by Adira August
Leather-gloved hands set Cheong on his knees in front of the Aussie with the jagged scar. The tall man perched on the console between the bucket seats, hands clasped between his knees.
Cheong's face was a snarl of rage. “I’ll have you-”
SWACK-SWACK!
The Aussie backhanded Cheong twice while one of his men held the hotelier’s head up by the hair. Tears ran down his face and blood oozed from a cut on his lip.
“Easy on, Mr. Cheong. Just delivering a message, right?” He nodded to the merc holding up Cheong. The man released him.
“My boss’ll take over peddlin’ the little buggers.” The Aussie laughed. “Get it? ‘Buggers’?” He leaned forward, deadly serious. “Yer out o’ the kiddie market. Includin’ porn. Ever’where. Won’t be telling you again. Next time, be more than roaches and bities.”
At another nod, Cheong’s head was bagged and duct-taped, his hands and feet bound. He was left behind his own Bentley, along with his bodyguards.
The big man squatted next to him. “Let ya know if he wants anything else. Catch ya later.”
Cheong listened to bootfalls and laughter until they were cut off by car doors slamming.
BEN HART’S CELL sounded with his assistant’s tone.
“Go ahead, Delores,” he answered as he waited for the airstairs to fold up, so the Gulfstream could take off.
“Yes, sir. You have a message from Senator Golriche’s office. They wanted to give you a heads-up. Travel restrictions are being imposed on nonessential travel to Macau.”
“What kind of restrictions?”
“You can’t go there.”
He frowned. “Americans can’t go to Macau?”
“No, sir. Just you.”
Nicky.
The door shut with a solid thunk, and the whine of the engines intensified. Ben suddenly felt lighter and more at peace than he had in months. “Thank you, Delores. I’ll text when I touch down in Los Angeles.”
He put the cell away and accepted a bottle of water from the steward. “Thank you, Lewis.”
“Anything else, sir? We’ll be taxiing in a minute.”
“No. Take Blakewell with you and give him a tour when we’re airborne. Explain the protocols. It’s his first trip.”
“Yes, sir.”
The security man sat on one of the side-facing seats. He was obviously uncomfortable, like someone giving a speech who didn’t know what to do with his hands. Lewis spoke quietly to him and led him forward through the bulkhead door.
Ben Hart hated staff hanging around when he flew. Staff people seemed to believe they needed to ask him if he wanted service every ten minutes.
He went over his travel itinerary. Now that Macau was off the agenda, he could have Avia take a commercial flight to L.A. where he was making final decisions on a production crew. As enticing as that idea was, he rejected it almost as soon as he had it.
He’d be so busy for the next couple days, she was better off with Wood, who’d devote all his time to her. He’d seen Wood spank her as he was leaving, glad she’d had that lesson early. He suspected that was the last time that would happen with Wood. Avia learned quickly.
Ben wanted her with a good therapist as soon as possible. But he didn’t want her to see someone in Denver once and have to switch when she was whisked off to the Islands. He wanted her to have consistency. And right now, he wanted her distracted from her fears and memories. He wanted most for her to feel safe and protected.
He’d texted those priorities to Woodward, updating some orders, and told him to use his best judgment. He trusted Wood fully as much as he trusted Hugo or Hank Eustace.
WOOD TOOK HER TO A SONIC.
While they waited for a roller-skated server to bring chili dogs and malts—Wood having ordered and seeming well coached as to her food preferences—he asked for her game cube. She watched in fascination as he scrambled and unscrambled it at least ten times before handing it back to her, solved.
“That’s a classic, standard three-by-three cube,” he said, bringing his own out of his pocket. “It’s going to feel stiff for a while, but it’ll loosen up.”
He scrambled his own cube in a blur. His looked different, as if the edges had melted. The centers were rounded and the colors were stickers. Hers were plastic insets.
“This is a speed cube,” he said. “Made for competitions. Yours will never move this fast.”
“Do you compete?”
“No. I’m not fast enough. The world record for a three-by-three is four point two seconds. My best time is probably nine or ten.” He smiled. “I can solve it behind my back, though. Takes longer.”
“I imagine it does,” she said, a little awed.
“Get your pad and pencil. You’ll need to take notes.”
She did as he said and put the cube on her lap.
“Notebook in lap, cube in your hands,” he told her. She switched. “Good.”
He held up his cube, using it for illustration. “Six colors. Six faces. Each face nine facets: nine individual squares. You see my cube is scrambled: all the faces have a mixture of the colors. If I solve it, which means making each face a solid color, which color will this face be?”
He held it up so only one side was toward her. Red, white, orange, green, blue and yellow squares—facets she corrected herself—were on the side in no logical arrangement.
“I have no idea,” she admitted, wondering if there was punishment for a wrong answer.
Keeping the same face toward her, he spun the parts again and different colors appeared. Again. Again. Again. It moved so fast it was impossible to focus on any one color. How could she… again again again ..figure out ...
“White! It’s white!” she cried out, actually pointing at the cube in his hand.
“How do you know?”
“It’s the center. It never changes,” she said excitedly.
“Exactly. The thing about a game cube is, you always know exactly where you are, even if everything else is totally screwed up. Look at your cube.”
She lifted it up.
“We’ll call the white side the ‘top’ because the logo is there on the core facet, the one in the center. Take the top face and rotate the whole thing to the right ninety degrees. Hold the rest still. … Good. What happened to the logo?”
“It turned.”
“Right. The cores can move in place. But they are always the same relative to one another. White opposite yellow. Look at the bottom.”
“Yellow.”
“Right. Hold the cube up with your index finger on the white core and your thumb on the yellow. … Okay. What color is the side facing you?”
“Blue.”
“If the side facing you is blue, the opposite side will be green, the side to the right orange and the side to the left red.”
She moved the cube as he spoke and saw he was right.
“Listen to me, now,” he said.
She looked up at his serious tone. “Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
“There are twenty-six pieces in your cube, and each one has a specific location—a home—when it’s solved. You cannot get lost, no matter how scrambled it is. You will always know where every facet and piece belongs because the cores never change. Do you understand?”
“I’m not sure.”
He plucked the cube from her hand and scrambled it in a few seconds. He pointed to a center piece along one edge. “Hold this like before and keep a finger on this edge piece.”
Then he solved his own cube and set it on the console. “Use mine for a reference and figure out exactly where on your cube that piece belongs.”
She was frightened. In broad daylight in a fast-food parking lot with a paid bodyguard, it seemed like a huge weight had settled on her. Tears came to her eyes.
“Avia!” His voice was sharp. “What did I say?”
She tried to remember… “Use yours for a reference-”
“Do that part now.”
His speed cube sat innocently enoug
h, white on top, red facing her. She positioned her index finger on the white core of her cube, and her thumb on the yellow. She placed her other index finger on the piece he’d shown her. It was green and orange. Her test piece, as she thought of it.
It was in the bottom layer: the green facet was on the red face. The orange on the yellow.
If it was in the right place, her test piece would be in the center of an edge between the red and green faces.
Wood watched her closely. “Show me where it belongs.”
She turned her cube, found the green core first and faced it toward her. Then she simply looked to the right and left. The orange was on the left. Her piece had to go in the middle, one facet was on the green side and one on the orange side.
“Here,” she said pointing to the edge. “It goes right here.”
“Correct. You cannot get lost,” he repeated. “You always know where every facet and piece belongs because the core never changes.”
He wasn’t talking about the cube. She smiled. “Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
“Even if you don’t know how to get it all back in place, nothing is missing or broken. You are never lost.” The server brought the tray of food to his window. “When you’re solving it, remember not to let it get twisted and crooked. It’ll lock up.”
“I don’t know how to solve it.”
“You will. Now, put them away while we eat. You want to protect your cube.”
“Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
THE HARMONIC CHIMES of Avia’s cell reached Ben from his coat pocket. He paused the video audition on his laptop to answer.
“J.J.?”
“You answering the phone for her, now?”
“Avia’s not here, J.J. She left her phone behind when she went out.”
“I thought she was at her place, now?”
He ignored this. “Can I help you, or do you want me to send you to voicemail?”
“I had dinner with Avia last night,” she said. “I had to leave suddenly. I didn’t want her to misinterpret and think I wasn’t interested in our conversation.”
“You want me to tell her that?”
“I do. Also, someone sent some disturbing video to me, to my email at The Week.”
Ben wasn’t delighted with his old friend’s behavior in the last months, but she was still a long-time friend. “Disturbing? Is someone threatening you?”
“Avia reminded me last night you’d been to Macau on business last year.”
Ben Hart knew when he was being interviewed. “Hang on. There are people here.” He muted the phone and quickly plugged it into his laptop to save the conversation. He disconnected from WiFi.
“All clear. What’s going on?”
“You were in Macau, right?”
“Sure, right around the time the Madigan trial started.”
“There’s a report in APB, a rumor, really, that you’re doing a deal with Cheong.” Asia-Pacific Business was the online finance equivalent of the National Enquirer.
“I’ll ask one more time, then I’m hanging up. What’s going on?”
“The Week is in possession of what I can only describe as sales videos advertising children for sex services. In some of them, what look like your products appear.”
“Someone sent something that disgusting to you? Personally?”
“Are you doing a deal with Cheong, Ben?”
“Are you asking as a curious friend or interviewing me as a reporter for The Week?”
Silence.
“Jesus, J.J. Look, we can talk off the record, but that’s all.”
“Okay, off the record, are those your products?”
“You’re implying the video you have is authenticated and made by Cheong. He buys products from me. A lot of hotels do. I won’t confirm without seeing them, but it’s possible they are Hart products. Last year he wanted an exclusive distribution contract. I wasn’t comfortable with that.”
“You following the Big Bugout?”
“That’s what they’re calling it?” He laughed. “I shouldn’t laugh; he’s losing a shit-ton of money.”
“Why do I suspect you had something to do with this?”
“J.J., on our friendship, I gave no orders to infest his hotels with any kind of vermin. I didn’t hint at it, suspect it would happen or any other permutation of me infesting his hotels.”
“You think us getting these videos now is coincidental?”
“No, I think someone’s trying to devalue his hotels. I was talking to Hugo about it this morning. He’s thinking some kind of hostile buyout.”
“Your jet’s not at Centennial.”
“That’s because it’s in Utah. Possibly Arizona. Over it, to be precise. … J.J., we’ve known each other almost fourteen years. You can’t think I have anything to do with child sex slavery. Or adult sex slavery.”
Silence. Then she sighed. “Why me, Ben?” He noted her tone had changed. She was asking for advice from a friend. “The only connection between Cheong and The Week, or me, is you.”
“Yeah, but who knows that except us? You’ve always kept yourself a big secret. I don’t own The Week, and your connection is Avia. Your email is online along with the other editors in the contact section of the webpage. Maybe it’s really just about The Week. Maybe Time and Newsweek editors got it, too. I don’t know, maybe Wikileaks will publish it tomorrow morning.”
“Maybe. Our print edition published an extensive report on child pornography in January,” she mused.
“I remember, now that you mention it. You posted an edited version without the more graphic images.” He waited for her to make the last assumption.
“For somebody overseas, the online edition is easily accessible,” she said.
“True,” he agreed. “And I don’t think they have whistleblower protection over there. You think maybe it’s not business-related? Maybe an inside job?”
“The hotels cleared out in a panic. An insider could use that to get into some office where they could download these files and send them to me.”
“Holy shit, J.J., are you saying they were sent from the hotel?”
“Cheong International Enterprises, office of the Chairman.”
Ben laughed, a big, genuine, booming sound. “J.J., this is perfect! It came from his office!” He chuckled a little more and wiped his eyes. “Congratulations. I think you might have a worldwide exclusive. Pulitzer—whose initials, by the way, were J.J.—will dig his way out of his grave to hand you the prize personally.”
“Ben, listen. I called Avia because I wanted to pump her for information about you. But also, I want her to come back. This is big. I need her for this.”
“She’ll be happy to hear that, but no. She’s going to work for me, and I’m not letting her go.” He couldn’t think of much worse for Avia right now than an extended high-pressure assignment dealing with the horror that was on those videos. Seeing them, himself, is how Ben had managed to get so fucked up, long before the shooting.
They said their goodbyes. Ben saved the file. He took a minute to thank a God he rarely gave thought to for whatever guardian angel or spirit guide or universal force seemed intent on saving his ass. Then he restarted the video.
He needed to email his choices for live auditions to his L.A. producer within the hour for the actors to have time to get to the hotel for a meet-and-greet while he was in town.
Ben Hart was beginning to like his life again.
“THAT’S YOUR TOP LAYER DONE,” Wood said as Avia raised her last white corner into position. She smoothed the faces and looked all around the cube, grinning with a childlike delight at the clean top line of solid colors, each aligned with its matching core. A deep satisfaction filled him, her childlike delight being a vast improvement over doubt and fear.
He kept his feeling, as he did all feelings, to himself.
“Put them away, and we’ll continue when we’re done.” She looked up in surprise. They were parked at a meter outside the library. She’d been concentrating so
hard on finding the corner pieces and moving them home, she hadn’t even realized they were stopped.
That also gave him satisfaction. When Ben Hart had explained this assignment, he’d stressed the importance of keeping Avia’s mind occupied with things in the moment. Wood had immediately thought of his cube and suggested it. Impressed, Hart sent him to pick up one for Avia. He’d gotten several.
At the time, he was only going to be staffing her; she hadn’t accepted the collar. Once she had, his expanded role as “stand-in” Dom made him even happier to have the cube lessons. Kevin Woodward never wanted to dominate or submit. He considered his chosen life of service—to country or individual—to be one of duty.
He would do what his duty to Benedict Hart demanded. And if he found a way to do that and be of service to Avia Rivers also, he’d consider his job well done.
He had her bring her bag with her. Inside the library, they climbed the stairs. “Mr. Hart wants you to understand ecstatic orgasm,” he said. “You haven’t researched it?”
“I looked in the sexuality section, but didn’t find anything. I would have looked online, but ….” She shrugged. “Didn’t seem like much point at the time.”
They reached the second floor. “Where should I have been looking?” She glanced around at the signs for Literature and Fiction.
“Religion.” He started up to the third floor. She looked up the stairs. “That’s on the fourth floor. There’s an elevator …” She trailed off when he stopped and cast a cool look down at her.
“Go back downstairs to the first floor. Come right back up here.” He’d give her only a few seconds to obey him.
“Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
She turned around and descended the staircase. He waited until she’d come back to the second floor.’
“Again.”
Her lips pressed. “Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
She was out of breath when she returned.
“Again.”
She turned.
“Acknowledge the order,” he snapped.
She stopped and turned around. Her face was frozen. He was sure she was recalling Hart’s warning about facial expressions. “Thank you. Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
“Don’t touch the railing.”
