Lennox closed his eyes and let out a groan, feeling like a dumbass. “You’re right. I don’t know why I even said that.”
“I know why,” Darwin said over the radio. “You’re worried about Talia and Maria. Just chill. We’re going to get them back, but we have to stick to the plan.”
He took a deep breath. “Okay, we stick to the plan. Colt, are Talia and Maria okay?”
“They’re fine.”
Lennox closed his eyes again, saying a silent prayer of thanks as relief flowed through him.
“Bogdan’s flatbed truck with the computer just arrived at the gates,” Kyla announced over the radio from her new surveillance van, which was a surveillance RV this time. “He’s the fourth vehicle in line to go through security, so he’ll probably be at the docks in twenty minutes.”
Wes and Kyla would stay outside the security fence unless everything went sideways. If it did, Lennox and everyone else was depending on the couple to get them out.
“Simon, Kirk, and I are about to go into the water with the heavy weapons and extra ammo,” Darwin announced. “We’ll have to move slow to avoid detection, but we can be on the boat in fifteen minutes.”
“Copy that,” Lennox said before slipping around the corner of the warehouse and walking casually along the well-lit dock as if he was supposed to be there. He kept his backpack slung over his shoulder as he walked, one eye on Fredrickson’s ship and the gangway leading into the forward cargo bay. “Colt, get down here. We need to be on the ship before Bogdan shows up.”
“On the way,” Colt replied. “Be careful. Keller knows what you look like. If he sees you, you’re dead. And I don’t want you even thinking about what that means for Talia and Maria.”
Lennox didn’t respond, figuring it went without saying that he didn’t want to be dead, and he certainly didn’t want anything to happen to Talia and Maria. So obviously, he’d be careful.
When he slipped into the building where the dockworkers stored all their heavy equipment, no one paid attention to him. That wasn’t surprising considering the heavy dirt-streaked coveralls and work boots he was wearing. The few people inside didn’t even look his way as he climbed into the cab of the heavy-duty forklift, cranked it up, and drove it right out of the building to head for the forward hold of Fredrickson’s cargo ship.
As he did, Lennox replayed what’d felt like the longest day of his life.
He’d spent every minute since Keller had kidnapped Talia and Maria, imagining all the horrible things that might be happening to them. The thought that Keller would kill Talia because he had no use for her had driven him out of his mind with worry. Somewhere between meeting her that first time at the zoo and last night, he’d gone from liking Talia to being in love with her. The feeling was more real and powerful than anything he’d ever experienced. Which was why the idea of her being scared—and maybe hurt—wondering if she’d even be alive come the next sunrise tore him apart inside. And suddenly, he understood a little better why Talia hated the idea of him going on a mission.
It didn’t help that Keller hadn’t responded to any of Bogdan’s attempts to reach him until two hours ago. Lennox had no doubt the delay was intentional. Keller was letting the Rybaks twist in the wind, so they’d know who was in charge.
Of course, it wasn’t like they hadn’t already known what Keller wanted—Dayton McDaniel’s state of the art genome sequencing computer. But Keller hadn’t deigned to let them know until two hours ago that he wanted it delivered to Fredrickson’s cargo ship tied up at the San Diego docks. It was a smart move on Keller’s part, almost certainly designed to limit the time Bogdan had available to scheme his way out of the situation.
Unfortunately, it had also limited the time Lennox and his Teammates had to come up with a way to get onto the docks and the ship. Which was why Lennox was now driving a forklift. Dockworkers were the only ones able to freely move on and off the cargo vessel. Unfortunately, dockworkers would stand out carrying heavy weaponry. That was why Darwin and the other guys were taking the underwater route.
“Hey, Lennox, I was thinking,” Wes said over the radio as Lennox drove the forklift up the gangway and into the dim interior of the ship without anyone so much as looking in his direction. “Keller obviously saw you at the Rybak’s place. Should we be worried that he might have dug around a little and figured out you’re a Navy SEAL? He might be waiting for you to show up tonight.”
Lennox hoped not.
“Nothing we can do about it now,” Lennox muttered as he drove toward the furthest corner of the forward cargo hold, coming to a stop behind a wall of shipping containers taller than a two-story house. “Everyone watch your six and be ready for a counter-ambush. If Keller knows about me, he might be ready for the rest of you as well. Wes, that includes you and Kyla. If Keller knows you’re there, he’ll probably make a move on you too.”
Everyone confirmed that they understood the possibility of this situation turning on them, though Darwin, Kirk, and Simon could only double-click their mics, since they were still underwater. Kyla had been able to get some basic diving gear, but microphones that would work underwater weren’t something she could find on short notice. The guys could hear them talking, but not respond. It shouldn’t matter since the three of them would be on the ship with the extra gear soon enough.
Lennox climbed down from the forklift, slipping through the narrow corridors between cargo containers and pallets of shrink-wrapped crates. The height of the stacks cut off most of the lights coming from overhead, making it even darker than he’d expected.
“I’m in the cargo bay,” Colt’s voice came through softly over the radio. “I’m moving aft to find a place that’ll let me cover as much of the hold as possible.”
Lennox confirmed that as he moved through the maze of cargo containers, trying to envision how this exchange would go down, hoping that it might help him come up with a clue on the best way to pull off this rescue.
Needing a better view, Lennox headed up, taking two flights of stairs until he came out on a narrow catwalk overlooking nearly the entire cargo hold. From this perspective, he could see that the bigger cargo containers had been stacked mainly along the outsides of the hold, closer to the ship’s outer hull. Inside that were the smaller crates and pallets. The center-most section of the hold, roughly the size of a basketball court, was still clear of any cargo. The truck carrying the computer would fit easily within the available space in the middle of the hold—almost as if it’d been left clear for that very purpose.
“Bogdan is on the dock approaching the loading ramp,” Kyla said. “He should be pulling inside the ship within two minutes.”
As Kyla finished saying that, a soft tone vibrated through the ship, like the ding an elevator makes as it arrives at the proper floor. And just like that, the half dozen or so dockworkers who’d been moving around the cargo hold immediately turned and walked out of the ship. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
Knowing the ship would be crawling with Keller’s men any second, Lennox realized that staying on the catwalk was out ofthe question. He’d be too easy to see up here—and even easier to shoot.
Dropping down one level and moving toward the darkest part of the cargo hold, Lennox climbed over the catwalk railing and leapt across the ten-foot gap between him and the nearest stack of cargo containers. From there he quietly hopped from container stack to container stack until he was over near the hull of the ship, shrouded in darkness but still with a good visual on the center of the cargo hold.
Going to one knee, Lennox pulled off his backpack and dug through it, pushing aside the lightweight jacket he’d shoved in the upper part of the bag to hide the weapon underneath. Sliding his hand all the way to the bottom of the bag, he felt around for the handle of the submachine gun, pulling out the small automatic weapon and loading the first magazine. He once again wondered what kind of people Kyla knew who could get their hands on weapons like this with a few hours’ notice. The things weren’t illegal in the U.S., but they were sure as hell expensive.
