“Sean,” he finished for her. His tone roughened. “Neither can I.”
“I know.” Mei-li sighed in his ear. “What did the triads say when you interrogated them?”
“Nothing. They must have gone to check on Miss Richardson shortly after I got her out of there, because by the time my team and I were able to storm the apartment, those men were long gone.”
“Damn!” That wasn’t quite the word Jason had used at the time, but his sister didn’t curse often. A damn from her was equivalent to cursing a blue streak. “At least Alana’s safe. Which means this one goes in the win column anyway.”
They were silent for a few moments, both remembering a day more than twelve years ago and an abduction that had gone heartbreakingly wrong.
“Thank God you had the GPS coordinates of where she was being held,” Jason said, finally breaking the painful silence. “We couldn’t have rescued her without that.”
“Yes, thank God, but also thank Dirk...and you,” Mei-li said, and Jason knew she was referring to the high-tech electronic transmitter. Beacon, actually, but it only transmitted if it was manually set off or activated remotely from the parent server. Highly secret equipment not yet available to the general public, the prototype of which Jason had designed and had his company produce at his brother-in-law’s request. Alana had carried one on her keychain, although she hadn’t known it.
“Don’t forget to give yourself credit for quick thinking while you’re handing out praise,” he said drily. “I’m not sure what that triad gang was waiting for—the cover of darkness, probably. But if you hadn’t mobilized RMM right away...”
“All I did was—”
“—text Miss Richardson when she didn’t come home for dinner the way she said she would. And when you got no response, you called her cell phone. And when she didn’t answer, you activated the beacon.”
“Well, it made no sense to me,” Mei-li explained. “I knew she was going to Mong Kok, but when I activated the transmitter and mapped the location, I knew something bad was going down. She had no business being in that neighborhood—both Dirk and I had warned her where not to go by herself. And there was no ransom demand. If it wasn’t a kidnapping, I knew it was outside my area of expertise. So I called you.” Then she asked, “How did you know which apartment she was being held in?”
“Clutter...that wasn’t there.”
“An empty balcony,” his sister said softly. “Of course.” Admiration was evident in her voice, and he knew she’d made the connection without him having to spell it out. Space was at such a premium in Hong Kong, the vast majority of balconies weren’t used to take the air, but to store things that wouldn’t fit in Hong Kong’s tiny apartments. In addition to that, almost no one dried their clothes in a dryer, even if they had a washing machine in their unit. Even the residents of high-end apartments and condos hung their clothes to dry on their balconies. When you were looking for the slightest aberration, an empty balcony stood out like a red flag for RMM.
“So what did Miss Richardson tell the police?”
His sister laughed unexpectedly. “Based on her description, you’re about ten feet tall, have the strength of a gorilla and can scale walls like a superhero from a comic book.”
He chuckled. “I guess I’m safe, then. The police won’t be searching for me, even though I didn’t break the law. Much.” But he couldn’t help the little thrill of ego-stoking male pride that shot through him at the description. So Alana saw him as a superhero, did she? He liked that idea. No, he loved that idea. Because while the opinions of those he rescued had never been important to him before, Alana’s opinion of him mattered. A lot.
* * *
The High Tiger of the Eight Tigers triad organization—although it had far more than eight members—sat in a hastily called conference with the seven other leaders of the triad. Each of the seven was an enforcer, overseeing a cadre of men. Each cadre was responsible for a different aspect of the criminal endeavors that constituted the backbone of the Eight Tigers: drugs, gun-running, prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, money laundering and pornography. And they all answered to the High Tiger—chairman of the board, as it were.
The Eight Tigers was a radical departure from most Hong Kong triads. Except when it came to women, it was an equal opportunity employer—if they cared about such things, which they didn’t. All they cared about was whether a man had it in him to carry out the dicta of the ruling tribunal...and could keep his mouth shut in the unfortunate event he was arrested. Of the eight men seated around the conference table, three were Chinese, two were British, two were American and one was Australian. And they’d had a secret stranglehold on crime in Hong Kong and Macau for years.
The High Tiger turned to the enforcer in charge of prostitution and demanded, “How did it happen?”
The man on the hot seat nervously cleared his throat. “Unclear.”
“What do the men say?”
“All they know is she was gone when they went to move her to the boat. Then they got the hell out of there.”
The High Tiger’s voice was soft, yet his tone was threatening, when he asked, “Are you aware this was an RMM rescue?”
The other man blanched. Every man at the table knew of RMM. Knew it was more to be feared than the Hong Kong Police Force or the Public Security Police Force of Macau for three reasons: it was a highly secret organization, more secret than their own; its members were impervious to bribes, unlike many on the police forces in the jurisdictions in which the Eight Tigers operated; and it was bankrolled by a man who seemed to have an unending supply of money...even greater than theirs.
“No, I...I was not aware,” the man finally admitted.
The High Tiger then asked the question that held the most importance to the men assembled there. “What trail might lead RMM...or authorities...to us?”
“Nothing.” The man being questioned glanced around the table, reassuring the assemblage. “Nothing at all.”
* * *
Alana woke at her normal time. Dirk had told her as they’d left the hospital last night to take it easy, to sleep in and recuperate from her ordeal, but she wasn’t going to act like an invalid. Okay, her arm and shoulder muscles were stiff and sore from being bound. And yes, her wrists were raw and chafed from the rope she’d tried to wriggle out of. And...
She tentatively touched the back of her head where she’d been hit. Ouch! she thought. It was still tender to the touch. There was a little swelling, too, but her nausea was gone and she felt fine. Energized to jump right back into her job. She didn’t want to lie in bed and remember her close brush with all the bad things that could have happened to her—including rape and death. She needed the distraction of work to take her mind off what had nearly occurred.
She dressed quickly and was brushing her teeth when a good memory surfaced...her miraculous rescue. That was immediately followed by memories of the man who’d rescued her. The way he’d held her so securely she hadn’t been afraid, even dangling from a harness hooked to a cable, with terra firma far below. The incredible hardness of his body plastered against hers. Not to mention the arousal that had intrigued her to the point where she’d almost said something about
