by Dale Mayer
Keane
The Mavericks, Book 9
Dale Mayer
Books in This Series:
Kerrick, Book 1
Griffin, Book 2
Jax, Book 3
Beau, Book 4
Asher, Book 5
Ryker, Book 6
Miles, Book 7
Nico, Book 8
Keane, Book 9
Lennox, Book 10
Gavin, Book 11
Shane, Book 12
Table of Contents
Title Page
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
About Lennox
Author’s Note
Complimentary Download
About the Author
Copyright Page
About This Book
What happens when the very men—trained to make the hard decisions—come up against the rules and regulations that hold them back from doing what needs to be done? They either stay and work within the constraints given to them or they walk away. Only now, for a select few, they have another option:
The Mavericks. A covert black ops team that steps up and break all the rules … but gets the job done.
Welcome to a new military romance series by USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. A series where you meet new friends and just might get to meet old ones too in this raw and compelling look at the men who keep us safe every day from the darkness where they operate—and live—in the shadows … until someone special helps them step into the light.
Heading out on a last-ditch rescue mission to Puget Sound one day after two women go overboard in a sailing accident isn’t exactly what he’d expected …
But Keane is nothing if not adaptable. He can only hope the two women are alive and doing everything they can to stay that way. Hearing from the local coast guard that more may be involved than just a rescue mission, he and his partner load up and head out to search the waters around the smaller islands off the coast. They have the GPS of the missing women’s last-known location, but storms could have sent them anywhere …
Lost, alone—except for her best friend, who’s unconscious with a head wound—Sandrine wakes up in a small shelter to find they are locked in. When the door is finally opened, an armed stranger dressed in fatigues dumps a small amount of food and says they are on their own.
Finding the women was one thing, keeping them safe something else again. More is going on in this small island that any of them were expecting … or had planned for …
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Chapter 1
A week later, Keane Lytton walked down Fisherman’s Wharf in Seattle. The place was jam-packed with people, and he wondered what the hell he was doing here. Surely there was a better place for a meeting. Of course, if you want to get lost in a crowd, this was the place to be. It was overcast with a threat of rain. Still, he couldn’t, for the life of him, imagine why he was here. But somebody with greater wisdom had decided this, and so a meetup was needed. He walked down the pier where he was expected, and, as he found the spot, he sat and turned his back on the crowd behind him.
Charlotte and Nico had holed up in Charlotte’s house for the last few days, and Keane had been more than happy to take a break. He was eager to join the Mavericks with his own mission to head up and had listened to stories about many other ops from the others who had gone before him. He was okay with that. He was just waiting for it to happen.
When a hand landed on his shoulder, he turned in surprise and looked up to see Lennox staring at him. Keane’s eyebrows shot up. “Man, am I glad to see you.”
“Good,” Lennox said. “Are you willing to work with me too?” He held up an envelope. “We’ve got orders.”
Keane and Lennox sat on the side of the wharf, while the noise of the crowd around them completely faded away. Keane said, “I was given very little information on it.”
“That’s because very little is to be had,” Lennox admitted. “I’ve never been on a mission with less information.”
“So, what do we know?”
“A group of people went out for a day of sailing. Two of them were washed overboard.”
“And the coast guard didn’t find them?” Keane asked, staring at Lennox in surprise. “Not terribly unusual, I suppose, given the size of the search area.”
Lennox replied, “The coast guard and private yachts haven’t seen any sign of them.”
“The currents, depending on where they were at the time, could have taken the bodies to any number of places.”
“Well, they went missing in Puget Sound,” Lennox said.
“Seriously? Puget Sound is interconnected to multiple waterways and basins, not to mention the Pacific Ocean. The currents can change and can run really deep,” Keane said. “A search like that involves any number of issues. They may never be found.”
“Exactly,” Lennox said. “In this case a special request has been made for us to look for them.”
Keane gazed at the long lampposts that dotted the pier. “Are you serious?”
Lennox gave him half a grin. “Never more so.”
“What? We’re in the business of looking for bodies now?” he asked incredulously. “I was expecting to go up against a serial killer or work in the midst of a civil war in a dictator-ruled country or God-only-knows-what, but you’re saying my mission is to look for two bodies?” Turning, Keane stared at the water. “Not only that, it’s almost impossible to succeed at a job like this.”
“Only a couple reasons explain why we’re doing this,” Lennox said, lowering his voice.
“Of course,” Keane said. “It’s got to be the daughter or niece or nephew to somebody pretty high up the line.”
“An admiral,” Lennox said. “His daughter and her friend.”
“Has he been looking personally?”
“No. He’s out on the Baltic Sea, but he’s been calling in every favor he could.”
“And so a special black-ops mission team of two is to go out into Puget Sound, and possibly beyond into the Pacific Ocean, and look for them?”
“Yes,” Lennox replied.
Just then Keane’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see Nico was calling. Keane lifted the phone to his ear. “Hope you have a better explanation as to why I’m supposed to look for two bodies,” Keane snapped.
“So Lennox already told you about the admiral’s daughter?”
“Absolutely, but what does this have to do with us? What’s wrong with search and rescue, the coast guard or a private recovery company?”
“Because,” he said, “they went missing from the same area where two other people went missing just one week ago. Both pairs somewhere in the same area. Plus, we received a distress call from one of those first two who went missing, saying they’d been captured.”
Chapter 2
Keane slowly straightened. “Captured?”
“Yes,” Nico said briskly. “Bodies showed up a few days later, both shot. So we don’t know exactly what the hell we’ve got going on here.”
“What islands are around their last-known locations? How about any permanent houseboats? Hell, what about speedboats passing through here? Just what the hell is going on?”
“We don’t know,” Nico said. “But once the admiral heard about his daughter, he asked for a team to be brought in.”
�
��Of course he did,” Keane said, staring at the water in front of them. “Puget Sound is full of islands. Most of them uninhabited. About 99 percent I would say,” he said.
“That we know of,” Nico corrected. “The fact of the matter is, we have narrowed it down to the closest four islands, where we know these latest two women were washed off the boat.”
“Washed off in a storm or helped off?” Keane asked.
“Well, that’s one of the questions. Two men were on the boat with them—they both survived,” he said. They’re not saying much though. Only that a really bad storm came, and the women were washed overboard.”
“Life jackets?”
“Yes.”
“And how long ago?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“Well, if they’re still in the water, they’re dead,” Keane snapped. “Hypothermia would have set in very quickly, and it doesn’t matter what kind of life jacket they’ve got on. It won’t keep them afloat for all that long, particularly if they’re dead.”
“We all know that, including the admiral. Especially the admiral. But, if the slightest chance remains that his daughter is alive out there, he wants to exhaust every avenue. The fact that we had a distress call after the prior incident, saying that first couple were captured, expands the potential scenarios.”
“And makes no sense at all. It’s not like we have pirates here,” Keane said, interested in spite of himself. “I guess I could do a whole lot worse than spending a few days on a boat looking for someone.”
“Less on a boat, more on the islands,” Nico said. “Another thing I can tell you is that some research is going on in that area.”
“What kind of research?” Keane asked, looking at Lennox, who was listening in on the call.
“Top secret,” Nico replied.
“So, a top secret installation is on one of these freaking islands, near where two people disappeared a week ago and two more disappeared yesterday morning. Those most recent two are probably in the ocean, but, because of this installation and because of the distress call, you’re afraid it may be something far more sinister.”
“Exactly,” Nico said. I can’t give you too many details because we just don’t have them. Apparently this research center involves a couple other countries, as well.”
“Don’t tell me—Russia, China, or both?”
“No, not necessarily. It’s somehow in conjunction with Japan.”
“Well, we are allies.”
“They’re not saying that the installation itself is in the wrong hands or that it’s operating illegally,” Nico continued. “Or that it even has anything to do with these missing people,” he said. “The other thing is that this installation isn’t manned all the time. It’s a bunch of machines, run by computer mostly.”
“What’s it tracking?”
“Something to do with weather patterns,” he said. “They are testing the technology. Technicians go to the island and check on it every once in a while.”
“So, like seismologists and the earthquake points, they monitor up and down the coast? They pull up the data, copy over the readings and then reset it?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“So, does it deal with earthquakes too?”
“I think they’re probably taking readings of everything, but I don’t really know,” Nico answered. “They’re mostly concerned about tsunamis, I believe, so earthquakes are likely a big part of it.”
“Well, Japan would be interested in that, I suppose. Are tsunamis a big issue around here?”
“These islands are on the outside of Puget Sound, so they’d be the first ones to get hit, so maybe. But again, no people are there. Just equipment.”
“So you say,” Keane said. “What we really don’t know is if that island for the top secret research is used secretly for something else or if some crazies are out there, killing people. Really, logic doesn’t always apply to every situation.”
“True enough,” Nico said cheerfully. “But you’ll have as much assistance as you want.”
“Well, for a job like this, we can hardly use a huge team. We’ll draw way too much attention as we search those islands.”
“Exactly. We do have the coast guard. They’ll take you out to the area where these two women recently disappeared and show you where the other two disappeared earlier.”
“Do we have a location for that distress call?”
“We do, and it’s not the same exact location where these four people disappeared from,” Nico said. “I’ll send you all the data we have.”
“So, we’re not up against anything other than Mother Nature potentially or some psycho?”
“We don’t know what we’re up against,” Nico said. “So don’t make any assumptions that would close off any possibility.”
“Great,” Keane said under his breath. He looked at Lennox. “Sounds like we’re heading out today on a cruiser.”
“The coast guard will meet you in two hours and twenty minutes at the GPS location where the women went overboard,” Nico added.
“So we’ve got transport to get there on time?”
Lennox tapped Keane’s shoulder and pointed. Not too far off the wharf was one of the large coast guard cruisers. “So we’re going on the Acadia?”
“Yep, you sure are,” Nico said, with a laugh. “Gear’s already on board for both of you. A Zodiac awaits you at the end of the wharf. The driver will find you.”
“Meaning, we’ve already been tagged, and they’re just waiting for me to get off this call?” Keane asked.
“You got it. I don’t need to tell you that somebody’s daughter is out there.”
“Two somebody’s daughters, right?”
“Yes. Two women. Plus, remember the husband and wife from a week ago who are now dead.”
“And who were they?”
“Electronic reports are coming your way.”
Keane stood and looked at the end of one of the docks and saw a Zodiac watercraft with a seaman sitting in the front and staring at him. “I see our ride,” he said.
“I’ll send you more information when you’re on board.” And, with that, Nico hung up.
Keane pocketed his phone and motioned Lennox toward the wharf and asked, “You ready for a swim?”
Lennox gave him a big beefy grin. “I was born ready for swimming,” he said. “Why do you think I joined the navy?”
“Well, for this job, it sounds like we maybe should have gone into the coast guard,” Keane joked.
“Same diff,” Lennox said. “But a little bizarre.”
“The whole thing is bizarre,” Keane said, “and hardly a black-ops mission.”
“Disappointed?”
“Kinda, yeah,” Keane admitted. “I get that some of these jobs are pretty wild and wonderful, but I was hoping for a little bit more than the usual for me.”
“Who knows what this one could be?” Lennox said. “Besides, I’m just backup anyway.”
Keane snorted at that. “As backup, you’ll be right in the middle of it,” he said.
“Good,” Lennox said. “I hate being bored.”
Sandrine Coulter opened her eyes enough to realize she was still in whatever cell they’d been tossed into. Nearby, her best friend, Brenda Leigh, was barely conscious, her eyes fluttering as she struggled with a head injury. Sandrine rolled over and crawled to the side of her friend. “Hang in there,” she whispered.
“I don’t feel so good,” Brenda whispered. “What the hell happened?”
“Well, I know we left the boat,” Sandrine said, with an attempt to crack a joke. “But I think you were swept overboard, and, when I saw you in the ocean, I jumped in after you.”
She kept another suspicion in the back of her mind because she had no valid reason for contemplating the idea that they may have been pushed. Except that she’d received a nudge as she went over. But that would call into question the actions of the two men they’d been sailing with. “We were on the sailboat,�
�� she said to Brenda. “Remember?”
“Yeah. What happened to Greg and Scott? Are they here with us?” Brenda’s breathing was low and shallow.
“I don’t see them,” Sandrine said. “Apparently somebody saved us, and we’re in some shelter that’s keeping us out of the weather,” she compromised. She was very concerned that their reality was much worse, but Brenda didn’t need to know that, at least not yet. “Just rest,” she said. “You’ve got a head wound. It stopped bleeding, but you’ve probably got a concussion.”
Brenda gave her a lopsided smile. “Always giving orders,” she whispered.
“Well, if you’d listened to the one about tying yourself to the sailboat,” Sandrine said, “you wouldn’t have washed overboard.”
“Or I would have washed overboard,” she said, “and been drowned while towed by the sailboat.”
“Not likely,” Sandrine said. “I’d been keeping an eye on you pretty steadily.” She hated to remember the horror when the catamaran had run into trouble in the storm and that Brenda was missing. Then Sandrine caught sight of her best friend in the ocean, crying out for help.
The guys had turned around the sailboat and thrown her a lifebuoy, but, when she couldn’t grab it, Sandrine contemplated going into the water after her, when suddenly she was in the water anyway. She had replayed the scene in her head over and over. Had she imagined feeling a literal nudge, or had she jumped in instinctively to help her friend? Going after someone in the open ocean in the midst of a storm was a recipe for two deaths.
Unfortunately she had no clue what happened after struggling to stay afloat as the catamaran was tossed farther and farther away from them.
The women were now in a room, almost like a root cellar, with a dirt floor and made of rock on three sides, but the double doors in front of her were interesting. She’d tried everything, but they didn’t open, and that’s where her fear began. She refused to even contemplate being a prisoner.
The immediate problem was that Brenda’s head wound hadn’t been treated. They had no bandages, and the wound hadn’t even been cleaned. Her hair should be clipped away and stitches put in. She wasn’t lying on a clean bed and was instead on the dirt, where they had been tossed. Exactly the same position Sandrine had found herself when she’d woken up the first time. She glanced at her friend. “Any idea who brought us here?”
