Girl Takes Up Her Sword (21 page)

Danny nodded.

“And where’d all that money you gave them come from?”

“It wasn’t that much money.”

“It looked like a lot to me.”

Emily knew what he meant—it
would
be a lot of money to his family. The discrepancy between her world and the possibilities he had ever imagined for himself was stark, even apart from the dangers for which he was not prepared.

“It’s a long story. You sure you want to hear it?” she asked, hoping he would decline. When it became clear that he wouldn’t, she cast about for a place to start. “My dad, it’s kinda something he left for me.”

“Like an inheritance, you mean?”

“Not exactly, but sort of. Before I was born, he was one of those guys on the shady end of the military, you know, covert stuff, sometimes really nasty business. He was stationed in Southeast Asia, and was involved in suppressing drug lords in the Golden Triangle. They did raids and confiscated money, lots of money.”

“Your dad stole drug money?”

“No. Well, not exactly. The agency he worked for gave him a percentage of whatever they recovered.”

“How much did he leave you?”

“A lot,” Emily said in a quiet voice. “Several million, stashed in safety deposit boxes around West Virginia. Oh yeah, and three gold bars.”

“Holy crap, Em,” he blurted out, and then fell silent. She watched as he tried to digest her information. “It’s just… I don’t know who I’m supposed to be when I’m with you. It’s like you’re… you know….”

“It’s okay. I’m not sure who I am either. I just thought if you saw what I have to deal with it might bring us closer. You might understand me better. That’s why I wanted you with me in Seoul.” She paused to take a breath. “But whatever we had, whatever we found in each other, you know, it wasn’t based on experiences that intense.”

“It’s over, isn’t it?” he asked, finally turning to look at her. “
We’re
over, aren’t we?”

“What do you think?”

The wan smile that spread across his face told Emily everything she needed to know. She leaned over to kiss him one last time, and rubbed his cheek.

“You’re gonna have a bruise there.”

“That’s not the only place,” he said with a laugh.

“It was good of you to let those guys off easy.”

“I figured you’d say that.”

“C’mon. Let’s go find our friends, and pick out a cheerleader for you.”

She chucked him on the cheek as they walked around to the backyard. He blushed.

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Chapter
25

Caps and Gowns

“What time is it?” Emily asked for the third time, standing on the edge of the school parking lot.

“Ten sixteen,” Wendy replied. “Why’d you need to finagle so many tickets anyway?”

“They’re cutting it pretty close.”

“Who? Your family’s already up in the bleachers.”

“Just a few acquaintances, nosey.”

“These wouldn’t be Navy acquaintances, would they?” Wendy needled.

“Maybe… a few of ‘em,” Emily conceded.

The graduation ceremony would begin in a few minutes on the football field behind the school. Since the bleachers on either side of the fifty yard line were large enough to accommodate many more guests than were likely to attend, tickets were hardly necessary, but administrative habits die hard. Four rows of benches had been set up on the track the previous day for the hundred or so graduating seniors, as well as a broad riser with two steps on either end forming a platform for the Principal’s podium and several chairs. Nothing necessitates a riser, but the symbolism of having the procession of students step up to receive a diploma is hardly to be resisted.

“Is that them?” Wendy asked as a gray sedan pulled into the lot, but Emily was already on the move, one hand on her cap, gown flowing behind her in the breeze. Wendy couldn’t hear what Emily said to the five men in dress white uniforms who stepped from the car. But she could see Ensign Perry Hankinson, a revelation that brought a smile to her face.

“It’s all becoming clear to me,” Wendy said in a tone dripping with innuendo, once Emily returned. “This is who you were waiting for.”

Glowering ironically, Emily made some introductions. Wendy recognized almost all of them from her last visit to the Academy: Captains Jenkins and Crichton, Coach Parker and Perry, of course.

“And I don’t believe you’ve met Captain Jefferies,” Emily said. “He’s the deputy Commandant of the Academy.”

Wendy extended her hand as graciously as one could to a man in formal military attire if you happen to have orange, pink and blue streaks in your hair. But before she could say “Pleased to meet you,” another sound caught her attention—the low rumble of motorcycles.

Eyes wide, feet frozen to the pavement, Wendy watched in horror as a handful of bikers in full leathers circled the lot, finally pulling up a few yards away. She recognized a few of them, especially the women, from that awful night at the lake.

“Emily,” she croaked out. “It’s them.”

But Emily wasn’t standing next to her anymore. She was running over to the largest of them. Wendy grabbed Perry’s sleeve and shook it.

“Help her,” she croaked, fearing the worst. “Go!”

When she turned to look, something entirely unexpected met her eye. Emily had thrown her arms around the largest one, calling out his name: “Luther.”

“Princess,” he bellowed, scooping her up in his arms.

The other bikers crowded around, looming enormously over her, all crooning her name.
They were happy to see her.
Emily brought the largest one over, no doubt the leader, along with one of the women.

“This is my friend, Wendy,” she said. “And this is Luther, and Roxie.”

By this point, having temporarily lost all power of speech, Wendy was reduced to nodding in a friendly sort of way.

“And is this your new fancy man?” Luther asked, thumping Perry on the shoulder.

“Oh, hush up, Luther,” Roxie said. “You’re embarrassing her.”

He harrumphed, now himself embarrassed, and waffled for a moment, still clutching Perry’s hand.

“Well… whoever you are, you take good care of our princess here.”

Wendy leaned over to whisper in Emily’s ear: “What on earth is going on?”

But Emily shushed her with a smile, intent on observing the interaction between Luther and the senior officers after another round of introductions.

“I’ll fill you in later.”

The other bikers betrayed some little impatience, and Roxie gestured at them to wait.

“I think we need to go in, Em,” Wendy said, nervously. “It’s getting late.”

“The boys have a present for you,” Roxie said. “I hope there’ll be time after.”

“A present,” Emily gushed. “You guys didn’t have to do that.”

“Aw, it weren’t nothing’, Miss Emily,” one of them said, blushing. “Just something we cooked up on our own.”

“Oh, no… I don’t think I have enough tickets,” Emily said, suddenly flustered. “I was only expecting Luther and Roxie.”

“Don’t you worry about tickets,” Roxie said. “These fellas ain’t gonna stand on ceremony. Soon as they heard about your graduation, there was no stopping ‘em.”

“Yeah, we don’t need no stinkin’ tickets,” another biker piped up, apparently quoting from his favorite movie. “No one’s keeping us out on a technicality.”

“Wait,” Wendy whispered. “You knew they were coming?”

“Of course I did, silly,” Emily replied. “Who do you think invited them?”

~~~~~~~

Like a patch of snow in a flowering bed, incongruous against the spring colors worn by the women sitting nearby, a handful of naval officers sat in a clump near the middle of the bleachers. Theo waved the contingent Emily just greeted in the parking lot over to the seats he was holding for them. They fit in perfectly with Andie’s family. Even Connie had seen fit to dig out dress whites from the depths of her closet, though Ethan insisted the two of them sit a short, tactical distance away.

Theo couldn’t help noticing the chromatic counterweight formed by Luther and the rest of the bikers, a puddle of black leather at the far side of the crowd, each one freshly combed and brushed, straining to seem as little threatening as possible, no doubt for Emily’s sake. “And how, exactly, did she manage to win them over,” he couldn’t help wondering.

One row down, sitting on either side of Li Li and Stone, his sister Andie and Yuki, struggled to keep the little ones occupied while gushing over Emily’s dress. They’d spent an afternoon earlier in the week dragging her to every boutique they could find in Georgetown.

“I still think the red Vera Wang looked better on her,” he heard Andie say.

“You know me, I like floral prints,” Yuki said.

“Anything looks good when you have legs like that, I suppose.”

“She is quite the clothes horse,” Yuki snorted.

The Principal tapped on the microphone to get everyone’s attention. Students shifted nervously in their seats as Mrs. Fredericks offered some congratulatory remarks. With each name called, a student marched across to shake her hand and receive a diploma.

“How is it she has a name in the Ts if both her parents have names in the Ks?” Theo leaned forward impatiently to ask Andie and Yuki.

“It’s a long story,” Yuki whispered while Andie shushed him.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the Principal called out Michiko Tenno, and a roar erupted from the crowd. Oddly enough, the loudest cheer came not from the family, or the Navy contingent, or even from the bikers, but from the student benches. Emily marched across to the podium, received her diploma and waved to the crowd before taking up a position at the back of the riser. The next student, a very pretty girl named Amanda Terwilliger, also provoked a cheer, though much less percussive, and Theo noticed something forced in the smile she wore. “There’s a green monster hiding behind those eyes,” he thought. “And maybe something even worse.”

His attention wandered as the Principal worked her way through the rest of the alphabet. Two more students took up positions next to Emily, Steve Wilcox and Teddy Wilchuk. These were the co-valedictorians who would speak at the end. Theo found himself watching a little game of peekaboo in the row in front of him. Andie and Yuki had no more attention left for the little ones, now that Emily’s moment had almost arrived.

Stone had an almost magical effect on Li Li’s mood. When he hid himself under his seat, she was on the verge of tears. And when he popped back out, she was all smiles again. An obscure, unsettling feeling tried to claim Theo’s attention, but somehow the game captivated him.

One last time, Stone slipped under the seat, then peeked out at Li Li. He pressed his finger to his lips and she nodded. A couple of precarious moves later and he dropped down below the bleachers. Li Li turned to Theo and made the same gesture, a finger pressed to the lips. “Boys will be boys,” he thought, imagining the joy and mischief Stone could find down there.

He leaned over and glanced backward just in time to see the boy scramble up the hill towards the woods behind the bleachers. He was about to get up to go corral him when Stone turned to look directly at him, a dark, foreboding expression on his face. It took a second to register—an instant later, the full force of the feelings in the back of his mind snapped into focus:
something was very wrong here
. And the boy knew what he knew.

As if yanked around magnetically, Theo turned his head to find Connie staring back at him. A subtle hand signal told him to circle back to the right and into the woods. Ethan handed her a pistol from under his coat and she rushed off to the left.

“Time to go, Snowflake,” Theo whispered to the Midshipman sitting next to him. “Let’s go protect your girl.” He cut through the look of incomprehension on Hankinson’s face with a gruff command: “Follow me, sailor!” and charged out of the bleachers, the young man following close behind. Ethan met them on the track and handed Theo a pistol on the run, his second backup gun.

“Luther,” Ethan called out as they ran past. “Keep your eyes open.”

The athletic field had been carved out of the wooded hills, which formed a natural amphitheater curling around the back of the bleachers. A low saddleback-shaped hill directly behind bristled with younger trees, offering late afternoon shade. Further back, a dip in the terrain formed a broad dale, which in turn gave way to a steeper incline populated by older, deciduous trees forming a spacious canopy over the dale.

“Keep close,” Theo growled. “We’re not exactly wearing camo.”

After an exchange of hand signals, Ethan split off toward the far end of the field where the slope flattened out by the parking lot.

“What are we looking for?” Perry asked as soon as they broke the tree line.

“Don’t know yet. I just have a feeling. Keep your eyes open for a little kid, not more than five or six. He may be back here, too.”

“A kid? Back here? Whose is he?”

“Hers,” Theo whispered.

“Hers?” Perry asked.

“Don’t worry about that now. Stay alert.”

A shot rang out on the right, from higher ground. The sound of the muzzle told Theo it was a rifle.

“Shit, what was that?” Perry asked with a start.

“Sniper. Eighty yards. Up there, in that clump of trees.”

Theo turned to make sure his young assistant was on the same page. But he’d turned completely around to look down at the field. Theo yanked him behind a large rock for cover, and then he saw it, too, through a gap in the foliage—a commotion on the field, behind the podium, a pile of bodies scrambling for cover. He couldn’t see if anyone was hit. The principal had fallen backwards off the riser and lay on the grass. The students huddled in a clump, and there was no sign of Emily.

“We’re not doing her any good just standing here,” Theo whispered. “I’ll circle to the right by that pine to flush him out. Get to cover behind that log and watch for the boy. Don’t take unnecessary chances.”

A quick zigzag sprint diagonally across the hillside brought him within twenty paces of where he originally thought the shot came from. With his back pressed against a tree, he caught a glimpse of Emily, sprinting barefoot across the field. “She’s got a lot of nerve,” he thought. Of course, he knew exactly what she was doing—if she was the target, she’d protect her friends by moving away. The surprise was that she ran directly toward where she must have thought the shot came from.

Long legs fully extended as she ran, dress hiked up around her thighs, arms pumping, Theo couldn’t help admiring her legs, her arms, her entire physique. So slender, yet still strong. He could see the results of her training regimen in the way she moved. A second later she disappeared into the trees.

Theo slipped as quietly as he could into the clump of trees where he figured the sniper had been, swinging his gun around, hoping Emily’s run had caused a distraction. Too late. He’d already moved on, but where? Rustling further up the steeper slope revealed a shadowy figure partially obscured by branches. Theo circled around for a clear shot. Movement on his right—was it a second sniper? A flash of white told him it was Connie. She must have seen the same thing he had. If their quarry made it over the ridge, they might lose him.

Without warning, a rock struck the shadowy figure in the back. It came from somewhere off to the left. But who threw it? There’d been no sound, and Perry’s dress whites would have given him away before he could get that close. When the sniper turned, Theo sized up the tactical gear he was wearing in an instant. “Body armor: a shot to the chest won’t put him down.”

Theo aimed low to disable him. The impact collapsed his knee underneath him, spinning the man around. They made eye contact in the same moment Connie put two rounds through the side of his head. Theo watched an all-too-familiar scene as the man’s spirit vacated his eyes and his body fell lifeless to the ground. Connie ran forward to confirm what Theo already knew. Just then, he caught a glimpse of the little boy running along the ridge to the right, circling behind Connie, probably looking for Emily.