If Karen though she was upset, Jason Simms was upset twice as much, but for different reasons. The string of invectives that flew from his mouth put Karen's to shame.

"You're still in love with her, aren't you? You wouldn't have been so rude at dinner or so upset now, otherwise." Emma commented slyly as she leaned against the wall of their stateroom.

"I'm paying you to seduce that nuclear scientist. Not give me psychoanalysis. This mission can't fail. France is too close to developing a new type of bomb. That test he ran last week has made the situation extremely uncomfortable for my colleagues at the State Department. We can't afford to have Karen and her -what did you call him?- ex-mercenary husband screw things up. I don't know what she sees in that … killer … anyway. Anybody could see he's a thug. Who else wears sunglasses indoors?"

Emma pushed herself away from the wall and sauntered over to her current employer and sometimes bed mate. She ran her hands down his chest to his waist and started to pull on his belt, working his pants around his hips. "Your jealousy could work to our advantage."

He started to pull away from her but her hands roaming on his thighs and lower stopped him. "How?"

"If you go after Karen publicly like you still have feelings for her, which shouldn't be too hard, I can attach myself to Dr. Ogawa like a forlorn jilted lover looking for reassurance and support. He saw your argument earlier at dinner. Men can't resist a woman in distress." By now, his pants and briefs were pooled around his ankles and she was kneeling down in front of him.

"You can keep your ex-wife distracted for a few days, can't you?" Hearing his breathing grow ragged and rapid, she looked up from her task to wait for his answer.

"I think that could be arranged."

Below the passenger and crew levels were the engine rooms and storage facilities. Usually deathly quiet and still when the Sea Goddess was docked for the night, the storage facilities were a hotbed of activity. The faint scurry of feet and equipment could clearly be heard. Or would have been heard if anyone had been bored enough or stupid enough to travel this far below decks at night. As it was, a cadre of black clad men were setting up electronic equipment for a scheduled communiqué with their Master.

As they waited for the appointed time, the Sing Wah mission leader took status reports from his various minions who floated among the guests as waiters and cleaning men. One report was disturbing to the quiet man with the small scar on his check. A Black Widow had been spotted with an American. Talking to their quarry, Dr. Ogawa. An unfortunate complication. They couldn't risk the good doctor being spirited away. She would have to be dealt with.

At half past three- no sooner, no later- a string of coded messages flowed to their computer equipment. Armed with his orders detailing the rendezvous in two days time off the shore of Waingapu, the mission leader doled out his commands to his loyal men. Keep watch on the doctor until the night of the rendezvous, when he would be brought to his new employers …... And neutralize the Black Widow threat.

****************

Karen awoke the next morning with the sensation of sweet soreness between her legs, the smell of fruit and flowers in her nostrils, and the sound of ….. typing in the corner in the room. She sighed. Then last evening wasn't just a bad dream. Opening her eyes slightly and turning on the bed in the direction of the sounds, she saw Kermit hunched over his laptop. She rolled off the bed with a slight groan and padded over to his desk, sliding her hands down his chest and kissing his forehead just below the white shock of hair.

"You're up early."

"Well, when your Captain orders you to surf for information, you don't wait till brunch."

"You were never this obedient at the precinct," Karen said dryly as she kissed his forehead again.

He turned the chair around and pulled her to him, settling her in his lap. "I never had the positive reinforcement I do now," he said as he moved her free flowing hair from her shoulder and kissed her neck.

Karen smiled at him and touched his face softly. "Work first. What did you find out?"

"Slavedriver," Kermit muttered as he turned them both back around and shifted into detective mode. "The scientist in question is one Dr. Hiyto Ogawa. A nuclear physicist."

"Nuclear?" Karen looked back from the computer screen and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Word in scientific circles is that he is this close," he held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart, "to coming up with a new type of atomic weapon. Twice as powerful as currently available. He's currently working for France, one of the few countries actively running nuclear tests."

Karen whistled, her eyebrows climbing higher. "He'll be a very popular man if he's successful." She stood up and started to pace. "What would Jason want with him? He never did any side jobs for the State Department when we were married. But if he has Emma here to ply her trade, as it were …..', she waved her hands in the air in a random pattern, "It's possible." She stopped and looked over at Kermit who was blandly looking straight ahead. A sure sign he was thinking of something she didn't want to hear.

"Out with it, Kermit."

"A lot can happen to a man in eight years."

"Meaning?"

"He could be going freelance."

She shook her head negatively. "No. Whatever else he may be, Jason has always been loyal. Duty. Honor. Country." She started to pace again. "That's why he had Todd join the military academy. To learn those values he'd been taught." She leaned against a wall and stared at her husband.

Kermit stared back. Waiting for reason to overcome preconceived notions formed a lifetime ago. Karen dropped her gaze first and closed her eyes against an imaginary pain.

"You're right. We just don't know." What would she tell Todd, if …? She switched to captain mode as emotional protection, opening her eyes and stared at Kermit as blandly as he had earlier. "Run a trace on Jason. Then keep an eye on the doctor. If Emma is focusing on Dr. Ogawa, then I'm sure she'll be wherever he is." Heading past Kermit to the bathroom, she continued. "I'll handle my end."

Silently, Kermit turned in his seat and followed Karen with his eyes as she moved to the bathroom threshold. Feeling his gaze, she stopped and leaned on the door jam for a moment before turning back to him and smiling wanly. "I guess 'positive reinforcement' will have to wait."

***************************

This isn't going to work, Karen thought to herself as she looked over the lunch table at her ex-husband, Jason. Not that he was being rude, mind you. In fact, he was being down right solicitous. He'd apologized for dinner. The shock of seeing her re-married, he'd said. He'd gone on to praise her courage at taking on a child while still running the 101st.. He kept trying to hold her hand and tell her how beautiful she was. The saccharine was making her teeth itch.

She'd tried sending out little probes, asking about his job, Emma, their old friends at the State Department who she knew had been in intelligence in her days as a diplomat's wife. Nothing. She was starting to get worried. The Jason Simms she knew was hotheaded, caustic, sometimes hard, often cold. But he'd always been forthright and direct. That's one of the reasons he was such a respected diplomat. Everyone knew he was honest. Seeing him dissemble so smoothly …. It was starting to erode the small seed of disbelief she'd had. He was obviously lying. Oh, it wouldn't have been obvious to just anyone, but she'd lived with the man, fought with the man, for 13 years. She could tell.

Just when she thought the whole sorry mess couldn't get any worse, Emma came strolling in. Took one look at Jason reaching for Karen's hand again and started screaming about betrayal and Jason being in love with his ex-wife. Karen couldn't for the life of her fathom why Emma was going on this way until she noticed …. Dr. Ogawa was sitting in the next row of tables eating dim sum.

Karen felt an anger building inside of her. Now *she* was being used as a bit player in whatever game her ex and his trollop had going. She'd had enough. Standing up to leave, she was stopped by Jason who kept a hold of her arm. Wrenching it from his grasp, she hissed coldly in his face, "I don't know whether to slap you or give the two of you an Oscar. When you're ready to tell me the truth, you know where to find me." She stopped by a courtesy phone half a deck away and dialed the stateroom. She hoped Kermit was having better luck searching Jason's recent past than she'd had.

*****************************

Kermit rubbed his eyes underneath his glasses and sighed. He was tired of being right. Jason Simms' bank accounts had a river of money flowing through them the size of the Nile. He hadn't been able to track down the source but he knew what a diplomat's salary was supposed to be. And what he'd seen wasn't it. Damn.

Just then he heard the stateroom phone ring. Answering the line mechanically, he wasn't surprised to hear Karen's disillusioned voice on the other end.

"Yeah …. I know …. Come back to the stateroom. The information will be on the computer for you to read. I'll take over watching Ogawa … Karen?…. We'll work through this ….. Go on ahead to the sauna. I'll see you back here for dinner … I love you too, Sweetcakes. Bye." He hung up the receiver. It was never enough, was it? He couldn't spare her the pain, no matter how much he wanted to.

Walking to the bathroom to splash a final wave of water over his face and check his deck camouflage- no glasses, khaki pants, white shirt, and a really boring book on investments- he headed out the door for a day of 'watch the doctor'.

**********************

He'd had no trouble finding Ogawa. Or Emma, as it had turned out. The scientist had set a routine that was easy to follow. Lunch, followed by shuffleboard, followed by a game of billiards in the drawing room. And Emma had wasted no time attaching herself to the lonely physicist, playing the jilted lover in need of comfort for all it was worth. Before her prey knew what hit him, he had invited Emma over for drinks and more. Purring that she needed to change into something more comfortable, she arranged to meet Ogawa in her stateroom at 7:00.

As Kermit watched her work from the next set of tables, he wondered if he'd been so easy. Oh, yeah. Loneliness made men fools for the taking. He hadn't been spared. But he'd survived the experience. Ogawa wouldn't know what hit him. Resolved to go over to Simms' stateroom a few minutes after Ogawa arrived and play the irate husband, he returned to his stateroom to change into something a little more menacing….

***********************

Emma Thornton stepped out of the shower, a hum at her lips. It quickly turned into a aborted scream as she felt an arm go around her throat ….. The last thought she had as the life was choked out of her was that Latrodect would be pleased to see his will for her finally carried out ……

At 7:05, two hours after his surveillance targets and he'd all left the billiard room, Kermit knocked loudly on the door to Emma and Jason's stateroom and felt the door open to his touch. Not good. He drew the Desert Eagle, prepared for an attack. He wasn't prepared for what he saw.

Dr. Ogawa stood at the door of the bedroom, his back to Kermit and the front door, staring into the room. He turned around slowly at the sound of Kermit's footsteps. His face was a tableau of shock and horror. Walking slowly over to Kermit and grabbing onto Kermit's lapel like a drowning man clutching a lifeline, he shook his head back and forth, his mouth moved but no sound came out.

Kermit quickly led the man to a wall where he could collapse out of the way. Making a quick call to ship security to cover his ass, he stepped to the bedroom doorway, careful not to go in and disturb anything. A glimpse from the threshold was all he needed.

Naked, Emma Thornton was stretched out on the bed, strapped to the four bed posts with her own nylons. Another pair of hose covered her eyes and a third pair served as a gag for her lifeless mouth, blood caking around the side of her lips. Her face was battered; around her eyes, the skin was clearly blackened. Looking down clinically past her pummeled face, he could see that the rest of her body had faired no better. Bruises lined her arms and thighs.

He looked away. Rubbing his eyes wearily underneath his glasses and turning away from what was apparently a sexual fantasy gone wrong, he checked on Dr. Ogawa and sat down in the nearest overstuffed chair. Facing the door, he readied himself for the harsh glare of security, knowing the night would only get worse….

***********************

"Dammit, Jason! You've got to start telling me the truth!" Karen was pacing in the small white room where her ex husband had been taken for questioning. "They think you killed Emma."

"And what do you think?" Jason said quietly, sitting still in the hard metal chair he'd been in for the last four hours.

"What I think isn't important. All that matters is the truth." Karen sat down on the hard metal chair across from him. "The ship's doctor said that as far as he could determine, Emma was killed between 6:30 and 7:00, when Dr. Ogawa came to your room and found the door open. Now where were you?"

Jason Simms looked at her for a second and then repeated what he'd told every questioner who'd asked him. "I went for a walk on the Observation Deck. I was alone. No one saw me. I don't have an alibi."

Karen leaned her elbows on the interrogation table and put her head in the palms of her hand. Tilting her face to one side, she looked at him quizzically and spoke to him softly.

"Jason, I know you weren't on the Observation Deck ….. I was up there, cooling off from our last encounter. I would have seen you. Hell, there was a whole crowd of people up listening to that concert they sponsored. Someone would have seen you." She sighed softly. "Why are you lying to me? I'm only trying to help."

"Why?" Jason Simms asked, his voice cold.

"Because I don't want our son to have a convicted murderer for a father, that's why!" She snapped suddenly, standing up from the chair and leaning against a wall.

"Maybe you did kill Emma. Was she going to double cross you? Did she try to spurn your advances? The investigators found your semen on her battered body. Did you just get careless? The sex too rough? I don't remember bondage being one of your kicks." She pushed herself off of the wall and leaned her hands on the table. "You know what? You can hang. I don't care anymore. The only thing I care about is how I'm going to tell our son that his father is a cold-blooded murderer and a traitor."

Jason Simms' eyes snapped to her face at her last remark. Noticing the look, Karen leaned further over him and seized the advantage.

"That's right …. We know about the money, Jason. We know all about your mission here. If you'd sell out your country for money, what else would you do?"

Palms gripping the table edge, Jason Simms pushed himself up violently from his chair and glared over at Karen who'd stepped back at his movement.

"I'm no traitor. And I didn't kill Emma." Still leaning forward on the table, he tilted his head down towards the tabletop for a long moment. When he finally lifted his eyes back to her face, his expression had softened into one of appeasement. "Ok, look. Emma and I did have sex. It was her way of celebrating a conquest."

"Her seeing Dr. Ogawa. I didn't appreciate being a pawn in your con game, by the way."

Jason nodded. "Sorry about that. It was the quickest way to give Emma a hook with him."

"To seduce him."

Jason nodded again. "Her job was to entice him. Get him on our side."

"And your job?"

Jason stood still for a moment, looking at the tabletop again as if weighing his options. Did he trust her? He had once. But after all of these years, Karen wasn't so sure he would trust her now. "My job was to look for the plans." He straightened to an upright stance and looked her in the eye.

"For the nuclear device? We heard that Dr. Ogawa's experiments weren't complete yet."

"You have done your homework. Or was it Griffin? I hear he's a good investigator" He didn't wait for her answer before he continued speaking in one long monotone. "Unfortunately, Dr. Ogawa has finished his work. The plans are finalized. Word is that he's shopping it around. Discreetly, of course. If Emma failed," he looked away again with guilt in his eyes, "and the plans couldn't be found, I was authorized to offer Ogawa the money. That's what the bank accounts are for."

"That still doesn't explain where you were when Emma was murdered." Karen folded her arms in front of her and waited for his explanation.

Jason sighed wearily. "I was on deck 3 breaking into Ogawa's safety deposit box. I'd already checked his stored luggage when they were playing billiards. I was going to try his room while he was with Emma. In fact, I was in Ogawa's closet when Griffin came back with Ogawa at 8:00. That's when I heard that Emma had been killed."

"You know this doesn't clear you. You can't prove that you were in any of these places."

"There was a guard at the door when I went to the safety deposit room. I had to sign in to gain access."

"Then why didn't you say that earlier? And why hasn't the guard come forward?"

"I didn't want to be asked any questions about why I was there. I pretended to be that diamond merchant guy that was on the other side of you at dinner. I would have pretended to be Dr. Ogawa, but," Jason looked at his hands. "I don't think I would've passed for an short Oriental man, do you?" He looked at her with a hint of nervous humor.

Karen smiled slightly, the smile not reaching her eyes.

"As for the guard, he has no reason to believe that I wasn't the diamond merchant guy. So he has no reason to come forward. I guess you could show him my picture, I don't know …. That's your department. You're the cop, not me."

"And you're the diplomat playing at James Bond. What were you thinking?" She held up her hand to forestall his response, " Never mind, don't answer that now. If you didn't kill Emma … and I'm not sure I believe anything you've just told me," She held up her hand again to quell the protests of innocence she saw in his face. "… I'll check out you're alibi … then someone else killed her. A rival for Ogawa's plans, maybe." Karen said, talking as much to herself as to her ex-husband.

Jason tried once more to say something but Karen again interrupted him. "For now, it's probably safer that you stay here. The murderer, whoever he may be, is still on board and might come after you next. Don't talk to the locals. Kermit and I will take care of it. He has connections at the …" She looked over at Jason, waiting for him to supply her with the name of the agency who employed him.

"State Department. Or the CIA. I'm not sure which one. I got my orders from Bill."

"Bill Hardy?? I thought he'd retired. It figures that he would get you involved to some crazy scheme like this. Aren't you a little old for a career change, Jason?"

"Duty, Karen. You know what that means." He met her sarcasm calmly, not disconcerted at her statement in the least.

Karen sighed. "Yes. I know. Duty. Honor. Country. I know the code." She smiled a more genuine smile, this time. "Todd's just like you in that regard…" She softened her voice just a tad from the interrogator's steel she had been using for the last hour. "I'm glad that I don't have to tell Todd that his father's … well, never mind."

She turned to go but Jason quickly walked around the table and grabbed her hand. Raising it to his lips, he kissed her hand softly, looking at her with a look mixed with gratitude and something else….Karen didn't want to interpret the something else. She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her hand as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Thank you, Karen. I'm glad that if this had to happen … that you are here with me." He pulled her closer to him and lowered his lips to kiss her.

Stopping his advance with her free hand and taking her other hand from his, she stepped back three paces and looked at him sadly. "I can't say the same, Jason. I'm sorry." Karen turned back towards the door, avoiding the gaze that she knew was still focused on her.

"So am I."

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