Without A Trace

Then a thought occurred to her. “Were any civilian passengers logged for this trip?” Sometimes adventurers would book passage on a commercial shipper as an alternative to flying. The signal Oracle picked up might have originated from a passenger.

Jimmy rummaged on the keyboard for a moment, then said, “One guy. An Alexander Wryzynski.”

Nikki scribbled down the name as he spelled it for her. “Thanks for the trouble, Jimmy. I owe you.”

“Anything for you, chica, anytime.” He clicked off.

Nikki’s smile faded as the search engine came up with about twenty-eight thousand incomprehensible listings for SHA.

SHA, she discovered, was a database programming tool used to encrypt data, so the vast majority of the search links led to either propeller-head sites or to database companies. Including shipping, transport and China in the search term brought up more programming links, only in Chinese.

The manifest had listed the SHA company as based in Hong Kong, with offices in Singapore and Istanbul. She tried a search with those cities and shipping, and dropped SHA. Bingo. A plethora of shipping companies, none of which were SHA. What shipping company these days didn’t have a Web site?

So a little-known shipping company had sent a light load of handwoven textiles in the least likely direction for such goods to go, and taken on a single container of unknown contents that had bypassed U.S. Customs and Border Control.

It smelled as rotten as the shrimp she’d raked this morning.

Nikki blew out a breath. She had her mark. She fired off two words via e-mail to Delphi: Got it. Now she’d just wait to be contacted.

Delphi’s e-mail warning back in February had been followed up by a face-to-face visit from a former classmate, Dana Velasco. Dana had been two years ahead of Nikki and now test-piloted experimental planes for a major aircraft manufacturer. Oracle, Dana had told her, was an intelligence-digesting system run by someone known only as Delphi.

“I don’t know who Delphi is,” Dana had said over a crowd of lively teenagers as they walked down Calle Ocho in Little Havana, “but they’ve used Oracle to piece together puzzles intelligence agencies can’t manage on their own.”

“And Athena figures in how?”

Dana had only shrugged. “A lot of what gets pieced together has to do with the academy. And students like you.”

Students like you. Nikki sighed and kicked back in her office chair. Students like her, who’d been manipulated at the genetic level, unbeknownst to their parents.

Jaime and Teresita Bustillo hadn’t wanted much—just a girl. Seven sons had kept their upscale East Flagstaff construction business going, but they’d wanted one last chance at a daughter. That’s where the fertility clinic in Zuni, New Mexico, came in. The clinic, doctors assured her parents, could guarantee a girl.

They just hadn’t mentioned that the girl, conceived in vitro and implanted in her mother’s womb, would be born with a little something extra. That little secret would be kept until only a few months ago, when Delphi made her phone call and Nikki finally understood the details about where her “gift” had come from. Nikki, Delphi had made clear, wasn’t the only girl to have a special talent.

Another, Nikki knew immediately, was her best friend, Jessica Whittaker. Jess had been two years ahead of Nikki at the academy, but something had drawn them together. Maybe it was the fact they were both “egg babies,” even though they, at the time, had had no idea why they could do what they could. Maybe it was that Jess seemed like the older sister Nikki didn’t have. Whichever, as Nikki had grown up at Athena Academy, she’d found herself closer to Jess than even to her Hecate sisters.

Egg baby. Jess could breathe water and Nikki had a nose like a bloodhound. It was almost as if the scientists at Lab 33 had been splicing in the traits that humans longed for but didn’t have.

Which often made Nikki wonder if Catwoman really did exist out there. Or someone more brutal, more cunning, more…insane.

Her cell buzzed and Nikki caught it on the second tone. “Bustillo.”

“Girlfriend!”

“Dana!” Nikki replied, grinning. “¿Cómo estás, chica?”

“Hell, Nik,” Dana groaned. “My Spanish still sucks, okay?”

“You said you were going to practice.”

“Life’s short but the journey’s busy. Let’s eat.”

“Name the place.”

“That little club we didn’t get to check out last time I was there. In a half hour.”

Nikki hung up. The little club they’d missed was called Hoy Como Ayer, a few blocks away, and it deserved something much nicer than her gray sweat-pants and a ragged T-shirt. She dug through her closet until she came up with a red knit top and a short black skirt with a bit of flare to the hem.

Twenty minutes later Nikki sat in a corner table as far away from the little stage as she could get. A couple of youths unloaded gear from a lowered pickup truck outside; Thursday nights jammed with class acts from the finest musicians and singers working the circuit. According to Nikki’s watch, she had five minutes to wait for Dana and another hour before the night’s live music would start.

On the dot, Dana wound through the growing throng toward her table. Dressed in a flowing, flowery skirt and a solid black top, her dark hair loose on her shoulders, Dana looked striking—and totally unlike a turista.

“Hey, girl,” Nikki said as she rose to hug Dana.

“Have you heard from Jess?” Dana asked casually as she pulled out a chair.

“Not since a phone call before she left on vacation.” Nikki put a not-so-slight emphasis on vacation.

Dana’s impassive face said as much as Nikki had guessed already: Jess wasn’t on vacation, but doing something that was no doubt extremely dangerous. For the same Delphi that had contacted Nikki in February? Because she and Jess were both targeted for kidnapping because of their genetic mutations?

“Have you talked to Jess recently?” Nikki asked. As former classmates in the same year, Dana and Jess might have kept in contact more frequently than even Nikki and Jess, though Nikki doubted it. Her surrogate big sister always stayed in touch. Even when she had to be coy about what she was up to, like in their last conversation.

Dana shook her head as a waiter arrived. “No, I haven’t heard from her. What’s a mojito?”

“Better than a kick in the head,” Nikki muttered, irritated that Dana was being close-lipped about their mutual friend.

“I’ll have a mojito,” Dana told the waiter.

“Agua,” Nikki said to him.

“Spoilsport.”

Nikki merely nodded. They both knew Dana would take a sip, maybe two, from her drink and then leave the rest. Dana couldn’t afford to be off her game when she was on duty.

Whatever on duty meant for her.

After they ordered, Nikki grabbed a baked plantain chip and hit the spicy guacamole with it. “What’s up?”

“You found what we’re looking for.”

“Maybe.” Nikki relayed the information she’d gotten from Two-Finger Jimmy and finished up with, “So the SHA shipment to Hong Kong looks like the one you want. It’s carrying a passenger and a suspicious cargo container.”

Dana waited until the waiter served their drinks and left.

“Sounds like you’ve pegged it.” Dana sipped the mojito—a concoction of rum, lime juice and mint, among other things—and smiled broadly. “Can I get this to go?”

“Not in this town. What’s going on with the container ship?”

Dana twirled the mint sprig in her drink. “Athena needs you to track it. It has something we want.”