Girl Rides the Wind (12 page)

“It may well have,” Durant said. “But at least you guys exposed a weakness in the Philippine and Chinese units.”

“Yeah, those guys were practically doubled over by the time we let ’em ‘capture’ us.”

“Funny, you’d think all that pounding with 2x4s would have built up better stamina in them.”

The smell of roast meat wafted across the black-sand beach at the southwestern tip of Agrihan one of the few relatively level spots anywhere on the island. The Admiral had ordered a day off to celebrate a successful exercise, and maybe build some sense of community among the participants. Two huge grills had been constructed for the purpose, one devoted to steaks and burgers, the other to skewered and spiced chicken and fish, in an effort to cater to as many tastes as possible. In the end, though, the grilled steaks proved to be the most popular item on the menu.

A few Frisbees, a couple of beach balls, a volleyball with no net, and two American-style footballs exhausted the recreational equipment to be found on board the
Bonhomme
Richard
. Lance Corporal Khaled Farah, whose parents had emigrated to the States before he was born, organized an Ultimate Frisbee match the rules of which puzzled almost everyone there – “You mean we can’t run after we catch it?” – even though he’d won some sort of national award in the sport. Throwing the football, and catching it, turned out to exercise a peculiar fascination on almost everyone there.

“We can get a game up,” Perry said. “The beach is plenty wide enough.”

“What are the rules?” Diao asked, and Durant offered to explain.

“Each side tries to get the ball across the line at one end of the field or the other.”

“Can you throw it over the heads of your opponents?”

“Yes, and run with it if you catch it.”

“What happens if you drop the ball?” Cpl Iwatani asked.

“Play stops if you drop a thrown ball,” Perry said.

“But if you drop it while you’re running with it, then anyone can grab it and try to score,” Durant added.

“How do you stop someone who is running with the ball?” Diao asked.

“Someone has to touch the runner with both hands.”

Deliberations continued for a few more minutes, and Tarot and Racket soon lost interest in arcane explanations of a game they understood almost instinctively. Spying Emily sitting in the shade of a palm tree at the edge of the forest, Tarot signaled to Racket to join him next to her.

“What’s not to get?” Racket said. “You see the ball, you grab it.”

“And if you see someone with the ball, you grab him,” Tarot added. “It’s the simplest game in the world.”

“Aren’t you guys gonna play?” Emily asked, with poorly concealed impatience. “I mean, you could show them how it’s done.”

“What about you, LT? Are you gonna play.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Colón is trying to get up a soccer game at the far end,” Racket said. “You gonna join them?”

“No thanks, guys. I think I’m just gonna go for a run, while there’s still light.”

“What, like along the beach?”

Emily smiled at the two of them, searching their faces for the meaning of their interest. Tarot shrunk back and looked down at his feet, uncomfortable with the probing nature of her gaze.

“I’ll probably just head up that ridge, you know, the one we tricked Ongpin and his men into, maybe see if I can make it all the way up to the caldera.”

“Jeez, LT, that’s gotta be over three thousand feet,” Tarot said.

“What do you care? It’s not like I’m asking you to come along.” With that, she shook the sand out of her running shoes and strapped them back on her feet, before jogging off along the edge of the forest.

“It’s not our fault, LC,” Racket said, once they’d located Perry, standing on the edge of the football game.

“What’s not your fault?”

“She just ran off, you know… Lt Tenno, and there’s like no way we can keep up.” Tarot cringed slightly as he said this.

“Ran off where?”

“Up there.” He turned and pointed to a ridge that plunged into the waves at the north end of the beach. Her head was intermittently visible, bobbing above the palm fronds. “She says she’s going up to the caldera.”

“Crap.” Perry scrambled over to a large piece of driftwood where all the shoes had been left in a pile, and rummaged through to find his own. A moment later, he hopped and skipped along the edge of the beach, trying to tie his shoes as he ran. “Keep her in sight as long as you can,” he called over his shoulder.

“What the hell’s going on?” Durant demanded, when he noticed them standing in the surf, staring at the mountain.

“It’s the LC,” Tarot said, pointing over the sergeant’s head. “He’s trying to follow her up the ridge.”

“Follow who?”

“Ninja. Who do you think?” Racket said.

Durant scanned the beach at these words. “Put your goddamn arms down. I don’t want anyone else going up there. Get your asses over to the base of the ridge and make sure no one else even thinks of following them.”

Just then, Lt Otani approached them, looking completely bored and confused.

“I haven’t seen Tenno-san in over an hour, Sergeant
Durant-u-san
. Did she return to the ship?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I left her sitting over there, and now she’s gone.”

“I think she went for a run,” Racket said. When Durant glowered at him, he shrugged his shoulders.

“You have your orders,” Durant said, looking for a way to end this line of inquiry. “Move it, Marines.”

As they ran off toward the ridge, Tarot watched over his shoulder as Durant deflected the Lieutenant’s questions with more aplomb than he would have been able to muster in deceiving a superior officer. He also saw that their movements hadn’t escaped the notice of Capt Diao, who turned to watch them in the midst of the game swirling around him.

“
Y
ou found me
,” Emily said. She lay on her side in the middle of a circle of flattened sword grass, supporting her head in one hand. “I bet that wasn’t easy.”

“Not as hard as you might think. I followed the ridgeline, and then the path you left in the grass. I’m just surprised you stopped here. It’s only a couple hundred yards further to the lip of the caldera.”

“I was up there already. It can get pretty smoky, and the sulfur smell… well, let’s just say I could do without that.”

Perry sat down next to her and gazed down at the water, the beach being obscured by the shallowing of the slope below them. The water shimmered in the afternoon sun, light flickering off the waves and leaving a trail that pointed west to the eventual point on the horizon where the sun would set.

“Beautiful view”

“Is that what brings you up here… some casual sightseeing?”

“I also had a feeling you’d be up here.”

“You lying sack of horse manure… you knew exactly where I’d be.” Perry shrunk back at the tone in her voice as she called him up short. “You got Tarot and Racket to report on me, didn’t you? What the hell did you say to them?”

“What did you expect me to do… nothing? After the bruises they laid on you…”

“Let me guess. You told them to watch out for me. Is that it?”

“Well, yeah… sort of… I guess.”

“And where the hell does that leave me? How can I ever give them an order… or get any respect from those guys, if you’re always meddling behind my back?”

“Respect? You’ve got to be kidding me. Those muscleheads are so cowed by you, I can’t think of an order you could give that they wouldn’t follow… and you’re not even their commanding officer.”

She seemed mollified by that response, or at least not quite as pissed off as she’d been a moment earlier. She rolled onto her back and contemplated the sky, as a cloud scudded in front of the sun.

“It’s not as simple as that, and you know it. I don’t want them just to be afraid of me, or of you through me.” She paused for a moment, turning to look at his eyes. “Plus, I was trying to teach them something, you know, something important.”

“What is so important that you have to let them beat you bloody for them to understand?”

“Hey, I wasn’t bleeding, and besides…”

“Sometimes, I just don’t get you. These are battle-hardened Marines. They’ve seen plenty of nasty stuff.”

“Not like this, they haven’t. I mean, they’ve been through enough firefights. Lord knows, Tarot’s told me enough stories. But they haven’t had to kill anyone with their bare hands, and…”

“And…?”

“I’m just worried it might come down to that, if Diao has his way.”

“…and beating on you is forcing them to face the ugliness of killing someone?”

“Something like that.”

“There has to be a better way to show these guys the ugliness of battle.”

“Yeah, probably. But that’s not all it is. You have to look at it from my point of view.”

“So teach me how you see it.”

“Okay, fine. We both know that Diao’s got a hidden agenda, which the Admiral doesn’t know about.”

“Because you wouldn’t let us tell him.”

“Sure, okay, that’s fair. But you know what I think.

“Yeah, that Diao’s a genetically modified soldier, a Predator.”

“But what that means is he’s not just your garden-variety sadist. It’s way worse than that. Look, I know it sounds preposterous… but you’ve known me for a while now.”

Perry nodded. She had a point. He’d seen enough of what she was capable of, and what sort of dangerous types seemed to be drawn to her. Not just enemies, like Diao Chan or David Walker, but even her friends – if it made sense to use that word for such people – like Connie, or the North Korean clone. She’d earned the right to be believed on this subject.

“However dangerous he may be, when I saw how the Devil Dogs were beginning to admire him, even to idolize him… I had to do something. Diao will use that against them, to hurt them… and to get at me.”

The sword grass began to dig into his back, poking through his shirt, but he lay still and gazed up at the sky. She was right, he knew that much, or at least that it didn’t pay to doubt her. She made mistakes, misjudged situations, even people occasionally, but she’d always made good on them, and it had cost her dearly. No one, living or dead, had reason to complain of her, not as far as he knew.

“Will we ever be free of this?” The question felt wrong the moment it left his mouth. “I mean, do you see a way in which you and I…”

She reached over and touched his cheek, and then his lips, to stop his talking. He rolled onto his side and there she was, her face inches from his, a finger pressed to her lips, dark eyes peering directly into him. When she kissed him, her hand still cupping his face, the familiar electricity coursed through him, down his spine and back up again.

“I’m sorry to keep disappointing you. I wouldn’t blame you if you gave up on me.”

“That’s not fair, and you know it.”

“I can’t think like that, not now. There’s too much at stake, too many people depending on me.”

“You mean it’s never just you and me?”

“Sometimes it is… just not now.”

He wanted to ask her when their time would come, but she kissed him again before he had a chance, then pushed him onto his back. He closed his eyes as her legs began to grip his waist, and when he opened them again, she kissed them closed, kissed his nose, his cheeks, and then his mouth. When he finally caught his breath, he tried to speak.

“You know, we’re probably visible on this slope.”

“Not from the beach,” she said. “Why do you think I chose this spot?”

“What about drones?”

“… or a keyhole satellite,” she added, still kissing him. “This isn’t your father’s navy.”

H
aru only wanted
to be chased through the woods, and Gyoshin could hardly imagine not obliging her. Without the attentions of a fulltime gardening staff, the underbrush had begun to encroach on all the old paths, and leaves and green twigs, the detritus living and dead of a child’s wonderland, grabbed at her stockings. She’d considered taking them off before running after her little niece, and thought better of it – if they get torn, she could probably find another pair in her old room in
Ojii-san
’s house, or maybe Hana would have something she could borrow. In the worst case, she could just go bare-legged to the reception in Sasebo. After all, who’d notice, really? There she’d be, in her civil service blue suit, while everyone else wore formal eveningwear.

“Hurry, Auntie Go-Go.” Haru-chan squirted between two thin trunks, shrieking over her shoulder. “They’ll catch us if you don’t hurry, the dragons.”

Keeping up was made that much harder by her work pumps – if only she’d packed those running shoes hiding in the back of her closet. Would there ever be a better occasion to wear them? At least the ground was firm enough to keep the heels from digging in. She stepped through the same two trunks, and paused to enjoy a shaft of afternoon light that had broken through the upper foliage. Forest insects flitted in and out, and up, always striving upwards, seeking the source, now that they’d been stripped of their shadowy camouflage.

Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump

A helicopter drifted over the front lawn before idling its rotors – Gyoshin didn’t even bother turning to look… and what would she have seen if she had?

“Here I come, Sunny. I’m gonna get you.”

When she finally caught up, Haru-chan had already managed to scamper up along the culm of one of the previous year’s bamboo shoots, now almost having reached its mature height. “I’m up here,” she shrieked, not quite high enough to be out of reach.

“Enough,” Gyoshin said. “The Sogas can wait.” It was the work of a moment, kicking off her shoes and peeling off clammy stockings. She hung her jacket on the branch of a nearby maple sapling and started climbing after her. “I’m coming for you, little sunshine.”

The bamboo shivered as their combined weight pulled the stalk over to one side. Haru-chan started running almost before her feet touched the ground and, when Gyoshin jumped off after her, the culm sprang back to the vertical.

“I never should have gotten you those sneakers.”

“C’mon, Auntie Go-Go, it’s right over here.”

Branches snapped and pebbles flew in her wake, and Gyoshin winced to follow barefoot, over a steep rise and down the other side. A little stream beckoned her tired feet, and she rested on a rock and dangled them in the water while she waited for Haru-chan to come back for her. The dragon’s lair seemed to recede a little further in to the woods with each visit. Minoru would probably wait in the helicopter, while his daughter crossed the lawn to the house, perhaps with a bodyguard in attendance. Would
Ojii-san
even come down to greet her? Or would he leave it to Hana?

“Here it is. See?”

“Is he inside? Let’s poke a stick in there and scare him out.”

“Oh, no, Auntie. We mustn’t.”

“Why not? Does he breathe fire?” After so many years working in the Defense Ministry, Gyoshin had lost all fear of fire-breathers, and all patience with them, too. Her mind drifted back to Jin Soga, probably standing now under the portico. She wouldn’t condescend to sit in the kitchen and sip the tea Hana would offer. Perhaps she’d kept them waiting long enough.

“His fire went out long ago. All he can do is roar and show his sharp teeth.”

The dragon’s lair was just beyond a nearby clump of pine trees. From where she sat, Gyoshin could just make out the large rock that provided part of his shelter. How much more would she prefer to spin out this fantasy a little longer than endure the company of her grasping co-conspirators who, as far as she could determine, had long forgotten the meaning of the nobility they craved the privileges of.

“I think we have to go back now. There are visitors waiting for me at the big house.”

Fortunately, the return trip through the woods provided enough pleasures to make up for the disappointment of knowing their game must end. Shoes and tattered stockings were retrieved, as well as the jacket a conscientious branch had preserved from extra creases. At the edge of the woods, Haru-chan froze, seeing no familiar faces.

“Come, little one. Let’s go find your grandfather.”

Gyoshin scooped her up, now grown a bit too large for her to carry easily, but still occasionally in need of the comfort of someone’s arms. A slight detour preserved the cover of the woods a bit longer, so she wouldn’t have to encounter her visitors too soon. Old man Okamoto waited for them on the back porch, out of sight of any prying eyes, sipping a cup of Hana’s tea.

“Now the rice is planted, do you have time for a holiday,
Oji-chan
?”

“There’s always more to do, Heiji-san,” he said, from under a deep bow. “The cherry orchards need…”

Gyoshin cut him off, and placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to coax him to look her in the eyes.

“I think the cherry trees can wait. Okamoto-san. Why don’t you take your wife and the little princess to the seaside?”

“You are too kind, my lady.”

She tried to smile at his excessive deference, and didn’t want to mortify the old man… but this was hardly the example of noble spirit she thought appropriate for Takako’s daughter. At least, she could hope the good old man and his wife would keep the girl safe, even if it was at the cost of social obscurity.

She found Hana in the kitchen, and couldn’t bring herself to ask about stockings. Upstairs, she found her grandfather asleep in his bed, snoring loudly. Should she wake him? Just down the hall, in the room she’d called her own for as long as she could remember, she looked through the little drawers in the chest at the back of the closet, but found nothing. The desk proved similarly unrewarding. She looked in a mirror and brushed away the last signs of the forest, a twig in her hair, a damp leaf wedged under a cuff.

“What a hayseed I look. It must be time to cast my nation into complete upheaval.”

The creak of a bed and the rustle of covers meant she hadn’t been quiet enough.
The racket of the helicopter isn’t enough to wake him, but me padding down the hallway does it.
She paused to smooth out her skirt, and placed one hand on the doorknob.

“Are you awake, Grandfather?”

“Come in, little one. Let me look at you.” The disorientation of his mind was audible in the gravelly texture of his voice. It had been a few years since he’d begun to have difficulty swallowing completely, and stomach acids had left their mark on the back of his throat.

“Here I am, Grandfather.”

“Is someone downstairs?”

“Yes, Grandfather. The Sogas are here to take me to the reception. Would you like to come down to see them?”

The two instincts competing in his soul played out on his sunken face. To come down would allow him to play the patriarch, to assert his control. Not to would inevitably mean that he’d ceded even more authority to her, but it would allow him retain the illusion of lordly superiority just a tiny bit longer.

She bowed slightly at the front door. “Soga-san, I hope I haven’t kept you long. Please forgive me. Would you sit for a cup of tea?”

“Thank you, no, Gyoshin-san. We should go. We have a plane to catch.”

“Isn’t it your plane?”

“Yes, well… it’s the corporate jet, but…”

How surprising to see that little bit of confusion on Jin’s face. Of course it was her plane, even if technically it belonged to the Takenouchi Corporation. When her head dipped, and the line of her brow curved ever so slightly in a sudden self-consciousness, it was possible to see again how pretty she’d been as a girl. Even now, in an elegant evening dress and a bolero jacket, a pearl necklace draped almost casually in uneven loops, any society page would love to have a photo of her. She reached out to touch Gyoshin’s hair, in a gesture that might have seemed affectionate fifteen years earlier, and brushed one last bit of the forest away – and the illusion was broken. The calculating co-conspirator stood before her again.

“I always think of you as a country girl, Gyo-chan. Were you grappling with forest urchins?”

“Just pruning Hana’s herb garden. I find it clears the mind,” she said, though she had no idea why she bothered lying. Perhaps she didn’t care to dangle Haru’s name in front of someone she understood so well.

The bodyguard led them across the lawn to the helicopter as the pilot spun up the rotors.

W
ith all the extra leaves
, the table in Andie Cardano’s dining room seated twelve comfortably, and a prime rib dominated the side table alongside a gravy boat, and a platter of roasted potatoes, candied carrots, and kale. With half the Joint Chiefs present, she’d supposed correctly that this would not be a wine-drinking crowd. Four bottles of red more than sufficed for the wives, and beer satisfied most of the men. Despite worrying about how Ethan would get along with the security team the SECNAV, Tom O’Brien, brought with him, Michael had a stroke of genius and installed a small keg of local craft-beer under the wet-bar in the rec-room. She’d be sure to have it removed after the weekend.

“I know,” Admiral Ted Hannafin said. “They’re pushing their ships into the Bering Sea, and they’ve got a contingent off the coast of Africa.”

“So there’s nothing we can do about it?” General Paul Lukaszewicz, the Marine Commandant said. “I mean, it seems like a clear provocation.”

“Not without changing our own doctrine,” Michael said, with a glance at SECNAV, who nodded.

“It’s an organic projection,” O’Brien added. “China’s got lots of commercial shipping in the Indian Ocean, and even around the cape, which means we can’t complain…”

“…without looking hypocritical,” Michael added. “On any given day, nearly half the passengers on commercial flights in Africa are Chinese businessmen.”

“CIA tracks that now?” Lukaszewicz asked.

“We track everything now. It’s the next best thing to having operatives in place, which the current budget puts a squeeze on.”

“Is that a lament I hear in your voice?”

“Nothing beats eyes-on… as any Marine knows.”

“Especially if he’s a trigger-puller, too.”

“Well, they’re trying to manufacture another ‘organic’ claim to the Paracels and the Spratly Islands,” Hannifin said.

“Manufacture is right,” O’Brien said. “I mean, they’ve got a full-scale dredging operation underway at Mischief Reef, and pretty soon they’ll have enough new land to build an airstrip.”

“How stable can that land be?” Lukaszewicz asked.

“They’ll probably have to station a couple of dredgers there on a more or less permanent basis.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“If they’re right about the oil and natural gas deposits, it’ll seem like a bargain soon enough,” Hannifin said. “But I suspect they’re as interested in force projection as in any economic calculation.”

“A lot depends on the World Court’s ruling on all the competing territorial waters claims,” the Secretary of State’s Deputy for Southeast Asian Affairs said. “They’re taking a huge gamble. I mean, the decision could go against them. The Vietnamese counterclaim looks solid, as does the Filipino claim.”

“The new aircraft carrier…” Michael began.

“Which they’ve yet to land a single aircraft on,” Hannifin said. “They barely managed to get that thing out of drydock… and I’d like to see them try to navigate it through the Straits of Malacca. They’ve got no history with ships that size, no officer corps with the skills to pilot it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Michael said. “Even if it takes them decades to develop the support network, they’ve signaled their intention to build a fleet capable of dominating their neighbors. The intimidation effect is already working. I don’t think they’re waiting on the World Court.”

With that reflection, all five men leaned back from the table almost simultaneously, as pleased with their worldly speculations as they possibly could be. Without even needing to stand, Michael reached a long arm back and extracted a flat box from a lower shelf of the sidetable and passed it around.

“Let’s not do cigars in here,” Andie said, forestalling the Commandant’s attempt to light the one he’d just cut. “Michael, why don’t you take the guys out to the patio?”

Before she could assure herself that Michael didn’t just shift the smoking session into the study, a commotion drew her attention to the kitchen.

“What’s the trouble in here,” she said, having poked her head around the door. “It’s okay, Tara,” she told the housekeeper, once she saw the true cause, which was thankfully isolated to the kitchen alcove.

“Mom,” Li Li wailed, having learned well enough how American kids insert an extra, plaintive syllable into that word. “He’s doing it again.”

Stone turned to look at her, submarine sandwich in one hand, TV remote in the other, with his sister draped over his shoulder trying to wrestle one of them from his control. His wide, innocent eyes began to water under her inquisitorial gaze.

“What is it this time?”

“It’s what it always is.”

“I thought you liked Mulan.”

“I did the first few times. But this is like the millionth time.”

“You know how much it means to him.”

“I miss her, too, Mom, but…”

With one hand resting on Stone’s shoulder, already broad for a little kid, his neck already thick, Andie forestalled her complaint with a frown, and leaned over to kiss the top of his head.

“Can we make a deal?” Stone nodded vigorously, and Li Li folded her arms together and knitted her brows. “How about if we save
Mulan
for bedtime, and let your sister watch…”

“
Princess Mononoke
,” Li Li said, as soon as Andie glanced her way.

“Isn’t that too violent?” When Li Li flared her nostrils and bugged out her eyes, Andie shrugged and turned back to Stone. “Yes,
Princess Mononoke
. Would that be okay?”