Perhaps they were right when they said that you always stayed just a little bit in love with the first one to touch your heart. Maybe that explained the tug she’d felt when she’d set eyes on Makara Harconan….
Amanda snorted again, at herself. Fantasies were all well and good for a fourteen-year-old, but she was a grown woman living in the all-too-real world. The buccaneers of legend and the pirates of reality were two very different breeds. Even her beloved count had in actuality been a naval officer of a proper and chivalrous age, and not a true sea marauder.
Glancing down at the worn volume in her lap, Amanda noticed a bookmark she didn’t recognize. Admiral MacIntyre must have started reading about the count when he’d occupied her quarters. For some reason that pleased her, rather like the thought of two old friends hitting it off.
In the real world, a man like Elliot MacIntyre would be a far more sensible and worthy subject for a romantic fantasy: a solid and honorable man of proven courage, intelligence, and humanity. But what would a fourteen-year-old girl know?
The corner of Amanda’s mouth quirked up. Or, for that matter, a thirty-eight-year-old woman?
Someone knocked on the outer cabin door. Amanda tossed the book onto the bunk and stood up. Taking her shoulder bag and Sea Fighter beret from their respective hooks, she stepped out into the office space.
“Come in.”
Christine entered the office, a file folder of hard copy tucked under one arm. “Hi, Boss Ma’am. I have the latest situation reports assembled. I’ll be going over them with Admiral MacIntyre while you’re off ship.”
“Good. Anything I need to know before I take off?”
The intel hesitated and then shook her head. “Nothing that can’t wait.”
“Leave them on my desk, then. I’ll play catch up… probably tomorrow morning, it looks like now. Any change in the situation with the microforce?”
“Negative.” The intel set the file on the desktop and sank into one of the office chairs. “They’re in the pre-mission hide. They’re secure, and no situational changes are reported in the zone of interest. They’ll start moving at 2300 and should be launching the op by 0100 as per the mission profile.”
“I’ll be back well before then,” Amanda mused, “although it might be interesting to be on Palau Piri when we start putting some moves on one of our pirate king’s bases.”
The small khaki-clad figure in the office chair strangled something down under her breath, and Amanda noted the intel’s exceptionally broody expression.
“All right, Chris,” she said, parking her hip against the edge of the desk. “What’s going on?”
“Request permission to speak freely to the Captain?”
Amanda sighed. She was in for it now. Military formality was dangerous, coming from Christine Rendino. “You’ve always had it, Chris. You know that.”
Christine looked up, eyes glinting angrily. “Then may I remind the Captain that she is merely a line officer in the United States Navy, not frickin’ Modesty Blaise!”
Amanda chuckled softly. “By that, I gather you still disapprove of my excursion to Harconan’s island?”
“That’s right, I do.” Christine aimed an emphatic finger at Amanda. “You are going to be walking into the heart of the goddamn enemy camp alone. There’s not going to be a soul around who can help you or even witness what might happen to you.”
“Very true,” Amanda acknowledged. “But I thought we agreed last night that the probability of Harconan taking any overt action against me was small. It would be too obvious. The death or disappearance of a senior American military officer on his home ground is just the kind of thing he’d want to avoid, especially now.”
Chris lowered her eyes, her lower lip protruding stubbornly. “We might be wrong. It could be made to look like an accident. Maybe his buy-offs extend deeper into the local governments than we know. Maybe… anything. This guy has got to know you’re after him, Boss Ma’am.”
“The Navy is after him, Chris,” Amanda replied quietly. “And I’m a very small and readily replaceable part of that organization. At the moment I’m unique in only one way: I’m the one he’s invited into his home. It’s our chance to get a closer look at how he thinks and operates. It’s my best chance to get inside his head. I need to learn how to read him. That’s going to be important.”
“Well, maybe,” Christine conceded grudgingly. “But maybe some of us feel you aren’t all that replaceable. Maybe some of us, in fact, figure you’re pretty damn unique in a lot of ways, and if anything happened to you, we’d be pretty damn unhappy.”
Amanda tilted her head back and laughed. “I’d miss you, too, Chris. I promise nothing fancy. I’ll just go in, sip tea with the taipan, and then I’m out of there…. But now that I think about it, would there be any kind of bug or hidden microphone or something I could smuggle in there with me…?”
Christine collapsed forward melodramatically, catching her face in her hands. “Aaaaaagh! She watches an old James Bond flick on Site TV and she thinks she’s a superspy.”
“Just kidding, Mother! Just kidding!”
Christine looked up again. “I’m not. If you insist, try this soft probe, okay! Probably — I say again, probably — Harconan will be willing to maintain this polite fiction you two have going for a while longer. He’s probably still as curious about your intentions as you are about his, and he’s likely going to try and pump you just as hard as you are him. Act dumb, but don’t be stupid! They are going to be waiting for you to try something. Disappoint them! Please!”
Her friend’s open distress brought Amanda back from her moment of levity. “I understand, Chris. I’ll be on a knife edge. I know it. I’ll watch myself.”
The desk phone buzzed and Amanda leaned across to scoop the hand set out of its cradle. “Garrett here…. All right. I’ll be right up. Thank you.”
She hung up the phone. “That was our AIRBOSS. It appears my ride is here.”
Permitting a foreign civil aircraft to land on a U.S. naval vessel was strictly non-SOP. Accordingly, the Harconan Limited helicopter flared out and touched down in a corner of the quay parking lot, apparently unconcerned with the views of the harbormaster on the subject.
The quayside had been a busy place before the arrival of the sleek, dark-blue Eurocopter. A double row of buses was parked, both discharging and taking aboard passengers.
The discharging buses carried Balinese civilians, curious townspeople from the capital of Denpasar and the other surrounding communities, taking advantage of the “open house” program being offered aboard the American warships. Ushered aboard in small groups, friendly American sailors would then take each party on a brief tour of certain less critical areas of the cruiser and LPD, all part of the Navy’s “Ambassadors of Goodwill” program.
But being an Ambassador of Goodwill did not mean being a fool As each group climbed the pierced aluminum gangway to board each vessel, the more curious might have noted the soft purr of an electric fan under their feet. Chemical-sensitive bomb-sniffer units were at work, ready to flash a warning to ship’s security.
The second, shorter row of buses loaded sailors and Marines for land side tours and shopping expeditions. It would look strange if none of the task force personnel hit the beach while in Bali. All hands had been given very specific orders, however: Stay in groups. Stay in better-class public areas. No carousing, and all hands back aboard by nightfall.
Standing on the Carlson’s forecastle, waiting for the gangway to clear, Amanda and Christine watched as the copter’s pilot dismounted from the idling aircraft. Both instantly recognized the tall tanned figure in the safari suit and sunglasses. He recognized them as well, throwing a hand up in a casual wave.