Vendetta

by Fern Michaels

  “Did you all read up on China?” Nikki asked as she rubbed her temples. She’d had a horrible night, her sleep invaded by dreams of Jack Emery. Even a late-night visit from Barbara couldn’t calm her down. There had been no time this morning to cover the dark circles under her eyes. She hoped the others didn’t notice.

  “We’re not all going to China, are we?” Kathryn asked.

  Nikki shrugged. “Charles said he was going to work on that through the night. It’s his decision, but if you want my guess, I don’t think we’re all going.”

  “Well, I’m going,” Myra said firmly. “I’ve waited too long for this moment to sit on the sidelines.”

  Isabelle got up and looked around. She looked at her watch. “No time to clear this away, our twenty-five minutes are up. Come on, let’s go, troops!”

  Outside, across the vast lawn covered with frost, and high in one of the old oaks, a man named Garrity brought his high-powered binoculars to his eyes and whistled softly. He could see into Myra Rutledge’s kitchen so clearly, he could have been a few feet away. He watched the scrambling exit and frowned. Where the hell were they all going in such a hurry? The old gent had left earlier while the women ate. There had been no sign of him since. With nothing else to occupy him, Garrity crunched down on a granola bar — his breakfast. He pulled out his cellphone when he’d finished the crunchy bar and called Jack Emery. His report was simple. The Dobermans had been picked up, the women had eaten and then disappeared. He was told to sit it out even though he said he was freezing his ass off. Emery promised him time and a half to stay. Garrity agreed.

  In the war room, all hell was breaking loose. Charles looked flustered while the women could only stare at Myra, their eyes big, their jaws slack, as she went into a tirade.

  “I’m going, and that’s final. Don’t think for one minute that I am going to stay here worrying. I’ve waited too long for this moment. For you to think I would be content to sit here on…on…my ass while you all do my dirty work is unthinkable. Do not make me angry, Charles. I’m not a nice person when I’m angry. Did you hear me? I’m going and that’s final. Girls, tell him I’m going!”

  The women looked at one another and then at Charles, hoping for him to intervene.

  “Myra, listen to me,” Charles said. “You cannot go. The reason you cannot go is because of Jack Emery. You need to remain here to keep up appearances. It’s crucial. We are going to bring John Chai to you. If you want, we’ll wrap him in gold ribbon when we hand-deliver him.

  “Yesterday you said we were getting old. That means our reflexes are off. We’re slow, we don’t think as fast as we have in the past, and we don’t move as fast either. It’s the way it has to be, Myra. If you insist, then you’ll leave me no other recourse than to cancel this mission.”

  “But…”

  “There are no buts, Myra. Unintentionally, you could make a mistake and put the girls in danger. I know you don’t want that to happen.”

  “Charles is right, Myra,” Nikki said. The others agreed.

  Myra seethed. She had the last word though. “This sucks, Charles.”

  Charles turned away to hide his smile. The battle was over and he’d won this round. He turned around again before he flipped a switch. An airstrip appeared on the large screen, followed by a picture of Li’s home. More pictures followed — the grounds of Li’s estate, the floor plan of the house, and then pictures of the servants. He pressed another button and the pictures printed out. He passed them to Nikki, who handed them to the others.

  “Nikki, Yoko, Alexis and I will be going to China. Isabelle will stay here at Pinewood with Myra but will go back and forth to the city for a few hours each day. Kathryn has a delivery of Christmas trees scheduled. She’ll be going to Oregon and from Oregon to Delaware.”

  Yoko looked excited but agitated. “How long will we be away? I need to tell my husband…”

  “If things go right, it’s going to be a smash and grab. That means in and out. Not counting the travel time, five days tops. If things go awry, we’ll just have to…ah…wing it.”

  “When do we leave?” Nikki asked briskly.

  Charles looked at his watch. “In five hours.”

  “Five hours!” Alexis bellowed. “It will take me that long to pack up my red bag, not to mention my own personal bag.”

  “Then I suggest you get a move on. Ladies, we’ll meet up in the kitchen in five hours. Run along, I have some last-minute details to take care of.”

  Jack Emery’s cellphone rang at twelve minutes past two in the afternoon. He barked a greeting. “Garrity! I hope you have some good news.”

  “Good news, bad news, who the hell knows? What I do know is my dick is frozen. How much longer do I have to stay up in this goddamn tree?”

  “Till I tell you to come down. I stayed up there for four whole days. If I could do it, so can you. Think about warm, sandy beaches, golden sunshine. What’s happening?”

  “OK, they all come barreling back into the kitchen an hour after they split. They go off in all directions. Then nothing until just now. Three women and the gent pile into one of those big black, Chevy Suburbans. They had luggage. It was the black girl, your old girlfriend, the Asian girl, and that guy Charles. He drove, by the way. The big rig is still there and so is the architect’s car. Mrs Rutledge is inside.”

  “I suppose it’s too much to hope that you picked up some conversation?”

  “You’re right, Jack, that’s too much to hope for. If your next question is where are they going, I’d say an airport, but then again they could be headed for Union Station in D.C. I called Dennison and he said he’d start tailing the Suburban as soon as they hit the highway.”

  “OK, stay on it. Call me as soon as there’s any movement at the farm.”

  Jack’s phone rang almost immediately when he ended his call with Garrity.

  “It’s me, boss, Dennison. I’m on the Suburban. I think they’re headed for Baltimore-Washington Airport.”

  “Call me back as soon as you know for certain. That’s where Myra Rutledge keeps the company Gulfstream. I want to know where they’re going, Dennison.”

  The call over, Jack huddled with Mark. “Things are moving, buddy. Told you this was their MO.”

  Three

  The passengers were jolted awake as the Gulfstream’s wheels hit the runway. They looked at one another. Their eyes said We’re in China!

  Charles looked down at his watch. With the eight-hour time difference plus the sixteen-hour flight, he calculated that they were a day behind in Hong Kong. Not that it mattered. At this moment, time was not their problem. Later, time, right down to the nanosecond, could become a deadly enemy. Thank God for Li’s help, which had cut through all the bureaucratic red tape. Even the pilot was one of Li’s men. Somehow he would find a way to make this all up to Li.

  It had been years since he’d been in China. He had never thought he would return, especially under these unusual circumstances. He gazed out the window as the aircraft taxied to a complete stop. The countryside was lush, verdant, just as he remembered. Li had said he lived in the middle of nowhere. This certainly looked like nowhere. All he could see was a sea of green — hundreds, maybe thousands of trees, grass as high as he was tall, and the occasional shimmer of what he assumed to be small ponds as far as the eye could see.

  Yoko unbuckled her seatbelt. “I love the countryside. It is beautiful, this place called Hong Kong.”

  “Actually,” Charles said, “we’re on a small island outside Hong Kong. It’s called Po Toi Island. Li only lives here for part of the year. He’s in residence now with a full staff that will be at our disposal. Li understands that this is a very discreet operation and all his people, he assured me, can be trusted.”

  The little group waited patiently while the ground crew assisted the pilot and co-pilot as they prepared to lower the air stair door.

  On the ground, her legs wobbly from sitting so long, Nikki looked back at Myra’s luxurious Gulfstream.
She’d felt safe sitting in the buttery-soft leather reclining seats, each equipped with a satellite television and phone. Each seat contained a laptop computer and a global positioning sensor. At any given point during the trip they could view what part of the world the aircraft was flying over. A stocked kitchen and bar provided enough food and drink to sustain twelve passengers and a crew for at least several days. And of course there were bowls and bowls of the famous Rutledge candies everywhere.

  The Gulfstream was safe. Standing here on the ground in the bright sunshine, Nikki realized she no longer felt safe.

  China! She shivered. She took one last, longing look at the Gulfstream, wondering if she and the others would ever set foot in it again. She shivered again as she gave herself a mental warning not to think about negatives.

  “I do believe this may be our ride,” Charles said, pointing to a gleaming black Lincoln Navigator coming across the tarmac. The driver leaped out of the SUV with the agility of a cat. He had to be at least seventy years of age, possibly older. A mini man, Nikki thought. He was as brown and wrinkled as a raisin. He offered up a toothless smile and then saluted smartly.

  Charles rattled off something in fluent Chinese. The old man bowed and climbed behind the wheel as the women scrambled into the back seat, Charles into the passenger seat beside the small man who said his name was Jialing.

  “So named after the river. Mr. Li calls me Jay and you may also call me Jay.”

  Charles and Jay kept up a conversation as they traveled down a rutted road. “What are they saying?” Nikki hissed to Yoko.

  “They are talking about how important Mr. Li is in this country. Jay is saying Mr. Li has important, influential friends. He is now saying Mr Li is a generous man and helps the needy. Jay has been in service to him for thirty years. They are now talking about the fabulous gardens at Mr. Li’s home. Mr. Li likes to garden and has beautiful roses. The rooms at his home are full of flowers all the time. How do you call it, chitterchatting. Nothing of importance,” Yoko whispered.

  “I suppose that’s a good thing,” Alexis said quietly.

  Thirty minutes later Jay announced they were on Mr. Li’s land. “The main house is just down the road,” he said.

  The women were grateful to finally climb out of the Navigator. The roads here were worse than the roads in the States after a hard winter.

  They saw a two-story redbrick house with jutting wings at each side of the building. A British house. Did that mean only tea would be served? Nikki wondered. She needed coffee and she needed it badly.

  “If you want my opinion,” Alexis said, “this house looks as though it was accidentally built in the wrong place. You know, like Dorothy’s house when it landed in Oz. Oops, Dorothy landed in Oz, not the house. You know what I mean — look how out of place it is with the gardens.”

  “The Chinese do not believe in alignment or symmetrical relationship to anything in the garden simply because they know this is foreign to mother nature. They like to copy nature as much as possible with small hills and slopes with different trees. To us it looks haphazard but I’d bet Alexis’s red bag that a lot of work and thought went into these gardens. I love it. Just look at all the little waterfalls, the small bridges and those gorgeous shrubs. Before I leave here I want to know the name of every one of those trees and bushes. Someday when I get my own house, I’m going to have a garden like this. Much work,” Yoko said, shaking her head. “Much maintenance.”

  Alexis sighed. “Don’t rain on my parade, Yoko. As you can see, I don’t have an umbrella.”

  Yoko tittered behind her hand. “So funny. No umbrella. So funny.”

  Suddenly the bright, yellow door of the house opened and a tall, stoop-shouldered man stepped forward. “As I live and breathe, it is you, Sir…” He debated a second before he said, “Charles. On my shores at last. It is good to see you, old friend.” He bowed slightly before he extended his hand in greeting.

  The introductions were made quietly as they all walked into the house, where Li turned the women over to three servants.

  Yoko, Alexis, and Nikki looked at one another at the foot of the stairs before they followed the three maids to the second floor. “This is it, girls. The job starts now, and God help us all,” Nikki said.

  “Yoko, can you ask if they can bring us some hot coffee? Lots and lots of hot coffee. But first I want to take a steaming shower and wash my hair. Then I just want to sit and drink all that coffee for ten minutes.”

  “But of course, Nikki.”

  Below stairs, the tall man known as Li ushered Charles into his private office. “We will speak English from here on, Charles. While I trust my servants, one can never be too careful, as you well know. Whiskey?”

  “Of course.” Charles looked around the large, pleasant room. It had everything a man of Li’s stature needed. The room appeared to be divided into three parts. There was an entertainment area, where a large plasma television and DVD player, was attached to the wall. A stereo unit was nestled underneath in a cherrywood cabinet. Off to the side was a fully stocked bar area with four deep, leather swivel chairs and a table holding a glorious flower arrangement. To the right of the bar was what appeared to be Li’s work area. Rich, polished wooden file cabinets covered the wall; a comfortable desk chair that looked used sat behind a magnificent carved cherrywood desk. Everything one needed to conduct business from home was on the desk. Paintings with vibrant watercolors, dotted the wood-paneled walls that began at the highly polished plank floor and went all the way to the high ceiling.

  What surprised Charles more than anything was the absence of window treatments. So Li could look out or so others could look in? He asked his friend.

  “One must always be aware in this country, Charles. How would you put it? The odds are a little more even this way. I spend a great deal of time in this room and, if it should ever become necessary, I can make a hasty exit through the floor. I defy you to find the mechanism that operates the trapdoor. By the way, I crafted it myself. Are you up to the challenge?”

  “You’re a crafty old fox, I’ll give you that. Show me!”

  “No. You must find it yourself. We can do it later. I did say I was going to offer you a whiskey, did I not?”

  Charles chuckled. “Yes, you did and I am patiently waiting. We must talk, Li. We can socialize later.”

  Li nodded solemnly. “Tell me everything, Charles, so I can help you. You saved my life once and now it is my turn to help you. You may speak as freely as you wish, but only in English. I personally sweep this room twice a day for…ah…bugs.”

  Charles leaned back in his comfortable chair, his whiskey glass in hand. He seemed to have no interest in drinking the amber liquid. He told Li everything. He watched the old man to gauge his reaction.

  “Commendable! I applaud you, Charles. From the little you told me on the scrambled phone, I more or less surmised something like this. I personally know John Chai’s father. I know of John and his unsavory reputation and let me tell you, neither man is on my speed dial. Everything in this country is political, as you well know. Ming is detestable. John is beyond detestable. It gives me great pleasure to help you and perhaps rid this country of such parasites. However, I do not fool myself. Two more will spring up just like them.”

  “And your safety, Li?”

  Li shrugged. “All those I have cared for during my lifetime are gone. I am an old man now. I watch sunrises and sunsets and live with my memories. It is not much of a life these days. Do not worry about me. I always wondered what happened to you. There were, of course, rumors. I did pray for your safety.”

  Charles allowed himself a small smile. “And I for yours. The old days, Li, are just that, the old days. I see that you have kept up with the times as I have. Do you think that back then we could have functioned in this high-tech world we now live in?”

  Li looked around the room and smiled. “I think so, Charles. Now, let us speak of pleasantries. Tell me about the three lovely young ladies upstairs and
the thorn in your side named Jack Emery; not that Mr. Emery is a pleasantry, but perhaps we can arrange it so he becomes a pleasantry. In the interests of true love, of course.” Charles laughed as Li poured more whiskey into his glass.

  A long time later, Li apologized. “You look to me as if a nap is in order. I have been a selfish host wanting to hear everything that has happened in your life. Forgive me. We have all evening to talk.” He ushered Charles to the door. A petite woman with coal-black eyes and hair to match appeared out of nowhere to escort Charles to his suite of rooms.

  Charles knew the moment the door closed behind him that Li would be working to finalize tomorrow evening’s plans. The thought pleased him. They were in safe hands.

  The small dinner party took place on a multilayered terrace filled with hundreds of brilliant flowers. The only light came from colored Chinese lanterns. The food was simple but superb: Peking duck, wontons and fresh snow peas. The dessert was rice cakes drizzled with honey and powdered sugar. The wine was American in honor of Li’s guests. The conversation was light, almost bantering, as the women asked questions about China. Li in turn asked questions, subtle to be sure, but Nikki knew that she and the others were being grilled by a master. Charles had nodded ever so slightly to assure her it was OK to answer the questions.

  It was a warm evening so the girls wore sleeveless sundresses. Charles and Li wore pressed khaki shorts with knee socks, white shirts and ties. It was formal yet informal. The women chatted about the gardens as Charles and Li descended two layers to a terrace below them with brandy and cigars, a courtesy the girls appreciated because they hated cigar smoke.

  “Did you see those dresses Mr. Li sent to us? Fantastic,” Alexis said.

  Yoko agreed. “Do you think I will look good in lavender?”

  “Honey, you are going to be a knockout. I’ll do your makeup. You will be more beautiful than the…What do they call the woman who is getting engaged at the party tomorrow night?”