Girl Rides the Wind (33 page)

Later, as they walked through the streets Andie bubbled over with excitement. “Is that what she’s always like… you know, the Crown Princess? Is she always so gracious… so forceful? She dresses so elegantly, and her daughter…”

Yuki heard nothing of Andie’s chatter, not even minding her own steps, and nearly stepped off the sidewalk into traffic. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she said, when Emily pulled her back.

“I didn’t think it was important.”

“Not important… you cut that woman’s head off.”

“It wasn’t the first time,” Emily muttered.

“You did what?” Andie had stopped in her tracks.

“I assisted at a suicide.” Emily wished they would let it drop, but knew they couldn’t. “That’s why I need new dress whites. There was some spray.”

“Oh my lord,” Andie said, her face beginning to turn green. Yuki took her hand and guided her to a kneeling wall on the edge of a nearby park, in case she felt unsteady… or queasy. After a moment, her head seemed to clear, and she regained the power of speech. “What woman?”

“Gyoshin Heiji.”

“The coup plotter? How did you even find her… I mean, if the police couldn’t?”

“It’s a long story, but somehow I think the Princess had a hand in it all.”

“The Princess is right,” Yuki said. “She has relied on you too much.”

“
D
oes
this island even have a name?” Connie had to shout to be heard over the engine noise and the spray.

“Not really,” Danko said. “I like to call it ‘Tammy’s Island’, but Hsu Qi has another name for it.”

Given the cost of renting the fishing boat, Connie had seriously considered whether she shouldn’t just buy it outright… if only there were any of Michael’s cash left. All the same, she felt an obligation to bring him home, especially given what Emily had told him back on the
Blue Ridge
: “My friends call me Em.” She took that to be tantamount to a command, and made her plans accordingly.

“You’re sure she’s George’s daughter?”

“Will you just give it a rest, Danko?” Connie glowered at him, and then sat on the vinyl-covered bench behind the flying bridge. “You are obsessed with Walker, and personally, I’d rather forget about him.”

“Now that sentiment I can understand, though one might wonder how you got involved with him at all.”

“Give me a break. It was orders… at first. There I was, fresh out of the Academy, and some shadowy type from ONI tells me I’ve been assigned to an operative from NSA. What was I supposed to do?”

“But it didn’t end there, did it?”

“No.” Connie scowled, and stared at the worn out teak slats under her shoes. “I was young and foolish, and Walker was charming.”

Danko snorted at that remark. “He was a total psycho.”

“Yeah, that too. What you have to understand is how boring my previous assignment had become. At least following him around provided some excitement.”

“… not to mention all the killing.”

“Let me guess, you and George were a pair of boy scouts?”

“Fair enough. We got into our fair share of mischief.” Connie laughed at this bit of understatement. “But George was nothing like his cousin. Walker killed for pleasure. We never did that.”

“There’s a fine distinction.”

“Okay, okay, but explain to me where she falls on the spectrum between George and Walker?”

“When I met her, she was a lost lamb… well, maybe not quite a lamb…”

“… more like a lion cub, I’m guessing.”

“Whatever she was, one thing was clear: she was confused and alone, an innocent caught in a very adult game. Meacham was hunting her mother, and Burzynski got into the act after George was killed. He even sent an assassin to her high school graduation, a sniper.”

“That’s cold.”

“A week later, Walker led a team of mercs to take her out.”

“She eluded them somehow, I suppose.”

“Nope. That’s not her way. She faced them head on.”

“Now that sounds more like George.”

“And here’s the best part. As we’re getting ready… me and her uncle Theo…”

“You mean the SEAL from the
BHR
?”

“Yup. It’s just the two of us and a handful of security guards, with small arms and one sniper rifle, and Walker’s assembled two dozen black-ops specialists… he’s even got a damn gunship with him… and at the last minute, she tells us leg-wounds only.”

“Okay, fine. I’m beginning to get the picture.”

Two hours out of Pulau, the saddleback silhouette of Tammy’s Island emerged over the horizon, bright under the early afternoon sun, and Connie remembered the uncanny sensation of seeing it the first time, almost three decades ago. George and Danko had persuaded her to fly them down from Manila, chatting her up to get her to do something outside regs. She’d seen through Danko’s smooth line, but didn’t care, or perhaps merely felt like having an adventure.

As they approached in the fading light of the afternoon, George had asked her to drop to a hundred feet and circle the eastern edge. He’d wanted to recon the overall shape, and their current vector created a similar view. Not much had changed, as far as her memory served, including the unsettling feeling produced by the very landmass itself.
Is this how Emily feels when she goes into one of her reveries?

Since the dock had been dismantled, they had to anchor offshore, and paddle in on the dingy.

“Something’s not right here.” Danko pointed up at a camera secreted high up a palm tree. Connie would never have spotted it by herself, but this was
his
island. “It’s not operating. The power must have been cut.”

“What’s the power source?”

“Solar arrays on the southern slope of the saddleback. A few were damaged in a storm, but that wouldn’t account for this. Come, this way.”

Danko set off at a run, cutting through the jungle to find a side entrance to the underground complex. He pulled aside the overgrown foliage that masked it, and Connie helped him pull open an iron door.

“The lights aren’t working.”

“Is there a back-up generator?”

“No, but there are lots of torches.”

They hurried along both main corridors, peering into every room, but the complex was deserted. Here and there, they noticed signs of a hasty departure, but no clear indications of violence.

“Where is everyone?” Connie asked.

“They’re gone,” Danko said, once they re-emerged into the late afternoon sun. “Shit, I need to get to Davao. There’s no time.”