by Sandra Moore
When she mounted the swim ladder, Diviner sprang up the flybridge ladder. Nikki took her time getting into the cockpit while he scrambled around. She slid the fishing boat’s salon door open and set the laptop on a seat inside, then closed up again.
“If you’re looking for keys, there aren’t any,” she said. “Get your ass back down here.”
Diviner did as he was told. In the brightening dawn light, he looked even worse: dark eyes sunk deep in his pale face, a rough five o’clock shadow bruised his sallow cheeks, his black hair limp and sweaty.
Moments later, Johnny lifted himself up and over the stern. “All clear,” he said, as if he’d been weeding the garden. He eyed Diviner. “You should be tied up.”
Diviner’s eyes widened, as if Johnny had pronounced a punishment worse than death.
“I’ll trade you anything you want to know if you cut me loose,” he said. “It’s what I do. Give me an hour, and I can give you anything.”
Annoyed, Nikki almost said something bitchy, but stopped.
Mingxia . Yanmei .
This man, with his mind and his machine, might be able to give her the destination of the boat that had taken the girls away. Part of her claimed that was absurd—the triads didn’t keep their trade routes in databases—but another part reminded her that the man in front of her, who was now trying to push glasses that weren’t there anymore farther onto his nose, had delivered into the Electric Dragon’s hands the life of his enemy.
He could deliver the lives of those children into her hands. Where they’d be safe.
“The Sun Yee On kidnapped two little girls—” She broke off.
Diviner nodded. “Yes. Their leader—what’s he called?”
“The Dragon Head,” she said automatically.
“The Dragon Head sends encrypted e-mails to his liaison officer at a bank in downtown Hong Kong. Schedules, payments, everything goes back and forth.” He snorted. “Asymmetric algorithm encryption is nothing. And the network in the bank?” He made a scoffing noise, as if insulted. “Flypaper before a sword.”
Nikki stared at him in the dawning light. Behind his head, the lights lining the far Malay shore gleamed a little less brightly and the water edged from black into dark grey. His skin, even paler now in contrast to his dark eyebrows and mustache, made him a gaunt ghost.
Diviner. He who detects truths. The discoverer of secrets. The discerning one.
And the minute he gave Nikki the information she wanted, he’d wipe his laptop clean of the information Delphi needed to trace Arachne.
Nikki let her frustration tighten into a clenched fist deep in her stomach. Feel it, she thought, and let it go. She waited, trying not to judge the feeling or herself, trying simply to accept the emotion as true at this moment. What could she do about the situation right now? Nothing. Not a thing.
After a few breaths, the frustration dissipated, leaving only her sense of what she must do and sadness that she must do it.
“No.” The word was a gaunt ghost, too, wafting up like the old tome scent of regret, of anguish that things had to be this way, and no other. “Your offer’s no good.”
Johnny was looking at her, his eyes wide with understanding. He wasn’t offering approval, she realized, but respect.
“Tie him up,” Nikki said gruffly. “I want to finish this.”
Chapter 22
“H is name,” Delphi’s digitally altered voice said, “is Martin Slobojvic. He’s a Kestonian national wanted in two dozen countries for computer piracy and industrial espionage.”
Nikki stood alone in the center of Master Wong’s sparring mat, holding the cell phone, now wrapped with tape, to her ear. The high-pitched giggles of little girls echoed in the kitchen, echoed through Nikki’s heart. Yanmei’s ribbon tugged at her wrist. She pulled herself back from the sadness to ask, “How long has he been living in that container? The man was fish-belly white.”
“From what we’ve been able to determine, almost fifteen years.”
Nikki whistled. “Long time not to see the sun.”
“He kept on the move. The shipping records are spotty, but he’s just been moving from port to port.”
“Did you crack his laptop?”
“That and the disk drive your security friend, Ali bin Sulaiman, recovered from the container. Rigged to self-destruct if tampered with, as we expected, but not unbreakable.”
“‘Asymmetric algorithm encryption is nothing,’” Nikki murmured. “Did he have a right to be so arrogant?”
“Yes, he did. The laptop is the tip of the iceberg. He built a network of machines to hold pieces of data.”
“Keeping everything spread out,” Nikki mused.
“And out of the hands of his enemies. Arachne would have had a field day with the information he’s uncovered.”
Diviner of secrets.
But your secrets are being found out, Nikki thought. One by one.
“Will you be able to find Arachne now?”
Delphi seemed to wait, perhaps thoughtfully, perhaps pondering how much—or how little—to tell Nikki. “We have a better chance than we did.”
“And the giant? Chang’s descendant?” Nikki asked, referring to Arachne’s possible rival.
“We’re investigating.”
And that was all Nikki anticipated getting from Delphi. She swallowed as the girls laughed again, and she heard Johnny teasing them. He was doing one of his story voices again.
“Are we done then?” she asked through a closing throat.
“Yes. Good work. You’ve done more than you know.”
And less than she’d wanted.
“For my sisters at Athena,” Nikki said as the tears fell, unrestrained and unjudged.
“For us all.”
Delphi hung up.
Nikki stared at the phone for a full minute. She was enveloped in cinnamon, then in Johnny’s arms. He buried his face in her loose, curly hair.
“We’ve been here for two days,” he murmured. “You are rested?”
“Physically.”
“Good. I’ve talked to Bai.”
Nikki tensed. Johnny held her more tightly and chuckled. “She knows a few things. You should give her a chance.”
“What things?” Nikki retorted. She angled out of his embrace and glared at him.
Still smiling, he rested his broad hands on her shoulders and squeezed. Grounding her, she realized. In the here and now.
“What did you talk about?” She sounded like she was strangling, but at least the words came out.
“Did I tell you she used to be a Sun Yee On liaison officer’s lover?”
Nikki’s eyes widened. “No. You left that little detail out.”
“She says she talked to him last night, which means she was doing with him what you were doing with me.”
Nikki’s cheeks warmed, but before she could say anything, he added, “And he said something about the slaver ship making a fueling stop between Singapore and Kestonia.”
Nikki forgot her embarrassment as adrenaline—liberally mixed with wild hope—surged through her. “When?”
“Tomorrow night. How long do you have left on your vacation?”
“About a week.”
Johnny nodded. “That should be enough time.”
Nikki grabbed his arm. “We can do this, yeah?” The waterworks were coming on strong again, but with him, here, it was okay.
“I have our plane tickets already.”
He gathered her close and whispered, “After we return here, we should figure out why we’re living on the other side of the world from each other.”
She pressed her face into his chest and breathed deep. Here he was, all cinnamon affection and sandalwood attraction, his hard arms banding her back and his heart beating, strong and sure against her ear. Yes, they’d figure that out, and how they could change it.
Nikki pulled from his embrace but stayed close, her hand on his arm.
“Yes, we will. But first, let’s go get our girls
.”
