“He’s going into anaphylactic shock, I need the EpiPen,” she screamed.

Christie and Debbie were crying as Harold Brockman was having seizures in the dirt.

“If he dies, there’s no need for the rest of you, so you better find it fast,” Raymond said as he emptied out the contents of a duffle bag onto the floor of the hut. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him light a cigar and watch her search.

Marcia tried to block out the two young girls’ sobs. She hated the subterfuge, but their lives depended on it. She saw the small black case with the EpiPens, but she couldn’t find the freaking pocket watch. She scrabbled through the mess of accumulated crap until she spied something round and gold.

“Hurry up, girlie, your reason for living is dying.”

She had just seconds. Marcia fumbled for the clasp and popped open the watch, then depressed the glass. She felt it click, then she jammed it shut. It couldn’t have been that easy, could it? God, she hoped so. She dropped the watch and grabbed the little black case.

“Found it,” she shouted in triumph as she held up the container that held the medicine. Now she had to pretend that she was administering the drug without doing it. So far, Mr. B. was a darn fine actor, hopefully, she would be as good. She crouched down beside her best friend’s father and took out the syringe. It looked straightforward. She pulled off the blue cap, then held it with her hand near the orange top and jammed it into his thigh, making sure the needle didn’t enter his flesh.

After a few seconds, Harold Brockman took a deep gasping breath. Boy, he was good. They must have taught that in spy school. Marcia started to shake. She looked up at Raymond. He was staring at her with those dead eyes. She hated him. She hated all of them, but Raymond was the worst. He had smiled when he killed the three mathematicians. He’d enjoyed it. He’d used a knife on one of them. Hadn’t even shot him.

“Pick that shit up,” Raymond said. He motioned to everything on the ground with his cigar. When Marcia crawled over to the bag, Christie and Debbie practically fell into their father’s arms. Even though he had broken ribs, he didn’t flinch, instead, assuring them he was okay.

“So, you live for another day,” Raymond laughed. Marcia flinched when the ashes he flicked hit her cheek.

“The girls need more food and water.”

“What about you? Aren’t you going to ask for yourself? Or is big sister too much of a martyr?”

Marcia went along with that lie as well. Harold Brockman had told his two girls she needed to pretend to be his eldest daughter, Lesley Brockman, she would be safer that way. Marcia appreciated Mr. B. looking out for her, but she also knew it might eventually wind up taking some of the focus off the younger girls, so she went along with the ploy.

“Yes, Dad and I need more food and water too, but it’s more important for the girls.”

Raymond flicked his cigar at her again and if she hadn’t dodged it, ash would have gone into her eye. He cracked a smile, this time, it reached his eyes. “What are you willing to do for the extras, Lesley?”

“Nothing,” Harold choked out. “Don’t play your stupid games with her. You need your hostages in good working order, so get us food and water. God knows, it’s plentiful around here,” the older man said disdainfully.

“You’re not in a good position to give orders, Brockman.”

Marcia knelt there, looking back and forth between a man she considered her surrogate father to the scariest man she had ever encountered in her life.

“Sure I am. I’m the biggest fish you’ve ever had on a hook. What are the bids up to? Twenty million?” Harold Brockman asked.

“Higher. Especially with the leverage we can provide. You’ll sing like a canary. Every American secret will become available to whoever buys you.”

“They ought to know better, they’ve changed everything since I’ve retired from the NSA. God knows, once they figure out I’ve been kidnapped, they’ll re-evaluate every policy too.”

“You’re dead, didn’t you know that? You died with everybody else on that yacht. Hell, it was my vote to leave two of your other kids on that fucking boat too, so I had less to worry about. But Kyle thought you’d bring more if we sold you with three daughters who could be tortured to get you to talk.”

Marcia rolled up onto her feet and pushed her face into Raymond’s. “Enough,” she ground out. “Don’t talk that way in front of my sisters.”

“She’s right,” Kyle said as he bent to come into the hut. “What the fuck are you thinking? We need to keep these young girls calm.”

Kyle cupped Marcia’s cheek. “You okay?”

She forced herself not to flinch away from his touch. He was the leader of the mercenaries, and she couldn’t afford to alienate him.

“I’m fine.”

“Raymond, go check on the professor and her husband. We want to make sure all of our assets are taken care of.” Marcia watched as the monster picked up his backpack and ducked out the door.

“How is Ilsa?” Marcia asked. She remembered how one of the men had used the butt of his rifle on her. She had doubled over onto the ground.

“Lesley, you really need to keep your focus on your family,” Kyle admonished.

She swallowed. She didn’t know why she had thought he was nicer. All of these men scared her to death, but she knew she couldn’t let it show. That was one of the things she had learned from Mr. B. She swallowed and said confidently, “We need more food and water,”

“Done. Was that so hard to ask for?” His pleasant voice made her skin crawl.

“How much longer are we going to be here?” Christie asked.

“Probably no more than a week, then you’ll have someplace lovely to stay,” Kyle smiled.

Harold was propped up against the wall of the hut, holding his twelve and thirteen-year-old daughters in his arms, his face ashen with pain.

Kyle left the small hut, and Marcia listened for the padlock to click into place. She crawled over to Harold, and he held out his hand for her and she took it.

“Did you get it done?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then help is on its way.”

* * *

“You coming?” Hunter Diaz asked.

“Just want to study this a bit longer. I won’t be late,” Zed assured him.

Hunter considered him before finally nodding and leaving the small briefing room. Dante ‘Zed’ Zaragoza sat back down in the seat that Lieutenant Gray Taylor had vacated and opened the file of the ten passengers and six crew members who had supposedly died. But Zed knew some of them were still alive. At least for now.

He looked around the gray room inside the USS Ronald Reagan, a nuclear-powered supercarrier. He was surrounded by the most advanced technology in the world and currently assisting one of the deadliest SEAL teams on the planet, and here he was knocked on his ass by the strongest feeling of his life. Not something normal people felt, but a gut-deep intuition, a knowing. Thirty-six years on this planet and not once had his instincts steered him wrong.

He leafed through the file again. Heavy hitters from around the world had been on this yacht. They had just lectured in Singapore and their next stop was Hong Kong. The poor bastards had thought it would be a cool mini-vacation for their families. Instead of five days in the lap of luxury, the world now thought they’d been blown to bits in the South China Sea.

Zed pulled out the two photos and a short write-up on the Brockman family. Harold Brockman was the key to this mess, he just knew it. Brockman was the former head of the NSA who had retired to write books. Zed liked his books, but a lot of people didn’t. He looked at the photo of his family that was two years old, his wife and three daughters. It had been taken a month before his wife had died of a brain embolism. In it, the girls were ten, eleven, and twenty-two.

Only the two youngest girls had gone on the trip, the oldest was in rehab. That was the reason for the second photo. Marcia Price, a girl who somewhat resembled the Brockman daughters, at least with her brown curly hair and dark eyes, but that was where the similarities ended. This girl’s spirit radiated off the photo. According to the intel, she had come along to keep the younger girls entertained while the father lectured and wrote.

Zed knew down to his toes Marcia was alive. So were some of the others, but absolutely, positively, Marcia was alive. Even more, he knew his fate was destined to be intertwined with this woman. The only other feeling that had been this strong and personal revolved around one of his best friends, Hunter Diaz.

Searches were being done all along their last known coordinates. Every nation involved, including China, had been called in to search for the dignitaries’ missing yacht. It was assumed it had capsized, but what few people knew was there had been a boat shadowing the yacht at all times. The South China Sea was known for pirates, and there wasn’t a chance in hell Brockman was going to be gallivanting off without proper precautions. As soon as the yacht hit international waters, the other boat, known as a floating armory started shadowing them. The armory was loaded for bear when it came to men and weapons. The men were some damned fine former American, British, and Australian military personnel, and their job was to follow the yacht all the way to Hong Kong.

The fact the armory went silent the same time the yacht had, raised all kinds of alarms in the U.S. This wasn’t some kind of boating accident, this was something else entirely.

Zed traced the line of Marcia’s jaw on her photo, then forced himself to stop. He arranged the file back together, headed out the door, and down the narrow hall.

“We’ve got something,” Gray said as he stuck his head out of the locker room. “Get a move on.”

Zed felt his lip curl upwards. It was about fucking time.

* * *

The Reagan had been positioned four-hundred miles from Borneo where the signal had originated. They had done aerial recon, but with no luck. The jungle was too dense, they were in the middle of the Pinangah Forest Reserve. Further investigation found the armory boat docked close to the Northern most tip of the island, near the nation of Brunei. Two men were spotted topside. Intel was imperative to determine what they would find in the jungle. It was decided to capture the men at the boat and question them.

The team landed in a small airfield an hour away from the harbor where the boat was docked. Transport was waiting for them in the form of two SUVs. It was a tight fit for the eight big men. Dex Evans, their communications and tech guru, had his computer open on this lap.

“Anything?” Zed asked.

“The beacon hasn’t moved from yesterday,” Dex told him, pointing to the same spot on the map. The yacht had gone missing ten days ago. The trek from the harbor to that spot in the middle of Borneo would have taken five days with the novices.

“One new thing,” Gray said as they sped down the highway to the harbor.

Zed raised an eyebrow.

“A Chinese cargo ship spotted the remains of the yacht. They’ve got everyone converging on the site to determine what happened and search for survivors.”

“Sure would be nice,” Wyatt said.

Nobody responded.

“I want to go over that again,” Dex said raising his head. “There are some things that are definitely off when I go over the records of the men who were supposedly on the armory.”

“What do you mean?” Gray asked.

“Lieutenant, I already sent this stuff to Langley. It started with the Australian, Seymore Gates. When I dug into his record, everything looked perfect. That is until I cross-referenced it to his social media presence, then I found out he’s currently on his honeymoon.”

“Shit,” Griffin Porter said. “If one of these guys is sideways, they all could be.”

“Exactly,” Dex said grimly. “I just caught this ten minutes ago. I’m pissed I wasn’t checking them on social media back on the aircraft carrier, that was pure fucking stupidity on my part.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Gray said. “Shit, Dex, Langley and the NSA are going to fire some of their people over this. They were in charge of vetting the people tasked to protect the former head of the National Security Agency. Chances are, you’re going to get recruited… again!”

“No more boots for you, Dex,” Dalton laughed, “nothing but spit-shined shoes. You’ll love it in Virginia.”

Gray turned to his team members and glared. “You’re all stuck on this team until I personally kick you the hell off, are we clear?”

“Aye aye, Lieutenant,” Aiden O’Malley said, smothering a grin. Zed liked Gray’s second in command. He was a take no prisoners type of guy.

Gray slowly turned to look at Zed, his eyes narrowed. “That includes you Zaragoza for the time being. You’re stuck too.” He focused his attention back on Dex. “How many more of these guys do you think are bogus?” Gray asked as he waved to Dex’s computer.

“Hold on.” Dex’s fingers were flying over the keyboard. “I’m checking on the commander of the boat.”

Zed peered over his shoulder and saw screen after screen pop up. He didn’t know how Dex could possibly be comprehending any of the information being shown.

“Come on, come on baby, come to Papa,” Dex muttered.

Suddenly an American Express statement came up, and Dex kept it up on screen for almost thirty seconds, then he popped over to the Kentucky DMV and found a picture that matched the name on the Amex bill. After that, he pulled up one from Walter Lowell’s Army file with him wearing his green beret. He was retired Special Forces, and according to his American Express bill, he’d just been to Disneyland two days ago.

Dex turned to look at Gray and the rest of the team. “If he’s a fraud and the Aussie was a fraud, my guess is every last one of them was.”

“Then who are we dealing with?” Wyatt asked.

“Mercenaries. Some very smart and competent mercs. Did you see where any fingerprints or photos were taken of these clowns when they were hired?” Griff asked.

“What do you think?” Dex gave a look of disgust.

“Hey, a guy can hope,” Griff said.

“So, we’re dealing with eleven, soon to be nine mercenaries who we can’t identify,” Griff said.

Zed, Hunter, and Aiden shared a look.

Gray caught it and grimaced, but Zed noted he didn’t shut them down. They needed to know what they were up against, and one of those two men on the boat were going to provide that information, come hell or high water.