Page 9 of Wired Courage

Sophie, Jake, and Connor hurried across the swath of open lawn to where Thom had the Security Solutions chopper waiting, rotors whirling as it warmed up. Sophie raised her hand in farewell, and the two waved back.

Connor got in front with the pilot, while Sophie and Jake stowed their gear bags and sat in the rear jump seats. Jake handed her a helmet, and they both strapped in.

Sophie avoided eye contact with Jake, turning away from him as much as possible to look out the window of the helicopter as it lifted off. The bird wheeled in place, then flew over the Hanalei Valley and out to sea, headed for Honolulu Airport on Oahu where the Security Solutions corporate jet awaited.

As she always did, Sophie scanned the cobalt water for signs of whales, her mind ticking over the day’s events.

The police had departed only an hour before. Jenkins handed out his card a second time, and the cruisers were finally gone. Connor had called the three of them into the mansion’s office for a quick planning meeting.

“I have already tracked the chopper that flew out from the bluff. It didn’t file a flight plan, and that triggered an aviation alert that went out over the FAA airwaves that I was able to track. The chopper landed at Honolulu Airport, and I was able to find it using the surveillance cams.” Connor had their full attention, and his fingers flew on his tablet as he surfed the web while talking. “The passengers were gone, and the bird was a rental. I had a Security Solutions agent go and track down the pilot. The man said he had signed an NDA, but a little grease got him talking.” Connor looked up and met Sophie’s eyes. His gaze was intense, his handsome face set in cold lines—the Ghost in work mode.“The people who rented the chopper were Thai, and consisted of three men and two women. The pilot spotted a baby in a yellow blanket on the way back from Kaua`i.”

“Then we have our confirmation that it was my mother,” Sophie said.

“Most likely. The physical description that he gave matched her height and looks. The other woman was unknown, and she was the one carrying the baby.”

“Probably Armita, my mother’s maid. She was my caregiver when I was a young child. Armita must have been the one to snatch Momi.” Sophie’s belly clenched at the thought of her beloved childhood nanny looking down at Sophie sleeping, then cold-bloodedly taking her child. “Armita climbs and moves like a ninja. That is why the dogs didn’t bark—they know her. And my mother.”

Sophie told the men about the time Armita had mysteriously visited Sophie on the Big Island, climbing three balconies outside of Sophie’s building to do so. “Armita is controlled by Pim Wat, but she had come to warn me that my mother was planning something. I have to wonder if this was what Pim Wat was planning? But Mother hadn’t known I was pregnant at that time, so I’m not sure what it could have been.”

They’d wrapped up the meeting with a plan to get closer to the Yam Khûmk?n and look for the baby and Pim Wat from Connor’s base of operations on his private island in Thailand. Hopefully, Pim Wat would make contact soon and be forthcoming with her demands for returning the baby.

That brought Sophie to now: to the soreness of her full breasts, the emptiness of her arms, the betrayal of her beloved nanny and less beloved mother, and the uncertainty of the mission ahead. She blinked, looking at but not seeing the whitecaps scudding over the windswept ocean.

Jake tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away without looking at him.

Chapter Eight

Day Ten

Sophie, Jake, Connor, Thom, and Kiefer Rhinehart, commander of Security Solutions’ elite kidnap rescue squad, sat around a long polished teak table in the dining room of Connor’s house on Phi Ni. Anubis, Connor’s dignified Doberman, sat in watchful silence observing them as they organized everything for their meeting.

Sophie had been to Connor’s cliffside aerie before, so she was used to the beauty of the custom-made home high on the bluffs. Seeing it fresh through Jake’s and Rhinehart’s eyes, she didn’t blame the men for the awed silence with which they’d first viewed the mansion, an exquisite rendering in native wood and stone, a perfect marriage of cultures.

Nam, Connor’s houseman, had set up a projection screen on one wall of the dining room along with a whiteboard. Connor lowered burnished metal, bulletproof blinds to cut the sun streaming through floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that provided a brilliant and distracting view of turquoise sea and tiny, fertile atolls far below the bluffs on which the house was perched.

He projected a satellite photo of the Yam Khûmk?n’s elaborate stone temple stronghold onto the white screen. He flicked on a laser pointer and pointed out the main building, a pyramid-like structure of elaborately carved, lichen-covered stone. “I have been trying, since Pim Wat began attempting to recruit Sophie to go to this stronghold, to get eyes and ears inside this place—but it’s the most locked down fortress I’ve come across. Everyone who goes in or out has some loyalty or association with the Yam Khûmk?n, and they are feared. I can’t find anyone to take my bribes.” Connor glanced at Rhinehart. “Thoughts?”

“We often don’t have much on the place where the target is being held, but that’s never stopped us before.” Rhinehart was a fireplug of a man, heavily muscled as if making up for lack of height with breadth. A low-slung jaw and cauliflower ears completed the visage of a thug, but Rhinehart’s small brown eyes glittered with intelligence. “We still haven’t heard what the takers want.”

Sophie lifted a finger to get the table’s attention. “If by ‘takers’ you mean my mother, we may not hear from her at all. I gave this a lot of thought on the way over. Best case scenario: Pim Wat wants something specific from me, something she’s been trying to get since she contacted me. I’ll hear from her about that, and we’ll move forward with some kind of negotiation.”

“You will not go into danger at that fortress,” Jake said through his teeth.

Sophie ignored him, holding up her finger. “Or, Pim Wat won’t contact me. She has my daughter for herself for whatever reason. I may never hear from my mother.”

Everyone stilled at these words. Sophie went on. “Pim Wat has been frustrated with me for years now. She has repeatedly told me I am not the biddable child I was, clay to be molded to her wishes. Perhaps she simply took my baby and means to raise her instead.”

“Nasty thought.” Rhinehart inclined his buzz-cut head in Sophie’s direction. “But not out of the realm of possibility with this woman, though she hardly seems the nurturing type, with the patience to raise a newborn.”

“You forget. She has Armita, my former nanny,” Sophie said. “Pim Wat can have all of the benefits and none of the hard work of raising a child with my baby in Armita’s capable hands.” Her nanny’s betrayal still hurt more than it should.

Rhinehart nodded. “I had time to read the file Mr. Hamilton has assembled on your mother on the way over, and . . . she’s a real piece of work, if you don’t mind my saying. This kidnapping isn’t the usual grab for cash we deal with.”

“It’s not. It never was,” Connor looked back down at his tablet. “We still have satellite imagery and can map the stronghold from the outside. I’ve also been able to use some leverage on one of the Yam Khûmk?n’s kitchen suppliers to get a bug into the place. Unfortunately, he planted it in a shitty area. They have signal dampeners in place, so I can’t even get that data out.”

“Let’s move forward as if we know she’s in there,” Jake said. “How are we going to penetrate and get Momi out?”

The discussion was long.

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