Instigator

by Fiona Quinn

  She pulled her bikini and coverup from the dresser drawer. She walked to the bathroom, dragging her exercise tank top over her head. Soft-edged missions aren’t my thing, she thought as she adjusted the water for her shower.

  Christen wanted a mission where she knew the parameters. She wanted the waypoints mapped. She wanted to know the exact required time down to plus or minus thirty seconds. Not this lingering and hanging about. Not this open-ended nonsense. Seconds. She wanted to be able to check the mission off, “completed,” and move on.

  After a quick rinse and toweling off, Christen tied her bikini top into place and reached for her cover up. Yeah, it was killing her not to know the outcome of the mission she left. She couldn’t shake her anger at being snapped up this way. It was the lingering pissed-offedness of it all that she was trying to gloss over – but she knew she was doing a bad job.

  Christen snagged her beach tote, slipped on her sandals, gave herself a good shake and a good talking to as she went out to join the others.

  “That’s a funny look. What are you thinking?” Lula asked after the elevator door shut.

  “I’m thinking about Gator.”

  “Mmhmm, I just bet you are.” Johnna said with a laugh.

  “I saw him holding you at the bottom of the hill” Lula crooned. “All pressed up against those hard muscles.”

  “Truthfully, it was exactly his muscles that I was thinking about.” Christen said evenly. “You don’t get a body like that by playing video games in your mom’s basement. And you don’t get those kinds of muscles by shooting steroids into your system and curling weights in the gym. Those are muscles that are hard earned in the field. He was obviously military. I’m just wondering if he wasn’t special forces. If maybe he’s been a customer at some point in time.”

  “You recognize him?” There was a danger sign in the way Johnna asked that.

  “He seems so familiar,” Christen rolled her lips in and concentrated on the why of that familiarity. After a moment, she shook her head. “Yeah, it’s like I’ve known him for years. But honestly, I can’t place him. All I can come up with was that perhaps I’ve flown him on a mission or missions, and I’m just not putting two and two together. Our customers rarely tell us their names. Even their code names. And they’re usually covered up with beards and night vision. I wonder if Gator—” The elevator door slid open and Christen stopped talking.

  Gator and Blaze stood against the wall, waiting. Both were dressed in pressed khaki slacks. Their black polos stretched tightly around their biceps. As the women exited, they waited patiently and quietly, ready to shadow their principals as they left the hotel.

  When she’d consulted with the concierge, Christen discovered that her dad had hired a car and put it at her disposal. Their driver was efficient as he cut through the city traffic and took them across the bridge to Sentosa Island, headed for Tanjong Beach.

  As they approached the bridge, their driver tapped on his right signal and changed lanes.

  They were quiet in the car. Christen spent the time looking out the window at the great expanse of water, trying to quiet her pulse as her knees brushed inches from Gator’s. When they pulled up to the curb, Christen waited, like a good socialite would, for Blaze to jump out of the front seat and come around to open her door and offer her a steadying hand. So absurd.

  Gator took point and Blaze held the door for them as they entered the resort’s front access. Both had their heads on a swivel. What they thought they’d find here was beyond Christen’s imagination. But never say never, right? She flashed the card the Ruffle’s concierge had handed her – they had some kind of mutual contract going on. The guests from Ruffles were allowed onto the private beach, supplied with their own cabana, and a server was dedicated to their comfort. Christen hated the whole idea of that.

  It sounded nice in a travel article. Probably for someone who was tasting this kind of life for the first time, it was fabulous. But Christen had grown up in it. A bug on a petri dish. Everything she did could reflect poorly on her father. Embarrass the family. The servants knew that if she wasn’t polished perfection, then her dad took it out on the workers – they could even lose their jobs. The help made sure Christen never had a spot of dirt on her. They kept her sitting very still in a perfectly appointed child’s room. It. Had. Sucked. And her mom thought so, too. Her mom scooped her up one day when she was not quite nine years old. They walked away from everything – their clothes, her books, and toys. Just left. And built a new life. A lush, well-funded life, but one without the looming help. A maid, a gardener, and a cook – all of whom allowed her to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drip goop down her front.

  When Christen signed up with the army, and got to crawl through the dirt and mud, she was as happy as she could be. Eating MREs out of her pack and taking showers outside, yup. That’s who she was. A simple girl, who liked simple pleasures. And flying like a bat straight out of hell, of course.

  Lula hooked her arm through Christen’s and sent her a too wide grin, reminding her they were friends on vacation. Christen smiled back with a plastic affectation. She hated this glittering world and would do just about anything to get back to the FOB.

  They followed along behind their host and arrived at the cabana. There, the lounges were covered with fluffy white towels. A woman in a sarong stood next to a table. “May I help you with sunscreen?” she asked.

  Lula said yes and laid down on one of the chairs. The woman moved over and rubbed the sun protection into her skin with the kneading strokes of a massage therapist.

  Christen went over and picked up bottles of water from the cooler and took them to Blaze and Gator where they stood outside of the cabana. She overheard the host indicating that their property’s security was very closely monitored. But please, signal should they have any concerns. He seemed startled when he turned to see the bottles in Christen’s hands. “I beg your pardon, madam,” he said with a bow. He extracted the bottles and turned to distribute them to the men, as if this gesture was too much for her. “Shall I bring cocktails?” he asked as he gestured her back to her space.

  After the women gave their drink orders, the staff moved away. Christen was reminded how glad she was that she didn’t have to put up with this lifestyle. In just days, she’d be back to what she loved—flying— she encouraged herself.

  She went over to the lounge and tried to get comfortable, pulling her Kindle from her bag to read. She flipped through the books on her carousel and none of them seemed interesting. Gator watched her. Them. It was his job to watch. But holy hell. Come on. How was she supposed to ignore him?

  She wiggled around uncomfortably.

  Lula adjusted the pillow under her head. “What are you wearing tonight, Christen?”

  “The blue dress, I guess,” she grumped.

  “Okay, then I’ll wear my green one, so we don’t clash.”

  This was stupid. Is this what socialites said to each other as they lay around and twiddled their thumbs? Christen had made sure, since her and her mom’s great escape, that she had kept only the most tenuous of connections to this kind of lifestyle. She was born into this world, but it was still foreign to her.

  “I like your bikini. It suits your figure. Is it a Boivin?” Lula tilted her head toward Gator. He was the body guard closest to their cabana. She was obviously making small talk for his benefit.

  Christen froze, should she know that designer’s name? Christen hadn’t thought to check the label. It fit. She put it on. Should she say yes? “Thanks, I like it, too.” She’d just play this off. “Did you know that most people think that bikini is based on the word bi meaning two – and because of that, later in France, they came out with monokinis which meant they’d just wear the bottoms and also the tankini, but that’s not right. Bikini has nothing to do with the prefix bi-.”

  “No?” Lula looked bemused.

  “No, Bikini is an atoll in the Marshall Islands where the US tested its nuclear bombs. The desig
ner of the new swimsuit thought his design would create a reaction so explosive that he wanted to name it after an atomic bomb going off, so he named it after the Bikini atoll.”

  Johnna lifted her glasses and peered over at Christen. “Get out of here. It really doesn’t mean two pieces?”

  “Nope,” Christen smiled as she leaned back on her chaise. “In Marshallese, it means coconut place.”

  “That’s hysterical.” Lula chuckled. “I’m going to tell that story at my next cocktail party.”

  “Tonight?” Christen asked, suddenly worried that she’d need stories to tell and her stories were mostly classified.

  “The crowd your dad invited might not find coconut places as funny as I do.”

  The waiter wandered into the space. He wore a full wait-staff tuxedo with his pants rolled to the knee and bare feet. A white linen towel draped over his arm. Christen had seen images like this in travel magazines. You could pull your lounge into the water, and they would walk out to serve you. Picturesque, sure. But ridiculously impractical. The waiter left and their security detail moved out to do a sweep. Or something. How do you guard a cabana on a beach?

  “To coconut places,” Lula said.

  They tapped their paper-umbrella and flower trimmed pineapples together.

  “Now that we’re alone, tell me what happens next?” Christen asked.

  “We get back to the hotel in time to get beautified for the evening. Your father has the cocktail reception and the dinner. It will be a perfect time for you to watch,” Lula said. “Stand near conversations. We’ll need to spread ourselves out a bit though. And please try to remember – we’re on vacation. We’re enjoying ourselves.” She looked over to where Blaze posted himself by a palm tree.

  “Enjoy your drinks, ladies.” Johnna took a sip from her straw. “No more alcohol for the rest of our stay. You can hold the glass, but that’s all.”

  Christen gave Johnna a salute as Gator made his way toward them and posted at another tree.

  “Laugh. We’re having fun!” Lula said under her breath.

  They all laughed on cue.

  Christen knew Gator could hear her from where he stood. Was probably listening so he could report back to her father. She should say something… Something socialite–sounding. Maybe something to do with an origami show at a gallery. She didn’t have a lot to say, though. She’d been away for seven months – almost a full rotation. She hadn’t read anything trendy in a while – well socially trendy. She kept up with geopolitics and the military news.

  Maybe, I’m becoming a bit myopic, she thought as she lifted the spray bottle of chilled cucumber water the sun lotion lady had handed each of them. She held it up and looked through the bottle at the warped landscape of imported palm trees and Hawaiian white sand that showed through the glass. For some reason, she had riptides on her mind since Gator caught her in his arms at the end of her parkour run. There, that was the fodder she needed for a story. “I read a newspaper article the other day about this family having a day at the beach down in Panama City, Florida. The kids were out paddling around, then they start screaming their heads off.”

  “Jellyfish?” Lula guessed.

  “God, I hate jellyfish stings, they’re the worst, aren’t they?” Johnna tipped her chin up and adjusted her sunglasses, looking absolutely comfortable with her surroundings. “And who carries ammonia with them to the beach?”

  “Find a random guy to pee on you.” Lula laughed. “There’s bound to be one guy in the crowd that’s into golden showers.” She turned to Christen and popped her eyebrows a few times, then turned to squint back at the guys, lifting her voice so it would carry. “I bet Blaze would come to your rescue if you asked nice.”

  “No doubt,” Christen deadpanned as she watched Blaze turn his head their way, then turn away again with a grin. “I got stung once by a sea jelly—that’s what they’re calling them now, I’m told—turns out I’m agonizingly allergic. I ended up in the emergency room. The pee, ammonia, and meat tenderizer home remedies are all bogus. I learned that from my sad personal experience.”

  Lula wrinkled her nose. “You let someone pee on you? Girl! That’s just disgusting.”

  “I was desperate!” Christen spritzed Lula with her spray bottle.

  Johnna lifted her sunglasses to look at Christen. “Then if none of that works, what do you do?”

  “Go see a doctor.” Lula said. “Go back. Why were the kids screaming?”

  Christen sprayed some of the cucumber stuff on her own face. It was nice. Minty. And it was refreshing especially with the gentle breeze coming up off the water. It was only eighty-three degrees that day. But the humidity was also eighty-three.

  “They got snagged in a riptide,” she said, settling back. “The adults all go rushing out to save them.”

  “Swam out to the riptide?” Lula asked. “That’s not a good strategy.”

  Christen wiggled her hips to get comfortable. “Yah think?”

  “They get caught too?” Johnna asked.

  “Of course, they did.” Lula answered. “The ocean is a mother fucker. You don’t mess with that mother.”

  “Amen to that,” Christen said.

  “Did they all die? The family?”

  Christen’s eyes were closed. Her hands resting by her sides. A little smile played over her lips. “Craziest rescue you can imagine.”

  “I dunno, I can imagine some pretty crazy ways to save someone.” Lula said.

  “The people on the beach lined up, eighty of them, and made a human chain out into the ocean. Then, each of the family members crawled their way up the chain to get their feet under them. Not a single person drowned.”

  “There must have been a Canadian on the beach,” Johnna said.

  “Why do you say that?” Lula’s voice was a murmur, like she was falling asleep under the warmth of the sun. Despite their day at the spa, they’d been travelling for days now getting from their separate destinations to the convergence here in Singapore. Time zone changes wore at the body.

  “It’s one of the methods you use to get someone out of the water if they fall through the ice.” Johnna said. “If you can’t talk them out on their own, and you don’t have a rope or a canoe or something to haul out there, you make a human chain so you’re dispersing the weight across the ice. And as a bonus, everyone can haul you up if you fall in with the victim. Of course, on ice you’re lying down grabbing at each other ankles.”

  “Interesting,” Christen said, shifting around. The chaise was comfortable enough. But she was uncomfortable in her skin. “Okay I vote that there was a Canadian on the beach. Though a Canadian in Florida in July might stretch the imagination a bit.” While they were talking, Christen was considering Blaze and Gator. Well, Gator. She didn’t know squat about him. Could he be one of the guys Johnna and Lula were after? Was he privy to the bad dealings her father had gotten mixed up in? Was he complicit? That thought made her stomach churn.

  Christen had read about women who did undercover jobs, how they developed relationships to get the needed information. They often fell in love with the bad guys, and suffered greatly when they had to bring charges against them. Christen couldn’t allow herself to get caught in that net. That Gator had somehow got fixed on her radar went against both her personal and professional morals. She absolutely would not allow herself to give in to these ridiculous sensations. If only he would move a little farther out of her sightline, so she wasn’t watching him from under her lashes….

  “Can you hand me another bottle of water?” Lula asked.

  Christen reached into the cooler. “There’s only a few in here. We’ll have to let the waiter know.” she said stretching a bottle over to Johnna, then one over to Lula. “Can you see the guys’ bottles? Do they need more, too?”

  “Quarter bottle each.” Lula raised her voice and hailed the guys with her arm. “Hey, come into the shade and get some more water.” Lula was her usual little mama self.

  Christen watched whi
le Gator did another scan of the horizon, then walked through the sand toward them, his muscles gleaming under a sheen of sweat. A wave of desire lashed through Christen’s body. She exhaled, slowly letting that tide recede. She had been trained to deal with emotions. They get in the way of a mission. And she had never allowed that before. She would not allow it now.

  Johnna was checking her phone. She stopped when Blaze reached for the bottle Lula held out to him. “Blaze, that’s a nickname, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Call name from my military days, yes, ma’am.”

  “Christen and I were just talking about military monikers this morning, weren’t we Christen?” Lula asked. When Christen opened her mouth to answer, Lula cut her off. “What branch of the military was this?”

  “Navy ma’am.”

  Lula pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head. “And what did you do for the Navy?”

  “I was a SEAL operator, ma’am.”

  “And now you do close protection?” Lula’s voice was incredulous.

  “When they say join the Navy see the world, they weren’t exactly talking about places like Singapore. Now that I’m retired, I’m enjoying visiting more scenic spots.”

  “You were in the military, too?” Johnna asked, turning to Gator.

  “Yes, ma’am. Marines.”

  “And what was your job there?”

  “I was a Marine Raider, ma’am. Mostly my job was to find people who didn’t want to be found and make sure they got into the right hands.”

  Johnna nodded appreciatively. “And your call name, Gator, is there a story behind it?”