Hidden Currents (10 page)

Matt’s eyes were cool. “We’ll have them covered.”

“Remember, we leave nothing and no one behind. This has to be quick and clean. Get in and get out. I don’t think we have any civilians other than the housekeeper and the package.” Jackson kept his mind away from Elle, it was the only way he could function. They weren’t going in after his heart and soul, they were going in on a rescue mission and they would succeed. “The housekeeper has to know the setup, so if she gets in the way, she’s an enemy.”

Jonas cleared his throat. “We don’t know that.”

Jackson shot him a look. “Everyone on that island is an enemy other than Elle. We don’t risk our men for any reason.” His voice was implacable. Jonas nodded, knowing Jackson was capable of anything at that moment, including knocking him out and leaving him with the Drake women.

Matt lifted the sealed bag of weapons and explosives and slipped down into the boat. His team, in wet suits and scuba gear would stay out of sight in the boat until all four divers could be dropped off just before coming within sight of the island. He took over the instructions, making certain his team understood. “We all swim to the dock and split up,” he reiterated. “Tom and I will make our way across the island to the small power plant and back up team one. We’ll take out the guards and arm our guys before heading to the smaller dock on the north side. Rick and Jock, you make your way to the helipad. Team one will sabotage the backup generator under cover of the storm and then we’ll all help with the boats.”

Jackson bumped fists with him. “We’ll need as much intel as possible sent back. Work your way into position as soon as you take out the boats, to cover our escape.”

“It’s done,” Matt assured him. “We’ll get her out, Jackson.”

Jackson didn’t want to think about “her,” or what might be happening. He didn’t dare connect with her until they had everything in place. If she believed they were coming in and something went wrong, it would crush her.

Jonas clapped Jackson on the back. “We made it faster than we expected, and the girls are waiting. The moment you give the signal, they’ll call in the storm. Ilya’s already been testing the energy field. He says it’s strong, but we can bring it down under cover of the storm.”

“Who did the recon?”

“Ilya,” Jonas said, knowing Jackson respected the man. “Looks like Gratsos has a small army of his own. Only civilian that he saw was a housekeeper, but someone obviously keeps the grounds. He laid out what he could of the house. It’s glass, which gave him a fairly good view of the ground floor, but he couldn’t see much on the second floor, not the way it was designed. You’ll be going in blind.”

Jackson shoved small throwing knives into the loops of his belt. “I’ll get her out.”

Jonas let out his breath. Jackson had been different—harder, colder—on a thin edge since he’d gone insane on the floor of the Drake home. When they’d lost the bridge, he’d been a madman, swearing, fighting, ready to kill. Not at all the ice-cold man Jonas had come to know over the years. He’d been shaking, and, God help them all, weeping genuine tears, his hands balled into tight fists as he pounded the floor. Fortunately, the house recognized Jackson and somehow cushioned those punishing punches. But then he’d sat on the ancient tiles and rocked back and forth, hands covering his face, the sounds coming from him torn from his soul.

Jonas and the other men had had their hands full trying to revive the Drake sisters, carrying them to bed, pouring tea down them. Ilya, even in his weakened state, tried to repair the damage done to Libby’s hand from where she’d attempted to heal both Jackson and Elle from the electric burns in their brains. It had been a mess, but Jackson had been the biggest mess of all.

When he was finally rational, he’d looked at Jonas with cold, haunted eyes. “We’re going after her immediately and we’ll need every one of our friends. Call them in, Jonas, tell them it’s personal and I’ll owe them. Don’t give any information to her boss. Not a word. Not a whisper. We don’t want the law. We’re going to have to extract her and it’s going to be bloody so we’ll need to be able to get out of the country immediately.”

“Hit and run with no trace,” Jonas agreed.

“We can’t leave any trail back to us. That means no bodies left behind. Nothing that can be tracked.”

Then Jonas had looked at Jackson and realized he was back—the same man who wasn’t a man, who had returned from the prison camps just the shell of what he once was, nothing left but will and iron. In that moment, in that look, Jackson changed Jonas. The look in his eyes swept the feeling of right and wrong away. There was no right, there was only a mission with one single outcome. He knew what that was; he knew how to carry out missions. They were going to need weapons and they were going to need men.

“Our boys will come, you know they will. Everyone who ever called us friend, everyone who ever owed us. No trace will be found of any of us ever being there.” Jonas’s eyes locked with Jackson’s. “We’ll get her out the way we’ve always done things—together.”

Jonas would never forget the look Jackson gave him. Whatever gentleness Jackson had learned during the last couple of years while he’d lived in Sea Haven, was gone in that one instant. Jackson had returned to being remote, distant, rarely speaking, his mouth grim, his eyes cold. He cleaned his weapons often and practiced both shooting and throwing knives. He broke down and rebuilt his rifle hundreds of time until his hands were a blur as he did it, and he always practiced blindfolded.

Jackson turned away from Jonas and from the look on his face, a mixture of worry and regret. He didn’t have time to reassure his friend—and he couldn’t anyway. Something inside him that had only just begun to thaw had iced over until there was a glacier there. Elle mattered. She was the only thing—the only one who mattered in that moment—and there was no way to soften it, or pretend otherwise. He was willing to do whatever it took to get her back. He’d die if necessary—or kill. And he was fully prepared to kill a lot of people—anyone who got in his way.

He would never get the images out of his head—not ever—of Elle stripped naked, her skin covered in blood-red stripes, swollen bruises marring her soft skin. Worse, her brilliant mind shattered, her spirit nearly broken. He wanted—no,
needed
—to hunt and kill the animals who’d done that to her. There was no room for anything else in his mind or his heart. He would get her back and find a way to put her back together. She’d managed to glue him back together and he’d find a way to do the same for her.

The radio in his ear crackled. “Tell Hannah to bring up the wind,” Matt’s voice intoned. “We’re approaching the island. Team two is entering the water and team one is going to be vulnerable as hell.”

Matt slipped his earpiece into a waterproof container and waited while his other team members entered the water. He looked at the three remaining. “Don’t play the hero. If they don’t let you onto the island, be agreeable to leaving immediately. These boys may be trigger-happy. We don’t have any intel on them.”

“Yeah, yeah, Mama,” Kent Bastion answered. “We’ll be good.”

The three men looked at one another and snorted in derision. Matt shook his head and somersaulted backward into the sea. He swam away from the boat, gave them the go-ahead and the boat proceeded in the direction of the island. He glanced at the sky. Already he could feel the difference. The weather beginning to deteriorate, the wind picking up, the dark, heavy, clouds boiling angrily.

He signaled and his team went underwater, swimming the remaining distance to keep from being detected. They moved fast, knowing Kent and his men, James Berenger and Luke Walton, had no weapons if something went wrong. It took longer than he would have liked, and Matt was aware of every moment his teammates were without backup. The necessary wind Hannah brought in to aid team one ultimately hindered them as the waves built and the undercurrent grew stronger. He knew the first team would have to convince the guards that the regular maintenance crew was gone for the evening because of the storm and they’d been sent out instead.

Jonas was standing by to intercept another phone call if any questions were asked. Fortunately, Kent’s father was Greek. It was a huge part of the reason they’d chosen him for the assignment. Not only did he look the part, he spoke the language fluently and had a reputation for talking his way out of any situation.

Matt sent up a silent prayer that he’d keep the guards talking until they were able to get there and give backup to the three “electricians.” As they approached the rocks, he signaled to Rick and Jock to break off and make their way to the helipad. Tom followed him to land, where they removed their swimming gear in silence, packing it into the bag they’d brought to secure everything and take with them when they left. A small detonator was put in the bag as a precaution. If they couldn’t retrieve it, they would blow it up on departure. Slinging weapons over their shoulders and around their waists, they caught up the bag for team one. Matt and Tom took off running through the shadows to try to catch up with the other team, who had a good twenty-minute start on them and had been driving a vehicle.

The villa was on the west side with the power station beyond that to the east. The boat had docked on the southern side, so as they swam to shore, they’d angled just to the southwest, cutting the distance they had to run as much as possible. The wind hit them in blasts, although Matt had to hand it to Hannah—she angled the wind to aid their speed, rather than hinder it. He was always amazed at Hannah’s abilities and precision when sending or calling the wind. And Kate—his heart turned over just thinking about his quiet, nonadventurous fiancée—she was a woman with a steel cord running down her spine, someone to stand beside him, not walk behind him. Each of the Drake sisters would give everything she had, everything she was, to get her youngest sister back.

Matt slipped his earpiece in, commenting as he and Tom maneuvered around guards. “From this angle I can see two men on the roof of the villa. They’re not all that alert, the wind is really slamming them, but there might be more. Two on the southern side, in the rocks, but moving position up toward higher ground as the waves increase in height and strength.” He gave the coordinates, knowing Jackson and Jonas would be mapping out each guard’s position as information came in.

“We’ve got rolling patrols,” Tom hissed and sank down into the shadows.

Matt dropped with him, lying prone, his gun in his fist as he watched the vehicle and guards go slowly by, flashing spotlights along the crevasses of the boulders and into the brush. He counted the seconds, each one ticking by a beat of his heart, each passing moment increasing the risk to the three men who had been driven to the mini power plant.

He was up and running the moment the vehicle had passed out of sight. Staying to the shadows, but increasing his speed over the uneven ground, avoiding the manicured drive he knew the roving patrols would most likely stick to in the storm. The waves broke over the rocks as the storm began slowly to increase in strength. If Gratsos had any psychic talent, the Drakes had to be careful, using a soft touch and making the storm as natural as possible so he wouldn’t feel a sudden surge. Matt didn’t know much about how it worked, but Kate said they could feel the brush of psychic energy when it was used.

The power plant loomed ahead, a small structure behind a chain-link fence. The gate was open, a vehicle sitting sideways by the open door. Tom and Matt slipped inside the fence and made their way to the door. Tom caught the handle and waited until Matt was in position before pulling the door open so Matt could slide in, gun steady in his hand while Tom covered him. He cleared the immediate area, moved forward to give Tom entry and cover. They went forward in standard search-and-clear formation as they moved through the rows of wires until they heard the sound of voices.

“Yes, Mr. Gratsos,” the disembodied male voice said, “he’s telling me they want to leave anyway. The weather is growing worse and they’re afraid of getting stuck here. Our regular workers were unavailable, they’d already gone home in anticipation of the storm.”

There was a short silence and then the guard sighed heavily. “Of course, Mr. Gratsos, we searched them. There were no weapons on them.”

Another silence followed, this one briefer than the first. “There are three because one is serving an apprenticeship.” The guard fought to keep exasperation out of his voice. “Yes, sir. They’ll have to work fast to stay ahead of the storm.” His voice lowered. “We may have to put them up for the night.”

Matt crept around the floor-to-ceiling rows, trusting Tom to take out the guard when he finished his conversation with Gratsos. His entire being was focused on the safety of team one. The three men faced him, fingers locked behind their heads, all looking indignant. Kent looked especially annoyed, his brows pulled together as he glared at the guard who had his back to Matt.

“We can leave,” he snarled. “This is bullshit.”

“Have patience.” The guard sounded bored. “He’s checking your IDs.”

Kent looked at the other two. “What does he think we plan to do? Steal with all you guards around?”

Something heavy fell on the floor in the direction of the guard who was calling Gratsos. “Clear here,” Tom’s voice confirmed in Matt’s ear.

Matt cleared his throat. The guard pointing his weapon at team one swung around, his finger tightening on the trigger instinctively. Matt shot him. “Let’s go. We need to disable the generator.”

ELLE pried open her eyelids, forcing herself to take short, shallow breaths to ease the pain in her body. She’d tried to warn the doctor they’d brought in, and that had earned her another beating. She hadn’t saved him. She hadn’t saved anyone—least of all herself. She was certain Stavros might have killed her—he was enraged by her resistance—if it hadn’t been for Sid. The bodyguard had once again stepped in and saved her, although she wasn’t certain why. She had seen the look on his face, and for a moment she’d thought he might actually kill his boss when, hearing her screams, he had broken into the room, risking his own life.