Forged in Smoke (Red-Hot SEALs #3)(6)
“Maybe,” Eric said after a lengthy pause. But his gut was telling him no. There was a third party involved. A well-heeled third party. “The best chance we have of locating our adversaries is through Amy Chastain—John Chastain’s widow. All evidence points to close ties between Amy and her family. At some point she’ll seek out her children. When she does, she’ll lead us back to Mackenzie.”
“You’re assuming she’s with those chaps.” Proctor lifted a gold cigarette lighter and let the flame sear the end of the stogie. After a few seconds he lifted the tapered end to his mouth and drew deeply.
“She was on the lab footage,” Eric said, dragging the thick, musty scent of perfectly cured tobacco into his lungs. “She hasn’t been accounted for since. She’s with them.”
“You’ve tagged her boys?” Coulson’s harsh voice sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“Her kids have been injected, and the data stream is live,” Eric said after a quick glance at James Link for confirmation. The tracking technology was Link’s baby. “Thanks to Agent Clay Purcell, the woman’s brother.” Or stepbrother, as Purcell insisted.
Eric wasn’t sure what was driving the fed’s betrayal. The pair had been raised as brother and sister since prep school, yet the man had been instrumental in his sister’s kidnapping and rape as well as his brother-in-law’s murder. There was obviously some dark motivation behind Purcell’s actions, but whatever the man’s incentive, he’d made tagging the boys relatively easy.
With luck, the technology would work as well on Amy Chastain’s children as it had on Robert Biesel, their late, unlamented team leader. Mackenzie had no clue that by capturing and dragging Robert back with them, they’d exposed their safe house. The tracking device embedded in Biesel’s cells had given Eric an exact location. Too bad nobody had been in the damn house when the antitank missile had landed.
“We can’t assume that Chastain’s widow will retrieve her kids. Or if she does, that she’ll return to where Mackenzie and his boys are holed up,” Coulson said curtly, a heavy shadow brooding on his face. “We need a course of action that isn’t so nebulous.”
Of all of them, David Coulson was the most dangerous. Possessing a vicious temper and matching ruthlessness, he generally advocated the quickest and most bloody course of action, regardless of the circumstances.
Eric took a long, slow sip of ice water, forcing his face into stillness. “Amy Chastain adores those boys. It’s been three days. She won’t leave them alone or unprotected much longer. She’ll want them with her, in a place they’ll be safe. She obviously trusts Mackenzie and his men. She’ll take her boys to them.”
Coulson slammed down his whiskey glass so hard the ice cubes cracked like pistol reports. “Another assumption. You’re full of them. Mackenzie, hell, the whole lot of them, are targets. She was a fed before her marriage, for Christ’s sake. She’ll know that returning to their camp would put her children in danger. There is no logical reason for her to collect her children and take them there. Not when her brother and father are feds and perfectly capable of protecting the kids themselves. Which means tagging them is useless.”
Eric tensed at the derision in Coulson’s acidic voice, then forced his muscles to relax. While Amy Chastain’s brother was actively working against her, the woman didn’t know that, so Coulson’s words held weight.
“True.” He held Coulson’s cold gaze. “However, at the moment, we’re out of options. The SEALs have gone off grid. Which makes it rather difficult to neutralize them.” He paused, offering a derisive smile himself. “Amy will go after her children.” Of that at least he was sure. “Even if she doesn’t return to Mackenzie afterward, the tracking devices will give us access to her; through her, we’ll find them.” He paused, to lift an eyebrow. “I’m all for a proactive approach, if we had an approach to follow.”
Coulson flexed his shoulders restively. “We force the bastards into the open. Mackenzie has an ex-wife; Simcosky, a mother; Winters, parents and brothers. We use them to bring those bastards to heel.”
“And prove to the world that Mackenzie wasn’t mouthing excuses when he screamed conspiracy?” Eric steepled his fingers and held Coulson’s flat gaze. “Going after their families will bring notice. We can’t afford notice, not yet. They’re discredited, wanted by the police. We can afford patience.”
“Manheim’s right,” James Link said, a note of finality in his quiet voice. “If we were further along, we could chance questions and deeper looks. But we haven’t reached that point yet. It behooves us to exercise caution.”
Eric relaxed slightly—time to shift the focus. “What of your newest acquisitions? Are they settling in?”
A slow smile, shadowed by cruelty, kicked up the edges of Coulson’s thick lips. “It took some initial persuading, but things are moving along nicely now.”
No doubt the convincing had been brutal and bloody—just as Coulson preferred it. Their American associate had the soul of a sociopathic thug. Eric found it unlikely that the man had joined their cause out of concern for the planet, or the survival of the human race. It was more likely he’d accepted the council’s mandates in order to shoehorn his own agenda.