The Gift of the Dragon (28 page)

He shook his head. He needed to maintain his precision. He felt he would need all his focus to survive the next few days. He had to find out who sent her and why. He had to do that, no matter what it cost her. What it cost him. More proof that the universe is cruel, taunting him by showing him another woman so like Sara.
Like the last one, she can’t stay.

He listened to the waves hitting the side of the boat, gently rocking it. He remembered his training, first in the service of his country, and later in the service of Laird Northwin. The former seemed so long ago. “Go for broke” had been his motto once. It had been a time of madness. Under his breath, he repeated his new motto, “Keep control.” Control of the cause enabled him to control the effect.
If you lose power over yourself, others will have power over you
.
 

Callan felt loss of control now. Someone had sent Faith. Her resemblance to Sara must be meant as a message. They had known he would take the bait and might even now think they had him on their line. He fingered the small GPS unit he had retrieved from the bilge where Faith had dropped it. Callan had an advanced GPS signal–blocking device. It also alerted him when a tracking unit went active close by. He knew his boat well. He had quickly found where Faith had hidden the device after she had activated it.
 

Callan looked over at the beach. They were anchored off Cat Island, an uninhabited T-shaped speck of sand about fifteen miles off the coast of Mississippi. Its odd name came from the early Spanish explorers who had seen raccoons there and thought they had seen cats. During the last world war, Cat Island was the place where dogs were trained to sniff out Japanese infiltrators. Callan wondered if there were any dogs left on the island, if they would smell his Japanese half and give halfhearted barks. Smirking at his own joke, he sprayed some water from his ice-cold Evian bottle onto Faith. She shrieked, awaking.
 

“What the hell!”

“Are you ready to go ashore?” Callan laughed. “The tide’s low. It’s a good time to look for the shells you were talking about.”

He anchored the boat in about three feet of water in Smugglers Cove, at the southern end of the island. One other boat floated at anchor about half a mile away. Otherwise, they had the beautiful beach to themselves. He changed from his white linen pants and shirt to long, blue surfer shorts that well accented his lean, brown body. “Wow,” Faith said. Callan guessed she had just noticed the tattoo on his back. It depicted a wild-eyed dragon, mouth open and one claw clutching a sphere. The design was faded, the ink not having been renewed in many years.
 

Callan laughed. “Yeah, I got that when I was younger and dumber. Years ago.”
 

“It looks almost like Yakuza work? I saw a documentary about them.”

“I really don't think of it. I suppose someday it will fade away completely.” Callan jumped into the water and then turned and splashed up at Faith.

“Come on, enough talk. Let’s hit the beach.”

Faith leaped into the water beside him, coming down hard enough to raise a splash of her own.
 

“Ha!” She shrieked. “I hope there isn’t anything in your pack that can’t get wet?”

“Nothing important. Tequila, limes, salt, and some towels. The towels will dry soon enough when we spread them out in this sun.”

They waded through the surf as the waves tugged at their feet and swirled around them. The bright sun made the sea foam sparkle and sent rainbows up from the breaking waves. The shorebirds running along the beach sang a soft peeping song, one or two peeling out of formation to grab tiny crabs and other delicacies in the surf line. Seagulls flew overhead, swooping and dipping and adding their keening calls to the soundscape. As they drew nearer to the beach, they saw that one of the gulls had met his end recently, leaving a pile of bone and feathers among the shells and driftwood.

“Ah, poor bird,” Faith said.

“Not so poor. The gulls have a good life. They fly, they eat, they live, they fuck, they die. Simple and free. This is just the end of that one good and true line from egg to beach.”

“Why, Callan, you’re a philosopher.”
 

“Well, the end to a caterpillar is the beginning for a butterfly. Ha! I guess I do get philosophical on a beautiful day like this, on a beach with a beautiful woman like you!”

Faith

Faith blushed. She felt genuinely surprised. In every story Northwin and Trevor had told her about this man, he was a ruthless assassin who used people as he used utensils. Here, she could see a different side, a side she almost liked.

A larger wave sent droplets flying up that caught them both in the face. They shrieked together like children full of the joy of playing in the ocean. The waves breaking on the beach were topped by foam that looked like white horses whipped to a run by the warm breeze.

Pointing to the shore, Callan said, “I’ll race you to the dry sand!” He took off in a shower of spray. Faith yelled, “Cheater!” as she raced after him. Callan and Faith were neck and neck coming out of the water to the wet sand where the wash rose and fell.
 

Callan dove for the dry sand at the top of the line, and Faith dove after him. They arrived together, too close to call a victor, but that didn’t stop Callan from yelling like a nine year old, “I won!”
 

Faith leaped on top of him crying, “Did not. I touched it first.” Giggling, they rolled, coating themselves with sand. Callan tossed the pack up on the shore as he landed, and Faith now made the contest the first to get to the pack. Kicking sand at him, she clearly won that race. She grabbed the long, narrow neck of the bottle of Cabo Uno and held it aloft. “To the winner goes the first shot!” she called.
 

Wiping sand from his eyes, Callan sat down next to her and made a grab for the bottle, which she waved out of his reach. He rolled on top of her, and for a moment their eyes met, both gleaming with mischief. “Not yet!” she yelled and, wrapping her thighs around his waist rolled him back off her. In a single move, she sat up, pulled the cork from the round bottle with her teeth, and took a swig. “Who-hoop!” she yelled.
 

Callan produced a cut lime and handed it to her, and she shoved it into her mouth, sucking the juice out with a loud slurp. “Mmmhmm, what is this?” she said. “That’s some good tequila!”

Grabbing the bottle, Callan crooked his thumb and poured salt in the hollow made on the back of his hand. With a wide sweep of his tongue, he swept up the salt and took an equally lusty swallow from the bottle. He too grabbed a lime and sucked out its juice. Lips dribbling, he smiled a toothy grin and yelled, “Hijole!” He handed the bottle back. “Yeah, that’s good tequila. Have you never tried a lowland reposado before?”

Sucking salt herself this time and taking another swig, Faith paused long enough to say, “Shoot, maybe? Not that I can remember stopping long enough to read the bottle.”
 

“Ah, there’s your problem Faith. You should always understand your tequila! The wrong kind at the right time can make you do crazy things!” His knowing look as he said that almost sobered Faith then and there.
Did he know about Laird Northwin’s love of Centenario?
 

Letting out another whoop, Callan got up and ran back into the warm water. He dove under the waves and swam out past the surf line. Faith watched him go, admiring the play of muscles under the faded tattoo. She shook off her concern and ran into the water herself, enjoying a beautiful day on a beautiful beach with a wild and dangerous man. She would not waste it. The tracker was safely hidden. She would have fun with the assassin and return with him. By the time she finished with him, he would think her just a random one-day stand. This time tomorrow, she would be putting together a team of her own operators, to hunt him down and recover the tablet.

She shelved that plan for later. They swam for a while and then floated in the salty waves, talking about small silly things. Callan asked her whether she felt hungry, and she realized she did. He waded back to get his pack and the tequila, then they half-swam back to the boat. The tide had come in some, and the anchor dragged a bit, so the boat now rode in almost five feet of water. Faith reached the swim ladder first and started up.
 

Suddenly something hit her right in the sciatic nerve junction of her lower back. She twisted her head around to see Callan with the tequila bottle in his hand, looking at her with hard eyes. Faith felt the shock shoot through her like a star exploding from the point of impact. Her legs gave out, and she couldn't breathe. She thought,
This can't be good,
as she fell. Trying to turn for a defensive strike, failing, her limbs going numb, she dropped backward into Callan’s waiting arms.

Faith woke up to find herself tied hand and foot on the floor of the boat. She lay in the shade of a Bimini top, but the white fiberglass deck of the boat felt like a pan at egg-frying temperature. She was tied with rough deck lines already chafing her skin. She screamed, “Help!” then louder, “HELP!”

Callan emerged from the cabin with a dark look on his face. He threw a small electronic device at her tied feet. It lay there crushed, with wires hanging out.
The tracker!
The bastard had found it.

 
“Faith, you know what will happen now. I think you should accept your situation. There would be more dignity that way.”

“Go to hell! Help! S. O.
fucking
S!”

Callan laughed. “We are in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, Faith. There’s no one to hear you out here. You can scream for help all day. No one will come. But I don’t like your voice when you scream. I will gag you if you can’t keep quiet.”

“The people I work with know I’m here, Callan. They’ll find me!” She had not even told Osiel what she had planned.

“I doubt that, Faith. I found your tracker. Your phone and gun are at the bottom of the Cat Island channel. They can’t find me. That’s why they hired you, remember?”

Faith tried a different ploy, “That tracker was military grade. It sent out a signal until you crushed it. They have a good idea where to look for me.”

Callan poked the device with his foot. “That doesn’t look very powerful. My jammer, on the other hand, is technology the military might have in a few years. No one is coming for you, Faith. Let me ask you something. If the job you succeeded at led you to this, of what use was the work?”
 

“That’s completely insane,” she said softly.
He had a jammer.
The tracker she planted had been a gift from Trevor. According to him, power had been sacrificed for battery life and compactness, designed to be easy to hide.
Not designed to burn through a strong jamming signal.
 

“You mean this conversation is insane?”

“No, I mean you are insane.”

“You can psychoanalyze me if that is what you want to do now. I’d like you to keep it to yourself. You are tied up on a boat in the middle of the ocean. You should try to keep me happy.”

Faith spat up at him, straining against her bonds.
 

“Spitting isn’t what makes me happy, Faith. Do you want to know what will make me happy?”

“Fuck you.”

Callan went to a side locker and pulled out a folding deck chair. He sat on it. “That would be great for a short time. For the long term, it would make me very happy if you tell me whom you are working for. I’ve a life raft on this boat. I can put you on it, and you can activate its beacon. Or we can do this the hard way. The people who paid you—are they worth it, Faith? Are they worth hurting and dying for?”

Faith had been trained to resist interrogation. She knew she could hold out for a while. She also knew that if the interrogator were patient and ruthless, no one could hold out forever.
How could I have let myself get into this situation? How could I have laughed with him?
How could I have kissed him! How could I have turned my back on him!
 

 
Callan walked to a storage box at the front of the boat. He came back with a long, sharp hook on a stick. He sat back on the chair. “Do you know what this is, Faith?”

“Gaff,” she said.

“Right! When we catch a large fish, we use this to bring it into the boat. You don’t want to gaff the fish in the side, as that will let salt into the flesh. Ruins its taste. The right way to gaff a fish is to drive this,” Callan’s finger traced the needle sharp point of the hook, “into the fish’s eyes. In one and out the other. That keeps the flesh nice and tasty.”

“You’re a freaking animal!”

“Thanks. To think you said I was a philosopher before. Maybe I am a noble savage? Well, I will freely admit to being savage when I need to. And I will take no bullshit from you.” He paused. "That makes me a no-bullshit savage!” He laughed as he said it.

She glared at him.
 

“Look, Faith, I don’t want to poke your pretty eyes with this gaff. I’d much rather put you on that life raft and let you go.”

Faith again pulled at the ropes, thinking furiously.
Would he let her go?
She had seen his face. Trevor had a recent photo of him, so that was no big deal. But, she knew his boat and his habit of doing business at the casinos. He could abandon the boat and find other ways to do business, if he thought it would be worth it to him to spare her life.
It won’t be.
She thought of a better plan.
 

“I’ll tell you.”

“That’s a good girl!”

“If you do it my way. Take me back to the island. We’ll leave the boat, and swim back to the island. I’ll tell you everything there, and then you can leave me there. I’ll find a way back.”

Callan snorted. “Sure. Of course, you’ll just make up a story and run off into the bushes.”

Faith opened her eyes wide. “A story? What do you mean?”

 
“You’ve had some training. I can tell. You can resist my application of pain for quite some time. You will emerge damaged, if you emerge at all. You have to ask yourself why, Faith. Is keeping the truth from me really worth what it will cost you?”