The Freedom Broker (Thea Paris #1)(12)
She twisted around and slid down the siding to the main deck. Pressed against the doorjamb, she scanned the interior of the salon. The cream leather couches remained pristine; the pale hardwood floors gleamed. All clear. She entered the room, back against the wall, searching for movement. The silence was eerie after the whipping wind. She steadied her grip on the Glock and inched forward. A foul odor made her nose wrinkle.
In her peripheral vision, she caught a flash of color in the den. Six crew members lay facedown on the plush carpet, two wounds in the back of each of their heads, execution-style. A professional job. No shell casings, undoubtedly no fingerprints.
Her father wasn’t among the dead. Neither was Henri, the chef. Anyone else who had boarded the yacht had disappeared.
She sagged against the wall, knees rubbery. These men had been part of the Paris Industries staff for years. Who’d done this—and why?
She scoured the rest of the yacht. The Aphrodite was empty, Christos gone.
A loud sound, something thumping on the deck. She aimed the Glock toward the cabin’s entrance.
Aegis stalked through the door on full alert.
So much for following commands. Used to hunt lions, ridgebacks could be ferocious. And they could leap over five-foot fences, so she wasn’t surprised he could jump onto the yacht. It comforted her to have him close by now that he wasn’t in any danger.
A beeping noise in the salon drew her attention. Her father’s phone rested on the coffee table, a flashing red light indicating a new message. Having no idea what he used as a password, she tried his birth date, her mother’s name and birth date, Helena’s birth date, and a few other combinations. Nothing worked. After the seventh try, she gave it one last shot—BlackBerries were programmed to wipe clean after ten failed attempts, and if her final effort didn’t work, she wanted to save the phone’s data for the computer gurus.
She typed in ATHENA. The screen came to life.
A text message had arrived from an undisclosed sender.
Saepe ne utile uidem est scire quidem futurum sit.
It looked like Latin. But what the hell did it mean? As the foundation of so many European languages, she’d learned Latin long ago but hadn’t used it in years. Why was the kidnapper trying to communicate with her in a dead language? It would take her some time to translate this message.
She was staring at the screen, willing it to give her an answer, when the rotor wash of a helicopter jerked her back to the present. Aegis barked.
Hakan had arrived.
Chapter Six
Washington, DC
December 25
10:30 a.m.
Special Agent Gabrielle Farrah craved a Gitanes, her favorite cigarette, but she’d have to wait until she left the firing range. Lebanese Muslim by birth, she didn’t celebrate Christmas, so she figured she’d slip in some target practice while everyone was off enjoying the holiday. Even though she was outdoors and no one else was around, shooting and smoking just didn’t mix. She needed her hands steady and her breathing still.
Lying on her stomach, propped on her elbows, she calculated the wind and assessed the shot. Five hundred yards away, the target perched in the field, almost taunting her. She’d hit the bull’s-eye many times before from this distance, but the cool temperature and brisk wind presented a challenge today.
She blocked all distractions from her mind and inhaled deeply, her world shrinking as she stared through the sniper rifle’s scope. Thumb down, safety off. Breathe in, hold. Her finger pressed the trigger. She exhaled.
The recoil of the M24 SWS engaged with her shoulder, the familiar feeling comforting her. She grabbed her binoculars. Dammit. The shot was just slightly left of the bull’s-eye.
She rolled over and rested on her back, staring up at the gray sky, her breath crystallizing in the cold December air. The endless intel reports on her desk at the HRFC headquarters weighed on her mind, messing with her mojo.
Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell. The name made it sound like a biological experiment, and it kind of was, as the US government tried to cope with the changing face of kidnappings abroad and the horrific deaths of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, both beheaded on video by ISIS operatives. Those tragic deaths had created widespread public distrust in the government’s ability to keep Americans safe at home or abroad in an age of rampant global terrorism.
Previously, federal agencies handling kidnappings had jockeyed for position, refused to share intel, and threatened to prosecute the hostages’ families if they paid a ransom; the current administration had created a bipartisan, interagency group that could be a more effective force to bring hostages home and support their families. The government had issued Presidential Policy Directive 30, in addition to the current PPD 12, to establish guidelines to deal with hostages taken abroad. Given her intelligence background in the CIA and international experience in the State Department, Gabrielle had been offered a plum position in the new agency.
The briefing she’d received yesterday from the African desk demanded her attention. A faceless arms dealer called Ares was filling his coffers by backing the kidnapping of CEOs of multinationals involved in everything from mining and oil drilling to agriculture and banking. No middle-management grabs for this shadowy figure’s teams—he went for the big money. In addition to kidnaps, Ares was delivering large numbers of Chinese weapons to various rebel forces.
Anything that affected the welfare of the US required immediate action, and natural resources were definitely of interest. The political unrest and terrorist kidnaps overseas had cost US companies billions, which was serious enough without a shadowy player like Ares in the mix. Since abductions had tripled across the globe over the past five years, her team was stretched to the limit—this self-proclaimed god of war had to be stopped. The problem was, no one could identify him. He was a ghost.