The Spy Who Left Me (33 page)

“Did that spark any memories? Maybe now you know what I mean? I want the software she picked up on Haleakala. If you don’t hand it over, I’ll have to strip-search the girl. If you play nice, I’ll let you watch.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither does Tref. Let her go.”

Zulu was a martial arts expert and quick. He kicked Ty in the stomach before Ty had a chance to react.

Ty doubled over and fought for breath, trying not to get sick.

Zulu stuck the gun back against his temple. “Protecting the girl. Very noble. Or very stupid.” He turned and hissed to the other guy, “Search the tent.”

*   *   *

A Chinese thug marched Ty out of the tent. Treflee gasped into the hand covering her mouth, feeling a thick slice of guilt. Ty’s lip ran slick with blood that looked horror-flick black in the dark. He clutched his stomach and shot her a quick look of disgust and anger laced with betrayal. A welt rose on his cheek and around her heart.

Though she’d heard his stories of being beaten and escaping the bad, real-life members of
evil,
she’d never seen him bloodied in person before. The sight scared and sickened her. She’d brought this on him by being stupid.
So stupid.

She pleaded silently with him for understanding.

He was man enough to shoot back a look that told her to buck up and play spy tough. Never surrender.

There has to be a way to get out of this mess. There has to be!

She’d violated stupid-expendable-horror-movie-victim rule number one—never go outside alone. Especially in the dead of night, unarmed. Especially if there are crazed killers who attacked you earlier in the day. She didn’t dare make a whimper or others would die.

The two Chinese thugs dragged them silently down a path toward the ocean away from camp and finally into a damp, dark cave at water’s edge. They shoved them in and dumped them on the black sand beach, shining flashlights in their eyes to keep them disoriented. In another situation and mood, this hidden cove and silky black sand would have been a second fantasy in the making.

Outside, the waves lapped and crashed, making a calming white noise that could lull a baby to sleep. In the dampness of this perfect killing cave, it muffled all voices and obliterated any calls for help to the outside world.

Treflee had been studying Ty, trying to imitate his bravado and discover if he had a weapon on him. Maybe a switchblade in his shoe, or a phone programmed to call Spy-1-1 when he stamped three times. Was it too much to hope he had a plan? He always had a plan. At any second NCS agents could arrive with rocket guns blazing. Wouldn’t they?

“You have something we want. Give it to us and we’ll let you go,” the one called Zulu said.

Let us go?
Right. She’d seen enough spy flicks to know the bad guy never kept his promise. Half a second after she gave him whatever it was he wanted, they were fish bait and he pressed a button that destroyed the world. She’d never give up her new hair accessory.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She held out her empty hands, trying not to tremble. “I have nothing on me.”

“Don’t play games with me, spy.”

Without thinking, Treflee turned to Ty. He wore his glazed surfer-dude look and shrugged as if dumb on the subject. It took her a second to realize Zulu was speaking to her. What an idiot she was! She’d almost just given Ty away. She was not only a bad wife, but a bad American, too.

“Spy?”
Recovering quickly, she knitted her brow and did her best to look mystified, and even a little “woohoo, this guy’s a nutcase.”

“You’ve been watching way too many episodes of
Chuck,
dude. Spies are not around every corner trying to steal the intercept. Do I look like I’m wearing a trench coat to you?”

Zulu laughed. “Spy girls wear bikinis in the movies all the time.”

Damn that Bond!
Zulu was right.

“I like bikinis better,” the evil assistant said.

“Me, too,” Ty chimed in.

Treflee glared at him. “Shut up!”

Ty shrugged. “Dude, it’s Hawaii.”

The assistant trailed his flashlight beam up and down her suggestively, doing a Tinker Bell dance on her breasts. Can a beam of light have a leer? This one did.

Treflee fought the urge to scoot out of the spotlight and into the darkness where she’d probably get shot for trying to escape. Instead, she shooed the light away with a brush of her hand.

“Hey! Why would any real spy choose the stupid cover I’m living? Half the time I don’t even like my cousin Carrie. I can’t stand her friends. And then I have to pick Carrie up and console her for bailing on her groom days before the wedding. Like it wasn’t her choice.” She crossed her arms, striking a “refute that” pose.

Zulu shrugged. “We all have shitty relatives. Why not bring them along and hope they get shot?” He laughed an evil laugh. “For a small fee, I can take them out for you.”

He was serious.

Treflee gulped. She’d thought she was protecting Carrie and her friends by pretending she didn’t care about them. “I don’t have any cash on me. You should have caught me when I had my pocketbook.”

Zulu laughed long and loud, but his gun stayed aimed at her heart. “I like you. You look hot in a bikini. Too bad we didn’t meet under different circumstances. I could use some eye candy for my left arm.”

Now that sent a chill through her. Murderers thought she was hot.
Ouch.

“If you’re so innocent, why did this ‘cousin’ of yours just happen to book the plantation next to Mrs. Ho?”

Treflee fought the urge to turn to Ty for help. Instead, she tossed her hand, waving off Zulu’s accusation as ridiculous.

“Oh, very damning evidence, big guy.
Lots
of people stay at Big Auau. Are you going to accuse every one of them, too? Break into their campsites and wave your guns around?”

“No one else is staying there and snooping around at this very important time.” Zulu shone the light directly in her eyes.

She held a hand up to shield them. “Yeah? Well, that’s coincidence for you. You have to book these places a year in advance. You think the CIA has the foresight to plan a year ahead? Anyway, what does Mrs. Ho have to do with anything?”

She resisted the urge to say, “Have to do with the price of tea in China.” Maybe a comedic racial reference wasn’t the best way to go, here.

Even without her shot at levity, Zulu put his fierce face back on. “You were sneaking around Mrs. Ho’s property. Why?”

She shrugged, remembering to stick to her cover story and wondering if Zulu knew about the lei strangler. “Taking an innocent stroll to admire the view is called sneaking now? I’ve never been near her place except that one time when I ran into her clothesline. The woman’s a menace. I think she likes hurting tourists who choose Big Auau over her place.”

Treflee was still trying to picture the wedding-minded Mrs. Ho, with her purported booby-trapped clotheslines, as a master spy. Next to her, Ty didn’t look all that surprised. Or maybe he was just playing things cool.

Zulu shook gently as he laughed. “Oh, very good. You lie like a trouper. Too bad for you that I know the truth. I know who strangled you. And he’s been punished.”

She instinctively clutched her neck and felt the pearls, which made her feel even worse. “Hey, wait a minute!” Anger blindsided her. She dropped her hand and forgot the old adage about engaging brain before putting mouth in motion. “That was your guy with the lei?”

Zulu towered over her. He sighed with exasperation. If he hadn’t been holding a gun and had an armed accomplice, she would have kicked him in the shins.

“Are you crazy? You nearly killed me!”

“Yet you didn’t call the cops.”

“Right! Who wants to spend their vacation talking to cops?”

“Innocent girlies who’ve just startled an intruder.”

Next to her, Ty didn’t make any kind of movement or expression to indicate whether he thought she was performing up to NCS standards or not. And he didn’t come out slashing with switchblade shoes, either. He dabbed at his fat lip, which only made her feel horrible.

“Spies trying to plant a bug on Ty to spy on us, those kind of people avoid the cops.” Zulu dropped the light from her eyes and shone it on Ty. “You should have picked someone smarter to be your innocent dupe.”

Oh, boy! Ty did not like being called a dumb dupe. It took a wife to sense his anger and read how badly he wanted to punch Zulu. Or shoot him. On the surface Ty appeared calm enough for government work, but she knew he was seething.

“Plant a bug on someone who hangs with us. Very smart plan and very dumb, too.” Zulu shook his head. “We don’t play around. You should know that. We’ve already killed one of your agents.” He shrugged. “And then we had to kill one of our own men. Shen Lin got jumpy, scared. He was a liability.”

What is he talking about? What agent?

“But, on the positive side, his death put everything back in balance. You should have left us alone. What is another unsolved murder of a Chinese immigrant to you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Now that dragon lady wants something you have.” He appeared to be trying to suppress a shudder. “I promised to get it for her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You lost me at taking out one of my supposed agents.”

“Cut the dumb-blonde act.” Zulu was losing patience. “I saw you myself escaping from Woo Ming’s after we took out Shen Lin.

“We even cleared out and gave your cleanup crew plenty of space to get rid of the body. Right before the early-bird dinner special. Fewer questions that way. Less police involvement. Good for all of us, except Cook. He was angry because you interrupted his preparations for the dinner rush.

“It wasn’t our fault your guys bungled the disposal. We could have told you the currents are unpredictable too close to shore. They should have gone deeper.”

Yeah, that was obvious
. Can you be incredibly relieved, happy, terrified, and sickened at the same time? Apparently you can, because that’s how Treflee felt at that moment.

Ty hadn’t killed the waiter! She could’ve kissed him. Gently, in consideration for his fat lip.

She wished Ty could give her some clue as to what she was supposed to say now. “That’s very decent of you” didn’t seem fitting somehow. In her nightmares, she still saw the fish eating Shen Lin’s face.

She couldn’t very well tell the truth—that in both cases, she was spying on her husband, not them, and evidently not being too subtle about it. If she did, she’d give Ty away. She’d just have to bungle her way through pretending to be a top NCS agent. With any luck, they’d get cocky thinking she was a sterling example of NCS incompetency and relax their guard so the real spies could do their job.

She shrugged and said the first thing that popped into her mind. “It’s hard to get good help these days.”

Zulu laughed and nodded as if he agreed completely. “So true. Now, hand it over.”

She stared him in the eye, trying to appear brave and flippant like heroines in movies. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“I want the device your agent passed to you at Haleakala.”

“Agent? Haleakala? You’re imagining things again. If I were an agent, why would I go all the way to the top of a volcano to get a device? I’m sure I could think up better drop sites.”

“Maybe because AMOS is up there and that’s where your guy works?”

AMOS again.

Just then, Zulu got a text and pulled out his cell phone. He read it and frowned. “Cong didn’t find it in the tent. Search her, Bang.”

Bang dropped his flashlight, grabbed Treflee, and yanked her cover-up down before she could even scream. She clawed at him and struggled, trying to grab the gun from the arm that held her and create a diversion for Ty.

Taking her cue, Ty rolled to his feet and rammed into Zulu. The two men went down with an
oomph
into the darkness as Zulu’s flashlight went flying and splashed into the water near the mouth of the cave. It floated and bounced along in the water, pushed by the waves, and casting eerie shadows as it caught flashes of action.

Splashed in the water? There was no water a few minutes ago. Oh, my gosh! The tide is coming in.

Bang grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off her feet. He stuck his hands between her breasts, felt beneath her bikini top, and squeezed her nipples. She kicked and clawed and tried to pull his disgusting hands off her as he rolled her nipple between his fingers. Bang released her breasts and stuck his hand down her bikini bottom. She gagged and screamed for Ty.

The grind of fist hitting flesh, followed by a grunt, echoed off the cave walls. Please let that be Ty who’d thrown the punch, not taken it. If she’d been better trained, heck, trained at all, maybe she’d have known how to break free from Bang and his probing, disgusting fingers.

Finally, he pulled his hand free. “She doesn’t have it!” Bang yelled to Zulu. He put his gun against her head.