Cao looked at Betsy, his mood changing, the stern mask softening, his caring side revealed in his eyes. “Sorry about your grandmother.”
“She’s been sick a while.” The pain of impending loss flashed across Betsy’s face; then as if the emotion were too raw, she turned to Lucy, which caused a crestfallen look in Cao’s eyes. “Your mom in Ethiopia now?” Betsy asked.
“Yeah, she’s kinda settled in there at a clinic. Been there for over a year and half now. A long time for her,” Lucy said, thinking of her mother. Dr. Abby Karmon contracted work for the World Health Organization.
“Is she going to stay there a while?”
Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know. When wanderlust strikes her, she’ll move again.”
“What about your father?” Cao asked, shifting so his elbows were on his knees, chin resting on his hands. “Is he back from China?”
At the thought of her father, Lucy narrowed her brows in a frown. Roy Karmon, an engineering specialist, built bridges, tunnels and dams. He had been hired to work on the engineering miracle of the twentieth century, the Yangtze River Three Gorges Dam project in China. “That’s why I’m going to Ethiopia. Mom says he’s coming for a visit.”
Lucy hadn’t spoken to her father in a year. And she wasn’t looking forward to this visit. She could have invented an excuse not to go this time, but she had heard the pleading in her mother’s voice and she couldn’t disappoint her.
“Your mom cool with that whole long-distance relationship thing?” Betsy’s eyes squinted slightly as if she were baffled.
“It’s always boggled my mind, but it seems to work for them.”
Betsy grinned. “Conjugal visits twice a year isn’t for me. If I’m going to marry a man, his ass better be in my bed at night keeping my feet warm.”
“I’m with you on that.” Lucy thought of her parents’ unconventional relationship. It wasn’t for everyone. She’d decided long ago it wasn’t for her, either. If and when the right guy came along, she wanted more than the casual connection that had kept her parents’ marriage together for the past thirty-two years. She had suspicions that her mother’s wanderlust was a coping mechanism for the loss of her husband’s presence, but Lucy had never questioned her for fear it might bring up resentment and emotions best left buried. “But there is a highlight to the trip. Val will be there. She’s stopping by on her way to the States.”
“Y’all have been friends forever, haven’t you?” Betsy asked.
“We have,” Lucy said proudly.
They’d been friends forever, or so it felt like. Their friendship had begun as pen pals. Val had already been attending the Athena Academy. Her glowing descriptions of the school and the challenges it posed in her letters had intrigued Lucy. There had been restlessness in her, even at fourteen, that she could hardly control. “Rebel Lucy” is what her mother had called her when her tutors complained about her lack of attention. Lucy just hadn’t felt challenged. Monotony was her enemy. She had always found her father’s work more than interesting and she had invented her own engineering designs just to keep from dying of boredom.
By age eleven, she could design and place explosive charges to bring down either a whole structure or simply a wall within that structure. It hadn’t seemed to impress her father, though.
In several letters, Val had suggested Lucy write to Christine Evans, the principal at the Athena Academy, and apply. Lucy thought getting accepted into the academy might please her father since nothing else ever had, so she took Val’s advice.
She had described her fledgling engineering designs and the knowledge she had gained from her father. She had been a ninth grader at the time. Most students entered the Academy in the seventh grade, like Val, so Lucy figured getting into the school had been a long shot. But to her surprise, she had received an acceptance letter.
She considered her years at AA the most important of her life. The Academy had taught her wilderness survival, martial arts, how to focus her physical and intellectual energies and find what she excelled at: demolitions. Somewhere along the way they also taught Lucy self-worth, confidence, and to achieve new heights to please herself—not her father. She didn’t know where she would be at this moment if the Academy had not been a driving force in those critical teen years. At the Athena Academy, she had become a part of something remarkable, made lifelong ties that could never be broken. Such as Val, fellow alumna and Lucy’s dearest friend, a sister in every way but blood.
“Where’d you say she worked again?”
“The U.S. Consulate in Egypt.” Lucy couldn’t tell anyone about Val’s real job, as a CIA operative. The consulate was her cover. Some Athena grads did internships for the FBI, CIA and NSA, and went to work for those agencies. Lucy had interned with the army’s special ops demolition division. Thoughts of her short stay in the army made her quickly change the subject. “So, Cao, what will you do?”
“Training.” He glanced longingly toward Betsy as if he wanted to ask her to go with him.
“For what?” Betsy asked.
“A triathlon.”
Betsy cut her eyes at him. “Sounds like torture.”
“It’s a challenge.” He looked over at her from beneath his long dark lashes. “But too much for some.”
Betsy stiffened. “You saying I can’t keep up with you?”
Cao smiled placidly, but the smug look in his eyes was unmistakable.
“You’re on, Jocko. When and where?”
“Sun River, Oregon.” He held up a finger. “One month.”
“I’ll be there.”
Cao’s smile widened. “I’ll be the one at the finish line.”
“I’ll be the one already there, waving at you.”
Lucy glanced at Betsy and wondered if she knew she’d just been manipulated into spending time with Cao. He was good, but Cupid had his work cut out with these guys. She tried once again to give him a helping hand. “Hey, you two, we never do anything just for fun. Let’s meet in New York in a couple of weeks and do the town. All of us. Sound like fun?”
Tommy spoke up. “Wait a minute, no one asked me what I was doing. Am I invited to this party?”
“Absolutely,” Lucy said, almost forgetting Tommy had been listening to the conversation through the mics.
“I’m in,” Betsy said. She pointed at Cao. “But I doubt Jack LaLanne there can make it. He’s got to train.”
Cao straightened at the challenge, his dark eyes glowing. “All work and no play makes Jack a dullard. I accept.”
The gauntlet had been thrown and picked up. By the toxic gleam in both their eyes, Lucy wondered if she should have suggested a less populated place, like Area 51.
Thoughts of seeing her father again made her wish she were heading to Area 51, the Mojave Desert, New Zealand, even the South Pole. Anywhere in the world but the same room with Roy Karmon. There wasn’t a room, a house, a castle or a country big enough for the both of them. Talk about pyrotechnics. At least her mother would be there to run interference and put out the blaze. Hopefully.
Pincer Industries, Cape Town, South Africa
“I’ve hired someone for the new chief of security position.”
Miranda N’Buta stared at the woman who’d just spoken in a raspy deep voice. The woman’s image passed through a webcam and onto the monitor on Miranda’s desk. Only a portion of the woman’s slender torso showed in the background, the webcam situated so her face and lower limbs were hidden. She always wore black and today was no different. Her breasts barely filled