Chapter 29 You’re Completely Insane

Chapter 29

You’re Completely Insane

Dr. Celeste Mankiller had indeed outdone herself with the quality of comms for Gator’s covert picnic date. His voice was crystal clear, and Cecilia’s was only slightly below face-to-face quality. It only took seconds for me to become as captivated by the audio as the others.

Cecilia’s voice grew louder but not harsh. In fact, her tone softened. “Nobody’s ever taken me for a picnic before. I mean, I’ve been to picnics, but never with just one person. It means a lot that you’d do this for me.”

Gator sighed as if feeling Cecilia press against his body. “It’s nice to escape sometimes. I know it has to be tough with your uncle still missing. I thought you might like to get away and have a couple hours of—”

She said, “Shh.”

The next sound was impossible to decipher. It came through like wind whistling through a valley. No matter how hard I tried to picture the sound, it wouldn’t come to me until I saw Anya smile.

She said, “They are kissing. I taught him to do this.”

Skipper huffed. “Hush. I’m sure he knew how to kiss before you taught him.”

The Russian shrugged. “Maybe, but he is now better.”

The muffled sound became a sound of submission, and Anya’s smile broadened.

Skipper held up a finger toward Anya, and she didn’t take credit for teaching the techniques that led to the sound.

“We should’ve done this a long time ago,” Cecilia whispered, and Gator released a guttural noise that could’ve been agreement or even a demand for Cecilia to never stop.

Anya giggled. “Come to me, Chasechka. I will show to you what is happening.”

Skipper slapped the Russian’s hand. “No! You can’t have Gator or Chase. They’re not yours to play with. Now, shut up and listen.”

“We found him, you know.”

The sounds of pleasure were gone, replaced by Cecilia’s gasp. “What?”

“We found him.”

The sound of rustling rang through the device for a moment.

“You found him? You found my Uncle Kenneth?”

“Yes.”

Skipper drove a fist into her thigh. “What’s he doing? This wasn’t part of the plan.”

It was my turn to smile. “Anya didn’t teach him this part. I get the credit for this one.”

All three women looked at me, and Skipper spoke for the group. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s baiting her. Just listen.”

Cecilia said. “You found him? Where? Is he…”

“That’s an interesting response,” Celeste said.

I closed my eyes and silently begged Gator to keep his mouth closed.

My student didn’t make a sound, but Cecilia asked again, “How’d you find him? I mean…where?”

She’d pinned my protégé into a corner, leaving him with no way out other than answering, and he did it masterfully. “I don’t know. I wasn’t with them when they found him. I was working on another project.”

“What is it you do?” she asked.

Gator said, “I’m the new guy, so I just do what they tell me.”

“I’m talking about the company you work for. Surely you don’t just go around hunting missing people, right?”

“No, that’s mostly what we do. We find people and things that aren’t supposed to be findable. Is findable a word?”

“He’s dead, isn’t he? Did your guys notify the police?”

I could almost see Gator shrugging. “I don’t know. Like I said, I’m the new guy.”

“Did they say how he died?”

Gator was doing well, but his temporary girlfriend was dragging him down a well, and he needed a rope. I plucked my phone from a pocket and tossed him a line.

His voice came on the line. “Gator.”

“Keep her talking,” I said. “I don’t know where she’s taking you, but let her lead.”

“So, he’s still alive?” Gator said.

I said, “Did her expression change?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Does she appear pleased?”

“No, sir. Not at all.”

My heart plummeted into my stomach. “Get out of there, Gator. Get away from her, and get back to the ship now!”

The line went dead, and through the headset, the crack of a pistol shot rang like a thousand screaming demons. A second shot rang out, but neither of them was Gator’s nine-millimeter.

I grabbed the arm of Skipper’s chair. “Show me where he is!”

She had an aerial photo on the screen in an instant, and a small green triangle rested on the edge of an island about a mile from Kenneth LePine’s former home.

“That’s his sat-phone,” Skipper said.

I studied the aerial shot as the sounds of a struggle echoed in my head and the green triangle disappeared. “What’s happening?”

Skipper typed feverishly. “I don’t know, but I’m working it.”

“Send those coordinates to everybody’s phone,” I demanded as I jerked the set from my ears. “We’re going after him.”

I yanked the handset from the console and thumbed the 1MC. “Attention all Sierra elements. This is Sierra One. Report to the helipad immediately with full kits.”

As I ran from the CIC, I yelled over my shoulder, “Get the Huey out of the hangar bay!”

By the time I made it to the elevated helipad, the chopper was already unchained, and one of the mechanics had the twin turbines spooling up.

My team arrived seconds after me in full battle rattle. They hit the chopper like a horde of charging buffalo, and I replaced the mechanic in the right front seat. Long before anyone was strapped in, I pulled pitch and climbed away from the Lori Danielle .

Through the open channel comms, Skipper said, “I’m still not tracking his sat-phone, but the RHIB is moving west at fifty knots.”

“Keep pinging the phone,” I ordered. “And send us the track on the RHIB.”

Disco fumbled his way from the cabin and into the cockpit and climbed onto the left seat. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going after Gator,” I said. “I sent him in to question Cecilia, Kenneth LePine’s niece or great-niece, whatever. Celeste had him wired for sound, and things got dicey. Shots were fired, but none of them was from Gator’s Glock. We’ve lost his sat-phone track, but we’ve got a fix on the RHIB.”

“He was in the RHIB?” Disco asked.

“Yeah. It’s a long story. Program the coordinates for his last-known position into the GPS.”

He went to work, and seconds later, I was following the magenta line directly toward the last position Skipper had received the sat-phone’s signal.

An enormous hand landed on my shoulder. “What’s the plan, boss?”

“We’re going to find Gator and grab Cecilia. Lock and load. There’s already been gunfire.”

One of the most remarkable traits of my team is their ability to take action without asking a thousand questions. Nobody cared why. They only cared that one of ours was in trouble, and we were going to pull him out of the fire.

The Huey’s airspeed indicator showed one hundred eighteen knots, and I begged her twin turbines and main rotor for just one more knot—anything to get me to Gator an instant faster. I double-checked our position against the coordinates of his last ping of the sat-phone. The tiny island where Gator and Cecilia’s picnic had taken place lay under our nose less than a mile away.

“Take the controls, and put us at a close hover right over that strip of land.”

Disco placed his hands on the collective and cyclic. “I have the controls.”

I removed my seat belt and twisted the latch on the door. As Disco brought the chopper to a hover a few inches from the sandy shore, I stepped from the skid and onto the beach. The boots belonging to Mongo, Kodiak, and Shawn hit the ground only seconds behind mine, and we fanned out in search of any evidence of what might have happened to our brother.

Disco pulled pitch and took the Huey several thousand feet above our heads. I didn’t have to look up to know he was scanning the horizon for the wake left behind by our RHIB. Based on Skipper’s report, whoever was at the helm knew exactly how to handle a boat.

“I’ve got a line!” Kodiak yelled, and I hustled to his side.

He held a black line identical in diameter and color to the one we used on every boat we owned. One end was still tied to the trunk of a tree, and the other end bore the telltale signs of having been sliced cleanly with an incredibly sharp knife.

The scar on the sand at the water’s edge looked exactly like the impression our RHIB would’ve left, and I said, “They were here.”

I glanced up, following the Huey’s unmistakable whop-whop , to find Disco diving for the island. Almost before he came to a hover, we reboarded, and he climbed the heavy machine back into the air.

“Did you see them?” I asked.

“I think so.”

He spun the chopper and lowered the nose, accelerating to the west, and I brought up the tracking app on my phone. I studied the screen and looked up to compare it to the maze of waterways in front of us. “Do you see them?”

“Not yet,” he said, “but I believe they’re just around that big bend to the south.”

Disco made the chopper dance as if she were a puppet in his hands, and I stared through the windscreen.

We made the turn to the south, and the faint wake trail appeared in the dark water. Around another bend, the stern of our RHIB came into view in front of the billowing water spraying from the tubes with every turn.

“There they are!” I yelled.

Disco lowered the nose even more and descended toward the swamp as he pushed the Huey well beyond her designed limits. We closed the distance between us and our boat in seconds, and when we were within a hundred feet, I couldn’t believe what I saw.

Gator wasn’t aboard the racing craft, but neither was Cecilia. The RHIB was empty and running at full throttle across the black surface of the winding bayou, and I couldn’t make my mind understand how that was possible.

I spun in my seat and called for Shawn. “Get up here!”

The SEAL leaned between the cockpit seats. “Yeah?”

I pointed through the windshield. “See that RHIB?”

He nodded, and I said, “That’s ours, but nobody’s aboard.”

He furrowed his brow. “How?”

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. We have to stop it without sinking it.”

He glanced over his shoulder at our sniper. “Singer can kill the engines.”

I shook my head. “Too much chance of sending a round through the hull, and we’re going to need that boat. If I put you five feet above that RHIB and match its speed, can you board her?”

“Sure. Piece of cake. What do you want me to do when I get aboard?”

I said, “I want you to get that thing stopped and rigged for sling loading.”

He grinned through one corner of his mouth. “Oh, this sounds like a lot of fun. You’re completely insane, and I love it. Get me down there, and I’ll have that thing ready to fly in less than sixty seconds.”