LITMIR.BIZ

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It means good luck.” Jilly had to laugh. “Appropriate.”

      “I thought so, too. This particular Fu, my sweet, just happens to conceal the world’s smallest and most sophisticated encrypted satellite communications system.”

      With her belly nudging the table, Mac laid the charm in the palm of one hand and poked at it with the other.

      “If you press on this little squiggle…”

      “That squiggle is the character’s radical, or root symbol.”

      After four years of Mandarin in college, two more in grad school and a three-year tour of duty in Beijing, Jilly spoke several Chinese dialects with a fluency rarely acquired by “foreign devils.”

      Reading and writing were entirely different matters. By various counts, there were somewhere between forty and fifty thousand Chinese characters. Thankfully, each character contained one of only two hundred and fourteen roots. If you could figure out the root, you could count the character’s remaining strokes and—most of the time!—look up the word in a dictionary.

      “The roots came down from ancient times,” she told Mac. “Originally they were pictographs representing basic elements like man, woman, fire, water, and so on.”

      “If you say so. Press the root…radical…whatever…once to transmit, twice to receive. Go ahead, try a voice transmission.”

      Jilly pressed once. “Mary had a little…Whoa!”

      She jumped as the nursery rhyme boomed through the Control Center’s speakers.

      “You’ll be in silent mode most of the time,” Mac advised, “but you’ll know when someone’s trying to contact you. Put it on, and I’ll give you a demo.”

      The chain was long enough to loop easily over her head. The jade felt cool and smooth against her throat—until Mac signaled to one of her assistants. The next moment, the semiprecious stone warmed like toast.

      “Nice,” Jilly murmured, palming the charm. “Very nice.”

      “It’s also equipped with GPS, an electronic jammer and a direct link to Hawk’s comm unit.”

      “Don’t tell me you decked him out in a gold chain and charm, too?”

      “I wish! No, his comm is in his watch.” A wicked gleam lit Mac’s brown eyes. “But I did spiffy that up to go with your cover. You should have seen his face when I presented him with a solid gold Rolex.”

      Also appropriate, Jilly thought. She and Hawk would hit Hong Kong in the guise of a wealthy couple on a Far East buying junket.

      A married couple.

      Sharing a hotel suite.

      So Hawk could keep an eye on her.

      She’d bristled at that last bit. Not for long, however, since adjoining bedrooms in a luxurious hotel suite dovetailed nicely with her non-mission-related objectives.

      Assuming she didn’t pull out her Beretta and pump a round into Hawk before they left for Hong Kong, which she seriously contemplated doing an hour later.

      Not content with her firm grasp of OMEGA’s internal communications codes, Hawk insisted she memorize the NATO phonetic alphabet used by police officers and medical response agencies worldwide. That Jilly could rattle the letters off with some assurance wasn’t enough. He wanted every one burned into her subconscious.

      “Give them to me again.”

      She gritted her teeth. “How many times do I have to…?”

      “Again, damn it.” The gold flecks in his eyes burned with intensity. “I’m not going into the field with someone who can’t call for backup if we run into an ambush.”

      Was that what happened all those years ago in the jungle? Had Hawk and his partner and this woman he once loved been ambushed? The thought of what he’d lost in that murky green darkness put a lid on Jilly’s irritation.

      “Alpha-Bravo-Charlie-Delta-Echo-Foxtrot-Golf-Hotel-India-Juliet-Kilo-Lima-Mike.”

      She pulled in a breath.

      “November-Oscar-Papa-Quebec-Romeo-Sierra-Tango-Uniform-Victor-Whiskey-Xray-Yankee-Zulu.”

      She finished on a whoosh of air and gave him a nasty glare.

      “Satisfied?”

      “Yeah.”

      He didn’t look satisfied. With his two-day’s worth of stubble and red-rimmed eyes, he looked almost as ragged as she now felt.

      “We’ve got less than an hour before we have to head for the airport,” he informed her after checking his gleaming Rolex. “We’d better get up to Field Dress.”

      Finally! A shower, a shampoo and a quick blow-dry. She couldn’t wait to shed her rank sweats and change into whatever the wizards in OMEGA’s Field Dress Unit had waiting for her.

      Gillian emerged from FDU’s dressing room a different woman. Nothing like a French silk demibra and panties, an Emanuel Ungaro pantsuit in cobalt-blue and Bruno Magli ankle boots to make a gal feel like she could take on the world again. She’d have to wait until Hong Kong to see the other delights packed in the Gucci suitcases waiting beside the dressing room door.

      Hawk was waiting, as well. His gaze raked her from head to toe. A small grunt was her only indication that her duty uniform passed inspection. She, on the other hand, could barely keep her jaw from dropping.

      She’d known him for so long, had seen him rigged out in everything from camouflage gear to a hand-tailored tux. But this was the first time she’d ever seen him with his brown hair slicked back and his nails manicured. Or in an Armani sport coat that molded his wide shoulders. Or Italian leather loafers. Or…

      “If you’re through conducting your inventory,” he said impatiently, “we need to hit the road.”

      She popped a salute. “Yes, sir! It’s just that…You look so different.”

      The Field Dress tech who’d outfitted them both frowned. “Not too different, I hope.”

      After discussing the matter with Lightning, Hawk had decided he should stick to his civilian persona. He was too well-known in the international marksmanship circuit to do otherwise. But his recent marriage to a wealthy heiress had plucked him from the shooting range and plunged him into the world of manicures and priceless artifacts. Or so he and Jilly would pretend.

      With a spurt of real glee, she contemplated the crash course in Oriental antiques she would subject him to during the long flight to Hong Kong.

      “I’m ready if you are,” she told him.

      “Not quite. We have one more piece of business to take care of.”

      She couldn’t hold back a groan. “Not more codes!”

      “Just one. You haven’t picked your code name.”

      “We’ve been going nonstop since dawn. Who had time to think names?”

      “So think now. What, or who, are you?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “We need a name, Jilly.”

      Fiddling with the pendant that nestled just above the swell of her breasts, she searched her mind.

      “I can’t come up with…Wait!” She stroked her thumb over the smooth round bezel. “Jade. I’ll go by Jade.”

      Hawk’s expression softened. For a moment, just a moment, she was sure she caught the ghost of a grin on his rugged face.

      “Is that with a G or a J?”

      “J.” She smiled back.

      “I’ll let Griff know.”

      Dan Griffin, code name

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