Without A Trace

“Are you kidding? I have technology on my side. You’re still filling out forms in triplicate, aren’t you? On a Smith-Corona?”

“Screw you,” Nikki retorted good-naturedly.

“Why, look here, chica, I’ve got the goods.”

She grabbed a pen and pulled a legal pad close. “Hit me.”

“You’ve got two ships going out and one ship coming in that could have hit that waypoint around that time. The one coming in was an oil tanker out of Saudi.”

“Talk to me about the ones going out.”

“One’s Maersk-Sealand—their regular shipment. The other’s an outfit called ‘SHA.’ S. H. A.”

“What were they carrying?”

“You don’t ask much, do you?” Two-Finger Jimmy huffed but Nikki also heard the speedy clicking of the typing technique that had earned him his nickname.

“Maersk-Sealand was routing long-haul trucks to Australia.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“SHA was…” He trailed off, then grunted. “It’s hard to tell what these clowns were shipping. Uno momento.” His off-key whistling set in.

Not a good sign. It meant he was puzzled, and a puzzled Two-Finger Jimmy usually meant trouble.

“Textiles,” he said finally. “Handwoven.”

“Textiles?”

“Ye-a-ah.” He drew the word out nice and slow. “Big bolts of cloth.”

“I know what textiles are, James. Aren’t they going in the wrong direction?”

“Most textiles come in, but we do ship out occasionally. Problem is, this is about a half load.”

“Doesn’t sound very cost-effective.”

Jimmy grunted. “It’s not. SHA’s losing its ass on that container ship.”

“Nothing but big bolts of cloth?”

Keys clicked. “Nothing that shows on the electronic manifest. Hang on. Let me check the hard copy.” Papers fluttered. “Okay, a last-minute load. One container.”

“Contents?”

“Not listed.” Jimmy whistled. “Someone at SHA has been a ba-aa-ad boy. All container contents are s’posed to be logged and checked by customs twenty-four hours before loading. Looks like this one got loaded up after the rest of the ship’s containers were inspected.”

“Could that container have bypassed a customs inspection?”

“Only if money changed hands somewhere down the line.”

“Sounds like a snakehead’s involved,” she said.

“Human smuggling? Stowaways usually try to get in, not out.”

“True.” She thought for a moment. “What do you know about SHA?” she asked as she used Google to search the company name.

“They log about six, seven shipments a year. Small scratch. Manifest says they have offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Istanbul.”

“Where’s this boat headed?”

“Itinerary says Hong Kong. Should take about four weeks to get there.”

Four weeks from April 27 meant the container ship would be in port in less than a month, give or take the weather.

Then a thought occurred to her. “Were any civilian passengers logged for this trip?” Sometimes adventurers would book passage on a commercial shipper as an alternative to flying. The signal Oracle picked up might have originated from a passenger.

Jimmy rummaged on the keyboard for a moment, then said, “One guy. An Alexander Wryzynski.”

Nikki scribbled down the name as he spelled it for her. “Thanks for the trouble, Jimmy. I owe you.”

“Anything for you, chica, anytime.” He clicked off.

Nikki’s smile faded as the search engine came up with about twenty-eight thousand incomprehensible listings for SHA.

SHA, she discovered, was a database programming tool used to encrypt data, so the vast majority of the search links led to either propeller-head sites or to database companies. Including shipping, transport and China in the search term brought up more programming links, only in Chinese.

The manifest had listed the SHA company as based in Hong Kong, with offices in Singapore and Istanbul. She tried a search with those cities and shipping, and dropped SHA. Bingo. A plethora of shipping companies, none of which were SHA. What shipping company these days didn’t have a Web site?

So a little-known shipping company had sent a light load of handwoven textiles in the least likely direction for such goods to go, and taken on a single container of unknown contents that had bypassed U.S. Customs and Border Control.

It smelled as rotten as the shrimp she’d raked this morning.

Nikki blew out a breath. She had her mark. She fired off two words via e-mail to Delphi: Got it. Now she’d just wait to be contacted.

Delphi’s e-mail warning back in February had been followed up by a face-to-face visit from a former classmate, Dana Velasco. Dana had been two years ahead of Nikki and now test-piloted experimental planes for a major aircraft manufacturer. Oracle, Dana had told her, was an intelligence-digesting system run by someone known only as Delphi.

“I don’t know who Delphi is,” Dana had said over a crowd of lively teenagers as they walked down Calle Ocho in Little Havana, “but they’ve used Oracle to piece together puzzles intelligence agencies can’t manage on their own.”

“And Athena figures in how?”

Dana had only shrugged. “A lot of what gets pieced together has to do with the academy. And students like you.”

Students like you. Nikki sighed and kicked back in her office chair. Students like her, who’d been manipulated at the genetic level, unbeknownst to their parents.

Jaime and Teresita Bustillo hadn’t wanted much—just a girl. Seven sons had kept their upscale East Flagstaff construction business going, but they’d wanted one last chance at a daughter. That’s where the fertility clinic in Zuni, New Mexico, came in. The clinic, doctors assured her parents, could guarantee a girl.

They just hadn’t mentioned that the girl, conceived in vitro and implanted in her mother’s womb, would be born with a little something extra. That little secret would be kept until only a few months ago, when Delphi made her phone call and Nikki finally understood the details about where her “gift” had come from. Nikki, Delphi had made clear, wasn’t the only girl to have a special talent.

Another, Nikki knew immediately, was her best friend, Jessica Whittaker. Jess had been two years ahead of Nikki at the academy, but something had drawn them together. Maybe it was the fact they were both “egg babies,” even though they, at the time, had had no idea why they could do what they could. Maybe it was that Jess seemed like the older sister Nikki didn’t have. Whichever, as Nikki had grown up at Athena Academy, she’d found herself closer to Jess than even to her Hecate sisters.

Egg baby. Jess could breathe water and Nikki had a nose like a bloodhound. It was almost as if the scientists at Lab 33 had been splicing in the traits that humans longed for but didn’t have.

Which often made Nikki wonder if Catwoman really did exist out there. Or someone more brutal, more cunning, more…insane.

Her cell buzzed and Nikki caught it on the second tone. “Bustillo.”

“Girlfriend!”

“Dana!” Nikki replied, grinning. “¿Cómo estás, chica?”

“Hell, Nik,” Dana groaned. “My Spanish still sucks, okay?”

“You said you were going to practice.”

“Life’s short but the journey’s busy. Let’s eat.”

“Name the place.”

“That little club we didn’t get to check out last time I was there. In a half hour.”

Nikki hung up. The little club they’d missed was called Hoy Como Ayer, a few blocks away, and it deserved something much nicer than her gray sweat-pants and a ragged T-shirt. She dug through her closet until she came up with a red knit top and a short black skirt with a bit of flare to the hem.

Twenty minutes later Nikki sat in a corner table as far away from the little stage as she could get. A couple of youths unloaded gear from a lowered pickup truck outside; Thursday nights jammed with class acts from the finest musicians and singers working the circuit. According to Nikki’s watch, she had five minutes to wait for Dana and another hour before the night’s live music would start.

On the dot, Dana wound through the growing throng toward her table. Dressed in a flowing, flowery skirt and a solid black top, her dark hair loose on her shoulders, Dana looked striking—and totally unlike a turista.

“Hey, girl,” Nikki said as she rose to hug Dana.

“Have you heard from Jess?” Dana asked casually as she pulled out a chair.

“Not since a phone call before she left on vacation.” Nikki put a not-so-slight emphasis on vacation.

Dana’s impassive face said as much as Nikki had guessed already: Jess wasn’t on vacation, but doing something that was no doubt extremely dangerous. For the same Delphi that had contacted Nikki in February? Because she and Jess were both targeted for kidnapping because of their genetic mutations?

“Have you talked to Jess recently?” Nikki asked. As former classmates in the same year, Dana and Jess might have kept in contact more frequently than even Nikki and Jess, though Nikki doubted it. Her surrogate big sister always stayed in touch. Even when she had to be coy about what she was up to, like in their last conversation.

Dana shook her head as a waiter arrived. “No, I haven’t heard from her. What’s a mojito?”

“Better than a kick in the head,” Nikki muttered, irritated that Dana was being close-lipped about their mutual friend.

“I’ll have a mojito,” Dana told the waiter.

“Agua,” Nikki said to him.

“Spoilsport.”

Nikki merely nodded. They both knew Dana would take a sip, maybe two, from her drink and then leave the rest. Dana couldn’t afford to be off her game when she was on duty.

Whatever on duty meant for her.

After they ordered, Nikki grabbed a baked plantain chip and hit the spicy guacamole with it. “What’s up?”

“You found what we’re looking for.”

“Maybe.” Nikki relayed the information she’d gotten from Two-Finger Jimmy and finished up with, “So the SHA shipment to Hong Kong looks like the one you want. It’s carrying a passenger and a suspicious cargo container.”

Dana waited until the waiter served their drinks and left.

“Sounds like you’ve pegged it.” Dana sipped the mojito—a concoction of rum, lime juice and mint, among other things—and smiled broadly. “Can I get this to go?”

“Not in this town. What’s going on with the container ship?”

Dana twirled the mint sprig in her drink. “Athena needs you to track it. It has something we want.”

“Athena needs it?” Nikki frowned. “Is this related to our kidnapping conversation from a couple of months ago?”

“I can’t say.” Then after a moment, Dana added, “I’m not authorized.”

Nikki’s frown deepened but she couldn’t suppress the urge to lean on her friend. “Is it related to Jess’s vacation?”

Dana said nothing.

Nikki cursed inwardly. Dana’s silence meant yes, but the woman would never say. “Look, you can’t expect me to keep running your little errands without telling me something of what’s going on. I’m in danger, Jess is in danger.” And when her friend still kept quiet, Nikki added, “Throw me a bone here, Dana. Give me something or I walk.”

Dana leaned back in her chair, her face immobile, as if considering.

Nikki, thoroughly annoyed, tossed her napkin on the table. “Are you talking or am I walking?” She felt a slim satisfaction when Dana leaned forward.

“Last time we talked face-to-face, I told you about Arachne.”

“Yeah, crazy woman trying to kidnap Athena students with special talents.”

“I didn’t tell you that she succeeded. With some Athena students.”

Nikki’s breath caught in her throat. There was no telling what someone like Arachne might do with genetically modified children. Children. Nikki tried to ignore her own fear scent rising in her nostrils. “How many?”

“Two, plus one eager beaver who was instrumental in our blowing up a Lab 33 wannabe in Kestonia.” Dana’s sharp eyes must have picked up on Nikki’s face because she said quickly, “It’s okay. We got them all back, safe and sound.”

Relief swept like cool water through Nikki’s veins. It was one thing for this Arachne to try to kidnap a grown woman, and another thing entirely for her to target girls. And succeed, no matter how temporarily.

Nikki nodded. “Good.”

“But we’ve had other information come to light and that’s why I’m here. If you’re willing to serve Athena.”

Nikki’s chin lifted as anger swirled in her gut. Dana knew her better than that. Stung, she retorted, “There’s no ‘if’ about it. What do you want me to do?”

“The signal we had you track came from someone called Diviner. We don’t know who Diviner is, but we need him. Or her.”

“You’re sure the perp is human?” Nikki asked, thinking of Alexander Wryzynski.

Dana nodded. “We intercepted an instant message, definitely generated by a human. He, or she, thought he was talking to Bryan Ellis.”

“The congressman.”

“The congressman who tried to kill Francesca Thorne two months ago. He’s been charged with conspiracy to commit murder.”

“I remember Chesca. I ran into her once on the firing range.” Nikki frowned. “She didn’t say much but I could have sworn her eyes would cut glass. Like she could see right through me.”

“Quiet and thoughtful,” Dana agreed.

“And scary,” Nikki added.

“Bryan Ellis gave us Diviner as part of his plea bargain. When we made contact, we came away with the signal location, but that was all. I’ll look into Wryzynski. That’s the best lead we’ve got.”

“Where do I come in?” Nikki asked.

Dana pitched the straw into her drink and settled back. “Care for a trip to Hong Kong?”

Nikki regarded Dana for a moment. “I have leave coming up. Might be able to get a couple of weeks if I ask nicely.”

“Then you’ll do it.”

Dana was all business, even when she was being friendly. She knew about Nikki’s origins in Lab 33, just as she knew Jess’s. She also worked for the mysterious Delphi, who herself—or himself—was the mouthpiece for the more mysterious Oracle.

And all these pieces came together around the Athena Academy, where Nikki had found herself surrounded for the first time by women. Not just women. Like-minded women who were driven by a sense of purpose, and who weren’t afraid to sacrifice whatever it took to achieve a greater good.

Like the people on the shrimp trawler this morning, who’d been willing to sacrifice everything—homes, jobs, community—to bring their children to a foreign land for a chance at a better life. For the greater good of the family.

Nikki knew about the greater good of the family. She had her own family full of crazy, laughing brothers and loving parents. She had the Hecates and Jess.

She had Athena, which suddenly faced threats against it, threats against its students, past and present.

The waiter placed steaming platters of food in front of them, but neither woman touched her plate.

Nikki’s jaw clenched. “Arachne has it in for Athena.”

Dana’s silence spoke volumes. It just didn’t give details.

Nikki nodded, satisfied. For the moment. “Hong Kong.”

Chapter 3

The moment Nikki stepped into the Hong Kong International Airport terminal, she turned on the GSM quad-band phone Dana had given her. Not only was Delphi well-informed, Nikki thought, but she provided cutting-edge technology to her field operatives. A built-in scrambler kept messages safe.

Nikki snorted. Field operative. Yeah, that’s me.

Still smiling, she slung her backpack over her shoulder, preparing to shoulder her way through the throng flowing toward the illuminated sign that read Trains to city. A chirping sound started up and it took her a moment to realize it was her new phone. She slid sideways through the slipstream of travelers to a vacant spot by the wall.

Nikki answered the phone with, “Your timing’s good.”

“There’s a problem,” Dana replied. “We lost your contact.”

Nikki settled her backpack between her feet. “What do you mean ‘lost’?”

“Regina Woo’s been killed.”

Shock coursed through Nikki’s veins as she let her back make contact, hard, with the polished stone wall. She didn’t know Regina—she was another Athena student who’d graduated before Nikki arrived—and had had limited contact with her to set up their meeting, but…she was Athena. She was a sister. And having grown up in Hong Kong before moving to the States, she was a natural contact for this mission to find Diviner.

“What happened?” Nikki asked.

“She was ambushed leaving work late last night. It looks like a gang murder to the police, but we think the gang was reporting to someone else.”

“Who?”

“Triads.”

Well, hell. Nikki knew of the triads only by reputation. The gang specialized in cocaine and heroin export with side businesses in extortion and child prostitution. They also had a nasty habit of cutting off the fingers of members who’d disappointed them and giving a traitor the “Death By a Thousand Cuts.”

“What about the guy Regina hired to keep watch for the SHA vessel?” she asked. “Is he still working for us?”

“As far as we know.” Dana was silent for a moment. “Regina worked with several people. Let’s hope Johnny Zhao is one of the less…interesting…ones.”

“I don’t have a way of contacting him. I’ll have to meet up with him in port.” Nikki cursed inwardly. Meet up with a man whose face she didn’t know in a city she’d never visited and without her familiar Smith & Wesson 9 mm in her hand. This didn’t look good. Or feel good. She could be walking toward her death just as readily as Regina had. “I don’t like it.”

“What do you want to do?”

Nikki didn’t hesitate. “Finish the job.”

“You sounded unsure.”

“I was just stating a fact.” She lowered her voice as a tourist couple, English by their tweed slacks, walked by, gawking and dragging heavy suitcases. Nikki tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she said, “I couldn’t bring a firearm into the country and I’m stuck now without a weapon. Or a translator in case this guy doesn’t speak English like the rest of post-Brit Hong Kong. I don’t like it. These are facts, but they don’t mean I won’t finish what I’ve started.”

“I might be able to call in some backup from New Mexico—”

“Our window’s closing,” Nikki snapped. “The ship is due in tonight and I need to be on it as soon as I can get on it. I can’t afford to wait for someone else to fly in as backup. Our mark will have disappeared by then.”

“You’re right.”

“I’ll hook up with the contact if I can find him and go from there.”

“Call me tomorrow.” A pause. “If you get a chance.”

Nikki nodded. Dana actually meant if you’re still alive. “Will do.”

She snapped the phone shut.

Her first priority was to locate this Johnny Zhao guy, assuming he was still alive. He was supposed to be stationed at the container terminal, but as she didn’t know his face, she had no idea who to look for.

It’s easy, she reprimanded herself. Look for the armed Chinese guy in black hanging out in the shadows.

Right.

This mission would be a challenge, but she’d faced challenges before. Unbidden, the Cuban girl’s face surfaced in her mind. She ruthlessly shut the vision out of her head. Time to get moving. The sooner she hooked up with Zhao, the sooner she’d get her hands on a sidearm. Or a rifle. Preferably both.

She headed down the wide tunnel toward the trains, and a huge party of Chinese caught up to her, talking amongst themselves in complex, tonal Cantonese. As they swirled around her, dragging their luggage and waving at small children to catch up, Nikki caught the clean cotton scent of new clothes layered on warm flesh that exuded garlic, ginger and some other scent she couldn’t name. They closed around her tightly, enveloping her completely until her wide-open-spaces, American self felt almost claustrophobic, then hurtled forward to close around her as if she were a tree planted in the middle of a stream.

A hard bump knocked her elbow forward. Nikki instinctively rocked onto the balls of her feet, ready to fight.

A little girl in a pleated skirt and crisp white shirt shot her a half-fearful, half-apologetic smile as she sprinted past, her perfectly straight blue-black hair shimmering on her shoulders. A man who might have been the girl’s father cuffed her gently and guided her in front of him.

Nikki decided she was a helluva long way from home.

The wind kicked up and the scent hit her face-first: sea and salt mixed with diesel fumes and old fish. Now this felt more like home.

Nikki flattened into the shadow of massive metal containers stacked four high and hoped the security guard wouldn’t hear the water dripping from her wet suit. He walked briskly, his boots crisp on the pavement, and disappeared down past a line of containers laid out like a child’s carefully arranged toy blocks.

The Kwai Chung Container Terminal was a city that never slept. It gleamed at night, lit partly from its own high-powered floods and partly from the high-rises packed along the southwest shore of the New Territories. Of its nine terminals—Kwai Chung was the busiest container terminal in the world— Terminal Eight would accept delivery of the SHA shipment.

And it had taken a heckuva lot of cunning to get inside. Fortunately, no one had been watching the water for sneaky swimmers. The ladder bolted into the concrete pier was just as convenient for her as it would have been for a clumsy sailor, and the metal gate guarding it had yielded to some basic lock-picking.

Her goal was simple. Get aboard the SHA vessel and use her PDA to scan for a signal. If Diviner was on the ship, the signal strength would lead her to him. Then she’d contact Delphi.

Nikki peeled out of her wet suit to reveal a black long-sleeved shirt and the formfitting black pants she used for her martial arts training workouts. Her face she’d already smeared with grease, and her hair was swept back in a secure ponytail. The waterproof gear bag was slung on her back like a backpack.

She glanced around the corner of the container stack that hid her. The SHA vessel loomed at the pier’s edge, its massive dock lines—as big around as her waist—looped over the equally massive mooring cleats. Lights blazed on deck as dockhands moved back and forth, adjusting lines and checking the payload. A man in a hard hat and carrying a clipboard emerged from the bridge tower, shouted something to the workers, then headed down the boarding plank for the dock.

Getting aboard that vessel wouldn’t be anywhere as easy as getting into the terminal.

It would have helped if she’d been able to find Johnny Zhao, but he either wasn’t around or he was a ghost. She just hoped he wasn’t the kind of ghost who started out alive but was now dead. Or the kind of ghost who turned on his employer, killed her and then faded away.

Anger mingled with fear trickled through her muscles. If he’d killed Regina Woo—and if she could find him—she’d have his hide.

Nikki waited until she counted eight men leaving the vessel. If whatever was on board was important, it’d likely have security teams crawling all over it. She saw only one man still on deck, a pistol holstered at his belt, so perhaps the ship was running a skeleton crew.

The terminal’s security guard made another pass through the stacked containers. Nikki checked her watch. His schedule gave her about ten minutes to get up and out of sight.

She shimmied through shadows until she crouched next to the bow mooring cleat. The huge dock line arced gracefully up to the vessel’s scupper; the nearest big floodlight pointed away from the bow. Perhaps her unorthodox entrance would go unnoticed. Either that or everyone would see her grappling for purchase on the way up. Not pretty.

Nikki hopped onto the cleat and tested her footing on the dock line. Her soft shoe soles gripped the rough, twisted line, and its texture gave her plenty of purchase. The good news was that it wasn’t anywhere as difficult as dragging herself up a Coast Guard cutter’s wave-washed deck in high seas. In moments she had inched her way up to the scupper and hoisted herself over the rail and onto the deck.