” Mmm. Boy oh boy, that tastes great. Thanks. So, you want the simple version, or the technical version?”
“The simple one, please. It’s about all I can deal with at the moment.”
“Okay. I was chloroformed at The Woodlands’ parking lot in beautiful downtown Catamount Lake by a fake history teacher, Professor Simms, a.k.a. Captain Perfect. He whisked me away to some moldy, disintegrating camp, forced me to assemble two of Smitty’s bombs at gunpoint. If I didn’t do it, my asshole captor planned to shoot me, then snatch up Kamaka.”
“Okay, so far that jives with MacBride’s account. Let’s get to the explosion part of the tale, if you would be so kind. Did you say two bombs?”
She nodded, then gave him a curious look. “Aren’t you gonna take notes or something?”
“Nope. Nothing gets recorded. Not until I hear the full story. Then, and only then, can I decide how best to handle the sheriff’s activities and his complete disregard for proper protocol, as well as explain the able assist from our lads at Sanctuary. I trust you’re okay with that?”
The small shrug that followed hurt, but she managed.
“I stalled as long as I could, until Captain Perfect pointed his weapon at my gut.
He said he’d shoot me if I didn’t cooperate, then haul in my second-in-command to take up the slack. I told him my partner never saw the original device, but he didn’t care. I couldn’t let that happen.”
She tried to get comfortable, but it was a lost cause. “We began to chat. I found out who our bad guys were. Then I learned what they intended to do with Thing One and Thing Two.”
“You began to chat? Just like that? Why do I believe there’s more to the story?
Okay, I’ll bite. Who were they?”
“Businessmen.”
“What?”
“Hey, you asked. A consortium of businessmen. Short and simple. A syndicate of manipulating financiers. Men in high places with boatloads of money, who didn’t want their fortunes to dry up if the conflicts around the world ended.”
“I don’t fucking believe it.” Chandler rubbed his forehead, as if he was working on the granddaddy of all migraines. “I just don’t fucking a-well believe it.”
She felt deflated. “Sorry, that’s all I have for you. I didn’t get names and addresses, but I did get the plan. No proof, other than what the wannabe blabbed to me—since the egotistical idiot assumed I’d be dead shortly. The upshot? No jihad, just greed.”
“Keko, I do believe you. That’s the problem.” He stared toward the window for a few moments. Took a gulp of coffee. Arranged the cardboard cup just so, on the tray.
Rearranged it twice more. “Damn, I could lose my job—but you deserve the truth. If this gets out … .”
She crossed her heart. “To the grave, Will. Nothing will ever pass these lips. Not ever. I swear.”
“I’d like to say it’s over, but that would be foolish. Your explosion apparently put a definite cramp in a really bizarre scheme to take this country down—which our security experts said actually could have worked. Could still work, I guess. Maybe not this time, or the next time, but eventually. NCS Special Agent Randall nearly lost her life a few months back, trying to deliver a flash drive containing details of the plan. She wasn’t aware of the data encoded on the flash drive. She’d be dead at the bottom of a gulley if it wasn’t for Adam Stone and Lucian Duquesne. Your Sanctuary hosts.”
“Lorelei?”
“Yes.”
“So, Captain Perfect actually told the truth? About taking out the Pres and Vice Pres, leaving the country in the middle of a total cluster-fuck?” Keko pressed the lever on the bed to raise herself. “The war in the Middle East, the conflicts around the world—you expect me to believe it’s all just business?”
“No. And yes. Take the real conflicts around the world, over territory and religion, that have been ongoing for millennia, then add instigators. We identified your Captain Perfect as George Ritter, a deposed financier, who had a reputation for spending much more than he ever earned. Guys like him are easy to turn—flash large wads of money, they’ll sit up and beg like a trained poodle. As much as I hate to admit it, our intel backs up his story.”
She began to tremble. “Damn.”
“Yeah, I know. We were that close to worldwide chaos—then you managed to blow up old Buggy Adderson’s camp, a dozen loyal jihadists, and one money-hungry turncoat.”
“I couldn’t have gotten all of them. Even I could tell they were just drones, grunts.”
“Correct. The devices were the linchpins to the plan, not the men. The guys you took out appeared to have been the delivery crews. The vehicles were mostly burned, but in the glove boxes, we found lightly toasted tour maps for D.C., and city maps for San Francisco, where the Vice President was scheduled to speak. The maps were marked with times and routes.
“After the blast, we immediately leaked a careful trickle of false data: the bombs were too sensitive, too unstable, the special timers failed, blah blah blah. With the device designer dead—the killing of whom the members of the consortium are probably kicking themselves in the butts over—the only other person with hands-on experience was unfortunately critically wounded in the blast and is not likely to survive.”
Keko gave him a wide-eyed look. “I’m critical? At death’s door?”
He nodded. “For the moment. Until we come up with a plausible cover story to keep you safe, to prevent some other jack-hole from trying to snatch you off the street again. Or take you out. Like they took out John, then Smith.”
Keko sucked down another swallow of coffee. “You do know the other side has their own explosives experts, right?”
He made a face at her. “Of course. We have quite the international list, built up over too many years of doing this stuff.”
“So, what’s to prevent them from building their own version of Smitty’s Doomsday Device, then trying it again?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Except now we know the plan, but the bad guys don’t know that we know.”
Keko shook her head. Carefully. “Okay, this is beginning to sound like a really bad Inspector Jacques Clouseau spy plot.”
Chandler chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it does. Glennon Garrett is our go-to surveillance and intel guy, former Marine Recon, now a freelancer. He decoded the data on the flash drive after it was spirited safely out of the country, thanks to an assist—
albeit an unwilling assist—from Sheriff MacBride. Mac was conscripted against his will by Stone, Duquesne, and Special Agent Randall. Garrett, aided by Duquesne, has been working non-stop to direct subtle streams of misinformation to the right places, working with our government intel sources to heighten believability.
“You’ve given our boys enough ammunition, if you’ll pardon the expression, to have the bad guys chasing their tails for months, at the very least. If not longer.”
“MacBride? Our MacBride?”
“The very same. Mac handled the transfer of the flash drive. Stone, backed up by Duquesne, took out Agent Stanford, the NCS wannabe who attempted to kill Lorelei.
Stanford tried to take her out, twice. He ended up very dead. Harry Robson, a minor NCS supervisor and also Stanford’s handler, managed to get himself assassinated by the consortium within hours of Stanford’s death—or so we now assume—for failing to grab the damned flash drive.
“The intelligence community couldn’t understand why no one, at least none of the usual suspects, took credit for the hit. What Garrett ferreted out in the last week or so meshes with what you were told by your abductor.”
Stunned by the news, Keko hit the morphine button again, then lowered her bed.
“So, as Captain Perfect said, it wasn’t personal—just business.”
Will Chandler rose to leave, patted her hand as she drifted off. “Yup. Nothing personal, just business.”
* * * * *
“Kailani. Kailani, can you hear me?”
Boy oh boy, that stuff is stronger than I
thought. Now my mother is appearing to me, in full surround sound.
Someone patted her scraped cheek. Ouch.
“Kailani?”
Keko tried to respond, but her voice wasn’t working much better than her vision.
“Mother? Really?” Is that me? I still sound like a crow.
“Oh, Kailani, thank goodness.” Her mother’s voice broke into a sob.
Keko tried to clear her voice, but the effort hurt. “Chandler? MacBride? I drifted off. Rude of me.”
A new voice entered her room, accompanied by the faintest scent of wintergreen.
Mmm. I could get accustomed to that.
“Baby, not to worry, you needed your sleep. Sleep helps the body heal.”
MacBride leaned carefully over the bed, placed a gentle kiss on Keko’s forehead. He put a straw to her parched lips so she could sip iced water, but the skin around her mouth cracked and bled.
“Keep still. Your mouth and lips are all dry.” He rubbed lip balm soothingly over her mouth. “Effects of the chloroform. They must have hit you a bunch of times.”
He offered her the straw again, with slightly more success.
When the cold water eased her parched throat, she sighed. I may live after all.
“And who are you, young man, to take such liberties with my daughter?”
Keko saw her mother’s indignation rise as much as heard it in her tone of voice.
Damn, here we go, and I am so not in the mood for this.
“Mother, may I introduce MacBride, sheriff of Catamount Lake, Maine.” The words barely clawed their way out of her throat. “MacBride, this is my mother, artist Aolina Hualami from Honolulu. She paints and sculpts primitive Hawaiian tribal art.
Mother, say thank you to the nice man. MacBride was one of the three heroes who rescued me.”
Aolina walked to the windows, turned to face them. Her delicate features always reminded Keko of an exquisite porcelain doll. About the same height, but even slimmer than Keko, the stunning beauty wore a tailored skirt suit, navy blue with gold stripes.
The skirt reached mid-calf which, when combined with navy blue nineteen-forties-style open-toed high heels, accented her tiny feet and slender ankles. Jet-black hair almost shimmered in an über-fashionable feathered cut that barely touched her shoulders. Her strikingly beautiful Kahlúa-colored eyes were not friendly.
“And why, Kailani, why did you need to be rescued? I understood you ended that horrid life after your father died. How could this happen?”
MacBride rose from his seat, took up Keko’s hand in a protective gesture.
Keko’s heart gave a little lurch of pride that MacBride would take on all comers on her behalf, including her daunting mother. However, she needed to deal with this, up front and personal. “Sheriff MacBride, would you give my mother and me a few minutes alone? Please.”
“Keek, are you sure?”
“I’ll be fine.” To her surprise, she actually believed what she said.
As soon as the door closed, Aolina turned on Keko. “I do not know why everyone insists on calling you that ridiculous name. Keek. It’s worse than Keko. That man acts as if he owns you. Much too possessive. I shall speak to him about his attitude.”
“Mother, there’s no need for you to speak to anyone. MacBride and I are … well .
. . involved.”
“Involved? Is that a polite way to say you’re sleeping with him?”
Keko sighed. Okay, for the record, I tried to avoid this. “Yes, mother, I’m sleeping with him. We have wild kinky sex. We shag like rabbits for hours. As often as possible.
In as many places as possible. There, do you feel better now?”
“Kailani, there is no need for you to be vulgar.”
Oh yes, there is. It makes me feel better.
Her mother’s carefully cultured voice and mannerisms had annoyed Keko when Keko was younger. After meeting people from around the globe during the course of Larsson Demolition jobs, she’d finally realized it wasn’t a pretentious affectation on Aolina’s part—her patterns of speech were the product of an educated person for whom English was not her native language.
“What MacBride and I do is our own business. Believe it or not, I’m an adult—
and I’ve been an adult for a long time. Probably since I was twelve. I suppose you should be forgiven the gaffe, since you missed all those silly in-between years.”
“He is a sheriff. Law enforcement. As bad as the military.” Aolina’s voice rose, became shrill. Unusual for her.
She must really be torqued. “Then you’ll be sorry to hear that MacBride is military.
A former Navy SEAL. A demolitions expert, as well.” She cocked her head. “Wow, I didn’t think of it before—he’s just like Dad.”
Her mother hurled an empty plastic water pitcher to the floor. “Why are you doing this to me? Why do you torture me?”
Damn. I haven’t seen her throw anything since I was about five. Keko tried to sit straighter, but pain drained what little strength she had. “Why am I doing what to you, exactly? We rarely see one another. You didn’t attend Dad’s funeral. You do not acknowledge me as your daughter. We don’t even live on the same land mass. As a matter of fact, why are you here? I’m not dead yet.”
Aolina’s radiant golden color turned ashen, her brow furrowed. “How can you say those horrible things to me? You insisted on going to your father—I gave you what you wanted. How am I the villain?”
” Jeez, Mother, you still don’t get it, do you? I was five freakin’ years old and tired of being handed around like a piece of old luggage!”
“And you believed it caused me no pain to give you up? You were my own child.”
Keko needed to press the morphine button again before she could continue.
“Wow, your child? I do believe that’s the first time I ever heard you admit you gave birth to me.”
Her mother’s hand went to her throat. “Kailani, those are horrid, hurtful words.
Of course you are my child, my daughter.”
“No shit.”
“There is no reason to be rude.”
Exhaustion—or morphine—suddenly sapped Keko’s energy. “Mother, what do you want from me?”
“I came to see how you are.”
“Well, now you’ve see me. I’m sure Kamaka shamed you into flying out. Your guilt is assuaged. You can leave now.”
“Kailani, how could you say such things?”
Keko made the effort, sat a bit straighter. “Long years of experience.”
“What long years? You were five … .”
“Oh yes, I was five years old, the magic number.”
“It must be the drugs. You speak nonsense.”
“Mother, do you remember what happened before I was shipped off to Daddy?”
“Of course. You wouldn’t stop crying for days. Your kupunawahine, your grandmother, had no choice but to call the Red Cross to bring your father home on, what did they call it, hardship leave.”
“Yes, my grandmother. Your mother. My grandmother called the Red Cross because you were off again. Do you remember what you told me to do before you left?”
“Kailani, I have no patience for your games.”
“Yes, Mother, I know the drill, believe me, I know the drill. You have no patience for me now, as you had no patience for me then.”
“Kailani … .”
“Well, you may not remember, but I do. Even though I wasn’t quite five, I remember that evening like it just happened.”
“What evening?”
“The evening of the big party, a celebration of the first ever showing of your work at a mainstream art gallery.”
“What of it?”
“I hadn’t seen you for days and days. I missed you. You promised you would tuck me in at Grandmama’s so I could see your pretty new dress, before you left for the exciting party that everyone was talking about.”
“I still do not understand.”
“You final
ly came to me, but you were in such a hurry, you were worried only about being late for your opening, not worried about seeing me. I begged to go with you, begged you to take me.”
“That was silly. I couldn’t take a young child to the gallery showing.”
“You could, if you chose to. Instead, you sat on my little bed, and said you would tell me a magic secret.”
“A magic secret? What sort of secret is that?”
“The lying sort. You leaned down and said that you would always be there for your good little Kailani. However, I mustn’t cry and carry on any longer, or the magic secret wouldn’t work. When I wanted you, all I needed to do was whisper your name, quietly, so no one else could hear me. Just whisper your name, and you would come for me.”
Her mother stared at her, obviously not comprehending. “I did no such thing.”
“Yes, you did. You were in such a hurry to leave, you told me whatever it would take to shut me up and stop hounding you to stay with me.”
“Kailani … .”
“After you left, everyone else finally went to bed. When the house was really quiet, believing the magic secret was true, I began to whisper your name. I whispered and whispered and whispered, but you didn’t come for me. Then I whispered louder, but you still didn’t come. I got frightened. I thought I did something wrong, because the magic wasn’t working. That’s when the crying began. It’s tough for a little kid to whisper and cry at the same time, so I sobbed and hiccupped. The crying and hiccupping finally spiked out of control, which frightened me even more—that’s when I began to call for Daddy.”
“I have no idea to what you are referring. You were very young. You probably dreamed it all.”
“No, I didn’t dream that up, and you know it. You didn’t come back to the house, not even when Grandmama called you. That’s when Daddy came for me, and finally took me back to the States.”
Her mother’s hands were at her own slender throat, as if she were choking. “It isn’t true.”
“Yeah, it is. That’s when I became, as Dad called me, an independent little cuss.
No magic, no secret wishes. The only magic I knew was the trick of the disappearing mother.”
Bombshell - Men of Sanctuary Series, Book Three Page 18