They stood toe to toe. It was rare for Gino to ever go against Joe. Ever. Gino protected him and had since he was very young. Gino followed him into the service and then the GhostWalker program for that very reason. There was no going back from this.
"Zara," Joe said very softly, not taking his eyes from Gino. "I never thought I'd see the day when my brother chose to put a woman before me. You must be very, very special. I'm asking, as his brother, that you tell me why Whitney won't let you go."
There was a small silence. Gino didn't drop his gaze from Joe's. He wasn't backing down. Behind him, Zara shifted her weight and then her hand was slipping into his. So small, her fingers delicate. She had such a grip on him, not with those small fingers, but with whatever it was that was between them. Gino broke the eye contact to look down at his woman. He nodded to her, and she took a deep breath before she gave Joe everything.
"Whitney knows I stole Cheng's information. All of it. Everything he collected over the last few years. Names of agents, weapons development by various countries, who is selling out their country, who is drug running, gun running, human trafficking, all of it. Whitney sends me in as an industrial spy. I give a lecture and collect data from whatever company he needs the information from. Cheng had the GhostWalker program. All of it had to be destroyed. I was capable of doing both, collecting the data and destroying everything he had so he couldn't recover it. Whitney sent me in. Unfortunately, if you tell your commanding officer, they will come for me, and eventually Whitney will get me and the information anyway."
"We didn't want to put you in the position of having to lie to Major General Tennessee Milton," Gino explained.
"Thank you for telling me, Zara. It can't be easy to trust any of us," Joe said gently.
"Gino trusts you," she said.
Her fingers curled into Gino's and he sank down onto the bed, knowing she needed reassurance. He was beginning to read her. She was nervous. She knew, just as well as Gino did, that Joe was in a bad position. The GhostWalkers might be handled differently than other military teams, but they had to answer to their commanding officer.
"So, Gino, what exactly have you geniuses decided to do about this?"
"Don't lump me in with them," Gino protested, tugging until Zara leaned into him. He brought her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them. "Trap, Wyatt and Zeke get that label, not me. I do the grunt work."
"Bullshit. In any case, what have you decided is the best course of action, because we can't have them coming at us like this."
"No, but you could call Major General and let him know Whitney isn't keeping his side of the bargain. We were told if we rescued her, we got to keep her."
Zara tried to pull her hand away. Gino kept possession of it, holding it tighter, pressing her fist against his chest.
"That makes me sound like some kind of prisoner to be passed back and forth depending on who is in charge," she protested.
"You are a prisoner," Gino said. "Mine. And as far you're concerned, I'm in charge."
She rolled her eyes and flashed a faint smile at him. "You're impossible."
"True." He was unrepentant. He'd been upfront with her about his personality, his character. She knew him and she knew he wasn't joking.
"Let's get back to the problem, because it isn't going to go away, Gino," Joe said. "If they keep coming at us, someone is going to get killed. None of us want that."
"He's right," Zara said. "Maybe I should go, Gino. Whitney won't have a reason to attack any of you if I'm gone."
"That's not a possibility," Gino said. "You know that, so don't even consider it. You try to leave, baby, and I won't like it."
"Have they come up with any ideas?" Joe persisted. "Can you just pass the information to us and let us decide what to do with it?"
"The files are in my head. I don't know what's in them, and I can't get them out. Only Whitney could do that," Zara explained.
"In her head?" Joe looked to Gino for an explanation.
Gino told him everything, and they looked at one another for a long time. Zara sat very still as if she was half expecting Joe to change his mind and kick her out.
"Solutions?" Joe prompted.
"We're working on it," Gino said.
"Then work faster. In the meantime ..."
"In the meantime, I'm going hunting. Whitney has attacked us twice. He's got another team somewhere close, probably the main one, waiting to attack. Most likely he thinks the first two softened us up, made us think he was finished. I'm pissed now, Joe. I need to take it to them."
Joe nodded. "I was afraid you were going to say that. When are you heading out?"
"As soon as I know Zara's covered. I'm talking to Bellisia and Cayenne. They'll make sure nothing happens here while I'm gone."
"Meaning you think they'll stop me if I try to leave," Zara said. "I don't want you to go off looking for supersoldiers. I know you think they're easy to kill, but they aren't."
"They are if you know how to kill them, Zara. I do. We all do. We work together to get it done. Whitney is going to run out of men."
"I don't want you to go," she whispered. "I hate that everyone is in danger because of me."
"Actually," Joe contradicted, "they're in danger because Whitney keeps coming at us. I'm going to talk to the three resident geniuses and tell them to step it up. You get your team together Gino, and I'll call Major General and tell him his good friend Whitney needs to back off."
Gino watched him go and then he turned to Zara. "Baby, don't keep thinking in terms of leaving. I've got a house to build and you've got a home to make for us. We'll get rid of the threat to you. It might take a little time, but we'll do it. We're building something here. Something important."
He hadn't thought he'd have a wife. Children. Now he needed that fortress the GhostWalkers were building around their women and children. He had something to protect other than Joe.
"I don't like you putting yourself in danger."
"Worry about the ones I'm going after, Zara, not about me. When I'm out there, I belong. I'm part of that swamp. I'll come back to you. I'll always come back to you." He meant it. Now, he actually had a reason to survive.
16
G
ino moved through the swamp with ease. The night hid him, just as it did the other GhostWalkers, those moving in a loose line, spread out so they left no tracks and no evidence of their passing. There was no sound to give them away. They owned the night. When they moved in it, the darkness hid them, just as the swamp allowed them to become part of it.
He was known to his fellow GhostWalkers as the "Phantom Wind." He'd gotten the name after a few battles when he moved through the darkness destroying the enemy and no one ever heard or saw anything but the wind. He had an idea of where Whitney might have managed to hide his soldiers. There were only a few places he could have gotten them in without the locals gossiping about them.
Up ahead. The camp belongs to the Comeaux family, Wyatt said, his voice soft in Gino's head. We've had a running feud with them ever since I can remember. If there is one family that would be willing to take Whitney's money and not get word to us, or anyone else that his soldiers are around, it would be the Comeaux family.
Gino was certain Wyatt was right. This would have been his choice, not because he was familiar with the family, but this was an entire section of the swamp where no one dared to go. Any other place, the locals would gossip, and Nonny would know about it. The Comeaux family was notorious for being unfriendly. They liked to shoot first and ask questions later. There were no trespassing signs up all along the waterway on both sides of the river and canal systems. He knew very little about the family, other than the men were big and mean, abused women and liked to fight.
The family bought up this land a hundred years ago, and the river has changed course since then, so that now, if you want to get near their property, you have to go off the main channel onto the much shallower stream. Boats can hang up there, making anyone caught in the shallow
s fair game. If you're caught, you're lucky to get off with a severe beating, robbed of course, and your boat confiscated, Wyatt added.
Do you really think they'd betray everyone in the swamp just to get at you, Wyatt? Mordichai asked. He was always cool under fire, with steady hands, scars and hair that was always that little bit too long and shaggy.
They'd betray their own father for money, Wyatt responded.
So yeah, without a doubt, Gino was certain they were on the right track. They were walking in. Even quieting the sound of their boats, something would have given them away. They could control frog and insect sound, dogs barking an alert, and they could muffle the sounds of a boat moving through the water, but that didn't mean they could foresee everything that might happen and it was always that, the one thing not accounted for that got soldiers killed.
Wyatt sank down in the grass and the rest of the team followed suit, crouching low, listening. They were going to have to move into the open soon. The small stream was wide enough to get a boat in, but shallow, the rocks, sand and debris making it difficult, but not impossible to maneuver over. The Comeaux brothers did so on a regular basis.
Gino studied the layout across the stream. It looked peaceful enough. The moss hanging in the branches of the cypress trees swayed with the wind. The grass was taller here, although he could see two distinct trails where humans had walked single file forming paths leading back into the tree line. The tract of land between the stream and the swamp held only a few large boulders, grass and sand. The open space was approximately thirty feet wide. Maybe forty. Once into the swamp, the trees were thick and closer together than in a lot of other places. That gave the advantage to anyone guarding the property.
On their side of the stream, the bare tract of land between them and the stream was much narrower, perhaps closer to fifteen feet. Altogether, that gave them quite a lot of territory to cover without drawing attention from a guard.
Up in the trees, south end. The tall one with the wide branches, about two-thirds up, Rubin said.
Only Gino's eyes moved. If they had a spotter in the trees--and the soldiers would--any movement would draw his attention. It took a few seconds to find him. The soldier appeared part of the tree, his body partially hidden, the rest in plain sight but covered with a ghillie suit, making him appear part moss and part leaves and branch. The man was very still, but obviously hungry. Every now and then his arm would move, so that it looked as if the branch swayed upward toward his mouth and then came back down.
He can't be the only one. He doesn't have sight from every direction, Gino told the others. He was already searching the trees in the area to the east. The second sentry would be in a similar tree--one tall and strong enough to support a heavy soldier. Now that he knew what he was looking for, and where the soldier would have to be, Gino spotted him. This one was sitting, not standing, and he was in a good position to shoot with his rifle. The cross-branch was perfect for him to set up shop.
I see him. These two know what they're doing. I'll take the one to the east. He's taking his job very seriously.
I'll take west, Draden said.
We'll be taking a little nap while the two of you go play, Wyatt said.
Gino dropped back into deeper cover to work his way to the east. He would have to cross the stream and grass areas in order to get to his goal. He knew he looked no more than a shadow, but any movement would draw the sentry's eye. That meant moving slowly. The one thing Gino had in abundance was patience. He could move like a sloth if that was what was required. He wouldn't be surprised if Wyatt and the others really did take a nap while they waited. It might take a couple of hours for Gino and Draden to work their way to their goals, and the others didn't have much to do.
He went to his belly and began to inch his way out of the trees into the grass and rock that would take him to the stream. The water was cold as he slid into it. It was so shallow that only his chest and legs were immersed, but he was inching over rocks, some sharp as he pressed down to make certain there was no sound to give him away. He didn't look toward the sentry, there was no use. Either the man would spot him or he wouldn't, and sometimes, scrutiny drew the eye.
The water was uncomfortable, but that barely registered. He was used to cramped, uncomfortable positions. Once, he'd stayed motionless, covered in mud, buried in the embankment of a river while the enemy camped just feet away. He killed seven of them before they discovered anything was wrong. They never saw him, but he watched them pack up and leave from that same mud bank.
He was on the other side, moving slowly now, using fingers and toes to slide forward over the rocky ground toward the grass. The grass was going to be tricky. He would have to follow exactly in one of the paths already trampled down, or the sentries would be able to see the grass being flattened as he moved.
Voices stopped all progress. Two men walked out of the trees. Both were big men with dark beards. They looked left and then right. Both spat at exactly the same moment. Gino recognized them immediately. One was Pascal Comeaux. He was the taller of the two brothers and had a reputation for beating his wife and children. Blaise wasn't married, but considered himself a lady's man, and he was every bit as mean as Pascal.
The brothers loved to fight, bully and drink. It was rumored they often shared women. Gino had, more than once, considered letting them pick a fight with him at the Huracan Club, a bar in the swamp they frequented. So far, he'd resisted, but it hadn't been easy.
"No one tells me what to do," Pascal said. "I want to shove my knife in that big bastard's gut and watch him die slow. He keeps telling me what to do, it's going to happen."
"There's only eight of them. We could take them. I was looking at their weapons, Pascal. If we kill them all, we could sell those weapons and make us even more money," Blaise said. "After they kill Wyatt."
"You see Wyatt's woman?" Pascal licked his lips. "I want that one for myself."
"If I help you kill these bastards, you're sharing that with me," Blaise protested.
They walked right past Gino, toward the part of stream where they had a boat beached. Clearly, they were experts at guiding their boat in the stream, going slow over the shallows until they made it out to the main branch of the river. Their voices faded a little as they pushed the boat into the stream.
"How we going to kill all eight of them?" Blaise wanted to know.
"Poison. They all gotta eat, don't they?" Pascal said. "The wife fixes something for them, and we dump poison in it. Even if it just makes them sick, it won't be hard to pick them off like rats in a sewer."
Gino took advantage of the fact that both sentries would be naturally looking at the Comeaux brothers. He slid toward the grass, covering a few extra feet much more quickly. He was right at the mouth of the path leading back into the trees. The Comeaux brothers were idiots thinking they could kill the supersoldiers. They had no idea what they had let into their homes. They'd be lucky if they managed to get out of the entire thing alive, and that was with keeping a low profile.
He dug his elbows and toes into the ground and propelled himself forward into the crushed grass. The soldiers and the Comeaux brothers had been using the two paths for some time. He could see that the grass was so compacted that it felt like a thick mat he was traveling over rather than actual grass. He continued dragging himself, careful not to touch the taller grass still standing upright on either side of him. Even with the Comeaux brothers leaving, he knew the sentries would be watching closely. They had been too still up in the branches of the trees to indicate they weren't taking their job seriously.
He made it to trees and slipped behind the deeper foliage. His arms and legs needed a little break, so he stretched cautiously while he took stock of his surroundings. The Comeaux household was about a half mile from the stream. It had been close to the river until erosion had changed the course of the river, creating the little stream and veering the river away from their property. Like most of those living in the swamp, Gino knew, the Comeaux
family had originally relied on the river for their livelihood. The family now had more money than most, but still, they hunted and fished and crabbed. Losing river frontage had to have upset them.
He caught movement to his left, and he rolled over slowly to get a better view. Soldiers moved, surrounding an outside fire pit. They were a good half a football field away, but he could see four of them. That accounted for six men if he counted the sentries. That left two more.
Comeaux brothers had conversation, stated eight soldiers here. I see four more back here. Don't have eyes on the other two. Draden?
No, can't see any of them. Nearing tree. Let me know when you're climbing.
Will do. Gino made his way toward the east and the tall tree where his target was. He circled around behind the tree, making certain that there was cover between him and the fire pit at all times. It wouldn't do for one of the soldiers to spot him as he was coming up on his goal.
He crouched at the bottom of the tree, looking up. He could see where there were gouges in the bark where the soldier had climbed up. In position.
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