Storm Front

She checked to see if he was kidding. He wasn’t. She knew better than to ask for details.

“So,” he said, switching subjects with the tone of his voice, “it looks like our interests in this current case are aligned.”

“Kind of strange for two countries that act like enemies half the time, isn’t it?” she said. “But, yes, my people want Volkov stopped as bad as your people.”

“If I may ask, what are your orders?”

“Probably the same as yours: If I see Volkov, I shoot to kill,” she said. “My country still talks a big game about Communism, but the fact is there are very powerful business interests that have substantial influence on the party. Those interests have made it clear that a strong U.S. dollar is their priority. And therefore my bosses have made it clear this thing with Volkov is my priority. My role is supposed to be more investigative, but if I get a shot…”

“I understand,” Storm said. “We should work together.”

“Work together?”

“We can go back to being enemies later,” Storm promised. “I’ll even let you tie me up.”

“That sounds great, but… can we do that?”

“Sure, you just take some rope and…”

“No, I mean can we really work together? I mean, I know we’ve been doing that informally. But I’m not sure if I can formally…”

“Formal, informal — doesn’t matter,” Storm said, dismissing the thought with a backhanded wave. Sure, Jones and his superiors in the high reaches of the CIA would have a fit if they knew Storm was in bed — literally and figuratively — with a Chinese agent. But this wasn’t the first time Storm had made an alliance that the CIA wouldn’t approve of. Besides, wasn’t that why Jones hired him? To do things that Jones and the agency couldn’t do themselves? To give them plausible deniability when it all went wrong?

“All your people are going to care about is that the job is done,” Storm continued.

“Same with my people. We’ve got to figure out who hired Volkov and stop whoever is behind it. We’re going to be a lot more likely to accomplish that working together and sharing information.

“Besides,” he added, “I don’t want to have to chase you up any more skyscrapers.”

“What? Can’t a girl play hard to get?”

“I hope not, Agent Xi Bang,” he said, grinning. “I sincerely hope not.”

There were five flights a day out of the Ames Municipal Airport, none of which left after dusk. Yes, one phone call to Jedediah Jones would change that. Yes, there were other ways out of Iowa.

But Derrick Storm and Ling Xi Bang told themselves they were stuck, stranded and marooned until morning. And, in any event, they had nowhere to go — at least not until Click’s model gave them some answers or, sadly, until Banker No. 5 met his end.

So it was that they ended up at making a short stumble up the street to a Days Inn. They decamped in Room 214, then subjected anyone unfortunate enough to be inhabiting Room 212 or 216 to something that might have sounded like a TV at too high a volume, tuned to Animal Planet.

Then, after a short respite, they did it again.

Later, as they lay naked, the sheets a tumble at the bottom of the bed, Storm let his fingertips follow a meandering path across Xi Bang’s rib cage, stomach, and thighs. He was propped on one elbow. She was lying flat, her eyes fixed on some point in the darkness, enjoying his touch.

She broke the stillness by asking, “Was the cupcake story true?”

“Yeah, actually, it was,” Storm said. “Every bit of it.”

“Do you remember your mother?”

“Not really.”

“So it was just you and your dad?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I ever felt I was missing anything,” he said. “You can’t miss what you never knew in the first place. I have a great dad. That’s enough.”

“I can’t believe he never remarried.”

“Forget remarried. He’s never even dated,” Storm said. “He acts like replacing her in any fashion would be an act of betrayal. I think his general attitude is that she was the love of his lifetime, the one and only, and that to behave otherwise would diminish that somehow.”

“I can’t decide whether that’s romantic or sad.”

“Maybe it’s a bit of both,” Storm said.

“What do you think? Is there one or are there many?”

“I believe that the human capacity to love is not a one-shot deal.”

“So that’s how it is for you, Storm? Love as a hundred-round magazine? Set the gun on automatic and spray it around?”

“I never said that,” Storm said. “Love is like a bullet, though. You know the instant you’ve been hit. And even if it’s just a glancing blow, you’re never quite the same. The bullet either buries itself deep inside you, or it takes some piece of you away with it.”

He was thinking about Clara Strike when he said it. How many chunks of him had she taken out over the years? And yet how many times did he keep returning to face the firing squad?

“I see you have a lot of scars, Derrick Storm,” Xi Bang said, tracing a network of forever-puckered skin on his abdomen. If only she knew how deep some of them went.

“What about you?” he asked. “Ever been in love?”

“I’ve dated,” she said.