Kiana Cruise

by Jody Studdard

  And it seemed like it took forever. At one point, she even started to wonder if something had already gone wrong and she started to wonder if something had happened to Christine. What if one of Thaksin’s guards had spotted her trying to make her way into position and she had been captured? What would Kiana do then? Would she have to rescue her? And if so, how? Kiana wasn’t confident, not one bit, that she was capable of doing such a thing.

  Kiana forced the thought out of her mind. Christine was a well-trained agent. She knew what she was doing. She would be okay. Kiana just had to be patient.

  And then she saw it. Smoke had started to form on the top of the apartment building. It wasn’t very thick at first, and actually it was barely visible at all, but a few minutes later it had thickened immensely and the entire roof looked like it was aflame.

  Good heavens, Kiana thought. What had Armstrong done up there? Had he dumped an entire can of gasoline on the building’s roof? Christine had asked him to make a distraction, not burn the entire place down.

  Regardless, it worked. Within a minute, Kiana heard shouts coming from inside Thaksin’s estate (she could no longer see inside since she was on the street and her view was blocked by the wall), and then she saw its front gate slide open and several men stroll out, no doubt in an attempt to get a better vantage point to view what was happening. The men were talking as they emerged but Kiana couldn’t understand anything they were saying since they were speaking in Thai (of all the languages she knew, Thai was not one of them). As expected, however, they had their backs to her, since she was down the street in the exact opposite direction of the fire.

  She drew her pistol from her shoulder holster but waited for several seconds, hoping as many men as possible would come out into the open. Six of them had emerged and walked into the street and a seventh was standing in the doorway when one of them turned unexpectedly and looked directly at her. Almost immediately, he spotted the pistol in her hand and shouted something in Thai.

  The next few minutes were a complete blur. Without thinking, Kiana raised the pistol and shot him in the chest, then shot the man next to him, then watched briefly as they dropped to the ground, unconscious. She fired at one more, then turned and ran as fast as she could for her scooter. She had already started it and it was sitting there idling, waiting for her, so she was able to jump on it and take off immediately upon reaching it. In the meantime, however, the remaining guards drew their weapons and chased after her. Kiana cringed as she heard a CRACK and a bullet raced over her head. A window in a nearby building shattered as it was hit. Luckily, however, the men couldn’t keep up with her for long on foot so she was able to get out of their range before they could fire any more shots at her.

  Unfortunately, however, she wasn’t safe for long. It took a few minutes but the guards regrouped and four of them grabbed scooters of their own (they must have had some within a garage in Thaksin’s estate) and chased after her. She had built up quite a lead but it didn’t last for long since their scooters had bigger engines than hers and could go quite a bit faster. Kiana tried to lose them by driving down a side street and it actually worked for a few seconds, but unfortunately one of them spotted her and the chase resumed again. As such, Kiana was forced to zip out into traffic, onto the main road that surrounded Chiang Mai’s downtown area, which was just inside the moat she had seen on their voyage from the airport into town. The moat was actually right in the middle of the street, separating one direction of traffic from the other. She zipped past a songthaew, raced past a tuktuk, and at one spot even went up onto the sidewalk.

  “Crazy farang!” an old man shouted as she zipped past him, missing him by less than inch. She didn’t know it at the time, but ‘farang’ was the Thai word for foreigner and it was usually used in a derogatory way.

  In the meantime, Thaksin’s guards continued to pursue her and one of them took a wild shot that hit a fruit cart directly to her right, sending melon juice spraying in all directions, including all over her face and hair. Growing desperate, she turned her scooter hard to the right and darted back in the exact opposite direction, in a desperate attempt to double back and lose them, and she actually ended up going down the street in the wrong direction, completely against the flow of traffic. She swerved to the left to avoid a collision with a red Toyota, then swerved to the right to miss a yellow Honda, then swerved back to the left to avoid a small bus. One of the guards tried to do the same but he wasn’t quite as lucky. The bus hit him head-on and demolished him.

  In the meantime, Kiana continued to race along, weaving in and out of traffic, and finally she came to a small bridge that went across the moat and onto the street on the far side. She darted across it and zipped along, and much to her relief she had resumed traveling with the flow of traffic again, instead of going against it. In addition, she was able to pick up some serious speed and in no time her scooter was moving along as fast it could. Its engine was absolutely humming beneath her. Unfortunately, however, it wasn’t humming quite fast enough and the three remaining scooters, who had doubled back and crossed the bridge, were gaining on her quickly. She grimaced as a bullet flew over her head and shattered a restaurant’s front window.

  At that point, she wasn’t certain she was happy with Christine’s plan. When she had agreed to do it, she had thought she was going to sneak away quickly and easily, not end up in a ridiculous and extremely dangerous chase.

  And then she wondered about Christine. She wondered how she had done with her part of the plan. Had she been able to get inside the estate and free Johnson? Or had things gone wrong on her end just like they had gone wrong for Kiana?

  Another gunshot snapped her back to attention. She’d have to worry about Christine later. For now, she had to worry about herself. And she needed to think of something quickly because the men were getting closer and closer by the second. Within seconds, they would be in range and Kiana’s days as a secret agent would be over.

  Then an idea came to mind. Way back, during her initial visit to the USIA’s headquarters, Walters had given her some equipment. One of the items was her phone, which had a removable battery that doubled as a flash grenade. Her eyes got big as she thought of it. Clearly, it could help her. She reached down, pulled her phone from her pocket (which wasn’t an easy thing to do while driving a scooter and weaving in and out of traffic), popped off its back (which was the battery itself) and tossed it on the ground behind her. A few seconds later, and much to her delight, it exploded in a brilliant flash of gold and red, and it took out the lead guard as it did. He spun to the side and crashed into a cart that was filled with fruits, vegetables, and countless other items.

  Unfortunately, the remaining guards were undaunted and they continued their pursuit. Kiana tried to think of something more to do with the equipment Walters had given her but nothing came to mind. As such, she decided the equipment wasn’t going to help her any more. If she was going to survive the chase, she was going to have to do something herself. And whatever she was going to do would have to be something spectacular.

  So she did the most spectacular thing she could think of.

  She jumped the moat.

  She had come to a portion of the street where it curved sharply to the left. The moat was directly in front of her, since it curved along with the street, and there was a large dirt and grass berm in front of it that looked to Kiana like it would work as a makeshift ramp. If Kiana could get to the other side of the moat she might be safe, at least for a few minutes, because she doubted the guards would be crazy enough to try to follow her across.

  She hit the berm at full speed and went completely airborne. For a few brief, terrifying seconds she flew through the air at least ten feet above the water. At one point, she didn’t think her trajectory was right and she didn’t think she’d make it all of the way to the far side, but much to her relief and delight, she did. Her joy was short-lived, however. The minute her front tire hit the ground, she went straight over her handlebars. It all hap
pened so fast she didn’t even know what had happened at first. All she knew was she had landed on the ground, on the dirt right next to the sidewalk, flat on her back. Luckily, the dirt was soft and it had actually cushioned her fall a little, so she was stunned but not hurt in any way (other than a few bumps and bruises). Had she landed a few feet to the left, however, on the concrete sidewalk, her fate would have been substantially different and she would have likely broken every bone in her body.

  Much to her surprise, both of the guards tried to jump the moat after her, but unlike her they suffered terrible fates as a result. One didn’t fly far enough, so he ended up crashing headfirst into the thick, murky water, and the other soared right over the top of her (his back tire missed her head by less than a foot) and landed in the middle of the street. There was a tremendous crash as he hit the side of a truck and crumpled to the ground, and an even louder crash as a bus ran right over the top of him.

  Kiana was still pretty shaken from the whole ordeal but was finally able to recover and collect her wits. She climbed to her feet and slipped down the nearest alley. Within seconds, she had disappeared into the shadows and, like Christine had instructed her, she was going to remain hidden until contacted. As far as she was concerned, she had had more than enough excitement for one day.

  Chapter 30

  Luckily, Kiana did not have to wait for long. Her phone (she wasn’t certain how it still worked since it no longer had a battery, but somehow it did) rang about an hour later and, as expected, it was Christine.

  “Kiana. Thank goodness. Are you okay?”

  “I’ve had better days, but yeah I’m fine. How about you? Did you get Johnson?”

  “I got him. He’s pretty shaken up but he’ll be okay. I checked in with Beckman and she’s making immediate arrangements for our flight back to the US. She wants us back at the airport as soon as possible.”

  “Good. Thailand seems like a nice place but I’ve had enough of it for today.”

  “Me, too. I’m on my way to pick you up right now. Stay put.”

  Kiana raised an eyebrow. “How do you know where I am?”

  “I’m using the GPS in your phone. I should be there in less than five minutes, if I can get through this traffic. Continue to keep yourself hidden as I’m still not certain how safe we are. Thaksin is still out there somewhere and he must have received word by now what has happened. And he’s definitely not going to be happy since I blew up half of his estate.”

  “You blew it up?”

  “I didn’t want to but things got a little crazy. I’ll give you the details later.”

  Christine was good to her word. Less than five minutes later, she showed up driving a gray Toyota, and the minute Kiana saw her she emerged from her hiding spot (a small bookstore) and hopped into the car’s passenger side. At first she went to the wrong side since she had forgotten a car’s passenger side was on the opposite side in Thailand. The minute she got inside, however, she felt immediate relief.

  “It’s good to see you again,” she told Christine. But then she looked at her. “I think.”

  Christine’s lip was swollen badly and she had a nasty gouge on her forehead just above her left eye. It looked like someone had grabbed her by the back of the head and slammed her face against a wall, possibly repeated times.

  Christine saw her reaction and smiled. “You think this is bad? You should see the other guy.”

  Christine filled her in on what had happened following her departure from Thaksin’s estate. As planned, Christine had scaled the rear wall and made her way inside, and it had been just in time. Thaksin’s main assistant, a man named Vanich Shinawatra, had been torturing Johnson, trying to get him to reveal the nature of his business in Chiang Mai and who his employer was. Vanich had already beaten Johnson pretty severely, injected him with some type of crude truth serum, and was preparing to cut off his fingers, one at a time, if he didn’t start giving him some information. Christine had kicked in the door and freed him at the last possible second.

  “Luckily,” Christine said, “your diversion worked even better than I had hoped. You took out two of the guards with your tranquilizers, then four more chased after you. That left only two for me to deal with, plus Vanich. The guards were no trouble, but Vanich put up quite a fight. He clearly had done some kickboxing in the past and nearly got the best of me.”

  Then she laughed, which confused Kiana a little. She didn’t understand why Christine was laughing. This all seemed pretty serious to her. A man, Johnson, had been tortured and she and Christine had almost been killed.

  “We make a good team,” Christine said. “For a brief second there, when I was watching you ride off on that scooter, with those guards chasing after you, I had a flashback to the old days when I was sent on assignments with your mother. You looked just like her. Even your hair, in the wind as you sped along, it reminded me of her. But anyway, enough reminiscing. What happened to you? Were you able to lose those guards easily?”

  Kiana chuckled. “Easily? I guess so, if you consider jumping a moat easy.”

  Christine’s eyes got big. “You jumped that moat? On a scooter? I didn’t even think that was possible.”

  “Me, neither. And I nearly broke my neck in the process but it did work. I got rid of them.”

  “That’s incredible. That’s exactly the type of thing your mom would have done. She was fearless. But your dad is going to kill me when he hears about this. I wasn’t supposed to expose you to any danger like that.”

  “You’re not the only one he’s going to kill. He’ll probably kill me, too, since I was the one who did it. Which is pretty ironic if you think about it, that he’d kill me for almost getting killed but that’s how he is.”

  They laughed. They were both worried about his reaction but at the same time they were relieved because the mission was over and they were thankfully heading for home.

  They arrived in Seattle early the next day and were met at the airport by Michael, then taken straight to USIA headquarters to meet with Beckman for a mission debriefing. She greeted them with smiles, congratulated them on a job well done, then wanted to know every detail of the operation. Christine told the majority of the story but Kiana took over when it got to her part.

  And, much to her surprise (and Christine’s too), Michael’s reaction was completely different than they had expected. He wasn’t upset at all, and instead his eyes were filled with amazement.

  “You took out two guards, then led four more on a chase through town? That’s well done, Kiana. And then you jumped a moat to evade them?”

  Kiana shrugged. “It was all I could think of at the time. But I’ll be honest. I need to work on my landing skills. I had planned to land and race away, but I pretty much just ended up doing a face-plant.”

  “That’s something your mother would have done.” He looked at Christine. “Do you remember that time in Venice when Danielle jumped that canal on her motorcycle? She went right over the top of a gondola. She missed the gondolier’s head by less than a foot.”

  Christine nodded and laughed. It looked like she was about to say something more, to add to the story, but Beckman jumped in before she could.

  “It’s clear to me the two of you did an excellent job. You worked together, accomplished your goal, and saved one of our finest agents. I could not be more pleased. As such, I’m going to place commendations in both of your files.”

  “Sweet,” Kiana said. But then she thought about it some more. “What’s a commendation?”

  “It’s an award. For services performed above and beyond the call of duty. And you, Kiana, will now have the distinction of being the youngest agent at this office to ever receive one.”

  Kiana definitely liked the sound of that.

  “Sweet.”

  “But for now,” Beckman said, “I want the two of you to head home and get some rest. I’m going to send you on another assignment shortly so I want you ready when I call.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kiana
said. “I’ll be ready.”

  Without another word, they were off.

  Chapter 31

  There were twelve people in the room. Within five minutes, nine of them would be unconscious and one of them would be dead.

  The man at the center of the room was Nikolai Avilov. Avilov was a short, stubby man with greasy hair and eyes that were so narrow he always looked like he was squinting. Standing in front of him, shaking his hand, was Dimitri Nikitin.

  “Dimitri, my old friend. What brings you all of the way to my humble abode?”

  The two men stood in a small reception area in Avilov’s mansion, which was located approximately one hour north of Guadalajara, Mexico. The place was impressive, to say the least, with balconies and terraces and a huge pool with a waterfall to one side. It sat on a rise of land that looked out over the surrounding countryside, which included numerous neighborhoods and what appeared to be a large church with a broad, tiled roof.

  “Pavel wanted me to check in on you. To see why you didn’t make your most recent payment. And to see why you are not following his advice and making arrangements to relocate to his compound.”

  Avilov and Voronov had known one another for a long time. They had originally been soldiers in the Soviet military and later had been business partners on the arms market. The payment Dimitri had referred to was in reference to one of their most recent transactions in which Avilov had purchased numerous items (mostly cruise missiles) from Voronov.

  “Tell Pavel he will get his money. Like always, he has nothing to worry about.”

  “The payment was due a week ago.”

  Avilov smiled. “I have had some complications recently. But reassure Pavel his check is in the mail.”

  “He wants it now.”

  “He will get it.”

  There was a tense moment as each man stared directly into the other’s eyes. Finally, Dimitri nodded. “What shall I tell him about your relocation? He wants you in Costa Rica as soon as possible.”