Read Online Girl Rides the Wind by Jacques Antoine - Free Book Online Page B

help.”
    “Don’t blame us. The orders came from the top, from SECNAV himself.”
    “Us? Let me guess. Your partner in crime is here, too.”
    It seemed so strange to Kiku that a superior officer should shrink from Tenno-san, which is exactly how he seemed, his shoulders slumped and his eyes fixed on his shoes, like a schoolboy who’d been caught in some mischief.
    “Well, you can tell him to come out of hiding,” she continued, when he nodded.
    “It wasn’t our idea,” he said.
    “Did Michael dream this up?”
    “And Connie,” he offered, as if he hoped the mere sound of that name would protect him from evil. “I think it was mainly her idea.”
    Perhaps this ominous name would have worked some sort of magic, for all Kiku knew, if not for the arrival of others on the scene, and the temporarily windblown quiet of the flight deck.
    CJ stepped forward, and when Tenno-san glowered at her, she cleared her throat and made a little gesture to a group of men approaching from the other side.
    “You must be Lt Tenno,” said a small man in jungle-camo, sporting a black beret. When she nodded, he turned to the two men standing behind him, one dressed as he was, and wearing a red insignia embroidered with the word ‘ Tagaligta ,’ the other, taller man wearing the uniform of the Chinese PLA. After a brief exchange between the two smaller men in a tongue Kiku did not recognize, and a grunt from the Chinese officer, he continued. “This is Captain Ongpin of the Philippine National Police, and Captain Diao…”
    “And you are?” Tenno-san interrupted.
    “My apologies, ma’am. I am Corporal Iwatani, Capt Ongpin’s translator.”
    “Then let me welcome you aboard,” Cmdr Leone said, perhaps a tiny bit irritated at having been overlooked until then.
    “Yes, this is Cmdr Leone…,” she said, pausing to allow an exchange of grunts and nods to settle down. “Apparently, he will have operational oversight of our missions.”
    With Iwatani translating into Tagalog for Capt Ongpin, who then translated into Mandarin for Capt Diao, the conversation promised to devolve into a game of ‘telephone.’
    “Cpl Iwatani-san, may I assume from your name that you also speak Japanese?” Kiku asked, inserting herself into the conversation.
    “ Hai. Nihongo ga wakari masu ,” he replied. “After the war, my great-grandfather, like many Japanese POWs, married and settled in Mindanao.”
    “And this is Lt Otani and Lt Tanahill,” Tenno-san said, to complete the round of introductions.
    Capt Diao muttered something to Capt Ongpin, who relayed it to Cpl Iwatani, who was about to translate for the others when Tenno-san stopped him and said something in Mandarin directly to Capt Diao.
    “Man, I hope all your communications don’t work like this,” CJ said.
    “It will not be as bad as all that,” Diao finally said, now speaking English. “And, yes, Miss Tenno, Diao is a very common name. Why do you ask?”
    “I met someone named Diao a couple of years back.”
    “I take it from your tone that it was not an auspicious meeting.”
    “No,” Tenno-san said, her face turning dark and hard. “It was not. A close friend lost her life as a result.”
    “As I said before, it is a common name. Still, I am sorry to hear of your misfortune. I hope this Diao was not too blame.”
    Tenno-san’s mood seemed to turn even darker as she took in Diao’s words. “Perhaps not alone,” she said. “But she paid a heavy price for it. You might even say she lost her head over the affair.”
    As her last words washed over him, Diao’s jaw tightened and his eyes sharpened, and Kiku, still peering around CJ’s shoulder, wondered if he hadn’t somehow betrayed himself. CJ herself seemed not to react well to something in those words, her breath caught in a shudder of surprise, or maybe even a sudden grief. In the meantime, Tenno-san had pushed past Iwatani and Ongpin, and started down the ladder at the far end of Vulture’s Row, trailing