

  "Do I want to know what prompted that?" she asked.

  "I didn't realize that I needed an excuse," Richard said, ignoring the fact that he almost never kissed her in public under normal circumstances. He stared into her eyes with a look that said that he'd been afraid he might not ever see her again. She reached out and took his hand.

  "If any of you find men such as the two at this table, but in my age range, and untaken, please let me know, will you?" Mariamne said.

  "I'll take that as a compliment," Durand said.

  "Just don't let it go to your head," she said.

  Durand started to make a witty reply, but stopped. Between the tableau made by Richard and Emma, and Mariamne's manner and the look in her eyes, Durand got the message that the women had somehow figured out that he and Richard had risked their necks to protect them. It was an old game – men and women weaving themselves in and out of each other's lives in this way. It was rare, though, to find a younger, professional woman who understood the traditions properly, and knew not to make the wrong sort of fuss. He searched Mariamne's eyes, and saw a new respect there. "No, ma'am, I'll not let it go to my head," he said.

  "The duck is especially good," Mariamne said. "The eel is overcooked and the octopus has been marinated in something better suited to pork, I think."

  "Thanks," Durand said.

  "Thank you," Mariamne said. "Both of you." She used her eyes to indicate she was talking about Durand and Richard.

  "Bah," Durand said.

  "What are we talking about?" Richard asked, pulling his attention away from Emma.

  "They're on to us, I think," Durand said.

  "That's awfully cryptic," Richard said. "Do I want to know what we're being thanked for?"

  "For drawing big, ugly, armed mean men away from us, if you must know," Mariamne said. "And for trying to be heroes entirely behind our backs. That was very sweet of you. But shush. Here comes the waiter, finally, and my dear escort is starved, you know."

  "Escort, smeshcort," Durand said. "Didn't she tell you? This is her case and I'm her flunky."

  Mariamne hissed for silence.

  The waiter took Durand's order and left.

  Mariamne leaned in toward her companions. "Bah!" she said, quietly, "Our new boss after Castelneau did not work out, nor the one after that. They have settled for now on an old maid who is second cousin three times removed from someone with a chance to be President someday. She wishes to be remembered for having a woman in charge of every case. We will be lucky if she doesn't get us all killed, you know. But what can we do but let her wander around in her fantasyland while we do the best we can in the field? Reality is reality, after all."

  Durand, inspired by her last sentence, settled into one of his best philosopher poses.

  Richard helped Emma to her feet, made his excuses, and they left.

  "The British and Americans are no good about philosophy," Durand said. "They are too impatient, or something."

  "Have some of my octopus to tide you over until your dinner comes," Mariamne said.

  "Contrary
to what some people might tell you, I can take a hint. I will not impose my musings on you, if you are in no mood for it," Durand said. He took a taste of octopus. He rather liked the marinade, but decided not to say so.

  "Do you think they will really let us know what they know about Coudray and his associates?" Mariamne asked. "Or was that only a story for my sake as to why we were making sure to cross their paths?"

  "Let us just say that our current plane tickets should serve us nicely. To be more specific, M. Hugh took my inquiries as a welcome opening. It seems that the UK doesn't want to be bothered with the matter, if they do not have to be bothered with it. They are happy indeed to give us information and let us do the hard work."

  "I suppose we do the same thing back?"

  "All the time."

  "That's all right then."

  "But we never admit to it outside the agency."

  "Got it," Mariamne said. "Just so I'm sure on this. Does the chief know how all this works?"

  "Some chiefs do, some chiefs don't. Our current chief? It would be suicidal to tell her, I suspect."

  Mariamne grinned. "I used to wonder how France survived her appointed officials. I think I'm starting to understand, perhaps, just a little."

  "Just don't let it go to your head," Durand said, with a wink.

  "No, sir. I'll be careful. Oh, good. Here comes your duck. You'll like it much better than that horrid octopus."

  "Yes, mother," Durand said.

  Mariamne laughed. "I am sounding like an old aunt or something, aren't I?"

  "I suspect most women cannot help fussing over men," Durand said.

  "Sure we can."

  "Don't stop," Durand said. "I rather like it."

  "Men are unfathomable, I think."

  "No, no – men are simple creatures. It is women who are mysterious beyond words."

  "A nice myth," Mariamne said. "I think I'll let you keep thinking that. On a side note, hadn't you better hurry with your eating? You don't want to be late for that behind-closed-doors phone call you have scheduled." She winked. The phone call was to Perrine, and Mariamne knew it.

  It was a nice switch, she thought, being on assignment with a man who was loyal to his wife. It left a lady free to flirt without facing as many potential consequences, for one thing.

  -

  Back in their hotel room, Richard fretted about Mariamne's flirtiness. "It's not that I don't trust Durand, you understand," he told Emma.

  "But she's a gorgeous young thing and no man can be expected to withstand that sort of onslaught, you mean?" she said, with a twinkle in her eye.

  "Well, I could, you know. I have experience in it." He stopped dead in his tracks. "I mean, I mean… well, before you… I mean… And now, of course, since I have…"

  Emma swept him into a hug. "I wouldn't worry too much. I trust Durand – and I'll bet you anything that if he ever shows anything less than total devotion to Perrine he'll fall off his charger faster than you can say good morning as far as Mariamne is concerned."

  "You think so?"

  "Absolutely."

  Richard put Emma at arm's length and studied her. He grinned. "And besides which, if she doesn't mind her manners you intend to teach her some?"

  "Absolutely," Emma said again.

  "Women!" Richard said. "Well, here now, let me amend that," he said. "I've learned this the hard way over the years, but there are women and then there are women," he purred. "You, my love, are definitely in the latter category."

  "I'll take that as a compliment."

  "Do," he said. He maneuvered her into a good, long kiss. It seemed a good way to end a conversation he wished he hadn't started in the first place.

  "You're purring," Emma said.

  "Men don't purr," Richard claimed. "It's not manly enough."

  "Whatever it is, I like it."

  "I'll think of the right word in a minute," Richard said, repositioning for a better hug and going for another kiss.