by Paige Tyler
“No,” Lucero said simply. “There’s been some chatter on the dark web, rumors of a upstart terrorist cell in the U.S. looking to make a big splash with an attack. We think that’s where Chapman is looking to unload the drones.”
Wes exchanged looks with Noah to see that his Teammate looked as confused as he was. So far, they’d yet to hear anything that explained why SEAL Team 5 was in the room right now.
“But…” Lucero continued slowly, “there are some people in the agency who think Chapman is going to come after SEAL Team 5 for all of the trouble you’ve caused him over the past few months.”
“I’m guessing you’re not including yourself in that group?” Noah asked, his expression making it clear that he already knew the answer.
Lucero shook his head. “I think it’s a stretch to believe a mercenary like Chapman, a man who’s as focused on making a profit as he is, would waste his time and resources on a petty revenge scheme against a handful of SEALs who’ve gotten in his way a few times.”
Wes leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “If you don’t want us to help search for Chapman and you don’t think Chapman is coming after us, then what the hell are we doing here?”
“Because while we don’t think Chapman is coming after you, there’s a chance we could be wrong,” Lucero said. “If any of you see him, you’re to call us and let us handle it.”
Seriously? That was the CIA’s plan? Apparently, the agency had no use for them unless Chapman showed up and tried to kill them. In which case, Wes and the other SEALs were to call them so they could do the heavy lifting. Basically, SEAL Team 5 was nothing more than bait in this little operation of theirs.
At the far end of the table, Hunt looked like his head was about to explode, and as the meeting broke up, Wes thought he heard the commander mutter something to Chasen about asking the CIA for help when pigs fly. If the CIA was looking for a way to put a nail in the coffin of their working relationship, they’d found it.
Outside the room, Wes stopped at the set of small lockers mounted on the wall to unlock the small cubby where he’d stashed his cell phone. Beside him, Noah and the other guys did the same. It was one of the downsides to working in a secure facility. You had to leave your phone and all your other electronics in a lockbox every time you went in.
Grabbing his phone, Wes listened as Noah and Sam ribbed Holden about the fight he’d almost gotten into with the SOG guy. Holden was attempting to justify his actions when Wes looked down and saw that he had a voice message from Kyla. His heart beat faster at the urgency in her voice as she asked him to call her back right away, that she had something important to talk to him about.
“Hey, I got a message from Kyla,” Sam said, his phone to his ear.
“Me, too,” Noah said, holding up his phone.
“Ditto,” Holden added.
Wes’s gut clenched. Something serious must have happened if she’d left a voicemail for each of them. He turned back to his phone, finger reaching for Kyla’s number when the thing rang, Owen’s name popping up on the screen.
“Owen, what’s wrong?” he demanded the second he answered it. “Is Kyla okay?”
The loud sigh Owen let out told Wes whatever was going on was even worse than he’d feared.
“Thank God you answered,” Owen said in a rush. “We got a lead on a terrorist supporter named Arda Kaplan that we linked to Stavros, who met with Chapman last night. We assumed they were making a deal for the drones, and when Kyla couldn’t get hold of you or any of the other guys, she decided we should go to Kaplan’s hotel to see if we could learn anything more.”
Wes cursed. His warning about doing anything stupid had obviously gone in one ear and out the other. “Where are you and what happened? Why isn’t Kyla calling me instead of you?”
“We’re at the Pendry Hotel, down by the Convention Center. Kaplan reserved the roof for some kind of function and Kyla went up there to get a closer look. She hasn’t come back down and she isn’t answering her phone.”
Wes’s heart seized in his chest as visions of Kyla lying dead in some storeroom swam in his head.
Shit.
He wanted to curse the two nerds for letting Kyla get grabbed, but he resisted the urge. He could do that later. After he rescued Kyla.
“When was this?” Wes asked.
“Five minutes ago,” Owen said. “Andrew is trying to hack into the hotel’s security system to find out where Kyla is. Should we go up to the roof and look for her?”
“No,” Wes said firmly. He appreciated the offer, but he didn’t need Stavros grabbing those two idiots, too. “Keep hacking and find out where she is. We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
Hanging up, he gave his friends a quick sitrep.
“Should we tell Chasen?” Holden asked as they all headed for the front doors of the Imperial Beach facility.
Wes considered that. It wasn’t a bad idea. Chasen would probably be willing to help them. There was one problem with that, though.
“He’s still with the Commander and I don’t want to waste time trying to get him alone,” Wes said. “We’ll call him when we’re on the way. Right now, we need to get our hands on some weapons and get over to the Pendry Hotel.”
“I can help get us some guns,” Sam said. “Though you’re not going to like what I have in mind.”
Wes glanced at his over his shoulder. “As long as we get them, I don’t give a damn where they come from.”
* * * * *
KEEP MOVING.” STAVROS ordered in his heavily accented voice, shoving Kyla so hard she almost face planted on the last three steps ahead of her.
The urge to tell him to eff off was hard to resist, but she did. This was the man who’d murdered her father. He wouldn’t blink at doing the same thing to her.
This was definitely not how she imagined this little recon mission going. Wes would be furious. Not that she had to worry about that very much since she probably wasn’t going to ever see him again. Why hadn’t she told him how she felt about him? Now, she might not get the chance. The knowledge made her heart feel like it was being crushed in her chest and suddenly, she could barely breathe.
When she, Owen, and Andrew had arrived at the Pendry Hotel, it’d been incredibly easy to swipe some employee badges and move through the hotel. Her friends had headed for the security office to hack into the security system while she headed for the roof to see what Kaplan was up to. Unfortunately, she’d walked right into Stavros the moment she stepped into one of the rear stairwells. Trying to run hadn’t been an option. The man had done his homework, too, and immediately knew who she was.
She only prayed Owen and Andrew figured out what happened to her before it was too late. On the other hand, she also prayed they didn’t do anything stupid. She wanted to make it out of this alive, but she didn’t want her friends getting hurt to do it.
Kyla slowed when they reached the landing at the top of the steps and Stavros reached around her to open the door. Late afternoon sunlight spilled into the stairwell, confirming they’d reached the roof. Stavros put his hand on her back, nudging her through the doorway onto a space that looked more like an open air club than any roof she’d ever seen. A series of fancy pergolas draped with shimmering fabric provided shade for dozens of couches, chairs, and glass-topped coffee tables. A well-stocked bar ran along one edge of the roof, bottles of expensive alcohol lining every shelf. There was no bartender, which was odd since Kaplan didn’t seem like the type to pour his own drinks.
She did a quick count and saw that there were thirteen men on the roof, counting Stavros. An apropos number if she’d ever seen one. Other than Kaplan, the only other man she recognized was Chapman. Most of the others looked like hired muscle while the rest were almost certainly terrorist supporters like him.
Several of the men turned toward them at their entrance, including Kaplan. His gaze went from Stavros to her and back again, face suffusing with anger. “Who the hell is this?”
“This i
s Kyla Wells. She has a history of sticking her nose into places it doesn’t belong.”
Stavros shoved her forward so hard she nearly stumbled and fell—again. Damn, what the hell was it with this guy and pushing her around?
“You may not recognize the face, but you should recognize the name,” Stavros continued. “She is the daughter of the hacker you hired me to kill. The same one who was at Nesbitt’s house when I shot him.”
In a single sentence, Stavros had confirmed everything she’d so desperately wanted to know. Stavros had murdered her father on Kaplan’s orders, then subsequently killed Nesbitt. While none of that was a surprise, it still knocked the air out of her lungs to hear it out loud.
She was still reeling from that as Kaplan demanded Stavros do away with her immediately. Apparently, the hired killer wasn’t in a hurry to do that, much to Kaplan’s displeasure. Stavros wanted to negotiate a fee, refusing to pull the trigger without getting paid. None of the other men must have been interested in their conversation because most of them went over to the bar to drink and talk among themselves. Chapman and two of the more mercenary-looking guys, however, started opening the latches on several small metal cases that were on the ground behind one of the couches. She tried to see what was in the cases, but didn’t have a good view from where she stood.
“Nesbitt was right when he said he was being set up for my father’s death, wasn’t he?” she said, turning her attention to Kaplan and Stavros, interrupting their negotiation. “You used his gun to murder my father, then put in back in his house. Why go to all the effort of framing him if you were going to kill him?”
“The whole convoluted scheme was Kaplan’s idea.” Stavros glared at the other man. “I would have killed your father and Nesbitt and called it a day, but he thought it would better to frame Nesbitt for your father’s death and get him sent to jail, where he’d pay someone on the inside to shank him. But then Nesbitt managed to get himself into solitary the whole time so I had to wait until he got out. I thought for a moment you were going to shoot him yourself and save me the expense of a bullet. I guess you simply couldn’t do it in the end. No matter. Kaplan already paid me to kill Nesbitt and I like my customers to feel they get their money’s worth.”
The casual way Stavros discussed killing people was eerie. Had he murdered so many it meant absolutely nothing to him any longer?
“But why kill him in the first place?” Kyla asked, wanting to keep them talking as long as she could. Hopefully, Owen and Andrew had reached Wes or one of the other members of the SEAL team—or the cops—and they were on their way. “Was it because you needed a fall guy for my father’s murder? And why Nesbitt? I thought you were working for him.”
Stavros gave her a look of disgust. “I never worked for Nesbitt. The man was simply too stupid to realize it. He helped make sure the right people got the contracts for the Imperial Beach complex, but he had no idea who he was getting access for.”
Suddenly, things started coming together. Nesbitt had made sure certain construction companies had gotten hired as subcontractors for the Navy Imperial Beach deal. He hadn’t cared who those subcontractors were as long as he got his kickbacks. It wasn’t that difficult to believe the company responsible for the installation of the facility’s IT network—including the secure servers—had been filled with people willing to slip in those back doors and other weak points she’d found in the programming. She wouldn’t be shocked if the entire complex was full of bugs and other spying devices.
“Nesbitt had to die so no one would look too closely at the contractors who installed the IT infrastructure at the complex,” she said softly, still working through all the implications. “He was a loose end.”
Stavros gave her an admiring look. “You are a smart one, aren’t you? Something like that can get a woman killed.”
The way he was eyeing her made her skin crawl. “Like you weren’t going to kill me already.”
“True.” He smirked. “But I can do a lot of other things to you before then.”
If her skin was crawling before, it was flat out trying to jump off her body and run away now. Kyla started taking a step back just as Kaplan yelled at Chapman to get the demonstration started. Stavros grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to the men forming a semi-circle around a coffee table near the edge of the roof. Chapman was kneeling down in front of the table beside one of the small metal boxes. The lid of the box was up revealing a monitor screen. The interior was filled with switches and knobs along with a joystick straight out of a video game console.
She didn’t have time to wonder about what she was seeing before Chapman began explaining it to the men, standing to motion at the box as he spoke.
“This is the low-cost, easy-to-use base control unit that comes with the KUB-UAV drone system. While the labels are in Russian for this particular unit, I can have them translated upon purchase. Not that it’s critical that you can read the labels. The controls are very user friendly.”
Kyla’s stomach sunk when she realized these were the drones Wes and his SEAL team had been after in Africa and Central America.
“The controller can operate up to five drones at a time, though only three will be launched for today’s demonstration,” Chapman added.
Kaplan’s lip curled. “I wanted a full display of the system’s ability today to ensure wanted maximum death and destruction.”
Chapman laughed. “If you wanted maximum death and destruction, you should have paid for it. Instead, you wanted the discount version, which is why you get three drones. But don’t worry. Lots of blood will be spilled. Then you can buy as many drones as your sick terrorist mind can afford.”
When it seemed like Kaplan wanted to argue, several of Chapman’s mercenaries casually slipped their hands behind their backs, leaving them there with blank expressions on their faces. The message was clear. They were armed and unlike Stavros, they could care less about customer satisfaction. Then again, Kaplan’s security people appeared to be armed as well.
Maybe Kyla would get lucky and they’d kill each other.
“As I was saying,” Chapman continued, as if there weren’t armed men ready to start shooting at each other, “these drones have an operational flight time of thirty minutes. At a minimum air speed of nearly a hundred kilometers per hours, that gives them a range of approximately fifty kilometers. Each unit carries a three kilogram warhead and uses a GPS guidance system. The user can input the coordinates of the target into the controller and all drones will impact on that location. If you’re looking for greater accuracy, such as trying to put the drone through a window or hitting a moving target, the operator can switch over to joystick control and guide the weapon in using the monitor and the camera mounted on the underside of the air vehicle. But even if you’re using the joystick, the vehicle must maintain its GPS link. Loss of GPS will result in the warhead being disarmed and the drone will crash. It’s a safety feature so you don’t get confused by what you see on the screen and accidentally fly the drone into something you don’t want to. That won’t be a problem for today’s demonstration. We’ll be aiming for a target that’s too big to miss.”
Crap. Chapman intended to kill people as part of his demonstration.
As Kaplan and the rest of the men moved closer to the railing surrounding the rooftop, Kyla took stepped forward to see what they were looking at. The scene that met her gaze froze her blood solid. The San Diego Convention Center was clearly visible a few blocks away, along with thousands of of people dressed up as their favorite comic book, TV, or movie character.
Oh, crap. They were going to attack Comic-Con. All those poor people standing outside taking pictures with their friends, laughing and having a good time, had no clue they were all about to die.
“You can’t do this,” she said, taking a step toward Chapman, fully intending to stop him no matter what she had to do.
Three red lights flashed on the console as the TV monitor blinked to life.
Chapman gave her
a casual smile. “Actually, I already did. The three drones just launched from a fishing trawler positioned in international waters. They’re working against a stiff seaward breeze, but they should impact the target in fifteen minutes.”
Cursing, Kyla lunged forward, but Stavros grabbed her arm and yanked her back. She opened her mouth about to scream so loud they’d hear her all the way over at the convention center, but a heavy hand slapped over her mouth.
Then the shooting started.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WES SLOWED AS he ran up the last few steps to the landing of the hotel’s eastern stairwell. He paused at the door, listening intently as he waited for Noah to catch up. His Teammate’s knee might be better, but sprinting up half a dozen flights of stairs was definitely going to set it back some. Not that Noah would ever let that keep him out of this fight. Not when Kyla’s life was at risk.
The thought of Kyla made Wes’s chest tighten so badly it was nearly impossible to breathe. It was only seven miles from the base to the Pendry Hotel and he’d spent every minute of the fifteen minute drive imagining the worst possible scenarios. Even after talking to Owen and Andrew—who’d successfully hacked into the hotel’s security system and seen Stavros drag Kyla onto the roof a little while ago—it was difficult not thinking the worst. The security cameras on the roof had been deliberately turned off so anything could have happened to her since the last time Owen and Andrew had laid eyes on her.
He gripped the .45 caliber Colt handgun, forcing himself to calm down. The weapon Sam had “borrowed” from his father’s gun safe gave Wes something to focus on besides images of Kyla being hurt…or worse. This rescue mission had to work. He couldn’t lose her.
Please don’t let this go bad.
“I know where your head is right now and you need to stop it,” Noah said, catching up to him. “Kyla is alive and as soon as Sam and Holden tell us they’re in position in the other stairwell, we’re going to save her. Then you can do what you should have done before all this and tell her that you love her.”
