She climbed the stairs into the cabin's darkness, already planning the hunt that would consume the night ahead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Coast Guard Defender-class response boat cut through Lake Superior's black waters at twenty-eight knots, her twin engines roaring against the silence that pressed down from the starless sky.Isla stood at the helm beside the boat's coxswain, a veteran named Petty Officer Smith, whose jaw was set with the particular tension of someone who understood exactly what they were heading into.
James stood beside her, his hand gripping the console railing as the boat pounded through swells that had built throughout the evening.The lake was restless tonight, her mood matching the violence that awaited them somewhere in the darkness ahead.
"Cold Current's last known position was eight miles northeast of the harbor," Smith reported, his eyes fixed on the radar display that painted green sweeps across a scope showing nothing but empty water."But they've gone dark—no transponder signal, no radio contact.Either they've shut everything down for the handoff, or—"
"Or Kane's already found them."Isla completed the thought that no one wanted to voice aloud.
The response had been faster than she'd dared hope.Within an hour of finding Morrison in Kane's basement, the Coast Guard had mobilized their closest available vessel, and Isla and James had been aboard before the engines finished warming up.But Kane had hours of head start—hours to position himself, to wait for the Cold Current's approach, to plan an attack that his years of SEAL training had made almost instinctive.
"There."James pointed toward the radar display, where a new blip had appeared at the edge of the scope."That could be them."
Smith adjusted their heading, the response boat banking into the turn with aggressive precision."Six miles out.We'll be there in twelve minutes."
Isla checked her weapon for what felt like the hundredth time, confirming the round in the chamber, the spare magazines in her pocket, the tactical flashlight clipped to her belt.She'd faced dangerous suspects before—armed fugitives, drug dealers with nothing to lose, men who'd killed and would kill again rather than face prosecution.But this was different.
Thomas Kane wasn't a criminal trying to escape justice.He was a soldier who believed hewasjustice—a man who had looked at the corruption poisoning American waters and decided to become the cure.He wouldn't run.He wouldn't surrender.He would do exactly what his training had prepared him for, and anyone who tried to stop him would be just another obstacle to eliminate.
The radar blip resolved into two distinct shapes as they closed the distance—a larger vessel, probably the Cold Current, and something smaller alongside her.Kane's boat.The inflatable he used to approach his targets without detection.
"Running lights," Smith said, and Isla saw them now—the navigation lights of a fishing trawler, dim but visible against the absolute darkness of the open lake.And beside her, the dark shape of what looked like a rigid inflatable boat, its own lights extinguished, barely visible against the Cold Current's white hull.
"Cut engines to idle," Isla ordered."Approach slow and quiet.We don't want to spook him."
The response boat's roar diminished to a rumble as Smith pulled back the throttles, trading speed for stealth.The Cold Current grew larger through the darkness, her deck lights illuminating shapes that Isla couldn't quite resolve at this distance.No movement that she could see.No sounds carrying across the water.
Then a scream split the night—high and terrified, cutting off abruptly in a way that made Isla's blood turn to ice.
"Go!"She grabbed the rail as Smith slammed the throttles forward."Get us alongside!"
The response boat surged toward the Cold Current, closing the remaining distance in seconds that felt like hours.Isla could see the deck now, illuminated by the harsh glare of work lights that the crew had probably rigged for their illegal transfer—and what she saw made her stomach clench with familiar horror.
Bodies.At least three of them sprawled across the deck in the graceless postures of violent death.Blood pooled beneath them, black in the artificial light, spreading toward the scuppers where it would drain into Superior's depths.The men had been armed—she could see weapons scattered nearby, unfired or fired too late to matter—but whatever resistance they'd offered had been brutally insufficient.
"FBI!"James shouted as their boat came alongside, his weapon already raised toward the fishing trawler's superstructure."Thomas Kane!This is the FBI!Show yourself!"
Silence answered him—the particular silence of violence concluded, of death accomplished, of a predator who had finished his work and was deciding what to do about the interruption.
Isla pulled herself over the Cold Current's rail before she could talk herself out of it, her boots finding purchase on a deck slick with blood.James followed a second later, and together they moved toward the wheelhouse with weapons raised, covering each other as they cleared corners and swept compartments.
The bodies told their own story.Two men near the cargo hatch, killed with the same precision that Dr.Henley had described from the earlier attacks—multiple stab wounds to vital organs, delivered with the efficiency of someone who understood exactly how to end a human life.A third, near the port rail, was probably killed while trying to flee.All of them armed, none of them prepared for what had come aboard in the darkness.
The wheelhouse door hung open, swinging slightly with the motion of the boat.Isla approached it from the side, flattening herself against the bulkhead, listening for any sound that might indicate what waited inside.
"Please—" A voice, weak and terrified, drifted up from somewhere below decks."Please, I have kids.I have a family.Please don't—"
"Kane!"Isla shouted, abandoning stealth for urgency."Thomas Kane!FBI!Step away from the hostage and show me your hands!"
The hatch to the below-deck compartment banged open, and a figure emerged—dragging another figure behind him by the collar of his jacket.
Thomas Kane looked exactly as his service photograph had suggested—tall, lean, gray hair cropped close, eyes that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.His face was painted in streaks of green and black, camouflage that made his features difficult to track in the work lights' harsh glare.In his right hand, he held a knife—a Ka-Bar, the blade still wet with the blood of the men who lay dead around them.
And pressed against his chest, the knife at his throat, was a man who must have been Captain Marcus Halverson—middle-aged, overweight, his face contorted with terror as he struggled against Kane's iron grip.
"Agent Rivers."Kane's voice was calm, almost conversational, utterly at odds with the violence he'd just committed."I've been watching you on the news.You're good.Better than most.But you're too late for these men, and you're too late for him."
