His cell phone lit up. He glanced at it resting in the cupholder and contemplated letting the call go to voicemail. But he knew what would happen if he did that. With a groan, he scooped the phone up and answered the call.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?” the gruff voice asked. Hiro recognized it immediately.

“Making my delivery to the base.”

“You’re late.”

Hiro rolled his eyes and glanced through the open window at the guard shack, hoping to see the Marine returning to wave him through. The sooner he finished his delivery, the sooner he could get this guy off his back. He opened his mouth to reply when the door opened and the guard stepped out, adjusting the patrol cap perched atop his head.

“Did you hear me?” the man asked, clearly frustrated with Hiro.

“I’ll call you back,” he replied, then tapped on the button to end the call, before tossing the phone back into the cupholder.

“Checks out,” the Marine said, handing the clipboard back.

“As usual.”

“I assume you know which way you’re going?”

He nodded and rested the clipboard on the center console. “Just another day,” he said.

“Those squids sure do eat well,” the Marine added, nodding at the crates filling the rear of the van.

Hiro grinned. He had been making deliveries for the fishermen’s cooperative going on five years. Whether he was delivering fresh parrot fish and tilapia to Club Iwakuni or frozen stock to be flown out to Navy ships, he hadn’t spent much time thinking about what he was delivering. Seafood in Japan was a staple.

But his delivery tonight was different.

The Marine sentry rapped his knuckles against the side of the van. “See you next time?”

“Mate ne,” Hiro replied, then shifted the van into gear.

As the lance corporal stepped back and Hiro eased off the brake, he couldn’t help but glance in the rearview mirror at the crates stacked neatly behind him. Each one was packed with frozen seafood, but one crate was special. He stuck his hand out the window and waved at the guard as he accelerated through the gate, already pushing thoughts of that special crate from his mind.

17

Valley Center, California

Punky slowed in the middle of the road when the Audi S3 turned left and stopped in front of a closed gate. She knew Jax was leading them to a safe house run by the CIA, but it seemed a little too conspicuous for her liking. She didn’t think a multimillion-dollar property bordering a private runway in a gated fly-in community had the low profile she was looking for.

But, then again, Jax was the declared expert on the subject.

She watched the CIA officer enter a passcode into the control panel, then waited for the large metal gate to swing open and permit them access. Once the Audi sedan began rolling, Punky steered the Challenger off the main road and followed. She stopped just inside the gate to block the private road until it had closed, scanning her mirrors for any sign of the dark gray Audi sport wagon she had seen outside the school.

There had been no sign of it since leaving La Jolla, but something about it had set off her internal alarms.

She took her foot off the brake and let the muscle car idle down the paved road that appeared to double as a taxiway for private airplanes. Looking left, she saw several large homes in varying architectural styles ranging from Mediterranean and Tuscan to modern and contemporary, each with its own private hangar set apart from the house.

Punky was halfway down the private airstrip when she saw the Audi turn left onto a driveway that angled toward a Tuscan-style monstrosity set back from the road and surrounded by trees and shrubs. From a distance, the landscaping appeared to have been planted for aesthetic purposes. But upon closer inspection, she recognized the obvious seclusion it gave the house within the fenced-in and gated community, while still preserving angles from which to defend the property.

She followed the Audi up the drive, and they came to a stop in front of a woman in her late forties, standing outside with a Black Mouth Cur heeling next to her. Punky instinctively elbowed her service pistol on her right side while studying the woman and her dog. But when Jax stepped out of the car and walked up to the woman to give her a hug, she relaxed.

Punky killed the ignition and climbed out from behind the wheel, taking a moment to study their surroundings. She spotted several security cameras and motion sensors around the property, but she knew those were only the ones she was supposed to see. If the safe house was as secure as she suspected, there would be several hidden deterrents and countermeasures even a trained expert would have difficulty exposing.

“Punky, this is Margaret,” Jax said, gesturing to the woman, who eyed her suspiciously.

“Pleased to meet you,” Punky said, walking forward to shake the woman’s hand.

“You as well.” Margaret whispered something, and her athletic and muscular dog leaned into her as if protecting her from Punky. “This is my trusty sidekick, Cher.”