Chapter 28

Kiana sat in Beckman’s office, directly across from Beckman herself, and Christine sat to her side.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Beckman said. “Especially you, Kiana. I know it must be difficult to get out of class easily.”

Actually, it hadn’t been difficult at all. Kiana had been in her history class when she had received Beckman’s text telling her to report to USIA’s headquarters immediately and she had simply raised her hand, told her teacher she felt ill, and asked to go to the nurse’s office. On the way to the nurse’s office, she had made a slight ‘detour’ through the school’s parking lot and off she went.

“Anyway,” Beckman said. “I have an assignment I’m sending the two of you on. It’s of utmost importance so I need you to depart immediately.”

“Is my dad coming?” Kiana asked.

“Unfortunately, I sent your dad on an assignment this morning to Dallas and he won’t be back until this evening. We don’t have time to wait for his return so the two of you are going to have to handle this one on your own.”

Kiana nodded but she wasn’t happy about it, not at all. She had assumed the majority of her initial missions, if not all of them, would involve Michael, and that made her comfortable since she was so familiar with him. She wasn’t certain she would be as comfortable working with another agent, especially Christine.

Regardless, she had no choice. Beckman was in charge and Kiana wanted to impress her so she was going to do whatever she asked even if that meant going on a mission with an agent she didn’t really like.

Beckman handed them a photo. It was of a man in his early thirties with short, dark hair, brown eyes, thin lips, narrow cheeks, and a small scar right on the tip of his chin.

“This is Reginald Johnson. The two of you probably don’t know him since you’re new here, but he’s one of our top field agents. I’ve had him working on an assignment for a while now, a smuggling operation, and he recently made a breakthrough that led him to Chiang Mai.”

“Chiang Mai?” Kiana asked. She had never heard of Chiang Mai before.

“It’s a city in Thailand about three hundred miles north of Bangkok. Anyway, Johnson was working with a USIA contact in Chiang Mai, a man named Lewis Armstrong, and their most recent report said they had identified a man who they believed was the smuggling operation’s ring leader. Unfortunately, however, Johnson has now disappeared. I have reason to think his cover was blown and he was captured.”

“What kind of smuggling was involved?” Christine asked.

“Drugs.”

“I thought most drugs come from Mexico,” Kiana said, “or South America? Not Asia.”

Beckman smiled. “Nowadays, drugs come from everywhere.”

“What do you want us to do?” Christine asked.

“I want you to take the next flight to Chiang Mai and rendezvous with Armstrong. I spoke with him this morning and he thinks he may know where the smugglers are holding Johnson. I want the two of you to locate and recover him as soon as possible.”

“What about Armstrong?” Christine asked. “If he’s already there, in Thailand, why can’t he recover Johnson himeslf?”

“Armstrong is an informant, and a good one, but he’s not an agent. He doesn’t have the skills or the training necessary to carry out a rescue op himself. On top of that, I’m not exactly certain what we’re dealing with here. From Johnson’s reports, it sounded like the smuggling operation was a pretty small one but I don’t know for certain and I don’t want to take any chances.”

Kiana and Christine nodded.

“Christine,” Beckman continued. “Since you’re the senior agent on this assignment you’ll be in charge. Kiana, you will provide backup and whatever assistance Christine needs. At this point, your main objective is to find and recover Johnson. I’m not concerned with the smuggling operation, and we will deal with it later, as and when we deem appropriate. For now, focus solely on recovering Johnson. At the same time, however, since Kiana has little experience in the field, I want you to proceed with caution. Christine, if you sense there is no way for the two of you to recover Johnson without facing unnecessary risk, contact me for further instructions. Understood?”

Christine nodded.

“Off you go,” Beckman said. “Once you arrive in Thailand, I want a report on your progress every two hours. If you miss a report I will send additional agents.” She looked at Kiana. “Including your father.”

They were driven quickly back to their homes, to grab a few items for the trip (clothing, toiletries, etc.), then taken to Sea-Tac airport, which was about thirty minutes from the USIA’s headquarters in Bellevue. Less than an hour after that, they were onboard a flight to Chiang Mai. It was a thirteen hour flight with a stop in Taipei, Taiwan. For the first four hours, Kiana kept primarily to herself and listened to music on her iPhone, and for an hour after that she played video games and watched some videos. But finally she got bored and decided she wanted to talk to someone.

“What are you reading?”

Christine sat next to her, silently reading an ebook on her iPad.

“The Hunger Games.”

Kiana’s eyes got big. “I love The Hunger Games. I read it a while back. I really like the part at the end where they threaten to eat the poisonous berries. I never saw that -”

She realized her mistake the second she said it. She had given away the book’s ending. Or at least a portion of it.

“Sorry.”

Christine laughed. “It’s no big deal. I’ve already read the entire series twice. But I like it so much I keep reading it over and over and I never get tired of it.”

“Me, neither. What did you like better, the books or the movies?”

“Definitely the books.”

“Me, too. They’re much more intense.”

For a brief second Kiana was a bit surprised, and a little pleased. She didn’t know why, but for some inexplicable reason she hadn’t expected she and Christine to have anything in common.

“Your dad told me you like Twilight,” Christine said. “And Harry Potter. Is that true?”

Kiana nodded. “Yeah. How about you?”

“I love Twilight. But I’m not much into Harry Potter. Ron is kinda cute, however.”

They sat there for a couple of minutes, silent. For some strange reason, which was probably just pure boredom, Kiana actually wanted to continue the conversation but at first she didn’t know what to say. But then she recalled something Christine had said a few minutes prior. Her comment, “Your dad told me . . .”

“Does my dad talk about me much?”

Christine chuckled. “All the time. You’re his pride and joy. He talks about you so much I felt like I knew you even before I had actually met you.”

Kiana was perplexed. “What does he talk about?”

“Everything. And like all dads, he likes to brag.”

“About what?”

“How you’re doing in school, how you’re doing with your taekwondo, and softball of course. He loves softball.”

“What’d he say?”

“A lot. I know your whole career. Originally, like most girls you played Little League but you did so well during your first year he switched you to a select team called the Ladybugs. The Ladybugs weren’t very good, but when the other teams saw how well you were doing they all started recruiting you. He said some of them would even wait for you in the parking lot after games just so they could try to talk to you and get you to switch teams. After the Ladybugs, you switched to a team called the Express and you played for them for a year, then you went to the Lady Sharks. On the Lady Sharks you hit your first out-of-the-park home run, which is amazing since thirteen-year-old girls never hit out-of-the-park home runs. At least according to your dad.”

At that point Kiana couldn’t help but add a little to the story. “My dad still has the ball. He paid two little boys to climb the outfield fence and get it for him.”

“I’ve seen it. It was one of the first things he showed me when I came to your house for the first time.”

“What about you? Do you like softball?”

Christine nodded. “When I was your age I played for the Sparks for three years. I wasn’t an All-Star like you but I had a good time anyway.”

Kiana nodded. She knew the Sparks, since she had played against them several times over the years. They were a team from Laguna Beach and they were usually pretty good.

“What else does my dad talk about when you’re together?”

“He always goes on and on about your trips. He loves taking you places and showing you new things. I still can’t believe he had you rock climbing at six. That’s crazy.”

“That’s nothing. I had my first SCUBA lesson when I was five. And I went skydiving when I was six.”

Christine nodded. “There was one trip he told me about where I got a good laugh. It was a couple of years back when the two of you went to Aspen. He was really perplexed because he said you beat him during a downhill race and apparently you beat him pretty easily. He was convinced you cheated somehow but he couldn’t figure out how. I teased him and told him he was just getting old. As you can imagine he didn’t like that too much.”

They both laughed. Kiana thought it was especially funny since in reality he had been right, she had cheated.

“He talks about you all the time,” Christine continued. “When we were on planes heading on assignments, during breaks at headquarters, and sometimes even when we were on dates. I hate to admit it but it actually made me a little jealous at times, especially at first. But I got used to it. And ultimately it’s a good thing. After all, a dad should be proud of his daughter, right?”

Kiana nodded.

“But I will admit,” Christine continued, “there was one time when I wasn’t too happy with him. He told me a story about a boy you were seeing named Steven.”

Kiana’s heart stopped. “Oh my god. You know about Steven?”

“He told me all about it. And at first he was pretty proud of himself. But don’t worry. I tore him a new one for you. His behavior was completely unacceptable.”

The incident Christine was referring to had happened several years before when Kiana had been in the seventh grade. She had met a cute boy at school named Steven Harrington and they had started seeing one another. For some reason, however (it probably had something to do with the fact Steven had a tattoo even though he was only in the seventh grade), Michael didn’t like him at all. Eventually, one day when Steven was over at their house, Michael got annoyed at him (even more than usual) and said, “Boy, I’ve got a bullet with your name on it.” It freaked Steven out so badly he immediately left and from that point forward he wasn’t even comfortable being in the same room as Kiana. Kiana had been so mad she hadn’t spoken to Michael for a week, and when she finally did she made him apologize and buy her a really expensive sweater as compensation for the ‘pain and suffering’ he had inflicted on her.

“He was totally out of line,” Kiana said.

“No doubt about it,” Christine said. “But he’s never done anything like that again, right?”

Kiana shook her head. “He’s always a beast around boys, but no, there haven’t been any incidents like that again. Thank goodness.”

“If there are you tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

Kiana sat there in silence for a few seconds, somewhat in shock, contemplating what Christine had just said. She didn’t want to admit it, and she still wanted to chase Christine off as fast as she could, but at the same time she did see some obvious advantages of keeping her around.

“Speaking of boys,” Christine said, “do you have your eye on any right now?”

Kiana was a little skeptical of saying anything for fear Christine would tell Michael, but at the same time she wasn’t overly worried since Christine seemed pretty straightforward and honest.

“There is this one boy. His name is Jacen and he’s really cute. He plays shortstop on Jackson’s baseball team.”

“I love baseball players. They have the cutest butts. Even better than football players.”

It was all Kiana could do to keep from laughing. She hadn’t expected Christine to say something like that at all. She had expected her to be formal and business-like. But she was actually quite funny. And she was right.

“Baseball players do have cute butts. Especially Jacen.”

“Why don’t you invite him over? I’ll make dinner. It’ll give your dad and me a good chance to meet him and get to know him.”

“I’d like to but I really like him and I don’t want my dad to scare him away. And Jacen is the quiet, gentle type, so I think he might frighten easily, especially around someone like my dad who can be pretty intimidating at times.”

“Don’t worry about your dad. I can handle him. I’ll keep him in line.”

“How?”

A mischievous smile formed on Christine’s lips. “I have my ways.”

Kiana didn’t really know what she meant by that but she didn’t really care. As long as she kept Michael in line that was good enough for her. She didn’t care if she bribed him, threatened him, or both. And the idea was definitely enticing. She would love to invite Jacen over. It would be a great way to get to know him better. And she was convinced Michael would like him if he would just give him a chance.

“Keep me posted,” Christine said. “I’ll make all the arrangements and you and Jacen will just need to show up. And I like cooking so you won’t be disappointed with my food. I guarantee it.”

From that point forward they continued talking, for several hours straight, mostly about trivial and unimportant things, but finally Christine said something that really caught Kiana’s attention.

“I knew your mom.”

“What? How?”

“We were partners on several assignments, including one in Istanbul that went completely sideways. There was a gunfight and I would have been killed for sure but your mom came to my aid. She took out three hostiles by herself with no cover whatsoever. Don’t ask me how. From that point on, and for obvious reasons, we were really good friends. She was a remarkable woman. She was a lot like you, she was good at everything: hand-to-hand combat, skiing, swimming, climbing. And she spoke six different languages. That’s probably why you can learn languages so quickly. You probably got that trait from her, among other things. I was completely devastated when I learned of her death. But then again I guess we all were.”

They were silent for a minute.

“There was one thing, however,” Christine continued, “that was a bit of a sore spot between us.”

Now Kiana was really interested. “What?”

“Your dad.”

“My dad? What do you mean?”

“I’ve always had feelings for him. From the minute I met him. But then again, I bet that’s pretty common since he’s so good looking. I remember back in the day, before he married your mom, everyone was after him. And he was quite a playa. For a while he was seeing this agent in Tokyo named Asa Suzuki, then he started seeing a woman he met while on an assignment in Brazil (you know men, they love those Brazilian women), then he started seeing an agent from England named Holley Livingston. And there were probably a few more women I never knew about. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

Kiana was astonished. She had never pictured Michael as a playa. Granted, he was attractive (as her own friends had made so abundantly clear a while back at school), but still, over the years he had never seemed to have any interest in anyone other than her mother. Even after her death, there had been no dating at all, at least that she knew of.

“All of that changed as soon as he met your mother,” Christine said. “And it didn’t really surprise me. They were magic when they were together. Of course I was jealous since I wanted to be with him but I had to admit they were a perfect couple in every way. They had so much in common and such incredible chemistry. I knew they were going to get married the first time I saw them together. You should have seen the two of them do the tango. It was quite a sight. So I had no choice but to accept it, wish them the best, and move on with my life. I was a bridesmaid at their wedding and I was also present at your birth.”

“You were there when I was born?”

Christine nodded. “It was hilarious. You had to see your dad. He was completely different than normal. I’ve seen him in gunfights that went totally out of control but he always stayed calm and collected the whole time. But that day in the hospital, as your mother was in labor, he was a complete wreck. He was sweating profusely, and nervous, and absolutely paranoid something was going to wrong during the delivery. At one point I thought he was going to have a panic attack right there on the spot so I contemplated shooting him with a tranquilizer to calm him down a little. I didn’t, but trust me it would have done us all a big favor.”

Kiana smiled. “He’s always been pretty protective of me. I guess it began even before I was born.”

Christine nodded. “You can say that again.”

From there, they continued to talk, pretty much non-stop for the rest of the flight, and they didn’t stop until the pilot’s voice came over the PA system and announced he was making final preparations for their arrival in Chiang Mai. As the flight finally came to an end and they rounded up their carry-ons and departed the plane, Kiana had made a surprising decision. She still wasn’t too keen on the idea of sharing Michael with another woman, and it still made her a little uncomfortable to do so, but Christine seemed like a really nice person so Kiana was going to give her a chance.