The Protector (26 page)

Vivi studied the man in front of her. Youngest half-sibling. His mother was probably Caucasian. T.’s words suggested that his father was no longer alive. The possible scenario of an internal power struggle came to mind. So perhaps Armando Chang lost out. But that didn’t explain his appearance now.

“Why did you show up now?” she asked. “Or is it recently that you’ve decided to betray your kind?”

Armando’s shoulders stiffened, for the first time showing something other than quiet mockery. He didn’t like her accusing him of betrayal. Another interesting reaction, Vivi noted. A drug-dealing young gangster with a sense of honor. Well, not much, since he was here, spilling his guts about his beloved brothers. Probably petty jealousy and revenge.

“I suppose I deserve that,” he conceded, after a slight pause. “Being related to the Triad brothers brings a certain taint. However, I believe you’ll approve of my betrayal in this case.”

“Well, I’m here now. T. tells me you won’t talk about the girl I’ve been looking for. So tell me what it is exactly you
want and why you came to me about her at this time.”

“I didn’t see the need till now.” He nodded toward T., who was quietly listening. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Miss Verreau, and from your various disguises and work with Interpol commandos, figured you were more than the regular social worker you appeared to be, but I couldn’t figure out who exactly you worked for because you were also asking personal questions. Out of curiosity, I made it my business to look into your mission. I can be very thorough when I want to be. I finally found proof of what you’re looking for, but…” He shrugged. “It seemed more interesting to watch your progress.”

“Until you found out about Tess,” Vivi guessed.

“Yes. I heard about a big thing happening in town, a major weapons dealers’ convention, so to speak, and seeing Tess with you finally gave me a clue about your background. I realized then that our paths were going to cross one way or another. I also saw it as my way out.”

“You keep saying that phrase. Out of what?”

Armando abruptly clicked the remote, turning off the television. “In exchange for information about the Triads, I want your agency to get me out of this country, away from this life. I believe your people can give me a new identity…seeing that both of you have so many.” He swung an arm over the back of the sofa, pinning a hard gaze on Vivi. For an instant, her training helped form a mental picture of a young man used to wealth. It was in the way he sat, the polite, stilted language he used that betrayed a childhood among older people. “In exchange for information about the missing Sia-Sia, I want something personal in return. You have to help someone equally important to me.”

“Who?”

“My real sister. She’s being held against her will.”

Vivi looked at T. for confirmation. Her chief shrugged. “I’m still verifying the former. As for the latter, that’s your deal to make.”

“No,” Armando said, a steeliness in his voice, “both deals
are contingent on getting my sister to safety. If Miss Verreau doesn’t agree, then I’ll be forced to think of other ways. Like maybe betraying your insider.”

Vivi gave T. a questioning glance. How much did he know? T. looked back serenely at them both, apparently unperturbed by the threat.

“Why are your brothers holding your sister prisoner?” Vivi asked.

“Because I refused to do certain things while I was overseas.” His lips twisted. “As long as they have her, they have a hold on me. They made me come home so they could keep a closer eye on me but since I’m Western educated, my usable skills are now limited to dealings with Westerners here and certain accounts. I prefer that to…other things, shall we say?”

Vivi could imagine what those other things were. The Triads had their fingers in the United States underworld dealings with slavery and drugs. If Armando Chang was telling the truth, he had been subjected to emotional blackmail by his stepbrothers.

“How do I know this isn’t a trap?” she asked.

“I believe Tess can verify this. Right?”

“Yes,” T. acknowledged. She seemed amused at his acting so familiar with her.

“How?” Vivi asked.

“As Armando pointed out, we have someone on the inside who can confirm his and his sister’s existence, but that’s the least important factor,” T. said, her voice subtly turning neutral. “Everything else depends on you. The question is, do you truly think the information he has on Sia-Sia is worth it? What he’s asking for ups the risk percentage significantly because now you’re asking our insider to look for someone in his environment, extract her to safety, and still finish his mission.”

Vivi wouldn’t ask that of anyone, and T. knew it. “If what Mr. Chang says is true,” she said, “he would be used to being
spoilt by servants and all the trappings of wealth. Why would such a man give that up, want a new identity, and go somewhere else? We can still save your sister, regardless, so the question is, why are you putting yourself in the equation? Why ask
me
?”

Armando stood up and walked to the window, turning his back to them. Vivi suspected that he didn’t want them to see his expression, that asking for help was something he hated. She recognized the gesture in herself; she disliked explaining herself to anyone and if she had to do it, she usually created distance either verbally or physically.

His back was very straight. “Because you’ll understand how I feel. My sister is very dear to me and I promised to keep her safe. I haven’t done a good job because I don’t know where she is. All I have is some videos showing her confined in a small room somewhere. My brother assures me she’s fine but…” He finally turned and his eyes flashed with emotion for the first time. “Let’s just say I have seen how my family treats women. I don’t want my sister missing like your friend, who, I believe, is like a sister to you. I do empathize with your loss, Miss Verreau, but your search had nothing to do with mine until I was sure you could help me.”

He had watched her long enough to know what was important to her. Sia-Sia. Young girls victimized by circumstance. He was pulling on her emotional strings.

“You still haven’t answered the main question,” she pointed out. “Why do
you
choose to leave what you have?”

“Yes, I can always escape without your help. But I don’t trust you to take care of my sister, nor can I ensure her safety without me close by. The Triads are a big family and you can’t exactly assure me that they won’t find her again someday.” His voice lowered. “I don’t like my life. I don’t want to live on money that came from women and children. I wasn’t able to save my mother. Find my sister for me. Please.”

“You have a lot of confidence that Vivi will agree to help you, Armando,” T. said.

Armando smiled humorlessly. “I’m counting on her need to see the truth for herself. I can lead her to Sia-Sia. She’s alive. You see, she’s one of my stepsisters.”

After Cucumber gave him the
Reader’s Digest
version of events, Jazz napped during the ride back to the compound. His team was okay, except for minor injuries to Turner. Vivi’s team had suffered most of the damage, Cucumber told him, especially those on the other side of the river where the two of them had been. The big man told him how some of them had been hit when they had tried to take the trailer with the girls.

“Where are the girls now?”

“I gather they are in some safe place,” Cucumber said with a shrug. “Screaming girls aren’t my cup of tea.”

Vivi was probably going to be busy for a while. That was his last thought before he had drifted off. He opened his eyes the moment the car’s engine cut off. It was dark.

“Underground parking,” explained Cucumber.

Jazz rubbed the back of his neck, working the crick out. “We’re under the compound?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool way to go in and out the place unseen, don’t you agree?”

The compound sure hid a lot of things. Kind of like Vivi. She had so many different sides and he loved every one of them. The snotty Interpol officer. The sultry team task force leader. The brave operative who put her life in jeopardy to save young girls. And last night…he loved the woman he had made love to the most. So honest with her emotions. So generous with body, mind, and spirit.

A couple of flights of stairs later, he grinned at the sight of Hawk and the rest of the team. They were in what they now called the mess hall, doing what SEALs do best during down time—playing with their toys. Hawk looked up from sharpening his knives.

“Well, look what the wind blew in.”

His team greeted him raucously, asking questions and making comments about his appearance. His shirtlessness didn’t escape their notice.

“Beg your pardon, sir, but you have on your chicken lips again,” Mink said, with a knowing smirk.

“I think he graduated to goats,” Hawk observed. The others snickered. “How’s Vivi?”

One couldn’t hide much from his fellow frogs. They knew. “She wasn’t hurt,” Jazz answered the unvoiced concern. “How’s Turner?”

“Hurt one of his knees.” Joker handed a tray to Mink, who passed it Cucumber.

“Yeah, his weenie,” Cucumber said, stressing on the “wee” as he gave the tray to Jazz. “We saved some of the leftover feast for ya.”

“Thanks,” Jazz said, looking at all the different small containers. “Very nice. You guys went to a Tupperware party while I was gone.”

“Eat, clean, debrief,” Hawk told him.

“With all respect, sir, he looks like he’s already been debriefed,” Dirk said, wiping hands blackened from gun oil with a cloth, “several times, last night.”

“Yeah, I want to read his After Actions Report.”

“Top Secret, I bet.”

“Yeah, well, dude, I just want to get to the bottom, which would be the more interesting part, ya understand?”

His team’s easy camaraderie was their way of telling him they were happy he was in one piece. But for the first time, Jazz didn’t want to exchange the usual male locker-room humor and easy banter. His night with Vivi—or at least, certain parts of it—was off limits.

“I’ll see you all in an hour,” he told them, as he headed toward Hawk’s and his quarters.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” he heard Mink ask as he walked out of the hall.

“Sensitive and broody, isn’t he? He doesn’t look well at all.”

Jazz shook his head. The Stooges—Mink, Cumber, and Dirk—were deliberately needling him in loud whispers. He paused long enough to hear the punch line.

“Yeah, he’s got Coxic Shock Syndrome.”

Everyone in the room was a fucking clown. Jazz slammed the door shut to their laughter.

Back in the room, he peeled off his torn and filthy clothes and threw them in a small pile near the door. He opened one of the containers and snatched up some kind of rice snack. He was starving and if he didn’t clean up now, he was going to sit here and eat and eat. Hitching the towel around his hips, he headed off again, this time to the community bath facility down the hall.

As the water beat on him, he looked at the water draining at his feet. He definitely needed the shower. Keeping clean was a luxury that SEALs didn’t usually have during an operation. He had been in situations where traveling with farm animals was the only option in or out of a region, and after a few weeks, the animals around probably thought the men hunkered among them were their brothers. He grinned at the fleeting memory. Life was never boring.

But it was time to think about wanting more. He loved his country and his job, and hadn’t given serious thought about his future. He wanted Vivi to be a part of it. Maybe if he had something more to offer her, she would see something in him, too.

Back in his quarters, he found Hawk in the room, writing something on a notepad. He didn’t look up as Jazz went over to the dresser and pulled out the top drawer. There was the same kind of loose-fitting local garment that Hawk had worn before. He pulled on the pants. They were too short for his long legs but it would have to do for now.

“Is Vivi really all right? Why isn’t she here?” Hawk asked.

“She went off in another vehicle, probably needed to be debriefed,” Jazz said. He paused in the middle of buttoning
his shirt. “And I don’t want to hear another debriefing joke. “What are you writing?”

Hawk shrugged. “A shopping list. A letter. A will.”

Jazz frowned. That wasn’t quite Hawk’s usual thing. “Why now?”

“I was going to wait till after the admiral talk to tell you—”

“Mad Dog is going to talk to us?” Jazz interrupted.

“Yes, video link. It’ll be in two parts, one a private meeting with just our team and then with the joint mission.”

Admiral Madison always took time to congratulate his teams after a mission. It would be interesting to hear him address the joint mission panel. After watching Vivi at work, Jazz’s admiration for the independent contractors had grown in leaps.

But something wasn’t right. He could sense Hawk’s restlessness, even though his friend hadn’t shown any sign of it. “What were you going to tell me?”

Hawk’s expression was closed. “I’m probably going to miss Christmas. The shopping list is for you to pick up a couple of things for me and send them in my name so folks back home think I’m okay. The letter for you to keep just incase…you need to explain anything. The will…well, that’s self-explanatory.”

“You care to give me a fuller explanation of what’s happening?” Christmas was months away, so why was Hawk preparing a list now? And his words seemed to mean that he wasn’t going to be with the team during that time.

“Remember when I went to help my cousin extract his girl in D.C.? I told you about Project X-S-BOT.”

Jazz nodded. “I remember. Some files in the laptop stolen from the Naval Lab. That was why Marlena was in D.C., you said—to find out who was trying to sell it.”

“Yes, and that’s how she and Steve met.”

Hawk’s cousin had been sent to D.C. to find the mole at the agency responsible for providing information that had
led to several members of the admiral’s SEAL teams being killed. With Marlena’s and GEM’s help, Steve had uncovered the traitor. Through his own snatches of conversation with family members, Jazz heard there was a big scandal happening in D.C. right now. It had been reported that the same traitor had been selling national secrets for the last decade. He had tuned out most of the stuff his sister had told him about security councils, public outrage, and all the political shenanigans happening back home. News never made sense, anyhow, when one was living it. However, this incident with Steve and Marlena had been of interest to the teams because they had wanted to catch the man who had sold out their brothers.