Wiser Than Serpents (6 page)

Sometimes he went back to that night. Heard his and Roman’s footsteps as they walked toward Red Square. Felt the screams ignite his adrenaline as he dove into the shadows and found a lithe girl wrestling with a man twice her size. He tasted the fury as he tackled the man, who kicked him, wrenched free and took off running. David’s legs had reacted on pure instinct. He’d nearly had his hands on the attacker twice before the guy ditched him in the alleys off Prospect Pushkina.

He’d returned to find his hockey pal Roman being decked by a second attacker, and he’d leaped on that man. Roman had got a lick in just as Yanna turned to David, digging her fingers into his arms.

“Please, let him go,” she’d said. Although her voice shook, he saw in her demeanor a strength and a concern that reached past her own terror to stop a brawl. It turned out that the second man he’d tackled had been her date, and a hockey pal of Roman’s. And, after raking her date—Vicktor—over good, he and Vicktor had parted allies and, soon after, became friends.

David pinpointed that moment in Red Square as the precise second Yanna had knocked the wind out of him. He’d never really recovered. It wasn’t just those beautiful brown eyes, or her feisty, independent spirit or even her femininity that made him a little breathless.

It was the fact that she trusted him. At least over e-mail. Face-to-face, it wasn’t quite that easy. The last time he’d seen her he couldn’t escape the sense that Yanna was hiding something. Holding back.

Which meant that maybe she didn’t really trust him, despite her words.

The boat bounced over choppy waves, jarring his teeth, turning David’s attention back to his mission. After waiting far too long for Yanna to check in to their chat room, he’d finally returned to his flat—a two-room dive above the Anchor, a grocery store/ CIA front. From the shop below, the putrid scent of tea eggs—eggs boiled in soy sauce and tea for a zillion decades—destroyed his appetite. Especially when Kwan’s contact tracked him down and invited him for a rendezvous on his yacht.

The chauffeur cut the speed and David felt the boat settle into the water, slowing as it motored toward the silver-and-black yacht.
Keep your eye on the ball, Preach.
David found his expressionless look that gave him one of his few advantages. Besides, after shooting Chet, nothing that Kwan threw at him would faze him.

They glided up smoothly next to the aft deck, and the boats nudged each other as the ocean rolled them. Tying the boats together, the chauffeur nodded to David. The man had already patted him down and searched for weapons, coming up empty. David wasn’t that stupid.

David climbed across the seats, glancing at the sleek dual console with its gauges and padded steering wheel. In another life…

But he didn’t have another life. This was his life. Mingling with murderers…only being honest via e-mail with a person he could neither touch nor see.

Head in the game, David.
He couldn’t keep living in the what-ifs. Not if he wanted to stay alive and unearth Kwan.

Not if he wanted to be the soldier he’d dedicated his life to being.

He followed the chauffeur up the stairs and stopped obediently, waiting, finding his sea legs as the man disappeared into a compartment.

David recognized the two thugs who appeared along the rail. They’d had a bonding experience in a dark container on the wharf in Kaohsiung. He gave them a dark nod, noting again the shiny Makarov pistols they carried. Sometimes he wondered at the love/hate relationship China had with Russia. They sure shared their toys well.

He walked between them along the starboard deck until they reached a door. Again he waited as Kwan’s muscle introduced him. As if Kwan might be royalty.
King Kwan.
David barely hid a smirk, evidence again that his head still wasn’t quite on the game.

From this vantage point, Taiwan appeared as a smudge on the horizon. David wondered how far Kwan parked from mainland China, and if this location might be under the protection of certain Red Guard patrols. How deep did Kwan’s Chinese influence run?

His escort reappeared and gestured him into the office. A young man sat behind his desk, his eyes cool and dark. He wore a silk shirt, a flash of silver at his neck, and another in a bar that ran through a pierce in his left eyebrow. David hid his surprise, and a spurt of anger. Clearly, he’d been duped again. This man was young—in his late twenties. The Twin Serpents reign of terror had begun in the eighties. This Kwan hadn’t been shaving long enough to helm an organization like the Twin Serpents.

David approached him with a swagger that he hoped projected confidence. Across from “Kwan,” he saw a thin brunette who’d clearly had an ugly twenty-four hours sitting slumped in a chair, her head down, her hair tangled and hanging over her face, her hands cuffed behind her. She wore the attire of a working girl—stiletto boots, a short skirt, see-through blouse—and David refused to let his thoughts untangle the scenario. Taking down Kwan would also dismantle his human-trafficking business—the third largest moneymaker for organized crime around the globe. An added benefit would be if they caught his suppliers, from Russia, across Asia, and even into America. Human trafficking had no geographic bias.

He ignored the woman and the pulse of pity inside, and faced the Kwan imposter.

“I was told I was meeting Kwan.”

The man said nothing. Raised the pierced eyebrow. Then smiled. “I am Kwan.”

David didn’t react, didn’t betray his frustration. Instead, he folded his hands over his chest. “Why did you make me wait? I have other buyers, if you’re not interested.” David watched the so-called Kwan, weighing his reaction.

Kwan said nothing, let his eyes run over him. Then he lifted one shoulder. “I have other sources, also.”

David maintained his silence.

Kwan smiled, slowly. “But none at your price.”

David nodded. “Then let’s do this. I say where, you say when.”

“No. We’ll go right now, today.”

David narrowed his eyes, shook his head. “How do I know you’re Kwan and not someone—”

Behind him, he heard a slap. The woman cried out and David turned, fighting his reflexes. He didn’t care who the woman was, he wouldn’t stand here—

Ice flushed through him even as she looked away. His breath actually left his body, and for a long, painful second, he couldn’t move.

Yanna.

Yanna?

He felt sick, staring at the welt across her face. Sickened and just short of launching himself at the man who’d hit her. “What is she doing here?” He’d had to wrestle every emotion back to its starting pad to manage the cool, somewhat annoyed tone, and not sound as if the world had just slid out from under him. What
was
she doing here?

Her gaze snapped up to his, and for one raw, awful moment, he knew. She recognized him. Even under his long dyed-black hair, his Mafia garb. She now knew exactly what he’d been doing the past three months. An odd hint of shame rose, right alongside the nearly rabid panic that surged through his veins. Yanna…

“You like her?” Kwan asked, standing.

Yanna looked away, and something inside David broke. “I do,” he said, painfully aware at how real those words felt. Real and terrifying.

Especially when tears glazed her eyes.
Oh, Yanna.
His horror nearly choked him.

“She’s not for sale.”

Yanna closed her eyes. David felt as if he’d been belly punched.

Kwan came around the desk and leaned against it.

“Why not?” He kept his voice detached, and should have won an Oscar for his prize-winning, nearly wolfish tone. “I want her.”

But oh, how it hurt to see Yanna close her eyes in a slow flinch.

“She’s not who you think. She’s a Russian agent.” Kwan nodded to his man, who grabbed Yanna around the back of the neck and forced her gaze up. David’s breathing quickened and he fought it.
Look at me, Yanna.
But she didn’t. She kept her beautiful eyes averted, as if ashamed.

What was she doing here?

“An agent?” David somehow said. “Then why do you want her?”

Kwan was silent. He drummed his fingers on his arms as he stared at her. David caught her wince of pain. He glared at the man holding her neck.
Keep it up, pal, and you’ll find out just how that feels.
David flexed his fingers at his sides.

“I don’t,” Kwan finally said. He looked at David, a smirk on his stupid, pierced face. “We’re done with her.”

David felt a whoosh of relief so strong it nearly took him down at the knees. “Then let me—”

“No.” Kwan reach behind him and pulled out a tube. Of lipstick?

David glanced at Yanna, saw her nearly go white as Kwan uncapped it and twisted the base.

A tiny knife appeared.

Oh, this was bad, very bad mojo. Kwan glanced at his man, as if giving a signal, and he released Yanna. She shook out of his grasp, swallowed, lifted her chin.

Now there was the Yanna he’d met ten years ago. The one with composure and courage. The one who had stolen his breath clean out of his chest.

Oh God, help!
Not only was he sorely outnumbered, and undergunned, but if he did what his gut screamed for him to do, he’d erase months, even years, of hard work. Chet’s suffering would be in vain.

And Kwan would go deeper underground.

What was Yanna doing here?

That things were going to get worse seemed apparent when Yanna’s attacker pulled out his pistol.

Then Kwan stepped up to Yanna. Grabbed her hair, tilting back her head.

“I’m going to kill her,” Kwan said softly. “And then maybe we’ll do business.”

T
hink, Yanna, think!
Yanna stared up at David, at the horror on his face as he watched Kwan clutch her stupid little knife and her brain went blank. Aside from being exactly the last scenario she would have conjured up for meeting David again, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that right now his brain was checking out every possible egress route, every possible angle where he wouldn’t have to blow his cover to save her life.

And probably coming up empty.

Contrary to current appearances, Yanna made her living using her brain and solving problems. And from her viewpoint, David had two options.

Watch her be killed or be killed himself.

And neither of those seemed acceptable. At least, not to her.

Yanna caught David’s eye and then, with everything inside her, slammed her stiletto into Kwan’s ankle.

She connected in a bone-jarring crunch. Behind her, a gun fired, missing David’s head, or where his head had been, because the moment she acted, he turned and slammed his fist into the face of Fu, or maybe Wang. The Chinese thug went down, bleeding from the mouth.

Yanna followed with an inside kick to Kwan’s knee. Her cute knife went spinning across the floor. Kwan collapsed, but not before he grabbed her arm, pulling her with him.

She landed on top of him, pinning him with her chair.

She looked up just in time to see David scoop up her knife and turn it on Wang. In a second, he’d appropriated Wang’s gun.

For one endless moment, all Yanna heard was panting.

“Let her go,” David said, pointing the gun at Kwan. “I won’t ask twice.”

Outside, shouts, feet thundering across the deck.

“You’ll be dead long before they get here,” David added.

Kwan released his hold on her hair. “You’re the dead man,” he said. David pulled Yanna to her feet, helped her wiggle from the chair. Before he could force the handcuff key from Kwan, the door burst open.

“Run!” David pushed Yanna ahead of him, toward another door. Yanna stumbled through it to a narrow hallway.

Shots fired behind her, then David burst through the door and slammed it behind him. “Run!”

Yanna fought for balance, her hands cuffed behind her. She reached the stairs and tripped up them.

Twilight, the sun setting on the far horizon and turning the ocean to fire, beckoned from the bow of the yacht.

David had her by the arm, running, pulling her, now flinging her right over the edge into the frothy depths.

Cold! The ocean gulped her whole, sucking her under, stinging as she went down. She kicked and kicked, surfaced with a greedy gulp of air.

And David was right there, arm around her waist, pulling her against him. “Kick!”

Yeah, okay. She coughed, but kicked hard, letting David drag her against the hull of the yacht. Above, voices yelled, clearly searching for them.

“Shh.” David’s cheek rested against hers, his voice calm, as if they might be out for a leisurely swim. “Stay calm.”

Calm? Yanna shivered, and she fought to keep her breath steady. But inside, her pulse raced at full tilt in her throat, and David’s heart hammered against her as he pulled her tight to his chest. Clearly, neither of them were in any state of calm. She kicked, willing herself to trust him, to trust his arm around her waist as he trod water, pulling them into hiding. The voices came toward them.

“Deep breath,” he said a second before he pulled them under. She closed her eyes. Don’t panic. But David had a death grip on her and the breath in her lungs leaked out too quickly, began to burn. She fought the urge to struggle, but couldn’t stop herself as fear spewed into her arms, her legs.

She opened her eyes and saw the yacht hazy above them, David swimming hard toward another boat. Oh, please, oh,
please.
With everything inside her, she kicked, too. Just as she knew she would have to breathe, even if it were water, they broke the surface.

Shouting came from the front of the yacht. David pulled out her knife—where’d he get that?—and lunged at the rope tying the boat to the platform of the yacht. The boat began to float away and David grabbed it with one hand, keeping a hold of her with the other.

“I gotta get aboard. Then I’ll pull you up.”

Shots zinged the water next to her. He was leaving her here? “Wait!”

“I’m not going to leave you, Yanna. Just tread water.”

His voice, so calm, so David, went straight to her thundering heart. For a second he turned her, holding her arms, and looked her in the eyes.