“No?”
“The hack failed,” he said.
“Was it the drones?”
He glared at her through the darkness. “The drones did exactly what we wanted them to do. They lured the target aircraft into range.”
“So, what happened?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. The hack… it just stopped.”
If he had expected some sort of absolution for his failure, she didn’t give it to him. “Do you have it?”
“What?”
“The mission data!”
He nodded his head.
“Give it to me.”
He shoved his hand into his front pocket and pulled out the memory card. He felt its miniature form between his thumb and forefinger and held it out across the fiberglass hull, still unnerved by the dichotomy of the woman’s appearance and her demeanor. He had never been spoken to with such disdain, let alone by a woman.
Like a viper, she snatched it from his grasp and slipped it into her pocket. Then, without another word, she turned back and advanced the throttles to bring the twenty-foot craft up on plane to escape the approaching cutter. Xi Jian huddled behind the woman, who stood tall at the console, peering into the darkness beyond the bow. He tucked himself close, her slender body blocking most of the wind while jostling against the eddies that swirled on either side of them.
“Where are we going?” he shouted over the din of the wind and water and four-stroke motor.
“Escaping before your blunder costs us,” she shouted.
He felt his temper flare. “My blunder?”
She glared over her shoulder at him but remained silent. How could she think he had any control over the effectiveness of the weapon someone else had developed? He had been taught how to use it before leaving port, but whether it performed as advertised was well beyond his dominion.
The RHIB hit a trough, and it shuddered underneath them, the salty water spraying over the bow and soaking them both. He removed his watch cap and wiped his face. She didn’t move an inch.
“What does a woman know?”
He should have kept his mouth shut but couldn’t help himself. He thought of her as little more than a xiagongpeng, the lowest form of prostitute in mainland China. Who was she to question his actions when her service to the state was best done on her back?
Or on her knees, he thought.
He traced the curves of her body again, and he felt himself flush at the depraved thoughts. She would take him to shore, then he would take what he wanted and reward himself for the month-long passage with a roll in the sack. When he was done with her, she would drive him to the consulate and arrange transportation for him to return to Shanghai.
“Just drive the boat,” he said. “Let the experts fix the weapon.”
She glanced back at him and caught him again staring at her ass. When his eyes met hers, he saw her features harden. He smiled at her, but when she turned away, it vanished, and he felt anger flush his face.
Maybe I’ll bend her over instead…
She again stood the throttle up and coasted to a stop, only this time she turned the key to kill the motor. Leaning against the steering wheel, her body rocked with the gentle rolling of the boat as she scanned the horizon in every direction. Over two miles behind them, the Coast Guard Cutter Forrest Rednour had pulled alongside the Yonggan De to conduct its search. Other Panamax and super-Panamax vessels sat at anchor in the mooring field to await their turn in the saturated Port of Long Beach, but otherwise they were alone on the water.
He watched her expression change as if she had donned a purple Peking Opera mask portraying serenity and a sense of justice. “I’ll forgive your lack of manners,” she said. “And won’t put it in my report to Mantis.”
Mantis?
His thoughts of taking the woman as his prize evaporated in an instant. If she truly reported to Mantis, then he had underestimated her. And he had unwittingly put himself in grave danger. “Th-th-thank you,” he stammered.
“You’ve been at sea a long time, yes?”
He nodded.
“I can forgive your behavior and chalk it up to…” She opened the front of her peacoat, unveiling a dark, long-sleeved shirt that clung to her breasts. “A lack of social interaction. Is that about right?”
Again, he nodded.
“It’s understandable you want to spend the night with me,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. “But I’ll need you to do something in return.”
He licked his lips as he watched her move like a snow leopard, elegant and graceful, emoting barely constrained violence. He stared into her face as she circled the helm and slid her legs in between his knees, spreading them as she descended onto him. She hovered over him, and he swallowed back his nervousness.
“What?” he asked, managing not to stutter or fumble with his words.
With both her legs between his, she reached down and caressed the bulge in his pants. He hadn’t been touched by a woman in so long.
Twenty-two days, eight hours, and…
His eyes closed as he succumbed to the pleasure he felt owed to him. He had earned it. He deserved this reward for being a faithful servant of the State, for imprisoning himself for a month at sea to steal their enemy’s secrets and use them to strike…
“To die,” she replied.
Her velvety words elicited such desire and passion that he missed the sensation of cold steel against his neck. When the icy tendrils across his trachea erupted in burning agony, his eyes shot open and stared into the black void of the woman leaning over him. He brought both hands to his neck to stanch the blood, distantly aware that she held a fillet knife in one hand and continued stroking his erection with the other.
Then she whispered in his ear, “This is my gift to you.”
He felt himself climax as his eyelids drooped closed and he gave in to the warm embrace of death.
10
The smile on Chen Liling’s face vanished the moment his life ended. It hadn’t been part of her plan to kill him, but his failure to crash the American fighter into the warship jeopardized her greater mission, and she couldn’t afford to overlook such an error. Mantis might complain she had exceeded her authority, but that didn’t bother her. Leverage had its uses, and she wouldn’t hesitate to use hers if the punishment doled out was more than a slap on the wrist.
She watched the man’s chin slump to his bloody chest, then wiped the fillet knife on his overcoat before sliding it back into the sheath at her waist. She stood and admired her masterpiece of duality, the yin of taking his life while pleasing him with the yang.
With a shove, she toppled Xi Jian’s body into the cold, dark waters of the Pacific Ocean and watched it bob like a cork next to the blacked-out RHIB. She drew the knife again, then bent over the side tube and plunged it into his chest to pierce his inflated lungs. There was no hatred or malice in the blows, just the calloused efficiency of a professional. Each time, the slender blade slid between his ribs and withdrew with a gurgling hiss.
Three, four, five times she stabbed him; each time, his body sagged lower in the water. At last, it slipped beneath the surface and disappeared from view. She stood and looked up at the cargo ships anchored around her. She was still a ghost on the water, a fantasy and myth, and nobody had witnessed her rescuing the Chinese spy from certain capture by the US Coast Guard. Or sentencing him to death.
A deafening explosion echoed across the inky water, and she spun back to see fire erupt from a container on the Yonggan De’s deck.