Page 52 - Brokenclaw - John Gardner

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WANDA’S STORY

It was a warm and beautiful morning, clear and with no sea mist. Wanda Man
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Song Hing sat, dressed only in her terry-towel bathrobe, on the small balcony
of her fourth-storey apartment, looking out from the end of Laguna Street on to

the Marina. She sipped her coffee from a huge cup with the Paramount Pictures
logo stretching across one side.
The sound of a jet, way out over the sea, sent a tiny wave of pain through
her. Billy Chinn had given her the cup only a week before he had so tragically

flown his F14 Tomcat straight off the deck of an aircraft carrier to cartwheel
and explode in the sea. That was a year ago, and she had only recently been
able to come to terms with the deep grief of the loss. They would have been
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married by now, she thought, and then pushed the feelings and images back into

the dark tunnels of her mind. At least she had learned to live with it.
She stretched like a cat, feeling luxurious in the knowledge that she had a
whole twenty-four hours to herself, and planned to cram into the day a whole
bunch of pleasant things – shopping, having a facial, then, tonight, a movie.

She was just reaching for her copy of the Chronicle to see what was playing
this week, when the telephone rang. Later she was to think that at its first ring
she sensed trouble, but maybe that was hindsight.
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‘Hi.’ She gave no name or number. That was one of the many things they
taught you early on in Naval Intelligence, and she had done far more than the
basic course.
‘Wanda, honey, I have to see you.’
‘Dad. What a surprise. I thought you were out of town.’ She tried to sound

bright, but it had been difficult with her father for nearly six months now. She

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