White Jade (The PROJECT) (38 page)

Chapter Fifty-Five

The night was
warm and
pleasant.
Carter
left the windows and screen door
of the cabin
open to let the breeze blow through.
He
was sound asleep when something woke
him
.

His
mind tried to
figure out
what
it was
. Then
he
didn
'
t have to think about it.
A
hammer being cocked
makes a distinctive sound
. The feel of cold metal against
his
head was just icing on the cake.

"
Do as I say or die. Wake her.
"

"
Who...
"
The barrel pressed harder into
his
skull.

"
Wake her.
"

"
Selena,
"
he
said.
"
Selena, wake up.
"
He
shook her by the shoulder.
He
felt her breath quicken, but she kept her eyes closed. She was awake.

"
Selena, wake up. Someone
'
s here.
"

She mumbled and rolled away.

"
She is awake. If she does not open her eyes, you die. I will count three. One. Two.
"

Selena opened her eyes. The gun moved away and the figure stepped back from the bed. He was silhouetted against the window, his head skull-like
, an
angel of death.

"
Who are you? What do you want?
"

"
You, Mister
Carter
. I want you. And that whore you are sleeping with. The esteemed Miss Connor.
"

"
You haven
'
t told us who you are.
"

"
You don
'
t recognize me? We have met before, so to speak. I knew your uncle, Miss Connor. He was not very strong, was he? He would have saved us all a lot of trouble if he had lived longer.
"

"
Wu!
"

"
That is correct, Mister
Carter
. Former Colonel Wu. Senior Colonel, as a matter of fact. Things were going well until you interfered.
"

"
How did you get here? I thought we were done with you in
Tibet
.
"

"
Yes, that was difficult.
I was unconscious for
a long time
.
Once my patron
'
s plans were discovered, I found it necessary to leave the country. But enough. Get up. Both of you.
"
 

He gestured with the gun.

They got out of bed, naked
.
Carter
wished he had his pants
on
. He pushed the thought aside. C
l
othes
wouldn't
make a damn bit of difference to a bullet
. N
aked or clothed, it
was all
the same
.
He
knew
they
didn
'
t have much time.

"
I was going to be a powerful man in the new China
,
"
Wu said.
"
You destroyed that
.
You must pay. There is nothing left for me in
China
. If I am to be destroyed, you must be also.
"

"
What do you intend to do?
"
Wu's face was burned along one side, the wound still raw and ugly.
From the corner of
his
eye
Carter
saw Selena
'
s muscles tense
,
ready for whatever was
about
to happen.

"
Do? I
'
m going to kill you. Then I am going to enjoy the charms of Miss Connor. Get on your knees. Now.
"

Not a good idea.
Wu
was a little out of reach, but it was now or never.
Carter watched
the gun
.
Then
he
heard the cat through the open screen door.

"
UUURRRRPPP
!
"

Wu glanced toward that human sound and
Nick
launched
for him.
Se
lena leap
t
over the bed.
He
crashed into Wu and felt the hot burn of the gun going off by
his
face.
He
drove Wu back into the wall.

Wu
was quick and he was strong. He twisted and got
his arm around Nick's
throat
. He
brought the gun up a
nd t
hen he screamed. Selena had a nerve lock on him.

Wu let go and drove his elbow into Selena
'
s stomach. She went down gasping.
Nick
chopped at his wrist. The gun fired into the floor and went flying. Wu brought his hand down hard
and
Nick's
left arm went numb.
Wu
deflected
a kick to the groin
and tried
for a kidney strike
but
Nick
slipped past and slammed the palm of
his
right hand up under
Wu's
nose
and drove
the cartilage into his brain.
Wu
went down hard on his back,
blood pouring from the front of his face. His feet drummed on the floor.

Nick
went to Selena, down on one knee, sucking in air.

"
You all right?
"

"
Yes.
"

He
checked
the body
for life signs. When
he
was sure
Wu
was dead,
he
went to Selena and held her naked body against
his
.

Then
he
called the Director.

Chapter Fifty-Six

Harker had a cleanup team at the cabin before dawn. They took
the
body. The
re was a
long, splintered gouge in the floor
from Wu's bullet
.

Carter
poured a double Irish into
his
coffee and went out on the deck. The sun was
creeping
over the ridge in back of the cabin. Rivers of light streamed
like white fire
through the branches of the trees
. S
moke-like wisps of moisture
rose
from the ground. The smell of pine needles and damp earth
mixed
with the
steaming
aroma of
the
coffee and whiskey.

Selena came out and sat down beside
him
, holding a cup. The air was cool and fresh
.
Nick
sipped
his
coffee.
Selena brushed a wisp of hair away from her forehead with her left hand and drank from her cup.

"
This is a beautiful spot. It
'
s so quiet.
"
He
sensed
something behind her words.
He
waited.

"
You know, I
'
ve studied martial arts for years, but I never thought I
'
d have to use them.
"

"
The way you came over that bed after Wu, I thought you were flying.
If you hadn't put that hold on him...
"

He waited.

"
I don
'
t know who I am anymore
," she said. "
I mean, I do, but it
'
s different. I keep thinking about
Tibet
and shooting that soldier.
I killed people.
I keep thinking I should be upset or guilty or something. But I don
'
t feel guilty. I don
'
t feel bad about Wu. I don
'
t feel I did the wrong thing in
Tibet
. How can that be?
"

A big question, with no clear answer.

"
How did you feel in
Tibet
, in the middle of that firefight?
"

"
Frightened. Alive.
"

"
More alive than ever before, right? You feel confused about that?
"

She looked at
him
.
"
Yes.
"
She paused.
"
No.
"

"
What would have happened if you hadn
'
t
shot that soldier, pulled the trigger
?
"

"
Y
ou
'
d be dead. Maybe I would be, too. Maybe Ronnie.
"

"Right.
You made the only right choice. You didn
'
t do it because you wanted to go out and kill someone. You did it because you had to. When you tell me you don
'
t feel guilty, I
'
d say that
'
s a damn good adjustment. When you say you
'
re worried about
why
you don
'
t feel guilty, it tells me you
'
re a good person.
"

"
You sound like you have it all figured out.
"

He
laughed.
"
Sure, that
'
s why they pay me the big bucks. I
'
ve got it all figured out.
E
njoy the lack of guilt while you
'
ve got it and hope it stays that way.
"

"The whole thing didn't change much, did it?"

"What do you mean?"

"We didn't stop Yang. All those people are dead, and what we did didn't make a damn bit of difference."

"It wasn't our job to stop him. Our job was to find out what he wanted in that book. We did that. In the long run, maybe it makes a difference, maybe not. It's a crap shoot, what we do for Harker."

He
blew on the coffee.
"
What do you think about what she said? About making it official? Y
ou could always just go back to giving lectures.
"
 

"
You don
'
t think that we—I mean us
...t
hat it might get in the way?
"

"
It won
'
t if we don
'
t let it.
"

"
I
'
m
think
ing
about it.
"

"
Good enough.
"

After a moment she said,
"
I never thought I
'
d
hook up with someone like you
.
"

"
Someone like me
?
"

"
A
man
who wasn
'
t intimidated by me or afraid I knew more than
he
did or who could put up with my bitchiness.
"

"
You
're
bitchy?
I hadn
'
t noticed.
"

She gave him a look that said smartass. "
I thought I
'
d
find
some nice, stable
guy, some professional type.
Then I meet you
. S
omeone who blows things up for a living and wouldn
'
t know stability from an eggplant. What are the odds on that?
"

"W
e don
'
t need to worry about odds.
"

"
That
'
s easy for you to say. What were the odds we
'
d get out of that mine, or out of
Tibet
once the Chinese showed up?
"

"
I don't believe in odds.
If it looks like things are
stacked against you, you roll
the dice and tell yourself you can do it.
"

Looking over at Selena,
he
wondered where
it
would end up. For now,
he
was willing to let it be what it was
. A roll of the dice. A
beginning.