Hydromancist (Seven Forbidden Arts 4)

At the main gates, the road would lead him to town or his condo, depending on the turn he took. Along the beach, it was less than a mile to Tim’s home. Its location was in the file Cain had provided. According to Cain’s information, Tim didn’t live alone. A small security detail, two trusted bodyguards, and his secretary, Frida Adolfsson, boarded with him. He never left his condo or his residence in San José unguarded. It made it challenging, if not impossible, to slip into his domain. She’d need to be invited. Satellite surveillance of both his official residence and condo was out of the question because of the jungle foliage obscuring the aerial view. Tim had too many trackers in place that would pick up an attempt to break through his cyber or physical security perimeters. Cain’s Eye in the Sky—their code name for Cain’s private satellite—was of no use for this operation. The only option was doing it the old-fashioned way by following him on foot.

They reached the gates. A man leaned on the wall by the exit under the spotlight, smoking. When Tim approached, he flicked the butt into the trashcan and straightened. He wore a black T-shirt and camo pants. His head was shaved clean. She recognized him as Lee Ryan, one of Tim’s ever-present bodyguards.

Like a panther, Maya soundlessly lifted herself onto the branch of a rubber tree and climbed up to where she had a clear view. Adjusting her binoculars, she catalogued Lee’s earpiece, as well as the body holster and compact submachine gun, a Steyr tactical pistol. Impressive. At nine hundred rounds per minute, that piece of steel could get her panties wet. With only her flip knife, she felt slightly underdressed for the party. Luckily, a lack of clothes had never inhibited or prevented her from gatecrashing.

Tim said something at which Lee nodded. When the men started walking, it wasn’t in the direction of Tim’s condo. They headed the opposite way, toward the village. Maya got down from the tree and followed.

It was a fifteen–minute hike to a cluster of restaurants and bars at the edge of town, on the port side. Tourist and fisher boats anchored at the jetty. A small warehouse on the side catered for the transit of commodities such as food, clothes, and bottled water for the hotels. Tim and Lee entered a bar opposite the warehouse. The signboard spelled Mango in neon letters.

With one glance, she could tell it wasn’t a place where one would normally find ambassadors. It was the kind that stocked cheap beer and was populated by poker-playing men in dirty vests, their knives jabbed into the tables, while a few daring tourists looked on.

She settled behind a rowing boat on the beach from where she could watch the door. She didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes later, Lee exited. He lit a cigarette and smoked it leaning on the rail, looking up and down the road.

Soft whistling permeated the night. Tim. She glanced in the direction of the sound, but before she spotted her target, a female giggle reached her ears. Tim wasn’t alone. They had to have exited from a side door while Lee kept watch in the front.

Tim walked along the street to a small wooden house at the end, his arm around a woman. Her floral skirt billowed behind her in the breeze. Maya couldn’t make out more. Tim’s body blocked his companion’s face from view.

Maya crept along the jetty, climbed up the embankment, and sneaked to the house, reaching it from the back. She kept an eye on Lee, who’d finished smoking and started making his way toward the cabin too. A light came on in the window, falling in broken rectangles across the outside deck.

She climbed the two steps to the porch and peered through the window into a bedroom with a pine bed, a dressing table cluttered with cosmetics, and a lamp on a nightstand.

A door slammed somewhere.

“Easy,” Tim said, sounding amused.

Female laughter followed before a voice replied, “I’m drunk.”

“I know, honey. I’ve got you.”

A second later, Tim and the woman appeared in the doorframe, Tim’s arm still around her. He helped her over the step and across the floor to the bed, where he lifted her onto the mattress. The woman had curly, black hair that fell from under a yellow scarf tied around her head. Her face was heart-shaped, and she had a cute dip to her nose. She was pretty in a feminine kind of way. She muttered sweet nothings in Spanish at which Tim chuckled.

Tim lowered himself next to her onto the bed. As his lips touched the woman’s neck, she arched against him with a cry of pleasure. The sour taste Maya swallowed back had to be heartburn. It couldn’t be jealousy. She wasn’t capable of envy. In order to feel that strong an emotion, one had to care, and she didn’t, at least not about anything other than her oath and her team.