“I…I don’t—”
A loud knock on the door followed by a shout to open up caught all their attention. Gun drawn, Slugger slammed the door open then steadied a wounded man being pushed in his direction.
“Who’s this?” Slugger asked as he hoisted the guy to a corner in the living room. Dropped him on the floor behind a chair near the bookcase.
“How the hell do I know?” A bushy-haired, narrow-nosed, long-necked man shot him a look of annoyance. “Looked like he was watching the outside of the house, so I hit him upside the head a few times with the neighbor’s fire pit poker. Doubt he comes around anytime soon.”
She should help the man. Should scream…or yell…or something. Instead, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t keep up with what was flashing through her brain. The scene before her eyes made less and less sense.
Where was Mitch? She needed Mitch. He’d help her. He’d know what to do.
Long Neck motioned Slugger back to the door then hoisted another man onto his shoulder before closing the door behind himself.
“Where do you want this one, boss?” Slugger asked.
Her dad pointed to the media room. “And make sure you’ve got those restraints tight. Let me know when he’s awake, so I can question him.”
Slugger readjusted the clearly unconscious body on his shoulder. The man moaned, and his head tilted to the side.
“Drake?” Liz sucked in an audible gasp. “Drake!”
…
The battle for control of the CT boat had gone better than Mitch had thought possible. In fact, there’d been no actual battle. No one on board to repel an attack. No one firing at the Shades team as they did their initial level-by-level search. No one to even cook, clean, or navigate. No one.
He had no doubt that Coercion Ten was playing a complicated game of trying to lure OPAQUE agents further and further into their web. Maybe they had a certain number of agents they planned to take out at once. Or just wanted certain protectors as their target.
Didn’t matter. Frankly, he was damn tired of the match. It was about time to hit an ace down the line and wrap up the set.
For the past hour, the CIA and FBI had focused on securing the vessel. Weapons, ammo, and bomb-making material had been discovered, but thankfully, the bombs appeared to be duds. The government agencies seemed content with what they’d come up with in the raid. Mitch was never content. He always wanted more clues.
On the other hand, he was pissed as hell that there’d been no sign of Drake or Russ. That meant during the time he’d first swam out on recon and when his team had attacked, CT had taken them off the boat. Maybe a smaller vessel or a group of PWCs had come up from behind. In the dark, they could have transferred the men and most of the CT operatives without being seen.
But why? Where were they headed? Another boat? An island? A pickup at sea? He had questions. Questions meant his job wasn’t over.
One of the CIA operatives walked up to Mitch. “We’re about done here. I’ve called in for a crew to take control of this boat. They’ll get it to port. I hate to ask, but could your team wait for them? We’ve got another raid going down later tonight, and my men need to head out.”
“Sure. Thanks for your help on this. Sorry we didn’t get more,” Mitch said.
“Once we rip the guts of this boat apart, we may find more than we think.”
“Keep us informed.”
“Will do.” The CIA operative turned to leave. “By the way, the FBI group took off about ten minutes ago. Your team’s all that’s left on the boat.”
Mitch hated waiting to track Drake and Russ, but he understood when more than one raid in a night could make turnaround time short. Besides, there’d been many times OPAQUE was the first out of the arena.
“What’s going on?” Reese asked.
“CIA and FBI have wrapped things up on their side. They asked if we could hang around until their boat arrives.” Mitch glanced toward shore, then back at the men. “I figured you guys wouldn’t mind a little downtime.”
Stealth leaned back against the rail. “Works for me. What are you planning to do on the Drake and Russ front?”
“First, we’ll move Liz to our St. Louis headquarters. She’ll be safer there.” She’d balk, but he had to do what he thought best. Besides which, he needed to be on top of his game, with no distractions. Time would be of the essence in finding Drake now that CT had him in their grasp. “Meantime, we’ll lay out our plan to infiltrate groups we know have at least some CT embedded. We’ll focus on the U.S. for now. All we need is one clue to get started.”
Josh nodded. “What about the leak you talked about earlier? Any clue on the rat inside OPAQUE?”
“We’ll find the son of a bitch and neutralize his ass.” Mitch motioned the men to follow him as he walked toward the aft, where the two PWCs had been tied up after the assault.
