Ruthless Game (GhostWalkers, #9)(93)
The fight had taken seconds, but exhaustion was hitting along with the shivering that signaled his body was too cold. They had to finish this soon. He peered down into the water, looking for the man he’d knocked overboard. He could just make out the outline of two men struggling just beneath the surface. He recognized Jacob and put the gun down, looking around him for anything that might give him clues to where the men had been directed to take Rose and Sebastian.
Jacob surfaced beside the boat, dragging the body of the man he’d drowned with him. Kane reached down and helped pull the dead man into the boat. Jacob swam to the pier where the diver in the red and black suit was stuck against a pillar. It took a bit longer to get the body into the boat.
“You okay?” Kane asked. Jacob was shivering nearly uncontrollably, and the force of the waves had battered him so that his movements were sluggish.
“Good enough to get the job done. I’ll run them out to sea and get rid of them. Javier has a body or two to add to our collection.”
Top, we’re cleaning up. Is Rose okay? Sebastian?
Paul says Sebastian is as happy as a lark. He thought the entire thing was a great adventure. Rose is still out of it. We’re taking her to Paul, hoping he can counteract whatever they gave her.
They drugged her then. Kane and Jacob pulled the last diver into the boat and sank back, shivering from the cold water, arms and legs growing heavier by the moment.
Yes. Mack’s voice was grim. Bring the boat around to the southern pier. Hurry, the wind’s picking up, and we’ve got to dump the bodies before the fog lifts. Javier will take them out. The two of you come in.
Top, Jacob protested, I’ve got this.
That’s an order; come in. Mack’s voice was implacable. Brian took a hit. We’re prepping him for surgery.
Kane and Jacob exchanged a long look and redoubled their efforts at speed.
What the hell happened today, Top? Kane asked as they slipped across the water toward the southern end of the pier. Does Jaimie know?
She’s reviewing the security tapes now. We’ll go over everything that went right and everything that went wrong when you come in.
And Brian? How bad?
We don’t know yet. Eric and Marc are going to do the surgery. Paul’s staying with Sebastian.
Of course they would keep Paul away from Eric. Eric wasn’t a GhostWalker, nor was he part of their team, and no one, no one outside of their team could ever have a clue about Paul’s capabilities—and now Rose’s. Both had talents that Whitney would want to spread throughout his soldiers, and to do that, he’d try to understand how the talent worked. He had no qualms about taking apart a person for “the greater good of mankind.”
Jacob threw the rope to Javier, who tied them off so they could step from the boat. He handed them both a warm blanket, greeting them with a cocky grin, although Kane could see the worry in his eyes. “You two look like hell.”
“Popsicles,” Jacob said. “Damn cold water.”
“That’s why you don’t see me in it.” Javier shoved the body of the man who had taken Sebastian onto the deck and watched it roll over, his expression impassive.
“Thanks for the warning, Javier,” Kane said. “I owe you one.”
Javier shrugged. “My nephew, my sister. Fuck the bastards. Lucas and I will take care of this mess.”
Lucas emerged from the fog with the body of the driver rolled in a tarp. “Walked him right through the market crowd; no one asked a single question.” He tossed the body on top of the one Javier had rolled onto the deck. “Looks like a damn garbage dump.”
“Whitney needs to realize if he’s going to come at us, he’d better send men who can handle the heat,” Jacob said as he wrapped a blanket around his shivering form.
Kane frowned as Javier rolled the last body into the boat. “What about the men on the rooftops?”
“Gideon and Ethan are disposing of them. We can’t risk dragging more dead bodies through the streets. Someone had to have reported shots fired. And there’s blood in the SUV sitting right in front of the warehouse. No body, but plenty of blood,” Javier answered.
Javier stepped aboard the boat. Kane and Jacob watched as he disappeared into the fog. Lucas lifted a hand and headed for the slip where their boat was. He would follow Javier and bring him back after they sank the boat and bodies.
Kane and Jacob entered the first story of the warehouse from the bay side. The door was layers of steel. Kane punched in the code, and they entered the first secure room where full body scanners sent information to Jaimie’s monitors on the second floor. The door had a retinal scanner, and Kane leaned in.
Jacob laughed. “Our little sister loves these gadgets.”
Kane flashed him a grin. “By the time you start working on your building, she’ll have security so tight, none of us will be able to get inside any of our homes.”
The three-story warehouse was nearly thirteen thousand feet of space and had been sold to Jaimie without any interior walls. They stepped inside the first-story space Kane had converted into his home. It was a good four thousand square feet with a high ceiling and wide-open spaces.
“Take a shower, Jacob,” Kane suggested. “I need to check on Rose and the baby.”
Jacob didn’t object. The shivering made his teeth chatter. Kane pointed him in the right direction and rushed on through to the bedroom, kicking off wet shoes and pulling off soaked socks. He stripped off his shirt and left it in a sodden heap on the floor.