The Legend of Banzai Maguire

by Susan Grant

  “Come, UCE.” She turned on her heel and left the room.

  Ty rolled his eyes at the guards and followed. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He followed her up yet another flight of stairs. Judging by the freshness of the air, he’d say they were now out of the dungeon proper. Life was improving by the minute.

  In a locker room the size of a small closet, he found a brown shirt and pants made of thin, soft fabric. They were ugly and functional, and a little too small, even accounting for his weight loss, but a giant step up from prison wear.

  When he’d dressed, the woman handed him a mouth-cleaning kit and a bag of toiletry items. She abandoned him in another room with a real sink, a toilet that wasn’t a hole in the floor, and a wall of mirrors. “You have fifteen minutes, UCE.”

  “I’m a man. I only need two.”

  She ignored his smile and slammed the door.

  Exhaling, Ty faced the mirror and began running a comb through his wet, freshly trimmed hair. He didn’t know what Kyber had in store for him, but he had decided he was going to show up looking good.

  Chapter Eleven

  Prince Kyber of the Hans and his magnificent palace were a balanced mix of East and West. For tonight’s dinner with the UCE hatchet man’s only son, it was clear he wanted to emphasize the Asian part of his heritage.

  Fruits and flowers decorated a long, polished dining table made of teak inlaid with jade and mother-of-pearl. Volleyball-sized clear spheres held live butterflies and exotic moths. While Bree’s previous meals with Kyber were eaten using conventional Western silverware, tonight’s utensils consisted of solid gold chopsticks and spoons. Tiny gold dishes to hold sauces and red silk napkins highlighted the goldware.

  Kyber had changed the walls to a dark yellow to complement the gold. The window screens tonight were open to the real view, the outside courtyard bathed in the colors of the sunset. It was a mild evening with the barest touch of autumn in the air.

  Kyber pulled out her chair. As she sat, Bree’s gown swirled around her legs, the amethysts making little bell-like sounds. The dress’s sleeves were designed to fall off the shoulder, but a “smart bra” held the bodice in place. Joo-Eun had pulled Bree’s hair into a twist, securing it with two jewel-tipped sticks. Wisps fell around her jaw and neck. Bree felt good. Pretty. It was the first night since waking in this world that she felt remotely lighthearted. Nothing like good food, gorgeous clothes, and handsome men to erase your self-pity. Well, one handsome man. The other was still missing. “Where is Tyler Armstrong?”

  “He will arrive soon.” Kyber settled himself in his chair in front of a place setting of gold and sapphires. “He is dressing for dinner.”

  “Dressing for dinner?” Bree sipped from a goblet of icy water. “You treat your prisoners well.”

  Kyber smiled and said nothing. The benevolent dictator, Bree thought. The kindhearted tyrant.

  She hoped the decent treatment had put Armstrong in a good mood; she desperately wanted to talk to him about Cam. And more. He’d be another view of a world she knew little about. The UCE…the U.S.A….she wondered if she’d find similarities between them that the Interweb and Kyber’s prejudice were unable to reveal. A part of her wanted to find a connection; she missed her home. And yet, she felt obligated to Kyber for all that he’d done for her. That familiar tug-of-war. She struggled, wondered how she’d settle it. But soon, Tyler Armstrong would arrive, and she’d learn the answers to all those questions and more. Nervously, she rubbed her hands together.

  A light on the gauntlet computer Kyber wore on his left forearm flashed and beeped. “Yes, Kabul?”

  “He is here.”

  “Allow him in.”

  A couple of Kyber’s leather-clad bodyguards entered the room. Between them was General Armstrong’s son.

  The guards left her would-be kidnapper alone in the foyer and retreated to the double entry doors, where they took up a position to either side.

  Armstrong glanced back at the guards, as if not believing they’d left him. He walked to the dining table with slow and deliberate steps as if trying to conceal a limp. Bree narrowed her eyes. Something was off. His clothes didn’t fit. His pants were too short. He was leanly muscled and athletic, but gaunt, thinner than the pictures she’d seen of him on the news. His hair was a little longer, too.

  Her heart gave a jump when she met his ice-blue eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see in them, but the emotional intensity she found there startled her. If was almost as if he had feelings for her.

  Bree’s heart gave her ribs another swift kick. Ridiculous, she thought. Tyler Armstrong couldn’t have feelings for her; he didn’t even know her! He was the pirate, and she was the gold. That hadn’t changed from the very first time she’d seen him. If anything, his fascination with her, and his hunger to have her, were sharper than before.

  Wasn’t it?

  She realized then that she was staring at him. Say something, Maguire. “Thanks for coming to dinner, Mr. Armstrong?”

  That appeared to amuse him. The little scar on his upper lip stretched with his half smile. His gaze lingered on her face. “You look lovely. I trust your care is adequate?”

  She swallowed against a dry throat. Why did she feel so shy? Men normally didn’t fluster her. This man somehow did. “Thanks, yes. More than adequate. Prince Kyber has generously opened his home to me.”

  “Yes, I have,” Kyber cut in. “Sit, Commander Armstrong. Please.” The prince waved at the only other empty chair, on the opposite side of the table from where he sat next to Bree.

  Armstrong slid into the chair. He remained stiff and serious, and on guard, as if he expected something to happen at any moment. But his military rigidness faltered some as servant after servant brought in platters and bowls of food and set them out on the table. Savory smells thickened the air. Bree watched Armstrong’s expression. The man’s jaw moved, and he pressed his lips together. His gaze sharpened, his eyes never leaving the food. He was hungry.

  Her heart gave a little twist. When was the last time he’d eaten?

  A servant murmured to her, wanting her to indicate her choices from the feast. “I don’t care. Pick a selection for me, please.” As soon as the servant went to work filling her plate, Bree pushed a tray toward Armstrong. “Try the meat buns,” she told him. “They’re delicious.”

  Almost a little too eagerly, he grabbed one of the steaming buns and tore off a large bite. Chewing, he ate more before swallowing the first. He wasn’t hungry, Bree thought. He was starving.

  “Would you care for wine?” a server asked Armstrong.

  “Please,” he mumbled between bites.

  The woman filled his goblet. Armstrong gulped it down. The polite way he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin was at odds with the ferocity with which he attacked his dinner.

  Bree tried to make conversation and break the ice so she could get to the more serious questions about Cam. “Prince Kyber called you Commander. That would make you the naval equivalent of an air force lieutenant colonel, wouldn’t it? That’s the way it was in my time.”

  Armstrong glanced up sharply. He stopped chewing. His attention went to Kyber before coming back to her. Then he mumbled something and went back to eating.

  She tried again, reaching for common interests. “I am—I was in the United States Air Force.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “A pilot.”

  “Yes.”

  Bree gave a silent sigh. He didn’t want to talk, and that didn’t bode well for getting any information out of him.

  If she’d been thinking ahead, she could have gotten this information from the Interweb, and used it to make him more comfortable. “So, do you fly, too? Are you a naval aviator? Or just a boat type?”

  He spoke as he shoveled food into his mouth with the chopsticks. “Tyler Armstrong, Commander, eighty-twelve, one-one-seven-sixty-two-twenty-two. April third, twenty-one-forty-six.”

  When questioned, should I become a pris
oner of war, I am bound to give only name, rank, service number, and the date of birth. Article Five: The American Fighting Man’s Code of Conduct. The articles existed to give guidance to captured soldiers, and while he wasn’t an “American,” Armstrong had followed the code to a tee. Kyber told her he’d thrown the commander in jail for trespassing and attempted theft. But Armstrong acted as if he were a prisoner of war.

  Was he?

  Bree took a closer look at him: the ill-fitting clothes, the thin brown fabric that stretched too tightly across his shoulders. Her gaze traveled to his face. He was tired and drawn. Under his left eye and on his right jaw were yellow and green smudges. Old bruises. They’d beaten him.

  Shame and shock squeezed her chest. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Now she understood why he wouldn’t answer her questions. He thought she was trying to interrogate him. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

  Bree put down her chopsticks and stared at her plate. She’d lost her appetite. She’d expected dinner with a rich and spoiled treasure hunter, whom she could sweet-talk into giving her information about Cam. But that’s not what she got. It felt wrong to be dressed in an expensive gown, eating gourmet delicacies, while dining with a beaten-up captive in scruffy clothes, dragged up here only because she’d desired it.

  Bree sat still as she listened to the two men eat. The tinkling of chopsticks brushing against china. The softer music in the background. No one spoke.

  Kyber? He seemed pleased with himself. See? he seemed to say. I am an open-minded man.

  And Tyler Armstrong? His sole focus was wolfing down as much food as he could, as if he thought he might never eat again. Suddenly, she wanted very much for the dinner to be over.

  It took all her strength of will to forget her discomfort long enough to ask her questions. “Commander Armstrong.” Her voice seemed to startle both men. “This has nothing to do with your specific duties. I hope you will be able to help me. I wanted to meet with you tonight, because you were the first one to find me in the pod. I wasn’t alone in that long-ago mission. My wingman Cameron Tucker was with me.” Her voice dropped. “Did you see her? Do you know where she is?”

  Armstrong stopped chewing. She saw him swallow. Then, with slow and careful movements, he rested his chopsticks on the edge of his almost-empty plate. By sheer force of will, it seemed, he erased all emotion from his face, a skill she lacked. His eyes told her nothing, either; they were chips of ice. “Tyler Armstrong, Commander, eighty-twelve, one-one-seven-sixty-two-twenty-two. April third, twenty-one-forty-six.”

  “This is not an interrogation. It’s a plea for help.” She made fists on the tablecloth. “Cam Tucker was my wing-man. She could be out there. Alive!”

  “Banzai,” Kyber said in a gentle tone.

  She ignored his attempt to soothe her. “Do you know anything, Commander?” She hated the desperation she heard in her voice. “I don’t need details. Just tell me if you know where she is.”

  Armstrong’s eyes thawed. He looked as if he wanted to say something and then decided against it.

  “What?” she demanded. “What do you know?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said quietly.

  Bree’s nostrils flared. She fought the almost overwhelming urge to grab his collar and shake him. “You mean you can’t tell me. You can’t talk. What if it were you, looking for someone in your unit? Someone under your command? You wouldn’t give up.”

  A muscle jumped in Armstrong’s jaw. He inhaled, held his breath, released it. And said nothing.

  Ack! Bree pressed a fist to her stomach, as if that could somehow keep her from letting go of the last shreds of her composure.

  Kyber brought his mouth to her ear. “I knew he’d disappoint you.” He was slow to move away, as if flaunting his familiarity with her, eager to have Armstrong believe it was more. Then, smug, Kyber leaned back in his dining chair, leaving her to sort out the sorrow and resentment in Armstrong’s eyes.

  Just barely, she squelched the urge to explain that she wasn’t sleeping with Kyber. She wasn’t supposed to care what this stranger thought of her personal life. Why she did was anyone’s guess.

  Armstrong folded his napkin and placed it on the table next to his plate. With one last soulful look at his unfinished meal, he said, “I don’t think I’ll stay for dessert.”

  She caught his eyes and mouthed, Eat.

  His gaze hesitated on hers. Then, with an oddly self-satisfied glance in Kyber’s direction, he lowered his head to devour down the rest of his food.

  Kyber sipped his wine and regarded his prisoner with what could only be hatred. But his animosity didn’t appear to bother Armstrong in the least. It amazed her that he seemed to consider his loss of her more important than saving his own hide, which he wasn’t doing a very good job of preserving, provoking the man who held the keys to the dungeon.

  “Don’t let it fool you,” Armstrong murmured.

  She frowned, shaking her head.

  He waved a hand at the sumptuous feast. “The finery. Don’t let it fool you. You’re a prisoner here, Banzai, just as I am.”

  “I’m not a prisoner. I’m free to go.”

  Armstrong lifted a brow. “Really?”

  “Yes, really,” Kyber answered for her. “Banzai Maguire is my guest, and is here by choice. She understands the dangers that exist outside these walls—and that with me, she is safe.”

  “You couldn’t even keep your own father safe.”

  Kyber’s face closed immediately, as it had when she’d asked about the assassination attempt that had left the king in an irreversible vegetative state. “You are out of line!”

  “Well, could you?”

  “Silence!” Armstrong had twisted the knife in what appeared to be a still-raw wound.

  Kyber’s chair scraped backward, and he stood. Dressed all in black, he was downright menacing. “You know nothing of the truth, you son of an imperialist pig.”

  “If you couldn’t keep your own father safe, how will you keep Banzai out of harm’s way?”

  “You question my security?”

  “Damn right, I do.”

  Bree groaned. Boys, boys.

  “Must I remind you, Commander, that the very safety measures you question stopped you before you could steal Banzai away? Without proper medical attention, she would have died. Thanks to my security team, you didn’t kill her.”

  “Kill her?” Armstrong shouted back, incredulous. He turned to her. “The UCE wants to repatriate you, Banzai. We want to bring you home...”

  Home. Her chest ached with the word. How she wished home still existed. But the country she saw daily on the news didn’t resemble in any way the nation to which she’d once pledged allegiance. Where was her home now?

  “Why do your countries hate each other so much?” she asked, finally expressing out loud the question dogging her since she’d arrived at the palace.

  That elicited a moment or two of surprised silence.

  “What I mean is—you two are enemies because your countries are at war. Right?”

  “We are not at war,” Kyber bellowed. “But if they send more delinquents to steal what’s mine—”

  “She is not yours,” the commander yelled back.

  “She certainly does not belong to you.”

  “I disagree.”

  Bree dropped her head in her hands. She could hear it now: Is not…is too…is not…

  “She was born in the northeast sector of the Central Colony,” Armstrong pointed out.

  “And she remained here, protected within my lands for almost two centuries. If the UCE wanted her, perhaps they should have shown a little more interest.”

  “The UCE didn’t know!”

  “But why so much hatred?” she interrupted. “Why can’t your governments come up with a treaty?”

  “There is a treaty,” Kyber said. “The
UCE refused to sign it.”

  “What treaty is that?” Armstrong demanded.

  Kyber lifted an elegant brow. “The one drawn up after the UCE conceded defeat at the end of the Bai-Yee Wars. It sits in its airless case in the Royal Museum. The signature line that reads The United Colonies of Earth? Notoriously blank.” He turned to Bree and explained. “My kingdom began as a league of Asian nations linked by an economic trade agreement. The Asian Economic Consortium. Fifty years of the West outsourcing high-tech jobs had brought us wealth and power that no one anticipated. The UCE wanted it. Wanted us. When they sought to tax what we gave to the world, we declared independence.” He narrowed his eyes at the UCE commander. “And we bled mightily to achieve it. The Bai-Yee Wars. The fighting ended many generations ago. Now, we, the Kingdom of Asia, don’t share with anyone. We don’t need to. We have it all and in higher quality and quantity than anyone else on this planet.”

  Armstrong’s mouth twisted. “Is that why you keep your citizenry in bondage?”

  Kyber groaned. “The usual UCE refrain. It’s all they can come up with in criticism. In truth, your people are the ones in bondage—shackled to out-of-control taxation and overgovernment.”

  “At least we can leave the country.”

  “Ah. That is the fundamental difference between our lands. My people do not want to leave.”

  “What would make this better?” Bree asked. A fighter pilot attempting diplomatic mediation. If ever a situation paralleled the bull-in-the-china-shop metaphor, this was it. “If the UCE signed the Bai-Yee treaty?”

  “It will never happen,” Kyber said.

  Armstrong shook his head, apparently in agreement for the first time with his enemy. “It won’t,” he agreed.

  “That’s too bad,” she said quietly. It wasn’t just bad blood that kept the two huge powers at odds; it was ancient bad blood, the worst kind.

  “Meanwhile,” Kyber said with a deep sigh, “I’m left to hold my own against the battering waves of aggressive territorialism.”

  “Bullshit! The UCE has no interest in your kingdom.”

  “The only thing that keeps my kingdom safe from colonial expansion is our sheer power.”