Drake spoke first. “You two have to tell me. Who killed Wells, and why. That’s why we’re here, so there’s no point pussyfooting around anymore.”
“It’s not the only reason we’re here.” Alicia eyed Mai with venom. “The sprite here helped kill Hudson by keeping quiet about her little sister. It’s time to get me and my man a little old-fashioned vengeance.”
Mai shook her head slowly. “That’s not true. Your fat, idiot boyf—”
“In the spirit of Wells, then.” Alicia hissed. “I want me some Mai-time!”
Alicia stepped forward and punched Mai hard in the face. The small Japanese woman staggered, then looked up and smiled.
“You remembered.”
“That you told me the next time I punched you I should hit you like a man? Yeah, you don’t tend to forget something like that.”
Alicia unleashed a flurry of blows. Mai retreated, catching each one on her wrists. The sand around them churned, swept into errant patterns by their quick-moving feet. Drake tried to intercede once, but a blow to the right ear made him think twice.
“Just don’t friggin’ kill each other.”
“Can’t promise anything,” Alicia muttered. She dropped and swept Mai’s right leg. Mai landed with a grunt, head cushioned by the sand. When Alicia advanced, Mai threw a handful of sand in her face.
“Bitch.”
“All’s fair—” Mai lunged. The two women came face-to-face. Alicia was used to close combat and hit hard with elbows, fists and palms but Mai caught or dodged every one and returned the blows in kind. Alicia caught hold of Mai’s belt and tried to pull her off balance, but all that she achieved was to partially rip open the top of Mai’s trousers.
And leave Alicia’s defenses wide-open.
Drake blinked at the developments. “Now that’s more like it.” He stepped back. “Continue.”
Mai took full advantage of Alicia’s mistake and, against a warrior of Mai’s class, there would only be the one. Blows rained down on Alicia and she staggered back, her right arm hanging limp with agony and her sternum burning under multiple strikes. Most warriors would have folded after two or three, but Alicia was made of sterner stuff, and even at the end, she almost rallied.
She threw herself back through the air, kicked out, and stunned Mai with a two-footed blow to the stomach. Alicia landed on her back in the sand, and body-flipped herself straight up.
Only to meet a face plant of the hardest order. The stomach kick would have taken out the Hulk, but it hadn’t even phased Mai. Her muscles had absorbed the blow with ease.
Alicia went down, lights almost out. Stars swam before her eyes, and not the ones that twinkled in the night sky. She groaned. “Lucky fucking shot.”
But Mai had already turned to Drake.
“I killed Wells, Drake. I did.”
“I realized that earlier,” he said. “You must have had your reason. What was it?”
“You wouldn’t have said that if I’d killed the old bastard.” Alicia groaned from below them. “You’d have called me a psycho-bitch.”
Drake ignored her. Mai shook sand from her hair. After a minute, she took a deep breath and stared him deep in the eyes.
“What is it?”
“Two reasons. The first and simplest — he found out about Chika being kidnapped and threatened to tell you.”
“But we could have talked about—”
“I know. That’s only a small part.”
Only a small part, he thought. The kidnapping of Mai’s sister was a small part?
Now Alicia struggled to her feet. She too faced Drake, uncharacteristic fear in her eyes.
“I know,” Mai began, then indicated Alicia too. “We know something far worse. Something terrible—”
“Christ, if you don’t spit it out, I’m going to shoot you both in the bloody head.”
“First, you must know Wells would never have told you the truth. He was SAS. He was an officer. And he worked for a tiny organization so far up the food chain it governs the Government.”
“The truth? About what?” Drake’s blood had suddenly run cold.
“That your wife — Alyson — was murdered.”
His mouth worked but no sound emerged.
“You got too close to someone. They needed you out of that regiment. And her death made you quit.”
“But I was going to leave. I was going to leave the SAS for her!”
“Nobody knew that,” Mai said softly. “Not even she knew that.”
Drake blinked a sudden wetness from the corner of his eyes. “She was having our baby.”
Mai stared, ashen-faced. Alicia turned away.
“I never told anyone before,” he said. “Never.”
The Hawaiian night groaned around them, the heavy surf whispering the long-forgotten songs of the ancients, the stars and the moon gazing down as impassively as they had always done, keeping secrets and listening to the promises a man might often make.
“And there’s something else,” Mai said into the dark. “I spent a lot of time with Wells when we were running around Miami. Whilst we were in that hotel, you know, the one that got shot to bits, I heard him talk on the phone at least half a dozen times to a man—”
“What man?” Drake said quickly.
“The man’s name was Cayman. Russell Cayman.”