A Love For Always (16 page)

“Do we have enough to pick up Hiroshi Mori?”

“The police could pick him up for questioning, but there’s not enough evidence to hold him longer than forty-eight hours.”

“Surveillance cams at the garage?”

“Car was rented to one of the two men who were run down. Both sustained serious injuries from the hit and run. Ed said they weren’t talking and are on suicide watch.”

“It’ll be hard to break them. If they’re truly soldiers of the ACS, they’re loyal and would rather die than betray the organization,” Porter said. “I’ve done some digging while I was waiting for the women. Mori is very ambitious. You need to keep an eye on him. There’s evidence he’s negotiating a coup against Daichi Yoshida. He’s playing both sides of the ACS. If he can’t get Sylvie to marry him to gain control, then he’ll pander to the Chinese side. He was the one who convinced Sylvie’s father to try the GDE pill smuggling as sort of a dry run.”

“A dry run for what?”

“A massive influx of ephedrine.”

“Fuck,” Nate whispered. Ephedrine was a precursor to synthesizing methamphetamine, a drug which did rate highly on the DEA’s watch list. “But why use Sylvie? Her shipment is not big enough to make an impact.”

“My hunch? They’re testing the system with methods of delivery. I don’t think Yoshida would want his daughter to be involved long-term.”

“He shouldn’t have involved her at all,” Nate growled.

“He’s opportunistic. I wouldn’t be surprised if he threw his daughter under the bus.” The admiral’s gaze drifted to Sylvie’s mom again.

Nate cleared his throat. “And your assessment has nothing to do with Pru?”

Porter smiled wolfishly. “If I said
hell no
, I would be lying.”

“I was expecting a denial, admiral.” Nate threw up his hands in disbelief. “I sent you to Richmond to pick up the women, deliver them, and leave them alone. Their lives are complicated as it is. What were you thinking? You’re the last person I’d expect to pull shit like this.”

“You done?” The admiral regarded Nate with a bored expression.
 

“Do not mess with Prudence Buchanan.”

“And your warning has nothing to do with your chances with her daughter?”

Fuck! Damn the admiral.

The admiral’s smile turned shark-like. “I guess I’ve made my point. You have no right to warn me off just because it might jeopardize your relationship with Sylvie. That’s hypocritical. Pru is a lovely woman. I find her fascinating. Whether I pursue anything with her or not is none of your damned business. Do I make myself clear, Reece?”

“It’s my damned business because they’re under my protection.”

“Don’t feed me security bullshit. I invented that shit. Sam’s not even on official business with the Buchanan women. Speaking of which, where is Sam?”

“I had someone pick him up so he could fetch the BSI vehicle from Nana’s house in Richmond. You were supposed to ride separately. Nana in one car, Pru in the other. That’s the protocol.”

“The women didn’t want to be separated, and neither of them trusted the other to be alone with me at that time. There was no point in bringing the other car. My Suburban is bulletproof, and the tires are bullet resistant. There was no immediate need to separate them.”

“You just left me with a logistics issue,” Nate muttered.

Porter pushed back from the wall, thumped Nate on the shoulder, and said. “It’s worth it though, isn’t it? Sylvie is happy; her family is safe.” He walked away from Nate. “I’m checking on Pru.”

Nate tracked the admiral’s progress along the length of the pool until he reached Pru. Sylvie’s mom stopped her pacing and nodded at a question the admiral asked her. Then she waved him off as though dismissing him.
Hah!
The admiral struck out. He wasn’t that smooth after all. But of course, the admiral being the admiral, didn’t take a dismissal lightly, and he was saying something else. This time Nate could hear Pru say loudly,
leave me alone, Ben
. The admiral shrugged and very calmly walked over to the lounge chair and sat, looking as though he intended to wait out Pru’s snit.

Sylvie’s mother glared briefly at Porter, but continued pacing. After a beat, Nate heard her voice drift across the length of the pool. Looked like the admiral got his way after all and Pru seemed to be unloading her shit on him.

Suddenly feeling like a voyeur intruding on an intimate moment, Nate walked back inside the guesthouse.

*****

Harold Tisdale stared at the glaring screen filled with equations and graphs. The numbers on the liver panel showed no improvement. Tisdale was the lead biochemist at Pasteur Science Lab, a pharmaceutical company popular for their cholesterol drug, Lipiven. In the last two years though, recent studies indicated that long-term use of the drug caused serious liver damage. Sales of the drug and stock price of the company plummeted. Worst, the FDA was considering withdrawing its approval and the new safety labels on the drug warning of the side-effects was just a temporary fix. The Japanese dietary supplement known as GDE had shown reversal of those effects, but the makers of the supplement refused to share its formula, and it was the concentrated form that Lipiven needed. Even though Tisdale was able to break down its components, he was not able to duplicate the supplement’s therapeutic benefits in his lab. Unless he could find a solution soon, the company could go under.
 

He was a primary shareholder at the company and it was his life’s work. Tisdale was sure if he could unlock the secret of the GDE pills and incorporate it into Lipiven, the drug would make a comeback and translate to millions of dollars in revenue for the company. Except the Asian Crime Syndicate wanted a percentage of the profit. That was the only condition Daichi Yoshida would agree to lend his biochemist who invented GDE. The board would never agree to this. This was America. Pharmaceutical companies did not make deals with the Asian mafia.

But there were other ways, and Tisdale was not above playing dirty to get what he wanted.
 

His phone flashed. The Jackal was calling.

“Tisdale.”

“Package was delivered. I believe Daichi Yoshida got our message.”

“Has Yoshida contacted you?” Harold asked. All correspondence was handled through The Jackal. The ACS had no idea which pharmaceutical company was bidding for the services of their biochemist. Actually, rumor had it that the biochemist was a freaking genius, and Pasteur Science Lab would do well to keep the man on staff permanently.
 

“Yes. He’s pissed, but is still unwilling to negotiate. His terms are still a percentage of the profits. He warned that if we attacked his daughter again, he will no longer entertain business with us.”

“If he was a devoted father, he would have abandoned business with us already.”

“Agreed.”

“What do you propose?”

“We have three options. One, we could move to supplant him with another leader. I know there is discontent within the organization right now. Two, we could make things difficult for his daughter to rebuild—screw with her insurance claims and all that, or three, we could take his daughter and make Daddy watch her suffer as we hack off her fingers one by one. Being ex-Yakuza, this practice shouldn’t be new to Yoshida.”

Tisdale cringed at the last option. Though he wasn’t opposed to killing Yoshida’s daughter to send a message, a graphic description of torture was too much for him. But he had hired a ruthless man to deal with a ruthless organization. The Jackal had mingled in the dredges of the criminal underworld before, and there was no man more capable of doing business with the Asian mafia.

“Start with option two,” Tisdale said. “But time is of the essence. If all else fails, you have my permission to implement option three.”

“It’ll cost more money. Sylvie Yoshida has found herself a protector.”

“Get rid of him. I don’t see how this will cost more. Your initial $5 million contract covered this.”

“Not when the man in question is former CIA and owns a well-known security company.”

“Goddammit, how did this happen?” Tisdale suddenly felt a wave of anxiety. This was not good. CIA meant the man had connections. If Tisdale were exposed, that would mean the end of his company. If Tisdale aborted the plan to acquire the GDE biochemist, the company would be doomed as well.
 

“Don’t worry. He’s emotionally involved with Yoshida’s daughter. We could use this to our advantage. She is his vulnerability.”

“Can you handle him?”

There was a snort at the other end of the line. “It’ll be tough, but yeah, I can handle him, especially since I can get to him without him suspecting.”

“Good. Good,” Tisdale muttered, still unnerved. “Just send me your new contract. I’ll wire the money to your offshore account.”

Tisdale ended the call and collapsed against his chair. Sweat beaded his forehead. The situation had become extremely complicated.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“What was that you were saying about a healthy lifestyle?”

Nate’s cheeky question made Sylvie laugh. There was nothing exactly healthy about fried chicken cooked in Crisco.
 

“You need your comfort eats,” Sylvie declared.

They were all sitting around the dining table at the main house. Not much unpacking had happened after her shocking revelations to Nana. It was fortuitous that dinner preparation took precedence, because her grandma needed cooking therapy to calm her nerves. Conversation around the table had been stilted and polite, and Sylvie was thankful for Nate’s attempt to break the ice.

“Whatever you say, chef,” Nate replied as he took a bite off a chicken thigh. His face turned red as he held his mouth open. “Hooot!”

The women laughed, the admiral chuckled.

“All the steam is trapped inside, dummy,” Sylvie chided. “Don’t be fooled by the calm looking exterior. That’s why proper temperature of the oil is important. You create a crust around the chicken, preventing the oil from seeping inside the flesh, keeping the moisture of the chicken trapped so it creates steam to cook it from inside. You get non-oily, juicy fried chicken.”

“Well, I know that now. I found out the hard way,” Nate grumbled as he blew on the still steaming chicken and took another bite. “You’re right. Tasty and not greasy. Excellent fried chicken, Nana.” He shot her grandma his charming smile.

Her grandma nodded, pleased at the compliment.
 

“Ben,” Nana called the admiral’s attention. “Any family around here?”

“A daughter,” Porter responded as he forked a piece of chicken onto his plate. “She’s a security consultant, works with Reece, actually.”

“Married?”

“Engaged.”

“Ah . . . I’m assuming you’re divorced since there’s no mention of a wife,” Nana stated shrewdly. Sylvie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Nana was fishing for information since it was evident the admiral was interested in her mother. Sylvie’s gaze fell on Mom who did roll her eyes.
 

“That is correct,” the admiral answered without missing a beat.
 

“Did you divorce because of your job?” Nana smiled sweetly at Porter. “Nate, be a dear and hand Ben these cheesy grits.”

“Ma, that’s too personal,” Mom chided.
 

Nate snorted in an attempt to subdue his chuckle as he handed Porter the platter. The admiral scowled at him momentarily before schooling his features in a bland mask and faced her grandma.

“I guess it was my job,” Porter shrugged. “My deployments took its toll. My ex-wife deserved better. She divorced me when Beatrice—that’s my daughter—was about to start college.”

“So are you saying you pursued your career while you left your wife to take care of your child,” Nana concluded.
 

“Ma!” This time her mom was mortified. “I’m really sorry, Ben.”

Porter’s smile was undecipherable. It wasn’t one of sadness, embarrassment, or candor. It was a smile with no emotion.
 

“Career is hardly the word,” Porter said stoically. “Sacrifices had to be made in service to our great nation. Your freedoms,” the admiral said pointedly, “come at a price. Unfortunately, my family paid it.”

There was a lengthy silence that followed the admiral’s words. Silverware stopped tinkling against plates and movements ceased. It wasn’t an awkward silence, more like a contemplative one.

“I believe, Admiral, I have an understanding of the man you are,” Nana said sincerely. “I am sorry for the intrusiveness of my questions.”

“No apology needed,” Porter said. “People you care about are in danger. It’s natural to be interested in the background of personnel tasked to protect you.”

Sylvie had to commend the admiral for his diplomatic response, which was not what she had expected given Nate’s stories about the admiral’s cutting personality.

The door chime alerted them to a new arrival. Nate didn’t seem alarmed as though he was expecting the person. It was Sam. He had come back from Richmond. Poor guy should look exhausted, but he looked like the same alert bodyguard she had met this afternoon. In the short time Sylvie had been around him, she concluded he wasn’t much of a talker or one for bullshit, but spoke up only when needed.

“Sam!” Nana’s cheerful voice told Sylvie the man had already wormed his way into her grandma’s good graces. “Come sit. I cooked a lot of chicken. Plenty for everyone.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Buchanan.”

“I told you to call me Agnes, young man,” Nana clucked. She got up to refill a plate with chicken she had on the cooling rack.

“How was the trip?” Nate asked.

“Uneventful. Boyd and I got there around 5:30 p.m. I did another walk through the property just to make sure it’s secure and locked tight.”

“We need to think about putting an alarm on that house, Sylvie,” Nate addressed her, but glanced at her mother.

“Alarm at my house?” Nana asked, coming back with a plate and silverware for Sam, expertly dishing fried chicken pieces directly on his plate. “Think I need one?”

“I think it’s a good idea, Nana,” Sylvie said. “Times have changed. You don’t know your new neighbors well.”