Sake Bomb (14 page)

“What? Wait! No! Aaaahhhooookay, okay, I
stole it! I stole it. Please…you’re
hurting
my arm.”

“Kinda the point.” Phil grunted, exerting
just enough pressure at the shoulder to hyperextend the
ligaments.

Xander pivoted, nodded at Phil to ease up a
bit. “He’ll snap it in three spots next time you lie to me. The
hand, too, for making this difficult. Which means jacking off with
your left hand for the next six months ’til the right heals. And
even after it does, the stroke’ll never be the same. You get me,
kid?” Koji nodded and Xander continued. “What’d the girl look
like?”

The description was minimal—big bright eyes,
tiny bow mouth. On the short side, tattoos on her shoulder and
ankles. “Dressed like an
otaku
,” Koji said.

“A what?”

“
Otaku
. Manga…animé. A cartoon
character.”

“Which one?” Xander asked.

“Fuck if— Ahhh! I don… I don’t know. Long
blue hair.”

Xander turned to Kizzie who pulled a face
and shrugged. “You know her name?”

The frosted tips of Koji’s longish hair
shook. “I swear, she was outside the tattoo parlor. I watched her a
few times; picked her pockets.” His eyes lolled and he swayed in
Phil’s unwavering grip. “I think…I think I’m going to pass
out.”

Koji did look a little green around the
gills. Phil increased the pressure and Koji cried out. “You awake
now?”

“Where’s the chain?” Xander asked.

“W-when I snatched the lock, it broke,” he
said in a rush. “Please…make him stop. My arm….”

Make him? No one “made” Phil do anything.
“Princess?”

“The tattoo shop?” Kizzie asked. Koji lifted
his head but didn’t respond.

“I’d answer her if I were you,” Xander said.
“I’m the nice one, and that’s her necklace you broke.”

Koji’s nervous gaze flitted to Kizzie.
“Ink-scribed.” He mumbled an address in nearby Shinjuku, and Kizzie
confirmed it on her cell phone. “That’s all I know.”

“Which means you know more.” Phil’s vice
grip became too much for poor Koji to bear. Tears streamed from the
kid’s eyes.

“She was trying to find somebody I think,”
he said quickly. “I don’t know who, but she kept going by there.
Saw her just last week. I used to see her around here sometimes,
but not anymore.”

“Ever see her with another woman?” Kizzie
asked.

Koji shook his head, eyes wide. Sure they’d
wrung all they could from the boy, Xander nodded at Phil who had
one final warning.

“Treat another lady like you treated those
two back there, you won’t have to worry about your hands. I’ll hunt
you down and crack your nuts.” More furious nodding from Koji and
Phil pushed the kid away. Koji nearly crumpled, knees wobbly as he
inched off. “Don’t forget your belongings,” Phil added
politely.

Koji slunk back, stooped to reclaim his
things. Kizzie pocketed his ID and gave him a meaningful look. Then
she snapped the thin chain connected to his wallet and tossed the
cheap pleather pouch to him. He tried to catch it and winced. The
case fell to the ground and he bowed once more. All of his items
finally gathered, he hurried toward the beckoning neon glow at the
end of the alley.

A safe distance away, Koji yelled, “You in
Yakuza territory! My cousin is
oyabun
! When he finds out
about—”

Phil started in the kid’s direction,
snapping the threat off as Koji quickly rounded the corner.
“Everybody’s got a cousin who’s the boss,” he muttered. Then he
turned and fixed Xander with a hard look. “All things considered,
that went well.”

Tension lingered in the statement, but
Xander didn’t know why. In his periphery, Kizzie gaped at him
strangely. “What?”

“Nothing… S’just, you run pretty fast…for an
old guy.” Her smile melted his worry and he chuckled. Then her palm
landed flat on his chest. “How’s the ticker holding up? Need
oxygen, gramps?”

“Cute.”

Two quick pats over his heart and her hand
slid away. He wanted to grab it and put it back, let the warmth
sink in.

“What are the chances of us waltzing in and
finding Sumi at this tattoo parlor?” Kizzie asked, tossing the gold
lock to Phil. “Without the tracer on her we’re screwed.”

Maybe. Maybe not. Xander took her hand
again. No reason for it this time, none he could justify, but he
did it anyway. As they made it out of the winding, dark alleyways,
not once did Kizzie let go.

* * * *

A
frustrated heave
and Kizzie pushed through the door of the hotel suite. She stepped
into the common area without really seeing it and through the
double doors housing the bedroom. The décor was a lovely shade of
who-the-hell-cares—the bed looked soft, exhaustion hit hard, so the
color of the walls didn’t register. The temptation to sleep fully
clothed lost out to the promise of hot water.

A sitting area was on the other side of the
bed, two comfy-looking chairs facing a huge window that framed the
city’s lights. She tossed her bag near a chair, closed the
curtains, grabbed a tank and undies, and headed to the shower. A
quarter-hour later she was at the bathroom mirror, working a comb
through her damp tresses. A quick French braid and she picked up
her clothes; opened the door and jumped.

Xander smiled through a grimace and stepped
past her before she had a chance to formulate words. They traded
places, and the door shut with her on the outside. Kizzie looked
left—his luggage sat on the floor—and then over her shoulder at
closed bathroom door. The water started in the shower again, and
her eyebrows squished together.

Back at her duffle, she dropped her clothes
and grabbed her phone, thumbed the sequence over the blank screen.
After ordering a cheese and olive pizza—which sounded kind of good
at the moment—she slid beneath the white duvet and answered the
call back moments later.

“Who’s the kid?”

“
Kizzie
…” Fletcher groaned. “We’re a
little backed up here. Between new threats—”

“Was I backed up when you needed me three
years ago in Lima?” He barely got his ‘no’ out before she added,
“Or that time in Suriname when I got food poisoning? Have you
ever
had colitis, Fletch? Absolutely horrible condition.
Painful, too. Injections twice a day for weeks, and I hate needles…
But what have I done for you
lately
, right?” A heavy exhale
filtered through the phone; a corner of her mouth ticked up. “Got a
bad feeling about this. Galletti might have his hands in more than
just information trafficking.”

“I won’t risk an op based on ‘feeling,’
Baldwin, or on some random kid. I need hard evidence—”

“If you could afford to spend another two
years tracking the Galletties, you wouldn’t have sent me in. The
photo is a viable option, so you find out about that kid,” she
said, just enough of a threat lacing her tone. “Next. I need a full
work-up on a POI.”

“Persons of Interest I can do. Got a
name?”

In spite of knowing he couldn’t see her, she
shook her head. “Just pictures. I already sent them to you.”

“K.A.s?”

Her head swiveled toward where the K.A. was
busy getting squeaky clean beneath a hot stream of water. Kizzie
recalled the snapshots she’d sent Fletcher—pictures she’d
deliberately and meticulously cropped Xander out of.

“No…No known associates… That liquid tracer
I used on Galletti. Say I needed to use it but do the monitoring
myself, off the radar, is it possible?”

“Who you tracking?”

“Hypothetically, Fletch.”

“Sure. I’ll
hypothetically
send you
an encrypted satellite link. You can do it off radar from your cell
phone…hypothetically, of course.”

Kizzie hummed thoughtfully. “Next. Sent you
photos of a Jane Doe. Need her specs yesterday. The pics need
cleaning.”

Fletcher’s voice hardened. “I’m not some
glorified tech guy. What’s this about?”

“Harvey.” Another strangled groan came from
the other end.

They’d done this cha-cha a couple times over
the last five months, and Fletcher always danced off beat. Kizzie
didn’t tell him all the details and he didn’t ask. Fletcher
understood there were things a field agent did that skirted
protocol. Jet setting with a criminal would probably fall under
that category. Still, he was convinced there was no such thing as a
manufactured salted bomb. Which meant she had to convince him.

“There’s no chatter on this H.R.V, Kiz—”

“We’re conversing right now, ergo, chatter.
That’s basic math, Fletch.” She ignored his curses. “What have you
found on Ohayashi?”

Three decades ago, a Japanese engineer named
Hiro Ohayashi created a special version of the plastic explosive
RDX for everyone’s favorite Russian arms dealer, Nikolay Sokoviev.
Nikolay’s heathen spawn, Sacha, had tried to kill Kizzie in his
Dungeon in Helsinki—a trip Kizzie had only embarked on because she
believed Sacha had the nuke.

At the time it was believed that Sacha was
Nikolay’s only child, but after doing some digging, Kizzie learned
Ohayashi had given birth to a daughter. The baby girl—who was
possibly Nikolay’s—now a woman Kizzie believed to be The Mistress.
But that was speculation. All traces of Hiro Ohayashi vanished once
she’d left Japan.

Kizzie, Xander and Phil were now operating
on the notion that The Mistress had Harvey, which meant they needed
to locate Sumi, the woman’s submissive. And since Sumi had a hand
in her near-death in Helsinki, Kizzie couldn’t wait for the
reunion.

Fletcher cut into Kizzie’s mental game of
connect the crazy before she could figure out where Kevin Bacon
factored in.

“Ohayashi is the Smith of Japanese surnames,
Baldwin.”

“So whip out the phone book.”

“Explain why you’re not sending this through
Connolly,” Fletcher said sharply.

“If Bill catches wind of this, if
anyone
catches wind of this, I’ll forget you’re a friend and
come pay you a visit,” Kizzie replied with enough sugar in her
voice to cause a stomachache. “Then we can have this chit-chat face
to face.” She didn’t have the patience for this, not that she ever
had patience for much. “Get me what I need to do my job.”

She killed the connection before Fletch
could argue. If tomorrow’s trip to the tattoo parlor didn’t pan
out, the dead girl would be the only solid link they had, and even
that was flimsy. Sleep. Handle it in the morning.

Kizzie reached for the light switch just as
Xander exited the bathroom, clothes neatly folded in one hand,
towel slung low on his hips. The tidy bundle went on top of his
open bag—white Egyptian cotton dropped to the floor. He strode
toward the bed.

Stark naked.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” Far too late,
Kizzie held up both hands to stop him. Her gaze traveled over
defined pecs and abs, continued south and then slowed to a stop at
her destination. Vacationed longer than she planned. Found a seat
at the poolside bar… Ordered a drink with a little umbrella in it…
Asked the bartender for another round….

She closed her eyes—forever burning that
image in her head. “And where the hell are your pants?”

Xander covered his mouth when he yawned.
“S’this a job interview? I’m going to sleep. Don’t need pants to
sleep.” He pulled back the covers and fell into bed; leaned over
and doused the lights.

They came on again via the switch on
Kizzie’s side. She hopped up, full-on Jason Bourne. “You’re
not
sleeping in my bed, Xander.”

“I know,” he mumbled through another yawn,
“I’m sleeping in my bed. You’re in my room.” He adjusted his head
on the pillow.

Kizzie’s mouth flew open to protest and then
snapped shut. She crossed her arms over the hardened stubs of her
nipples and rocked her weight onto her back leg, forcing herself to
stay focused on his face and not think about everything under the
covers. ‘Like a freakin’ moose!’ popped into her head and she
rolled her eyes. “
Nooo
…”

“
Yeeesss
,” Xander returned, deep
voice rising at the end the way hers had. “This one’s mine, the
other’s Phil’s and there’s not a third. Accommodations are Phil’s
department. Got a problem, talk to him.” He rolled onto his side to
face her, tucked a hand under his pillow. “Could you turn the light
off? I have a headache.”

Her head cocked to the side. “That’s my
line.” He breathed a laugh through his nose, eyes sliding closed.
They pinched at the corners, and a slight crease wrinkled his
forehead. His breathing came out unevenly. She shouldn’t care. She
wouldn’t
care. “What’s with the headache?”

Xander forced his lids up again. “Need sleep
and haven’t been getting it. So…” A tired arm lifted, motioned
toward the offending fixture.

There was something so damn sexy about this
man’s sleepy voice. Rich and rough and raspy. It slithered over her
and returned her thoughts to everything under the covers.
Heavy-lidded chocolate eyes bored into hers. Her throat went dry.
Kizzie searched hard for a smart remark but they’d all fled. “Why
didn’t you sleep on the plane?”

“The most beautiful, most
stubborn
woman I’ve ever met was sprawled on my couch and I didn’t have the
heart to wake her. Lights.”

“Do...” Kizzie trailed off, passing a hand
over her damp hair. “Can I get you anything? Aspirin? Tylenol?”

The Xander smile—that slow, seductive little
grin—made an appearance. “Only one cure for headaches. Works like a
dream but I need a partner. You in?”

“Are you ever
not
thinking about
sex?” The silence went too long and she threw her hands up in
exasperation. “Pick a pill, Xander.”

“Just need to sleep.”

She slammed her hands on her hips. “Well, go
sleep on the couch or with Phil.”

“You can go sleep on the couch—do
not
go sleep with Phil. I’m already comfy.” He snuggled down a bit to
punctuate the point and yawned again. “How’d you know neither girl
was Sumi?”