Chapter Eleven
REDUCE SPEED. WE’RE at one hundred feet.” Zane’s words came quietly through Mac’s radio.
The Zodiac Hurricane H-733 rolled over a moderate swell, its speed slowing as Cosky pulled back on the throttle. Mac leaned over the side of the skiff, trying to see past Zane’s and Rawls’s broad shoulders and helmet-wrapped heads, but a face full of cold spray as the wind kicked up convinced him to settle back and wait for beaching.
Taking second position in the Hurricane held advantages and disadvantages. While the guys in front took the brunt of the wind and spray, they also had the best view. A full 180-degree vision of what lurked ahead. Mac, on the other hand, had stayed drier and warmer in the middle, but he could see only to the right and left. Hell, he couldn’t even see their wake. Cosky, the big bastard, blocked that direction.
Being all but blind lent an uneasy chill to the ride. This was where trust came in. Trust in the men blocking your view, in the training that turned a boatful of individuals into a weaponized, synchronized team.
It had been a long time since he taken second position in a Hurricane, a long time since he’d had to lock on to that kind of trust. It was both satisfying and frustrating being back in the boat after all these years.
“Fifty feet.” Zane’s voice drifted through the radio again, and Cosky eased back on the throttle even more.
In the green glow his NVDs cast, the dark shadow of the second Zodiac rode the swells beside them. Jude’s boat. Jude’s team. There was a third boat somewhere in the darkness behind.
He shook the unease off. Fuck, it wasn’t like the men accompanying them were total strangers. He’d already fought beside them once. He knew they were professionals, well trained and as disciplined as his own men. But . . . they weren’t his men. Team trust was forged through endless hours of training together, followed by hundreds of missions.
Still, it almost felt like old times out here on the waves, bobbing under a moonless sky, the wet rubber of the Zodiac beneath his fingers, the oily stench of diesel fuel drifting past his nose, the sting of spray hitting his face and hands. Hell, even the wreathed moon playing peekaboo above was reminiscent of his stint on the teams.
Of course, there were some major differences. Like the fact that they were inserting within the good ol’ United States of America, alongside teams from another nation. If he remembered his long-ago civics lessons, Indian nations were sovereign nations within the boundaries of the United States. Which meant they were launching an attack within the United States, on a US citizen, accompanied by a foreign power.
If they got caught . . . fuck, the consequences would make the fallout after the attempted hijacking five months ago look like a light sprinkle next to a category 5 hurricane.
They’d never see the world beyond the view of bars again, and that was assuming they weren’t summarily executed for treason.
Wouldn’t hurt to pray you don’t get caught.
He grimaced, adjusting his weight on the bench seat stretched across the Hurricane as the boat swayed over another swell. If he believed in a higher power—which he didn’t—he’d use all his prayers on the small child engulfed by that huge hospital bed. Those prayers would perform a two-for-one miracle, saving both Benji and the woman worrying herself to death over her little boy.
“Fifteen feet,” Zane said.
Cosky cut the engine. The skiff’s velocity along with the waves would push the Zodiac the rest of the way forward.
They’d been fortunate so far with this mission. The trip down from Shadow Mountain had proved uneventful. The boats had been waiting for them exactly where they were supposed to be when the Eagles had landed. Mac had no clue who Wolf’s stateside support was, but they’d been on the ball. They’d found the perfect little cove—secluded and flat—to land the chopper and ground the boats. Everything had gone according to plan.
The best time to launch a water insertion was during wind and waves and a shrouded moon. From a distance—say a window or computer monitor—the boat simply looked like a slightly larger swell. Waves and wind created noise too, which drowned out the sound of the boat’s engine. Conditions had been perfect tonight.
If he’d been a religious man, he might have decided the good Lord was on their side—everything had lined up that tidy. The satellite images placed Link at the Lake Washington beach house. They had pictures of him arriving two days before and nothing of him leaving. Up-to-date imaging indicated he was still there, all tucked away, waiting for them. What the satellite had picked up had been a stroke of almost unbelievable luck. It wasn’t uncommon for the intel on mission prep to take weeks to come together. Hell, sometimes months.
Based on the worry lines stacking under Eve Zapa’s eyes, Benji didn’t have weeks.
He eyed the gray, shrouded sky, and tension ballooned. The pressure just kept building and building until it felt like his skin was about to split. He’d like to believe the anxiety was due to the mission, but he knew it wasn’t. He’d ridden in enough beach boats to recognize the feelings attached—which was a mixture of adrenaline and caution.
This was different. This was more like helplessness and worry. And it was linked to Amy. His fixation on her had escalated tenfold these past few days. A natural progression thanks to all the time he’d been spending with her lately.
That off-the-wall request of hers sure as hell hadn’t helped. Fuck, he should be running insertion scenarios through his head. Instead he was running her words through his mind. Had she really asked him to seduce her? Had she really asked for a sexual relationship?
To show just how fucked up he was these days, he could even understand her point of view. Understand why she’d made the offer, or request, or whatever the hell it had been. Fuck, he wanted to take her up on it too. Spend a couple of hot, heavy hours—
The boat suddenly stopped—hard—throwing him off his bench. They’d landed.
“Jesus, Mac,” Cosky snapped from behind him, pure disbelief in his voice. “Have you forgotten how the fuck to hold on?”
Fuck.
Mac righted himself and rose to his feet, then settled in a crouch. He could hardly excuse his inattention by explaining where his mind had been. Sex wasn’t an excuse.
He slid out of the Hurricane and into a foot of icy water. By the time he’d exited the lake, the second and third boats were already disgorging their teams.
As they joined Zane and Cosky on the beach, Cosky looked him over. “Maybe you should think about babysitting the boats and let us take care of the big boy stuff.”
Yeah. “Fuck you.” He shot his lieutenant the double finger salute to reinforce his rebuke.
Zane glanced between him and Cosky before offering a shrug. “Remember,” he said, his voice quiet but clear through the headset. “No shooting unless absolutely necessary. Subdue.”
Nobody bothered to nod. They were all crystal clear on that salient fact. The inhabitants of the house they were crashing were American citizens. Ironic, really . . . they’d spent a good share of their lifetimes protecting the citizens of the great ol’ USA from foreign nations inserting into their homeland. A lifetime protecting them from terrorists and keeping them safe, comfortable, and alive to carry out their hate rallies and counter-hate rallies.
Alive to kill each other in the name of whatever religion or movement was the flavor of the day.
Christ . . . to go to war against your own people was something he’d never even considered five months ago.
The enemies . . . they were a-changing.
They’d mapped out the insertion details in Shadow Mountain’s war room, using wall maps, projection screens, computer simulations, and satellite images, so each team knew exactly where to go and what to do. By now Jude would have taken out any computerized devices and cell phones with that handy-dandy device they’d used on Clay Purcell’s house.
The distance from the beach to the mansion was thick with towering, leafy, overgrown trees. Great for Link’s privacy, but great for camouflage as well. There was plenty of cover. Zane took point on their way to their target—the mansion’s beachfront entrance—with Rawls and Mac in the middle and Cos bringing up their six. They skirted a huge swimming pool and a pool house. Charlie Team had been assigned to clear the pool house, so they kept going.
They split into two groups at the giant marble patio. Zane and Rawls took the left side, slipping along the raised flower beds. Mac and Zane took the right side of the courtyard, with its fountain and pool full of glowing—no fuck, glowing!—fish.
Link’s mansion gleamed even in the moonlight, and in the green glaze of his NVDs, the dozens of windows imbedded in dark wood shimmered. Mac held his breath as Zane tried the long curved door handle. It didn’t budge. Out came the suction cup and glass cutters.
The name of the game was stealth. A shotgun blast to the lock was loud as fuck and would wake the whole house. Of course, if Jude hadn’t killed the electronics, the alarm would wake the whole house too.
In a normal assault, they’d have taken down doors and stormed through the place, taking out anyone who drew arms. But the US government frowned on such tactics against its own people, particularly extremely wealthy citizens with a penchant for charitable donations.
Zane hesitated before removing the circle of glass and sticking his hand through the opening to unlock the door. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who lacked the requisite trust in their new team members. But no alarm sounded, proof their trust had not been misplaced after all.
They assaulted into the room in their standard predatory crouch, rifles up and sweeping, and scared the holy fuck out of a bunch of couches and chairs—not to mention the grand-fucking-piano. Yeah . . . a total waste of badassery and testosterone and the tight muscles in Mac’s chest.
Shadow Mountain command had acquired the blueprints of the place, so they knew the bedrooms were on the second floor, up a staircase that followed the curve of the walls. The assumption was Link occupied one of those bedrooms.
Four huge, green-swathed figures were already climbing the stairs by the time Mac and his team reached the middle of the house. From the look of their ballistic vests and clunky helmets, they were Shadow Mountain warriors, Jude and Alpha Team. Zane fell in behind them, followed by Rawls and then Mac.
Where the fuck was the security team?
The absence of any retaliatory force was fucking weird. Link was rich as hell and utilized some of that money for protection. The satellite images had shown half a dozen men who’d carried themselves like professionals with the bulk of weapons beneath their jackets.
Where the hell were they? The moment the alarm died and the surveillance equipment malfunctioned, whoever was on duty should have kicked into high gear and hightailed it to their client. Maybe that’s where they were—covering Link. They’d find out soon enough. The master bedroom was right around the corner.
Mac kept his rifle up and aimed to the left, away from Rawls’s back. When they reached the second-floor landing, he followed Zane and Rawls to the right. Alpha Team had gone left, heading to the bedrooms lining the left side of the stairway. Zane and Rawls took up position beside the first bedroom on the right. Mac and Cosky slid along the wall to the second bedroom.
As Zane and Rawls headed into their bedroom, Mac and Cosky assaulted through their assigned door. They went in low and fast, guns up and sweeping. The room was empty. Mac held his position while Cosky swept the bathroom.
“Clear.” Cosky’s calm voice came through Mac’s radio.
They retreated into the hall, emerging in time to see Rawls disappear into the third bedroom. Taking up position along the wall to the fourth, they headed inside. Rinse and repeat, except for the figure sitting, hands up, on the edge of the bed.
“On the floor. On the floor,” Mac shouted, his rifle zeroing in on the bastard’s chest.
“I’m not armed,” a male said quietly as the figure slid down to the thick squishy carpet—his hands still up. Cosky was on him before he’d straightened out on the floor. Mac held position while Cosky anchored the guy’s hands behind his back with the flex-cuffs and dragged him to his feet.
It wasn’t until the bastard was up and facing him that recognition hit.
They’d just introduced themselves to James Link.
“Target acquired,” Mac said into his mic, watching as Cosky checked arms, legs, and torso for weapons.
Their mark stood passively. No struggling. No questions. Just a resigned, maybe even relieved expression on his green-glazed face.
Fuck . . . Mac scowled. This had been way too easy.
“Where’s your security?” Cosky asked as he shoved Link toward the bedroom door.
Looked like he wasn’t the only one wondering about that.
Link shook himself and cast a confused look around the room, like he expected to see them hiding in the corners.
“Most of them have the night off, but Burns, Capos, and Owens should be around.”
Cosky relayed that information to Alpha and Bravo teams.
So they needed to keep an eye out for three bodyguards. Look at that; maybe Amy was right about the guy. Maybe he did have a guilty conscience. He was being so damn helpful—if you could trust what he’d told them.
They joined Zane and Rawls in the hall and headed for the stairs, where they got in line behind Alpha Team. Jude stepped in front of them before they could start down the steps and stood there with his head tilted listening to his radio. After several seconds of stillness, he stepped between Zane and Link.
“Go,” Jude said through the radio. “Everyone look alive. There’s still no sign of our three security guards.”
They descended the stairs in formation, Zane on point once again with Cos holding their six.
Link went submissively. Still no struggling. No trying something stupid, like jumping the rail. No rescue attempt from a bodyguard either. Which seemed the height of incompetence when you were protecting one of the richest men in the world.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and spread out, Jude’s team taking the lead. Jude, Zane, and Rawls clustered Link, making sure he was in the middle of a small mob.
No way in fuck were they going to lose him after going to all the trouble. Those missing security guards had everyone antsy. Had they set up a trap? Were they waiting for them?
If they had set up a trap, it wasn’t in the house. Mac’s team was out of the house and across the patio in no time. They skirted the pool and pool house again, more widely this time with Link in the middle of their protective huddle. Mac swept the silent courtyard, the hair on his arms electrified, eyes and ears tuned for any sign of danger.
Nothing.
Fuck, they just might make it to the boats unscathed. This whole mission had been ridiculously easy.
An assessment he immediately regretted.
Suddenly Jude stopped moving. He froze for a beat of two and suddenly spun, driving his shoulder into Zane’s chest. “Down. Down.”
His violent shove drove Zane into Link, and they both went down, which saved their lives.
The crack of a rifle sounded from above and behind them.
Jude went down . . . hard. Unmoving.