Page 29 of The Hijack

Nana’s boat was much nicer than either of the ones I’d been traveling on recently. While not a superyacht by any means, Nana’s ship had a small galley and two bathrooms. There were three separate cabins, only one of which was currently in use.

I found everything I needed to brew tea in her cupboards. There was an old-fashioned teapot and a miniature stove. I filled the pot with drinking water and set it on to boil. Nana had a selection of teas, and not the big brand box store kind either. They were hand-picked organic teas that looked like they had been bought at a farmer’s market somewhere. Loose leaves portioned out into separate jars bore the names and flavors of proper British and Indian teas.

I picked orange pekoe and scooped up a heaping tablespoon into each of three metal tea balls. Dropping them into the cups I’d laid out, I poured hot water in once it was ready. It felt ridiculous to be standing there in the galley while my grandmother steered the ship. But there I was. I waited patiently for her to come find me. By the time she did, I could tell that Clark knew a good deal more than I did.

“Where should I start?” Nana asked, accepting her cup from me.

I fished my tea ball out and took a sip, burying my feelings for the time being. “How did you know where to find me?”

“Your friends at Dark Sparrow had a tracking device on that young man with you,” Nana replied, giving up no more than absolutely necessary. I almost felt like this was an interrogation, although I wouldn’t be using any enhanced techniques.

“How do you know Dark Sparrow?” I asked.

“Honey, they’ve been around for years,” Nana said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Not that long,” I argued. If I accepted the fact that Nana had been MI6, then surely she had gone into retirement. When I’d last seen her, Dark Sparrow wasn’t on my radar.

“Twenty years,” Nana said. “Long enough.”

I glanced at Clark, wondering if she had something to say about the matter. She hid a smile behind her hand, clearly enjoying herself.

“What was your job at MI6?” I asked, hoping that she hadn’t been a field agent.

“Field agent,” she said, as if she could read my thoughts.

“Nana,” I objected.

“I wasn’t always your nana,” she reminded me. “In fact, at one point it might shock you to learn that I was exactly the same age as your friend here.”

“Nana, this is Clark,” I said with a sigh. “Clark, this is Gretchen Aldora, my nana.”

“How do you do?” Clark said, pretending to have just met the woman she’d been chatting with for the past half-hour.

“Charmed,” Nana replied, playing along. “So what are your intentions when it comes to my grandson?”

“Nana!” I shouted. This had gone too far. Either she was my grandmother, or she was a player, but she couldn’t be both.

Clark looked away, her laughter held thinly in check. She was enjoying this a little bit too much. I wasn’t about to inform my grandmother what Clark and I had been up to all alone on our boat. Despite the fact that she obviously knew something about what men and women did together in the dark, she was still my nana.

“You want the whole story about how I got involved with MI6?” Nana asked, taking pity on me.

“Yes, please,” I exclaimed.

“I started out as a secretary to a company that manufactured munitions,” Nana said.

“You mean the military?” I interrupted.

“No, it was a civilian company,” she corrected me. “I was the executive secretary to the CEO, and so I had my hands on a lot of sensitive information.”

“What company?” I asked.

Nana gave me a stern look. “That’s classified.”

I checked with Clark to see if she could appreciate the runaround I was getting. It had been a long time since I had been shut out of a ‘need to know’ situation. And it was my grandmother on the other side of the briefing.

Clark just shrugged, taking a seat at the table. I picked up my teacup and sat down beside her, making a quiet but definitive statement that we stood together. Whether that answered Nana’s question about my intentions, I couldn’t say. She smiled at both of us and sat down opposite, continuing her story.

“MI6 recruited me to prove them with intel at the beginning. But the more involved I got, the more I was asked to go on secret missions.”