HOT SEAL Target Page 19

  “Fucking hell. Hang on, man. We’ll be there in four.”

  “Go after her. Send someone else to help me.”

  “We’ll assess when we get there. Hang on.”

  The rubble above him shifted. He barely managed to hold on to the phone. “Viking, you copy?”

  There was no answer, and he knew the call must have dropped. He held the phone tightly but didn’t try to call again. There was no point. All he could do now was pray his teammates found Quinn before it was too late.

  “Garrison! You in here?” a voice called.

  Blade strained to hear the sound again, to identify the voice.

  “Blade!”

  It was Jace Kaiser’s voice. One of Ian’s men. Blade mustered up all his strength to shout, “Here! I’m here!”

  “It came from over there!” Brett Wheeler this time.

  There was scrambling overhead, and then the pressure started to lift as they cleared away boards and fragments of wall. A current of fresh air reached down to him, and he breathed it in gratefully. He could still smell fire and sulfur, but the breeze must be coming from the opposite direction and blowing some of it away.

  The sound of fire trucks and police sirens sounded in the distance, growing closer. The boards lifted, dust rained down on his head—and then there was an opening above him.

  “He’s here,” Jace said. “You alive, Blade?”

  “Yeah,” he managed. The digging continued and then his shoulders were free. Another couple of minutes and they’d uncovered over half the tub. Blade pushed himself upright on shaky feet and sucked in a deep lungful of air. “Quinn,” he croaked out.

  Jace and Brett exchanged looks, and Blade’s belly hardened into a knot. Please, whatever it was, just let her be alive.

  “They’ve got her,” Jace said.

  Blade’s entire body was shaking. And not from fear. “I thought Ian said he’d have eyes on my house. He fucking told me that on the plane from Hong Kong. So where were you guys when those assholes arrived?”

  Brett frowned. “Five minutes away at the local motel. We were in the car as soon as those guys tripped the perimeter.”

  It should have been enough response time, and yet it hadn’t been. Jesus.

  Firetrucks and police cruisers turned into the driveway and sped toward the house. Dealing with the responders would take a good few minutes, but thankfully the SEALs arrived right as the questioning started. Viking took over talking to the firemen and cops while a paramedic checked Blade out and made sure he wasn’t injured.

  He wasn’t, though he was going to have some bruises from how hard he’d landed in the tub. A black car pulled up and a man climbed from the back. Blade saw red. He jerked away from the paramedic and stalked toward Ian Black, who stood there staring at the house, a hard frown on his face.

  Black didn’t seem to notice him approaching, but Blade realized it was a ruse when the man suddenly focused his laser gaze on him. “I wouldn’t,” Ian said coldly, and Blade halted, fists clenching at his sides.

  “I grew up fighting on the streets of Hong Kong,” Blade said mildly. “Pretty sure I can take you down with a minimum of fuss.”

  “Maybe so,” Ian said in Mandarin. “Or maybe not. You ever wonder how I can speak Chinese? The truth of the matter is that you have no fucking idea about my background or what I’m capable of. Besides, hitting me isn’t going to get her back any quicker, is it?”

  “Who took her?”

  “Shan hired a couple of mercenaries. Obviously not from me, or they’d have done a better job.”

  “You were supposed to have eyes on the place. That’s what you said.”

  “And I did have eyes. I also have ears to the ground. The intel on Shan only just arrived. Do you want to hear it, or do you plan to stay butthurt?”

  Blade tried not to growl. He didn’t quite succeed. “One of these days, I will kick your ass. But first I want Quinn back.”

  Money and Camel drifted over to stand behind him. He could feel them scowling even if he couldn’t look at them just yet.

  Ian sighed dramatically. “Boys, boys, boys. Will you never learn?” He flicked a hand as if dismissing flies. “No time for the macho posturing, children. You still belong to me, and we have a mission to prepare for.”

  He turned and folded himself back into the car, closing the door and powering down the window. He raked them with a glare reminiscent of something Mendez would do. “Kaiser and Wheeler will escort you to my office. I suggest you make it quick if you want to rescue Mrs. Halliday before Shan gets his money and decides to dispose of her.”

  Quinn sat in the car they’d thrust her into and tried to stay calm. She couldn’t see anything because the sack—or whatever it was—was still on her head. Her wrists were bound tightly. No matter how she twisted and turned her arms, the bindings stayed tight. There was no give at all as the hard plastic cut into her skin. She didn’t think she’d cut herself because she felt no sting, but it wasn’t far off if she kept struggling.

  The men talked, but not about anything that mattered. The only thing she’d gleaned from them was that Shan was the one who wanted her, which meant he still wanted his money and expected her to provide it. She didn’t know where they were taking her, but she expected they’d soon end up at an airport and she’d be on her way back to Hong Kong before very long.

  When the vehicle slowed and finally came to a stop, she assumed they were at an airfield. But when one of the men yanked the door open, the odors of fish and water assailed her instead of jet fuel.

  A hand came down on her shoulder and propelled her forward. She stumbled once or twice, but then her foot hit the hollow metal of a gangplank. The man propelled her harder and then jerked her to a stop right as her foot came down on air.

  Two broad hands spanned her waist and then he dropped her onto her feet on what she could only assume was the deck of a boat. Then he was driving her forward again. Finally he let her go and she fell to her knees with the sound of a television in the background and the clinking of ice against crystal.

  The sack was unceremoniously ripped from her head. She craned her neck to look up at the man standing over her and her heart skipped a couple of beats. She’d seen him before, when he’d come to Hunter’s party several nights ago. Hunter had seemed agitated and the two of them disappeared into his office.

  It was sometime that night, after the man had left, when Hunter left home and never returned.

  “Ah, Mrs. Halliday. How lovely to see you again,” he said with the hint of a smile. As if they were standing in an opulent ballroom surrounded by polite society. “We have not been formally introduced, but my name is Mr. Shan. I did business with your husband.”

  Quinn wanted to scream at him. Then she wanted to spit in his face and tell him to go to hell. But those were the actions of a crazy person—and she was anything but crazy.

  “I remember you. You came to the party.”

  “Yes, I did indeed.”

  Her heart raced and her stomach twisted. “My husband was murdered, Mr. Shan. I don’t know anything about his business.”

  Shan’s smile widened. He shot a look at the man over her shoulder. “Mrs. Halliday is uncomfortable. Please help her—gently—to a chair.”

  The man seized her elbow and lifted her. Then he moved her toward an overstuffed chair in the yacht’s gleaming interior and plopped her down on it.

  “Restraints.”

  A knife appeared and the plastic gave way. Quinn rubbed her hands over the red indents in her skin. They stung now that the blood was returning, but she hadn’t been cut.

  “Would you like a drink, Mrs. Halliday?”

  “Who killed Hunter?” she asked and then bit her tongue. She hadn’t meant to say it, but the words popped out anyway.

  Shan tilted his head to the side and then shrugged. “It was not me, I assure you. He owed me fifty million dollars. It would be stupid to kill him before I got paid.”

  Fifty million? Ian had said thir
ty—but she wasn’t telling Shan that. She wasn’t about to admit she knew a damned thing about it.

  “I don’t have fifty million dollars,” she forced out. “I don’t even know if I’m in the will. My husband and I weren’t happy together, Mr. Shan. He didn’t trust me.”

  “Your husband is dead, Mrs. Halliday. And you have access to his accounts. You will transfer my money or you will join your husband in heavenly slumber.”

  Quinn’s mouth went dry. Her throat closed up. “I can’t just access a computer and transfer the money. I don’t have his password. The most I can do is go to the bank and initiate the transfer in person.”

  Shan’s eyes glinted like glass. “Perhaps you could remember your password if I have Mason here give you some incentive…”

  “Mr. Shan, quite honestly, I have all the incentive I need. I’m not brave and I don’t have any intention of fighting you about this. But I don’t have the ability to log on to my husband’s account. He did not share that information with me. If you can hack into them, well, you could transfer your own money and you wouldn’t need me at all. But I’m as helpless as you to get into them remotely.”

  Shan seemed to consider it. Then he strolled over and stroked a finger down her cheek before pinching her chin between his fingers and wrenching her head backward to meet his angry gaze. “You would do well to recall the password, Mrs. Halliday.”

  “I-I don’t know it. B-but I know where he kept it. And I know who to call to get it for me.” She didn’t know anything of the sort, but she hoped that Blade’s team had gotten that information when they’d taken Hunter’s server.

  “A phone call, hmm? Do you think I’m stupid, Mrs. Halliday?”

  “No. Absolutely not. But that’s the best I can do.”

  “Knife, Mr. Mason,” Shan said coolly.

  Quinn’s stomach rolled as Mason handed Shan his knife. It was a big hunting knife with a serrated edge. Her vision blackened, but she forced the darkness away. Though maybe fainting was a good plan, really. Shan grabbed her hand and wrenched it forward, laying her fingers on the arm of the chair. Then he poised the knife over her thumb and pressed down until blood began to trickle.

  “You can still type without a thumb. Perhaps you will not miss it at all.”

  Quinn started to hyperventilate. “Please. Please. I don’t know the information you want. I don’t know.”

  Shan pressed a little harder, and pain blossomed. Quinn squeezed her eyes closed, wishing this nightmare could be over. If he was going to chop off her thumb, she just wanted him to do it. Tears streamed down her cheeks and a sob welled in her throat. The knife pressed harder and she moaned.

  Shan swore and the pain lessened. She dropped her chin to her chest and started to cry. Her thumb was still there, though blood ran down her skin and pooled on the white arm of the chair.

  “You will make this phone call,” Shan said. “But if you are lying to me, Mrs. Halliday, I will take far more than a thumb.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Blade and his SEAL team left behind the rubble of his house and followed Brett and Jace to a black building with black windows located on an unremarkable street in an unremarkable town in Maryland. It was in the corridor where other agencies were found, but it wasn’t actually a part of any of the ones that Blade would have guessed.

  In fact, he hadn’t known that Ian Black even had a headquarters. The dude just seemed to appear out of nowhere when you least wanted him. He also seemed to be in all the hot spots of the world, often with an established basecamp and a network of informants that rivaled the bigger organizations for scope and depth.

  They passed through security and followed Black’s men into an underground parking garage.

  “What the hell is this shit?” Cage muttered as they stepped out of Viking’s SUV.

  “You got me,” Viking returned.

  “Think Mendez knows about this?” Camel asked as he and the others who’d ridden over separately joined the group.

  “Has to,” Cowboy said. “But now I gotta wonder if Miranda does.”

  “That’s what you get for marrying a CIA spook,” Money said. “You never know what’s going on in that pretty head of hers.”

  Jace and Brett walked over, looking uptight and serious.

  “This way,” Jace said, heading toward one of several exits. It turned out to be a freight elevator. They all piled in, and Jace stabbed the number five button. The elevator cranked its way upward. The doors opened on the opposite side of the elevator when they reached the fifth floor. But they weren’t anywhere spectacular. It was a hallway with no obvious security.

  But it had to be there. They all knew it too. Jace and Brett stepped out and the SEALs followed. When they reached a door at the opposite end of the room, the men stopped and turned back to them.

  “Wait here,” Jace said. He placed his hand against the wall, in no obvious location that any of them could see—and the door slid open like something in a sci-fi movie. Jace and Brett stepped through and the door shut again. The SEALs all looked at each other.

  “Well, fucking hell,” Money said.

  “Black,” Blade shouted, because he’d had just about enough of this bullshit. “We don’t have time for this! Quinn’s in danger, and it’s your fucking fault, so open the goddamned door and let us in so we can get to work, you motherfucker!”

  His teammates blinked at him. A couple of jaws dropped. But, goddammit, he was pissed. He didn’t have time for games or hand-holding or dancing around in circles while patting his head just so they could get inside Black’s inner sanctum.

  “Hold your horses,” a voice boomed over speakers they couldn’t see. “We’re working on clearing you assholes to enter. Just a few more minutes while we get the paperwork in order, okay, pussycats?”

  Blade went over and kicked the door that Jace and Brett had gone through. It was metal and his fucking foot stung. “No, it’s not okay. Open the goddamned door!”

  “Dude, back off,” Viking said, clamping a hand over his shoulder and pulling him from the door. “We’ve got procedures at home too, right? We don’t just let anyone in.”

  “We aren’t just anyone,” Blade growled. “The motherfucker knows us. He’s worked with us before. This is bullshit meant to intimidate us.”

  “I do know you, assholes,” Ian said over the speaker. “That’s why this is going fast. Let my people finish and you’ll be in.”

  Blade closed his eyes and counted. “I’m going to kill him,” he said to no one in particular. “If Quinn is dead, Black is next. I don’t care what the fuck happens to me, but he’s going down.”

  There was a chime overhead. “Put your hand on the wall, dickface,” Ian said. “Tile beside the door. All of you can enter.”

  Blade pressed his palm to the tile. The door slid open the same as it had for Jace and Brett. The SEALs strode through the door—and into a command center as high tech as any back at HOT.

  There were banks of computers in the center of the room and giant screens lining the walls. On some of the screens were dots representing assets… just like at HOT. Blade stared. His teammates stared. They glanced at each other and then turned to look at the screens again.

  There were about fifteen men and women, all in civvies, working on computers and watching the screens. Ian Black stood in the center of it all, arms folded over his chest, watching the SEALs. Blade hadn’t realized it earlier, because he’d been blinded by rage and indifference, but the man wore a tuxedo. His shirt was crisp and white, the bow tie perfectly straight, the jacket unmistakably cut from expensive fabric.

  “Where is she?” Blade asked, pushing past the disorientation and focusing on the most important part of this trip.

  Ian turned to a man sitting to his right and said something. Shan’s face popped up on one of the screens. “Zhi Wu Shan isn’t just an enforcer, boys. He’s the Dragon Master for the Jade Tiger triad.” Another photo appeared on the screen, this time of Shan standing on the deck of a
very large yacht. “Mr. Shan recently arrived in Washington Harbor and is currently staying on the Red Dragon, the yacht he bought from a Saudi prince about a year ago.”

  “He’s here?” Blade asked.

  “He is here,” Ian said. “Arrived a few hours after we did.”

  “He knew where we were taking her. How the fuck did he know that?”

  Ian’s expression was dark. “I have spies and agents in many dangerous places. Some of them aren’t as loyal as they should be.” He shrugged. “This pains me, but it’s also the nature of what we do here at Black Defense International. Not everyone can handle the deep black kind of ops we do.”

  “So you’re saying you have a mole.”

  Ian shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe Shan has spies and agents everywhere too. It’s a different game over here on the private side, gentlemen.” He turned to look at the screen where a montage of Shan was playing. “Nevertheless, he’s here, he’s on the Red Dragon, and he has Mrs. Halliday.”

  Blade was ready to choke someone. “Then we need to go and get her. Why the fuck are we standing around looking at pictures?”

  Ian turned back. “We’re going, Blade. But Shan is no idiot. He’ll be expecting company, and he’ll be prepared for it.”

  Blade didn’t see the problem. Neither did his team, because Cage and Viking were beginning to grumble.

  “We’re SEALs, Black,” Viking said. “Commandeering ships is pretty much a guaranteed skill set.”

  “I’m aware. But—”

  “Sir,” one of the technicians at the nearest computer said, and Black’s gaze snapped over to him. “Adam Garrison is getting a phone call. Should I let it through?”

  Blade had forgotten about his phone. Hell, they all had their phones—and that shouldn’t have been allowed inside a facility like this. But Black apparently had a way to take over the signals and intercept the calls. It was fucking genius, whatever it was.

  “Let it through.”