After eating, they packed up and put all their clothing and equipment into the SUV.
Before leaving, they wiped every surface in the motel that they had touched, and took their trash to a dumpster a couple of miles away.
They set out on the mission not long after dark. There were few boats on the river, but Gabe did see some marine lights in the channel.
He watched Olivia, Matt, and Elizabeth standing beside him in the wheelhouse.
“We’ve got communication with the other team,” she announced.
“Good.”
“We’ll keep checking in.”
“Okay,” Gabe answered. He didn’t have a big role in the communications. He was still too new to talk mind-to-mind over any distance. But he marveled that he was the captain of the A Team. Although he was the new guy in the group, Travis had made his living on the water. He was the one who had the knowledge of the river and the properties along the bank. He was also the one who had the most to fear. He knew from firsthand experience that Smith had more tricks up his sleeve than the others could imagine.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
Harold Goddard, alias Mr. Smith, walked restlessly around the first floor of his mansion.
He had nothing to worry about, he told himself. He’d killed three people in the past few days, and that should take care of any problems he could anticipate. First, there had been the boat captain, Carson. Then the detective, Gabe Bowman, and the artist, Olivia Langston. Both of the latter had been stupid to get tangled up in his business.
Now they were all dead. That should put an end to any worries he had. But he couldn’t rein in his paranoia. Only it wasn’t paranoia if you really did think someone could be stalking you.
He stopped in the control room and saw that Andrew was watching the screens. When Harold saw nothing unusual, he went out back and scanned the river. It was quiet and peaceful in the darkness. But far in the distance, he saw the lights of a boat. As he watched, they winked off. Or was that a trick of his mind? Had he really seen a boat disable its lights in the navigation channel? And if he was right, did that mean an invasion force was coming for him? If so, who the hell were they and how did they know to show up here?
Conspiracy theories swirled in his head, but he had to ignore them for the moment. If he was under attack, he had to defend himself.
He rushed back to the control room in time to see an SUV on the camera that monitored traffic on River Road. It slowed when it passed his driveway, then continued out of sight. Nothing usual except the slowing, but his fine-tuned sense of worry had begun to make his nerve endings tingle.
“Let me take the chair,” he said abruptly.
Andrew stood at once and moved to the side of the room. Harold quickly slid into the seat. He’d been preparing himself for trouble since he’d first taken over this estate. He’d put special measures in place. Too bad that some of them were untested. But there were others that depended on good old-fashioned armament.
First, he sent out a vibrating alarm to the phone of each of the guards on duty, cursing himself that he’d given some of them the evening off.
When he had alerted the men, he reached to pull out the computer keyboard and began to call up a program.
As he worked, he split his attention between the computer and the man standing beside him.
“Get to the front of the house,” he said. “And be prepared to execute the drill we practiced.”
“Yes, sir.” As his henchman answered, he was already on his way out the door.
* * *
Rachel wasin the shotgun seat beside Jake as he slowed on River Road.
“I think we’d better get a few hundred feet from the mansion before we park,” he said.
There were murmurs of agreement from Stephanie and Craig behind them.
Jake found a place where he could pull off the road. After he parked, Rachel sent a message to the team in the boat.We’re here.
Reading you loud and clear,Matt sent back.
Where are you?
Approaching the dock at low power.
